THE WIND AT THE DOCR Often to my door Comes a twilight visitor. When the inountnin summer day From our valley taken his way, And the journeying shadows stride Over tho green mountain-side, Down the clove among the trees Moves the ghostly wandering breczo. With tho first stars on the crest And the pale light in the west, He comes up the dark ravino Where no traveler is seen. Yet his coming makes a stir In the house ol' Ash and Fir: "Master, is't in our abode You will tarry on the road?" "Nay, 1 like your roof-tree well. But with you 1 may not dwell. Birches whisper at their sill, As he passes up tbehiil . "Stranger, underneath our boughs There is ample room to house." "Friends, I have another quest Than your cool abiding rest. 5 THE SAINT-GABELLE J AN ODD WAGER. _ 5 You would have been very foitu- I nate, my children, if you ljiul known • my Uncle Bayle, because be alone ; knew more stories than you have ever read. My uncle did not live iu our little city of Mirepeix—be lived at Foix; aud almost every Saturday we would see bim coming on bis borse, j and our joyous cries bailed bim at a j distance. Tbo servant, my old .Tean- j nette, came immediately to salute our ! Uncle Bayle, wbo carefully informed ' bimself as to the supper. Tben after I having adde 1 or changed something j in tbe bill of fare, be seated bimself j in a large cbair of carved wood, which j we dragged up to tbe fire; and without ! delay we all began to cry, "A story! | a story!" On this evening the cry j was lens boisterous, because we hud ] formed a little conspiracy, and no one | dared to speak first, Finally, my j pretty cousin, Dorotliee, tbe most j talkative little girl of tbe bouse, aud ! now tbe grave superior of a convent of j the Sisters of Charity,ventured a cry, j "A ghost story!" aud we replied, all : together, "¥es, a ghost story!" My uncle frowned, and looked tow- | ard Jeannette, who was very much j confuse! and wished to appear ab sorbed m peppering her chicken pot pie. It was she, iu fact, who had i urged us to make this demand. "There are only fools or rogues w ho ; believe, or preteud to believe, in ghosts," said my uncle, in a severe | tone. We all waited iu silence, so ■ much authority was there in bis 1 words; but a moment of reflection 1 seemed to calm him. We saw hiui | smile, as if to himself, and he added, [ in a tone full of sweetness: "i'ou ! want a ghost story.mv children? Very 1 well; I will relat • one to you which j happened to mo, so that it cannot be doubted." We gathered around bim closer than usual; the lamp hung by a chain j attached to tbe mautel-piece.and there 1 our uncle told bis story. One autumn evening—it must have been forty years ago, because 1 wits scarcely 20 years old at the time—l was returning from Toulouse. I bud arrived almost in front of tbo Bol bonne monastery, beyond the beauti ful woods of Lecourien, when a sud den aud frightful storm, like those that come down from our mountains, broke forth. My horse, frightened at the flashes of lightning aud noise of thunder, darted into a little by-path, and carried me with him, in spite of nil my efforts to the contrary. Not withstanding his rapidity, I soon rec ognized that be bad takeu tbe road to Saint Gabelle and that he was leading me there all right; and he until he stopped of his own accord, as he bad starttd, and I perceived that 1 ■was at tbe door of an inn. I entered. The guests were numerouw—a mixed crowd of Spanish merchants and young sportsmen of the vicinity overtaken, like myself, by the storm. A fter drying ourselves at the tire—composed of a do/en vine-branches which bad been thrown in the fireplace—supper was announced,and we all sat down to tbo table. At first tbe conversation turned on the frightful weather. One had been thrown from his horse; another had been detained an hour in getting himself aud cart out of u pool of mud. Finally someone exclaimed: "It is an infernal night, just tbe time for a meeting of witches." This remark, which was very simple, gave place to a singular observation,mado in u tone still more singular. "isorcerers and ghosts prefer for their meeting a beautiful moonlight night to a night so unpleasant as this." We all gazed at the mau who said this, and saw that it was one of the Spanish merchants. You lia\o often seen them, my children, with their leggings aud short breeches open at the knee and showing their naked, hairy lesrs. Yon know what a miugled air of pride and misery they have. He wbo had spoken had, more than any you have seen, that savage bearing which is characteristic of them all. None of us had thought of replying, when my neighbor, a young mau with a frank and open manner, burst out laughing as he said: "It appears that this gentleman knows the habits of ghosts, and that they have told him that they do not like to get wet or dirty." He had not finished liis sentence when tbe Spaniard threw on him a terrible look as he seid: "Young mau, do not speak so light -1« of i hut or (i van kuow nothina about." And the fluttering Aspen fcnow9 Whose step by her doorway goes "Honor, lord, thy silver tree And the chamber laid for theo." "Nay, 1 must be. faring on. For tonight 1 seek my own. "Breath of the red dust is ho And a wayfarer like me ; "Here a moment, and then lost On a trail confused and crossed. "And I gently would surprise Recognition in his eyes ; "Touch his hand and talk with him When the forest light Is dim. "Taking counsel with the lor_ Of the utterable word." Hark, did you hoar someone t The west window furtively. And then move among tho leaves In the shadow of tho eaves V Tho reed curtain at the door Bustled : there's my visitor Who comes searching for his kin: "Enter, brother: I'm within.' —Uliss Carman, in Scribner's. "Do yon think you can make me believe there are ghosts?" replied my neighbor, disdainfully. "Perhaps," replied the Spaniard, "if you bad the courago to look at them." Tbe young man jumped up, red with anger, but calmed himself, and i sat down again quietly, saying: "You would have paid dearly for that, remark if it were not that of a fool." "That of a fool!" cried the Spaniard, jumping up in his turn. "Well, tben," added be, slapping his fist on the table and throwing down a big leathern i purse. "Here are 30 quadruples (about $210) which I offer to lose if i within an hour I do not make you see, you who are so positive, the face i of one of your friends that you wiil ! name, let him be dead for ten years, aud if, after having reooguized him, j you dare to permit his moulh to kiss i yours." The Spaniard bad an air so terrible 1 in saying these words that we all started. My neighbor alone preserved his laughing, mocking manner and replied: "You will do this —you?" "Yes," replied the Spaniard, "and I will lose 30 quadruples if I do not do it, on condition that you will lose an | equal amount if I keep my promise and i you acknowledge it." Tbe young man was silent a mo- i me'nt, then he said, gayly: "Thirty quadruples! My worthy sorcerer, this is more than a student of ' oulouse ever posss ssed; but if you will keep you word for the five quad- | ruples wh.ch are here, I am your j man." The Spaniard took his purse again, j and sr.id, scornfully: "Ah, you back out, my little gentle man?" "I back out!" cr'ed the young man. ! "Ah, if I had the 30 quadruples, you would see if I backed out." "Here are four," cried I, "which I i add to your stake." I had no sooner made this proposi tion than five or six persons,attracted j like myself by the singularity of this challenge, offered to take part in it, and in less than no time the Spaniard's amount was covered. This mau i j seemed so sure of his work that he confidedtbe stake to the young stu dent, and we got ready for the demon stration. To that end wo selected a small ; pavilion, perfectly isolated, in tbe garden, so that there could be no de ception. We searched it minutely; we assured onrsehes that there were no other opening than a window, se curely fastened, aud a door, which was closed iu the same manner, and at which we all stood after we had left the young man alone in the pavilion. We bad placed writing materials on tbe table,and took away all the lights. We were eagerly interested in the issue of the scene, and were all keep- I ing a profound sileuce, when the ! Spaniard, who had remained among i us, comniened to sing in a sweet and ; sad voice a song, which may be ren i dere.l as follows: "Noiselessly cracking. the coffin has broken in the half-opened tomb, And the whim phantom's black foot is rest ing on the grass, bold and green.' At the first verse he laised his voice solemnly, and said: "i'ou have see your friend, Fran.ois Yiolot, who was drowned three years ago in crossing tbe I'en saattioles ferry. What do you see?" "I see," replied the young man, "a pale light which has risen near the window, but it has no form, and is only an indistinct mist." "Are you afraid?" said the Spaniard, in a strong vo ce. "I am not afraid," replied tbe stu dent, in a voice no less confident. We s; arcely breathed. The Span iard was silent for a moment, then he began all at once to sing again, but in a higher and more sombre voice: ' Aud tht- white phantom, whose face has been withered by the suruu of the waves, Wipes with his shroud the water from his garments and hair." The song finished, the Spaniard turned agaiu toward tbe door, and, in an accent more aud more solemn, he said: "You, who wished to pry into the mysteries of the tomb, what do you i see?" . ! We listened with anxiety. Tbe student J eplied, iu a calm voice, bit I like a man who ia describing a thing 1 ' as it hainiens: "I see this vapor, which grows larger a id larger and takes the form of a phantom; this phantom has the head coveted with a veil." "Are you afraid?" asked the Span iard, in an insulting voice. The voice of the young man replied: "I am not afraid." We dared not look at each other, so great was our surprise, so occnpied were we in following the singular movements of the Spaniard, who began to raise his arms above his head,while invoking three times n name horrible to pronounce; after which he chanted the third verse of his infernal song, but in a voice singularly triumphant' "And the phantom said, In leaving the tomb, 'lii order that he may recognize me, I will go toward my friend, proud, smiling and beautiful as in my youth.' " The Spaniard finished his verse and repeated his question: "What do you see?" "I She," replied the student, "the phantom ad van: e—it raises its veil— it is Francois Yiolot—he approaches the table—he writes—he has written: it is his signature!" "Are you afraid?" cried the Span iard, furiously. There was a moment of silence, and | the student replied with more strength i than assurance: "I am not!" Immediately, as if seized with o 1 fit of madness, the Spaniard snng, | with a strange howl, this last horrible ' verse: "And the phantom said to the mocking man. ' 'Come, then, that 1 may touch you; Tut your hand iu my hand,press your heart tc my heart,your mouth to my mouth.' " j "What do you see?" cried the Span- ! iard, in a voice of thunder. "It comes—it appproaches—it pur sues me—it extends its arms —it w.ll seize me. Help! help!" "Are you afraid?" cried the Span- I iard, with ferocious joy. A piercing cry, then a smothered groan, was the only answer to this terrible question. "Help that imprudent young man!" said the Spaniard to us, in a cruel voi.ie. "I have, I think, won the j wager; but it is enough for me to have : given him a lesson. Let him keep the money and bo more prudent in the future." He went away rapidly after these words. We opened the door and found the student in horrible convul sions. The paper, signed with the • name of Francois Violot, was on the table. Scarcely had the student re covered whon he demanded to know who was the infamous sorcerer who had subjected him to this norribie profanation; he wished to kill him. ; He searched for him all through the inn, and darted off like a madman in pursuit of hiin. And that is the story, my children. We were all trembling with fright, huddling close about our Uncle Bayle. not daring to look around. No one had the courage to speak; then I gath ered strength enough to say to my uncle: "And how is it, after this, you do not believe iu ghosts?" "i'ecause," said my uncle, "neither the young man nor the sorcerer were ever seen afterward, nor the beautiful quadruples which the other travelers and myself had furnished to cover the wager proposed by the pretended Spaniard; and because these two rogues carried them away,after having played under our eyes a comedy which we believed in like a pack of simple tons. and which I found very ex pensive, but which will not have cost too much if it enables me to fully persuade you that none but imbeciles or rogues believe or pretend to be lieve in ghosts."—Translated from the French of Frederick Loulie. THF HORSE IN BATTLE- After Si* Months in Service lie Knott* livery Bugle < all. A veteran cavalry horse partakes of the hopes aud fears of battle just the same as his rider. As tbe column swings into line and waits, the horse ; grows nervous over the waiting. If I the wait is spun out he will tremble and sweat and grow apprehensive, ' says a writer iu Collier's Weekly. If he has been six months iu ser- I vice he knows every bugle call. As ' the call comes to advance the rider ; can feel him working at the bit with j his tongue to get it between his teeth. As he moves out he will either seek to ! goon faster than he should or bolt. I He cannot bolt, however. The lines ; will carry him forward, aud after a minute he will grip, lav back his ears, and one cau feel his sudden resolve tc brave the worst aud have done with it as soon as possible. A man seldom cries out when hit in the turmoil of battle. It is the same with a horse. Five troopers out of six when struck by a bullet are out oi their saddles within a minutd. If hit iu the breast or siioulde: - , up go theii ! hands aud they git a heavy fall; if iu | the leg or foot or arm, they fall for ward and roll off. Even with a foot cut off by a jagged piece of shell a holse will not drop. It is only when dhot through the head or heart that he comes down. He may be fatally wounded, but hobbles out of the tight to right or left and stands with droop i iug head until the loss of blood brings him down. The horse that loses his rider and is unhurt himself will coutinue to run with his set of fours until some move ment throws him out. Tlieu he goes ! galloping here aud there, neighing I with fear aud alarm, but he will not leave the field. The Use of Golf. "Think! Think! Oh, if you could only think!" The proud girl iu tbe large-checked skirt turned a calcium glare of scorn on the chrysanthemum ! decked youth. Then she continued' "Hut every time you try to think yon foozle!" Aud yet they say the goll dialect serves no purpose. —Baltimore American. DR. TALMAGES SERMON. SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE Br THE NOTED DIVINE. Subject: New Tear Thonelili—We Should Make the Holt of Oar ltrlef llvel— Infidelity the Source of Much Woe- Christ's Matchless Stories. iCopyright, Louts Klopsch. 1899.1 WASHINGTON, D. C.—ln this discourse Dr. Talmage takes the opportunity of offering some very practical and useful suggestions; text, Psalms xc., 9, "We spend our years as n tale that Is told." The Israelites were forty years in the wilderness, and during thirty-eight years of the forty nothing Is recorded of them, and, I suppose, no other emigrants had a duller or more uninteresting time than they had. So they got to telling stories — stories concerning themselves or concern ing others; stories about the brick kilns of Egypt, where they had toiled in slavery; stories about how the waters of the Red Sen piled up luto pnllsades at their cross ing; story of the lantern hung in the heav ens to guide them by night; story of ibises destroying the reptiles of the wilderness; stories of personal encounter. It must have been an awful thing to have had noth ing to do for thirty-eight years except to get lost every time they tried to escape from the wilderness. So they whiled away the time iu story telling. Indeed, there were persons whoso one business was to narrate stories, and they wore pnid by such trifles as they could pick up from the surrounding listeners. To such instances our text refers when it says, "We spend our years as a tale that is told." At this tremendous passage from the year 1899 to the year 1900 it will do us all good to consider that our whole life is a story told—a good story or a bad story, a tragic story or a mirthful story, a wise story or n foolish story, a clean story or a filthy story, a story of sucoess or a story of failure. "We spend our years as a tale that is told." In the flrst place, I remark that everv person's life Is a very interesting story. My text does not depreciate "a tale that Is told." We have all of us been entertained by the story teller whon snow bound in the rail train, or in the group a winter's night in the farmhouse, or gathered around a blazing hearth with some hunters at the mountain inn. Indeed, it is a praiseworthy art to impersonate a good story well. If you doubt the practical and healthful and inspiring use of such a story, take down from the library Washington Irving's "Tales oi a Traveler" or Nathaniel Haw thorne's "Twice Told Tales." But as in teresting as any of these would be the story ot many an obscure life if the tale were as well told. Why do wo all like biographies and autobiographies? Be cause they are stories of eminent human lives. But the story of the life of a back woodsman, of a man who looks stupid, of one about whom you never heard a word, j must be just as thrilling on a small scale as on a largo scale is a life of a Cyrus, or a I Ciesar, or a Pizarro, or a Mark Antony, or j a Charlemagne. If you get tbe confidence of that very i plain man just come out of the backwoods and can induce him to give the stirring ex- periences ot bis life, he will tell you tliat which will make your blood curdle ami your hatr stand on end; that night when a panther disputed his pathway on the way home; that landslide, when the mountains seemed about to come down on his cabin; that accident to his household and no sur geon within fifteen miles; that long storm that shut them in aad the food was ex hausted; that contest at his doorway with bandits, who thought there might be with in something worth talcing; that deathbed, with no one but himself to count the flut tering pulses. Oh, yes, while "we spend our years as a tnle that is told," it is an interesting story. It is the story of an immortal, and that makes it interesting. He is lauuohed on an ocean of eternal years, in a voyage that will never terminate. He is striking the keynote of an anthem or a dirge that will never come to its last bar. That is what makes the devotional meetings of modern times so much more interesting than they used to be. They are filled not with dis courses Dy laymen on the subject of justi fication aniVsanctlflcation, which lay dis courses administer more to the facetious than to the edifying, but with stories of what God has done for the soul—how every thing suddenly changeil; how the promises became balsamic in times of laceration; how he was personally helped out and helped up and helped on. Nothing ean stand before such a story of personal res cue. personal transformation, personal illumination. The mightiest and most skillful nrgument against Christianity col lapses under the ungrammatical but sin cere statement. The atheistic professor of natural philosophy goes down under the story of that backwoodsman's conversion. All that elaborate persuasion of the old folks of the folly of giving up active life too soon menns nothing as compared with the simple incident you may relate to them of the fact that llonjamln Franklin was Governor of Pennsylvania at eighty two years of age and that Dandolo, of Ven ice, at ninety years of age, although his eyesight hail been destroyed through be ing compelled by his enemies to look into a polished metal basin under the full blaze of the sun until totally blind, ye f this sight less nonagenarian leading an army to the successful besiegemeut of Constantinople! When an old man hears of such incidents, he puts aside his stall and ear trumpet and starts anew. The New Testament suggests the power ot the "tale that is told." Christ was the most effective story teller of all the ages. The parables are only tales well told. Matchless stories: That of the traveler cut up by the thieves and the Samaritan pay ing his board bill at the tavern; that of the big dinner, to which the invited guests sent in fictitious regrets; that of the shep herd answering the bloat of the lost sheep and all the rural neighbors that night help ing him celebrate the fact that it was safe In the barnyard; that of the bad boy. reduced to the swlnes' trough, greeted home with such banqueting and jewelry that It rtuffed the older son with jeaiousy and disgruntle roont; that of the Phnrisee full of bragga docio and the publican smiting his breast with a stroke that brought down the heav- SLS in commiseration; stories about lep rosy, about paralysis, about catalopsy, about dropsy, about ophthalmia—stories that Ho so well told that they have rolled down to the present and will roll down through the entire future. 1 heard Daniel linker, the wonderful evangelist of his time, preach what I sup posed was a great sermon, but I remem ber nothing of It except a story that ho told, and that. I judge from the seeming effect, may that afternoon hnvo brought hundreds "into the kingdom of God. I hear I Truman Osborno preach several ser mons, but I remember notnlug of what he said in public or private except a story that he told, and that was, among other things, the means ot my salvation. The lifelong work of Colin B. Gough, the great est temperance reformer of all time, was the victory of anecdote, and who can ever forget his story of Joel Straton touching him on the shoulder or of Deacon Moses Grant at Hopkinson, or of the outcast woman nicknamed "Hell Fire," but re deemed by the thought that she "was one of us?" Dwlght L. Moody, the evaugelist of worldwide fame and usefulness, wbc re cently passed to his great roward on high, during his valuable labors in the pulpit wielded the anecdote for God and heaven until all nations have been moved by it. IT you have had experiences of pardon and comfort and disentbrallment, tell of it. Tell it in the most pointed and dra matic way you can manage. Tell it soon, or you may never tell it at all. Ob, the power of"the tnle that li told!" An hour's discourse about the fact that blasphemous behavior is sometimes punished lu this world would not Impress us as much as the dimple ijtory that in a town ot New York State at the close of the last century thirty six profane men formed themselves into a club, calling themselves "Society of the Druids." They met regularly to deride and damage Christianity. One night in their awful meeting they burned a Bible and administered the sacrament to a dog. Two of them died that night. Within three days three were drowned. In five years all tbe thirty-six came to a bad end. Before justices of the peace it was sworn that two were starved to death, seven were drowned, eight were shot, five committed suicide, seven died on the gallows, one was frozen to death and three died accidentally. Inci dents like that, sworn to, would balk any proposed irreverent aud blasphemous be havior. In what way could the fact that infidel ity will not help any one die well be so powerfully presented as by the incident concerning a man falling ill in Paris just a'ter the death of Voltaire, when a profes sional nurse was called in, and she a-ked, "Is ttie gentleman a Christian?" "Why do you ask that?" said the messenger. The nurse replied, "I am the nurse who attend ed Voltaire In his last illness, and for all the wealth of Europe I would never see nn other infidel die." What discourse iu its moral and spiritual effect could equal a tale like that? You might argue upon the fact that ihose fallen are our brothers and sisters, but could we impress any one with such a truth so woll as by the scene near Victoria Park, London, whore men were digging a deep drain, and the shoring gave way and a great pile of earth fell upon the workmen. A man v stood there with his bauds in his pockets, looking at those who were trying to shovel away the earth from those who were burled, but when some one said to the spectator, "Bill, your brother is down there," then the spectator threw off his coat and went to work with an agony of earnestness to fetch up his brother. What course of argument could so well as that incident set forth that when we toil for the salvation of a soul it is a brother whom we are trying to save? A second reading of my te.»t reminds me that life is not only a story told, but that it is a brief story. A long narrative stretched out indefinitely loses its interest. It is generally the story that takes only a minute or half a minute to rehearse that arrests tbe attention. Aud that gives ad ditional interest to the story of our life. It is a short story. Subtract from our life all the hours of necessary sleep, all the hour" of incapacity through fatigue or illness, all the hours of childhood and youth before we get fairly to work, and you have abbre viated the story of life so much that you can appreciate the psalmist's reuinrk when he says, "Thou hast made my days as a hand's breadth,and cau appreciate the apostle .Tames' expression when lie com pares life to "a vapor that appeareth for a little season and then vanishes awav." It does not take long to tell all the vi cissitudes of life—the gladness and the griefs, the arrivals and the departures, tlie successes and the failures, the victor ies and tbe defeats, the ups and the downs. The longer we live the shorter the years. We hardly get over the bewildering fatigue of selecting gifts for children and friends and see that the presents get off In time to arrive on the appropriate day than wo see another advancing group of holidays. Autumnal fruit so sharp ly chases the summer harvest, aud the snow of the white blossoms of spring time come too soon after the snows ot winter. It is a remark so often made that it fails to muko any impression and the platitude that calls forth no reply, "How rapidly time goes.' Every century is a big wheel of years, which makes a hundred revolutions and breaks d<.wn, Every year is a big wheel of months and makes twelve revolutions and then ceases. Oeologists and theologians go into elaborations of guesses as to how long ilie world will probably last; how long beforethe volcanic forces will explode it. or meteoric stroke demolish it, or the cold of a long winter freeze out its popula tion, or the fires of a last conflagration burn it. That is all very well, but so far as tbe present population of the earth is concerned the world will last but a little longer. We begin life with a cry and end it with a groan, and the cry and the groan are not far apart. Life. Job says, is like the flight of a weaver's shuttle, or, as David intimates in my text, a story quick ly told and laughed at and gone and dis placed by another story as a "tale that is told." Wo talk about public life ami private life, but there is no private life. The story of our life, however insignificant it may seem to bo, will win the applause or hiss of a groat multitude that no man can num ber. As a "tale that is told' among ad mirers or antagonists, celestials or pande moniacs, tho universe is full of listening ears as well as of gleaming eyes. If we say or do the right thing, that is known. If wo say or do tho wrong thing, that is known. I suppose the population of the intelligences in tiie air is more numerous than tho population of Intelligences on the earth. Oh, that the story of our life might be lit for such an audience in such an au ditorium! God grant that wisdom and fidelity and earnestness and truth may characterize tho "talo that is told. ; ' Through medical science tho world's longevity may be greatly improved in the future, as it has been in the past, but it would not be well forthe people to live too long. Some of them would, through theii skill at acquisitiveness, gather too much aud some multimillionaires would become billionaires and trillionaires, and some would after awhile pocket a hemisphere. No. Death is useful in its financial limita tions, aud then all have enough sorrows aud annoyances and sufferings by tho time they become nonagenarians or centenar ians to make it desirable to quit. Besides that, it would not be fair so long to keep so many good old people out of heaven. So it is well arranged that those who stand by the deathbed of the nineteenth ceutury will not bo called to stand by the deathbed of the twontieth century. Oh, crowd this last year with prayers, with hosannas, with kind words, with halp fuluess. Make tho peroratloH of the cen tury the climax of Christlike deeds. Close up the ranks of God, and during this re maining twelve months charge mightily against the host of Abaddon. Ilavo no reserve corps. Let swiftest gosfei cavalry gallop, and heaviest moral artillery roll, and mightiest evangelistic batteries thun der on the scene. Let ministers of the gospel quit all controversy with each other and in solid phalanx march out for tho world's disenthrallment. Lot printing presses, secular and religious, make combined movement to instruct nnd emancipate tho world. On all the hills let there be Elijahs praying for "a great rain," and on every contested field Joshuas to see that final victory is gained before the suu goes down, and every mountnin be come a transfiguration, and every Galileo a walking place of Htm who can hush a tempest. I.et us be jealous of every month, of every week, of every day that passes without something significant and glorious wrought for God and this sin cursed world. Let our churches be thronged with devout assemblages. Let tho chorals bo more like urand marches than requiems. Let tho coming year see the last wound of Transvaal aud Philippine conlllct, and the eartli quake with tho grounding arms of tho last regiment ever to be marshaled, aud the furnaces of tho foundries blaze with tho (Ires that shall turn the last swords iuto plowshares. And may all those whose lives shall go out in this last year of a century, as inauy will, meet in the heavenly world those who iu the morning and noonday of this hun dred years toiled and suffered for the world's salvation to tell them how much lias been accomplished for the glory ot Him whose march through alt the coming centuries the Scriptures describe us going forth "conquering and to conquer." Oh, the contrast between that uplifted spec tacle of eternal triumph ta the presence of God and the Lamb and these earthly scenes, where "we spend our years as atale that is t«ld." THE GREAT DESTROYER SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. A Bier in the Beer.—Common Sense is the Greatest Crusader For Sobriety ol Modern Times—Only the Small Fry Depend on "Whisky Courage." Within the glass destruction rides And in its depths does ruin swim; Around its foam pordition glides. And dentil is dancing ou the brim. Why the Drain Habit Decreases. The main cause of the decrease in intem perance has been the spread of knowledge, largely obtained by experience, that it is against common sense and too costly in ita injurious effects, declares the New York Sun iu an editorial. Since undue alcoholic stimulation affocts first the judgment, weakening it seriously, it Is known to be responsible for a great part of the busiuess failures. The really notable financiers of Wall street do not belong to the "cocktail brigade," clearness of head and soundness of judgment being too indispensable to them. Only the small fry depend on "whisky courage." In the social inter course of private life, too, the consumption of liquor has decreased greatly. Dinners are no longer drinking bonis and the time spent on them has been diminished great ly. Drunkenness has become disreputable, or is pitied as the manifestation of n de plorable disease. In all callings in life, from the highest to the lowest, sobriety is more and more at a premium and intem perance is more and more distrusted. Xne temperance agitation which has oeen most effectual, therefore, has been ?cientiQc rather than purely moral and re ligious. For the old-fashioned "ternper ince pledge" of tho days of Gough, the specific medical treatment of dipsomania as a disease has been substituted, and men are temperate from Intelligent regard for the preservation of their sanity. More over, the increasing fierceness of modern competition is warning men of the neces sity of keeping their wits about them it they are to make head against it. Along with the strong tendency to the consolida tion of business at this time comes a de mand for special and eminent individual ability to satisfy its requirements greater than ever before in history. Never in the past was (lrst-clas? administrative ability so sure of rich and distinguished reward as it Is now. Groat captains of affairs are needed. Every weak point iu a man is dis covered under the stress of such a trial. Wall street is filled with the stock and bonds of vnst consolidated Industrial en terprises which can only be maintained prosperously by the continuance in their ! management o"f a succession of peculiar administrative talents. The percentage ot commissions and the margin of profit have been steadily reduced, until they are at a limit so low that only the greatest volume of transactions, and consequently tho I greatest ability of management, can make business profitable or keep it from sinking. At this time, therefore, men have found out that they cannot drink to excess it I they nre to hold their own. Science and I invention havo opened up and are steadily I extending fields of labor wherein the keen i est intelligence in the mechanic is requisite, I so that he cannot afford to ruddle his head | with drink; he must be a man who can al j ways be depended on or ho will be drivei out. Never be!ore was suspicion of intern i perance in a worker so fatal to his suceos as now. Everv man w'uo is wise keef I himself constantly in fighting trim for tt contest. I All society, therefore, has become a tea 112 perance "league," and harrowing pictur 1 of drunkenness deemed effective in the o time are not now necessary to warn men I a danger of whoso reality they are lit I conscious by their daily experien i Drunkenness has gone out of vogue be I as a fashionable and as a popular a:uu | ment. It is a habit In which only tb j whose health and life are valueless themselves and to everybody else can ford to indulge. Love ol" I.iquor Not Hereditary. Trcfessor Sims Woodbead, speaking ] other day before the Society for the S' | of Inebrietv in England, came to these elusions: Ho held most strongly th I direct transmission of the taste for aid I never occurred. Of course, he acci I very fully the fact that certain nervou; j eases and degenerations involving eq j altered and weakened inhibitory p are transmitted from generation togi ! tion. These, however, did not alwo, i sume the same form, the manifestat I the effect often taking on vory di! characters iu different generations I whatever character they assumed, t suit as regards alcohol wa3 inevitaj ' same, nnd until far more evidend brought forward than had yet batN sented, he should strongly maiuta! what was so often spoken ot as an ity taste for alcohol was an inherited ness and lessened self-restraint a| many other things besides drink, .J a direct transmission of the taste 112 hoi from parents to children, in at tution otherwise healthy, did nJ As with tuberculosis, the disease ( transmitted,J)ut only the weakly j balauced condition of the tissJ Hospital of London. Whipping For Drtinkarill The whipping-post for drunkl advocated by the llev. Henry fl pastor of tho Fourth Cougl Church, Hartford, Conn., in al before the Hartford Central Al composed of the Congregational* of the country. B He said there were over 2(S every year for drunkenness iiH out. The present law is not eifl the punishment should ping-post or bard labor. NouS done except to keep the drunljj of sight for a while. H It is a mocking comment that it pays as much to as It would cost to estublish a Austria's MethoiMß Austria proposes to deal drunkards by trenting thamS | incapable, and detaining th<H , retreats for a torm of twol may go in ot their own pulsion, but cannot leave their term has expired, ex cases on probation. In ebriate must be legally the courts being bound to including the drunkard the doctors, more mental diseases. "112 Alcohol a Poll At the meetiug of the miunnce Union of America, land, wbo has been a twenty-eight years, said more and more every a poison; that the use of V the smallest quantities, d.^H:. the years go by the world IF awakening to thi^H:.' Total abstinence, he declf^H^ c oi longevity, of good ' success and of self-i^spe The The Free auce Society has with a membershy^K.^^VW colonial niinlsters^^fcjV^B^ The bt ashamed of. l •¥/ strong-willed goes before a raii^M the seductions one's heart should the worlM luxury of the of bis own flesh caries of life? Tm
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers