EB RT Te Ta res
UNSHED,
The tears wo shed on earth God knows
In agony must fall,
But, oh! the tears wa never shed
Are bitterer than all.
For like the summer rain to flowers
Come toars to those who weap, L
But as the hot dust in their hearts
Are those that they must keep.
—Ethel Leitner, in Frank Leslie’s Monthly. |
BY MUTUAL CONSENT.
HERE was no doubt
that the Messin-
gers were fortu-
nate in possessing
#0 charming a
house as the Ness.
t was built at the
head of a narrow
valley shut in by
two hills, and be-
yond the sloping lawns stretched a
wide expanse of sea.
Mr. and Murs. Messinger were sim-
ple unaffected people, devoted to their
children, and to Nancy, Mrs. Messin-
ger’s young step-sister. They treated
her with a kind of reverential tender-
ness, chiefly due to the fact that she
was entirely dependent on them. And
in her turn, Nancy filled the place ofa
loving elder sister to the tribe of little
ones, and of friend-in-chief to her
gentle sister-in-law.
One sunny afternoon in early sum-
mer Mrs. Messinger sat at ths open
bay window of the drawing room, read-
ing. She was a placid little lady, sel-
dom ruffled in mind or temper, and
her sweet face and soft blue eyes were
pleasant to contemplate. The
opened presently, and Nancy came in
rather slowly. Her expression was as
sweet and gentle as her sister's, but
her greet dark eyes and firmly cut
mouth and chin bore evidence of much
greater strength and individuality of
character. She came over to the win-
dow and seated herself in alow bas-
ket-chair with an air of constraint.
“I have had a letter from Jim,”
‘said.
“Yes; I saw it on the hall table,”
replied Mary, laying down her book.
*‘Does he say when he is coming?”
‘Yes; he came by the same steam-
ship as the letter. He will be here to-
morrow, I suppose.”
“Nancy! really?” asked Mary, look-
ing almost excited. *‘Are you not
delighted?”
¢‘[—f—have a conleszicn to make,’
sald Nancy, nervously, looking out
over thesza. ‘I thought I loved Jim
when he went out to India five years
ago, but I was only seventeen then,
and did not realize what love meant.
We had known each other all our lives,
and I mistook our friendship forlove.’’
“When did you make this terrible
discovery?’ asked Mary, in distress.
“I have felt it dimly for a year or
two, but what made it all clear to me
was Jim's last letter, saying that he
was coming home. It filled me with
dismay and fear. I felt that I simply
sculd not meet him as his bethrothed
wife, so I wrote last mail, and asked
him to release me from my engage-
ment.” .
‘‘And what does he say ?”’ Mary asked,
she
3
anxiously.
“He fa delighted,” said Nancy,
brightening. ‘‘Hesays that his feel-
ings have changed too.”
“I always think of you in the future
=5 his wife,” sighed Mrs. Messinger,
whose mind was slow to welcome new
édeas. ‘‘Are you sure you are wise,
dear?”
*Quite sure,” Nancy answered,
firmiy. ‘‘And you willbreak the news
gently to Ned, won't you? And please
getreconciled to the arrangement soon.
I feel so delightfully airy and free!”
““You never hinted at any change
before.” said Mary, a little reproach-
fully.
“f only knew it dimly, or I might
have done 80,” replied replied Nancy,
gently. ‘‘And since I wrote to him I
have been silenf, to spare you any
anxiety, I have felt it for the last
three years in writing to him. My
|letters have never been from the
present Napey, but from the
Nancy as I could remember her
at seventeen. In fact, I have been
‘writing down’ to the level of his in-
telligence as shown in his letters, and
that level is painfully low. But hap-
pily, you see, he is as pleased to end
our engagement as [ am.” .
‘‘He would be much more likely to
object if he once saw you,” said Mary,
frankly, ‘for these five years have
done wonders with you in every way.”
“Oh, he is so boyish that he will
think me strong-minded, and therefore
dislike me,” said Nancy, laughingly.
‘And I did send him my last photo-
graph, you know.”
“Did you send that hideous thing?”
asked Mary in surprise.
“Well,” confessed Mary, rather re-
luctantly, ‘I believe had some secret,
unconfessed hope that he would offer
to break off the engagement if he once
saw that hideous caricature. But here
comes Ned; I shall leave you to ex-
plain things to him.”
A day or two later Nancy started for
her nsual afternoon walk along the
cliffs. Since she had been released
from the engagement, which for some
years past had been weighing on her
spirit, she had been in a state of ex-
hilaration which surprised her. The
world seemed wholly beautifully ; life
was an unmixed blessing; sin and
poverty were raver than she had
thought. Walking quickly along,
absorbed in these pleasant reflections,
she did not hear footsteps behind her,
and was surprised at hearing herself
suddenly addressed. Looking up with
startled eyes she found a young man
gazing at her with a puzzled, intent
expression in his handsome face.
‘You are Nancy, are you not?’ he
said, doubtfully, holding out his hand.
“Why, Jim, is it really you?" asked
Nancy, regarding him with surprise
‘‘How you have grown! When did you
come? and how did you find me?”
door |
“T came two days age,” he said, red-
dening slightly in irritation at her first
words. ‘Father was anxious that I
should stay with him yesterday, but 1
called at the Ness this afternoon, and
Mrs, Messinger told me where I should
find you.”
““Liet us go home now, and then you
can see them all,” she said, turning
back. “You will hardly know the
ehildren ;
you lett.”
“‘[ certainly shail not, if they have
altered as much as you have done. 1
scarcely knew you,” he said, looking
they were such mites when
down at her with intent gray eyes,and |
beautiful, |
graceful girl with the gauche school- |
inwardly comparing this
girl of five years since.
“I am older,” she said, her heart
sinking strangely. ‘He might dis-
8 gel) 8
guise the tact that he finds me a dis-
appointing failure,” she thought,
rather bitterly.
“Of course we are no longer boy and
girl,” he said. “But I hope we shall
always be friends, Nancy! We have
been that all our lives, haven't we?”
“Yes, let us be friends,” she said.
And thinking that he was eager to im-
press upon her that they were to be
nothing more, she added. ‘And it
was very wise to break off that child-
ish engagement before you came home,
wasn't 142”
*Y —vyes,” he said, doubtfluly, ‘‘oh,
yes, of course. Your feelings are
naturally quite changed, I suppose,
Naney ?”
“Naturally, she said calmly, but
thinking to herself that she was not so
suze about that, after all.
¢‘Naturally,”” he echosd, his eyes,
however, becoming =a little clouded.
“Those boy and girl engagements
never answer, do they? People de-
velop so differently from what one
would expect. Judging from your let-
ters, I should have thought you ntter-
ly different from what I find you.”
“You are equally different from what
I should have expected you to be,”
answered. “But let us put up
with each other as we are; we need
not see much of one another, you
know.”
They had just reached the gate lend-
{ng into tie garden of the Ness, as
she said this, and unconsciously she
paused outside. Jim took this,
coupled with her last words, as a hint
that he should go, and was more hurt
than he carad to own.
“Good afternoon,” he said, stiffly,
raising his hat. ‘‘Your suggestion is
a brilliant one, and you need not fear
that I shall tronble you with my pres-
ence more often than is necessary.”
“You are coming in?” she said,
looking at him with pained, pleading
eyes.
“Thank you, no,” he said coldly.
“I have seen Mrs. Messinger and your
brother, and the children will keep.”
“(tood-by,” she said, turning in at
the open gate in order that he should
not see the rising tears.
“Good-by,” he said, freezingly,
thinking her absolutely cruel in not
shaking hands. She went up the little
sloping avenue slowly and sadly, try-
ing to crush back the tears which
would rise to her eyes in spite of her
efforts. She had succeeded before
reaching the hall, and could answer
her sister’s surprised questions quite
calmly.
“My dear Mary,” she said, laughing
gently, ‘you forget our changed rela-
tions. You must not expect him to
come as often a8 he used. We have
both come to the conclusion that we
are quite different from what we had
thought each other, and we have mu-
tually agreed to see as little as possible
of one another.”
But when she reached her own
room her self-control deserted her, and
she cast herself down on the little
couch and wept long and bitterly.
¢“] hate him!” she said to herself,
vindictively. 4] do; I hate him!
No, I dont; I believe I do the very
opposite. Oh, I ought to be ashamed
of myself to care for one so utterly
indifferent to me! He didn’t even
come in, and after all these years! He
shall never know that I love him,
never! However much I may suffer,
1 have enough pride to hide it. He
shall think me as indifferent as he is
himself.”
Her mouth took a hard look, very
foreign to its sweet lines, as she rose
and bathed her face; and through all
that evening she bore herself so brave-
ly that no one guessed of the bitter-
ness and wounded pride she thus smil-
ingly hid.
If Mrs. Messinger had been given to
abstruse reflections, she might have
asked herself how Jim and Nancy
could possibly avoid each other, at-
cording to their compact, when he was
always coming to the Ness? For he
came every day, and at all hours of
the day, as he had been wont to do
five years ago. There was one differ-
ence between this daily intercourseand
that of the old times, and thata rather
important one. Nancy lost all her
gentle brightness when speaking to
Jim, and was coldly, distantly polite
to him. He saw this and no doubt re-
sented it, but Nancy never guessed
that from his manner. He did every-
thing he could think of to please her,
but with no outward effect. Inwardly
she knew that her love for him was
strengthening day by day, and that no
power of hers could prevent it.
Jim was in a most trying position.
He knew himself to be deeply in love
with Nancy; his feeling for her had
never died, as he had imagined; but
with the knowledge of her as asweet,
noble woman came the knowledge that
he had forfeited the right to tell of his
love. Her letters had been of a kind
of which he had wearied when he had
.ceased to be a youth. But, anxious
that his own letters should not be as
uninteresting to her as aers were to
him he had written in a boyish, semi-
frivolous strain, which he thought
would be pleasing to her, as natural to
herself. He conld not understand
how such a thoughtful intelligent girl
she
| ing
as he knew her now to be, eculd have
written such shallow, characterless
letters. He supposed that she had
not cared enough for him to write
about what she felt interested in.
Nancy grew colder and more con-
strained than ever in her manner
toward him, and though every day he
felt more clearly that his love was
hopeless, he found it more and mors
difficult to hide it from her. He was
too proud and too manly to force his
love on her, believing, as he did, that
she disliked him; and at last, after a
bitter struggle with himself, he deter-
mined to return to India at once.
He had never been to the Ness Iate-
Iy without some valid reason, and this
new decision was so good an excuse
for calling that he was not slow in
taking advantage of it. He found
Nancy in i’: garden, arrayed in a
large, white sun bonnet, busily gath-
ering strawberries for tea.
“You will tind it rather hot work, I
am afraid,” he said, looking down
gravely into her flushed face. “Let
2
me pick some now.
“Thank you,” she answered, re-
signing the basket; ‘‘stooping so much
has tired me a little.”
He had soon filled the basket, and
then, at his suggestion, they seated
themselves under an old apple tree to
rest. Nancy took off her sun bonnet,
and leaned her bare head against the
onarled trunk langnidly. Jim watched
her as she sat there, thinking that he
would soon have only the memory of
her sweet, pure face to bear with him.
“f came up this afternoon to say
goodby,” he said, breaking the long
silence rather abruptly.
Nancy started slightly and raised
her eyes to his in wonderment.
“Goodby ?” she said. “‘And where
are you going?”
“I am going back to India; TI have
had enongh of England.” .
«To India? At once? Oh, why?”
she asked piteously, growing very
white, and looking at him with
frightened eyes.
| An expression of tremulous hope be-
gan to dawn on Jim’s face as he saw
how his words had affected her.
“Do yon care, Nancy?” he asked,
eagerly. ‘Would yourather Istayed?”
¢“My wishes have nothing to do with
the matter,” she said, rather bitterly.
‘Indeed they have,” he said, very
earnestly. ‘Nancy, tell me, would
you rather I stayed?”
“If I say yes, would you stay?” she
asked, quietly.
“Only if you loved me,” he said.
“I cannot stay on and see you day
after day, and feel that you will never
care for me. May I stay, Nancy?”
“If you like,” she answered, shyly.
Jim took her into hisarms and kissed
her very tenderly.
‘There is one thing I want to know,”
he said, presently, looking down into
her eyes; ‘‘when did youbegin to love
me, dear?” :
“When did you begin to love me?”
she replied, blushing under his gaze.
“I don’t know; I have loved you
all my life.” he answered.
“I don’t know, either,” she said:
“when I was about four or five,
think.”
“But, my darling, you broke off out
engagement,” he said, wonderingly.
did not love you.
—I—1 mean—"
‘“Yes, they were stupid, but yours
were silly, too, and I thought that was
the kind of thing you liked,” he said,
a ray of intelligence dawning in his
eyes.
“I thought you were terribly boy-
ish, so wrote very ‘young’ letters,
thinking they would interest you,” she
said, beginning to laugh.
“We both fell into the same mis-
take, then,” he said, laughing, too,
though a little regretfully. ¢‘Oh,
Nancy! we might have had sucha good
time! How I wish I had the letters
that you might have written!”
“Yes, it is a pity” she said. ‘But
it is all right now, and I will write the
sweetest letters to you in future.”
“Indeed you will not,” he replied,
in a calmly masterful tone. ‘‘I never
mean to leave you again. We must
look upon those letters as a part of the
vast ‘It-might-have-been.’”’-— Waverley
Magazine.
They were so stupid.
—— ee —— me
A Funny State of Affairs,
A very funny state of affairs is re-
vealed in England through a suit
brought concerning depredations by
rabbits. The rabbits came out of a
wood and destroyed a field of barley.
The owner of the crop sued the owner
of the wood for damages. It was de-
cided that the plaintiff was not en-
titled to damages unless the deferdant
had by artificial propagation increased
the number of rabbits on his land to
such an extent as to be a nuisance. He
was not liable, even though he had in-
creased the number of rabbits by kill-
off their enemies. The only
remedy in possession of the man who
lost his barley was to kill the rabbits
which came upon the place. But this
has to be done with due regard to a
somewhat complicated game law. The
killing must be done by the farmer or
by one member of his household com-
missioned by him in writing or ‘‘em-
ployed for reward to kill rabbits.” In
killing the rabbits the use of poisons
or spring guus is prohibited, and fire-
arms cannot be used at night. —New
York Telegram.
Coffee as a Brain Food.
An eminent medical authority, in a
recent number of the Boston Surgical
| and Medical Journal, maintains that
| coffee is a real brain food, and has the
| power of absolutely increasing a man’s
capacity for brain work. The writer
| further says: “Opium stimulates the
imagination ; alcohol lifts a man up
for the moment to throw him into
confusion and irregularity of acvion,
| but caffeine increases his power or
| reasoning. and absolutely adds to Lis
| brainwork capacity for the time.”
“Yes; from your letters I thought I
!
‘DR. TALMAGE ON ELECTIONS
A TRUE MEASURE.
ie
Men Should Uso the Ten Commandments
As a Guide in Voting,
_— RL
sae rho thom.
noisc of the
noiing. ~ -Exo-
Tax7y: *“ ind all
erings aad li
We peopl
2 rend the
irvmpet aud the woninlain 8
dus xx., 18,
My text informs you inat ths lightnings
and earthquakes united their forces to wreck |
a mountain of Arabia Petriea in olden tim,
and travelers to-day finds heaps of porphyry
and graenstons rocks, bowlder against bowl
der, the remains of thes {rst law library
written, not on parchment or papyrus, but
on shatterad slabs of granite. The corner-
stones of all morality, of all wise law, of ail
righteous jurisprudence, of all good Govern
ment are the two tablets of stone on wi
were written the Ten Commandmants.
All Roman law, all Franch law, all Eaglish
Jaw. all American law that is worth anything,
all common law, civil law. criminal law,
martial law, law of Nations were rocked in
the cradle of thetwentieth chapter of Exodus.
And it would be well in these times of great
political agitation if the newspapers would
print the Decalozue soma day in place of the
able editorial. The fact is that some people
suppose that the law has passed out of exist- |
ence and some are not awar= of some of the
passages of that law, and others say this or
that is of the mors importance, waen no ons
has any right to make such an assertion.
These laws are the pillars of society, and if
you remove onz2 vitlar you damage the whole
structure.
I have noticed that men are particularly
vehement against sins to which they are not
particularly tempted and find uo especial
wrath against sins in whien they them-
selves indulge. They take out one gun from
this battery of ten gans, and load that,
and unlimper that, and fire that. They
say, ‘“Uhis is an Armstrong gun, and this
is a Krupp gun, and this is a Nordenfeldt
five-barrsied gun, and this is a Gatling ten-
barreled gun, and this is a Martini thirty-
saven-barreled gun.” But I have to tell
them that they are all of the same caliber,
and that they shoot from eternity to eternity.
Many questions are before the people in
the elections ali over this land, but I shall
try to show you that the most important
thing to be settled about all these candidates
is their personal, moral character, The Dec-
alogue forbids idolatry, image making, pro-
fanity, maltreatment of parents, Sabbath
desecration, murder, theft, incontinence
lying and covetousness. That is the Deca-
logue by which you and I will have to be
tried, and by the same Decalogue you and I
must try candidates for offee,
Of course we shall not find anything like
perfection. If we do not vote unfil we find
an immaculate nominee, we will never vote
at all. We have so many faults of our own
we ought not to be censorious or maledic-
tory or hypercritical in regard to the faults
ofothers.
for November as any other month in the
year. ‘‘Judge not that ye be not judged.
for with what measure ye mete it shall be
measured to you again.”
Most certainly are we not to takethe state-
ment of redhot partisanship as the real char-
acter of any man. From nearly all the great
cities of this land I receive daily or weekly
newspapers. sent to me regularly and in com-
pliment, so I see both sides—I see all sides —
and it is most entertaining and most regular
amusement to read the opposite statements,
The one statement says the man is an angel,
and the other says he is a devil, and I split
the difference and I find him half way be-
tween.
There never has been an honest or respac-
table man running lor the United States
presidency, or for a judgeship, or for the
mayoralty, or for the shrievalty since the
foundation of the American Goverument, it
we may believe the old files of the newspa-
pers in the museums. What a mercy it is
that they were not all hung before they wers
inaugurated! Ii a man believe one-half of
what he sees in the newspapers in thess
times, his career will be very short outside of
Bloomingdale insane asylum.
1 was absent two or three years ago dur-
ing one week of a political canvass, and I
wus dependent entirely upon wheat I read in
regard to what had occurred in these cities.
and I read thers was a procession in New
York of 5000 patriots and a minute after [
read in another sheet that there were 17,000,
and then I read in regard to another proces-
sion that there were 10,000, and then [ read
in another paper that there were 60,000.
A campalgn orstor in the Rink or the
Academy of Music received a very cold re-
ception—a very cuilling reception—said one
statement, The other statement said the
audience rose at him. So great was the en-
thusiasm that for a long while the orator
could not be heard, and it was only after lift-
ing his hand that the vociferation began to
subside! One statement will twist an inter-
view one way, and another statement will
twist an interview another way. You must
admit it is a very difficult thing in times like
these to get a very accurate estimate of a
man’s character, and I charge you, as your
religious teacher, I charge you to caution
and to mercifulness and to prayer.
I warn you also against the mistake which
many ars making and always do make of ap-
plying a different standard of character for
those in prominent position from the stand-
ard they apply for ordinary persons. However
much a man may have or however high the
position he gets, he has no especial liberty
given him in the interpretation of the Ten
Commandments. A great sinner is no more
to be excused than a small sinner, Do not
charge illustrious defection to eccentricity
or chop off the Ten Commandments to suit
especial cases. The right ‘is everlastingly
right, and the wrong is everlastingly wrong.
If any man nominated for any office in this
city or State differs from the Decalogue, do
not fix up the Decalogue, but fix him up.
The law must stand, whatever else must fall,
I call your attention also to the fact that
you are all aware of—that the breaking of
one commandment makes it the more easy to
break all of them —and the philosophy is
plain. Any kind of sin weakens the con-
science, and if the conscienca is weakened
that opens the door for all kinds of trans-
gression. If, for instance, a man go into this
political campaign wielding scurrility as his
chief weapon, and hebelieves everything bad
about a man and believes nothing good, how
long before that man himself will get over
the moral depression. Neither in time nor
eternity.
If I utter a falsehood in regard to a man, T
may damage him, but I get for mysslf ten-
fold more damage. That is a gunthat kicks.
If, for instance. a man be profane, under pro-
vocation he will commit any crime. I say
under provocation. For, if a man will mal-
treat the Lord Almighty, would he not mal-
treat his fellow man? If a man be guilty of
malfeasance in office, he will under provoca-
tion commit any sin. He who will steal will
lie. and he who will lie will steal.
If, for instance, a man be impure, it opsns |
the door for all” other iniquity, for in that
one iniquity he commits theft of the worst
kind, and covetousness of the worst kind,
and falsehood—pretending to he decent
when he is not—and maltreats his parents by
disgracing their name, if they were good. |
Be careful, therefore, how you charge that
sin against any man either in high place cr
low place. either in office ox out of office, |
because when you make that charge against
a man you charge him with all villainies,
with all disgusting propensities, with all
rottenness.
A libertine is a beast, lower than {he ver-
min that crawl over a summer carcass —
lower than the swine, for the swine has no |
intelligence to sin against. Be careful then,
how you charge that against any man.
You must be so certain that a mathematical
demonstration is doubtfn! as compared with
it
such to the whole
subjects, you must go
length of investigation and tind out whether |
or not he has repented. He may have been
The Christly rule is as appropriate |
And then, when you investigate a man on |
divine forgiveness, and he may hava im-
plored the forgiveness of society and the for-
| giveness of the world. Although if a man
| commit that sin at thirty or thirty-five years
of age, there is not one case out of a thou-
| sand where he ever repents. You must in
| your investigation see if it is possibie that
ta one casa investigated may not hava been
| the exception. But do not chop off the
| seventh commandment to suit the case. Do
'l not change Fairbank’s scale to sait
{ yon are weighing with it. Do not cut off a
| yarlstick to suit the dry goods you are
measuring. + the law stand and never
| \amper wi!
| Aboveazlii vou do not join in the
i ery that [ have heard—ior fifteen, twenty
| yea.s I have heard it—that there is no such
thing as purity. If you make that charge
you are a foul-mouthed scandaler of the
human race. You area leper. Make room
for that leper! When a man, by pen or type
nan race that there is no such
| sali is a walking lazaretto. a reeking uleer.
and
devils damned. We may enlarge our char-
ities iv such a ease, but in no such case let
us shave off the Ten Commandments. Let
them stand as the everlasting defense of so-
ciety ana the church of God.
The conmitting of one sin opens tha door
for the commission of other sins. You see
it every day. Those embezziars, those bank
cashiers absconding as soon as they are
brought to justice, develop tne fact tbat
they were in all kinds of sin. No excsption
to tne rule. They all kept bad company.
they nearly all gambled, they ail wont to
places where they ought not. Why? The
commission of the one sin opened the gate
| for all the other sins.
droves and in herds. You open the door for
one sin that invites in all the miserable
segragation. :
{ Some of the campaign orators this autumn
| —some of them—bombarding the suffering
| candidates all the week, will think no wroag
in Sabbath breaking. All the week hurling
the eighth commandment at one candidate.
| the seventh commandment at another can-
| didate and the ninth commandment at still
| another, what are they doing with the fourth
| commandment, **Remember the Sabbath day
{ to keep it holy?” Breaking it. Is not the
| fourth commandment as important as the
| eighth, as the seventh, as the ninth?
| Some of these political campaign orators,
| as I have seen them reported in other years.
and as [ have heard it in regard to them,
bombarding the suffering candidates all the
weelr, yet tossing the name of God from their
lips recklessly, guilty of profanity —what are
thev doing with the third commandment?
Is not the third commandment, which says,
thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold
him guiltless that taketh his name in vain”
—is not the third commandment as impor-
tant as the other seven? Oh, yes, we find in
nation against sins perhaps to which theyare
not especially tempted —hurling it against
iniquity toward which they are not particu-
larly drawn.
I have this book for my authority when I
say that the man who swears or the man who
breaks the Sabbath is as culpable before God
as these candidates who brzak other com-
mandments. What right have you and I to
galect which commandment we will keep and
which we will break? Better not try to
measurs the thunderboits of the Almighty,
saying this has less blaze, this has less mo-
mentum. Better not handle the guns, better
not expzriment much with the divine ammu-
nition.
a nutshell, and you and I have seen the
Lord's Prayer written on a flve cent piece,
but the whole tendency of these tinyes i3 to
write the Ten Commandments so smail no-
body can sea them. I protest this day against
the attempt to revise the Decalogue which
was given on Mount Sinai amid the blast of
trumpets, and the cracking of the rocks, and
the paroxysm of the mountain of Arabia
Petraa.
I bring up the candidates for ward and
township and city and State office. I bring
them up, and I try them by this Decalogus.
Of course they are imperfect. We ars all
imperfect, We say things we ought not to
say ; we do things we ought not to do. We
have all been wrong; we have all done
wrong. But I shall find out one of the can-
didates wiio comes, in my estimation, nearest
to obedience of the Ten (‘lommandments, and
I will vote for him, and you will vots for
Him unless you lovs God less than your
party —then yon will not.
Herodotus said that Nitoeris, the daughter
of Nebuchadnezzar, was so fascinated with
her beautiful village of Ardericca that she
had the river above Babylon changed so it
wound this way and wound that, and curved
this way and curved that, and though you
sailed on it for three days every day you
would be in sight of that exquisite village.
Now, I do not care which way you sail in
morals or waich way you sail in life if you
only sail in sight of this beautiful group of
divine commandments, Although they may
sometimes seem to be a little angular, I do
not care which way yon sail, if you sail in
sight of them you will never run aground,
and you will never be shipwrecked. Society
needs toning up on all these subjeets,
1 tell you there is nothing worse to fight
than the ten regiments, with bayonets and
sabres of fire, marching down the side of
Mount Sinai. They always gain the victory,
and those who flight against them go under.
There are thousands and tens of thousands
of men being slain by the Decalogue.
is the matter with that young man of whom
[ read, dying in his dissipations?
ing delirium he said,
dice. It is mine.
“Now fetch on the.
No, no! Itis gone, all is
wine! Oh, how they rattie their chains!
Fiends, fiends, lends! I say you cheat! The
cards are marked! Oh, death! oh, death!
oh, death! Fiends, flends, lends!” And he
gasped his last and was gone. The Ten
Commandments slew him.
Tet not ladies and gentlemen in this nine-
| teenth century revise the Ten Command-
ments, but let them in soclety and at the
polls put to the front those who coms the
nearest to this God-lifted standard. On the
first Tuesday morning of November read the
twentieth chapter of Exodus at family
prayers. The moral or immoral character of
the officers elected will add seventy-five per
cent. unto or subtract seventy-five per cent.
from the public morals.
You and I cannot afford to have bad offl-
cials. The young men of this country can-
not afford to have bad officials. The com-
mercial, the moral, the artistic, the agricul-
tural, the manufacturing, the religious in-
| terests of this country cannot afford to have
| bad officials, and if you, on looking overthe
| whole field, cannot find men who in your
estimation come within reasonable distance
of obedience of the Decalogue stay at home
and do not vote at all.
I suppose wiaen in the city of Sodom there
were four candidates put up for office, and
Lot did not believe in any of them, he did
not register. I suppose if there came a
crisis in the polities of Babylon, where
Daniel did not believe in any of the candi-
dates, he staid at home on election day,
| praying with his face toward Jerusalem.
i But we have no ‘such crisis. We have no
| such exigency, thank God. But I have to
| say to you to-day that the moral character of
| rulers always affects the ruled, and I appeal
| to history.
| tone of all the Nation of Judah and threw
them into idolatry. Good King Josiah lifted
up the whole Nation by his exzsllent example.
Why ig it that to-day England is higher up
in morals than at any point in her National
| history? It is because she has the best ruler
in all Europe—all the attempts to scandalize
{ her name a failure. The political power of
Talleyrand brooded all the political tricksters
of the last ninety years.
| presidency of Aaron Burr blasted this Nation
! until important letters wers written in cipher,
because the people could not trust the United
States mail. And let the court
Louis XV and Henry VIL[ march
towed by the debauchad Nations.
The higher up youn put a bad man the
| worse is his power tor evil.
oat, {ol-
yn his knees before God and implored tha ' ulist says that the pigeons were in fright at
Sins go in flozks, in |
all departments men are hurling the irindig- |
Cicero said he saw the ‘‘Iliad” written on |
| pigeon a day.
a kite flying in the air, and so these pigeons
hovered near the dovacote, but one day the
kite said: **Why are you 30 araid? Why
do you pass your life in terror? Make me
king. and I'll destroy all your enemies.” So
the pigeons made the kite king, and as soon
as he got the throns his regular diet was a
And while one of his victims
was waiting for its turn to come it said:
Served us right!” The malaria of swamps
s from the plain to the height, but moral
malaria descends from the mountain to the
plain. Be caraful, thersfore, how you ele-
vate into any style of authority men who are
| in anv wise antagonistic to the Ten Com-
or tongue, u:ters such a slander on the hu- |
thing as |
purity I know right away thatthat man him- |
is fit for no society better than that of |
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord |
|
In his dy- |
|
mandments.
As near as I ean tell, the most important
thing now to be done is to have about 40,-
000,000 copies of the Sipaitic Dscaloguo
printed and scattered throughout the land.
It was a terrible waste when the Alexandrian
library was destroyed, and the books were
taken to heat 4000 baths for the citizens of
Alexandria. It was very expensive heat.
But without any harm to the Deecalogue you
could with it heat 1090,000 baths of moral
purification for the Amuarican people.
I say we want a tonic -a mighty tonic, a
corrective, an all powerful corrective -and
Moses in the text, with steady hand, notwith-
standing the jarring mountains and the full
orchestra of the tempest, and the blazing of
the air, pours out the ten drops —no more,
no less—which our people need to take for
their moral econvalesesnce.
But I shall not leave you under the dis-
souragement of the Ten Commandments, be-
cause we hava all offended. There is an-
other mountain in sight, and while ono
mountain thunders the other answers in
thunder, and while Mount Sinai, with light-
ning, writes doom, the other mountain, with
lightning, writes mercy. The oniy way you
will ever spike the guns of the Decalogue is
by the spikes of tha cross. The only rock
that will ever stop the Sinatic upheavals is
the Rock of Ages. Mount Calvary is higher
than Mount Sinai.
The English survey expedition, I know,
say that one Sinaitic peak is 7000 feet high,
and another 8000, and another 3000 feet high,
and travelers tell uz that Mount Cavalry is
only a bluff outside of the wall of Jerusalem,
but Calvary, in moral significance, overtops
and overshadows all the mountains of the
hemispheres, and Mount Washington and
Mont Blane and the Himalayas are hillocks
compared with it. You know thal some-
times one fortress will silence another for-
tress.
Moultrie silenced Sumter, and against the
mountain of the law I put the mountain of
the cross. ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall
die,” booms one until the earth jars under
the cannonade. ‘‘Save them from going
down to the pit. I have found a ransom,’
pleads the other, until earth and heaven and
hell tremble under the reverberation. And
Moses, who commands ths one, surrenders
to Christ, who commands the other.
Once by the law our hopes were slain,
But now in Christ we live again.
Aristotle says that Mount Etna erupted one
day and poured torrents of scoria upon the
villages at the hase, but that the mountain
divided its flame and made a lane of safety
for all those who came to rescue their aged
parents. And this volcanic Sinai divides its
fury for those whom Christ has come to res-
cus from the vad ruin on both sides. Stand-
ing as I do to-day, half-way between the two
mountaing—the mountain of the Exodus and
the mountain of the nineteenth of John—all
my terror comes into supernatural calm, for
the uproar of the one mountain subsides into
quiet and comes down into so deep a silence
that [ can hear the other mountain speak-—
aye, I can hear it whisper, **The blood, the
blood, the blood that cleanseth from all sin.”
The survey expedition says that the Sinai-
tic mountains have wadys or water courses—
Alleyat and Ajelah—amptying into Feiran.
But those streams are not navigable. No boat
put into these rocky streams could sail. But
I haveto tell you this day that the boat of
gospel rescue vomes right up amid the wa-
tercourses of Sinaitic gloom and threat, ready
to take us off from under the shadows into
the calm sunlight of (od's pardon and into
the land of peace.
Oh, if you could see that boat of gospel res-
cue coming this’ day you would feel as John
Gilmore in his book, **The Storm: Warriors,”
says that a ship’s crew felt on the Kentish
Knock sands, off the coast of Fingland, when
they were being beaten to pleces and they all
felt they must die! I'ney had given up all
hops and every moment washed off another
plant from the wresk, and they said, “We
must die ; we must dis!” But after awhile
they saw.a Ramsgate, lifeboat coming through
| the breakers for them, and the man standing
highest up on the wreck said: *Can it be?
It is, it is, it is, it is! Thank God! Itisthe
»amagate lifeboat! It is, it is, itis, itis!”
And the old Jack Tar, describing that life-
boat to his comrades after hz got ashore,
said, ‘‘Oh, my lads, what a beauty it did
seem, coming through the breakers that awful
day!’ May God, through the marey in Jesus
Christ, take us all off the miserable wreck of
our sin into the beautiful lifeboat of the
gospel !
tier r ret
Unthinkable Distances.
The distance to the nearest ‘fixed
star has been computed by the best
astronomers to be about 20,000,000,-
000,000 miles, which, by putting it in
‘another way, would mean 20,000.000,-
000,000 of ‘miles, a distance so vast
that a trip to our own sun seems but
What} a pleasure trip in comparison.
The next in distance is about four
times further away. If we attempt to
fix an average distance for the fixed
gone! Bring on more wins! Bringon more | stars we cannot safely place them
| nedrer than 4,000,000,000,000 of miles
|
|
away! And what does this involve!
Light, which reaches us from the
sun in eight and one-half minutes,
would take seventy years in making a
journey between the average fixed star
and our little world. ;
If the volume of space included
within our solar system were occupied
by one huge globe 5,600,000,000 miles
in diameter, even such a mighty mass
would be but as a feather in the
marvellous spread of space surround-
ing it. The sea of space would con-
tain 2,700,000,000,000,000 of such
globes, each swinging at a distance
approximating 500,000 miles apart!
How can the human mind be expected
to comprehend such immensity >—New
York Journal.
re een ——
Compressed Air.
Mr. Ferris, he of the wheel, pro-
poses to make Chicago a seaport. He
says that the chief item of cost in
canals is the building and maintenance
of locks, and that this ean be avoided
by the use of compressed air. “There
is no reason why & box could not be
constructed into whick the largest
| ocean ships could be floated, the box
Wicked King Manasseh depressed the moral |
closed, and the whole box—water,
ship and all —raised by compressed ait
as easily as you lift an elevator.” We
have no doubt this is true. Dr. Gat-
ling, who invented the compressed air
| drill, but was not allowed to patent it,
circles of
The great fab- |
|
|
has always claimed that there was
| practically mo limit to the work that
'I'ae dishonest vice-
could be done by means of compressed
’it.
eC.
Among the Kondeh people, who live
on Lake Nyassa. in Africa, the favorite
form of suicide is to enter the water
and allow one’s self to be devoured by
a crocodile.
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