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I The Pigeon-Post at Sea and in War. ||
-itt 888 1^
IN France, during the siege of Paris,
at a time when the German
armies were surrounding the capi
tal and cutting off the Parisian
population from all communication
with the outside world. Monsieur
Rampont, the then Postmaster-Gen
eral, conceived the idea of intrusting
to pigeons the transmission of news,
thus giving the inhabitants a knowl
edge of what was going on In the prov
inces. In this way those members of
LfEGE-
KaWE/\ «b°rt«.Txr\c% T*"rc*
pr.\C«.S
A \/E.TERAN CARRIER
B|RD
Fo °K Tt *"
- oL t>
tiie Government who had remained
in Paris were putin touch with their
colleagues of the National Defense
who were at Tours. In order to at
tain this subject a certain number of
pigeons were conveyed by balloon from
Paris to Tours, whence they were set
free, bearing messages photographic
ally reduced to microscopic dimen
sions on very light collodion films. In
those days the despatch was rolled up
and inclosed in a quill attached to the
tail of the pigeon. By these means over
150,000 official and, at the lowest,
1,000,000 private messages entered
Paris.
The great French shipping company
known as the Compagnie Transatlan
tlque deserves the credit of making
the first attempts to establish what
may trvdy be styled the seapost.
On March 20, 1808, the steamship
La Champagne took aboard, for the
first time, eighty pigeons. Three
batches of birds were set free at a
short distance from the seaboard, and
this in most stormy weather. The
older birds safely reached their cote,
while the younger ones, unable to with
stand a pelting rain-fall, dropped into
the sea in sight of those aboard.
On the following day, and under
Jike unfavorable weather conditions.
La Champagne, having covered 300
miles, rescued the crew of the doomed
Bothnia. Seven pigeons were sent
lii '
1
THIS STRIP OF BAMBOO, CONTAINING
THE MESSAGE, IS FASTENED BOUND
THE PIGEON'S LEG.
forth, each bearing a similar despatch.
They took their flight at noon, and it
was calculated that they should either
reach land or some ship's mast. One
of the birds dropped on the deck of the
Chatterton, in the Bay of Biscay; the
Chatterton cabled to Paris and to New
York the loss of the Bothnia. A sec
ond bird was picked up by a freight
steamer, which thereupon shaped its
course for the locality of the disaster,
came across the derelict, and towed it
into an Irish port. A week later a
third pigeon, wounded, and minus its
despatch, reached its cote. The four
others were never heard of again.
The pigeons employed by the Com
pagnie Transatlantlque are selected
A DRAGOON SCOUT-HE CARRIES ON HIS BACK A SUPPLY OF
PIGEON ME SSENGERS.
with the most rigirous care. The head
must be big ami round; the bill rela
tively short and surmounted with a
fleshy, heart-shaped excrescence; the
ayes shine brightly; the breast must
bunch out; the legs be short; and the
wings must meet on a narrow and
powerful tail.
In addition to being endowed with
an extraordinary instinct for shaping
its course, a good carrier pigeon must
possess great rapidity of flight and
tremendous staying power. The first
named quality—the "homing instinct,'
which is innate—is not susceptible of
any improvement. The two others
may be secured by means of progres
sive and regular training. A pigeon's
education begins when it is but three
or four months old. It is conveyed a
mile distant from its cote and then set
free. The experiment is renewed dally,
the distance on each occasion being
imperceptibly increased. The bird's
education cannot be considered com
plete, however, until it has attained
the age of three years.
On land the pigeon is aide to cover
long distances, such as those between
Rouen and Brussels or New York and
Chicago. Its ratio of flight, under nor
mal atmospheric conditions, is never
less than 31.19850 miles an hour, and
never exceeds 40.85300 miles on a
long distance.
The pigeons are brought aboard the
Transatlantlque steamers in wicker
cages - having a hfcgnjcing trough. As
soon as the Freni , is out of
sight passengers r V< of sending
a dispatch are no >o prepare it.
In pursuance of thi _'t the passen
ger is handed a sni£ 'tangular card
on which he is to v.rte as legibly as
possible what he wishes to communi
cate, plus the name and address of the
recelver;tlie card is then handed to the
clerk intrusted with the transmission
of the message. The clerk puts the
different messages into a group.photo
graphs them on a plaque to which ad
heres a film, reducing the writing in
the course of the operation to such a
THIS PIGEON IS WEARING THE CHINESE
WHISTLE WHICH PROTECTS IT
AGAINST THE ENEMY'S TRAINED
HAWKS.
degree that it cannot be deciphered
except with the aid of a -magnifying
glass. The proof is developed, the
film detached and carefully rolled, and
then placed in a small bamboo tube,
hermetically sealed, and weighing
hardly one and one-half gramme. To
this tube is attached a light kid band,
provided with an automatic button
such as is sometimes used to fasten
gloves.
As soon as the tubes are ready the
pigeons are taken out of the baskets
containing them. These birds are ex
tremely delicate—the slightest crush
ing injures tlieni and renders them un
lit to do what is expected of them. The
clerk attaches each tube to the leg of
a pigeon by buttoning the kid band
above described. A pigeon is able to
carry a weight of fifteen grammes
without its detracting from the rap
idity of its flight.
The loosings take place in the morn
ing, or, if the skies are too overcast,
at latest before 2 p. m. Immediately
upon being loosened the pigeons circ'e
a few times about the ship, after
which they head straight for France,
in the direction of Reunes. On arrival
at the home station the tubes are
taken off, the films extracted from
them, and the photographic dispatches
enlarged to their original size. The
proofs thus obtained are pasted on a
glazed card ornamented with a pretty
allegorical design.
It has often been asked what consti
tutes the marvellous faculty of shaping
its course by the carrier pigeon.
Neither sea nor mountains nor forests
interfere with this faculty. The bird
steers its courre as If guided by a com
pass. As tV.e pigeon Hies at an alti
tude of not more than 1(50 yards to 180
yards it is not aided by its vision, for
In that case, given the rotundity of
the world, it would have to soar to an
altitude of 7070 yards. Now, accord
ing to aeronauts who have experi
mented in the matter, the bird at that
altitude quickly drops to a much lower
one. Are they then guided by mag
nteic currents? Are they endowed
with a sixth sense? The matter re
mains a mystery.
It is impossible for the pigeon car
ried away by a steamship to note the
course followed by moans of one of
ills live senses, since, during his jour
ney by rail from Rennes to Havre, as
Well as during the one by sea, he has
been altogether cut off from tne outer
world. And yet the bird possesses so
accurate a knowledge of the road it
has traveled that It makes for Its
cote without the slightest hesitancy
»nd at a very normal rapidity of flight.
The carrier pigeon was of necessity
111
! ' I
\
1' ~ i
TWO OF THE PIGEON-CAGE W AGONS USED IN THE FRENCH
ARMY.
to bo made use of for national defense.
During a campaign the success of op
orations depends at most times on the
rapidity with which the commander
in-chief is informed of the enemy's
movements. To this end use is made
of cavalry patrols and of the field tele
graph and telephone. But to insure
the safe arrival of information none
of these means is so reliable as the
carrier pigeon. Scouts are liable to
he made prisoners or killed, telegraph
or telephone wires may work faultily
or be destroyed. These mishaps are
avoided by the use of the carrier pig
eon.
In war time the role of cavalry con
sists more especially in seeing and in
reporting what it has seen. It is of
ten an easy matter to see. but to report
oftentimes attended by difficulties.
Herein lies the value of the carrier
pigeon. Troops on the march are ac
companied by portable cotes. They
consist of huge wire cages provided
with lateral shutters; the cage is trans
ported on a two-horse four-wheeled
wagon. When it is found expedient
to reconnoitre the position of the ene
my or surprise its movements a few
pigeons are taken out of the portable
cote and placed in a wicker cage in
shape like an infantry soldier's haver
sack; this cage is strapped 011 the back
of a dragoon. Dragoons are preferred
for this service, for they do not carry
4_J
A CASE FOR A CATtRIER-PIGEON.
any carbine slung about them, so that
the cage is more easily attached to
their back. The dragoons gallop off
in tlio direction ordered, and before
coming in touch with the enemy they
commit to a very thin sheet of paper
the result of their observations. The
sheet is then inserted in a tube, and a
little while after loosing the pigeon
the officer at headquarters is in a posi
tion to road the dispatch.
Di order to tight the carrier pigeons,
to stop them in their flight and inter
cept the information borne by them,
the Germans have trained hawks to
iiunt down these winged messengers.
The undertaking was at first attended
with difficulties, for, independently of
the necessity of establishing 011 a large
scale a system of falconry, the same
dispatch might be Intrusted to several
pigeons, and hence it wouul be suffi
cient for a single one to escape from
the talons of the birds of prey to wil
der useless all efforts made to capture
the dispatch. Moreover, the pigeons
are protected from the assault of the
hawk by moans of a little Aeolian or
Chinese whistle affixed to its tail. This
whistle sounds as the bird flies through
the air, and frightens away the timid
hawk.
In Germany much importance is at
tached to the use of carrier pigeons in
time of war, and in the German Army
♦" "> greatest care is devoted tj the
training of the birds, the officers and
men being given instruction in the art
of handling them. In France the
scouts are provided with a pigeon
apiece, which they carry in a little iron
case fastened to the waistbelt. The
holder has a hinged lid. which is
opened when the bird is to be released,
and the head piece can be unfastened
when the bird is fed.
In France carrier pigeons are like
horses—liable to be requisitioned in
time of war. Every year owners of
carrier pigeons are compelled to state
I at the Mayor's office the number of
birds they own: while foreigners are
no longer permitted to breed carrier
pigeons in the country.
There are at present in Paris some
700 owners of carrier pigeons, posses
sing 14,000 pigeons, 7500 of which are
subjected to a regular course of train
ing. The total number of carrier pig
eons in France Is 000,000.
The price of a pigeon varies accord
ing to its pedigree, age and degree of
training. Some few years ago, at a
sale in England, seventy pigeons
fetched $3449. One of the birds, a
cross between the Antwerp and Brus
sels breed, brought s24s.—The Wide
World Magazine.
THE AUSTRALIAN FLAC.
A Selection Made From the Thirty Thou
mind Designs Submitted.
The judges appointed by the Govern
ment of the Australian Commonwealth
have made their selection from the
thirty thousand designs submitted in
the recent competition open to Aus
tralian artists and others. The flag
decided upon has the Union Jack In
the top left hand corner, with a six
pointed stur immediately beneath it,
emblematic of the six federated
States, while the other half of the flag
Is devoted to depleting the Southern
Cross. The Government and official
color Is to be blue, while the mercan
tile marine of the new commonwealth
will fly the flag with a red ground. The
approved design was submitted by
several competitors.—New York Tri
bune.
Happy Course of a Bowlder.
One of the greatest curiosities In the
neighborhood of New York is now tc
be seen at the foot of the Palisades.
Between two frame houses built there
is a giant bowlder twenty-live feet
wide, which fell from a great height,
at the top of the Palisades, and sweep
ing down the front of the cliffs, up
rooted big trees, tore up tons of loose
stone and cut a wide swath the en
tire distance. Finally, after zigzag
ging from one side to the other, it
rolled In between two frame houses
and stopped there.
The people were asleep In the houses
when the rock started. They had bare
ly time to make their escape when it
made its appearance at their front
door. They are now thanking their
lucky stars that the enormous stone
did not hit one of the buildings.—New
York Herald.
Aerolite Bnrna a Barn.
It Is reported from Kieff that a large
aerolite fell in the village of Wislenki,
a few miles from Kieff, the noise of its
fall being heard for a distance of
flfteen miles.
According to a Warsaw dispatch (Oc
tober IS) in the London Express, the
aerolite crashed through a barn, set
ting It on tire, and within half an
hour fourteen peasants' houses were
in flames. A boy, three years old, was
burned to a cinder in one of the dwell
ings.
DR. TALMAGE'S SERMON
SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY THE NOTED
DIVINE.
Subject: Now 1A a Time For Rejoicing
Peans of Praise For the Victories of
Peace—This Triumphs of Husbandry
—Conquests of the Pen.
WASHINGTON, D. C.—This discourse of
Dr. Talmagc is a national congratulation
over the achievements of brain and hand
during the past twelve months. The
texts are: I Corinthians ix, 10, "He that
ploweth shall plow in hope;" Isaiah xli,
• "He that smootheth with the hammer;"
u Iges v. 14, "They that handle the pen
of the writer."
There is a table being spread across the
top of the two great ranges of mountains
which ridge this continent, a table which
reaches from the Atlantic to the Pacific
sea. It is the Thanksgiving table of the
nation. They will come from the East
and the West and the North and the
South and sit at it. On it are smoking
the products of all lands, birds of every
aviary, cattle from every pasture, fish
from every lake, feathered spoils from
every farm. The fruit baskets bend down
under the products plucked from the
peach fields of Maryland, the apple or
chards of Western New York, the orange
groves of Florida, the vineyards of Ohio
and the nuts thrashed from New England
woods. The bread is white from the
wheat fields of Illinois and Michigan, the
banqueters are adorned with California
gold, and the table is agleam with Nevada
silver, and the feast is wanned with the
fire grates heaped up with Pennsylvania
coal. The hall is spread with carpets
from Lowell mills, ana at night the lisihts
will flash from bronzed brackets of Phila
delphia manufacture.
Welcome, Thanksgiving Day! Whatever
we may think of New England theology,
we all like New Englana Thanksgiving
Day. What means the steady rush to the
depots and the long rail trains darting
their lanterns along the tracks of the Bos
ton and Lowell, the Georgia Central, the
Chicago Great Western, the St. Paul and
Duluth and the Southern railway? Ask
the happy group in the New England
farm house; ask the villagers whose song
of praise in the morning will come over
the Berkshire hills; ask ail the plantations
of the South which have adopted the New-
England custom of setting apart a day of
thanksgiving. Oh, it is a great day of na
tional festivity! Clap your hands, ye peo
ple, and shout aloud for joy! Through
the organ pipes let there come down the
thunder of a nation's rejoicing! Blow the
cornet! Wave the palm branches! "Oh,
that men would praise the Lord for His
goodness and for His wonderful works to
the children of men!"
For two years and a half this nation has
been celebrating the triumph of sword and
gun and battery. We have sung martial
airs and cheered returning heroes and
sounded the requiem for the slain in bat
tle. Methinks it will be a healthful change
if on this year's Thanksgiving in church
and homestead we celebrate the victories
of the .plow, the hammer and the pen, for
nothing was done at Santiago or Manila
that was of more importance than that
which in the last year has been done in
farmer's field and mechanic's shop and
author's study by those who never wore
an epaulet or shot a Spaniard or went a
hundred miles from their own doorsill.
Come up, farmers and mechanics and liter
ary men and get your dues as far as I can
pay them.
Things have marvelously changed. Time
was when the stern edict of governments
forbade religious assemblages. Those who
dared to be so unloyal to their king as to
acknowledge loyalty to the Head of the
universe were punished. Churches aw
fully silent in worship suddenly heard
their doors swung open, and down upon
the church aisle a score of muskets
thumped as the leaders bade them "Ground
arms!" This custom of having the fathers,
the husbands, the sons and brothers at
the entrance of the pew is a custom which
came down from olden time, when it was
absolutely necessary that the father or
brother should sit at the nd of the church j
pew fully armed to defend the helpless j
portion of the family. But now how
changed! Severe penalties are threatened
against any one who shall interrupt relig
ious services, and annually, at the com
mand of the highest official in the united
States, we gather together for thanksgiv- 1
ing and holy worship. To-day 1 would
stir your souls to joyful thanksgiving
while 1 speak of the mercies of God and in
unconventional way recount the conquests
of the plow, the hammer and the pen.
Most of the implements of husbandry
have been superseded by modern inven
tions, but the plow has never lost its
reign. It has furrowed its way through
all the ages. Its victories have been waved
by the barley of Palestine, the wheat of
Persia, the flax of Germany, the ricestalks
of China, the rich grasses of Italy. It has
turned up the mammoth of Siberia, the
mastadon of Egypt and the pine groves of
Thessaly. Its iron foot hath marched
where Moses wrote and Homer sang and
Aristotle taught and Alexander mounted
his war charger. It hath wrung its colter
on Norwegian wilds and ripped out the
stumps of the American forest, pushing
its way through the savannahs of the Car
olinas and trembling in the grasp of the
New Hampshire yeomanry. American
civilization Bath kept step with the rattle
of its clevises, and on its beam hath rid
den thrift and national plenty.
I do not wonder that the Japanese and
the Chinese and the Phoenicians so par
ticularly extolled husbandry or that Cin
cinnatus went from the consulship to the
plow or that Noah was a farmer before
he became a shipbuilder or that Elisha was
in the field plowing with twelve yoke of
oxen when the mantle fell on him or that
the Egyptians in their paganism wor
shiped the ox as a tiller of their lands.
To get an appreciation of what the
American plow has accomplished I take
you into the western wilderness. Here in
the dense forest I find a collection of In
dian wigwams. With belts of wampum
the men lazily sit on the skins of deer,
smoking their feathered calumets, or, driv
en forth by hunger, I track their mocca
sins far away as they* make the forest
echoes crazy with their wild halloo or fish
in the waters of the still lake. Now tribes
challenge and council fires blaze, and war
whoops ring, and chiefs lift the toma
hawks for battle. After awhile wagons
from the Atlantic coast come to those
forests. By day trees are felled, and by
night bonfires keep off the wolves. Log
cabins rise, and the great trees begin to
throw their branches in the path of the
conquering white man. Farms are cleared.
Stumps, tne monuments of slain forests,
crumble and are burned. Villages appear,
with smith? at the bellows, masons on the
wall, carpenters on the housetop. Churches
rise in honor of the Great Spirit whom
the red men ignorantly worship. Steamers
on the lake convey merchandise to her
wharf and carry east the uncounted bush
els that have come to the market. Bring
hither wreaths of wheat and crowns of
rye, and let the mills and the machinery
of barn and field unite their voices to cel
ebrate the triumph, for the wilderness
hath retreated and the plow hath con
quered. .
Within our time the Presidential Cabin
et has added a Secretaryship of Agricul
ture. Societies are constantly being es
tablished for the education of the plow.
Journals devoted to this department are
circulated through all the country. Farm
ers through such culture have learned the
attributes of soils and found out that al
most every field has its peculiar prefer
ences. Lands have their choice as to
which product they will bear. Marshy
lowlands touched bv the plow rise and
wring out their wet locks in the trenches.
Islands born down on the coast of Peru
and I'olivia are transported to our fields
and make our vegetation leap. Highways
by this plow are changed from boggy
sloughs into roads like the Koinan Appian
way. Fields go through bloodless revolu
tions until there the farmhouse stands.
In pummer honeysuckles clamber over the
trellises. On one side there stands a gar
den, which is only a farm condensed. On
the other side there is a stretch of meadow
land with thick grass, and as the wind
breathes over it it looks like the deep
green ocean waves. There goes a brook,
tarrying long in its windings, as if loath
to leave the spot where the reeds sing,
and the cattle stand at noonday under the
shadow of the weeping willows. In win
ter the sled comes through the craeklinrf
snow with huge logs from the woods, and
the barn floor quakes under the thumpinga
of the Hail or the deafening buzz of the
thrashing machine. Horses stand beneath
mow poles bending under loads of hay
and whinny to the well filled oat bins.
Comfort laughs at the wind rattling the
sashes and clicking the icicles from the
eaves.
Praise God for the great harvests that
have been reaped this last year! Some of
them injured by drought or insects or
freshets were not as bountiful as usual,
others far in excess of what have ever be
fore been gathered, while higher prices
will help make up for any decreased sup
ply. Sure sign of agricultural prosperity
we have in the fact that cattle and horses
and sheep and swine and all farm animals
have during the last two years increased
in value. Twenty million swine slaught
ered this last year, and yet so many hogs
left.
If the ancients in their festivals present
ed theit rejoicings before Ceres, the god
dess of corn and tillage, shall we neglect
to rejoice in the presence of the great
God now? From Atlantic to Pacific let
the American nation celebrate the victories
of the plow.
I come next to speak of the conquests
of the American hammer. Its iron arm
has fought its way down from the begin
ning to the present. Under its swing the
city of Knoch rose, and the foundry of
Tubal Cain resounded, and the ark floated
on the deluge. At its clang ancient tem
ples spread their magnificence and char
iots rushed out fit for the battle. Its iron
fist smote the marble of Paros, and it rose
in sculptured Minervas and struck the
l'entelican mines until from them a Par
thenon was reared whiter than a palace
of ice and pure as an angel's dream.
Damascus and Jerusalem ana Rome and
Venice and Paris and London and Phila
delphia and New York and Washington
arc but the long protracted echoes of the
hammer. Under the hammer everywhere
dwellings have gone up, ornate and luxu
rious. Sehoolhouses, Ivceums, hospitals
and asylums have added additional glory
to the enterprise as well as the bene
ficence of the American people.
Vast public works have been construct*
ed, bridges have been built over rivers
and tunnels dug under mountains and
churches of matchless beauty have gona
up for Him who had not where to lay
His head, and the old theory is exploded
that because Christ was born in a manges
we must always worship Him in a barn.
Kdward Kggleston and Will Carlcton
and Mark Twain and John Kendrick
Pangs and Marion Harland and Margaret
Sangster and Stockton and Churchill and
Hopkinson Smith and Irving Bacheller and
Julia Ward Howe and Amelia Parr and
Brander Matthews and Thomas Nelson-
Page and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and
William Dean Howells and a score of oth
ers, some of them fixed stars and some
meteors.
As the pen has advanced our colleges
and universities and observatories have
followed the waving of its plume. Our lit
erature is of two kinds —that on foot and
that on the wing. 15y the former I mean
the firm and substantial works tvhich will
go down through the centuries. When, on
the other hand, I speak of literature on
the wing, I mean tne newspapers of the
land. They fly swiftly and vanish, but
leave permanent results upon the public
mind. They fall noiselessly as a snow
flake, but with the strength of an AUiine
glacier.
This unparalleled multiplication of intel
ligence will either make or break us.
Every morning and evening our telegraph
offices, with huge wire rakes, gather up
the news of the nation and of the whole
world, and men write to some purpose
when they make a pen out of a thunder
bolt.
It needs great energy and decision and
perseverance for a man to be ignorant in
this country to-dav. It seems to me that
it requires more effort for him to keep out
knowledge than to let it in. The mail
bags at the smallest pos to dices disgorge
large packages of intelligence for the peo
ple. Academies with maps, globes and
philosophic apparatus have been taking
the places of those institutions where thir
ty or fortv years ago you were put to the
torture. Men selected for their qualifica
tions are intrusted with the education of
our youth instead of those teachers who
formerly with a drover's shout and goad
compelled the young generations up the
hill of science. Happy childhood! What
with broken tops and torn kites and the
trial of losing the best marble and stump
ing your foot against a stone and some
body sticking a pin into you to see wheth
er you will jump and examination day,
with four or five wise men looking over
their spectacles to see if you can parse the
first page in Young's "Night Thoughts"
until verbs and conjunctions and partici
ples and prepositions get into a grand riot.
How things have marvelously changed!-
We used to cry because we had togo to
school. Now children cry if they cannot
go. Many of them can intelligently dis»
cuss political topics long before they have
seen a ballot box or, teased bv some poetic,
muse, can compose articles for the news
papers. Philosophy and astronomy and
chemistry have been so improved that he
must be a genius at dullness who knows
nothing about them.
On one shelf of a poor man's library is
more |iractical knowledge than in the 400,-
000 volumes of ancient Alexandria, and
education is possible for the most indigent,
and no legislature or congress for the last
fifty years has assembled which has not
had it in rail splitters and farmers and
drovers or men who have been accustomed
to toiling with the hand and the foot.
T.ift up your eyes, O nation of God's
right hand, at the glorious prospectant
Build larger your barns for the harvests;
dig deeper the vats for the spoil of the
vineyards; enlarge the warehouses for the
merchandise; multiply galleries of art for
the nictures and statues. Advance, O na
tion of God's right hand, but remember
that national wealth, if unsanctified, is
sumptuous waste, is moral ruin, is mapnifi
cent woe, is splendid rottenness, is gilded
death' Woe to us for the wine vats if
drunkenness wallows in them! Woe to us
for the harvests if greed sickles them!
Woe to us for the merchandise if avarice
swallows it! Woe to us for the cities if
misrule walks them! Woe to the land if
God defying crime debauches it! Our only
safety is in more Bibles, more churches,
more free schools, more good men and
more good women, more consecrated print
ing presses, more of the glorious gospel of
the Son of God, which will yet extirpate
all wrongs and introduce all blessedness.
But the preachers on Thanksgiving
morning will not detain with long ser
mons their hearers from the home group.
The housekeepers will be angry if the
guests do not arrive until the viands are
cold. Set the chairs to the table—the cas"
chairs for grandfather and grandmoth
if they be still alive; the high chair 1
the youngest, but not the least. Then p
out your hand to take the full cup
thanksgiving. I.ift it and bring it towai.
your lips, your hands trembling with emo
tion. and if the chalice shall overflow an*
trickle a few drops on the white cloth that
covers the table do not be disturbed, but
let it suggest to you the words of the
psalmist and lead you : nankfully to say,
"My cup runneth over!"
[CovyrlKbt, ISM. L. KIOD.HII.]