aE rene ! TY TREES ny ET EG ANI SU JE STEADFASTNESS. | Waste riot the present hour in vain regret For prizes forfeited in days gone by; It naught avails for fair winds lost to sign {Or mourn the glow of suns forever set; {Entomb thy past, bid memory forget ig fixed and changing years that rear- ward lie; Charge but thy constant soul with pur- L. pose high, = life shall cade thee of its treasures yet. e Now is thine, a goodly battlefield “(Whereon all past defeats redeemed may be; {Fight bravely on and vanquished foes will yield _ Thy valiant sword a path to vietory, is cowards droop and moan, ‘It might “.~¢ have been!” «It yet shall be,” the steadfast cry, and win,’ ; —Donahoe's Magazine. 'A GENUINE SURPRISE. Beri, ——— BY HARRY GANUNG. ; ° HE station at Swampy Cor- ners was never a picturesque spot, even in toe blue glow 7 of the sunniest June day; but on this chill October night, with the first snowflakes of the season Hi eddying in the glow, undecided way that first snow- flakes have, through the gray air, and the tall hemlocks swaying this way and that in the raw wind, it looked especially dreary. Emily Elkton shuddered as she stood looking out of one of the panes of glass clumsily inserted in the long frame- work by way of window. «No, Miriam,” she said, ‘you can't ” «But I've got to go!” said Miriam Mudge, sympathetically compressing her lips as she tightened the straps of the parcel she was fastening one notch at a time. Y, ‘*And leave me here alone?” { “Nobody won’t hurt you, I reckon,” said Miriawn, a strong-featured woman of forty, with a bristling upper lip like a man’s. . $4If you go,” said Emily, “I'l! go too!" f «*Not much,” composedly spoke Miriam, ‘‘thar ain't room in Pete Mul- ler’s buckboard for so much as a sheet o’ paper arter me and him’s in. Besides, what'll your Uncle Absolom say when he comes back and finds nobody here. If the fire goes out, everything’ll ireezc stiff, and— Yes, Pete, I'm a-comin’; thar ain’t no need to stand there a-bel- lerin’ like a Texas steer! Good-bye, Emily! Ob, Iforgot!”—coming back, and mechanically lowering her voice, although there was no onc but the gray cat by the stove to overbear the words. «The ticket money and two rolls o’ gold eagles as the paymaster’s call for to- morrer in the noon train is in the red chest * under your uncle's bed. 1 reckoned it ’ud be safer thar than in the money-drawer. Don’t forget fo give it to him fust thing he gets back.” “Forget!” echoed Emily, wringing her hands in frantic desperation. ¢‘But I won’t be left in charge of itl I'll as- gume no such responsibility. I insist upon your taking it with you!” I The remonstrance, however, came too late. Miriam bawled out some indis- tinct reply and the next sound Miss Elk- ton heard was the creaking of the buck- board wagon as it turned the sharp curve below the gleaming line of the railway switches. i “She’s gone,” cried Emily, clasping her hands like the tragic muse, ‘*and leit me alone with all that money! And the navy camp only three miles up the moua- tains, full of Italians and Chinese and the miners at Lake Lodi and the whole neighborhood infested with desperadoes! And Uncle Absalom not expected home until two o'clock in the morning, and the bolt broken off the duor, and the key’s a misfit, and nothiog but a hook and staple between me and destruction! Oh, why didn’t I stay in Rhode Island? | ‘What evil spirit possessed me to come out here to Dakota, where one might as well be buried alive and done with it?” Emily Elkton sat down and cried heartily, rocking herself forward ard | back and sobbing out aloud, like a child whose slice of bread and treacle had been taken away from it. And not until the candle flared up, with an extra sized s¢winding. sheet” wrapped around its wick and the cat rubbed itself persist- ently against her knee, did she arouse to the quadruple fact that puss wanted her eupper, the fire was low, the candie needed snuffing and there was no sort of use in tears. Emily had come out West, partly be- cause there seemed nothing to do at home and partly because Uncle Absalom had written that oue of his nine nieces would come very handy for a house- keeper at Swampy Corners, 1n the State of Dakota, if she could be spared. The latter sentence was intended on his part for a sarcasm, but the Elkton family had received it all in good faith and held many a deliberation before they consented to let one of the nine young birds flutter out of the home nest. And more especially she had come be- cause she had incidentally learned that Andrew Markham was one of the en- jjineers in charge of the new line of rail- way on the other slope of the mountain, which undertaking involved the navvy camp and the great derricks and steam drills and the gangs of slit eyed Chinese and dark browed Italians. «Not that that signifies,” Emily had plausibly told herself. ‘‘But, of course, it's pleasant to ke somewhere within a hundred miles of an old acquaintance.” Andrew Markham had been to see her twice, and both times she had made up ber mind that the far West was the only place to live in. «He expects to se thought, with a soft lier face, ‘He ¢ i tle here.” u flusing she he has already | bought a sunny slope of land, where he means to build a house and bring a wife when he can afford it. He thinks that life here means twice what it does in the effete civilization of the East.” But to-night, with the darkness wrap- ping the little depot like a blaaket, and the wind howling down the mountain gorge, Miss Eikton would not at all have objected to some of that same sseffcte civilization.” Alone in the house! During the whole of her sojourn at Swampy Corners such a thing had never happened to her be- fore. TUacle Absalom had occasionally been absent, it was true, but Miriam Mudge was always there to bear her company until his return. Now that a sudden summons from her father, hurt in an ac- cident in the saw mill on Ragged River, six miles below, had called Miriam away, poor Emily was all in a flutter. True, the one train a day which stopped at the station was not due until seven in the morning. The telegram office was closed, and there was absolutely no care for her to assume except to put another log of wood on the air tight stove and go quietly to bed. But the very sense of solitude appalled her. Sheshivered at the very click of the snow flakes against the wiadow, the crack of the boards in the floor. theslow drip of the water into the kitchen sink, where Uncle Absalom had receatly in- troduced the modern improvement of a water tap, conngcted by pipes with the spring in the spruce glen above. «Why couldn't Miriam have stopped at one of the neighbors’ houses and sent, some one to keep me company?” she re- pined. ‘Andrew says there are some nice girls at Almondsley, down the mountain, and he said he'd like to intro- duce me to Marietta Mix, who teaches Sunday-school in the South Cleating, and does type writing for the company on week days. 1'm sorry, now that X tossed my head, and put on airs, and said I did not care to mingle in the so- ciety hereabouts. I must have appeared hateful enouzh. Gracious, what wes that?” + It was the clock striking nine, and then Emily remembered that she had no supper. Nervously glancing around her, she tip-toed to the cupboard, and to ok a olass of milk and a little bread-and- cheese. ' As she replaced the tumbler on the shelf she heard footsteps oa the frozen ground outside. «It’s my imagination,” she said, after listening for a second. “But I won’t be frightened so. I will be brave.” She took a hatchet, and sallyinz fortn, opened the cellar-door. “If anyons comes he'll sail down there before he can get to the door,” said she. Aud with two prodigious slashes of the hatchet she cut away the board path which led across a series of rugged bould- ers to the railway platform. ««There,” she cried, hurrying back to the inside warmth and brightness, as if a whole brigade of pursuers were at her Leels, *‘that's done! I feel safer now. But 1 must hang tae lantern out before Uncle Absalom comes back. I don't want him to fall down anl break his dear old neck!” She had just seated herself with a sigh of relief when something like a big fire- fly blazed on her vision—for a brief sec- ond only; then jt was gone. «+A dark lantern!” she said to herself. «I am sure now that I hear the sound of feet on the platform. There ars two or three people there— perhaps more. They have learned that I am ‘alone with all that money!” She clasped her hands over her eyes, and shivered as she heard a crash, a smothered exclamation, a sup- pressed buzz of voices, ‘‘Some one has fallen down the cellar! Oh, how for- tunate 1t was I thought of that!” And now a low whisper came up through the carelessly-joined boards of the floor. She could distinguish the words, *‘Hold on! Be careful! The iront door is fastened, for I tried it. You can all of you get down cellar, and come up that way.” Emily's heart gave an exultant jump. The cellar door, a mass of timber in which she had the fullest confidence, was securely bolted. She pesred out into the stormy darkness. By the occasion- | ally displayed gleam of the lantern she | could see a huddled mass of figures creeping dowa the cellar steps. Last of all disappeared the lantern it- | self, one leisurely step at a time; and then, consummating a plan which she | bad long been concocting in ber mind. Bmily made a dash out into the night, olesed the two divisions of the celiar door with a bang, barred them, and fled | panting into the house. By this time there was a brisk knock- ing at the cellar door, a crying out of, «Open the door! Let us in!” But to these calls Emily Elkton pad no heed, and it was only when a hand was suddenly laid on her shoulder from bebind that she uttered a piercing scream and lost all her presence of mind. «Why, Emmy!” exclaimed a familiar voice. “Why, child, what's the matter?” ¢«:Oh, Uncle Absalom, how you fright- ened me! Oh, dear, the cellar is full of burglars and robbers! Reach down your gun! Get the hot-water kettle!” “Burglars, eh?” said Uncle Absalom. «Robbers? Why, what on yarth did they come from? Sure yeain’s mistook, sissy? Anyhow, I'll be ready for em.” He advanced toward the cellar door with his loaded revolver in his hand. «Whoever ye be,” he shouted; *‘tell us what your business is or take this! Don't hold my arm, sissy! There can’t no more’n one at a time come up these core cellar stairs, and I reckon I'm a match for that much, if I be old an’ Stiff!” To Emily's infinite alarm he unbolted the cellar door and flung it wide open. There, crowding on the narrow wood- en steps, stood Andrew Markbam, the Miss Almonnsleys, Leonidas Mix and | Sister Marietta, and Dr. Cliffe's two chub- by daughters. «We came,” said Markham, rather shamefacedly, ‘‘to give Miss Elkton a | bi y surprise. We'ra sorry that—"’ | «Walk in—wslk in!” cried Uacle Ab- } af one full moon of broad om. hi smiles. “No ‘need of bein’ sofry for nothin’. You're all welcome! How on earth did ye know it was Emmy's twen. tietkr birthday?” «Marietta has baked a cake,” sad Leonidas, ‘*and the Cliffe girls brought a jug of lemonade, and it was brokea when I tumbled down cellar, and—" «Oh, that don’t matter none!” beamed Uocle Absalom, ¢*We're awful pleased to see you—ain't we, Emily%"” - In this auspicious manner bezan Em- ily Elkton’s first acquaintance with the young people who were destined to bs her lifelong neighbors. «But really,” said she, half erying, half laughing, ¢‘I thought you were all banditti.” «It's all my fault,” acknowledged honest Marietta Mix. *[ was deter- mined taat you should have a surprise, Andrew wasn't half willing, but I io- sisted. You see, I didn't think there would ever be any other wav of getting acquainted with you, Miss Elkton. And we knew that Andrew was so interested in you.” «Nonsense!” cried Emily, blushing. «Is it nonsense, though!” retorted Marietta. ¢ Well, time will show.” And time did show. Bix months af- terward—but, after all, where is the use of turning over the leaves of the book ol fata? Let all true lovers guess for them- selves how the matter ended. “But,” Emily acknowledged in her turn, ‘‘I never was so frightened in all my life as at first and never so happy as I was at last.” And she never returned to town life.— New York Mercury. — eS —ereeet Japanese Carpenters at the Fair. On the wooden island in the lagoon that separates the Horticultural Building from the ugly structure that wiil hold the official exhibits of the United States Government there will be a cluster of Japanese houses, erected by Japauese ar- tisans for the commissioners of the land of the chrysauthemum. Waoen these very attractive looking houses are en- tirely finished they will be viewed with great interest and curiosity by the visi= tors to the fair, for in many regards they will be very different from anything that the very great majority ever saw before. But the process of building was even more interesting than the finished houses will be. When the snow was over a foot deep this winter, and visitors to the works were very scarce on zccount of the cold, there was still always something of a crowd about the wire rope that was put up to keep visitors away from the Japanese carpenters and joiners who were erecting the houses in the island village. The wire rope did not keep back the more adventuresome of the sight seers, nor were those who invaded the forbid- den ground ordered out after they had gone where they had no business to go. Even a Japanese artisan, though clothed with authority, is too gentle and kindly und courteous 1n his nature to resent any friendly encroachment upon his rights. Those who went within the ropes saw unmoiested all that was to be seen, and every question that was asked was an— swered as fully as the limited English vocabulary of the workmen permitted. And what bright and nimble fellows these workmen were! It may be that they wero picked men, selected for their skill and intelligence. If they represent the average of Japancse artisans, then the average must be very high indeed. It seems almost a pity that these carpen- ters could not be kept at work all during the fair; such an exhibit would be as popular as anything within the grounds. After noting the nimbleness of the workmen and the intelligent expression of their faces, together with the pic- turesqueness of their dress, which seems to western eyes something likx 2 uniform, the visitor looks at the work itself, and is at once struck by its neatness. Even the temporary scaffolding is neatly and strongly put up, and tne lumber of which it is made is injured as little as possible. Instead of being nailed together, this scaffolding is lashed with cords. This is done with a skill that would male even a sailor man turn greed with envy. But though the Japanese workmea do many things in a way opposite to that employed by Europeans, they do not go so far as to build the roofs of their houses before makinz the foundations. At least such was not the method em- ployed at Chicago in making the build- ings there, for when the houses were very nearly completed the roofs had not yet been put on. —Harper's Weekiy. : ————— I ——————— The Cowboy's Accomplishments. One of the chief sports of the cow- boys is snatching a sombrero from the ground on a horse running at full speed. This is done by many. They have be- come experts in the use of a six-shooter (revolver), and a cowboy on the plains is seldom seen without one or more, of- ten two, buckled to his waist. It be- comes a weapon on offensive and de- fensive. Sometimes a roped bull be- comes so furious that the cowboy is compelled to shoot him. Usually the cattle on the plains are not dangerous. ‘They will seldom attack a man on horse- back unless they have been roped. Iia man was on foot a herd would run over him trying to find out what he was. A cow or ball is dangerous when roped. | It is not much of a trick to throw a lasso and catch a cow, but the skill, courage and strength comes after the cow has been lassoed.—Richmond Dispatch, O———— I ————— Aquaria For Hire. | You may hire almost anything in New York, even to an aquarium stocked with sea vegetation and strange creatures of the deep. The aquarium is an occasional | table ornament at a feast, and is usually | hired for the occasion. The trade in all the things that go to make up the | aquarium is a growing one in New York, | and those who engage in this business | have taken to themselves the title | aquarist. You may have of these gentle- | men almost any queer fish, at prices | ranging from ten cents to $10 per speci- men, together with any one of twenty varieties of aquatic plants, —Chicago | Times, MIDNIGHT IN TOWN THX DARK SIDE OF AGREATCITY ——ps Drawn By Talmage. Horrors of the Night and Awful Fate of the Gambler and Drunkard. rl © Text: “And the darkness He called night.”—Genesis i., 5. Two grand divisions of time. The one of sunlight, the other of shadow; the one for work, the other for rest; the one a typaof everything glad and beautiful, the other used in all Janguages asa typ> of sadness and affliction and smn. These two divisions of time may have nomenclature of human invention. but the darkness held up itsdusky brow to. the Lord, and He baptiz:d it, the dew drioping from His fingers as He gave it name, ‘*And the darkness He called night.” My subject is midnight in town, The thunder of the city has rolled out of tae air. The slightest sounds cut the night with such distinctness as to attract your attention. The tinkling of tha b2ll of the street car in the distanee and the baying of the dog. The stamp of a horse in the next street. The slamming of a saloon door. Thehiccouzh of the drunkard, The chrieks of the steam whistles five miles away. On, how suggestive, my friends— midnight in town! There ara honest men passing up and down the street. Here is a city missionary who bas been carrying a scuttle of coal to that poor family iu that dari place. Here is an undertaker going up the steps of a building trom which thera comes a bitter cry which indicates that the destroying angel has smit- ten the first born. Here is a minister of re- ligion who has been giving the sacrament to a dying Christian. Here is a physician passing along in great haste, ths messen- a few steps ahead hurrying on to the household. Nearly all the lights have gone out in the dwelling, That light in the window is the light of the watcher, for the medicines must be administered, and the feyer must be watched. and the restless tossing off of the coverlid must be resisted, and the ice must be kept on the hot tem- ples, and the perpetual prayer must go np from hearts soon to be broken. Oh, the midnight in town! What a stupendous thought—a whole city at rest! Weary arm preparing for to-morrow’s toil. Hot brain beinx cooled off. Rigid muscles relaxed. Excited nerves soothed. The white hair of the octogenarian in thin drifts across the pillow, fresh fall of flakes on snow already fallen. Childhood with its dimpled hands thrown out on the pillow, and with every breath taking in a new store of fun and frolic. God’s slumberless eye will look. Let one great wave of refreshing slumber roil over the heart of the great town, submerging care and anxiety and worriment and pain. Let the city sleep; but, my friends, benos deceived. There will ba thousands to-night who will not sleep at all. Go up that dark alley and be cautious where you tread lest you fall over the prostrate form of a drunk- ard lying on his own doorstep. Look about you lest you feel the garroter’s hug. Look through the broken window pane and see what you can _see. You say, ‘‘Nothing.” Then listen. What is it? *God help us!” No footlights, but tragedy ghastlier and mightier than Ristori or Edwin Booth ever enacted. No light, no fire, no bread, no hope. Shivering in th? cold, they have had no fool for 24 hours. You say, "Why don’t they beg?’ They do, but they zet nothing. You say, “Why don’t they deliver them- selves over to the almshouse?” Ah, you would not ask that it you ever heard the bitter cry of a man or a child when told he must go to the almshouse. “Ob,” you say, *‘they are the vicious poor, and therefora they do not demand our sym- pathy.” Are they vicious? S> much more need they your pity. The Cbristian poor, God helps them. ‘Through their night there twinkles the round, merry star of hope, and throughrthe broken window pane toey sze the crystals of heaven, but the vicious poor, they are more to be pitied. Their last ligt has gone out. You excuse yourself from heiping them by saying they areso bad they brought this trouble on themselves. I re- ply, where I give 10 prayers for the inno- cent who are suffering I will give 2) prayers for the guilty who are suffering. ing into the breakers, comes out from his hut and wraps the warmest flannels around, those who are most chilled and most bruised and most battered in the wreck, And I want you to know that these vicious poor have had two shipwrecis—shipwreck of the body, shipwreck of the soul—shipwreck for time, shipwreck for eternity. Pity, by all means, the innocent who are suffering, but pity more the guilty. Pass on through the alley. Open the door. Oh,” you say, *it is locked.” No, it is not locked; it has never beenlocked. No burglar would be tempted to goin there to steal anyUsing: The door is never locked. Only a broken chair stands against the doer. Shove it back. Go in. Strike a match. Now look. Beastliness and rags. See thoss glaring eyeballs. Be careful now whas you say. o not utter any insult, do not nuter any suspicion, if you valus your life, What is that red mark on the wall? Itis the mark of a murderer's hand! Look at those two eyes rising up out of the darkness and out from the straw in the corner com- ing toward you, and as they come near you ycur light goes out. Strike another match. ‘Ah! this is a babe, not like the beautiful children of your household, or the beautiful children smiling around these altars on bap- tismal day. This little one never smiled; 16 never will smile, A flower flung on an awlully barren beach. O ere iy Shep- herd fold that little one in Thine arms! Wrap around you your shawl or coat tighter, for the cold night wind sweeps “hrough. Strike another match. Ah! is it possible that that young woman's scarred and bruised face was ever looked into by ma- ternal tenderness? Utter no scorn. Utter no harsh word. No ray of hope has dawned on that brow for many a year. No ray of hope ever will dawn onthat brow. But the light has gone out. Do not strike another light. 1t would ba mockery to kindle an- other light in such a place as that, Pass out and pass down the street. Our cities of Brooklyn and New York and all our great cities ave full of such homes, and the worst time the midnight. Do you know it isin the midnight, that criminals do their worst work? At half past 8 o'clock you will find them in the drinking saloon, but toward 12 o'clock they go to their garrets, they get out their tools, then they start on the street. Watching on either side for the police, they go to their work of darkness. This isa bur- glar, and the false key will sson touch the store lock. Thisis ‘an incendiary, and be- fore morning there will bea light ou the sky and ery of “Fire! Fire!” This is an as- sassin, and to-morrow morning there will be a dead body in onzof the vacant lots. Dur- ing the daytime thes villains in our cities lounge about, some asleep and some awake, but when the third watch of the night ar- rives, their eye keen, their brain cool, thair arm strong, their foot fizeb to fly or pursue, they are ready. Many of these poor creatures were brought up in that way. They werebornina thieves’ garret. Their childish toy wasa burglar’s durk lantern. ‘Bhe first thing they remem - ber was their mother bandaging the brow of their father, struck by the police ciub, They began by robbing boys’ pockets, and now they have come to dig the underground pas- sage to the cellar otf the bank and are pre- paring to blast the gold vault. Just so long as there are neglected chil- dren of the street, just so long we will have | these desperadoes. Some one, wishing to make a goo Christian point and to quote a passage of Feripture, expecting to get a Neriptaral passage in answer, said to one of thesa poor lads, cast ou: and wretched, “When your father and mother forsake | you, who then will take you up?’ and the | boy said, *‘The perlice, the perlice.” in the midnight gambling does its worst work. What though the hours be slipping The fisherman, when he sees a vessel dash- | away and though the wife be walling in the oheerless home? Stir uo the fire. Bringon more drinks. Put up more stakes. That commercial house that oulv a little while azo put out a sign of coparinership this season be wrecked on a gambler’s table. Thera will be many a money till that will spring a leak. A Member of Congress gambled with a Moamber-elect and won $120,000. The old way of getting a living is so slow. The old way of getting a fortune is gn stupid. Come, let us toss up and see wao shall have it. And so the work goes on, from the wheezing wretches pitching pen- nies in 2a rum grocery up to the millionaire gambler in the stock markat. In the midnight hour pass down the streets of our American cities, and you hear the click of the dice and the sharp, keen tap of the poolroom ticker. At thess places mer- chant princes dismount, and legislators tired of making laws, take a respie in breaking them. All classes of people are robbed by this crime, the importer of foreign silks and the dealer 1n Chatham strest pocket hand- kerchiefs. The clerks of the store take a hand after the shutters are put up, and the officers of the court waile away their time while the jury is out. In Baden-Baden, when that city was the greatest of all gambling placas on earth, it was no unusual thing ths next morning in the woods around that city to find the sus- pended bodies of suicides. Whatever be the solendor of the surroundings, there is no ex- cuse for this crime. Iae thunders of eter- nal destruction roll in the deep rumble of that gambling tenpin alley, and as men come out t> join the long procession of sin all the drums of woe bz2at tae dead marca of a thousand souis. lan one vear in the city of New York there were $7,000,000 sac- rificad at the gaming table. Perhaps some of your friends have been smitten of thissin. Perhaps soms of you have been smitten by it. Perhaps taere may be a stranger in ths house this morning coms from some of the hotals. Ldok out for those agants of iniquity who tarry around about the hotelsand asx vou, “Would you like to see the city?’ Yes, “Hava you aver seen that splendid building uptown?” No. Then the villain will undercake to saow you whaat he calls the ‘lions” and tae ‘‘alephants” and after a young man, through morbid curiosity or through badness ot sou!, has seen the ‘“ions” ani the *‘elephants” hs will be on enchanted ground. Look out for these men who move around the hotels with sleek hats—always sleek hats—and patron- izing air and unaccountable interast about your weltare and entertainment. You are a fool if you cannot ses througu it. They want your money In Chestnut street, Phfladeiphia, while 1 was living in that city, an incident occurred which wes familiar to us there. In Cnest- yt strest, a young man went into a gam- b.i-.o- saloon, Jost all his property, then blew hv: brains out, and befors the blood was washed from the floor by the maid the eom- rades were shufling cards again. You s22 there is more mercy in the highwayman for the belatel traveler on waoss 00 ly he heaps the stones, there is mora mercy in the frost for the flower that it kills; there is more mercy in the hurricans that shivera the steamer on the Long Island coast than there 1s mercy in the heart of a gambler for his victim. In the midnight hour also, drunkenness does its worst. The drinking will be re- spectable at 8 o'clock in tha evaning, a little flushed at 9, talkative and garralous at 10, at 11 blasphemous, at 12 the hat falls off and the man falls to the floor asking for moro drink, Strewn throuzh the drinking saloons of the city—-fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, as good as you are by nature, perhaps Leiter. In the high circles of socieby it is hushed up. A merchant prince, if he gots noisy anl uncontrollable, is taken by bis fellow revelers, who try to get him to bad, or taka him home, where he falls flat in the entry. Do not wake up the children. “hey have had disgrace enough. Do not let tham know it. Husa it up. Bat sometimss it canuot be hushed up—when ths rum goucass the brain and the man becomes thorouzhly frenziel. Oh, if the rum touches the brain, you can- not hush itup. You do not ses tie worst. In th» midnight meetinzs a grout multitule have been saved. » want a few hundred Christian men and women to coma down from tha highest circles of socisty td toil amid these wandering an 1destitute ones and kindle up a light in tae dark alley, even a3 gladness of heaven. Do not go from your wall fillal tables with the idea that pou talk is going to stop tas gnawing of anempty staynich or to. warm stockingless feet. Take bread, take raiment, take medicin2 as well as taka prayer. There is a great deal of common sanse In what the poor woman said to the city missionary when he was telling her how she ought to love God and serve Him. “Oa!” said she, “if you were as poor and cali as Iam, anil as hungry, you could think of nothing else.” A great deal of what is called Caristian work goes for nothing for the simple reason it is not practical, as after the battle of Antietam a man got out of an ambulance with a bag of tracts, and he went dist-ibut- ing the tracts, and George Stuart, one of tho best Carisvian men in this country, said to him: “What are you distribusing tracts for now? There are 30)0 men bleeding to death. Bind up their wounds, and then dis- tribute the tracts.” We want more common sense in Chris- tian work, taking tae breai of this life in one hand, and tne bread of the nexs life in the other hand. No suca inapt work as that done by the Christian man who, during the war, went into a hospital wita tracts. and coming to the bed of a man whose legs had been amputatad, gave him a tracton the sin of dancing! 1 rejoica bafora God that never are sympathetic words uttered, never a prayer offerad, never a Christian almsgivingz indulged in but it is blessea. Thereis a placa in Switz:rland, [ have been told, where the utterance of onz worl will bring back a score of echoss, andIhave to tell you this morning that a sympathetic word, a kind word, a generous word, a help- ful word uttered in the dark place of the town will bring back ten thousani echoes from all the thrones of heaven. Are there in this assemblage this moraing those who know by experience the tragedies of midnight in town? [ am pot hers to thrust you back with one hard word, Take the bandage trom your bruised soul and put on it the soothing salve of Christ's gospel and of God’s compassion. Many have come. I see others coming to God this morning, tired of sinful life. Cry up ths news to heaven. Set all the bells ringing. Spread the banquet under the arches. Lot ths crowned heads come down and sit at the jubilee. I tell you thera is mors delight in heaven over ons man that gets reformed by the grace of God than over ninety and nine that never got off the track. I could give you the history in a minute of one of the best friends I ever had. Oatside of my own family I never had a better friend. He welcomed me to my home at the west. He was of splendid personal appearance, and he had an ardor of soul and & warmth of af- fection that made me love him like a brother. I saw men coming out of the saloons and gambling hells, and they surrounded my friend, and they took him at th2 weak point, his social nature, and I saw him going down, and I had a fair talk with him, for I never yet saw a man you could not talk with on the subject of his habits if you talked with him in the right way. I said to hum, “Way don’t you give up your bad habits anil be- come a Christian?’ I ramember now just how he looked, leaning over his counter, as he replied: ‘I wish I could. Oh, sir, I gone so far astray I can’t get back.” So the time went on. After awhile the day of sickness came. I was summoned to his sickbed. I hastened. It took me buta very few moments to get there. I was sur- prised as I went in. I saw him in his ordinary clotues, fully dressed, lying on the top of the bed. Igave him my hand, and he seized it convulsively and said: “On, how glad I am to see you! Bit down there.” I sat down, and he said: “Mr. Talmage, just where you sit now my mothar sat last niglat. She has been dead 20 years. Now, 1 don’t want you ts think I am out of my should like to be a Christian, but 1 have | mind, or that I am suoerstitious: but, sir, she sat there last nicht just as certainly as yon sit there now--the same eap, and apron and spectacles, It was my od mother—shs sat there.” Then he turned to his wife ani said: “i wish you would take these strings off the bed. “Somebody is wrapping strings around me all the time, I wish you would stop annovance.” She said, *There is nothing here’. Then I saw it was delirium. He said: "Just where you sit now my mother sat, and she said, ‘Roswell, I wish you would de better —I wish you would do better.” 1 said, Motner, 1 wish I could do better. I trv to do better, but I can’t. Mother, you used to help me. Why can’t you heip ms now? And, sir, I got out of bed, for it was reality, and I went to ber and threw my arms around her neck, and I said: ‘Mother, I will do bet- ter, but you must help. I can’t do this a'one’” 1Iknelt down and prayed. That night his soul went to the pt that made it. Arrangements were made for the obse- quies. The question was' raisel whether toey sbould brinz him to church. Some- body said, **You can’t brinz such a dissolute man as that into the church.” I said: **You will bring him ia the caurca? He stood by me when he was alive, and I will stand by him when he is dead. Bring him.” As I stool in the pulpit and saw tham ecarrying the body un the aisle, I felt as if I could waep tears of bloyd. On nue side of the pulpit sat his little ch'ld of eight years, a sweet, baautiful little girl that I had seen him hu: convuisively in his better moments. Ha put on her all jewels, all diamonds, and gave her all pictures and toys, and then he would go away as if hounded by an evil s~irit to his cupsaod house of shame, a fool to the correction of, the stocks. Shs loosed uv wonderingly. She knew not what 1t all meant.” She was not old enough to understani the sorrow of an orphan cnild. : On the other side the pulpit sat the men who had ruined him. They were the men who had pourei wormwood into the or=- phan's cup; they were the men who had bound him hand and foot. I koew them. How did they seem to feel? Did they ween? No. Did they say, **What a pity that such a generous man should ba destroyed?’ No. Did they sigh repentingly over what tney had done? No; they sat tuere, looking as vultures look av the carcass of the lamb whose heart they have ripped out, So they sat and looked at the coffin lid, and I told them the judgment of God upon those reform? I was told they were ia the placzs of iniquity that night after my friend was lait in Oakwosd cametery, and they blas- hemed, and they drank. Ob, how merciless men are, especially after they have de- stroyed you! Do not look to men for com- fort or help. Look to God. - But there is a man wiao will not reform. He says: “I won't reform.’ Well, then, how many acts are thera to a tragedy? believe five. Act the _First of the Tragedy a youn man starting off from home. Parents anc sisters weeping to hava him go. Wa rising over the hill. Farewell kiss flung Pack. Ring the beil and let the curtain all. ; Act the Sacond—The marriage altar. Full organ. Bright lights. Long white veil trailing through the aisle. Prayer and con- gratulation and exclamation of “How well she looks!” Act Third—A woman waiting for stag- gering steps. Old garments stuck into the broken window pane. Marks o! hardship on the face. The biting of the nails of bloodless fingers. Neglect and cruelty and despair. Ring she bell aud let the cartain a rop. Act the Fourth—Thres graves in a dark place—grave of the caill toat died for lacz of medicine, grave of ths wife that died of & broken heart, grave of tae man that died of dissipation. Ob, what a blasting heath of three graves! Plenty of wees, but no flowers. Ring the ball and le: the curtain drop. Act the Fifth—A destroyel sou’s eter- nity. No lignt. No music. No h Auguish coiling its serpents around the heart. Blackness of daraness forever. But I cannot look any lonzer. Woel Wo:l I close my eyes to this last act of the tragedy. Quick! “Quick! Ring the bell and let the curtain drop. *‘Rejoice, O young man, in days of thy youth, but know now that for all” these things God will bring you into judgment.” ‘Chere isa way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof is death.” Indian Self-Mnrder anid Selt-Torture. «sCases of suicide, especially by hang- ing, are rare amoag the Indians,” said Major A. V. Leiben, of Pierre, South Dakota, to the 3tar representative atthe Oxford. ‘The only instance that I know of where an Indian maiden com- mitted suicide occurs to me. Indian airls, like other maidens, tall in love, and it is nbt always reguitted, In this case she was jilted by a Sibux brave, and she thereupon hanged herself. Indians believe that if they die by hanging they will not enter the happy bunting grounds, which makes this case the more remarkable. Her lover married another squaw and the dramatic taking off of his first flame did not apparently cause him much remorse. Indians torture them- selves to show their grief, and the mother of this maiden hacked her body and limbs with a knife in great gashes until every step she took was marked with blood. ‘Speaking about self-torture inflicted by Indians reminds me cf the horrible sight one witnesses when a brave wishes to demonstrate his fitness to go upon the warpath and become a full-fledged war- rior. - Before this honor can be obtained an Indian brave must prove his worthi- ness. This is how they do it: They cut two deep parallel gashes in the muscles of the chest. A thong of raw- hide is 1nserted in the flesh and tied ina loop. This is then fastened to a bent sapling sufficiently strong and elastic to raise toe Indian off his feet. Here he will hang suspended by tae thong several feet above the ground, writhing and twisting in his agony, until the thong tears itself out of the bleeding flesh and he falls to the ground, sometimes in- sensible from pain. Frequently the struggles of the tortured man are not sufficient to tear asunder the quivering flesh, and he bangs there until he be. comes insensible and 1s cut down. Squaws and braves are seated around him in a circle, wailing and howling and beating drums. This terrible ordeal once passed signifies that the brave has the necessary courage to be entitled to promotion as a warrior, To see one or more, and sometimes there are half a dozen, Indians hanging suspended by thongs through their flesh without manifesting their suffering by cries of pain, surrounded by the members of their tribe, is a sight that indelibly im- presses itself upon one’s memory.”— Washington Star. ta A ——. | One of the smallest pieces of money at | Venice is’ called gazette; and as the literary newspapers, Which were pub- lished in single sheets as early as the Sixteenth Century, were sold for a ga- | zette each, newspapers were called, from | thence, gazette, or gazettes. who jad destroyed their fellows. Did they thy youth and let thy heart rejo.ce in the flame the rc _inflar tinue the st small perm itis a more cine | affect purif; and i in de tion, 2, on sent | Drug bus, | least 8ay, year fore pian year ly in Aft
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers