1im- ok: gle, 350; ohn Tar use: with ates and was $15, bill Mt. with as. of- y of i. sold burg tf of "hite iana per near juan- in a ified’ the last. nt of Jeale The d by st ol ly. New that rtifi- laim d by peo- the oun- d by golf 1XSU- ight, burg the had n_ of 5 de- orks, arled ft, a rrest irder’ s of- Ss to: somes was. burg, with mter made 1 va- et at 1ssed d om ce of lared: rove uncil Car- 1,800 acci- ident ladel- yster ry at. vney, were ames ming reer, rpen- ploy- on at 1 few was Penn quar- t La- Sut I i So So Valuable Jewels Seldom Worn. A jeweler says that valuable family Jewels are almost never worn by their owners; they are kept in safe deposit vaults and are not used more than half a dozen times in half a century. ladies have them copied and always appear wearing the imitation jewels, which look quite as well. “Why,” he added, “a lady would not dare to ap- pear always in the valuable gems she is known to possess; she would be robbed and perhaps murdered for them.” Repairing a Mackintosh. To mend a mackintosh procure a small tin of india rubber cement or dissolve some strips of pure india rubber in naphtha or sulphide of car- bon to form a stiff paste. Apply a little of the cement on the surface of a strip of the same material of which the mackintosh is made, which can be purchased by the yard or in remnants frcm the waterproofers; also apply a little cement to each side of the torn part, and when it begins to feel tacky bring the edges together and place the patch nicely over and keep in position by putting a weight over it until quite hard, which will be in a few days. The Rich Man’s Wife. The man of wealth marries a woman who is beautiful and gracious; one who will bear his name proudly. Her home is handsomely appointed. She fits into her .environment as a statue in its niche. At her command are ser- vants, horses and carriages—or auto- imobiles, in this mechanical generation. She is privileged to trade upon credit and dress for her position in. life. But too often her pocketbook con- tains less than the woman in moderate «circumstances, whose husband has a salary and gives his wife a stated sum to live upon. The rich wife, if asked by” members of her club for a dona- ‘tion, must consult her husband first. She has no ready money, and frequent- ly is obliged to ask him for paltry amounts. She is humiliated and be- «comes embittered; her dignity is low- ered. Sometimes she employs deceit with which to obtain resources from him. And her thought of her hus- band’s parsimony soon kills all her tenderness.—Susan B. Anthony, in the Independent. The Vanity of Women. “Take hold of a woman’s vanity,” said a married man, “and you can lead her where you will.” He gazed dreamily, smiling to him- self, into his lemonade glass. Then ‘he resumed: “My wife discharged her servant girl last month, and said that in order to have the work done well she would «do it herself thereafter. And, by jove, she did. She cooked and washed the dishes, and ruined her temper and spoiled my happiness, for I can afford to keep one servant, and I hated to see ther doing all that unpleasant work. But I could say nothing to make her stop until I thought of her vanity, and as soon as I thought of that I knew I had her. “ ‘Jane,’ I said at breakfast one morning, Syour hands don’t look like they use to. Your fingers are rough, and your nails seem to be ragged and «discolored. Do you manicure them-as «carefully as you used to? ““ ‘Of course I do,” said she; ‘and they look all right, too. There’s nothing ¢he matter with my hands.’ ‘“ ‘I know better, Jane,’ said I. ‘This rough work has told on them. I doubt if you will ever get them back tu their former fine condition.’ ‘“ ‘Oh, you're talking foolish,’ cried amy wife, frowning, and I said nothing amore. But when I got back home that might a new servant girl ‘was in the kitchen, and my Jane sat before her dressing table with her manicure set.” —Philadelphia Record. Girls as Blacksmitha, A webb of poetic romance always has been woven about the ‘village smithy,” but it has remained for a sturdy blacksmith in the neighborhood of Leeds to introduce the daughters of the smithy into the romancer’s dreams. [lis blacksmith has eight | daughters, and hac reared them all | by the side of the forge and anvil. At present four are at work in his shop. The other four wielded the hammer for several years and then left the business to take up the duties of run- ning homes of their own. Every day these four daughters of the master smith are to be seen at the anvils fol- lowing the trade of their fathers. They are up early and spend the work- ing hours in making gas hooks—broad, bent nails which are used by plumb- ers for fastening gas pipes to walls. It is not such a hard task, yet the work requires great patience and en- during strength. The heavy part of the work is per- formed by a machine worked with the foot. After the mechanical device has finished its labors the fair black- smiths, with sleeves rolled up, put the finishing touches on the hooks with a hand-hammer and get them ready for market. The girls are fond of their work. They toil on a piece-work basis, and the ingenious blacksmith calls each a “full hand.”’—Baltimore American. Two Gowna and a Hat. A dainty gown is of white voile with narrow strappings of white glace to | outline the deeply-pointed skirt fiounc- | es, and a pleated bolero effect on the | bodice finished off in the same way and cut short enough to allow a glimpse of a soft fulness of ecru batiste. This is eventually caught into the close bondage of a waistband of white glace, whose bow ends at the back give something of the effect of the fashionable coat tails. A col- lar of ecru batiste and lace also puts in an appearance, and there are touches of brown on the white silk tie, where brown velvet baby ribbon is threaded through tiny circlets of lace and divided by minute blossoms glinting with gold. Another graceful frock is of tur- quoise-blue cambric elaborated with a design of the most diminutive leaves embroidered in white, and forming a trelliswork all down the front of the skirt, while at either side its points are edged with rufflings of Valencien- nes lace, and the skirt is further trimmed with stripes formed by embroidery and lace. The deep col- lar of white lawn and lace is fastened with a smartly knotted tie of white silk embroidered with spots of blue, and the accompanying hat is a pic- turesque affair of black straw with a long scarf of pale blue satin drawn round the corner and tied at the back in a bow whose ends fall to the waist, while curving under the wide brim at ithe left side is one pure white ostrich feather.—New York Commercial Ad- vertiser. 7 Justice to Stepmothers. Most abused in the public estima- tion of all the members of human so- ciety is the stepmother. It is there- fore with a certain thrill of satisfac- tion that we read in the daily chroni- cles that in the slow evolutions of justice one stepmother at least has been vindicated. She is not the terror that tradition weculd have her to be; she is not heartless; she is not cruel; she is not selfish more than are most mortals. She is simply a good, aver- age woman, doing her best as she sees it. Such is the typical stepmother whom novelists and other perversely developed idicts have taught us never- theless to loathe. In this case the stepmother had an excellent opportunity to prove her- self devoid of narrow maternal preju- dice. It was one of those families in which there are three brands of children, to use a common commer- cial term. On both sides: it was a second marriage. The husband had his particular exclusive set of children, and his wife hers. Then there was a set that jointly belonged to them both. Now, to this meritorious step- mcther’s view, each of the exclusive sets was as ungovernable and as mis- chievous as the other, and both with equal viciousness pitched into the third. The set that was joint property had put out of joint, so to speak, the noses of all ithe rest. The stepmother of tradition would have shielded her own exclusive children. But this, stepmother was the real thing; hence the difference. She found it intolerable that the youngest set of children should be the victims of both the older sets, and she said so, and declared that she herself was at the mercy of the latter. The law stepped in at her request, and it is to be hoped that its intervention will les- sen the hardship of her lot. In many savage tribes the step- mother is held in superstitious rever- ence and fear, and yct the simple wife has less liberty and more drudgery than with other races. We, with our civilized pretense of chivalry, treat the stepmother nearly always ungenerous- ly. In most cases she has more diffi- cult duties to perform than a first wife, and it is not at all certain that she does not as often perform them well. ‘There have been stepmothers, and | there are many in the world, who were or are among the sweetest, most pa- tient and most devoted of womankind. Many a good man can look back and trace his soundness of character and’ his success in the world to a good stepmother. Honor to her, we say, as much as to the other kind of moth- er, where she deserves it.—Philadel- phia Tinres. . Tartan plaids are the latest novelty in dress goods and silks. Jeweled studs caught together with tiny jeweled chains are to fasten thin white waists. Silver tissue is employed as a back- ground for many of the fine laces and | embroideries. Wash belts, with harness buckles of | brass, are a smart accompaniment for shirt waist suits. Ruffles and neckwear of accordion- plaited chiffon edged with petals of flowers are very dainty. The new cameo patterns appear on sach buckles of shell. Buckle, sash pin and brooch form a set. Alexandra clasps for stocks, have medallion centers, with two flat hooks on each side, through which the ribbon is run. An all black shoe is extremely smart. It is made quite plain, with- out any stitching or trimming, of patent leather. Bits of red coral strung between links of gold compose a long fan chain, which would be effectively worn with a thin white gown. The garniture on some beautiful new evening dresses consists of large roses of silk and applique or chiffon linked by gold garlands. A lion’s head in rose gold has tiny diamond eyes and teeth and holds a large diamond between the wide open jaws. This fierce little object is a novelty in brooches, Teddy’s Query. One brother was tall and slim, The other chubby and short. Teddy sat looking at them one night, { Apparently lost in thought. “Mamma,” he asked at length, ‘Which would you like the best, For me to grow north and south, like Tom, Or, like Willie, from east to west?” i —Youth’s Companion. The Feast of Dolls. On the third day of the third month comes the Japanese festival of dolls. Scme of tthe dolls that appear on the scene among the dwellers in the Land of Chrysanthemums are over a hun- dred years old, and at least three. days are given up to festivities. Some are dressed like the Mikado and his wife; and many of the old dolls are surrounded by the furniture in mini- ature in keeping -with the same period, and a doll’s feast is yearly prepared, ‘when the small bowls and cups are : filled with anything that dolly may require in the way of good fare, com- bined with harmeless drinks. But, after the three days are over, dolly returns once more to the sanctity of private life.—Beacon. The Intelligent Box-Turtle. The box-turtle is an especially amusing pet. A correspondent tells of keeping one in a large but shallow box filled with sand to the depth of about four inches. The box was covered with wire netting and contained a large dish of water, plenty of fresh moss, and growing ferns. In the winter the turtle was allowed to roam around the house, as I have seen them in school-rooms. This correspondent gives an amusing account of the man- ner in which the turtle went down stairs, falling from step to step, each time landing on its back. After a struggle he would turn over and then try the next step as before. Arriving ori the ground floor, he always made his way to the kitchen and estab- lished himself in a corner near the kitchen fire. " This reminds me of an anecdote related by Dr. Abbott. Of a box- tortoise he writes: TI followed and fcund him still traveling in a direct course, and, was just in time to wit- ness a funny scene. The steen bank of a deep ditch had been reached, and the tortoise was contemplating the outlook. It was too abrupt a de- scent for ordinary crawling, and to go in search of a more easy crossiug seems not to have been thought of. At last, leaning over the edge as far as possible, the creature withdrew into his shell, and sent himself, by a sudden push with his hind feet, head over heels down the incline, and land- ed on his back. Was this ac: cidental or intentional? I think the | latter. The whole manner of the tor- toise seemed to indicate it.—St. ( Nicholas. The French Apprentice. For the “companions” are fighters —good feilows, but fighters. It is their trade tradition. Jealousies be- tween the workmen’s corporations re- sult in “Homeric” combats, bloody ‘battles. It is the one bad side of an institution that is otherwise so truly | fraternal. They start out in companies, rarely alone, to make thein “our of France.’ Before coming back to continue | their work in their own villages, the young apvrentices gu together fro. town to ts wn, to study on the ground the masterpieces of .their trade, aud ‘to see the best that the goiius cf ‘their ancestors has produced. It is the poetic phase, the voyage of ad- j ventures, the “knight errantry” of tae { workman, He earnshis living en routejperfects i bimself in his profession, learns irom ‘one master and another, sees, com- i pares, studies, admires. He gathers hic humble harvest of souvenirs and impressions, enjoys the full vigor ct his early years, and passes his youtn "along the sunny highways. | Unfortunately, there is a Jdisagree- ment among the “societies.” In everything there is found a pretext for quarrels. The society of the “Pere Soubise” is jealous of that of “Maitre Jacques,” and the “Infants du Solo- mon’ take part in the quarrel when- ever possible. Two companies mest on the road. {| The two leaders—the “master compan- ions.”’—-stop at 20 paces from each other. “Halt!” says one. “Halt!” cries the other. “What trade?” “Carpenter. And you?” “Stone cutter. Companion?” “Companion!” . “Your society—country?” And according to the renly they “drank from the same gourd or—fight. The melee becomes general. They fight—fist and stick—until the road is littered with those who are woundea —sometimes even to death.—(Andre Castaigne, in Harper's. Ragsey’s Happy Day. What a horrible noise that hand-or- gan is making!” sighed poor Mrs. Wil- letts, putting down her book in disgust. Her nerves were not strong and the doctor had said she must have rest and quiet for the winter. “It isn’t a very pretty one” said buried in cushions and reading the “Jungle Book.” “What isn’t pretty?” inquired Un- cle Bert, coming in at that moment. Harold, sympathetically, from the win- | dow seat where he was curled up half | “That terrible piano-organ,” replied Mrs. Willetts. “I suppose it is foolish to be annoyed, but they are such a nuisance! This is the third today. I don’t understand why they are per- mitted. Do send him away, Bert; there’s a good fellow.” “All right, my dear,” Bert, indulgently. “Come on, Har- old. Let's have our walk. You haven't been out today.” Harold reluctantly put down his book and emerged from the pillows. “All right,” he said, yawning. “It’s a stupid, gray day, and I've read the ‘Jungle Book’ twice in a month.” When he had found his hat and coat and kissed his delicate little mother good-by he went out. carefuily closing the door behind him, knowing that a bang would cause her real suf- fering. Boys with nervous mothers learn to be thoughtful and unselfish. Uncle Bert was talking to the swarthy organ-grinder in some un- known tongue. The latter had ‘stopped playing and stood grinning broadly. As Harold came out he took up the handles of his organ and started west- ward at a lively pace. . “Come on!” said Uncle Bert, lead- mo Harold in the same direction. “Where are we going?” asked Har- old. Walks with Uucle Bert in town or country were sure to be interest- ing. “We-re going where the hand-organ will be more welcome,” said Uncle Bert, smiling. As they went farther to the west- ward, the houses became shabbier and shabbier. Each avenue they said Uncle poorer-looking stores. Most of them had their wares—dry goods or gro- ceries—exposed on the sidewalks, with large pricemarks on them. The stone-paved, streets were swarming with men, women and children—es- pecially children. There were children big and children little, children fat and: children tiny, children _cry- ing and children laughing, and chil- dren scurrying in and out among the horses’ feet, escaping a knock-down by a hair’s breath. All of them were dirty, and none of them seemed com- fortably clothed for such a cold day. At the sight of the organ, they all stopped and swarmed toward it. The good-natured Italian was obliged to grind whether he would or no—though' indeed, he seemed very willing. He began to play—a merry tune it was— and you should have seen those chil- dren! Most of them began to dance There must have been a hundred, all dancing at once, and such dancing! Some whirled about, some bobbed up and down, others jerked forward and backward and still others merrily skipped back and forth in time to the music. A few girls danced demurely in couples, with as much grace as court ladies, but most of them footed it alone, their hands on their hips, their chins in the air and their hair floating out behind. “Isn't it fine?” said Harold. “It’s lots nicer than dancing school.” A very ragged little boy stood by Uncle Bert. He had on a man’s coat which had faded from black to a dull green, and hung in tatters. His trou- sers were terribly torn and his legs were bare, but on his feet were a pair of much-worn shoes, several sizes too large and laced with common brown wrapping cord. He was very dark and his face was narrow and pinched, but his eyes were twinkling with humor. “I never saw anybody so thin,” thought Har- old. Just then the music stopped, and one of the children called: “Come on, Ragsey!” “Aw, yes! yelled the crowd. Ragsey!” The face of the boy by Uncle Bert's side never changed. Solemnly he stepped out into the open space the children had cleared for him on the sidewalk. The organ-grinder changed the tune. It was queer, wild music, evidently a dance, but Harold had never heard it before. Ragsey put his thin, grimy hands on his hips and began to dance— slow- ly 2t first and then faster, shuffling on the ground with his clumsy shoes; then bounding into the air with a strange cry, he started off with won- | derful lightness on a new dance all his own. He was so abscrbed as he went on that he forgot the street and his audience. He was unconscious even of the strangers, apparently knowing only his own feet and that he must go on as long as the music continued. The children at first had encour- aged him by clapping, beating time with their feet, and wiin cries of “Go it, Ragsey! Keep her up, Ragsey!” and the like. Now all were silent, fascinated by the dancer. “By Jove,” whispered Uncle Bert, “that hoy's an artist!’ Suddenly the music came to a stop, and the organ-grinder took up his handles and trundled his instrument away, through what appeared to be a solid mass of children, all shrilly pro- testing and urging him to stay. Sev- eral pennies had been thrown from upper windows where frowsy moth- ers leaned in spite of the cold, watch- ing the dance. These Ragsey picked up and handed to the “music-man” as the latter forced his way through the throng grinning broadly and patting the boy on the hand. “That is where they like hand-or- gans,” said Uncle Bert after a long si- lence, as he and Harold walked home- ward.—New York Mail and Express. Come on, Ragsey,” “Ragsey, Ragsey, Pleasantly Situated. “Poor man!” said the lady visitor, addressing one of the inmates of the insane asylum, “don’t you often feél very sad shut up here?” “Oh, no,” the patient answered. “The lunatics who come to look at us are generally very amusing.”’—Chicago | Record Herald. crossed was lined with smaller and | A SERMON FOR SUNDAY HELPFUL AND READABLE DISCOURSE ENTITLED "A LIFE MADE OVER.” The Distinguished Pasior-Evangelist, the Rev. Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman, Has Pre- pared the Following Sermon For the Press—God Has a Plan Fer Every Life. NEw York Crty.—The Rev. Dr. J. Wil- bur Chapman, the popular pastor-evangel- ist, who preaches to overflowing congrega- tions in this city, has furnished the follow- ing eloquent sermon to the press. It was preached from the text “Qo he made it again.” Jeremiah 18: 4. To any one familiar with the prophecy of Jeremiah up to this point in the Scripture it will be apparent that Israel was rushing on to destruction, and Jeremiah seems powerless to stop them in their mad course. ne day as he passes along the highway he beholds a potter working in a booth, and as he turns aside he beholds him with the clay in his hands and the wheel revolving, toiling away until this piece of work is finished. He looks at it with disappointment, and then crushing it into his hands he kneads it over and over and finally makes it again as the text de- clares. Jeremiah is interested, and then he saw the spiritual significance of-it all as we read in the fifth and sixth verses of this 18th chapter, ‘Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O, house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this pot- ter? Saith the Lord, Behold as the clay is in the potter’s hands, so are ye in Mine hand, O house of Israel.” The trouble was not with the potter; he was evidently a good workman, nor with the wheel, for that seemed to do its work well, but en- tirely with the clay. Sometimes the clay was coarse and difficult to mold, other times it was full of grits, but there were two courses that were opened to the pot- ter. First, he could purify the clay by re- moving the coarser elements, and second, he could make a rude vessel of the material at hand. This is a familiar figure in the Scriptures, for we read in Isaiah 64: 8, “But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father; we are the clay and Thou our potter; and we all are the work of Thy hand,” and then we read in the New Testament in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the 9th chapter and the 21st and 22d verses, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make is power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” L We are the clay, God is the potter. Clay In itself is most unattractive, but the art- ist looks upon it with interest because of what he sees in it in the way of beauty af- ter his hands have touched it. This makes the difference in two pieces of canvas, one if touched by the master hand and is a masterpiece, the other is simply canvas in its natural state and is not interesting. A traveler stood watching a potter work in the factory one day and said to him, “Why is it in these days when such won- derful mechanical tools are constructed this work i§ not done by machinery rather than by hand,” and the potter said, “There are some pieces of work which can only be brought to perfection by the touch of a human hand,” and so it is in the formation of character. Whatever may be one’s social position or his financial wealth he will not be able to please God nor to be prepared for heaven until the hand of God has touched him. This is a picture of our regeneration, for regenera- tion is the coming into us of the life of God. TI stood one day in Venice watching the glassblowers, and while glass in its natural state was most uninteresting, just as soon as the workman began to blow the breath of his own life into it it became a thing of beauty. Adam, back in the Old Testament becoming a living soul is the Testament story of God’s inbreathing, while the child of God in the New Testa- ment is the New Testament’s story of that same inbreathing. 0 The day of our conversion we yielded ourselves to God: that was the closing of ourselves in the hands of the potter. As we came into the light with Him God saw imperfections in our make-up, things that were not pleasing to Him, and so He put His finger upon this or that; some of these things we have not been willing to give up, and 82 our lives have been marred. We have had a controversy with Him, and wherever there is a controversy there is no peace. We ave Christians, it is true, but we are fruitless and joyless, and many of us are shorn of power. The vessels were marred in the making, but it is a comfort- ing thing to know that we are in the hands of the potter still, and although we failed yesterday we need not fail to-morrow, for He will fashion us if we will but permit im to do so in the likeness of His own dear Son. We are to be holy, we are to be pure of heart, we certainly are to have fellowship with Christ, we have been in ondage long enough, now the question is shall we yield or not. Suppose we do not yield, are we then lost? Certainly not. Paul says, “He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him,” and in the eighth chapter of Romans he seems to ex- haust language to soar into heaven and to make his way to the very depths of the earth and then to cry aloud, “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” but we shall be shorn of peace and of power and of blessing, and while certain kinds of work will go on in our lives an- other kind of vessel will be made. Ro- mans 9: 21, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor.” We might have been a vessel in the king’s palace, we might have been in the throne room of the king, we might have been used to carry life to the dying and God would and you would not is a sad story of many a life. ~ ITI. God has a plan for every life. Jeremiah did not know what was in the mind of the potter, but he knew that he was working according to a plan, but we know what is in God’s mind. Romans 8: 29, “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.” - Philippians 3: 12, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, but I follow after. if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” God cannot be satisfied with anything less than this. A workman in a factory fashioning a beautiful design saws an imperfection in the plan. To carry it on meant ruin, and so he carried it back to the artist and found that it was an error of the copyist, and that is the difficulty of an inconsistent life. It misrepresents Jesus Christ. There are people in this world who would scorn to be heterdox so far as the Scriptures are concerned, but so far as the manifestation of the Christ life is concerned they are ex- ceedingly heretical. It is not part of God's plan that we should fail. A distinguished preacher has said, “There is a definite and proper end and issue for every man’s existence, an end which to the heart of God is the good in- tended for him. or for which he was in- tended; that which he is privileged to be- come, called to become, ought to become: that which God will assist him to become, and which he cannot miss save by his own fault. Every human scul has a complete and perfect plan cherished for it in the heart of God—a divine biography marked out, which it enters into life to live.” Surely this is a great thought, and one that gives to life—to each and every life, the | smallest, the obscurest—a sacred dignity and importance. Nothing can be trivial or common which the great God thinks about, p:ans and creates. The lowliest place im this world, to the person whom God made to occupy that place, is a position of rank and honor glorious as an angel's seat, be- cause it is one which God formed an im- mortal being in His own hands, and with immeasurable possibilities to fill. George MacDonald says, ‘I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glo- rious creatuse that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious things in all thinking.” God's plan is the best. The legend of the old olive tree is interest- ing here. The monks wanted oil, and they asked God as they planted the tree to send upon it rain and sun and then to send the frost to tofhen it, and the frost killed it; and then another monk planted a tre: and asked God to do as He would rezaraing it and the tree became a thing of beauty. When you have crossed the ocean have you not as you studied the captain’s chart seen the little zig-zag lines running north and south, and have you not sometimes wondered how it was that we could reach home in that fashion, but when the jour- ney is ended we find that every dot marked the progress of the homeward journey, and when we reach heaven and enter the graft room of the sky we shall find that every line led homeward and things we could not understand pointed heavenly. “The years of man are the looms of God, Let down from the place of the sun, Whereon we are weaving hearts, Till the mystic web is done. And when the task is ended, And the web is turned and shown, He shall hear the voice of the Master, It shall say to him, “Well done.” ”’ God has a way of making lives over. First, by outer circumstances, like the potter's wheel, such as trials and disap- pointments. Second, by His own word. It is called the light, and light reveals imperfections; it is called the fire, and fire purges the dross; it is described as water, and water cleanses all displacements; it is said to be a hammer and the hammer in the hands of the artist fashioned the angel from the block of marble. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson tells of the potter who was seeking to make porcelain for the king’s palace, was greatly discouraged in the work and in desperation threw himself into the fire, and there was something about the burning of his own body that gave an inestimable value to the porcelain which is still in existence, and that is the value of this book. God threw Himself into it in the person of His own Son, and no man can read it without feel- ing His power. ] Iv. There are some lives mentioned in the Bible which have really been made over again like the clay in the hands of the pot- ter. First — Jacob. By nature he was a sup- planter and a cheat; he stole his brother’s birthright and deceived his father, but by the power of God he became Israel, the prince. and all because he and God met at Jabbok’s Ford, and God touched him and he limped away from weakness to power. Michael Angelo was banished from France, but afterward they wanted him to return. They wished him to take a block of marble, which had been lying at the gates of the city, and fashion it into some masterpiece, and Michael Angelo came back to the city, and out of the piece of marble that had been lying for years in the dirt of the city he made fis David, which is his masterpiece in many respects. God by the touch of affliction sometimes and the touch of disappointment again has made many a life over. May He make yours? ’ Second—Elijah. He was a man of like passions with ourselves and came from a rugged country. but God made his passions and his appetites to be like horses to his chariot by means of which he was trans- lated, and he will make the weakness of your life to be power if you will let Him. Third—Paul. His was a bitter nature and his spirit that of a persecutor. He hears of a few Christians in Dan, and hur- ries away that he may cast them into pri- son, and from the man of bitterness and prejudice he is changed into the little old man a prisoner in Rome who cries out, “I know whom,I have believed and am per- suaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day,” and all because he had found Christ. When the children of Israel made their way across the land they came to the waters of Mara, which were very bitter. They were all but dying of thirst, but Moses cast the wood of a certain tree into the waters and they became sweet. Into Paul's life had been pressed the principles of the cross; not His will. but God’s was to be done, and he was made happy. Fourth—Peter. He was a man of weak- ness, but transfigured into a man of strength. He was ignorant, but he writes the Epistle that stands as his monument in the purest Greek of the New Testa- ment, and all because he added Christ to his life. So it is not a question as to who we are or what we have been, but whether we are united to Him. It is said that Ole Bul was making his way at one time through one of the great American forests, and he came upon a hut in which dwelt a hermit. He had left his city home because disappointed in - busi- ness, and had been living alone for years, his only companion being his old violin, on which he could play a few homely pieces of music. Ole Bull stopped in the hut over night, and in the shade of the fire- light, to entertain his guest, the old her- mit took down his violin and played the simple pieces with which he had whiled away his long hours of loneliness. When he had finished playing the great musician asked him if he thought he could play. The reply was, “I hardly think it possible; it took me years to learn, and yet,” said he, “you might try,” and so the great violin- ist took the instrument, drew his bow across the strings and instantly the room was filled with harmony. He played “America” and “Home, Sweet Home,” until the old hermit sobbed like a child, and then putting the instrument back again 1n its place the old hermit was made to understand that he was in the presence | of the greatest violinist of the day. But what a difference of the violin when in the hands of the hermit and in the hands of the master. The tones of one were any- thing but complete; the music of the mas- ter was perfect, and so it is not so much a question as to what our lives have been, nor what we are ourselves, but altogether the question is as to whether we are con- trolled absolutely by Christ. This is the surrendered life. Bear Ye One Another’s Burdens. In order to be satisfied even with the best people we need to be content with lit- tle and bear a great deal. Even the most perfect people have many imperfections; we ourselves have as great defects. Our faults combined with theirs make mutual toleration a difficult matter, but we can only “fulfil the law of Christ” by ‘bearing one another’s burdens.” There must be a mutual loving forbearance Frequent si- lence, habitual recollection, prayer, self- attachment, giving up all critical tenden- cies, faithfulness in putting aside all the idle imaginations of a jealous, fastidious self-love—all these will go far to maintain peace and union. How many troubles would be -avoided by this simplicity! Happy is he who neither listens to him- self nor to the idle talk of others. Be con- tent to lead a simple life where God has placed you. Be obedient; bear your little crosses—you need them, and God gives them to, you only out of pure mercy. —Fenelon. ‘The Care For Loneliness. The medicines for the > of loneliness are portions of generosit htfulness of others and Christian self-sacrifice, taken, in large doses.—~Presbyterian Banner,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers