Pnecdotes and g [ Reminiscences i 3 Victoria. | Queen Victoria reigned longer than any other woman occupant of a throne. She reigned for a greater number of years than any other European sov ereign, if the regency in the reign of Louis XIV is excepted. Her reign lasted sixty-three years and seven months,exceedingfour years three months and twenty-eight days the reign of George 111., which was the lougest in England before she came to the throne. She was Empress of India for twen ty-flve years, having received the title by proclamation on April 28. 1870. She outlived all the members of the House of Lords, who were peers of the realm at the time of her accession, except Earl Nelson, and all the peers who were then or had been members of the House of Commons. WIIERE QUEEN VICTORIA WAS BORN. She survived all the members of her original Privy Council and of her first House of Commons, Mr. Gladstone having been one of the oldest former members of the latter. She saw every episcopal see vacated and refilled at least twice during her reign. She saw her judicial bench recruited twice at least from end to end. She was a widow for forty years. She saw five Archbishops of Canter bury and <-lx of York and five Bishops of London. She saw eleven Lord Chancellors, ten Prime Ministers and six Speakers of the House of Commons. The Queen learned from her German mother the excellent habit of early l'teing, which stood her in good stead during a busy and laborious life. Not than 7 was the hour. Her dressers were not literary women, like Fanny Burney, nor did they add to their other duties that of reading to the Queen herself or to the court cir cle. Like the women of her suite In a higher rank—ladies in waiting, bed chamber women, etc.—many of the Queen's dressers grew gray in her ser vice. She always breakfasted privately. From the commencement of her reign, VICTORIA JUST AFTER HER CORONATION. cud notably after her marriage with the Prince Consort, it is a well-accred ited fact that Victoria would sign no paper which was not a mere certificate of an appointment or a commission un less she made herself acquainted with the contents by having them read and discussed in her hearing. As a climax to the ordinary business of every lawful day at Intervals the Queen received her Ministers and held lier Cabinet Councils. Here, as at her first council, she sat at the head of the -v '" "' ' 112— "ri.' —IWW— —MI KgjiiM'lAJ 1 MM| "»!»«ww—M—M TIIK CORONATION, JUNK -STII. IRISS. council hoard. the only woman pres ent. She WUH the oldest member of her <'akluet, ami presided over every »i»csin'd of poison fangs, but very few are duugerous to huutau bclus*. AM HISTORIC OLD MILL. Aneient Landmark That Dntta From thi Middle of Lmt Century. The "Old Mill" of Nantucket, Mass.. here represented, was erected in 1740 The stone which forms the doorstep bears that date. It is located on one of the four "Mill Hills." At various times mills on the othei hills had been built, the first being erected in 172:j, and which was an ob ject of an experiment in IS3O, havius been blown up by gunpowder to ascer tain the effects of that substance, il used to Impede the course of a fire. These mills had been used as signal towers during the Revolution to warn QUAINT OLD MILL AT NANTUCKET. the American ships of the presence and position of the British cruisers, tvliich were known to be near the isl »nd, but which could not be seen by :he American vessels. The position of ;he vanes indicated the position or di rection of the British vessels, and it is laid that many a full freighted ship es :aped from the British cruisers. The mill which yet stands was built probably for a man by name of E. Twain, whose sou, Timothy, tended it for many years. It was built of oak, taken from 'Dear Horse Valley," Just south of the Hill. In 1828 J. Gardiner bought 6 for >2O, with the intention of using it for firewood, but, however, finding the framework so good and sound, he de ,'ided to repair it 1 700-Ton ltock Swayed by the Wind. There is probably no greater natural ivonder anywhere in the world than ilie rocking stone of Tandil, in Argen tina, an Illustration of which is re produced herewith. Tandil is a small Tillage, reached by railway and situ- Ited 250 miles south of Buenos Ayres. The rocking stone, which has made the little town famous throughout Ar gentina, is the largest phenomenon jf its kind in the world. The giant aiushroom-shaped quartz boulder stands upon the summit of some pic turesque hills, a thousand feet in ROCKING STONE OF TANDIL. height, three miles from the outskirts of Tandil. It weighs over 700 tons, and it is so nicely poised that it roeks In the wind, and may be made by the strength of one man to crack a wal nut. Yet this boulder is so firm that, it is said, one of the old dictators, Itosas, by name, once harnessed a thousand horses to it, and was unable to dislodge it. There are. of course, many such rocking stones scattered about the world, though there are none nearly so large. In New York State there are two, one near the town of Monticello, of about, forty tons, and the other in Salem, of over eighty tons. The for mer is nearly as round as an orange, and so nicely balanced upon a table ot citone that a child, by pushing against either sine, can rock It back and forth. Implement to Open BarrclH. The purpose of the invention Illus trated in the accompanying cut is tc provide an instrument which will rap idly force the top hoops from barrels to allow the ends to be removed or In serted and the barrels headed up. A foot is provided, which rests either on : the chime and projects Inside the bar j rel or engages the head if the barrel has not been opened. This foot forms DEVICE TO ItEMOVE HOOTS FROM DAIUIELS thi- fulcrum for the lever, which Is pro vliled at Its outer end with a curved hook to lie slipped under the hoops when a downward movement of the lever detaches them from the s.uves, (he implement being IUO\ eil IWo or thret times to loosen the different part* of the lioop. When used on a bogs head or large barrel the fulcrum and hook eau be reverxed, when a lift In;; movement will have the euine effect. The Inventor Is Joseph A. Beronlo, ot Memphis, 'i'enn., ami lie claims thai (lie implement will do its work rapidly, without luxury to the barrel or hoops. BR. TALMAGE'S SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED DIVINE. Subject: FJeetment From Kden—lt Bbown Idleness In Bad For Man—Blessing* of Labor niches Are More Equally Divided Than It Generally Understood [Copyrlirht 19U1.1 WASHINGTON. D. C.—There in a great solace in this discourse of Dr. Talmnge for those whose lives have many anxieties; text, Isaiah iii, 10, "Sav ye to the right eons that it shall be well with hiin." Here is a promise for people who are all right, but who will come and get it? How many, or rather, how few, people do you know who are all right? If it were asked of any assembly that those who were sinless should rise up. none would rise, except imbeciles and religious cranks. An accident happened near sixty centu ries ago that started the human race in the wrong way, and we have not got over it yet. We know a great many splendid men and splendid women, but they will tell you that they have not always done the risht thing or thought the right thought. If it were any of your business, they could give you an inventory of frailties and mis takes and infelicities that would be aston ishing. Here, then, you say, is a Bible promise that goes a-beorging. "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him." It is my deliehtful work to-day to show you that all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve may appropriate the bene diction of my text if thev will first do the right thing. Over here in the next street was a man who in great misfortunes lost all he had and was positively beggared, but a letter comes from some European city, where the land records are kept, an nouncing to him that a great fortune is his. Now he is as opulent as he was pau perized. He doffs his rags and puts on respectable attire and moves into a home appronriate for a man of vast estate. His worldly circumstances were all wrong last year; they are all right this year. On the next street is a man who was from perfect health prostrated, and he seemed to be sick unto death, but a skillful physician took correct diagnosis of his disease, and by prompt and vigorous treatment re stored hiin to his former vigor. As to his health he was all wrong before. Now he is all right. In these two ways I illustrate my theme. By sin we have all been morally bank rupted. Christ the Lord from His infi nite riches pays our debts and empara dises us in Ilis mercy. From His richest wardrobe He put on us the clean robe of His righteousness, and gives us a palace in the heavens when we are ready togo up and take it. Now, as to our spiritual estate we are all right. We were morally diseased, hut Christ, the physician, by a bath in the fountain of His grace, cures us. Now, as to our spiritual health we are all right. That is the way we come to the righteousness spoken of in the text. It is a contributed righteousness, a made-over righteousness, an imputed righteousness. Tne moment you get into rignt relations with Christ the Lord that moment you can appreciate the magnificent comfort of the text, and I defy you in all this great book, from the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis to the last verse of the last chap ter of Revelation, to find me a passage with higher and deeper and broader and longer comfort than that of the text, which is as deep as the Atlantic Ocean half way between the continents, and high as the sun when the clock is striking 12 at noon. But I shall .be swamped with the oceanic tides of this subject unless the Lord help me to keen a foothold. "Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him." Bear in mind that but few people can stand worldly success. Water is a good thing, but too much of it will drown. Eire is a good thing, but too much of it will destroy. Light is a good thing, but too much of it dazzles and blinds. Suc cess is a good thing, but too much of it has overwhelmed many for this world and the next. If it were best for us, we would all be millionaires, live in palaces like the Alhambrc, and be as personally attractive as Cleopatra appeared to Antony. Hut the most of folks could not endure such superabundance, and it is absolutely neces sary in order to keep them right that 99!) men out of 1000 should find life a struggle. It keeps them out of mischief. After Adam was ejected from the premises where by ten minutes of employment a day he could keep the garden and dress it the best thing that could hanpen to him was compulsion to work and fight. The ground that bloomed with spontaneous flowers and rustled with harvests that owed nothing to plow or hoe became hos tile, and bramble was substituted for rose, and the panther growled where before he fawned, and horn and fang and hoof be came belligerent. That Kcienic ejectment shows us as nothing else ever could that idleness or only a few minutes of employ ment a day are doom and overthrow, l'ut it down among your blessings that you have to work hard with brain or hand or foot or all three of them. How many men do you know worth $250,000 who are devout and consecrated nnd humble and generous and employing their means for the world's redemption? You could count them up on the ringers of your two hands even if by accident or war you had lost one or two of the lingers. As to the realm of personal attractiveness, how many women radiant of countenance and graceful of form do you know who are unaffected and natural of manner and deeply pious before God, using their beauty for the betterment of the world and not for selfish purposes? I only take the risk of asking the question and leave to you the risk of answering it. These things I say to show you that in order to have the promise of the text fulfilled in your ease it is not necessary you have phe nomenal worldly success. Notice, also that God gives the righteous the power to extract good out of evil, and by a divine chemistry to change the bitter into the sweet and the harmful into the beneficial. The promise that it shall be well with you does not imply that you are to be free from trouble. There is no es cape from that. We all have family rela tions. and some of them will be making exit from this world, so that bereavement is the universal inheritance. The differ ence between the prospered and those not prospered is the difference in the amount they can afford to lose. The more wealth a man has the more he can lose, but one man can afford to lose a million dollars where another man cannot afford to lose ont dollar. On larger or smaller seilc all suffer financial loss. Amid the rapidity of the revolutions of the wheel of national and international finance monetary per plexity is as common as day or night. So also misinterpretation and slander come to all who live active lives. Our actions, thoroughly honest and above board. may come under suspicion. Every court room at every term of court hears illustrations of the delusions of what is called circumstantial evidem-o. Innocent men are fined or imprisoned or electro cuted because of an unfortunate conjunc tion of events. What misunderstood or misrepresented. Then : how can my text lie true? My explana | tion is this: The man without any divine grace in his heart finds in uw tottUN irritation and unbelief and melancholia and despair. A Christian man finds in them submission and enlarged view* and divine support ami reconsriration. lie reavement to the worldling brings hard thoughts of (Sod and a resistanee so vio lent it dares not tully express itself. Here t\em> lit til ings to the t ill istian the thought of heavenly reunion and i n. . > complete laying hold of tlod, -»tid a more , tender appreciation of the divine urvaence, > and deeper gratitude that »'• Welvi per- mitted to have the departed one so long; and a more lively sympathy for the sor rows of others and another evidence o| God's love, for "whom the Lord lovetfc He chaateneth." Financial loss, which I just now said it sure to come, never breaks up a man who has strong faith in God. In most cases il is a loss of surplus or it is the banishment of luxuries. Most of the wants of the prosperous classes are artificial wants* The late Mr. Armour, of the $60,000,000 estate, pointed to one of his clerks on or dinary salary and said: "That man hat better appetite than I, sleeps better nights and enjoys life more than I do." Oh, the gigantic miseries of those who have tot much! A man in Solomon's time ex pressed as philosophic and reasonable a wish as aiv man of those times or of out times. His name was Agur, and he of fered a prayer that he might never have a superabundance or a deficit, crying out. "(rive me neither poverty nor riches!" On the other side he had seen thi awful struggle of the poor to get food and clothes and shelter and to educate theii children, and on the other side he had seen the gouty foot, and the indigestion, and the insomnia, and the anxiety about large investments, and the threatened paresis often characteristic of those who are loaded up and loaded down with toe many successes. Those people who are generally called the masses—that is, the most of folks—have the things absolutely necessary for their well being. They have no Murillos on their wall, nor a "lielshna zar'a Feast" in their dining room, nor a pair of S3OOO sorrels at their doorway. But they have something which those superabundantly supplied seldom have— they have better health because, being compelled to walk, they get the necessary exercise, and, their diet being limited tc plain food, they do not suffer from mid night salads and are not victimized by rare caterers. They retire for wholesome sleep at the very hour in which others are leaving their homes for the dance or the card party. They will sleep the last sleep just as well in the plain graveyard as those who have over them an arch of bculptured granite in costliest necropolis or most his torical abbey. Things are more equally divided than is generally supposed. That splendid home is apt to have a taking off of some kind. It may be an invalid wife, or a deformed child, or an inherited tending toward in sanity, or a dissolute son, or a despoiled reputation, or a weakened heart that may halt under the least excitement. Envy no man. Envy no woman. Be content with such things as ye have. Do not think, in order to have it well with you, according to my text, that therefore you must nave more than some body else, or even as much as somebody else. The Lord treats us all better than we treat Him, and if we would study our blessings as much as we study our di6as ters we would be more reasonable and thankful. In Isaiah God says that bread and water shall be sure, and none of us has been put on so low a diet, but we often act as though Uod had not kept His prom ise because we want more luxuries, for getful of the fact that He promised bread, not cake, water, not sparkling cordials. The reason so many people are misera ble is because they do not let well enough alone. They are in one occupation and see its annoyances and so change to an other occupation, and find as many annoy ances, if not more. They live in one place and know its uncomfortable environ ments and move into another place which has just as many limitations. Their in vestments yield them four per cent., and they sell out to make investments that will yield ten per cent, and lose all. Bet ter settle down and stop fretting about yourself and the world. An officer in Cromwell's time was so worried about public affairs that he could not sleep. His servant, a Christian man, said he would like the privilege of asking the officer a question. Leave being granted the servant said: "Do you not think that God governed the world verv well before you came into it?" "Xo aoubt of it," was the reply. "And do you not think lie will govern it quite as well when you are gone out of it?" "Certainly." "Then pray, sir, excuse me —but do you not think you may trust Him to govern it as long as you live in it?" The remark was so sensible that sleeplessness departed and tranquility came. Some scientists are now discussing the opening of communication between our earth and the planet Mars. Experiments are being made, but they will not succeed. We cannot build a lire large enough to at tract the attention of that world, or lift a lens powerful enough to see any response interstellar. We do not positively know that that world is occupied by living beings, or that, if it is occupied, commu nication with them would be desirable. It might not be so good a world as this, and thus communication with it would be debasing. But 1 rejoice to know that heaven is in touch with other worlds for their improve ment, and a depot for glorious arrivals. It is a thoroughfare between this world and that world, and a coming and going perpetual. Going out of this world is as natural as coming into it, but the one is with pang, and the other is with rapture, if we are fitted for the uplifting process. It shall be well with you. Now, do not get so frightened about that asthma or that cough or that influenza or that threatened pneu monia. The worst thing that fatal dis ease can do is to usher you into corona tion and enthronement. It shall be well with you. Take as good care of your health as you can, have the best doctors you can employ, observe all sanitary laws, keep in this world ns long as you are |ier initted to stay, and then when the heav enly call comes be glad to go. 1 do not care much about what your "last words" are going to be. I'eople put too much emphasis on "last words." I would rather know what your words are now, in days of health and with mental faculties in full play—your words of kind n«'Ms, your words of sympathy, your words of helpfulness, your words of prayer. So live that if you say not a word dur i ing the last day of your life there will be ' no doubt here about the place of your des j tinntion. You will go right into saintly, < prophetic, evangelistic, apostolic, cherubic, | seraphic, archangelic, deitic presence. It shall be well with you. j Mother, you will go right up into tlte ! possession of the babj that the scarlet fe ! ver or croup took out of your arms, a sorrow that slill stings you. and you often I say she would now be so many years old I if she had lived. You will go into the presence of the olil folks, for I hope you are of Christian an ! cestry, and you will lind that they have no dimness of sight or haltiug gnit that re- I quires a staff, for they have taken a draft ' from the fountain of perpetual youth thai j spring* from under the throne of God. j Oil, the blissful companionship of henv !en in which you shall enter! ft shall be j well with you". I riug this bell of emanci pation anil triumph. 1 like the way the sexton rings the bell of the old country ! meeting house.l used to stand and admire I aim pulling the rope of that bell, lfe i rings it a good while, so that everv i i'm I house within live miles hears it He may halt a moment to take breath and give the sweet sounds time to stir up all the echoes lof the lulls. Ami when he is old and not I strong enough to pull the rone any more I then he sits and listens while his son rings | the church hell So my text seems a Iwll |of invitation and victory. I l«egau to ring lit hi the opening of this discourse. I | hope to ring it as long as I live, ami may ; those uho come alter us ki-ep on riuguig it till those farthest off from God shall ..line into the great temple of gospel com fort, and all the weary put jown their burdens at ita altar ami And that peace which the world can neither give nor take away. 'lhree times tuore 1 ring it It shall l>» well! It shall be well! It ahall i be well)