IF MOTHER WOULD LISTEN,
{ Jf mother would listen to me, dears,
8he would freshen the faded gown,"
i Bhe would sometimes take an hour's rest,
+ Ad sometimes a trip to town.
And it shouldn’t be all for the children,
{ The fun and the cheer and the plays
(With the patient droop on the tired mouth,
kL And the “Mother has had her day!”
t Trae, mother has had her day, dears,
° When you were babies three,
And she stepped about the farm and the
house
As busy as ever a bee.
When she rocked you all to sleep, dears,
And sent you all to school,
And wore herself out and did without
And lived by the Golden Rule.
evry
And so your turn has come, dears,
Her hair is growing white,
And her eyes are gaining the far-away look
That peers beyond the night.
One of these days in the morning
Mother will not be here ;
She will fade away into silence,
The mother so true and dear. 7
Then what will you do in the daylight,
And what in the gloaming dim ;-°
And father, tired, lonesome, then,
Pray, what will you do for him?
Ifyou want to keep your mother,
You must make her rest to-day,
Must give her a share in the frolic,
And draw her into the play.
And, if mother would listen to me. dears,
She'd buy her a gown of silk,
With buttons of royal velvet,
And ruffles as white as milk.
And she'd let you do the trotting,
While she satstill in her chair ;
That mother should have it hard all through,
It strikes me isn’t fair.
—Margaret E. Sangster, in the Interior.
TO THE RESCUE
BY RICHARD DOWLING
¥* NTIL my dying
hour I will re-
member my first
Sunday in Lon-
don.
In the middle 6f
the week I had
gone up on busi-
ness which kept
me closely oceu-
pied til Saturday
I was unacquainted with the
night.
city beyond the Strand, Chancery Lane
and Arundel street, in the last of which
I lived—at Weldon’s, a small private
hotel.
On Sunday morning came one of the
thickest fogs of the year. Misled by
the darkness of the midwinter morning
I was late for breakfast. When I got
down to the dining-room I found only
onegperson, & young man of about my
own age, at the table. He had arrived
very late the night before, and was
quite unknown tome: Hisappearance
and manner attracted my attention at
once. He was tall, dark, good-look-
ing, courteous. Several times during
the meal, at which he only drank a cup
of coffee, he seemed on the point of
speaking to me about something. He
was restless and overwrought. felt
strangely drawn toward him, and ex-
perienced a feeling of relief when at
last he said.
“My name is Victor Grame. ~~ The
landlord here knows me. Are you
going to church this morning? The
rest of the people have set off already.”
‘We were alone.
“My name,” I said, ‘is Marcus Fall.
I had intended going to Newington,
butI could no more find my way there
than through the centre of the earth to
New Zealand.”
“There is,” said he, ‘‘a pakt of Lon-
don to which if do not find my way in
a couple of hours I shall be a dead’man
beforenight.” He groaned and dropped
his head into his hands.
No one could mistake his words, tone.
manner.
“In that case,” said I, ‘‘cf course,
the fog will not hinder you.”
“No, no,” said he, raising his face
frqm his hands. ‘The fog will not
hinder me. I could find my way if I
were blind. It is the place where the
girl I am engaged to lives.” He turned
his pale face to the window and stared
at it with eyes that did not see.
‘She is not very ill, I hope?” said L
“No; not ill ; and yet she may be at
the point of death, If you have fin-
ished your breakfast, and can spare a
few minutes will you walk outside?
This place suffocates me.” /
When we reached the street the fog
was so thick we could not see the hause
opposite.
“I am in a terrible position!” said
young Grame. ‘‘I do not know a man
in London but Weldon, our landlord;
and he is too old for help. My girl's
life is in danger—in danger from vio-
lence.”
“Good Heavens!” cried I.
aren’t there the police?”
“The police!” he whispered, with a
swift glance round and then a look of
horror in his face. ‘‘The mere rumor
of the police would be fatal! fatal!
Her life hangs on a thread.” He leant
against an area railing and wrung his
hands.
In a while he roused himself, drew
his hat low over his brows, caught my
arm, and turning toward the Strand,
said :
“Mr. Fall, under ordinary circum-
stances it would be inexcusable to
trouble you, a stranger, with my af-
fairs. But the circumstances are not
ordinary: they are extrzordinary be-
yond bel»f, beyond endurance. You
are young yourself. You can sympa-
thize with me. If you permit me, I
will tell you how I am situated.”
“You may tell me with full assurance
of my sympathy and assistance,” Isaid.
“For twelve months,” he began, ‘‘I
have been engaged to Miss Folgate,
«who is now twenty years of age, and
an only child. Her father, a solicitor,
is tod Her mother was glad to take
‘‘But
‘| tracted girl.
her mother, and now and then I come
up to Durham to see her. Mrs. Fol-
Lgate is only nineteen years older than
her daughter. She is woman of re-
markably youthful appearance and
great personal attractions, romantic
and painfully anxious to marry again.
«For some time, a very stylish and
fascinating foreigner—a count, he says
—has been leading Mrs. Folgate to
think he wants to make her his wife.
Sir Arthur and his family are in the
Riviera. The Derby Square house has
been used by this foreigner as a postal
address. There have been meetingsof
foreigners in it—meetings of men con-
nected with some illegal scheme. Yes-
terday I got this from Miss Folgate.
As he spoke he handed me a ragged
piece of paper covered with faint pen-
cil lines, crossed and recrossed.
“You can’t make it out easily and
there isn’t time to puzzle over it. The
.| substance is this: Miss Folgate has in-
voluntarily overheard what passed at
one of those meetings. The conspirators
discovered her, and she is a prisoner
in Derby Square. If she makes any
disturbance, they will kill her. If they
are betrayed they will kill her mother,
who is no longer in the house. To-
day between 1 and 3 o'clock there will
be no one in the house but my dis-
I am going -to fry to
snatch her from the knives of those
murderous ruffians.”
«And I will go with you, if I may.”
He seized my hand and for a moment
could not speak. 4
“If you will help me to-day you may
| eount on my devotion for life,” he said
at length.
“Will you go armed?”
“Armed? No. Ifit comes to weap-
ons we are lost— we are dead jmen ; and
she—but I will not think of her. It
would paralyzed me, and the time for
action is almost at hand.”
| “How do you intend getting into the
house?”
«I must break in. You now know
how doubly dangerous is the enterprise.
It is not too late for you to draw back.”
«J am with you heart and soul,” said
I, taking his arm.
He set a rapid pace west.
“My poor girl,” he said, ‘‘is locked
in an upper room, no doubt. Iintend
getting in through the fanlight. Ican
stand on your shoulders. Once in, I
will open the front door. This fog is
all in our favor.”
It was a long walk, during which he
never could see across the street. He
seemed to find his way by instinct. He
never paused or hesitated.
At last he drew up. . ‘““We are in
Derby Square,” he whispered. ‘The
house is on the south side, No. 37. We
will cross the roadway and stand with
our backs against the railing of the en-
closure, We have twenty minutes to
wait.”
“Now,” whispered he, when he drew
up, ‘““weare directly opposite the house.
I know the spot by this drooping ash
tree.” He took off his hat and wiped
his forehead.
Those were the longest twenty min-
utes I ever endured. To him they
must have been hours. During the
whole time he never said a word. He
leaned motionless against the railings,
watch in hand, his eyes fixed upon the
dial. We could not see even the mid-
dle of the roadway.
At five minutes to one I heard a door
open and shut softly, then cautious
footsteps stealing away. I looked at
Grame. He didn’t look at me. He did
not move. He kept his eyes fixed on
the dial like one hypnotized. Igazed
at the watch myself; I found I could
not now take my eyes off it. I saw the
hand pass the hour: I saw itcreep one,
two, three minutes beyond the hour.
Had he forgotten, or was he really
hypnotized by too intent thought and
gaze?
When the hand touched the fourth
minute, he put the watch in his poc-
ket, and catching me by the shoulder
moved across the roadway and up to
the door of 37.
‘‘How will you break the glass? Will
there not bea great noise?” I whisperd.
“No; the fanlight is stained glassin
lead. Give me a back.”
In an instant he was up, standing on
my shoulders and working at the fan-
light. I could not see, but he must
have wrenched éut the pieces with
amazing celerity and care, for in a few
minutes he whispered. I am going to
hang on by my elbows. Take hold of
my feet and push me up.”
I seized his feet and pushed them up
with all my might. In another minute
he hadscrambled through and dropped
into the hall.
He opened the door. ‘Come inside.
Close the door and wait for me. If
any of these men are here and I fall,
fiy. All will then be lost. Save your
own life.”
He darted past me. For a few mo-
ments all was silent. Then I heard a
crash, as though of a door burst in.
This was followed by the soft, joyful
cry of a woman, and presently two fig-
ures ran down the stairs. I opened the
door, and the three of us darted out.
I closed the doo softly behind. Grame
led us across the road and we set offat
a quick pace through the fog in un-
broken silence.
When we were clear of the square
Grame stopped, took the girl in his
arms, and crying, “Thank God! my
Aggie!” burst into tears.
The instinct which had guided Grame
infallibly earlier in the day now failed
him, and we lost out way hopelessly ;
but we did not care. It was 5 o’clock
when the three of us got to Weldon’s.
The lovers spent that evening in the
drawing room, and I saw little of them.
The peril of Mrs. Folgate’s position
made absolute secrecy still imperative.
Next morning I met Grame at break-
fast. He said there was no use of try-
ing to thank me for himself or Miss
Folgate, whom Mrs.
bidden to leave her room, as she was
suffering from nervous prostration, but
the position of housekeeper at Sir Ar-
thur Penny father’s town house in|
Derby Square. Miss Folgate lives with |
that he owed me a debt he could never
pay. I was leaving by an early train
tor the West, and he promised to write
to me as soon as news had been heard
of Mrs. Folgate. ;
Four days later I got a letter saying
that Mrs. Folgate had been released
unharmed, and thet there would be
some reference to the affair in the
London papers that day or the day
after. Next morning the newspapers
had an account of the clever frustra-
tion by the Vienna police of a daring
and gigantic attempt to swindle the
banks of that city by a man.calling
himself Count Wolinski who, with a
half dozen accomplices, was arrested
just as they had brought their nefarious
scheme to perfection and were about
to put it in operation.
“The plot,” said the Vienna dis-
patch, ‘“was one of the most daring
ever designed, and among other of the
meens used by the swindlers to mislead
was the fact that letters for their basis
of operation, London, were addressed
to the mansion of a well-known rich
baronet, whose town house is in one of
the most select West End squsres.’”
A few months after I received cards
and wedding cake, which assured me
that all had gone well with the young
people; but from that day to this I
have not seen Grame, or Mrs. Grame,
who was Miss Folgate the first Sunday
I spent,in London.—New York Ad-
vertiser.
eer EG eee
Flesh-Eating Plants,
A familiar example of the carnivor-
ous plants or flesh eaters is the little
drosera, sO common in various por
tions of the country. The plant is
small and inconspicuous. The first
one I ever saw caught my eye by a
sudden flash of fiery red light, and
kneeling on the damp grass I fairly
caught the little carnivore in the act
which has rendered it so famous.
There were several tender, delicate
stalks in the center, and round about
it near the ground four or five singular
round, pad-like objects, about the size
of small buttons.
These were leaves and their upper
surface was covered with reddish ten-
tacles that stood boldly up, each bear-
ing a delicate drop of the dew that
gleamed and glistened in the sunlight
like a veritable garnet. Acrossthe top
of the leaves a long legged fragile in-
sect lay, caught butasecond before and
dying a most terrible death.
Five or six of the hair-like tentacles
were thrown across its legs and wings,
holding it down and pressing its body
nearer and nearer to the leaf, while
other rich blood red stalks were in all
positions,. bending over to encompass
the yiciim. The sight was a horror in
a miniature and reminded me of the
actions of an octopus, or devil-fish, as
the little cephalopod is commonly
called. Jt has eight sucker lined
arms radiating from a small, bag.
shaped body, and each arm has all the
sinuosity, all the possibility of motion
of a snake, ever undulating, quivering
as if with surpressed emotion, while
over the entire mass waves and varied
shades of color seem to ebb and flow
—California Magazine.
ttre norm
Miners Killed by Hundreds,
A frightful list of fatalities is em-
bodied in the report of the Secretary
of Internal Affairs, which is made up
from the reports of the Mine In-
spectors of Pennsylvania. This re-
port has just been issued, and the sta-
tistics ‘contained in it and quoted by
the Philadelphia Record are valuable,
for they show that apparently little
has been accomplished in the effort to
decrease the number of deaths in the
mines. The anthracite region of the
State is divided into eight districts
and over each district a Mine Inspector
has charge. He is appointed after a
competitive examination by the Goy-
ernor. The bituminous coal
region is also divided into eight
districts, each under the super-
vision of one Inspector. The total
amount of anthracite coal mined in
Pennsylvania in 1892 was 45,833,543
tons, and the total amount of bitumin-
ous coal mined was 46,018,277 tons.
While the output of the two great
fields was almost equal, the number of
fatalities in the anthracite collieries
was about three times as great as the
number in the soft coal mines. Of the
eight anthracite districts, fatalities
were reported from seven. The total
deaths in the mines in these seven dis-
tricts was 841 during 1892. The ‘In-
spector of the third sent no figures,
but the fatalities there added to the
other seven would bring the total up
to at least 870. This many men and
boys were killed outright, and several
times as many more were injured.
Figures were given by six of the eight
bituminous Mine Inspectors. In six
districts 103 people were killed and
probably thirty more were killed in
the two districts not reported. That
would make a total of 133, as against
370 in the ‘anthracite fields. Several
inspectors report that the greater the
proportton of foreign miners, the
greater the number of fatalities.
————— I ———e
A Railway’s System of Oiling.
The system of oiling the engines of
the East Tennessee, Virginia and
Georgia Railway is to allow so much
oil t6 so many miles for passenger,
freight, switch and work locomo-
tives, making a distinction between
the different classes. From thirty to
thirty-five miles to a pint of lubricat-
ing oil, and from 100 to 125 miles to a
pint of eylinder oil is considered good
service for large passenger engines or
heavy trains. For consolidation
freight engines twenty-five miles to a
pint of lubricating oil and seventy-five
to 100 miles to a pint of cylinder oil is
considered good service, and for
switch engines forty-five to fifty miles
to a pint of lubricating oil and 125 to
i
150 to a pint of cylinder oil. These
Weldon had for- | figures represent good average prac-
tice, but they are frequently exceeded
with light trains, there being a record
of a dight passenger locomotive run-
ning 200 miles with but a pint of
cfiinder oil. —New York News.
"GRAPES OF ESCHOL
REV.DR. TALMAGE’S SERMON.
——p————r
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine Takes Up
the Old Bible Story and Draws
From It Many Lessons.
te elle.
Text: *'And they came untothebrookof Es-
chol and cut down from thence a branch with
one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between
two upon a staff.” —Numbers xiii., 23.
The long trudge of the Israelites derossthe
wilderness was almost ended. They had
come to the borders of the promised land.
Of the 600,000 adults whostarted from Egypt
for Canaan, how many do you suppose got
there? Five hundred thousand? , DO.
Not 200,000, not 100,000, nor 50, nor 20, nor
10, but only 2 men. Oh, it was a ruinous
march that God's people made, but their
children were living, and they were on the
march, and now that they had come up to
the borders of the promised land they were
very curious to know what kind of a place it
was and whether it would be safe to go over.
o a scouting party is sent out to recon-
noiter, and they examine the land, and they
come back bringing specimens of its growth.
Just as you came back from California,
bringing to your family a basket of pears or
plums or apples to show what monstrous
fruit they have there, so this scouting party
cut off the biggest bunch of grapes they could
find. It was so large that one man could not
carry it, and they thrust a pole through the
cluster, and there was one man at either end
of the pole, and so the bunch of grapes was
transported.
I was some time ago in a luxuriant vine-
ward. The vine dresser had done his work.
he vine had clambered up and spread its
wealth all over the arbor. The sun and
shower had mixed § cup which the vine
drank until with flushed cheek it lay slum-
bering in the light, cluster against the cheek
of cluster. The rinds of the grapes seemed
almost bursting with the juice in the warm
lips of the autumnal day, and it seemed as if
all you had to do was to lift a chalice toward
the cluster and its lifeblood would begin to
drip away. But, my friends, in these rigor-
ous climes we know nothing about large
grapes.
Starbo states that in Bible times and in
Bible lands there were grapevines so large
that it took two men with outstretched arms
to reach round them, and he says there were
clusters two cubits in length, or twice the
length from the elbow to the tip of the long
finger. Achaicus, dwelling in those lands,
tells us that during the time he was smitten
with fever one grape would slake his thirst
for the whole day. No wonder. then,” in
those Bible times two men thought it worth
their while to put their strength together to
carry down one cluster of grapes from the
promised land.
But this morning I bring you a larger clus-
ter from the heavenly Eschol—a -cluster of
hopes, a cluster of prospects, a cluster of
Christian consolations, and I am expecting
that one taste of it will rouse up your appe-
tite for the heavenly Canaan, During the
past winter some of this congregation have
gone away never to return, The aged have
ut down their staff and taken up thescepter.
fen in midlife came home from office or
shop and did not go back again and
never will go back again. And.the dear
children, some of them have been gathered
in Christ's arms. He found this world too
rough a place for them, and so He has gath-
ered themin. And, oh, how many wounded
souls there are—wounds for which this world
ffers no medicament—and unless from the
" gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ there shall
come a consolation there will be no consola-
tion at all. Oh, that the God of all comfort
would help me while I preach and that the
Goa of all comfort would help you while you
ear ! :
First, I console you with thedivinely sanc-
tioned idea that your departed friends are as
much yours now as they ever were. know
you sometimes get the idea in your mind
when you have this kind of trouble that your
friends are cut off from you and they are no
longer yours, but the desire to have all our
loved ones in the same lot in the, cemetery ‘is
a natural desire, a universal desire and there-
foro a God implanted desire and is mighty
suggestiye of the fact that death has no
power to break up the family relations.
If our loved ones go away from our posses-
sion, why put a fence around our lot in the
cemetery? Why the gathering of four or five
names on one family monument? Why the
planting of one eypress vine so that it covers
all the cluster of graves? Why put the hus-
band beside the wife and the children at their
feet? Why the bolt on the gate of our lot
and the charge to the keepers of the ound
to see that the grass is cut and the e at-
tended to and the flowers planted? Why not
put our departed friends in one common
fleld and grave? Oh, itis because they are
ours.
That child, O stricken mother! is as much
yours this morning as in the solemn hour
when God put it spans your heart and said
as of old, “Take this child and nurse it for
Me, and I will giye thee thy wages.” Itis
po mere whim. It is: a divinely planted
principle in the soul, and God certainly
would not planta lie, and He would not
culture a lie! Abraham would not allow
Sarah to be buried in a stranger's grounds,
although some very beautiful ground was
offered him a free gift, but he pays 400
shekels for MacHpelah, the cave, and the
trees overshadowing it. The grave has been
well kept and to-day the Christian traveler
stands in thoughttul and admiring mood
gazing upon Machpelah, where Abraham
and Sarah are taking their long sleep of
4000 years.
Your father may be slumbering under the
tinkling of the bell of the Scotch kirk. Your
brother may have gone down in the ship that
foundered off Cape Hatteras. Your little
child may be sleeping on the verge of the
flowering western prairie. Yet God will
gather them all up, however widely the dust
may be scattered. Nevertheless it is pleasant
to think that we will be buried together.
When my father died and we took him out
and put him down in thegraveyard at Somer-
ville, it did not seem so sad to leave him
there, because right beside him was my dear,
good, old, beautiful Christian mother, and it
seemed as if she said: ‘‘I was tired, and I
came to bed a little early. Iam glad you
have come ; it seems as of old.”
Oh, it is a consolation to feel that when
men come and with solemn tread carry you
out to your resting place they will open the
gate through which some of your friends
havealready gone and through which many
gof your friends will follow. Sleeping under
the same roof, at last sleeping under the
same sod. The autumnal leaves that drift
across your grave will drift across theirs, the
bird songs that drop on their mound will
drop on yours, and then in stavless winter
nights, when the wind comes howling
through the gorge, you will be company for
each other. The child close up to the bosom
of its mother. The husband and wife remar-
ried ; on their lips the sacrament of the dust.
Brothers and sisters who used in sport to
fling themselves on the grass, now again re-
elining side dy side in the grave, in flecks of
gunlight sifting through the long, lithe wil-
lows. Then at the trumpet of the archangel
to rise side by side, shaking themselves from
the dust of ages. The faces that were ghastly
and fixed when you saw them last all aflush
with the light of incorruption. The father
looking around on his children and saying,
‘Come, come, my darlings ; this is the morn-
ing'of the resurrection.” Mrs. Sigourney
wrote beautifully with the tears and blood of
her own broken heart :
There was a shaded chamber,
A silent watching band,
On a low couch a suffering child
Grasping her mother’s hand.
But ‘mid the gasp and struggle
..* With shuddering lips she cried:
¢ Mother, oh, dearest mother,
«Sleep by my side, dear mother,
And rise with me at last.”
Oh, yes, we want to be buried tozwuder.
Sweet antetype of everlasting residence in
wach other's companionship.
When the wrecker wenr down into the
cabin of the lost steamer, he found the
mother and child in each other’s arms. It
was sad, but it was beautiful, and if was ap-
propriate. Together they went down. To-
gether they will rise. One on earth. One-
in heaven. Is there not something cheering-
in all this thought and sometHing to impress
upon us the idea that the departed are ours
yet—ours forever?
But I console you again with the fact of
your present acquaintanceship and com-
munication with your departed friends: I
have no sympathy, I need not say, with the
ideas of modern spiritualism, but what I
mean is the theory set forth by the apostle
when he says, “We are surrounded bya
great cloud of witnesses.” Just as in the
ancient amphitheatre there were 80,000
or 100,000 people looking down from the gal-
Jeries upon the combatants in the center, so,
says Paul, there is a great host of your
friends in all the galleries of the sky looking
down upon our earthly struggles, It is a
sweet, a consoling, a scriptural idea. With
wing of angel, earth and heaven are in con-
stant communication.
Does not the Bible say, ‘‘Are they not sent
forth as ministering spirits to those who
shall bo heirs of salvation?” And when
ministering spirits come down and see us, do
they not take some message back? It is im-
possible to realize, I know, the idea that
there is such rapid and perpetual intercom-
munication of earth and heaven, but itis a
gloriousreality. You take a rail train, and
the train is in full motion, and another train
from the opposite direction flashes past you
so Swismy tha you are startled. Allthe way
between here and heaven is filled with the
up trains and the down trains—spirits com-
ing—Spiie going—coming—going—coming
going.
That friend of yours who died last month
—do you not suppose he told all the family
news about, you in the good land to the
friends who are gone? Do you not suppose
that when there are hundreds of opportuni-
ties every day forthem in heaven to hear
from you that they ask about you—that they
know your tears, your temptations, your
struggles, your victories? Aye, they do.
Perhaps during the last war you had a boy
in the army, and you got a pass, and you
went through the lines, and you found him,
and the regiment coming from your neigbor-
hood and you knew most of the boys there.
One day you started for home, You said:
‘‘Well, now, have you any letters to send?
Any messages to send?” And they fllled
your pockets with letters, and you started for
home. Arriving home, the neighbors came
in, and one said, “Did you see my John?”
and others, ‘Did you see George?” ‘Do
you know anything about my Frank?” And
then you brought out the letters and gave
them the messages of which you had been
the bearer. Do you suppose that angels of
God, coming down to this awful battlefleld
of sin and sorrow and death and meeting us
and seeing us and finding ont all about us,
carry back no message to the skies?
Oh, there is consolation in it! You are in
present communication with that land. They
are in sympathy with you now more than
they ever were, and they are waiting for the
moment when the hammer stroke shall shatter
the last chain of your earthly bondage, and
your soul shall spring upward, and they will
stand on the heights of heaven and see you
come, and when you are within hailing dis-
tance your other friends will be called out,
and as you flash through the pear! hung gate
their shout will make the hills tremble,
“Hail! ransomed spirit, to the city of the
blessed I”
I console you still further with the idea of
a resurrection, I know there are a great
many people who do not accept this because
they cannot understand it ; but, my friends,
there are two stout passages—I could bring a
hundred, but two swarthy passages are
enough—and one David will strike down the
largest Goliah. ‘‘Xdarvel not at this, for the
hour is coming when all ‘who are in their
graves shall come forth.” The otherswarthy
passage is this: “The Lord shall descend
from heaven with a shout, and the voice of
the archangel, and the trump of God, and
the dead in Christshall rise first.” Oh, there
will be such a thing as a resurrection.
You ask me a great many questions I can-
not answer about this resurrection. You
say, for instance, “If a man’s body is con-
stantly changing, and every seventh year he
_has an entirely new body, and he lives on to
seventy years of age and so has had ten dif-
ferent bodies, and at the hour of his death
there is not a particle of flesh on him that
was there in the days of his childhood, in the
resurrestion which of the ten bodies will
come up or will they all rise?” 3
You say, ‘‘Suppose a man dies, and his pody
‘is soattered in the dust, and out of that'dust
vegetables grow, and men eat the vegeta-
bles, and cannibals slay these men and eat
them, and eannibals fight with cannibals un-
til at last there shall be a hundred men who
shall have within them some particles that
started from the dead body first named,
coming up through the vegetable, through
the first man who ate it and through the can-
nibals who afterward ate him, and there be
more than a hundred men who have rights
in the particles of that body—in the resur-
rection how can they be assorted when these
particles belong to them all?” :
You say, ‘There is a missionary buried in
Greenwood, and when he was in China he
had his arm smputated—in the resurrection
will that fragment of the body fly 16,000 miles
to join the rest of the body?”
You say, ‘Will it not be a very difficult
thing for a spirit coming back in that day to
find the myriad particles of its own body,
when they have been scattered by the winds
or overlaid by whole generations of the dead,
looking for the myriad particles of its own
body, while there are a thousand million.
other spirits doing the-same thing, and all
the assortment to be made within one day?”
You say, “If 150 men go into a place of
evening entertainment and leave their hats
and overcoats in the hall, when they come
back it is almost impossible for them to get
the right ones, or to get them withouta
great deal of perplexity, and i you tell me
that myriads of spirits in the last day will
come and find myriads of bodies.”
Have you any more questions to ask? Any
more difficulties to suggest? Any more mys-
teries? Bring them on! Against a whole
regiment of skepticism I will march these
two champions: “Marvel not at this, for the
hour is coming when all who are in their
graves shall come forth.” ‘The Lord shall
descend from heaven with a shout, and the
voice of the archangel, and the trump of
God, endl the dead in Christ shall rise first.”
You see I stick to these two passages. Who
art thou, O fool, that thou repliest against
God? Hath He promised, and shall&e not
do it? Hath He commanded, and shall He
not bring it to pass? Have you not confidence
in His omnipotence? If He could in the first
place build my body, after itis torn down
can He not build it again?
“Qh,” you say, ‘I would believe that if you
would explain it. Iam not disposed to be
skeptical, but explain how it can be done.”
My brother, you believe a great many things
you cannot explain, You believe your mind
acts on your body. Explainthe process. This
seed planted comes upa blue flower. Another
seed planted comes up a yellow flower. “An-
other seed planted comes up a white flower.
Why? Why that wart on your finger? Tell
me why some cows have horns and other
cows hive no horns. Why, when two obsta-
cles strike each other in the air, do you hear
the percussion? What is the subtle energy
that dissolves » solid in a crucible? What
makes the notches on an oak leaf different
from any other kind of leaf? What makes
the orange blossom different from that ofthe
rose? How can the almightiness which rides
on the circle of the heaven find room to turn
its chariot on'a heliotrope? Explain these.
Can you not do it? Then I will not explain
the resurrection. You explain one-half of
the common mysteries of "everyday life, and
I will explain all the mysteries of the resur-
rection. You cannot answer me very plain
questions in regard to ordinary affairs. Iam
not ashamed to say that I cannot explain God,
and the judgment, and the resurrection. I
simply accept them as facts, tremendous and
infinite.
Before the resurrection takes place every-
thing will be silent. The mausoleums and
the labyrinths silent. The graveyards silent,
the cemetery wilent, save from the clashing
last funeral procession comes in. No breath
of air disturbing the dust where Persepolis.
stood and Thebes and Babylon. No
of the Yeas long closed in darkness. No stir-
ring ofthe feet that once bounded the hillside.
No opening*of the hand that once plucked
the flower out..of the. edge of the wild
wood. No clutching of swords by the men
who went down when Persia battled and
Rome fell. Silence from ocean beach to
mountain cliff and from river to river, The
sea singing the same old tune. e lakes
hushed to sleep ir the bosom of the same
great No hand disturbing» the
gate. of the long-barred sepulcher. Alb
the nations of the dead motionless
in their winding sheets. Up the side
of the hills, down through the trough
of the valleys, far out 6 ‘cav:
erns, across the flelds, deep down into the
coral palaces of the ocean depths where
leviat! sports with his fellows—every-
where, layer above layer, ‘height above
height, depth below depth—dead! dead!
dead! But in the twinkling of an eye, as
quick as that, as the archangel’s trumpet
comes pealing, rolling, reverberating, crash
ing across continents and seas, the earth willi
give one fearful shudder and the door of the
family vault, without being wunlocked,|
will - burst open, and all the
graves of the dead will begin to
throb and heave like the waves of thesea,,
and the mansoleum of princes will fall into
dust, and Ostend and Sebastopol and Aus-
terlitz and Gettysburg stalk forth in the:
lurid air,.and the shipwrecked rise from the
deep, their wet locks looming above the bil
low, and all the land and all the sea become
one moving mass of life—all generations, all
ag with upturned countenances—some
kindled with rapture and others blanched
with despair, but gazing in one direction,
upon one object, and that the throne of
resurrection.
On that day you will get back your Chris-
tian dead. There iswhere the comfort comes
in. They will come up with the same hand,
the same foot and the same entire body, but’
with a perfect hand, and a perfect foot, and!
a perfect body, corruption, mortality having:
become immortality. And, oh, the reunion
Oh, the embrace after so long an absence!
Comfort one another with these words.
While I present these thoughts this morn-
ing does it not seem that heaven comes very
near to us, as though our friends, whom we
thought a great way off, are not in the dis-
tance, but close by? You haye sometimes
comte down to a river at nightfall, and you
have been surprised how easily you could
hear voices across that river. You shouted
over to the other side of the river, and they
shouted back. It is said that when George
Whitefield preached in Third street, Phila-
delphia, one evening time his voice was
heard clear across to the New Jersey shore.
When I was a little while chaplain in the
army, I remember how at eventide we could!
easily hear the voices of the pickets .across
the Potomac just when they were using or-
dinary tones.” And as we come to-day and:
stand by the river of Jordan that divides us
from our friends who are gone it seems to me
we stand on one bank, and they stand on the
other, and it is only, a narrow stream,
and our voices go, and their voices come.
Hark! Hush! I hear distinctly, what
they say. ‘““These are they who came out of
great tribulation and had their robes washed’
and made white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Still the voice comes across the water, and I
hear, ‘“We hunger no more; we thirst no
more ; neither shall the sun light on us nor
any heat for the Lamb which is in the midst
of the throne, leads us to living fountains of
water, and God wipeth away all tears from
our eyes.” :
eee eee.
Arithmetic of the Cambodians.
The arithmetic of the Cambodians, a
curious people of Indo-China, is de-
scribed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
as differing vastly from that of other
nations. In the first place their sys-
tem of enumeration is quintecimal by
counting upg to 5, as: $Mouille, pi,
beye, boun, pram (1, 2, 8, 4, 5) then
going on with pram-mouille (or5and 1,
and so on), In adding the Cambodian
does not write his numbers in columns
below ‘each other. . No matter how
many numbets he may have to add he
places the first fwo beside each other,
as. 247,872 53,723 with a vertical line
to the right! The addition is made
tical. Under this first total he writes
the next number and adds the two,
drawing another vertical line at the
side with the result as before stated
until all the numbers have been added.
‘While the process isasomewhat lengthy
one, mistakes are discovered at a
glance. Their method of subtraction
is also quite complicated. Supposing
that 657,869 is to be subtracted from
796,522, the operatio which the Cam-
bodians pursue is as follows:
657,869 | 128,553
786,422
First of all it will be seen that the
lesser number is written above the
greater one, and the operation is
begun at the left. Six from ten (says
the Cambodian, employing the 10 as a
fictitious number) leaves 4, and by
adding 7 (the first figure in the greater
number) he has 11, and 10 from 11
leaves 1, the first figure in the rest.
Then he goes on to say 5 from 10
leaves 5, and is 13. 1from13 leaves
12. thus giving thé first two figures of
the rest. In thie complex way the
remainder is at last definitely obtained.
In multiplying the multiplier is placed
above the multiplicand and each figure
in the multiplicand is multiplied by
each one in the multiplier, thus pro-
ducing an innumerable amount of
small series, . which must then becadded
in the same manner that has been
shown above. The method of division
is just as complicated, but enough has
already been said to show that the
arithmetic of the Cambodians is not
particularly brilliant for its sim-
licity. s
eae RS eee
Aged Poet and Sightless Child.
, One of the most touching things I
ever saw was at the anniversary cele-
bration of the Young Men’s Christian
Union.
Dr. Holmes and Helen Keller sat
side Dy side on the platform. Between
the two there evidently existed a bond
of sympathy, sweet in itself and beau-
tiful to see. ;
During some of the remarks the
sightless child was observed to lean
over toward the white-haired sage,and,
resting her head upon his shoulder and
throwing an arm about his neck, she
turned her face, beaming with intelli-
gence, up to that of the aged bard.
And he patted the full, round cheek
and kissed her, with a tenflerness that
drew tears from many an eye.
Dr. Holmes, when he applauds, does
so by patting one knee lightly with his
hand. Of course, this makes no noise
whatever and only shows that he apppe-
ciates what is said. Over his face
there plays a sweet smile, which, dur-
ing the whole proceedings of the even-
save | Ing in question, never left it.—Boston
of boefs and the grinding of wheels as thy | Post.
and the result:set down beside the ver-
old (
mod
bler
do 1
spru
unpr