Bellefonte, Pa., Feb. 24, 1899.
A PARABLE.
T watched at eve, by the ocean—
The crowd was passing near,
But I gazed on its bosom, heaving,
With feelings akin to fear;
The day was dying, westward,
In a glory of crimson and gold,
And the flush of the sky and water
Was a poem of God untold.
I looked at the high waves rushing,
All crested, upon the shore;
I heard, far out on the billows,
The ocean’s muffled roar;
I thought of the silent thousands
Under the water’s sheen,
And I seemed to hear them moaning,
Like phantoms in a dream.
My soul went out to help them
In pitifal, earnest prayer,
As I pictured those depths all jeweled
With the treasures lying there,
When a rush of the billows brought me
And laid at my frightened feet
A half dead, beaten lily,
Helpless and drenched and—sweet.
It lay there mute and broken,
But I fancied it seemed to say.
“‘For the sake of the sweet Christ, lift me
Ere the next wave bear me away !”’
Quickly I stooped and raised it,
I washed it from weeds and slime;
I carried 1t home and placed it
In a slender vase of mine.
I poured in crystal water,
I braced up the fragile form,
And saw, indeed, it was lovely
Before it had met the storm.
But I sighed as I turned and left it,
And thought, had I passed it by,
A poor, wrecked flower on the seashore,
I might not see it die.
< Time passed. The days wore slowly
Ere back to my room I went,
But I stopped on the very threshold,
Wondering what is meant;
There in its vase of crystal
Stood the lily erect and fair,
And a fragrance sweet as heaven
Was floating on the air!
1 gazed and gazed in my gladness
At the pure brow lifted high,
When the sunlight touched its glory
And lingered in passing by.
The tears uprose to my eyelids,
I held them in no control—
Need TI say it 7—my storm-tossed flower
Was a beautiful human soul.— Mercedes.
AN INCIDENT OF VICTORY.
She was sitting on the piazza when the
news.came to her.
The Marechal Neil roses were blooming;
a mocking bird was turning every other
bird’s talent into insignificance. The little
colored girl brought her a morning paper
and laid it down on her lap and sat down
at her feet to sort the stockings in her
work basket.
Mrs. Rivers read the editorials, then
turned to the war news. The headlines
looked quiet, and down the column were
the names of two more identified dead
bodies; only regulars. J. P. Rivers, pri-
vate, was one of the names, followed by
the company and regiment numbers. It
was her only son.
She laid the paper down in her lap and
sat looking over the straggly grass in the
yard, over which the great bulky magno-
lia trees threw dark shadows.
The mocking bird was now singing a
luxurious eontralto-solo, having finished
imitating amateurs; the little darkey at
her feet was thrusting her fingers into the
stockings and humming a tune. From the
kitchen floated out a folk-song, which the
cook was singing.
Mrs. Rivers caught herself thinking of
this tune and remembered she had read
somewhere that persons often pay the
greatest attention to trifles around them
when a mental blow has struck them like
a club.
She remembered thinking how impossi-
ble a negro’s beautiful tones are to imi-
tate; bow it was claimed that the reason
for Melba’s great magnetism came from her
being the only singer who could strike the
exact shade of sound that a negro could;
then she had wondered where she had
read that.
How wonderfully the cook was singing;
from what ancestry did she inherit that
hypnotic middle of the note; it was espe-
cially noticeable when she sang that minor
refrain: ‘Chariot of the Lord rolling
on
Her mind then took up the thread of
her boy’s childhood and she realized how
her heart had ached through all those early
misdemeanors of his; of that first awful
fear-awakening that probably her boy was
not morally responsible; that what she
had forced herself to accept as childish in-
diseretions were growing into settled im-
. moralities. She had prayed to God with
clenched hands night after night that such
would not be the case; that the boy would
. prove himself as much of a man as his
father. : i
The father had never seen this child; it
was horn while he was in the army of the
Potomac just as he was going into battle,
and all he could do was to write his prayer
that should death come to him while he
wore the gray the boy might grow up to be
son, protector and guide to his mother.
Death touched the father with honor.
Men cheered him as he fell and wept when
they dragged his riddled body off the bat-
tlefield. Dying, he carved his name high
among the State's heroes, where men said
he would have placed it even had he lived
and never fought with a musket.
. She thought of that first serious trouble
the boy had brought home, and how she
had spent her savings that the townspeople
might not hear of it; how she had schemed
and planned to bear her grief over him alone,
so she would have no pity shown her. She
was too proud for pity.
She grew to shrink from the newspapers,
fearing she might see his name in great let-
ters staring at her from the headlines, do-
ing—she dared not think what. She won-
dered how the other mothers stood their
children’s immoralities with such equanim-
ity, going among their friends as if all
were well. A loud ring at the door always
made her nerves thrill until they
ached. e
And now he was dead?
For the first time she saw his name in
print, but the letters were small and the
people on the staff of the paper didn’t seem
to know that this was ‘‘Jack’’ Rivers, of
their own town.
. She was right in that surmise; the peo-
ple on the paper didn’t know; they hardly
knew there was a Mrs. Rivers in that
town. They were of a newer generation
and even the older townspeople never knew
why this woman had grown so old and
howed and silent at 50. Few visitors
came to the little, old, rambling house;
she rarely went out except to church on
Sunday morning. She was a woman with-
out confidants; her sorrow had so absorbed -
her, that she would have been astonished
to know that half the people in the town
never remembered Jack’s misdoings very
keenly; the world was too swift, to full of
worse men than he.
There were a few staunch old friends
whose hearts yearned with sympathy for
this proud broken woman, but they re-
spected her tremendous struggle too
keenly to worry her with the subject of her
sorrow, and nothing they could have said
would have convinced her that she would
not be pitied if she went out into the
world. .
She had grown self centered with ab-
sorbing one subject, as persons are apt to do
if they allow their lives to become nar-
rowed.
She passed through the French window
and said to the old cook: ‘‘Marse Jack is
dead, Melinda; he was killed in the big
battle last week.”’
Melinda hadn’t been brought up a Cal-
vinist, and Marse Jack had been her haby.
Morals or no morals, she gave him the loy-
alty dogs give men without analysis—and
she cried her poor old heart out through the
long day. She yearned to go comfort his
mother; draw her head down into her big
lap and cry with her, but Mrs. Rivers had
become a woman that women didn’t easily
touch.
The next morning the paper had the
name in staring headlines. The mother
saw it across the length of the piazza as the
colored child brought it.
‘Oh, they have remembered,’’ she cried,
‘Why not have let him rest in death!’
But the headlines told of glory. It was
a despatch from the Associated Press cor-
respondent, and it told how Rivers, pri-
vate, had fallen in the front of his regi-
ment, holding the old flag, cheering on
men who were a quarter of a century older
than he, planting his colors at the top of a
hill, the first man there!
Such was his death in the mad heat, un-
der an awful sun, bored by bullets while
he dug his flagstaff in the enemy’s country,
making crazy by his example hundreds of
men who tugged like bloodhounds at a leash
to get down the hill after the retreaters,
and choke, strangle every man who had
shot at him.
Then came columns about him from the
local staff. This Rivers they,now remem-
bered was Jack Rivers, a townsman, an
aristocrat who enlisted as a regular years
ago; anecdotes of his childhood were told;
stories of his daring adventures when he
had been the worst young scamp in town
and had led every other boy into mischief.
There was an editorial telling how his
father died. This was written by the gray
haired old editor who fought by the fa-
ther’s side. He touched the boy’s death
with fine old phrases and gave him a place
by his father’s side.
A cablegram came from the white haired
Southern general, who knew the family
well, and he told the mother over the wire
that death had given her another hero and
that the dead hoy lay in his own tent,
where hundreds honored him. The mayor
sent to ask if the cablegram might be pub-
lished, and said he had arranged to have
the body sent up at the city’s expense.
On the day of the funeral the church was
thronged far past the inner doors with cur-
ious and interested groups of people, friends
and acquaintances. It was the first sol-
dier’s funeral in that town since ’65. The
townspeople knew now that this was war.
It was cannon as well as flag.
It wad bullets as well as talk. Every
mother in the city had a heartache for this
first bereaved mother.
But when those people tell you the story
of that day now they talk no more of grief;
they tell of something that only a few un-
derstood.
The crowd at the gateway of the church
parted to let the coffin pass, and hundreds
of faces were lifted to the one mourner.
Dozens of emotional colored people were
sobbing aloud. The town was showing its
patriotism in this funeral. Union veter-
ans walked beside Confederate veterans,
the local militia had turned out, the Sons
of the Revolution and the Daughters of the
Confederacy were side by side.
The coffin was covered with the flag and
was borne by colored servants. The moth-
er, the only mourner, walked hehind by
the side of the gray-haired friend of the
boy’s father.
Eyes that were turned to her in pity
grew large with astonishment. Here was
no bent, broken woman. She stood every
inch her splendid height. The face was
triumphant. The younger generation who
had only known her since she looked so
old and feeble hardly recognized her.
The gray eyes looked squarely into the
future; her step was buoyant; her mouth
almost smiled. And only a few in the
crowd knew that the look meant that her
boy would never be humiliated now. He
had died as his father’s son should die!
Down the long church aisle she swept, as
if going to a marriage altar instead of a
mourner’s pew. Her appearance was the
sensation ofthe church; and men and wom-
en pressed to the door to see her come
out.
They buried him under the hanging
Spanish moss by his father’s memorial tab-
let. She stood straight as a lance
beside the open grave, and was almost
beautiful with that triumphant Jook in her
eyes.
The bells of the old Spanish cathedral by
the sea rung out the ‘‘Ave Marie; a few
good Catholics in the crowd crossed them-
selves. The salute was fired over a sol-
dier’s body. Just as the evening star
swung into the glowing sky an old man
who had gone through the war wtth his
father stepped from behind a great tree and
placed the bugle to his lips.
He tried twice and failed. Then
‘Lights Out’’ quivered and died on the air.
The man sobbed aloud as he broke on the
last note. He had gone in memory back
to the night before the father’s death.
But the mother stood there with that same
look on her face, ready at last to look into
the eyes of the coming years.
Her husband's son had died a hero and
the town had forgotten the past.
Wouldn’t the dear God do so, too?—
Harrydele Hallmark.
A Noteworthy Departure.
Sixty Cents Worth of Entertainment for only Ten
Cents.
It has been considered wonderful to pub-
lish a magazine for 10 cents containing as
much reading matter as would be given in
50 columns of the average newspapers.
But the Great ‘‘Philadelphia Sunday Press’
comes to the front with the announcement
that, beginning last Sunday, 19th it will be
so enlarged that each number will contain
six times as much reading matter as any
ten cent magazine. Just think of it! For
five cents you can get ‘The Philadelphia
Sunday Press’’ and find as much entertain-
ment and instruction as if you spent 60
cents for magazines. Look out for next
‘‘Sunday’s Press.” It will be a wonder.
Those Letter Boxes.
They Figure Prominently in the Adams Poisoning
Case.—Now there's Another One.—Mrs. Rogers
Hired One Under the Name of Miss Addeson.—
Found Out by Accident by Her Dentist.—She then
Gave it up. f
The latest strange development in the
remarkably strange case of the poisoning of
Mrs. Katherine J. Adams of New York is
the fact that her daughter, Mrs. Rodgers,
while still living with her husband, Ed-
ward Rodgers, and with the full knowledge
of her mother, was in the habit of receiv-
ing mail at a iprivate letter box, which she
rented under the assumed name of *‘Miss
Addeson.”’
Private letter boxes have already figured
conspicuously in the erime. Much of the
mail sent to ‘‘Miss Addeson’ evidently
came from the New York Athletic club or
from strange persons conmected with that
organization, as the envelopes bore the red
winged Mercury foot, the insignia of the
club. These facts will undoubtedly open
a new and interesting field of investigation
for the district attorney’s office at the cor-
oner’s inquest this week.
ACCIDENTAL EXPOSURE.
It was by a peculiar coincidence that the
identity of Mrs. Rodgers and Miss Addeson
was established. She leased the box from
David Murdock and his wife, who keep a
stationary store at 503 Columbus avenue,
which is only a few blocks from the flat
at 61 West Eighty-sixth street where she
was then living with her mother and hus-
band and where Mrs. Adams was afterward
poisoned. One day Dr. Albert A. Vedder
of 100 West Eighty-sixth street, who was
Mrs. Roger’s dentist, was standing in Mur-
dock’s store when Mrs. Roger’s passed,
dressed in a bicycle costume.
‘Hello!’ he exclaimed. ‘‘There goes
Mrs. Rogers in a bicycle suit!’
*‘That isn’t Mrs. Rodgers,’’ said Mur-
dock. ‘‘That is Miss Addeson. She is a
customer of mine.”
‘‘She is a customer of mine, too,’’ re-
plied the dentist. ‘‘I’ve met her husband,
and her name is Rogers.’”
THE DENTIST'S RUSE.
This incident occurred about a year ago,
and both the dentist and the stationer have
occasion to remember it from its bearing on
subsequent events. Dr. Vedder had a bill
against Mrs. Rogers for filling her teeth.
He had sent the bill to Mr. Rogers, and it
had not been paid. While thinking over
the discovery of the dual identity of his pa-
tient it struck him that it might be a good
idea to send the bill again in the name of
Miss Addeson.
He did so, and a few days later Mrs.
Adams and Mrs. Rogers came together to
the dentist’s office. They wanted to know
why he had sent the bill in the name of
Addeson. When Dr. Vedder replied that
he had learned that Mrs. Rogers sometimes
received mail in that name, Mrs. Adams
said that the name Addeson was her daugh-
ter’s right name. They then paid the bill
and went away.
Mrs. Rogers then went to Mr. Murdock
and. reproved him for revealing the fact
that she hired a private letter box from
him under an assumed name. She was so
indignant that she gave up the box then
and there.
Washington's Tact.
The First President's Shrewd Knowledge of Femi-
nine Foibles.
His Excellency, the first of a long line
of Presidents of these United States, was
an excellent judge of men and manners,
also of women, who are not so clearly
read at first sight. Underneath his court-
ly grace and dignified address Washing-
ton possessed a keen and shrewd knowl-
edge of feminine foibles. His humor and
worldly wisdom illuminates a letter writ-
ten about a young lady who was con-
templating a second marriage It was
evidently in response to some appeal for
his advice that Washington wrote: *‘For
my own part, I never did, nor do I believe
I ever shall, give advice to a woman who
is setting out on a matrimonial voyage.
First, because I never could advise one to
marry without her own consent, and
second, because I know it is to no
purpose to advise her to refrain when
she has obtained it. A woman very rarely
asks an opinion or requires advice on such
an occasion till her resolution is formed,
and then it is with the hope and ex-
pectation of obtaining a sanction, not
that she means to be governed by your
disapprobation that sheapplies. In a word,
the plain English of the application may be
summed up in these words: ‘I wish you to
think as I do; but if, unhappily, you dif-
fer from me in opinion, my heart, I must
confess, is fixed, and [ have gone too far to
retract.’’
What more could be said in dealing with
such a case? Men and women upon whom
the ‘*Advice Habit’’ is fastening can learn
a useful lesson from George Washington,
who refused to rush in on the delicate
ground where angels fear to tread.
High Rate Pensioners,
Referring again to the proposition to
give a pension to ex-Senator John M. Pal-
mer. I find at the pension office that two
persons, Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Garfield, re-
ceive pensions of $5,000 a year; one, Mis.
Sheridan, has $2.500; eight, including
Mrs. John C. Fremont, Mrs. Logan and
Mrs. George B. McClellan, receive $2,000 a
year, and 45 receive $1,200 a year.
Among these are the widows of Gen. N. P.
Banks, John B. Corse, Walter Q. Gresham,
George A. Custer, Gen. Doubleday, Gen.
Hartranft, Gen. Robert Anderson, Gen.
Casey, Gen. Gibbon, Gen. Kirkpatrick,
Gen. Mower, Gen. Paul, Gen. Ricketts,
Gen. Warren, Gen. Rousseau and Admiral
Wilkes. Among the men who receive pen-
sions of $100 a month are John A. McCler-
nand, of Illinois; John M. Thayer, of Lin-
coln, Neb. ; Franz Sigel, of New York, and
John C. Black, of Chicago. The remainder
are granted to soldiers of the late war who
suffered the loss of both hands, and are as
follows: George W. Warner, New Haven,
Conn. ; Lewis A. Horton, Boston, John W.
January, Dell Rapids, S. D.; Thomas Ri-
ley, Cresco, Ia.; William Greiter, Colum-
bus, Ohio; Edward P. Latham, Burton,
Ohio; Thomas Shelby, Wilson, Ohio; Ber-
nard Magoonaugh, Detroit; Samuel W.
Price, Louisville; Benjamin Franklin,
Red Oak, Ia.; Alonzo Alden, Troy, N. Y.;
Morris Dury, New York city; Michael Ma-
ker, Highland Falls, N. Y.; Daniel Ful-
ler, Ulysses, Pa.; Nathan Kimball, Ogden,
Utah; Richard D. Dumpy, Vallejo, Cal.;
Joseph A. Cooper, St. John, Kan.; Frank
Mark, St. Louis, Mo.; Michael Casey,
Philadelphia, Pa.; Samuel Decker, Wash-
ington, D. C.; William B. Denny, Wash-
ington, D. C., and Thomas Dennis, Wash-
ington, D. C.
The other pensioners drawing $100 a
month are Emily J. Stannard, of Burling-
ton, Vt.; Henrietta O. Whittaker, Lexing-
ton, Ky.; Laura L. Wallen. Narragansett
Pier, R. I., and Mary H. Nicholson, New
York city.—Chicago Record.
MAJ. W. H. HASTINGS TRAVELS IN
THE HOLY LAND.
In Jerusalem—Its Narrow Streets and Cosmopolitan
Inhabitants—The Mosque of Omar on the Site of
the Temple—Bethlehem and Its Holy Traditions’
Marred by Ignorant Superstitions.
To visit the Mosque of Omar a consular
permission is necessary and the kavass of
the consulate must accompany you. So
one day the good little Bishop from Bar-
celona, Dr. Shoemaker and I were stand-
ing in front of the New hotel waiting for
the American Kavass to accompany us
there. The bishop was wearing his shovel
hat, which, was at least two feet across the
brim, and contrasted strangely with his
diminutive stature. Dr. Shoemaker glis-
tened in immaculate white, all except his
green veil, green umbrella and green mon-
ocle. A tripe visaged, unwashed de-
scendant of the Prophet espied us and walk-
ed slowly around us wondering, apparent-
ly, what were these wild-fowl, of strange
plumage, that had so startlingly come from
Allah knows where. He passed the word
and in a twinkling we were surrounded by
a crowd which circled around us to admire
the doctor’s veil and monocle and the
Bishop’s hat, from different facets, and I
was compelled to be inspected with them
and generally worried like anew bird at
the Zoo. I'm always the victim. A white
turbaned son of Mahomet wanted Dr. Shoe-
maker to smoke from his pipe, and was
amazed because he declined. Another, a
fungous faced Islamite hearing us call him
doctor, wanted him to cure his rupture.
The kavass’ uniform was like that of a
clown, he carried a club like an alpenstock,
with which, with considerable pomp and
display he knocked on the paving
stones, or the heads and shoulders of the
Arabs, Turks and Jews who were not smart
enough in getting out of the way. The
Kavass was proud, and, going by the shops
where flour, fruit, salt-fish, candles and
caviar were sold he saluted his friends, con-
descendingly, for he was the visible symbol
of the majesty of the great American Re-
public, Porto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the
Tagalos and Visayans thrown in.
On the way to Solomon’s Temple we
passed through part of the bazaar and the
unsavory Jewish quarter. These alleys,
dignified with the name of streets, being
covered, it is like groping in semi-twilight
a sort of Daemon Daemmering, in which
you see spice dealers, money changers,
scribes (and Pharisees) hooded women
(bundles in white) grunting camels, patient
donkeys and cup-board-like shops packed
with wares. A string of heavily ladened
camels came along, the dervish conductors
shrieking as if they had an able bodied
colic. The street was so narrow that we
had to make ourselves thin against the old
grimy walls, impregnated with the dust of
Nebuchadnezzar, Job and the Maccabees,
long since dispersed in the winds. A camel
craned his neck, let his head fall, opened
his jaws and whisked away, in a breath,
the doctor’s green veil! Then the silent,
little Bishop threatened to tie a knot in the
camel’s neck.
Arriving at the entrance to the Temple
the Bim-bachi, commander of the Turkish
guard, shouted Hast our! and the guard
presented arms to the Bishop’s hat and the
doctor’s monocle! Here is the spot where
Christ came every day when in Jerusalem.
Here he disputed with the Jews and per-
formed miracles. Here he became angry
and indignant with the desecrators of the
Temple who were defiling it, drove them
out with a whip, overturning their tables,
and raised the devil with the money chang-
ers.
Our kavass hammered on the Temple
door as proudly, defiantly as if the bearer
of a cartel from the Devil to the Angel
Gabriel. The guard trembled, the massive
door opened and we were ushered into an
ocean of sunlight.
In a large piazza 1500 feet square, glis-
tening in indescribable splendor was the
Mosque of Omar, after Mecca, the holiest
spot on earth for the Moslims. The square
is closed on the South and East by the old
crenelated wall bordered by large, vener-
able, eternal cypress trees. Slippered priests
and devout sons of the Prophet were per-
forming their ablutions, washing their feet,
hands and faces at the fountains before
prostrating themselves to Allah. Students
were reciting in chorus, after a white beard-
ed priest, passages from the Koran.
They were learning their lesson as Christ
when a boy did, by repeating from a book
until learned by heart. It’s the method of
the Orient. Mothers seated in the shade
of the tombs of their celebrated sheiks and
dervishes were feeding their babies while
listening to the splashing of the water in
the large, public fountains. Big fat, strut-
ting pigeons were displaying their beauti-
ful plumage among the little domes and
tombs.
It was a relief, a pleasure to be here in
the sunlight of Heaven, away from the cold,
creepy shadows of the dark, dank, mouldy
crypts, the awful, oppressive sadness that
hovers over the church of the Holy Sepul-
chre. The Mosque of Omar, with its rare
mosaic windows and ancient columns,
commands attention, apart from its being
one of the finest mosques in the world, be-
cause it stands on the site of Solomon’s
Temple.
Rich carpets are spread over the floors
and we had to put off our shoes, or cover
them with loose slippers that are provided.
Here in the centre of the mosque, enclosed
by a wooden railing, rises a primeval rock.
This is the ancient rock of the sacrifice of
the Holy of Holies, of Abraham and Isaac.
Here David erected an altar and Solomon
his Temple. On the rock itself is shown
the foot print of Jesus; another part bears
the thumb mark of Mahomet!
A slab in the stone floor is ornamented
with silver nails, of which only three re-
main. The legend runs that the devil has
secured the others and when he gets the
last, the world will come to an end. On
the extensive level of the Temple area is
another Mosque, El Aksa, of more recent
date. Two columns standing near together
are seen to be much worn on the inner
sides.
A tradition became prevalent, in the
good old times, that whoever could pass
between these columns would be sure of
heaven, and so many forced themselves
through that the solid stone was being rub-
bed away. To prevent this an iron guard
has been fixed so as to effectually prevent
any more trials of faith, in this gymnastic
fashion.
All the treasures of the Orient crystal,
enamel; porcelain, white and blue ar-
abesques interlaced, intermingled have
been lavished upon the Mosque of Omar,
and the traveler will never forget the im-
pression that its beauty and richness, the
lavishness of the gilding and precious stones,
of marble and mosaic make upon him.
It is worth a year of any man’s life to
have seen it.
It would take the facile pen of J. Hamp-
ton Moore, the prismatic word gilding of
James Rankin Young and the rich sunset
flushed vocabulary of Jimmy Pollock fused
into one to make a description of it.
An old, witbered sheik raised a hue and
cry which alarmed everybody. Did he see
the vision of the ladder, let down from
heaven, on which Mahomet climbed to the
seventh heaven into the presence of God?
No. Dr. Shoemaker was walking on the
sacred carpet without slippers on. Prof-
anation which cost several metalliks in
backschich! Icame away with regret, I
would like to have spent a week there. As
I looked on the magnificent dome which
swells and flames like gold in the light, the
muezzin on the tower cried out; Allah! is
great! There is but one Allah! Come to
Allah!
There wereso many Germans in the Holy
city that you could almost imagine yourself
in Frankfort or Munich. In fact Palestine
is fast being converted into a German an-
nex. I like the Germans and admire
their language and literature and so I
fraternize with them very easily. One day
we were wetting our whistles at Fasts, in
the shadow of David’s tower. A number
of Germans made an interested circle around
the bishop’s black hat and the doctor’s
green monocle, (his veil had gone, alas, to
help fill the Tyropean valley), and when
some enthusiastic Tudesques started up a
student’s song such as ‘‘Die Lorelei; or
“Ich weisz nicht was soll es bedeuten,;’
or ‘‘Die Wacht am Rhein,” or, perchance,
in a more serious strain, ‘‘Nun danket alle
Gott; or, *‘Ein fester Burg ist unser Gott,’
we all joined in the universal chorus.
Something akin to that ‘peace on earth
good will to men” reigned. I believe that
choral songs are the connecting link be-
tween patriotism and religion, and that the
spruchwort, ‘‘Bose Menchen haben keine
Lieder, ”’ is the terse enunciation of a great
psychological truth. Who ever heard of a
pickpocket singing at his work?
Inspired by the music, the Hofbraem
and the fragrance of Frankfurter wurst,
limburger, tobacco fumes, coffee and hot
onions intermingled in dithyrambic con-
fusion and an ever crescendo racket of con-
servation, the air was indeed Bohemian.
In the midst of this feast of patriotism
and flow of beer, some one announced that
a street sprinkler was coming down Zion
street. Then we knew something unusual
was going to happen. An Arab with a pig
skin, full of water, thrown over his should-
ers, around his neck, was deftly directing a
stream of water from one of its paws laying
the dust, so to speak, which the Sanhe-
drim had kicked up some two thousand
years ago.
Kaiser William had been keeping his
movements very secret. We heard a blast
of discordant trumpets, (and thought of
Jericho), the music of the Kaiser’s Marine
band coming through the Jaffa gate, and
soon the Kaiser looking solemn and op-
pressed, dressed like the Crusaders, in
white, superbly mounted, came in sight.
The French turned pale green with sheer
envy; the Turks yelled Tschok jascha, the
Germans Hoch! The kaiser dismounted in
the open space in front of David’s tower
and went on foot to dedicate La Dormitien
de la Vierge, a description of which func-
tion I purposely omit.
The band was playing exultingly, deaf-
eningly. A German is a conscientious man.
Whatever pressure to the square inch the
trumpet, trombone or cornet, as the case
may be, is calculated to ke capable of sus-
taining, without permanent injury, that
pressure the German bandsman gives.
There was a saxophone in the band, how-
ever, who exceeded the limit, and who was
pushing out of his instrament bass wails
enough to make David, an adept in coun-
terpoint, over there at Dormitien, turn in
his grave.
Some man exclaimed ‘‘I’ll kill that sax-
ophone if I leave my marrow bones in the
valley of Jehosaphat,’’ he made a break for
him. But the cordon of Turkish, German
and Arab police was too strong for him, you
can’t argue with a bludgeon, and so was
saved from himself.
One day we had been to Bethlehem to
see the cradle of Christ and the pretty girls.
One gets tired looking at the women in
Jerusalem, they look like a white bundle
tied with a cord in the middle, and when
veiled a man would not be able to recognize
his wife if he met her in the street.
We were jolting along through the coun-
try where Abraham had his cattle on a
thousand and one hills, and David func-
tioned as a shepherd boy. ‘‘The little birds
were singing drowsy day to rest,”’ and our
antediluvian, epileptic, apocalyptic carriage
was rolling like a ship ina storm.
“Cabby,” taking us for Germans, had
fastened on his whip sausages for a cracker!
I was afraid a wheel might suddenly run
off in the fields where Ruth gleaned in the
field of Boaz, or collide against the tomb of
Rachel, or bring us in too close contact with
trains of camels and asses, pilgrims of all
sorts, and crowds of armed natives, in
picturesque, dirty attire, which we were
continually meeting. The guide showed
us the very spot where Boaz treated Ruth
to parched (pop) corn.
We had had a serio-comic adventure in
Bethlehem and we chatted about that.
One of the plagues of Palestine, after the
*‘tlies of Israel is the touts who persistent-
ly follow visitors, and harass them beyond
all patience. We had entered the Church
of the Nativity, had gone by the Turkish
soldier in the middle of the church, armed
with a rifle, we had visited the Grotto and
the Manger where Mary put the baby Jesus
to sleep, continually followed by the touts,
who utterly prevented our understanding
and enjoying what we saw. We were look-
ing at the star. and the inscription Hic de
virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est, when
one of them, more impudent than the oth-
ers, made a remark which roused the
ire of the Bishop Like a wild man
the Bishop gave him a resounding
kick in the hinterland of his medulla ob-
longata that sent him away howling. I
‘“‘raised his Ebenezer’’ for him said the
Bishop, somewhat appeased by his swift
revenge. The Turkish guard seeing the
affray thought it was a doctrinal, religious
quarrel and so he put us all out at the
point of the bayonet!
We visited the establishment of sir Moses
Montefiore, Rothschild and other homes
for the indigent Jews, where they are fed,
clothed, housed doctored, washed, dressed,
shaved, and finally buried in holy
ground in the valley of Jehosaphat
——gratis. Judging from what I saw of
the cuisine and menu, the inmates have
splendid opportunities for high thinking.
Returning, a wailing, half blind hag, by
the way side, wanted to sell the doctor the
withered tooth of some saint or prophet,
guaranteed to ward off mishaps! But the
doctor was skeptical,didn’t believe it would
be good for what ailed him and he told her
to go to——Jericho.
In our walks around Jerusalem, we were
shown an ancient Moslim, with both feet
in the grave and a nose that would give
Cyrano’s odds. He has five wives, one of
whom is only fourteen. The Turks do
with their old wives as we do with our
money--change a 50 for two 258, or two 158
and a 20.
Allah! is great! but one tires of gas-
tronomic flirtations with the boiled onions
and filet de Capri of the New hotel.
I took my last walk through the streets
which remain the same as when trodden
by the sandaled feet of our Saviour, the
iniquitous Sanhedrim and Pilate’s soldiers.
I saw again the contending religious sects
in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, wa-
ging a war as relentless as when burning
sorceresses, drowning witches and tortur-
ing Jews was practiced in the name of
Christ. I saw for the last time the garderr
of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives
peaceful, fair and radiant in the sunshine,
beyond them the glitter and sheen of the
Dead sea; I searched the horizon over there
to the South and East, beyond the mount-
ains of Moab, where are Arabia, the
Euphrates and Menelik and a city called
Philadelphia, which existed before Christ
was born. :
Sitting together, Dr. Shoemaker, the
Bishop and I, on the fragments of tombs,
in the intense silence of the valley of Dry
Bones, musing about those who had peo-
pled this scene in past ages, and the stu-
pendous scenes enacted here from the time
of Moses, Saul, David, Solomon, Herod
and the rest of those notorious old free-
booters, free lovers, polygamists and pi-
rates;—wondering when Gabriel blows his
horn, how many will be invited to take
the road to the left.
The little Bishop took off his hat, with
both hands, and deposed it on an adjacent
tomb. Then he embraced and kissed
Dr. Shoemaker, saying, Dominus Nobiscum
and thus ended the meeting.
MAJor W. H. HASTINGS.
Those Fine Old Indian Names.
The State of Washington would be known
to fame for its names if not for its mines,
mountains, farms, fruits and harbors. The
Legislature is now petitioned to change the
name of Gilman, King county, to Issequah.
That is a pretty good attempt at something
unusual, but it will have to fight for fame
along with Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Sko-
komish, Steilacoom, Squak, Skagit, Sko-
okumchuck and Tumwater.
Engineer Killed.
A disastrous head-on collision occurred
at Lewistown Saturday night. A freight
train from Sunbury crashed into a shifting
engine at the north end of the Juniata river
bridge. Engineer Wertz, of the freight
train, received injuries which caused his
death. Fireman Cupper jumped to the
side of a high abutment and snow below
saved him from injury. ;
——It is recalled that General Miles is
not the only commander of the Army who
has been called a liar by a subordinate.
Ninety years ago General Winfield Scott,
who was then a captain in the army, was
tried by court-martial for having said at a
public table that he never saw but two
traitors—Generals Wilkinson and Burr—
and that Gen. Wilkinson was a liar and a
scoundrel. He was found guilty, and was .
suspended for a year, notwithstanding the
fact that his utterance turned out to be
true.
——%I thought you were going to turn
over a new leaf, John,’’ she said.
“I was,” he replied, ‘but I find I
can’t.”
“Why not?”’
“There won’t be any new leaves until
spring.”’