American Aristocracy.
Here if a matron can trace her de-
scent to a signer of a Declaration of
Independence, a little over a century
ago, or again to some person who
came over in the good ship May-
flower—and that person, being a
Puritan, must necessarily have been
of the lower middle class—she takes
rank as an aristocrat.—*‘Him,” in
Vogue,
—
Pension For Mothers.
The pensioning of mothers by the
State is advocated by a University of
Chicago lecturer. The professor
thinks the pension should increase in
amount up to the third child, and
then decrease until the advent of the
sixth, when it should cease. This
seems to be a sort of compromise he-
tween anti-race suicide and Sccial-
ism.—New York Press. :
Domestic Happiness.
The foundation of all domestic
happiness is laid on a clean hearth.
There can be neither health, pros-
perity, nor peace in an ill-kept home.
Some people's idea of a poor house-
keeper is a woman who runs the
house on business principles. We
know that no man can make a suc-
cess of his business without paying
strict attention to detail and system;
also, systematic housekeeping has a
telling effect upon one's success as a
housekeeper. It is all accomplished
by being well versed in all parts of
household work and doing it by a
systematic plan. System means plan-
ning.
day while dressing in the
making ithe allowance for
arrangement of your plan, which is
almost sure to occur every day. Plan
and arrange the work of each mem-
ber of the family so that all may
work together for the good of the
whole. : 3
In order to meet the pressure of
modern life, a home-maker needs ex-
act knowledge and scientific training.
The modern American girl has re-
ceived a man’s education, and in the
majority ‘of cases has no knowledge
whatever. about home-making. Sad
experience teaches many lessons, but
much money and untold nerve energy
is wasted in the progress. American
mothers, more than any others, err
in not teaching their daughters the
proper care of a household, and every
year sees hundreds of girls marry
with no more idea of how to cook
or keep house than they have of the
North Pole.——Mrs. W. W. Simon, in
Farm Stock Journal.
morning,
any dis-
Favors Dancing, Not Athletics.
Although it has heen predicted that
after-dinner wrestling bouts might
become a fad, and ere long hosts
would be knocked down and guests
injured in the friendly contests, prob-
ably it won't come to pass after all.
Word comes from London that the
gentler art of dancing will be more in
favor this winter than for several sea-
sons. In fact, Miss Vincent, the prin-
cipal of the Court School of Dancing
and Deportment, now comes forward
and says the present day girl who in-
dulges in rough sport and athletics
should pay more attention tp beauty
and figure culture, and that the move-
ments in graceful dances have more
encouraging results in the cultivation
of the figure than anv other kind of
physical exercise. ‘Too much time
is spent on face massaze and the coif-
fure, to the neglect of the figure, and
particularly of the feet,’ she says.
‘We notice many women well dressed
and well shod with noe idea how to
move their feet properly. Statues of
Roman sculptors do not show the
distorted joints, curled-over toes and
thickened ankles which we sce to-
day. All those faults can be cured
by a careful manipulation of the body
and feet, and no overexercise can in-
sure the foundation of a good car-
riage better than the careful sfudy
of dancing. 1 contend that in the
early stages of training it is- most
beneficial to coax and humor the
muscles by the elegant movements of
the old French minuets and Spanish
dances and to proceed gradually to
«more forcible exercises to gain
~trength.”’—New York Press.
Mistakes in Entertaining.
A series of letters now running in
Good Housekeeping goes to show that
it does not matter how much one en-
tertains, unless one does it in the con-
ventional way. One woman writes
that several years ago she entertained
a hundred friends in a series of in-
formal afternoon teas. She took them
in congenial groups of ten or a dozen,
and every one seemed to enjoy them.
Many remarks were also made on the
good sense of these simple informals
and the pleasure they gave, in con-
trast to crowded receptions. But the
hospitality was not returned. A few
of the guests asked the hostess to
similar informal functions, but those
giving more formal ones left her out.
It appears that people want the same
kind of entertaining that they give.
Another woman asked her friends,
one or two at a time, to luncheon, to
dinne?, to Sunday night tea, for cards
in the evening, to concerts, to the
theatre, with a little supper ’after-
ward, and her pleasure in her hospi-
tality for a time blinded her to the
fact that she was rarely asked to any
‘real parties’’—and never to share
such hospitality as her own. She no-
ticed the neglect first when she found
the pretty gowns she expected to wear
in retutnirng her own civilities grow-
Try formulating a plan for the |
REA
ing passe in disuse. Even then she
did not perceive the reason, and it
was only when a friend remarked,
“What a pity you don't like to enter-
tain! You could do it so well,” that
she woke up. After that she decided
not to offer people the substance of
hospitality when they felt defrauded
at not having the shadow.—New York
Tribune,
A Common Adventure.
When the boy went through the
car with papers, Blva Merrill bought
one and glanced carelessly through
its pages.
with the
twice, color
face.
and then, folding the paper, sat star=
ing uncomfortably
dow.
She was remembering this incident |
in her own experience:
Four girls, coming out of a mati-
nee performance, stopped
sidewalk.
“Lots of girls do. Why, in. New
York Dorothy Grant went to the stage |
entrance to thank Maude Adams for |
her acting, and got an invitation to
call at the hotel and an autographed
picture. Think of that! No, we
won't speak to him, of course, but |
he'll know we're the same girls that |
sat down in front and applauded so. |
Wasn’t he magnificent, and didn’t he
look straight at us when he sang
that encore, Elva? Oh, I'm
going to get a front seat after this.
It's lots more fun. Come on, girls,
do! It's ‘Just a step up in this
alley.”
The stage people were already
coming out as the girls'ranged them-
selves in the front row of curious
onlookers outside the door, and soon
the ‘watched-for hero appeared, so
close that they might reach out and
touch his arm. Instead of doing so,
they clutched each other with the
excited whisper, “There he is!” And
although he did not hear, the grizzled
man to whom he was talking gave
him a nudge, and nodded with a grin |
row of rapturous young |
toward the
faces.
For one instant
thrilled by a glance
the girls
from the hero
himself; then, with a sickening drop, |
little |
his |
“Poor
on with
mutter,
stalked
they heard him
fools!” he
companion.
as
It was medicine—Dbitter, hut good |
for their malady.
That was the memory in Elva's
mind, and the editorial comment that
had grated so unpleasantly upon it
was as follows:
“We are all familiar with the bald-
headed dudes who line up at the
side doors of theatres to ogle the
cliorus girls as they come out. A
more pitiable and equally disgusting
spectacle is that of silly matinee girls
waiting at stage entrances for a pos-
sible glance or word from some
cheap actor whom they, in their ro-
mantic little minds, have lionized.
Unfortunately, this. sort of adven-
ture is exiremely common-—in both
senses-—and it is a notable fact that
these girls are by no means exclu-
sively from the untaught, homeless
classes.”'—From the Youth's Com-
panion,
47 ; K)
AEN
FASHIONS
The lace voke gives a smart touch.
The handkerchief blouse still holds |
good.
Two shades of brown make a rich |
gown,
Some of these rows of buttons ap-
pear actually to button.
In many smart examples tiny but-
tons are formed into solid lines.
Self color laces ornament many ol
the most elegant of the autumn cos-
tumes.
The range af: colors comprises all
the rich, warm tones the dyer’'s art |
can create.
The belt line has dropped down in-
to its natural lines in front and raised
the tiniest bit in the back.
Panels for the skirt and yoke for
the bodice of baby lace constitute a
simple and beautiful trimming.
A pointed toe-cap in preference to
a plain vamp will give the appearance
of length to a short, stubby foot.
One sees a great deal of colored
embroidery on plain net and tulle,
both in white and the dyed laces.
Some of the new brooches are
brightened with touches of gold and
silver thread, picking out the pat-
tern.
Skirts are rather full and very lit-
tle trimmed, except in flat embroid-
ery or lace insets with bands of the
material.
Strong blues, wine-reds, pansy
tones, castor, olive, the dark greens,
grays and the bronze browns may be
said to predominate.
The somewhat flaring shade of fla-
mingo red is not by any means uni-
versally becoming, and needs careful
study before being decidea upon.
The daily consumption of pens is
3.500,000.
Presently her eve fell on |
a paragraph which she read through |
rising in her |
Only strangers were near, but |
she looked about at them nervously, |
out of the win- |
on the |
| At the year's end one saw before him
“Come on!” one of them exclaimed. |
always |
were |
-
A HAPPY NEW YEAR.
AT THE YEAR’S END.
By Clinton Scollard.
rise .
Phantasmal presences. The first outeried,
“I am the love that once you deified!”
“And LU.” the second said, witn mocking
sighs,
“Am that
guise,
day and night was ever by your
ambition which, in splendid
’ a third exclaimed, repr.achful-
“Am that fair faith you cherished, precious
wise.”
He met their glances, levelly, aware
That each had uttered naught save truth,
and yet :
He felt no smarting of remorse’s stings.
’Tis thus with those brave souls who, stair
by stair, :
Ascend the vears, above all vai: regret,
To the trumphant heights of better
things.
ASTRONOMICAL CALCULATIONS FOR 1908
Being until July 4th, the 132d year of the independence of the United
States of America, and corresponding nearly to
The vear 1326 of the Mohammedan era, beginning Feb. 4th.
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
The
year
vear
year
year
year 5908 A. L. (Masonic).
year 2661 A. U. C. (of Rome).
vear 5912 of the World (Usher).
A. M. 8017 of the Greek Church, beginning Jan. 14 (O. S.).
4605 of the Chinese era, beginning Feb. 2.
5668-9 of the Jewish era, Sept. 26 or at sunset Sept. 23.
2568 of the Japanese era, beginning Feb.
9
vear 7416 of the World (Septuagint).
1908 IS A BISSEXTILE OR LEAP YEAR.
Moon is the Reigning Planet This Year.
CARDINAL
Vernal Equinox, entrance of the Sun
in the evening.
Summer Solstice, entrance of the Sun into Cancer, June 21st, at
in the evening.
Autumnal Equinox, entrance of the Sun into Libra, September
o'clock in the morning.
Winter Solstice, entrance of the Sun into Capricorn,
o'clock in the morning.
POINTS. :
into Aries, March 20th, at 7 -o’clock
3 o'clock
23d, at 6
at 1
22d,
December
THE SEASONS.
Washingicn Mean Time.
\D pd
>
re
to,
D.
p-
December... ......
March i. u...
June Ss
September .. ..
December
i
|
a.
Fr
POR ROT
PO To mt
Winter begins and lasts
] Spring begins an.l lasts. .
p. m. Summer begins and lasts.
Autumn begins and lasts.
Winter beg. Trop. Year. 365— 5—41
92 —
93 —14-—39
S9—18-—-35
ECLIPSES FOR THE YEAR 1908.
There will be three eclipses of the Sun this year and one Luna Apulse.
1. The first will be a total eclipse of the Sun on the 3d of January,
invisible in America, visible on the
11.
the 28th of June, visible, in part, in
be annular in
Tampa, Florida, and on the Bermuda Islands.
Pacific Ocean.
The second will be an annular or ringform eclipse of the Sun on
the United States. The eclipse will
The begin-
ning will be at '9 o'clock 27 minutes in the forenoon; the end at 12 o'clock
41 minutes at noon.
IIT.
eastern part of South America.
(Washington time.)
The third is an cclipse of the Sun on the 22d and
ber, invisible in North America, visible on the Atlantic Ocean
23d of Decem-
and in the
MORNING AND EVENING STARS.
Morning Stars.
Venus after July.
Mars after August 22
Jupiter until January
gust 17.
Saturn after February
tember 30.
Mercury until January 14; February
28 until May 7; July 4 until Au-
gust 20;
ber 11. ¢
29, after Au-
29, until Sep- |
October 28 until Decem- |
Evening Stars.
| Venus until July 5.
i Mars until August
i Jupiter after January 29,
! gust 17.
Saturn until February 29, after Sep-
tember 30.
Mercury, January 14 until February
28; May 7 until July 4; August 20
until October 28; after December
3k
until Au-
PLANETS’ GREATEST BRILLIANCY.
Mercury—February 13, June 7,
October 4, sets in the evening after
the Sun and rises in the morning before the Sun, March 27, July 25, No-
vember 13. Jupiter—January 29.
Saturn—September 30.
Venus—DMay 29, August 7.
MOVABLE FEASTS AND CHURCH DAYS.
Septuagesima Sunday, February 16.
Sexagesima Sunday, February 23.
Quinquagesima Sunday, March 1,
9
Shrove Tuesday, March 3.
Ash Wednesday, or first day of Lent, |
March 4.
Quadragesima Sunday, Marcha S.
Mid Lent, March 25.
Palm Sunday, April 12.
Maundy Thursday, April 16.
Good Friday, April 17.
Easter Sunday, April 19.
Low Sunday, April 26.
Rogation Sunday, May 21.
Ascension Day, May 28.
Whit Sunday, June 7.
| Trinity Sunday, June 14.
Corpus Christi, June 18.
{ Thanksgiving Day, on fourth or last
Thursday in November, as Presi-
dent may appoint.
| First Sunday in Advent, November
°
29.
Sundays after Trinity are 23 this
vear.
Quatember or Ember Days.
On 11, 13 and 14 of March.
On 16, 12 and 13 of June.
On 16, 18 and .9 of September.
On 16, 18 and 19 of December.
Some of the New Records Made During the Year
Automobile record for mile on circular track. by Walter Christie, 52
seconds.
Swimming record for 100 yards,
by Charles Daniels, 55 2-5 seconds.
Horse running record, one mile and an eighth, by Charles Edward, at
Brighton Beach, 1.50 3-5.
Shooting record, by Captain Hardy, who broke
Homing pigeon makes average
600 miles.
Thompson's Colts bowling team
three games.
Ralph Rose, John Flanagan,
Martin
3.066 flying targets.
speed of 1612 yards per minute for
(five men) rolled a 2853 score for
Sheridan, George Bonhag and
Melvin Sheppard all broke athletic records.
Fastest time on snow shoes, 47m. 20s.
Longest ski jump, 114 feet.
75 Lives Lost in the Alps
and 350 Other Mishaps in 1907.
London.—Official statistics just is-
sued supply the death rate in 1907
due to misadventure in the Italian,
Swiss and Austrian Alps. The num-
ber of lives lost was seventy-five, the
majority being Swiss and Germans.
Next came the British and after them
the Italians. There were 350 serious
accidents.
The chief cause of the fatality was
fool-hardiness, which is becoming
more prevalent every year, in at-
tempting ascents without a guide.
Seventy-one Hunters Killed
During Season of 1907.
Chicago. — Seventy-one persons
were Killed—most of them by care-
lessness—d uring the hunting season
of 1907. This is slightly below the
record for 1906.
The number of injured in 1907,
however, ts in excess of that of the
season - before, eighty-one hunters
having beea hurt in 1907, compared
with only seventy during 1906.
In Wisconsin, Michigan and Min-
nesota fifty persons lost their lives in!
1907.
BANA HEND ERS
Theme: A Nation's Warning.
Brooklyn, N. Y.—Preaching at the
Irving Square Presbyterian Church,
Hamburg avenue and Weirfield street,
on the above theme, the Rev. Ira
Wemmell Henderson, pastor, took as
his text Daniel 5:5: “In the same
hour came forth fingers of a man’s
hand, and wrote over against the
candlestick upon the plaster of the
wall of the king's palace; and the
king saw the part of the hand that
wrote.” He said:
This is a weird story. The inci-
dent is gruesome. The circumstances
give pause for thought. The picture
is terrific. =~ Belshazzar, the wicked
king, in the midst of revelry and vice,
surrounded by his retinue and the
parasites of a degraded court, flaunt-
ing his villainy in the very face of the
living God, finds that” God is not
mocked, much less is He dead. The
animated hand points the tight end of
a long rope. It emphasizes a clear
warning of Jehovah. And it terrifies
the king.
Belshazzar had cause to fear. It is
no wonder that his knees knocked
and that his limbs shook, that he had
a fit, so as to say, of the ague. Well
he might. For Nebuchadnezzar the
king, his father before him, had had
an exhibition of the power and the
presence of God within the world.
He had harbored wickedness in his
heart and within his dominions and
God had humbled him. Belshazzar
therefore might have learned from
ancestral experience what would be
likely to be the sure result of his
many and perverse sins. Simple rea-
soning might have led him to refrain
to try the patience of Jehovah to his
own undoing. But he would not be
taught. He would not ‘even be
warned. And the same night Bel-
shazzar the king of the Chaldeans
was slain.
This weird tale is as useful as it
is gruesome and as illustrative as it
is terrific. It is admonitory. It
should be exemplary. It certainly af-
fords food for sober and continued
thought. It epitomizes a lesson that
so many men and nations in the past
have failed or refused tg grasp. The
lesson that a man cannot fool with
laws of morality and righteousness
and with the principles enunciated by
Almighty God and be safe or live for
long.
How often it has happened in his-
tory that men and nations have wait-
ed until the noose has tightened. How
many have flaunted their wilfulness
in the face of Jehovah with a seem-
ing calm superiority to the inevitable.
How many have refused to heed even
after the hand has, as it were, written
over against the wall of their own
lives. Louis presumed to defy God
and man and to exalt his whims above
the right. And his fatuousness pre-
pared the way for freedom’s Frazce.
George the Third moved to thwart
the plans of Providence in the new
world. But the political idiocy of
George the Third simply hastened the
ascendancy of George Washington.
America tried to demonstrate the
holiness of an unholy slavery and to
compromise principle. But God wrote
large upon the page of our national
history His ultimatum concerning the
rights of man with the red blood of
the flower of our manhood.
The lesson of Belshazzar is apropos.
It is pertinent. And it is nowhere
more needed than within the confines
of most Christian and civilized Amer-
ica. To mention no others, it is of
practical value in our commercial and
governmental and ecclesiastical at-
fairs. For commerce has been made
the creature of the whims and fan-
cies of unscruplous financiers. The
Government has been, and is now be-
ing, made the opportunity for thieves
and malefactors of every conceivable
political stripe. The church has been
dormant. In many quarters she has
been, so it would seem, dead. We
have been remiss in much. We have
been fast and loose in more. We have
deified wealth and permitted godless-
ness to strut with little let or hind-
rance upon the king's highway. God
knows we have been warned. Let
us trust that we shall heed the hand.
Let us not emulate Belshazzar.
No man may deny that we have
drifted fast toward the rocks of na-
tional dishonor and disgrace in our
commercial affairs. The financial and
commercial situation is a disgrace to
a free people, not to say of a Chris-
tian nation. And bad as is the story
that comes directly to our ears it is
not half of what may be told and but
an adumbration of the catastrophe
that will follow as surely as that Cod
lives if we do not mend our ways.
The spectacle of a panic in the midst
of the most legitimate prosperity that
the world has ever known is in itself
a far greater condemnation of our
methods and our career than any
sermon. Words cannot picture the
sinfulness of the situation so well os
can the fact with which we are face
to face. Any sane man can perceive
the outcome. None but a fool or a
knave would deny the sin. Shall we
shut our eyes to the writing hand?
Fast as we have drifted toward
commercial and financial disaster we
have none the less swiftly progressed
in many quarters, and even now are
moving, toward political degeneracy.
The administration of our cities is a
by-word and a joke among the na-
tions of the world. As we contem-
plate them ourselves we seem almost
to take delight to say that they are as
badly managed as they are. Cer-
tainly many of us openly despair of
reformation and pronounce popular
self-government upon that point to be
and utter and a shameful failure.
The efforts of those who sit behind
the scenes and pull the wires in our
national affairs are to accomplish the
discrediting and overthrow of any
man or measure that is squared to
the unflinching application of the
rule of righteousness regardless of
the consequences or the cost. We
may well thank God that here and
there, especially in the South and
West, the citizenship of America is
so keen to hear the breaking waves
and to steer the ship of our national
existence off impending shores.
For
A AAA as
we must change our course, or we
will perish as the grass,
Similarly the ¢hurch has been ree
miss. The prevalent and profound
antagonism toward and distrust of
the church upon the part of too large
a proportion of the working men and
careful thinkers of this land is a
warning that we would do well to
heed. We have exchanged leadership
for applause and conviction for case.
We have become flabby. Multitudes
of men regard us as the protectors
and special pleaders, for a considera=
tion, of the privileged classes. We
are regarded as too prominently the
preservers of the status quo, the
brake upon a healthy progress. And
it is not strange. For the church has
not, nation wide, locked arms with a
great moral reform openly and ag-
gressively in forty years. = We have
spent our fighting strength apon
heresy trials and game that is not
worth ,our energy. In New York it
would seem, judging by the returns,
that the sure way to defeat a candi-
date is to secure for him the open
and avowed support of the ministry
of the church. We have attacked in-
dividuals when down and organiza=
tions that it cost nothing to assail.
We have objected to saloons within
150 feet of the churches and been
silent while they squatted thick and
greedily in the midst of the haunts
of poverty. We have neglected the
social evil and the men in the pews
and membership of our own organiza-
tion who have owned and rented
houses of ill fame. We have as-
saulted the moral character of the
saloonkeeper and consigned him and
his business to eternal torment, while
we have ever maintained by our
suffrage our criminal silent partner=-
ship in his trade. The meanwhile
praying God to drive him from our
midst. And even in this day with the
inspiring and glorious example of the
Southland right before us we may
find ministers in the city of New York
who will excuse the saloon, and a
church that is afraid to grapple with
the enemy in a struggle to the death.
We have been fooled so long political-
ly that most of the politicians regard
the chureh element as a sort of a
cheerful political joke.
All of this is the handwriting on
the wall. It is the warning of the
times. In no unreal sense it is thé
voice of God to us. Woe betide us
if we fail to be warned.
Not otherwise is it in individual
life. What a careless host there is
of men who disregard the clear ad-
monitions of Jehovah and who spend
their lives in riotous living, who vio-
late every statute upon the moral
code, who permit in their public
lives sins they would revolt to have
exist in their private affairs, who live
privately they neither have the
courage nor the desire to live openly,
who sell their minds and souls as
they do their votes for a considera-
tion, who think that they may sow as
they please and reap what they like,
who deny the sovereignty of God and
stifle the consciousness of a judg-
ment. Upon the walls of their livés
the hand writes daily. To their ears
continually comes the warning call of
God. Into the stilly recesses of their
souls the still, small voice speaks.
3ut like Belshazzar they are heedless.
They mock the God who. cannot be
mocked.
It is ood that God warns. It is
well that we should hear and profit
and reform. :For if we do: not, indi-
vidually nationally, we shall be
overwhelmed. It could not be other-
wise. It ought not to be different.
It is for us to watch out. lest it be
said of us that in the day of warning
we were slain.
as
as
ee Ly
Ye Are Saved Through Faith,
To confess, to weep, to pray, to re-
all these are of no avail un-
less we. believe. It is by believing
that we have . “peace with rod
through our: Lord Jesus Christ.” It
is by believing the ‘exceeding great
and precious promises’’ that they are
realized in our experiences. In order
to receive any benefit from the work
of Jesus we must believe that He. is
“able to do exceeding abundantly
above all that we ask or think.” To
the blind men who sought His help,
Jesus said: ‘Believe ye that 'I am
able to do this? They said unto Him,
Yea, Lord. Then touched He their
eyes, sayinz, ‘According to your faith
be it unto vou. And their eyes were
opened.” . To the ruler of the syna-
gogue Jesus said, “Fear not; believe
only.”
We must remember, however, that
‘a nominal faith in Christ, which
accepts Him merely as the Saviour of
the world, can never bring healing to
the soul. The faith which is unto
salvation is not a more intellectual
assent to the truth. He who waits
for entire knowledge before he will
exercise faith, cannot receive bless-
ing from God. It is not enough to
believe about Christ; we must believe
in Him. The only faith that will
benefit us is that which embraces
Him as a personal Saviour, which ap-
propriates His merits to ourselves.
Many hold faith as an opinion; sav-
ing faith is a transaction, by which
those who receive Christ join them-
selves in covenant relation with God.
Genuine faith is life.” Believe, and
live in obedience to the will of God.
— Review and Herald.
solve
Jieep in Line.
Keep in line with the
Whatever is accomplished in over-
throwing the kingdom of Satan and
the upbuilding of the Kingdom of God
can only be done through and by the
direction of the Holy Ghost. He is
the great Director of effort for the
redemption of the world. He is the
Controller of all the forces which God
sets to work in every age for the sal-
vation of men.
There is diversity in His opera-
tions. He does not always work in
the same way. He does not always
set forth the same truths. He ig-
nores no truth, but presents all truth
just when and what people need. He
presents truths in their proper order.
He does not always use the same
measures. Some things wear out and
lose their power over men.—The
King's Messenger. :
{oly Ghost.
The Unseeing.
The mocker and the doubter has
none of the spiritual sight which sees
far off, or sces perfect. delicate life in
its fulness close to him. He scos
nothing but dusty blades and leaves.
There is an unseen world heside him
for all that.—Achbishop Benson