The Chautauquan, May 1883

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A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF
THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. III.             MAY, 1883.              No. 8.

Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.

Superintendent of Instruction, J. H. Vincent, D. D., Plainfield, N. J.

General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

Counselors, Lyman Abbott, D. D.; J. M. Gibson, D. D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D. D.; W. C. Wilkinson, D. D.

Contents

REQUIRED READING
FOR THE
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1882-83.

MAY.

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

By Mrs. MARY S. ROBINSON.

CHAPTER X.
ALEXANDER NEVSKI—MIKHAIL OF TVER.

We have seen that Mstislaf the Brave defied the tyranny of Andreï Bogoliubski, in his attempt to intimidate Novgorod the Great.[A] When Vsevolod, surnamed Big Nest, by reason of his large family, would force the city to his will, Mstislaf again came to its rescue; and when Iaroslaf of the Big Nest family, continuing the feud, betook himself to Torjok near the Volga, where he obstructed the passage of the merchants and brought famine upon the great city, Mstislaf the Bold, of Smolensk, son of the Brave, left his powerful capital, one of the strongest of Russia’s fortified cities, and went to the help of the distressed people. “Torjok shall not hold herself higher than the Lord Novgorod,” he swore in princely fashion, “I will deliver his lands, or leave my bones for his people to bury.” Thus he became champion and prince of the Republic. Between Iaroslaf and his brothers Iuri of Vladimir, and Konstantin of Rostof ensued one of the family wrangles common to the times, that was settled on the field of Lipetsk (1216), where Konstantin allied with Mstislaf won his cause, and Iaroslaf was compelled to renounce both his claims and his captives. When the bold Mstislaf had put the affairs of the principality in order, he took formal leave of the vetché, assembled in the court of Iaroslaf, and resisting their entreaties to abide with them, went as we have seen to the aid of Daniel of Galitsch.[B] But according to his wish he was buried beside his father, the Brave, who, when at the height of his greatness was borne down with disease, commanded that he should be carried to Saint Sophia in Novgorod, received there the eucharist amid the congregated citizens, crossed his once mighty arms upon his breast, and closed his eyes forever upon the scenes that had witnessed his achievements. In the cathedral lie the two warriors in mute company, with the consort of Iaroslaf the Great, his son Vladimir, who laid its foundations, the archbishop Nikita, whose prayers extinguished a conflagration, and a goodly company of other illustrious dead.

In course of time the Iaroslaf who had renounced his claim to the Republic after the defeat at Lipetsk, was elected its prince, he being also Prince of Suzdal; but he was compelled to make good his claim before the Grand Khan in Asia, and perished in the desert journey. Of his two sons, Andreï succeeded him at Vladimir (Suzdal), and Alexander at Novgorod.

The incoming of the Tatars had left the Russian realm a prey to its northern neighbors,—the Finnish tribes, the Livonians and Swedes. In his early years Alexander proved his capacity for leadership by a battle won against these united forces near one of the affluents of the Neva—an exploit that gained him his surname Nevski, and that has been commemorated in the historical ballads of his people. An Ingrian, a newly Christianized chief in the Russian service, on the eve of the engagement, beheld Boris and Gleb, the martyred sons Saint Vladimir, the Castor and Pollux of Russian tradition, standing in a phantom boat, rowed by phantom oarsmen, toward the camp of their countrymen—going to the help of their kinsman Alexander. “Row, my men!” said one of the brothers, “row, for the rescue of the Russian land!” In the hour of conflict, one of the captains pursued Burger, the Swedish general, through the water to his ship, but swam back successfully and mixed again in the fray, when he reached the firm land. The exploits of another knight are sung who brought in three Swedish galleys. Gabriel, Skuilaf of Novgorod, tore away Burger’s tent and hewed down its ashen post, amid the cheers of his men; and Alexander with a stroke of his lance “imprinted his seal on Burger’s face.” Rough work was this, in rude times; but thus was the national strength asserted, and the national honor protected.

Novgorod, like all the republics of medieval times, recognized the principle of caste distinctions, and hence was subject to the dissensions consequent upon an enlarged freedom in conflict with these class divisions. Its tendency was toward oligarchy. As monarchies adjacent to it increased in size and strength, it was constrained to form protective alliances now with the one, now with the other; but to the latest period of its independence it cautiously guarded its civic rights and laws against the encroachments of princely power. Some differences between the citizens and Alexander led him to withdraw from the city; but the incursions of the Sword-Bearers with their train of northern tribes, made his presence again necessary at the head of the army. He conducted a campaign characterized by extreme bitterness on both sides, and ending in a conflict on Lake Peïpus, the Battle of the Ice, in 1242, when a multitude of the Tchudi were exterminated and the Livonian Knights were seriously crippled. The Grand Master expected to see his[428] redoubtable foeman before the walls of Riga; but Alexander contented himself with reprisals, and a recovery of the lands wrested from the Republic.

Through a score or more of years, partly by reason of its remote northern location, and its relations with the western powers, Novgorod had evaded the imposition of the Tatar yoke, put upon the rest of the realm. But the time came when the khan at Saraï determined to bring under his sway the region of the lakes; and Alexander, with his brother Andreï, was summoned to the Horde for confirmation of their duties as vassal princes. Batui, the khan, received the hero of the Neva with consideration, and added to his domains large tracts of Southern Russia, including the Principality of Kief; but with these largesses was imposed the humiliating task of raising tribute for the Mongol court. When the posadnik announced this hard command to the vetché of Novgorod, the people, paying no heed to his cautious and qualified phrasing, uttered a terrible cry, and tore him limb from limb. A rebellion, headed by Alexander’s son, Vasili, gathered force, till the rumor spread that the Asiatics were moving toward the city. Yielding for a time to the necessity imposed upon them, the people again rallied, this time around Saint Sophia, and declared they would meet their fate, be it what it might, rather than submit to the unendurable subjugation. Alexander sent them word that he must leave them to themselves, and go elsewhere. The Mongol emissaries were at the gates: the people in the acquiescence of despair admitted them to their streets. During the days that the baskaks, census-takers and tax-gatherers, went from house to house—and the days were many, for the city covered an area hardly less than that of London in this century—its industries were suspended, its stirring, joyous life extinguished in silence and gloom. The priceless possession of the state, its freedom and independence, was lost: and though the great lords and wealthy burghers might still boast of their wealth, the simple citizens had lost what they had believed to be an enduring heritage, and what they had cherished as an enduring hope.

Yet a restricted freedom still remained: nor till three centuries later was this sacrificed to the power of the Muscovite and the unity of the Russias. Even then the history of the republic belonged to the Empire. The right of representation, of government by laws, and by the free consent of the governed, were matters of history not to be forgotten. The most rigid of Russian despots could not utterly ignore them, and they have produced an element of unrest that, however painful in its immediate results, is yet inevitable and healthful and hopeful. They have been one of the influences at work, bringing to tens and hundreds of thousands of lips the watch-word uttered since the reign of Nicholas, on the rivers, on the mountain boundaries, in the mines, the residence of the noble, the factory, and the hut of the peasant—Svobodnaya Rossia: Free Russia.

Everywhere the collection of the tribute was attended with revolts. One in Suzdal, sure to bring terrible reprisals upon the people, compelled Alexander to a second journey to the Horde, where he had also to excuse himself for failure to send his military contingent. The chronicles aver that the men were defending their western frontiers at this time. The khan detained his noble vassal for a year. On his return journey the prince, whose bravery had endured so sore a conflict with his sagacity and prudence, and whose health had weakened, died at a town several days’ journey from Vladimir. When the tidings were brought to Novgorod, the Metropolitan Kyrill, who was celebrating a religious service, announced to the congregation: “Learn, my dear children, that the sun of Russia is set.” “We are lost,” they answered, and sobs were heard from all parts of the church.

Long will this Alexander, “helper of men,” be revered by his countrymen. Religion and patriotism with them are one; hence it is not strange that he is enrolled among the saints of the Church. As protector of the modern capital, his name is given to its stateliest promenade. The monastery dedicated to his memory is one of the three Lauras, or seats of the Metropolitans, filled with treasures and shrines of the illustrious dead. Thither repair the sovereigns before the undertaking of momentous enterprises, even as the Nevski bowed before the Divine Justice in Saint Sophia, ere he went forth upon his expeditions and journeys. His timely submission saved the realm from further exhaustion, while his military successes preserved it from sinking under the hardest subjection that has ever been imposed upon a European people.

Daniel, a son of this renowned prince, received as part of his appanage the devastated town of Moscow, which up to this time had been an obscure place, unnoticed by the annalists, beyond the mention of its origin. They record that in 1043 the Grand Prince Iuri Dolgoruki,[C] while on a journey, tarried at the domain of a boyar who for some reason he caused to be put to death; that having his attention directed to certain heights washed by the river Moskova, he brought settlers thither, who built a village on the spot at present covered by the Kreml. A little church, Our Savior of the Pines, is still preserved, a relic of these early days. Daniel and his sons increased their domains by the annexation of several cities; and during the life of Iuri, the second son, was initiated a feud with the house of Tver, that endured through eighty years ere it was closed by the merging of the principality into that of Moscow. The contests of the two kinsmen at the court of the Horde, illustrate the subserviency of the princes to their conquerors. With many of them no deceptions or malice were too base for the forwarding of their purposes. Iuri, by his representations, contrived to obtain the arrest of the Prince of Tver. While the khan was enjoying the chase in the region of the Caucasus, Mikhail was pilloried in the market-place of a town of Daghestan, an object of wondering comment to the populace. Both there and when held a prisoner in his tent, he bore his sufferings with fortitude, consoling himself with prayer and with the Psalms of David. As his hands were bound, an attendant held the open book before him. His nobles would have contrived his escape, but he remonstrated: “Escape and leave you to the anger of my foe? Leave my principality to go down without its ruler and father? If I can not save it, I can, at least, suffer with it.” Later, when speaking with his young son, Konstantine, of their far-off home, tears filled his eyes, and his soul was troubled. He repeated the words of the Fifty-fifth Psalm: “Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.” An attendant priest endeavored to console him with the words: “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. He suffers not the righteous to be moved.” The prince responded: “O, that I had wings like a dove; then would I flee away and be at rest.” Iuri had procured a death-warrant for his cousin, and attended by hired ruffians approached the tent, from which the boyars and attendants had been ordered away. “I know his purpose,” said Mikhail, as they took his hand in parting. When the murder was done, Kavgadi, a Tatar, beholding the torn and naked body, exclaimed against the indignity, and ordered it to be covered with a mantle. Long did the Tverians bewail their martyred prince. His body, incorruptible, it was averred, was recovered and laid to rest in their cathedral, where the pictured record of his fate is still vivid on its walls. He, too, is a saint, exalted by suffering, as Alexander was exalted by heroism. Some years later,[429] when his son, Dmitri of the Terrible Eyes, met at Saraï the murderer of his father, “his sword leaped from its scabbard,” and laid him low. He rendered not unwillingly his own life in its prime as atonement for this act of filial vengeance. Then, as now, a quick, and, as they say, an uncontrollable impulse moved many a Russ to similar, sometimes to inexplicable acts.

A third Prince of Tver escaped from the plots of his grasping Muscovite neighbor, Ivan Kalita, or Alms-bag, (1328) so called from that article that hung ever at his girdle. Yet as he acquired great wealth by his prudent management, which increased the commerce and industries of his realm, he had not repute for self-denying charity. He established markets and fairs along the Volga, that added to his revenues with many hundred pounds of silver: probably in the poltiras, or half-pounds, current from the time of Saint Vladimir to the fifteenth century. About the year 1389 coins of silver and copper were substituted for the marten skins that had been used as a medium of barter. A hundred and fifty years later were introduced the rouble and copek,[D] the coins most in use of the modern currency. Ivan also enriched the Kreml with several stately churches, among them the Cathedral of the Assumption—Uspenski Sobor—where for above three hundred years the tsars have crowned themselves,—the most sacred of all the Russian churches in the estimation of the people. From one of its interior corners rises the shrine of the Metropolitan, Saint Peter, who is said to have prophesied to his sovereign: “If thou wilt comfort my hoary years, wilt build here a temple worthy of thy estate, and our religion; this thy city shall be chief of all the cities of Russia. Through many centuries shall thy race reign here in strength and glory. Their hands shall prevail against their enemies, and the saints shall dwell in their borders.”

Kalita is regarded as the first of the Muscovite princes.

[To be continued.]

A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.

By L.A. SHERMAN, Ph.D.

VII.—ESAIAS TEGNÉR: JOHANN LUDVIG RUNEBERG.

Now that we have finished our Carolinian romance, shall we hear something of the author? He is certainly a brilliant poet, for his story which we have been reading is no deep-planned and long worked-over effort, but was written in the few days after a severe sickness when the author could not yet leave his couch. He wrote it to occupy his mind, and beguile the time. How is he esteemed in Sweden? Will it be thought incredible when I say no old hero, not even Charles XII., is reverenced there more deeply, no name is cherished so fondly,—that no man so nearly seems worthy to be called the father of his country, as this same poet-bishop, Esaias Tegnér?

All this is hard to explain, so many-sided was the life he led. We need to realize that he was more active as a bishop and party-leader than a poet. Then to appreciate him in the last capacity we must go among the Swedes themselves. We shall find in him the bond of unity of a whole nation, in that he has sung best the ancient glory of the race, and discovered to the world the heroic integrity of the Northern character. We shall note that it is he whose words are most, next to the Bible, on the lips of every Swede. If we go into a peasant’s cottage, far from railways and culture, we shall be sure to find some one who has not only heard of the great poet, but can even repeat for us whole cantos from his “Frithiof’s Saga,”—perhaps all of “Axel” itself. And nobody even sets about learning these poems by heart: they cling to the memory in spite of the reader.

But we must begin our history. Who were Tegnér’s parents? What was their rank in life? C. W. Böttiger, Tegnér’s son-in-law, who wrote a short life of the poet, shall answer for us:—

“A few years ago north of the church in Tegnaby, there was seen a gray cottage fallen into ruins, with moss-grown walls and two little windows of which one, according to the ancient custom of the province, was in the roof. The people regarded it with a kind of reverence; and if one asked the reason, the hat was raised with the answer: ‘The Bishop’s grandfather once lived there.’ His name was Lucas Esai´asson, his wife’s Ingeborg Mänsdotter. According to testimony handed down traditionally in the parish, this Lucas Esaiasson was a poor but exceedingly industrious and pious man. A peasant during a greater part of the time when Charles XII. was king, he continued yet twenty years after the ‘shot,’ a Carolinian at the plow. This and his Bible were his dearest treasures, and all he had to leave to fourteen children, for whom he procured bread with the plow after he had given them names from the Scriptures. There was one called Paul, another John, a third Enoch, and so on. A whole temple-progeny was growing up under his lowly roof: the Old and New Testaments were embracing each other in his cottage. The youngest son, born on the day of King Charles’s death, was named Esaias. The older brothers inherited their father’s plow, and became peasants; Esaias inherited his father’s Bible and became a minister.”

We wish we could continue to quote Mr. Böttiger, but his story proceeds too slowly. This Esaias was the father of our poet. Showing unusual aptitude for books, he was taken from the farm where he had gone out to service, and placed in the school of Wexiö. Coming from the by or village of Tegn, and having but one name, he was entered in the school register, kept after the manner of the time in Latin, as Esaias Tegnérus. The latter, the Latin suffix us being omitted, became afterward the family name.

In due time this Esaias Tegnér passed to the university, and after graduation was ordained as we have seen, a minister. He is remembered as a talented preacher, and merry man of society. He married a pastor’s daughter whose mother was celebrated for wit, force of character, and poetic gifts. Like qualities reappear in a marked degree in our poet, who was the fifth son of this marriage. He was born in Kykerud [Chikerood], November 13, 1782, and took his father’s name.

Ten years later the minister’s family was broken up by the death of the father. Two daughters and four sons were thus left in a measure to the charity of the world. The young Esaias was soon taken into the counting-room of one Jacob Branting, a crown-bailiff of the province and friend of the deceased pastor. Here he learned to keep accounts and developed rapidly into a valuable clerk. All the leisure he could command was given steadily to books. He read everything he could find, particularly the old Norse sagas, and amused himself by turning some of the driest themes of history and biography into poetical form. The crisis in his life came early. He had been in Branting’s office four years, and so won the respect and love of his employer as to be thought of already as the future son-in-law and successor to the office of bailiff. But Branting had observed the lad’s genius for books, and was beginning to think him fitted for something higher. One night, as they were riding together, Esaias astonished him by rehearsing with some minuteness the principles of astronomy, which he had gathered from his reading. Branting’s decision was at once made. “You shall study,” said he. “As for the means,[430] God will supply the sacrifice, and I will not forget you.”

Young Esaias commenced at once to study Latin, Greek, and French. So remarkable was his memory that he was able, after glancing a few times over a list of fifty or sixty words, to repeat them with their meanings. To his other tasks he added later, the study of English, which he learned by the aid of a translation of Ossian. A change soon follows. Lars Gustaf, his oldest brother, not yet graduated from the university, had been asked to serve as tutor in the family of a rich manufacturer and owner of mines in Rämen. Lars consented on condition that he might bring with him Esaias; for during his temporary absence from the university he had undertaken to guide his brother’s work. The rich proprietor into whose house they were to enter was Christopher Myhrman, a name prominent in the history of Swedish manufactures. He had himself built up the foundries and mills of Rämen, turning the wilderness into a large and flourishing town. Amid his multifold business cares he always found time to read his favorite Latin authors, and enjoy the society of his family, whose circle at that time comprised eight vigorous sons and two blooming daughters.

“To this place, and to this circle it was,” says Mr. Böttiger, “that Lars Gustaf and Esaias Tegnér betook themselves one beautiful summer afternoon in July, 1797. They had traveled in a carriage over the road on which the owner of the mills had been obliged, twenty years before, to bring his wife home upon a pack-saddle; but they left the coach behind them and now came on foot at their leisure through the forest. Suddenly there burst upon their gaze the loveliest prospect. On a point of land, extending out into the water thickly set with islands, and encircled with birch and fir, lay like a beautiful promise the pleasant garden sloping in terraces to the sea, girded with the setting sun and covered with shady trees. ‘Who knows what dwells under their branches,’ perhaps the poet-stripling was already asking, with quickened pulses. We know what dwelt beneath them. It was his good fortune he was coming here to meet; it was amidst this smiling and magnificent nature that his talents were destined to develop, his powers to be confirmed, his wit to grow; it was over the threshold of this patriarchic tabernacle that his knowledge was to be brought to ripeness, and his heart find a companion for life.

“What here in the first room attracted his attention was the big book-cases. He found them richly supplied not only with Swedish, English, and French works, but also Greek and Roman authors of every sort. With greedy eyes he fixed himself especially by the side of a folio, on whose leathern back he read: Homerus. It was Castalio’s edition, printed in Basel in 1561. Here was an acquaintance to make. He made it immediately, and in a manner of which his own account is worthy of being told:—

“‘So without any grammatical foundation, I resolved to attempt the task immediately. At the outset it naturally proceeded slowly and tediously. The many dialectic forms of which I had no idea at all, laid me under great difficulties, which would probably have discouraged any less energetic will. The Greek grammar I had used was adapted to prose writers: of the poetic dialects nothing was said. I was therefore compelled just here to devise a system for myself, and further, to make notes from that time, which now show that among many mistakes I sometimes was right. To give way before any sort of difficulty was not at all my disposition; and the farther I went, the easier my understanding of the poet became. With the prose writers Xenophon and Lucian, I also made at this time a flying acquaintance; but they interested me little, and my principal work continued to be with Homer, and also Horace in Latin, whom I had not known before. French literature was richly represented in this library; Rousseau’s, Voltaire’s, and Racine’s works were complete, and were not neglected either. Of Shakspere there was only Hamlet, which strangely enough interested me very little. In German literature there was not a single poet. That language I was compelled to learn from the usual instruction books, and thus conceived a repugnance to it which lasted for a long time.’”

Thus in his first sojourn of seven months in Rämen, the future poet read the Iliad through three times, the Odyssey twice, and from the same book-shelves Horace, Virgil, and Ovid’s Metamórphoses. He was almost insane in his application to study; yet his constitutional vigor, strange to say, remained unimpaired. In 1799 he entered the university of Lund, whither his father and two brothers had preceded him. We will not linger for details of his industry there. It will not surprise us to learn that on the “promotion” (graduation) of his class in 1803, Esaias Tegnér was given the primus, or first place.

Immediately after the ceremony of graduation, Tegnér hastened to greet his friends and especially Jacob Branting and Christopher Myhrman, whose liberality had in part sustained him at the university. “At Rämen he was met with open arms by the older members of the family, and with secret trembling by a beating heart of sixteen years, where his image stood concealed behind the memories of childhood. His summer became an idyl,—the first happiness of love. . . . The traveler who approaches Rämen finds in the pine woods beside the way a narrow stone, bearing the letters E. T., and A. M. By this, one August evening, two hearts swore to each other eternal fidelity.”

The university of Lund hastened to appropriate to itself its brilliant alumnus, as private instructor in Æsthetics. Three years later occurred his marriage with Anna Myhrman. For several years his lyre was silent. He believed success for him lay in the line of scholarship, and only for solace or merriment he tuned its chords. In 1808 appears the first truly national and characteristic poem of this skald, “To the Defenders of Sweden.” “This warlike dithyramb sounded like an alarm-bell through every national breast. Tones at once so defiant and so beautiful had not been heard before. These double services as instructor and poet attracted the attention of the throne. It was manifested by a commission investing Tegnér with the name, rank and honor of professor.”

It was during this period that Tegnér’s literary reputation neared its radiant meridian. Poems of various sort came forth with strange rapidity,—as yet, however, none of much extent. There were at this time two schools of poetry in Sweden,—the mystical, or “phosphoristic,” and the Gothic. The former inclined toward foreign, especially German, models, the latter maintained the sufficiency of national models and subjects. Tegnér, though an ardent disciple of the Gothic school, disdained discussion, and maintained that the best argument was example. Such example he was himself destined soon to furnish. In 1820 appeared his “sacredly sweet Whitsun Idyl,” “The Children of the Lord’s Supper,” which has been so well rendered into English by Mr. Longfellow. Though clear and simple as the brooks and sunshine this poem lacks the stir and vigor which it was so easy for Tegnér to impart. In the next year this lack was supplied in the poem of “Axel,” and almost at the same time by the publication of his “Frithiof’s Saga,”—“the apples,” says Geijer [Yeiyer], “through which the gods yet show their power to make immortal.” This is an old Norse legend which Tegnér has rewritten and modernized, and at the same time charged full with the fervor of his mighty soul. “It would be superfluous to recount here the applause with which this master poem of Northern poetic genius was vociferously greeted by all the educated world; how Goethe from his throne of poetical eminence bowed his laurel-crowned gray locks in homage to it; how[431] all the languages of Europe, even the Russian, Polish and modern Greek, hastened to appropriate to themselves greater or less portions of the same; how in the poet’s own country it soon became a living joy upon the lips of the people, a treasure in the day-laborer’s cot as in the prince’s halls. Its author’s name has gone abroad together with that of Linnæus, and wherever one goes one hears it mentioned with respect and admiration.”

Of this “Frithiof’s Saga” our space forbids us to speak at greater length. Mr. Longfellow has given an excellent analysis of the poem (North American Review for July, 1837), and it has been rendered into English, entirely or in part, no less than nineteen times. We have but to record that this example of the clear treatment of a Gothic or Northern subject was the necessary and final argument against the school of Phosphorists. From the day when the “Frithiof” appeared, we hear of no other model or standard of poetic excellence in Sweden.

With the publication of these longer poems Tegnér’s career as a poet virtually terminates. He never estimated his gifts at their real value, and gave to the practice of his art only leisure moments. To the end of his life the success of his “Frithiof” was a standing surprise to him. His chief fondness was for Greek,—the department in which twelve years before he had been made a university professor. But his life henceforth was to be little with his beloved Greek authors, little with his muse. Not long after graduation he had been ordained and placed for a time in charge of two parishes in the neighborhood of Lund. Now, in January, 1824, came the intelligence that he had been elected to the vacant bishopric of Wexiö. The spirit which breathed from his “Nattvardsbarnen” (Children of the Lord’s Supper) had won the hearts of the clergy, and this was their tribute of love and confidence. He accepted with reluctance, removing to the scene of his future labors in May of the same year. He threw himself into his new duties with all energy. The various interests of his diocese, particularly the schools, received his unremitting care. In the fourteen years that follow he became the acknowledged head of the Swedish Church. In the National Diet he was also an active member. But now we approach the end of this remarkable career. There was a trace of insanity in the family, and Tegnér had long feared he might become a victim. In his poetic facility he saw only a mental intensity emanating from that source; and he was doubtless right. Overwork had also aggravated the danger. Ere long he grew full of great and impossible schemes. He wrote to Mr. Longfellow that he was about to issue a new edition of his writings in a hundred volumes! Finally, in 1838, he was sent to the insane hospital at Schleswig. After a short stay he seemed to mend, and returned to his labors, as all thought, restored. But his vital energy was slowly waning. In 1845 he was obliged to seek release from public duty, and in the year following was stricken with paralysis. It was not the first attack of this kind that had come upon him, but it was the last. “His head now possessed its old-time soundness; his voice had recovered its usual clearness. Only the evening before his death he was attacked by a slight delirium, which was betrayed by his speaking often of Goethe as his countryman. Resigned and peaceful he neared his end. Water and light were still his refreshments. When the autumn sun one day shone brightly into his sick chamber, he broke forth with the words, ‘I lift up my hands to God’s house and mountain,’ which he often afterward repeated. They were his last Sun-song. To his absent children he sent his farewell greeting; to his oldest son a ring with Luther’s picture, which he had worn on his hand for thirty years. Shortly before midnight on the second of November, 1846,—the most beautiful aurora borealis lighted up the sky—the spirit of the skald gently broke its fetters. Scarcely a sigh betrayed the separation to his kneeling wife, who read upon his face, lit up at once by the moon and death, ‘blessed peace and heavenly rapture.’”

Tegnér’s successor in Swedish belles-lettres was Rúneberg, of whom we shall now give a brief sketch. Tegnér belongs to the romantic era of European literature, and, as we know, it would be hard to find a more purely romantic poet. Runeberg was destined to found in Sweden the modern or realistic school. He was the son of a “merchant-captain,” and born in 1804 in Finland. He was sent to college, became professor of Latin, and finally of Greek. He caught in some way the spirit of the coming change, unlearned the old methods in which he had begun to write, and in 1832 published his “Elk Hunters.” This was the beginning of nature-writing in Sweden. It was followed by the delicate idyl of “Hanna,” the brilliant “Christmas Eve,” and finally “Nadeschda” and “King Fjalar.” These bear favorable comparison with anything in modern literature. In his shorter pieces, and notably the “Ensign Stal’s Stories,” Runeberg has earned perhaps greater fame. His death occurred in 1877. The school he founded is continued by the living pens of Wirsén, Carl Snoilsky, and Viktor Rydberg.

We will translate, to close our sketch, a random morsel of Runeberg, not as an example of his genius and skill, but rather of his simplicity and love of nature. The meter is already familiar to us in “Hiawatha,” and was borrowed by both Runeberg and Longfellow from the national epic of Finland, the “Kalevála.”

[To be continued.]

[432]

PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.

By C. E. BISHOP.

VIII.—THE LAST GREAT INVADER OF FRANCE.

You remember Franklin’s story of the speckled axe; how he turned the grindstone to polish it up nice, and, tiring of the revolutions, concluded he “liked a speckled axe best.” There was a king of England who had a very speckled character and the people of England (who turned the grindstone for him) long liked their king’s speckled character best of all the kings that they had known.

When Prince of Wales he “cut up” so that he got the name of “Madcap Harry,” some of the most amusing of his pranks being highway robbery and burglary, for all which he was admired in his day and immortalized, along with Jack Falstaff, by Shakspere. One of the light spots on this character is his obedience to the commitment by Chief Justice Gascoigne; and although it belongs to the realm of tradition, it is so pleasant to believe and is so quaintly told by Lord Campbell that we’ll e’en accept it: One of the Prince’s gang of cut purses had been captured and imprisoned by Gascoigne, and the Prince came into court and demanded his release, which was denied. The Prince, says the chronicle, “being set all in a fury, all chafed and in a terrible maner, came up to the place of jugement, men thinking that he would have slain the juge, or have done to him some damage; but the juge sitting still without moving, declaring the majestie of the king’s place of jugement, and with an assured and bolde countenance, had to the Prince these words following: ‘Sir, remember yourself. I kepe here the place of the kinge, your soveraine lorde and father, to whom ye owe double obedience: wherefore eftsoones in his name I charge you desiste of your wilfulness and unlawfull enterprise, and from hensforth give good example to those whiche hereafter shall be your propre subjectes. And nowe, for your contempte and disobedience, go you to the prison of the Kinge’s Benche, whereunto I committe you, and remain ye there prisoner untill the pleasure of the kinge, your father, be further knowen.’”

The prince’s better nature, and a sense of his family’s precarious situation before the law perhaps, induced him to accept the sentence and go to jail. On hearing this the king is recorded as saying: “O merciful God, how much am I bound to your infinite goodness, especially for that you have given me a juge who feareth not to minister justice, and also a sonne, who can suffre semblably and obeye justice.”

In keeping with this wonderful “spasm of good behavior” is the sudden change that came over the Madcap as soon as he became King Henry V. He became as remarkable for his austere piety as he had been for his wickedness. Unfortunately, his piety took the shape of burning Lollards (the shouting Methodists of that day), and he signed the warrant under which the brave and innocent Sir John Oldcastle, his old friend and boon companion, was hung up in chains over a slow fire.

There could be but two outlets in those days for such a degree of piety as Henry had achieved: as whatever he undertook must be bloody and cruel, the choice lay between a crusade or an invasion of France. As the latter promised the most booty and least risk he seemed to have a call in that direction. The attempt seemed about equal to an able bodied man attacking a paralytic patient in bed. The king of France was insane: his heir was worthless and lazy; the queen regent was an unfaithful wife and an unnatural mother, who took sides with the faction that was trying to dethrone the king and destroy his and her son. The kingdom was torn to pieces by civil strife between the Orleanists and the Burgundians, each vying with the other in cruelty, treachery, violence and plundering the government and outraging the people. There was an awful state of affairs—just the chance for a valiant English king.

Henry put up a demand for the French crown, under the pseudo claim of Edward III., whose house his father had deposed. A usurper claiming a neighbor’s crown by virtue of the usurped title of an overturned and disinherited dynasty; as if one stealing a crown got all the reversions of that crown by right. Henry would have made a good claim agent in our day! And the English people, with the remembrance of Cressy and Poictiers, of the Black Prince, and the captive King of France, and all the booty and cheap glory that made England so rich and vain sixty years before, fell in with Henry’s amiable designs on France. It was perfectly clear to the whole nation, from the chief justice down to the clodhopper, that Henry’s claim to the crown of France was a clear and indefeasible one; that the war would be for a high and holy right—and could not fail to pay.

And this was the main object of Henry after all: to divert the kingdom’s attention from his own usurped title by a foreign war; to fortify usurpation at home by attempted usurpation abroad. His father had enjoined upon him this policy, in Shakspere’s words—

So in July, 1415, Henry and 30,000 more patriots, sailed across the channel on 1,500 ships and landed unopposed at the mouth of the Seine. It took them six weeks and cost half the army to reduce the Castle of Harfleur, surrounded by a swamp, and then his generals advised him to abandon the campaign. But he dare not go back to his insecure throne with failure written on his very first attempt at glory; the expedition had cost too much money and he must have something to show for it. So boldly enough he struck for the heart of France.

This whole campaign was a close copy after the invasion by Edward III. in 1346. There was the same unopposed march to the walls of Paris, almost over the same ground; the retreat before a tardy French host; the lucky crossing of the river Somme, over the identical Blanchetacque Ford, and the bringing to bay of the English by many times their own number of French, were all faithfully repeated; while the battle of Agincourt took place only a short distance from the field of Cressy, and in its main features was a repetition of that engagement. But in one respect, honorable to him, Henry did not copy after Edward and the Black Prince. He forbade all plundering and destruction; a soldier who stole the pix from a church at Corby was instantly executed.

The description of the scenes before the battle, when,

the contrary despondency of the English, the lofty, heroic tone of Henry with his men, when he declared gaily he was glad there were no more of them to share the honor of whipping ten to one of the French; and his proclamation that any man who had no stomach for this fight might depart; we “could not die in that man’s company that fears his fellowship to die with us.” But his humble prostration in the solitude of his own tent when he prayed piteously,—[433]

All this makes up one of Shakspere’s most moving scenes. The action and the result of this battle are as inexplicable as those of Cressy and Poictiers. We know that now, as then, the sturdy English archers did their fearful execution on the massed French. France had learned nothing in seventy years of defeats and adversity; she had no infantry, entrusted no peasantry with arms: still depended on gentlemen alone to defend France—and again the gentlemen failed her. Sixty thousand were packed in a narrow passage between two dense forests. On this mass the bowmen fired their shafts until these were exhausted. Then throwing away their bows, swinging their axes and long knives, and planting firmly in the earth in front of them their steel-pointed pikes, they waited the charge of the French chivalry. The mud was girth-deep. The horses stumbled under their heavily-armored riders. Such as reached the English line struck the horrid pikes and were hewn down by the stalwart axmen. They break and retreat, carrying dismay and confusion to the main body. The pikes are pulled up, and the line advanced. A charge of English knights is hurled upon the broken mass of French, and their return is covered by the axmen, who advance and form another line of pikes to meet the countercharge of French. So it goes on, until the French host is a mob, and the English are everywhere among them, hewing, stabbing, and thrusting. “So great grew the mass of the slain,” said an eye-witness, “and of those who were overthrown among them, that our people ascended the very heaps, which had increased higher than a man, and butchered their adversaries below with swords and other weapons.” It all lasted three hours before the French could be called defeated, for they were so numerous and were packed so closely that even retreat was long impossible. Before the battle had been decided, every Englishman had four or five prisoners on his hands, whom he was holding for ransoms. This was the grand chance to recoup all their losses and sufferings and grievous denial of plunder. This was a predicament for a victorious army, and if a small force of the French had made a rally they might then have reversed their defeat on the scattered English. Henry tried to avert such a catastrophe by sounding the order for every man to put all his prisoners to death: but cupidity saved many, nevertheless.

The flower of the chivalry of France perished on this field, greatly to the relief and benefit of France. Seven of the princes of the blood royal, the heads of one hundred and twenty of the noble families of France, and eight thousand gentlemen were counted among the 30,000 slain. The feudal nobility never recovered from the blow,—but France did, all the sooner for lack of them.

The victorious army made its way to Calais, and Henry returned to England, “covered with glory and loaded with debt.” But there was unlimited exultation when Henry came marching home, into London, under fifteen grand triumphal arches, insomuch that an eye-witness says, “A greater assembly or a nobler spectacle was not recollected to have been ever before in London.”

Campaign after campaign into France followed; she being plunged deeper and deeper into civil war, anarchy, and mob-rule. Rouen fell in 1419, and the two kings arranged a peace and a marriage between Henry and the princess Catherine. (The courtship in Shakspere is racy.) In 1420 the two kings, side by side, made a triumphant entry into Paris, and Henry was acknowledged as successor to the French crown after Charles VI. should die. Another great demonstration was seen in London when the French Catherine was crowned Queen of England (1421). Ah! there was a fearful Nemesis awaiting this newly-married pair in the insanity of their son, inherited from Catherine’s father. And England was to pay dearly for her French glory in the miseries of the reign of Henry VI. and the dreadful Wars of the Roses. Indeed, she was already paying dearly in the load of taxation and the loss of life those wars had entailed, insomuch that even now there was a scarcity of “worthy and sufficient persons” to manage government affairs in the boroughs and parishes.

The English army in France met with a sudden reverse, the commandant, the Duke of Clarence, being slain. More troops had to be raised and taken to France, and in the effort to keep his grasp on the prostrate kingdom, Henry himself was prostrated in the grasp of an enemy he could not resist. So, on the 31st of August, 1422, in the midst of his campaign, Henry died.

The priests came to his bedside and recited the penitential psalm: when they came to “Thou shalt build up the walls of Jerusalem,” the dying man said: “Ah, if I had finished this war I would have gone to Palestine to restore the Holy City.” He was the last of the crusade dreamers, and the last of the great invaders of France among English kings. In a few years all that he had won, and all that the greatest English generals and the prowess of her archers could avail were scattered by a mere girl creating and leading to victory new French armies.

And this bauble of war was all there was of Henry Fifth’s reign, the pride of the House of Lancaster. So we can hardly join in the lamentation of the Duke of Bedford:

The historian, White, pretty well sums up this “speckled character:”

“His personal ambition had been hurtful to his people. In the first glare of his achievements, some parts of his character were obscured which calm reflection has pointed out for the reprobation of succeeding times. He was harsh and cruel beyond even the limits of the harsh and cruel code under which he professed to act. He bought over the church by giving up innovators to its vengeance; he compelled his prisoner, James I. of Scotland, to accompany him in his last expedition to France to avenge a great defeat his arms sustained at Beaugé at the hands of the Scotch auxiliaries, and availed himself of this royal sanction to execute as traitors all the Scottish prisoners who fell into his hands. His massacre of the French captives has already been related, and we shall see how injuriously the temporary glory of so atrocious a career acted on the moral feelings of his people when it blunted their perception of those great and manifest crimes and inspired the nobles with a spirit of war and conquest which cost innumerable lives and retarded the progress of the country in wealth and freedom for many years.”

[To be continued.]

[434]

PHYSIOLOGY.[E]

Our last article gave us a complete description of the human organization. In the present number we will inquire how we move this complex system of bones, nerves, flesh, and tissues.

We will take a particular motion and see if we can understand that. For instance, you bend your arm. You know that when your arm is lying on the table you can bend the forearm on the upper arm (or part above the elbow) until your fingers touch your shoulder. How is this done?

Look at the arm in a skeleton; you will see that the upper part is composed of one large bone, called the humerus, the fore part of two bones, the radius and ulna. If you look carefully you will see that the end of the humerus, at the elbow, is curiously rounded, and the end of the ulna, at the elbow, is scooped out in such a way that one fits loosely into the other. If you try to move them about, one on the other, you will find that you can easily double the ulna very closely on the humerus, without their ends coming apart; and as you move the ulna you will notice that its end and the end of the humerus slide over each other. But they will slide only one way—up and down. If you try to slide them from side to side they get locked. At the elbows, then, we have two bones fitting into each other, so that they will move in a certain direction; their ends are smoothed with cartilage, kept moist with a fluid and held in place by ligaments, and this is all called a joint.

In order that this arm may be bent some force must be used. The radius and ulna (the two move together) must be pushed or pulled toward the humerus, or the humerus toward the radius and ulna. How is this done in your arm? Imagine that a piece of string were fastened to either the radius or ulna, near the top: let the string be carried through a little groove, which there is at the upper end of the humerus, and fastened to the shoulder-blade. Let the string be just long enough to allow the arm to be straightened out, so that when the arm is straight the string will be just about tight. Now draw your string up into a loop and you will bend the fore-arm on the humerus. If this string could be so made that every time you willed it so, it would shorten itself, it would pull the ulna up and would bend the arm; every time it slackened the arm would fall back into a straight position.

In the living body there is not a string, but a band of tissues placed very much as our string is placed, and which has the power of shortening itself when required. Every time it shortens the arm is bent, every time it lengthens again the arm falls back into its straight position. This body, which can thus lengthen and shorten itself, is called a muscle. If you put your hand on the front of your upper arm, half way between your shoulder and elbow, and then bend your arm, you will feel something rising up under your hand: this is the muscle shortening or, as we shall now call it, contracting.

But what makes the muscle contract? You willed to move your arm, and moved it by making the muscle contract; but how did your will accomplish this? If you should examine, you would find running through the muscle soft white threads, or cords, which you have already learned to recognize as nerves. These nerves seem to grow into and be lost in the muscle. If you trace them in the other direction you would find that they soon join with other similar nerves, and the several cords joining together form stouter nerve-cords. These again join others, and so we should proceed until we came to quite stout white nerve-trunks, as they are called, which pass between the vertebræ of the neck into the vertebral column, where they mix in the mass of the spinal cord. What have these nerves to do with the bending of the arm? Simply this: If you should cut through the delicate nerves entering the muscle, what would happen? You would find that you had lost all power of bending your arm. However much you willed it, the muscle would not contract. What does this show? It proves that when you will to move, something passes along the nerves to the muscle, which something causes the muscle to contract. The nerve, then, is a bridge between your will and the muscle—so that when the bridge is broken the will can not get to the muscle.

If, anywhere between the muscle and the spinal cord, you cut the nerve, you destroy communication between the will and the muscle. If you injure the spinal cord in your neck you might live, but you would be paralyzed; you might will to bend your arm, but could not.

In short, the whole process is this: by the exercise of your will a something is started in your brain. That something passes from the brain to the spinal cord, leaves the spinal cord and travels along certain nerves, picking its way along the bundles of nervous threads which run from the upper part of the spinal cord, until it reaches the muscle. The muscle immediately contracts and grows thick. The tendon pulls at the radius, the radius with the ulna moves on the fulcrum of the humerus at the elbow-joint, and the arm is bent.

Why does the muscle contract when that something reaches it? We must be content to say that it is the property of the muscle. But it does not always possess this property. Suppose you were to tie a cord very tightly around the top of the arm close to the shoulder. If you tied it tight enough the arm would become pale, and would very soon begin to grow cold. It would get numb, and would seem to be heavy and clumsy. Your feeling in it would be blunted, and soon altogether lost. You would find great difficulty in bending it, and soon it would lose all power. If you untied the cord, little by little the cold and clumsiness would pass away, the power and warmth would come back, and you would be able to bend it as you did before. What did the cord do to the arm? The chief thing was to press on the blood-vessels, and so stop the blood from moving in them. We have seen that all parts of the body are supplied with blood-vessels, veins and arteries. In the arm there is a very large artery, branches from which go into all parts of the muscle. If, instead of tying the cord about the arm, these branches alone were tied, the arm, as a whole, would not grow cold or limp, but if you tried to bend it, you would find it impossible. All this teaches that the power which a muscle has of contracting may be lost and regained as the blood is stopped in its circulation, or allowed to circulate freely.

Our next question is, What is there in the blood that thus gives to the muscle the power of contracting, or that keeps the muscle alive? The answer is easy. What is the name given to this power of a muscle to contract? We call it strength. Straighten out your arm upon the table and put a heavy weight in your hand; then bend your arm. Find the heaviest weight that you can raise in this way, and try it some morning after your breakfast, when you are in good condition. Go without dinner, and in the evening when tired and hungry, try to raise the same weight in the same way. You will not be able to do so. Your muscle is weaker than it was in the morning, and you say that the want of food makes you weak; and that is so, because the food becomes blood. The things which we eat are changed into other things which form part of the blood, and this blood going to the muscle gives it strength. What is true of the relations of the blood to the muscles is true of all other parts of the body. The brain and nerves and spinal cord have a more pressing need of pure blood. The faintness which we[435] feel from want of food is quite as much weakness of the brain and of the nerves as of the muscles, perhaps even more so.

The whole history of our daily life is, briefly told, this: The food we eat becomes blood; the blood is carried all over the body, round and round, in the torrent of the circulation; as it sweeps past them or through them, the brain, nerves, muscles and skin pick out new food for their work, and give back the things they have used or no longer want; as they all have different work, some pick up what others have thrown away. There are also scavengers and cleansers to take up things which are wanted no longer, and to throw them out of the body.

Thus the blood is kept pure as well as fresh. Thus it is through the blood brought to them, that each part does its work.

But what is blood? It is a fluid. It runs about like water, but while water is transparent, blood is opaque. Under a microscope you will see a number of little round bodies—the blood-discs, or blood-corpuscles. All the redness there is in blood belongs to these. These red corpuscles are not hard, solid things, but delicate and soft, yet made to bear all the squeezing they get as they drive around the body. Besides these red corpuscles, are other little bodies, just a little larger than the red, not colored at all, and quite round. These are all that one can see in blood, but it has a strange property which we will study. Whenever blood is shed from a living body, within a short time it becomes solid. This change is called coagulation. If a dish be filled with blood, and you were to take a bunch of twigs and keep slowly stirring, you would naturally think it would soon begin to coagulate; but it does not, and if you keep on stirring you find that this never takes place. Take out your bundle of twigs, and you will find it coated all over with a thick, fleshy mass of soft substance. If you rinse this with water you will soon have left nothing but a quantity of soft, stringy material matted among the twigs. This stringy material is, in reality, made up of fine, delicate, elastic threads, and is called fibrin; by stirring you have taken it out. If the blood had been left in the dish for a few hours, or a day, you would find a firm mould of coagulated blood floating in a colorless liquid. This jelly would continue shrinking, and the fluid would remain; this fluid is called serum, and it is the blood out of which the corpuscles have been strained by the coagulation. All these various things, fibrin, serum, corpuscles, etc., make up the blood. This blood must move, and how does it move? You have had the different organs which assist in its circulation described, but let us illustrate.

All over the body there are, though you can not see them, networks of capillaries. All the arteries end in capillaries, and in them begin all veins. Supposing a little blood-corpuscle be squeezed in the narrow pathway of a capillary in the muscle of the arm. Let it start in motion backward. Going along the narrow capillary it would hardly have room to move. It will pass on the right and left other capillary channels, as small as the one in which it moves; advancing, it will soon find the passage widening and the walls growing thicker. This continues until the corpuscle is almost lost in the great artery of the arm; thence it will pass but few openings, and these will be large, until it passes into the aorta, or great artery, and then into the heart. Suppose the corpuscle retrace its journey and go ahead instead of backward. It will go through passages similar to the other, and it would learn these passages to be veins. At last the corpuscle would float into the vena cava, thence to the right auricle, from there to the right ventricle, by the pulmonary artery to the lungs; there it, with its attendant white corpuscles, serum and other substances, would be purified, then sent by pulmonary vein to the left auricle and ventricle, and then pumped over the body again. Some one may ask, What is the force that drives or pumps the blood? Suppose you had a long, thin muscle fastened at one end to something firm, and a weight attached to it. Every time the muscle contracted it would pull on the weight and draw it up. But instead of hanging a weight to the muscle, wrap it around a bladder of water. If the muscle contract now, evidently the water will be squeezed through any opening in the bladder. This is just what takes place in the heart. Each cavity there, each auricle and ventricle is, so to speak, a thin bag with a number of muscles wrapped about it. In an ordinary muscle of the body the fibers are placed regularly side by side, but in the heart, the bundles are interlaced in a very wonderful fashion, so that it is difficult to make out the grain. They are so arranged that the muscular fibers may squeeze all parts of each bag at the same time. But here is the most wonderful fact of all. These muscles of the auricles and ventricles are always at work contracting and relaxing of their own accord as long as the heart is alive. The muscle of your arm contracts only at your will. But the heart is never quiet. Awake or asleep, whatever you are doing or not doing, it keeps steadily on.

Each time the heart contracts what happens? Let us begin with the right ventricle full of blood. It contracts; the pressure comes on all sides, and were it not for the flaps that close and shut the way, some of the blood would be forced back into the right auricle. As it is, there is but one way,—through the pulmonary artery. This is already full of blood, but, because of its wonderful elasticity, it stretches so that it holds the extra fluid. The valve at its mouth closes, and the blood is safely shut in, but the artery so stretched contracts and forces the blood along into the veins and capillaries of the lungs, in turn stretching them so that they must force ahead the blood which they already contain. This blood is forced into the pulmonary vein, thence to the left auricle; the auricle forces it into the ventricle, and the latter pumps it into the aorta; the aorta overflows as the pulmonary artery did, and the blood goes through every capillary of the body into the great venæ cavæ, which forces it into the right auricle; thence to the ventricle where we started. In this passage every fragment of the body has been bathed in blood. This stream rushing through the capillaries contains the material from which bone, muscle, and brain are made, and carries away all the waste material which must be thrown off.

The actual work of making bone or muscle is performed outside of the blood in the tissues. You say, the capillaries are closed, and how can the blood get to the tissues? It will be necessary here to speak of a certain property of membranes in order that you understand how the tissues are built up by the blood apparently closed within the veins. If a solution of sugar or salt be placed in a bladder with the neck tied tightly, and this placed in a basin of pure water, you will find that the water in the basin will soon taste of sugar or salt and after a time will taste as strong as the water in the bladder. If you substitute solid particles, or things that will not dissolve, you will find no change. This property which membranes, such as a bladder, have, is called osmosis. It is by osmosis chiefly that the raw, nourishing material in the blood gets into the flesh lying about the capillaries. It is by osmosis chiefly that food gets out of the stomach into the blood. It is by this property that the worn-out materials are drained away from the blood, and so cast out of the body. By osmosis the blood nourishes and purifies the flesh. By osmosis the blood is itself nourished and kept pure.

We must now understand how we live on this food we eat. Food passing into the alimentary canal is there digested. The nourishing food-stuffs are dissolved out of the innutritious and pass into the blood. The blood thus kept supplied with combustible materials, draws oxygen from[436] the lungs, and thus carries to every part of the body stuff to burn and oxygen to burn it with. Everywhere this oxidation is going on, changing the arterial blood to venous.

From most places where there is oxidation, the venous blood comes away hotter than the arterial, and all the hot venous blood mingling, keeps the whole body warm. Much heat is given up, however, to whatever is touching the skin, and much is used in turning liquid perspiration into vapor. Thus, as long as we are in health, we never get hotter than a certain degree.

Everywhere this oxidation is going on. Little by little, every part of the body is continually burning away and continually being made anew by the blood. Though it is the same blood, it makes very different things: in the nerves it makes nerve; in the muscle, muscle. It gives different qualities to different parts: out of one gland it makes saliva, another gastric juice; out of it the bone gets strength and the muscle power to contract. But the far greater part of the power of the blood is spent in heat, or goes to keep us warm.

One thing more we have to note before we answer the question, why we move. We have seen that we move by reason of our muscles contracting, and that, in a general way, a muscle contracts because a something started in our brain by our will, passes through the spinal cord, through certain nerves, until it reaches the muscle, and this something we may call a nervous impulse. But what starts this?

All the nerves do not end in the muscles, but many in the skin. These nerves can not be used to carry nervous impulses from the brain to the skin. By no effort of yours can you make the skin contract. For what purpose then are these nerves? If you prick your finger, you feel the touch, or say that you have sensation in your finger. If you were to cut the nerve leading to the finger you would lose this power of feeling. These nerves, then, ending in the fingers have a different use from those ending in the muscles. The latter carry an impulse from the brain to the muscles, and are called motor nerves. The former carry impulses from the skin to the brain, and are called sensory nerves, or those which bring about sensations. Motor nerves are of but one kind, but there are several kinds of sensory nerves, each kind having a special work to do. The several works which these nerves do are called the senses. By means of these sensory nerves we receive impressions from the external world, sensations of heat, cold, roughness, good and bad odors, taste, sound, and the color and form of things. Thus impressions of the external world are made upon the brain, and it is these impressions that stimulate the brain to action. The brain worked on by them, through ways that we know not of, governs the muscles, sends commands by the motor nerves, and rules the body as a conscious, intelligent will.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

By DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY THE REV. J.H. VINCENT, D.D.

[May 6.]

FILTHY LUCRE.[F]

By Rev. WILLIAM ARNOT.

These “ways,” as described by Solomon in the preceding verses, are certainly some of the very worst. We have here literally the picture of a robber’s den. The persons described are of the baser sort: the crimes enumerated are gross and rank: they would be outrageously disreputable in any society, of any age. Yet when these apples of Sodom are traced to their sustaining root, it turns out to be greed of gain. The love of money can bear all these.

This scripture is not out of date in our day, or out of place in our community. The word of God is not left behind obsolete by the progress of events. “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Peter, i: 24, 25). The Scripture traces sin to its fountain, and deposits the sentence of condemnation there,—a sentence that follows actual evil through all its diverging paths. A spring of poisonous water may in one part of its course run over a rough, rocky bed, and in another glide silent and smooth through a verdant meadow; but, alike when chafed into foam by obstructing rocks, and when reflecting the flowers from its glassy breast, it is the same lethal stream. So from greed of gain—from covetousness which is idolatry, the issue is evil, whether it run riot in murder and rapine in Solomon’s days, or crawl sleek and slimy through cunning tricks of trade in our own. God seeth not as man seeth. He judges by the character of the life stream that flows from the fountain of thought, and not by the form of the channel which accident may have hollowed out to receive it.

When this greed of gain is generated, like a thirst in the soul, it imperiously demands satisfaction: and it takes satisfaction wherever it can be most readily found. In some countries of the world still it retains the old-fashioned form of iniquity which Solomon has described: it turns free-booter, and leagues with a band of kindred spirits, for the prosecution of the business on a larger scale. In our country, though the same passion domineer in a man’s heart, it will not adopt the same method, because it has cunning enough to know that by this method it could not succeed. Dishonesty is diluted, and colored, and moulded into shapes of respectability, to suit the taste of the times. We are not hazarding an estimate whether there be as much of dishonesty under all our privileges as prevailed in a darker day: we affirm only that wherever dishonesty is, its nature remains the same, although its form may be more refined. He who will judge both mean men and merchant princes requires truth in the inward parts. There is no respect of persons with him. Fashions do not change about the throne of the Eternal. With him a thousand years are as one day. The ancient and modern evil-doers are reckoned brethren in iniquity, despite the difference in the costume of their crimes. Two men are alike greedy of gain. One of them being expert in accounts, defrauds his creditors, and thereafter drives his carriage; the other, being robust of limb, robs a traveler on the highway, and then holds midnight revel on the spoil. Found fellow-sinners, they will be left fellow-sufferers. Refined dishonesty is as displeasing to God, as hurtful to society, and as unfit for heaven, as the coarsest crime.

This greed, when full grown, is coarse and cruel. It is not[437] restrained by any delicate sense of what is right or seemly. It has no bowels. It marches right to its mark, treading on everything that lies in the way. If necessary, in order to clutch the coveted gain, “it takes away the life of the owners thereof.” Covetousness is idolatry. The idol delights in blood. He demands and gets a hecatomb of human sacrifices.

Among the laborers employed in a certain district to construct a railway, was one thick-necked, bushy, sensual, ignorant, brutalized man, who lodged in the cottage of a lone old woman. This woman was in the habit of laying up her weekly earnings in a certain chest, of which she carefully kept the key. The lodger observed where the money lay. After the works were completed and the workmen dispersed, this man was seen in the gray dawn of a Sabbath morning stealthily approaching the cottage. That day, for a wonder among the neighbors, the dame did not appear at church. They went to her house, and learned the cause. Her dead body lay on the cottage floor: the treasure-chest was robbed of its few pounds and odd shillings, and the murderer had fled. Afterward they caught and hanged him.

Shocking crime!—to murder a helpless woman in her own house in order to reach and rifle her little hoard, laid up against the winter and the rent! The criminal is of a low, gross, bestial nature. Be it so. He was a pest to society, and society flung the troubler off the earth. But what of those who are far above him in education and social position, and as far beyond him in the measure of their guilt? How many human lives is the greed of gain even now taking away in the various processes of slavery? Men who hold a high place, and bear a good name in the world, have in this form taken away the life of thousands for filthy lucre’s sake. Murder on a large scale has been and is done upon the African tribes by civilized men for money.

The opium traffic, forced upon China by the military power of Britain, and maintained by her merchants in India, is murder done for money on a mighty scale. Opium spreads immorality, imbecility, and death through the teeming ranks of the Chinese populations. The quantity of opium cultivated on their own soil is comparatively small. The government prohibited the introduction of the deadly drug until England compelled them to legalize the traffic. British merchants brought it to their shores in ship-loads notwithstanding, and the thunder of British cannon opened a way for its entrance through the feeble ranks that lined the shore. Every law of political economy, and every sentiment of Christian charity, cries aloud against nurturing on our soil, and letting loose among our neighbors, that grim angel of death. The greed of gain alone suggests, commands, compels it. How can we expect the Chinese to accept the Bible from us while we bring opium to them in return? British Christians might bear to China that life for which the Chinese seem to be thirsting, were it not that British merchants are bearing to China that death which the best of her people loathe.

A bloated, filthy, half-naked laborer, hanging on at the harbor, has gotten a shilling for a stray job. As soon as he has wiped his brow, and fingered the coin, he walks into a shop and asks for whisky. The shopkeeper knows the man—knows that his mind and body are damaged by strong drink—knows that his family are starved by the father’s drunkenness. The shopkeeper eyes the squalid wretch. The shilling tinkles on the counter. With one hand the dealer supplies the glass, and with the other mechanically rakes the shilling into the till among the rest. It is the price of blood. Life is taken there for money. The gain is filthy. Feeling its stain eating like rust into his conscience, the man who takes it reasons eagerly with himself thus: “He was determined to have it; and if I won’t, another will.” So he settles the case that occurred in the market-place on earth, but he has not done with it yet. How will that argument sound as an answer to the question, “Where is thy brother?” when it comes in thunder from the judgment-seat of God?

Oh that men’s eyes were opened to know this sin beneath all its coverings, and loathe it in all its disguises! Other people may do the same, and we may never have thought seriously of the matter; but these reasons, and a thousand others, will not cover sin. All men should think of the character and consequences of their actions. God will weigh our deeds; we should ourselves weigh them beforehand in his balances. It is not what that man has said, or this man has done; but what Christ is, and his members should be. The question for every man through life is, not what is the practice of earth, but what is preparation for heaven. There would not be much difficulty in judging what gain is right and what is wrong if we would take Christ into our counsels. If people look unto Jesus when they think of being saved, and look hard away from him when they are planning how to make money, they will miss their mark for both worlds. When a man gives his heart to gain, he is an idolater. Money has become his god. He would rather that the Omniscient should not be the witness of his worship. While he is sacrificing in this idol’s temple, he would prefer that Christ should reside high in heaven, out of sight and out of mind. He would like Christ to be in heaven, ready to open its gates to him, when death at last drives him off the earth; but he will not open for Christ now that other dwelling-place which he loves—a humble and contrite heart. “Christ in you, the hope of glory;” there is the cure of covetousness! That blessed Indweller, when he enters, will drive out—with a scourge, if need be—such buyers and sellers as defiled his temple. His still small voice within would flow forth, and print itself on all your traffic,—“Love one another, as I have loved you.”

On this point the Christian Church is very low. The living child has lain so close to the world’s bosom that she has overlaid it in the night, and stifled its troublesome cry. After all our familiarity with the Catechism, we need yet to learn “what is the chief end of man,” and what should be compelled to stand aside as a secondary thing. We need from all who fear the Lord, a long, loud testimony against the practice of heartlessly subordinating human bodies and souls to the accumulation of material wealth.

[May 13.]

A CHRISTIAN DESCRIBED.[G]

By the REV. W. JAY.

Who are they that principally occupy the pen of biographers, and allure the attention of readers? Travelers, painters, poets, scholars, writers, philosophers, statesmen, princes. All these have their respective and comparative claims, which we by no means wish to undervalue. But, my brethren, we are going to bring forward this evening a character often, indeed, like the original, “despised and rejected of men,” but superior to them all, and great where they are nothing,—great in the sight of the Lord,—great in the desolation of the universe, great in the annals of eternity: a Christian.

1. Let us consider the commonness of the appellation. We may take three views of the commonness of this name.

In one respect the commonness is astonishing and should be convincing. We may say to an infidel, Pray how came this name to be so common as it now is? The founder (we now refer to his humanity; and the argument requires such a reference)—the founder was a poor man, a mechanic in a village. “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have[438] nests; but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.” He had received no university education; he was trained up at the feet of no Gamaliel; the people therefore said, “How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?” It was said of him, not only that “the common people heard him gladly,” but that “many of the rulers believed on him.” The chief ministers in his new empire were a company of fishermen in the Lake of Galilee; and the kingdom itself was established on the overthrow of every worldly opinion and fashion. When we consider the nature of the doctrines they preached—the difficulties they had to overcome, in the profligacy of the multitude, in the subtlety of philosophers, in the covetousness of priests, in the opposition and edicts of magistrates and emperors,—and when we consider their natural resourcelessness in themselves, what can be more astonishing than that this name should be spread so rapidly from province to province, and from country to country, till before the termination of three centuries it had reached the boundaries of the unwieldy Roman empire. It has since far surpassed them, and is now advancing toward the ends of the earth. . . . “His name shall endure forever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his holy name for ever and ever, and let the whole earth be filled with his glory!” Amen and amen!

In another view, this commonness is reasonable: we wish it were more common; we wish it prevailed exclusively above every other; we wish no other ever obtained in the world; we wish that the Church could, even now, fling off the world; and we hope that this will be the case by and by, when the pristine glory of Christianity shall revive, and the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea; and we shall see eye to eye. They pay an idolatrous homage to any man who name themselves religiously after him; as Calvinists, after Calvin; Arminians, after Arminius; Baxterians, from Baxter. If I must have a human appellation, I will go back at once to the apostolic times; I will call myself a Johnite, after John, or a Paulite, after Paul. But, no; “who is Paul, and who is Apollos? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptised in the name of Paul?” No; I will be called by no human name, not even if it be an inspired one: my name shall not be derived from the servant, but from the Master himself. I will remember his command: “Call no man Master, on earth; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.”

In another view, the commonness of the name is lamentable. Let me explain: The word Christian was once very significant and distinguishing. But, alas! in numberless instances now, it is not distinguishable at all. Whom does it now comprehend? All the world, with the exception of pagans, Turks, Jews, and infidels: all others it takes in: it is now a kind of geographical distinction, rather than religious. France is a Christian country—Portugal is a Christian country—Spain is a Christian country—Italy is a Christian country—England is a Christian country; and this, after all, is a Christian country, comparatively. But a Christian country is not a country of Christians; and, therefore, the term, even amongst us, includes numbers who are swearers, drunkards, and Sabbath-breakers, revilers, and multitudes who, though not distinguished by any grossness of life, yet are entirely opposite to the spirit and commands of Christianity in their principles and tendencies. Often, therefore, now it means nothing—yea, it is worse than nothing—it is even injurious by its indiscrimination. Men are easily deluded in their own opinions; they easily imagine that they are what they are called; and having the name, they imagine that they have the thing, especially when there is no one to dispute their title. Multitudes of these would be offended if you were to withhold from them the name of a Christian; and yet if you were to call them saints, or the sanctified, they would be still more surprised and mortified: and yet the saint and the Christian are the same person, according to the language of the New Testament; and the apostle assures us that “without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.”

Let us consider,

2. The real import of this title—a Christian.

A Christian is one who has a relation to Christ; not a professed, but a real relation—not a nominal, but a vital relation—yea, a very peculiar and pre-eminent relation, arising above every other you can mention; spiritual in its nature, and never-ending in its duration; and deriving the possession and continuance of every enjoyment from Christ. Beware of a Christianity without Christ: it is a stream without a fountain—a branch without a living root—a body without a soul. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him which is the head of all principality and power.”

A Christian is a lover of Christ’s doctrine. In all systems there are some common principles; but my receiving what is common in the system of a master does not entitle me to be named after him. My believing with a Socinian that there is a God, and that there will be a resurrection from the dead, does not render me a Socinian; but my believing what is peculiar in his creed—that Christ was a mere man, that he was born in the ordinary way of generation, that he died only as a witness of the truth, and not as a sacrifice for sin. Deism has some principles in common with our Christianity: now my believing these will not constitute me a Christian, but my holding those peculiar to Christianity. These are to be found only in the Scriptures; there a Christian searches for them; there he kneels before the oracle of divine truth; there he takes up these principles, and says, these, however mysterious they may be to my reason, however humiliating they may be to the pride of my heart—these I take up on the authority of him who has revealed them. I sit with Mary at Jesus’ feet; I pray to be led by his spirit into all truth, and to be able to say with John, “We have an unction from the holy one, and we know all things.”

A Christian is a lover of Christ’s person. This attachment is deserved and demanded, by all that he has done and suffered for us. Paul describes the subjects of divine grace as those “who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity:” and so far was he from supposing that a man can be a Christian without this love to Christ, that he says, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha.” Jesus himself was the essence of humility, and yet he had such a consciousness of his dignity, and of his claims to the supremacy of the human heart, that he made no scruple to say, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that forsaketh not all that he hath and followeth me can not be my disciple.”

The Christian is a copier of Christ’s example. Without this in vain you contend for his truth, and talk of your regard to him. “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” In all things, indeed, he has the preëminence. But Christians are said to be predestinated to be conformed to his image, that he may be the first-born among many brethren. They are described now as “Beholding in a glass his glory,” and as being “Changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the spirit of the Lord.” He indeed had the spirit without measure; but the Christian possesses the same spirit; for “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” We must,[439] therefore, if we are Christians, resemble him who went about doing good,—who said, “The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,”—who pleased not himself,—who, “Though a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” in the midst of the church sang praises to God. We are no further Christians than as we are like him, and have the same mind in us which was also in him.

A Christian is a dependent on Christ’s mediation. He rejoices in Christ Jesus, and has no confidence in the flesh. He says with the Church, “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.”

He therefore comes to God only by him; and he looks for acceptance as to his person and service in him; and while he makes mention of his righteousness only, he also goes forth in his strength. He feels that without him he can do nothing—that he can not stand longer than he holds him; that he can not walk further than he leads him; but then he sees that there is an all-sufficiency in him, and he believes that while without him he can do nothing, he equally believes that through his strengthening him he can do all things. As he begins his course in this way, so he carries it on; and, however advanced he may be in the divine life, yet he acknowledges himself an unprofitable servant, and “looks for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

The Christian is an expectant of Christ’s coming. Jesus said to his disciples, when he was withdrawing from them, “If I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” This spake he; therefore they are described as now looking for him; “to them that look for him will he appear without sin unto salvation.” This produces a marvelous difference between him and all other men. Others are now at home—the Christian is now from home. The Christian views his present possessions and enjoyments, whatever they may be, as only the accommodation of the passing time; he feels and acknowledges himself to be a stranger and a pilgrim upon earth; all his treasure is in heaven; therefore he can not be happy, unless he be there too. “Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also.” And Jesus knew this disposition; therefore he said, “Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me be with me, that they may behold my glory.”

This, in brief, is a Christian; a learner of Christ’s doctrine—a lover of Christ’s person—a copier of Christ’s example—a dependent on Christ’s mediation; and an expectant of Christ’s coming.

[May 20.]

THE UNITY OF THE DIVINE BEING.[H]

By Rev. JOHN WESLEY.

And as there is one God, so there is one religion, and one happiness for all men. God never intended there should be any more; and it is not possible there should. Indeed, in another sense, as the apostle observes, “There are gods many, and lords many.” All the heathen nations had their gods, and many whole shoals of them. And generally, the more polished they were, the more gods they heaped up to themselves; but to us, to all that are favored with the Christian revelation, “There is but one God;” who declares of himself, “Is there any God, beside me? There is none; I know not any.”

But who can search out this God to perfection? None of the creatures that he has made. Only some of his attributes he hath been pleased to reveal to us in his Word. Hence we learn that God is an eternal being. “His goings forth are from everlasting,” and will continue to everlasting. As he ever was, so he ever will be; as there was no beginning of his existence, so there will be no end. This is universally allowed to be contained in his very name, Jehovah; which the Apostle John accordingly renders, “He that was, and that is, and that is to come.” Perhaps it would be as proper to say, “He is from everlasting to everlasting.”

Nearly allied to the eternity of God is his omnipresence. As he exists through infinite duration, so he can not but exist through infinite space; according to his own question, equivalent to the strongest assertion; “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord” (heaven and earth, in the Hebrew idiom, implying the whole universe) which, therefore, according to his own declaration, is filled with his presence.

This one, eternal, omnipresent being is likewise all perfect. He has from eternity to eternity, all the perfections and infinitely more than it ever did, or ever can enter into the heart of man to conceive; yea, infinitely more than the angels in heaven can conceive: these perfections we usually term the attributes of God.

And he is omnipotent, as well as omnipresent: there can be no more bounds to his power than to his presence. He “hath a mighty arm: strong is his hand, and high is his right hand.” He doeth whatsoever pleaseth him, in the heavens, the earth, the sea, and in all deep places. With men, we know, many things are impossible; “but not with God: with him all things are possible.” Whensoever he willeth, to do is present with him.

The omniscience of God is a clear and necessary consequence of his omnipresence. If he is present in every part of the universe, he can not but know whatever is, or is done there: according to the word of St. James, “Known unto God are all his works,” and the works of every creature, “from the beginning” of the world; or rather, as the phrase literally implies, “from eternity.” His eyes are not only “over all the earth, beholding the evil and the good,” but likewise over the whole creation; yea, and the paths of uncreated night. Is there any difference between his knowledge and his wisdom? If there be, is not his knowledge the more general term, (at least according to our weak conceptions), and his wisdom a particular branch of it? namely, the knowing the end of everything that exists, and the means of applying it to that end?

Holiness is another of the attributes of the Almighty, All-wise God. He is infinitely distant from every touch of evil. He “is light; and in him is no darkness at all.” He is a God of unblemished justice and truth: but above all is his mercy. This we may easily learn from that beautiful passage in the thirty-third and thirty-fourth chapters of Exodus: “And Moses said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and proclaimed the name of the Lord, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, and forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin.”

This God is a spirit; not having such a body, such parts, or passions, as men have. It was the opinion both of the ancient Jews and the ancient Christians, that he alone is a pure spirit, totally separate from all matter: whereas, they supposed all other spirits, even the highest angels, even cherubim and seraphim, to dwell in material vehicles, though of an exceeding light and subtile substance. At that point of duration, which the infinite wisdom of God saw to be most proper, for reasons which lie hid in the abyss of his own understanding, not to be fathomed by any finite mind, God “called into being all that is;” created the heavens and[440] the earth, together with all that they contain. “All things were created by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” He created man, in particular, after his own image, to be “a picture of his own eternity.” When he had raised man from the dust of the earth, he breathed into him an immortal spirit. Hence he is peculiarly called, “The Father of our spirits;” yea, “The Father of the spirits of all flesh.”

“He made all things,” as the wise man observes, “for himself.” “For his glory they were created.” Not “as if he needed anything,” seeing “He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” He made all things to be happy. He made man to be happy in himself. He is the proper center of spirits; for whom every created spirit was made. So true is that well-known saying of the ancient fathers: fecisti nos ad te: et irrequietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. “Thou hast made us for thyself; and our heart can not rest till it resteth in thee.”

This observation gives us a clear answer to that question in the Assembly’s catechism: “For what end did God create man?” The answer is, “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.” This is undoubtedly true: but is it quite clear, especially to men of ordinary capacities? Do the generality of common people understand that expression,—“to glorify God?” No; no more than they understand Greek. And it is altogether above the capacity of children; to whom we can scarce ever speak plain enough. Now is not this the very principle that should be inculcated upon every human creature,—“you are made to be happy in God,” as soon as ever reason dawns? Should not every parent, as soon as a child begins to talk, or to run alone, say something of this kind; “see! what is that which shines so over your head? that we call the sun. See, how bright it is! feel how it warms you! it makes the grass to spring, and everything to grow. But God made the sun. The sun could not shine, nor warm, nor do any good without him.” In this plain and familiar way a wise parent might, many times in a day, say something of God; particularly insisting, “he made you; and he made you to be happy in him; and nothing else can make you happy.” We cannot press this too soon. If you say, “nay, but they can not understand you when they are so young,” I answer, no, nor when they are fifty years old, unless God opens their understanding. And can he not do this at any age?

Indeed this should be pressed on every human creature, young and old, the more earnestly and diligently, because so exceedingly few, even of those that are called Christians, seem to know anything about it. Many indeed think of being happy with God in heaven; but the being happy in God on earth never entered into their thoughts.

Let all that desire to please God, condescend to be taught of God, and take care to walk in that path which God hath himself appointed. Beware of taking half of this religion for the whole, but take both parts of it together. And see that you begin where God himself begins: “Thou shalt have no other God before me.” Is not this the first, our Lord himself being the judge, as well as the great commandment? First, therefore, see that ye love God! next, your neighbor, every child of man. From this fountain let every temper, every affection, every passion flow. So shall that “mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Let all your thoughts, words, and actions, spring from this! So shall you “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”

[May 27.]

READINGS FROM THOMAS À KEMPIS.
OF BEARING WITH THE DEFECTS OF OTHERS.

Those things that a man can not amend in himself, or in others, he ought to suffer patiently until God orders things otherwise.

Think that perhaps it is better so for thy trial and patience.

2. If one that is once or twice warned will not give over, contend not with him; but commit all to God, that his will may be done, and his name honored in all his servants, who well knoweth how to turn evil into good.

Study to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort soever they be: for that thou thyself also hast many, which must be suffered by others.

If thou canst not make thyself such a one as thou wouldst, how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking?

We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults.

We would have others exactly corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves.

The liberty of others displeaseth us, and yet we will not have our desires denied.

Thus it appears how seldom we weigh our neighbors in the same balance with ourselves.

3. If all men were perfect, what should we have to suffer of our neighbor for God?

But now God hath thus ordained it, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for no man is without fault; no man but hath his burden; no man is self-sufficient; no man has wisdom enough for himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort, help, instruct, and admonish one another.

Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue each one hath:

For occasions make not a man frail, but show what he is

OF AVOIDING RASH JUDGMENT.

Turn thine eyes unto thyself, and beware thou judge not the deeds of other men.

In judging others a man laboreth in vain, often erreth, and easily sinneth; but in judging and examining himself, he always laboreth fruitfully.

We often judge of things according as we fancy them: for affection bereaves us easily of a right judgment.

If God were always our desire, we should not be so much troubled when our inclinations are opposed.

2. But oftentimes something lurks within, which draweth us after it.

Many secretly seek themselves in their actions, but know it not.

They live in peace of mind when things are done according to their will: but if things succeed otherwise than they desire, they are straightway troubled.

Diversity of inclinations and opinions often causes dissensions between religious persons, between friends and countrymen.

3. An old custom is hardly broken, and no man is willing to be led farther than himself can see.

If thou dost more rely upon thine own reason, than upon Jesus Christ, late, if ever, shalt thou become illuminated.

OF WORKS DONE OUT OF CHARITY.

The outward work, without charity, profiteth nothing; but whatsoever is done out of charity, be it ever so little and contemptible in the sight of the world, is wholly fruitful.

For God weigheth more with how much love one worketh, than how much he doeth.

He doth much that loveth much.

2. He doth much that doth a thing well.

He doth well that serveth his neighbor, and not his own will.

Often it seemeth to be charity, and it is rather carnality; because natural inclinations, self-will, hope of reward, and desire of our own interest, are motives that men are rarely free from.[441]

3. He that hath true and perfect charity seeketh himself in nothing, but only desireth in all things that God should be exalted.

He envieth none, because he seeketh not his own satisfaction: neither rejoiceth in himself, but chooses God only for his portion.

He attributes nothing that is good to any man, but wholly referreth it unto God, from whom, as from the fountain, all things proceed: in whom finally all the saints rest.

O that he had but one spark of true charity, he would certainly discern that all earthly things are full of vanity!

[End of Required Reading for May.]

THE ROMANCE OF ASTRONOMY—ASTROLOGY.

By R. K. MILLER.

A very interesting portion in the study of planetary astronomy is the mysterious influence which these bodies were supposed to have had on the affairs of men. Astrology comprehended the other heavenly bodies as well as the planets, but the simple regularity of their movements rendered them far less interesting than the “wanderers.” The seemingly arbitrary and irregular course of these bodies caused them to be selected to represent the varying turns of fortune’s wheel. The father of the written science of astrology was Ptolemy, who seems to have studied astronomy for astrological purposes. According to him, the planet in the ascendant at the time of birth was the chief ruler of the character and fortune of the “native,” as the person was technically called. Mercury presided over the mental faculties and literary and scientific pursuits; he caused a desire of change. Venus was called the Lesser Fortune. She produced a mild disposition, with an inclination to pleasure, and brought good fortune to the native in his or her relations to the other sex. Mars was the Lesser Infortune: his influence was decidedly risky, and needed to be well aspected by the other planets to lead to good. He, of course, presided over war and over trades connected with iron and steel. Jupiter was regarded as by far the most propitious of the heavenly orbs. He ruled all high offices. The mortal born under him would be high-minded, liberal, just and devout. Happy the kingdom ruled by a sovereign on whose birth he shone. English astrologers tell with pride that Queen Victoria was born when Jupiter rode high in the heavens. Next to him we have the grim and ill-omened Saturn, the Greater Infortune. Those born under him are gloomy and reserved—faithful in friendship but bitter toward an enemy. Failure, disease, disgrace and death beset the steps of the child of Saturn. Uranus causes abruptness of manners and general eccentricity, while astrologers have not made up their minds about Neptune. The signs of the Zodiac were supposed to have a good deal to do with personal appearance. Thus Pisces produced a short person, with round face and slow gait; Taurus, a well-set person, with broad face and thick neck. Different parts of the human life were allotted to different luminaries, as infancy to the Moon, youth to Venus, and so on. Lastly the visible firmament was divided into twelve equal portions. The first was the house of health; the second, that of wealth; the third, brothers and sisters; the fourth, parents; the fifth, children and amusements; the sixth, sickness; and so on up to the twelfth. The connection is, of course, obvious, as Saturn in the fifth house foretells misfortune with one’s children.

Probably few persons have their horoscopes erected now-a-days, but we have before us that of the Prince of Wales, calculated at the time of his birth of Zadkiel, according to the rules of Ptolemy. The sign in ascendant was Sagittarius, which produces “a tall, upright body, an oval face, ruddy complexion and chestnut hair, good eye, courteous, just, a lover of horses, accomplished and deserving of respect.” The Sun, being well aspected, foretold honors, and as he was in Cancer, in sextile with Mars, the Prince was to be partial to maritime affairs, and win naval glory. The house of wealth was held by Jupiter, and this betokened great wealth through inheritance—a prognostication which, in spite of republican shoemakers and baronets, is not unlikely to come true. The house of marriage was inhabited by Venus, Mars and Saturn, but fortunately the first was to predominate, and the Prince, “after some trouble in his matrimonial speculations,” was to marry a princess of high birth. A few particulars of history are given, but we are overwhelmed with information about his character, over fifty characteristics actually being enumerated, and the horoscope ends, “All things considered, though firm and sometimes decided in opinion, this royal native, if he lives to mount the throne, will sway the scepter of these realms in moderation and justice, and be a pious and benevolent man and a merciful sovereign.”

AMUSEMENTS—TENNIS.

By ROBERT MACGREGGOR.

It was in France that what its devotees call “the king of games,” tennis, was originated; but the ground-work is found in the simple old hand ball play that figured so conspicuously in the every-day life of the classical world. It is of little use to speculate in which of the varieties of ball-play mentioned by ancient writers is to be found the progenitor of this pastime. At any rate, a game very like tennis, in which the ball was driven to and fro by a racket, was played in 1380, and soon after we find Richard II. including this game among those unlawful for laboring people. The name “tennis” first occurs in Gower’s “Ballade” in 1400. There is an old story of historical interest told in connection with our game. When Henry V. was meditating war against the King of France, the old “Chronicle” tells us that “The Dolphyn thynkyng Henry to be still given to such plaies and follies as he exercised before the tyme that he was exalted to the croune, sent hym a tunne of tennis balles to plaie with, as he saied that he had better skill of tennis than of warre.” Shakspere makes Henry reply to the ambassador who brought the gift and message:

While Henry received the ambassadors, James I. of Scotland lost his life, it may be said, through his devotion to tennis. While holding the Yuletide festival at Perth, conspirators attacked the castle. The king tore up a plank in the flooring of the room where he was, and dropped into a vault below the apartment, where it was thought escape would be easy. There had been an opening by which he might have escaped, but this had, a few days earlier, been closed by his own orders, because the balls by which he played at tennis were apt to drop into it.

When we reach the reigns of the fourth and fifth Jameses of Scotland, we find from the accounts of the lord high treasurer many evidences of the kings’ fondness for this game and the considerable sums they lost at it.

Henry VII., as the register of his expenditures shows, was a tennis player.

The fifth Scottish James was so devoted to pastimes of all sorts that all his leisure was devoted to amusements, and naturally his people followed his example, especially his[442] fondness for tennis: even the friars caught the fever, for Lyndesay draws us a picture, probably common in that age:

The game is traced in English history to Henry VIII., who was very fond of it. It is said by a historian: “His propensity being perceived by certayne craftie persons, they brought in Frenchmen and Lombards to make wagers with hym; and so he lost muche money, but when he perceyved theyr crafte he escheued their company and let them go.” Though devoted to the game, the bluff old king passed a stringent act against the keeping of any tennis-court, and against the enjoyment of several games by apprentices, mariners, artificers, and many others. This was only repealed in 1863. The Reformation gave the game a shock, especially in Scotland. During the Commonwealth the exiled court played the game abroad. At the Restoration Charles reintroduced the game, and probably the next few years were the palmy days of tennis in England. In 1664, we learn from Pepys’ diary, that the gossipy secretary had been watching the king at tennis, but was disgusted with the flattery bestowed upon him. He says: “I went to the tennis-court and there saw the king play at tennis. To see how the king’s play was extolled, without any excuse at all, was a loathsome sight, though sometimes he did indeed play very well, but such open flattery is beastly.”

During the last century the records of tennis are meagre: it seems to have been played in only one or two places. Even in England it may be said that tennis as a popular game went out with the Stuarts. Of course the pastime has never actually died out, and in recent years it has had increased attention paid to it, but even now the number of courts does not appear to exceed a score. “Tennis,” says the Edinburgh Review, “the most perfect of games, because with the most continuous certainty it exercises and rewards all the faculties of the player, has only been prevented hitherto from becoming as popular as it deserves from its being, under its original conditions, so expensive, so difficult to learn, and so puzzling to count, as to discourage those who are not ‘to the manner born,’ from touching it.” The first objection of expense seemed almost insuperable, the cost of a tennis-court being from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars, until the recent revival turned the game out to grass, and introduced its rudiments to our lawns. Lawn-tennis, however, like the croquet, which it drove off the lawn, is not a new form of tennis. It is at least three centuries old.

CELIA SINGING.

By THOMAS STANLEY.

GERMAN-AMERICAN HOUSE-KEEPING.

By the Author of “Home Life in Germany,” etc.

I received a letter from Germany the other day, written by a young American woman who was recently married to a German officer. They live in a city with about the population of Rochester, N. Y., only distinguished from other places of its size in possessing an old cathedral, a water-cure (Bade Anstalt), and being a military post. These distinguishing features have nothing to do, however, with the part of her letter which I desire to reflect upon. She writes:

“I am so fortunately situated in domestic matters; I have really no care, the mädchen is so competent, and so willing, it is a real pleasure to keep house.”

Just before the arrival of this letter I had patiently listened for two hours to the just and lamentable complaints of an American house-keeper about “the impossibility of procuring a good servant!” The latter resides in a university town, and if a university is worse than a garrison, or students than military men, in destroying the tone of the laboring women and girls, then let the fact have its weight against the statement that the relation between mistress and maid in Europe is better regulated and understood than in America. The two cases I have presented seem to me to have about equal accessories, and it is a curious search to find the reasons for the difference in them.

It is the “devil of change,” as the writer expresses it, which gets into the heads of the Gretchens and Katherinas when they come to this country. I think I have discovered a still better reason, which I shall timidly reveal later on, for, in doing so, I must encroach upon national taste and education.

First of all, we should consider that especially the uneducated German man, or woman, girl, or boy, loves the Vaterland. The heimath, with its low ceilings and plastered walls, its sanded floors and wooden bench outside the door, where the father smokes his pipe in the evening, while the mother knits, is all enshrined in the hearts of the children, and the recollection of the festtage, when the father and mother put on their best clothes and take all the children to the neighboring beer-garden to hear music, is always joyous. It is only by rumors of “higher wages” that such people are ever induced to bundle up the feather beds, and lock the wooden chest, and start as poor steerage passengers across the great Atlantic. After the horrors of the voyage, and the strange and confusing days of Castle Garden, what do they find in place of the old home and the familiar ways of the Vaterland? The daughters hire out probably for cooks. First of all, they are expected to cook a heavy breakfast by 8 o’clock, and nothing seems so hard to a foreigner as this. Their traditions are at once set at naught. They begin to grind on a differently constructed wheel. Just as John Chinaman has to learn that we even turn the screw the opposite way to the way in which he has been drilled, so the poor Germans have to learn that if Americans offer[443] higher wages, they also expect things done in their own way. The dull gray kitchen is perhaps a previous disappointment to the heavy breakfast. No white tiles around the oven; no brassware to see her face in! No open market with benches where she can sit and talk with the market women under their red umbrellas, and watch the lads go by: covered, dull grey places are our American markets compared with the bazar appearance of the meat and vegetable markets of Europe. No concert in the evening for five cents. Nothing—but a long day and a longer evening in an uninteresting kitchen, with different food and different duties. Finding a young, fresh-looking girl with her white cap on her head, in the kitchen of a friend of mine, recently, where I chanced to be visiting, I asked her in German if she was contented in this country, remarking at the same time that she was fortunate to live with a lady who could speak German, and who was so kind. “O yes,” said she; “but then I think I can do better. If I can’t, it were happier for me in the Vaterland.”

One of our distinguished politicians and scholars, who served in Germany as United States minister, brought back with him a German diener, or butler. Karl did well for a season; maintained his respectful bearing toward the herrschaften and their guests until finally he announced he was “discontented,” and the reason for his desire to change places was that the herrschaften did not entertain as grandly in this country as they did in Germany, and that the guests were not such fine ladies and gentlemen—they did not give trink-gelt (civility money). But the most heartfelt reason was, he was lonely. He missed music, he missed beer, he missed gemüthlichkeit, and fine and high titles by which to call the ladies and gentlemen. And then the festtage—no days in America for the poor working classes to be relieved from care and have a good time. This did not please Karl.

On these festtage in Germany a servant man or woman has as good a chance to go to a picture gallery, or a pottery, or a museum, or a concert, as gentlefolks; and does not the knowledge and pleasure gained at such places make the servant more cheerful, and intelligent, and competent to look at work not as drudgery, but as something in which the whole human family is engaged in one way or another? Said an observing servant to me after an afternoon in a picture gallery: “How can those poor artists sit all day long with their feet on the stone floor and copy pictures? They look so tired I was glad I was not one of them!” After a visit to the Königliche Porzellan Manufactur, in Charlottenburg, I remember once having asked a servant if she knew how much labor it required to manufacture a cup and saucer; and I proceeded to tell her how the feldspar found in the vicinity of Berlin was ground to powder, cleaned through various tanks of water, each time running through a sieve, then how they pass it between heavy weights so that it came out in great sheets of pliable putty, which are laid over moulds, just as a piece of dough is laid over a pie-pan. When these forms are taken off, they are carefully finished in every indentation by skilful workmen, who have delicate tools for the purpose. Afterward they take these forms, cups, saucers, plates, vegetable dishes, as they may be, and bake them in ovens for sixteen hours the first time, and after they are taken out they are glazed and baked again, and then if the ware is to be painted it must be baked again; and if gilded, still again. I ended this elaborate description all out of breath, for it required as much command of the German language as I at that time thought I had. The attentive girl, however, relieved my excitement by saying: “Yes; I have been out there, gnädige frau, and seen it all, and this is why I try to be so careful with china.” In the five years this good girl had lived with me she had rarely broken a piece. I could but think how unlike the answer “Biddy” would have given, that “the kitchen floor is very hard on china.” I have known servant girls as much interested in the collections of laces in the museums, especially the specimens made by poor peasant women in different centuries, as any high-born lady, and much more capable of reproducing specimens of this industry. The costumes of the peasants and the costumes of the kings and queens, and the furniture used by the latter, will attract crowds of ignorant people by the hour in European museums. But who ever sees any but the intelligent and rich walking about in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, or the Academy in Boston. We do not care to interest the working classes in this country; only care to see that they work well and as many hours as possible. “There remains,” says a writer on duties of contract, “outside of their actual service, or of any assumption of authority on our side, really limitless fields for the exercise of our natural influence as their immediate superiors and friends.” I think, in the matter of lodging—the rooms the Americans give their servants to sleep in—they fare infinitely better than in any foreign country; but the food is not so well adapted to their physical wants. Delicate dishes and highly seasoned food are sent into the kitchen for the servants by our American housekeepers, and you hear them say: “O, we would not think of denying our servants all the dainties of our own table.” Do they ever think that a working man or woman, no matter of what nationality, prefers boiled beef and turnips, or bacon and cabbage, to sweet breads and peas, or venison and cauliflower. But this is an inexhaustible theme, and one I must defer yet again before I venture to say what I think about the genuine American table.

In the town of Delitzsch, in the province of Posen, resides a man—Herr Schulze-Delitzsch—who has devoted himself almost exclusively for years to the study of the labor question and the elevation of the working classes. He is a great reformer, but escapes being known as a revolutionist. More practical and perhaps more methodical than Lasalle, he relies not upon the state for aid, but upon the sympathy and help of the working classes themselves. He organized workingmen’s associations, union stores, etc. France, Belgium, Italy, and even England, became awakened, and looked with interest upon his work, and inquiries were made by authority of the English government into the real manner and methods adopted. As a writer on the subject remarks: “Schulze’s methods are economical and reformatory; Lasalle’s were political and revolutionary.” The Credit und Vorschuss Verein, which is a species of savings bank, was practically his work. The members contributed of their savings to this fund, and when old age, sickness, or misfortune overtook them, and they were obliged to give up laboring by the day, they were in turn helped. The Vereins were entirely under the management of the members. The investment of the capital was entirely under their control, the surplus being divided annually, and the “sick funds” and “funeral funds” were distributed by them. The first institution was founded in 1850, and in 1869 the number reached 1,750. The permanent capital was then 12,000,000 thalers. The hired laborers form a tenth of the membership of the unions, and they are on the increase; the farmers something more than a fifth; the tradesmen a tenth, and the mechanics a third. The farmer’s aim is, in part, the procuring, in common, seed, implements, etc.; in part, the sale in common of milk, butter, cheese, hops, wine, and other products. Thus, through moderate and just ideas and management, much has been accomplished. Working people must not be fed on incendiary ideas. Ruskin’s lectures to working men savor of dilettante ideas. A man who has never been poor rarely knows how to appeal to the poor or guide them. Schulze-Delitzsch’s philosophy has been learned from actual experience. There is nothing of the[444] factious orator about him, but he is calm and persuasive. He is not a social-democrat, but belongs to the progressive party, which stands for the most advanced form of liberalism. He organizes the poor to teach them to resist their own worst faults. He was burgomaster of Delitzsch at one time, after leaving political life in the capital, because of differences which arose. He was assisted by his mother to go on lecturing tours, and when this was no longer practicable—as she had also small means—there was a purse raised by the citizens, which reached the sum of 50,000 thalers; the greater part being given by the poor working people in paltry sums. Thus he was saved for higher work, and gave up the position of burgomaster. He accepted this money only in trust—investing part in a home at Potsdam and the rest in such a way that the interest only accrues to him. If it was worth England’s time to inquire into the economic methods of the Credit und Vorschuss Verein, perhaps America could utilize some ideas on this subject. Germany is finding out many of our ways and means, which she considers superior to her own conservative methods. Dr. Max Zering, of Berlin, was recently commissioned by the government of Prussia to investigate and report upon the agricultural and transportation interests and methods of the United States. He will visit the different cities, make the acquaintance of their boards of trade, chambers of commerce, and railroad managers. It seems that the day has come when nations are becoming very liberal toward one another. The exclusive spirit which prevails in China, more than in any other country, is fast being eradicated, and all people are exclaiming, “If you know anything better, or accomplish anything in an easier way than we do, pray let us have a lesson of you.”

Perhaps different nations show their identity more in regard to preparing and eating food than in any other particular. The roots from which their different languages spring are more easily discerned by a philologist, than the common-sense basis which has suggested to each people its separate ideas on food and the preparation of it, is found out by any scientific chemist. I have been asked so often how the German markets and groceries compare with ours in variety and price, that it occurs to me to insert here an extract from an account book of my butcher and grocer of the preis courant for the years 1876, 1877, 1878, etc.:

This was taken from a printed circular which every butcher of standing in a large German city presents to his customers once a year. The market list below is not complete, of course, but the great American turkey, it will be observed, brings a high price in Germany, as well as American hams.

Some of these prices will show that Germany is no longer a cheap country to live in, but the way in which articles of food are used and managed is where the French and Germans excel in economy. For instance, American housekeepers say in the winter and fall and spring, “It is so difficult to keep a good table, because there is so little variety in our markets.” And when they say this there will oftentimes be ten different meats and as many vegetables to be had. Now why does this complaint go on from year to year? Men and women are both to blame for it, and to show how they are is an easy task. If these ten meats and corresponding number of vegetable are judiciously managed, both health and economy can be forwarded. I will enumerate the meats and vegetables, that no housekeeper may say this is random talk: Beef (1), mutton (2), veal (3), pork (4), ham (5), corn beef (6), turkey (7), chicken (8), fish (9), game (10); kidneys, sweet-breads, and the like, not to be mentioned here, for fear our American taste will falter. Vegetables: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, onions, cabbage, beets, beans, squash, celery. Here you have ten without all the fine canned peas and tomatoes and corn on your shelves. Now, I am laughing because every delicately-minded woman in America exclaims at once, “But you have enumerated vegetables that our husbands and we ourselves would not touch!” Well, neither would a Frenchman, if they came on his table with the combinations of meat, etc., that you serve them with. A Frenchman knows (and the highest toned German has learned from him) that there are chemical affinities in food, and he selects his meat to correspond with his vegetable, or vice versa, as carefully as he would combine chemical properties in a laboratory; or as discreetly as he would choose guests for his drawing-room or dinner-table; or as daintily as his wife would select gloves to match her bonnet. Food assorted with bad taste and judgment on his table is as distasteful as a delicate watercolor framed in a moulding which belongs to a heavy old historical oil painting is to his eye. The subject may seem to many unworthy such attention. There are those who boast that “they do not care what they eat, so they get enough! or how the table is set, or whether everything comes on at once or not!” Well, this is the way Frederick the Great’s father felt; the ruder and rougher, the better for his children; whether they took bread with a fork, or ate with their knives, or mixed cabbage and eggs, it didn’t matter to him, so the exchequer was sound. But what effect did all this boorish home-life have upon young Frederick? It made him eschew every German custom, every Teutonic idea, and give himself up entirely to the French, to be ruled by his French cooks, and dressed by French tailors, and entertained by French wits. Now the Germans have established their own reputation for combinations which they consider good, and it appears that the wife of our honored poet, who died as United States Minister in Berlin (a German woman by birth), is not ashamed to write on German cookery, although a woman of high and unquestioned literary attainments, who could help her husband in the arduous task of translating Faust. We Americans do not study this matter, or if we do, and make an effort to improve, it is simply an imitation, and a poor one at that, of some European ways. As health and happiness depend so much upon whether our dinner “sets well,” the knowledge of instituting such a mode of living as is best calculated to preserve health, is a most desirable acquisition. And if errors are committed in this respect, our injured system must suffer the bad consequences.

Now let us make a practical résumé of the subject: There are ten meats and ten vegetables in the market and twenty-one meals in the week to provide for. Let us first think of Sunday, for every man wants a good dinner on Sunday, especially if he has done his duty at church, and contributed his rightful portion to the Lord’s kingdom. If a woman has but one girl, or servant, it seems only right for her to take Sunday about with that servant, or propose to do so, that the poor girl may also know occasionally the pleasure of[445] putting on her good clothes early Sunday morning and walking with a quiet conscience to the house of God. And then it gives the lady of the house a good two hours to reflect upon the drudgery that the hired laborer does for the household—and if she be an inexperienced woman, she should learn to cook one dinner a week. Perhaps these are rigid rules, but they bring good results to a woman’s heart and home. Suppose you have purchased some game for Sunday dinner: see that it is prepared for cooking on Saturday, so that the mere roasting of it will cause you little trouble on Sunday; and if, in addition to this, you and your husband have determined, instead of having six vegetables, as most American tables present, to have but one and a salad, let it be in this instance mashed Irish potatoes and celery, or lettuce, or even fine-chopped cabbage, if no other acid can be had. If you have not had soup, manage to compensate by beautiful desserts, which are easily arranged on Saturday also. Blanc mange or custards are better by being cold. Then you can have fresh fruits, and after dinner coffee. Does this seem a meagre and miserably arranged dinner, or does the following combination, which I not long ago found on an American table, seem better? Fish, beef, onions, eggs, cabbage, dried peaches, and pickles, before one’s eyes all at once! There is as much difference to an æsthetical taste between the simple but harmonious dinner, described above, and the incongruous, distasteful dinner just mentioned, as there is between a well-selected costume on a pretty woman, and an ugly mixture of color and cut, covered by laces and jewelry, on an ugly woman; or, between a tastefully arranged drawing-room and a hodge-podge of furniture and drapery, which have no one element of similitude.

As the legend goes, Monday is the “tug of war” for housekeepers. Admit that the dinner is the secondary thing and that it must be late in starting. But if you have an understanding with your butcher to send a piece of beef for boiling and you put it on at 10 o’clock with a few carrots and an onion to flavor it, you will have some deliciously tender stuff at 12 o’clock, with enough bouillon to set away for to-morrow, and if you have horse-radish to eat your beef with, and some macaroni a la creme, or baked tomatoes or sweet potatoes (one, not all three), with a good salad (an indispensable article), your Monday dinner will not be so dreadful, although it has cost little or no time in the preparation. See that your husband makes the salad dressing if he is well disposed to do his part, at the table. A woman has enough to look after of such details. Dispense with the dessert on Monday, but let fresh fruit never be absent from your table if you can afford it. Oranges, bananas, apples, grapes, pears, peaches; how lavish Nature is in this direction!

For our Tuesday dinner we have the bouillon set away from yesterday—so that a roast is essential—always alternating between boiling and roasting, and never letting a dinner be roasted throughout, or vice versa. A roast of lamb or mutton with mint sauce, and turnips boiled, and apple jelly, will perhaps answer, as we have had the soup to begin with. A good plum pudding would taste well after this and some acid fruit, with your coffee to finish with. Of course, Europeans begin every dinner with soup, and their recipes are innumerable. But we are here endeavoring to get up inexpensive meals that almost any family can indulge in.

Wednesday: Chickens or squirrel fricasseed, or boiled with rice and seasoned with East India curry, makes a very inviting dish, if the rice is laid around the chicken and garnished with parsley. Give us peas, or lima beans, or Saratoga potatoes with this meat. Saratoga potatoes served when the chicken is brought on, and later a course of tongue and peas—if the gentleman of the house complains that chicken is too delicate a fowl for him to make a dinner from. Dessert, a lemon pie or pudding, etc., etc.

Thursday: To-day the washing and ironing are all through with, and the best dinner of the week can be prepared. What shall it be? An Englishman would say, roast beef; a German, a goose; an Italian, veal, tomatoes, and macaroni; a Frenchman, wild pigeons, or sweet-breads, or deviled crabs, or some dainty combinations. What does the great American heart cry out for? Turkey and oysters! turkey and oysters! and six vegetables; everything the season affords, reserving nothing for the morrow. Have your own way about this Thursday dinner. I shall not interfere with economic ideas or European combinations, but promise to tell me when it is over if your purse is not lighter and your stomach heavier than you anticipated? If so, Friday, I shall take you under instruction again, and to restore your over-taxed stomach we will have, first, a good beef soup, and, to invigorate you mentally, after the soup, we will have a beautiful salmon, or any large fish, stuffed and baked; served with potatoes and barley bread, which will also give phosphorus. Stewed cherries for dessert, and cheese and crackers will supply other needs.

By Saturday you will have recovered from that heavy dinner of Thursday, and from Friday’s dinner the cook will possibly have saved enough fish to make some nice little fish patties to serve before the good, rare roast of beef, which for our Saturday dinner is accompanied by spinach, made very fine, mashed to the consistency of mashed potatoes, and served with a plateful of bread-dice, (in form of cubes), which have been fried as one fries doughnuts; roasted potatoes and a fresh salad; a cardinal, or transparent, or cream pudding, and your fresh fruit, and after dinner coffee.

You will feel, as Sunday approaches again, that you have at least had variety from day to day, and not eaten something of everything the market affords every day, until you are utterly tired of everything! From the beef of Saturday can be prepared for Sunday breakfast what the French call a râgout, which is more savory than hash, because the pieces of meat are left about two inches in size, and flavored with a bit of bacon, potatoes, carrots, and onions.

In this enumeration I have left beefsteak, liver, kidneys, sweet-breads, and ham untouched. All of these I presumed you would claim for your breakfasts and teas. Sardines, and dried beef and tongue, and many other things the market also gives you, and in exercising some ingenuity you will not have to repeat the same dish day after day, nor confine yourself to roasting and frying everything, when things are often better boiled, or stewed, or smothered. And now I will not intrude upon another Sunday dinner. I can only hope, in parting from the subject and from you, that the kitchen and dining-room have grown more interesting.

I think of but one other habit and one custom in which the Germans differ from us. Instead of sitting in their bed-rooms, as so many Americans do, they invariably have a sitting-room attached to the bed-room, and the bed-room is used merely as a place for repose.

They pay their physicians so much a year, whether there be need for their services or not. Some years it happens there will be many members of the household sick, but the doctor is not expected to ask more that year than he did the year before, when he was only called once or twice. Fifty thalers is the usual amount for a small family, or about forty dollars of our money. Professional nurses are to be found even in small provincial towns, and neighbors are not called upon, as among us, to serve this purpose.

[446]

CHANGES IN FASHIONS.

From the French of M. A. CHALLAMEL.

Fashion is the expositor of our habits and our social relations, from the standpoint of costume. It is a much more serious subject than it may seem at first; far from serving only as a source of frivolous talk, even when it is specially concerned with our dress and ornamentation, the subject of fashion, it has been wisely said, has its value as a moral sign-post, and supplies the historian, the philosopher, and the novelist with a guide to the prevailing ideas of the time.

It is of the French fashions we speak here; for in France, the land of classic fancy, the empire of fashion, has assuredly been more deeply felt than elsewhere. Even in primitive Gaul were the fashions fixed, but their common sense is to be commended. The Gallic woman was demanded by fashion to follow a strict course of bathing. In every locality baths were established, and they were to her a delight, a duty, and a necessity. At Marseilles young girls were forbidden by custom the use of wine, lest it should injure the ivory whiteness of their complexion. To guard against excess in dress, the law required that the highest marriage portion of a woman should not exceed one hundred golden crowns. The history of political events has had more influence on fashion than may be generally supposed. Upon the conquest of the country by Cæsar, Roman manners were introduced into primitive Gaul, and the Gallic women, declining to be beaten in the art of pleasing, as their husbands had in arms, adopted the fashions of Rome. Extravagance in dress became boundless. We have in this early period the beginning of two modern fashions. Some ladies chose to wear garments which, on account of their breadth, were called by Horace palissades. From these the crinoline appears to have been derived. Ovid observes that to equalize the shoulders, if one were slightly higher than the other, it was customary to drape lightly the lower of the two. Thus originated padding. These Gallo-Roman ladies were elegant in all their surroundings, and the Frenchwoman of to-day has not a better sorted wardrobe. Parasols, mirrors, fans, perfumes, pomatums, and cosmetics—all these things were known to the Gallo-Roman period.

It was not until about the tenth century that dress in France became original. The women of the provinces adopted costumes of their own, and, at their will, added details. Indeed, if the history of fashion is studied, it will be seen that the original type of dress has not changed. It is the subordinate parts that undergo continual alteration. The skirt, the tunic (or overskirts), the mantle, the cap and reticule have always existed since the time of our Gallic mothers. One modification of the skirt produced a great furore in religious circles—it was the trail to the gown. A disgusted prior said: “The tail gives a woman the look of a serpent,” and the council of Montpellier forbade the appendix in question on penalty of excommunication. No fashion ever brought down more anathemas on the fair sex than the “hennins.” It was introduced, too, in a period when it would naturally be supposed that the very terror of the time would have destroyed all passion for dress and capricious fashions—the melancholy time of the Hundred Years’ War. This hennin was a kind of two-horned head-dress, made of muslin, stiffly starched and kept in place by fine wire, and of most exaggerated size. Paradin says: “It was peaked like a steeple, or with tall horns; from these horns hang flags, capes, fringe and other material. Such head-dresses were naturally very expensive, and husbands were loud in complaint.” Confessors and monks added their curses. They considered the hennin as an invention of the evil one, and organized a deadly warfare against the obnoxious article; but this uproar availed nothing, the women only gave up their hennins from a caprice similar to that which had invented them.

One strange fashion of the whole Middle Ages related to the color of the hair. Fair hair alone was considered beautiful. On this point the French and the Greeks were of one mind. In Shakspere’s play of “As You Like It” we find Rosalind as she hoots at Phœbe, laughing at her “black silk-hair” as a mark of her plainness. The word “fashion” seems to convey an almost absolute sense of novelty, but that which is new to-day may be but a revival of what is old. “There is nothing new under the sun,” applies with special force to fashion. The pretty trifles worn by women of to-day are nothing but the reproduction of similar ornaments worn by the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, or the Gauls, and all our novelties find their origin many centuries in the past.

THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION.

By W. T. HARRIS.

VI.—GREECE AND ITS RELATION TO THE EAST.

In previous chapters we have studied the nations of Western Asia and Africa in regard to internal appliances for education, but more especially in regard to external educational influence upon other peoples.

At this important point in our discussions, when we are passing into a new region—that of Europe, or “the West,” as contrasted with Asia as “the East”—we may sum up briefly the chief results before considering the special theme of this chapter.

Education in Egypt consisted, on the part of the common people, in learning to read and write the script alphabet derived from the hieroglyphics, the elements of arithmetic, and one’s trade or vocation. A higher system of education was reserved for the candidates for the priestly caste, including the branches of language, mathematics, astronomy, natural science, music and religion. There was also a secret doctrine taught to the illuminated ones who entered on the duties of the priestly caste.

In Egypt the State was as thoroughly subordinated to the priestly class as in Persia to the military caste, or in Phœnicia and Carthage to the mercantile caste. The aim of life was there to prepare for death, and the earthly hull of the body was to be carefully preserved as the soul would need its body again after 3,000 years; it was carefully embalmed and laid to rest in the tombs of the hills, or if royal was placed in a pyramid. The court in which the dead were tried and judgment pronounced upon their lives, decreeing the honors of burial or denying this privilege was the great national educational institution.

With the old Persians education according to Herodotus consisted chiefly in training its youth to bear arms and to tell the truth. To use the bow and arrow skilfully and to ride on horseback fitted him for duties in his warlike nation.

Theoretical education included the arts of reading, writing, and polite behavior, and was in the hands of the eighty thousand Magi, a carefully educated class, who divided their members into three grades: (a) the apprentices, or first initiated; (b) journeymen, those who had passed the second degree, and (c) masters, those who had reached the highest degree. The Persian mind set up the principles of light and darkness, which he further defined as good and evil. It was a point upon which great stress was laid by their teachers, to inculcate a practice of good and an abhorrence of evil. The public education lasted from the age of seven to that of twenty-four. Before the fifth year the child was not to be told “this is bad,” or “this is good,” but only told “do not do[447] it again,” when he committed a fault. Before the age of seven years he was never to be whipped. The virtues of self-denial in matters of eating and drinking, of conquest over one’s appetites, and of obedience to what is prescribed, were especially inculcated.

Of the Phœnician education we know only that it laid great stress upon what is useful in the arts and trades. The Carthaginian colony taught their youth reading, writing, arithmetic, and religious duties, besides a special trade and the use of arms. Their moral instruction was of a questionable character, useful in their commerce perhaps, but admitting of deceit and violence. “Punic faith” became a by-word in surrounding nations for treachery. In Phœnicia we find a marked departure from the family training that formed so large a part of the instruction in other Oriental nations. Indifference toward family and one’s native land, and a passionate love for adventure and commercial gain were fostered necessarily in its system of education, because the State depended upon these qualities for its prosperity.

In Judea the education wore an oriental stamp. Religious history perhaps was the foremost of the branches of study. The arts of reading and writing were required in order that the youth might learn to read the written law which had been especially delivered to his nation from the most high to Moses on Mount Sinai. The law was impressed upon the memory of the child. Song and music were taught but gymnastics was neglected. The girls learned household employments—spinning, weaving, sewing, painting, cooking, dancing, and cymbal-playing. They were educated by their mothers in piety, cleanliness, and morality. A school of prophets seems to have been established by Samuel when music and religious poetry were cultivated. After the Babylonian exile rabbinical lore was prominent in the higher education.

The Mediterranean Sea is the center of all progressive civilization in modern history. Upon its shores the Orient and Occident have met and mingled. Phœnicia, Judea, Greece, Rome, Carthage,—these have played their parts in its history. The European states trace the first impulses of their culture to Asia. But Europe borrowed nothing without assimilating it to a new principle radically different from the Oriental principle. It is the principle of individuality—of personal development, of personal achievement, of personal freedom,—that we meet upon the shores of Europe, and education assumes at once a new interest to us when we come to Greece and Rome.

A wide chasm separates the European education from the Asiatic. The East celebrates the infinite as something not only without bounds and limits, but as something devoid of all distinction, and hence devoid of conscious personality; God is in his essence not revealable to man, is their doctrine. Europe, on the other hand, celebrates the distinctions within the personality. In Western Asia, and particularly in Egypt, there was an approach toward the recognition of personality in God, and in the Hebrew religion there was the complete attainment of this idea. The Hebrew idea finds its beginnings in Asia, but its development looks to Europe, whose peoples find in the religion derived from Judea their ideal.

Greece and Rome develop the idea of individuality in a very different manner from Persia and Egypt, and do not know anything of the Hebrew idea until their national career has been run. Greece does not reach the idea of one God as Jehovah, but it conceives the divine as beautiful individuality—the gods of Olympus, serene and graceful, but having the special character of human beings.

It was a great step to recognize this human character in the divine,—and the Greek mind rejoiced in the consciousness that his gods were so nearly of his own nature that they could and did dwell in human bodies.

This idea furnishes us the first phase of Greek education—the education of the body by gymnastic games, so as to make it perfectly beautiful and graceful. Cultivation of the body was a religious exercise, for it was a celebration of the divine by realizing it in the form of the beautiful. The East Indian ascetic sought by all means to mortify and deform the body. The Greek sought to perfect it.

There were games for all the Greek States—the Olympian, the Pythian, the Nemæan, and Isthmian—international expositions of strength and beauty.

When the ideal of beauty had been fixed, there came the sculptor who conceived the forms and expressions of the gods of Olympus, taking his hints from human models that he saw all around him. The national culture in gymnastics first, the plastic arts second, these conspired to produce the ideals of beauty which educated the Greek people, and furnish an essential element in the education of all subsequent time. Preceding all plastic art was the poetry of Homer, out of which the Greek civilization seems to have been breathed.

The second book of the Iliad furnished the staple of school education, giving the history and geography of ancient Greece with the most wonderful of literary forms. The Odyssey extended the education in the same direction, and gave under a thin veil of allegory, the Greek moral code.

The general character of Greek education may be said to be æsthetic—a cultivation of the sense of the beautiful, and a training of the body into symmetry and grace. Gymnastics, music, and grammatical art were the staples of their pedagogy. By music they meant not only a sense of rhythm and measure, but spiritual culture in general—including the several branches over which the Nine Muses presided—whence its name “music.” Poetry and music and mathematics were all included under this designation. Grammatical training included reading, writing, and language studies.

In the development of individuality, the mutual independence of the Greek States and difference in their races or stocks were both causes and results. The Æolian, Dorian, and Ionian stocks manifested different tendencies, the Æolians preferring ear-culture, or music; the Dorians, bodily culture; the Ionians, poetry. The Dorians at Sparta educated boys and girls in the same way, although in separate institutions. There was, indeed, in Sparta, a tendency toward the Persian form of education, with important differences in regard to truth-speaking and honesty. The child was educated solely for the needs of the State, being trained to endure heat and cold and fatigue, and every year being obliged to conform to a more severe discipline, until at thirty years he had become a complete Spartan veteran soldier. Nevertheless the Spartan preserved his Greek individuality even under his Oriental forms of despotism.

The Spartans, though agreeing with the Athenians in certain general characteristics, were in sharp contrast to the latter in the spirit of their education. It was their aim to produce able warriors that led them to train their youth carefully in bodily strength and agility, capacity of endurance, personal bravery, and patriotism. Up to the seventh year the boy was educated in the family; after that time in public, and fed at the common table, and trained with other youth in the disciplines above mentioned, as well as in the art of skillful theft. Every year there was a general public flogging in order to test their strength of endurance and sense of honor. He who bore all the pain without uttering a cry was crowned with garlands. Spartan youth sometimes died under these tortures without uttering a sound. From year to year the discipline became more and more severe. The Spartan girls were trained to be companions of heroes, and had their own gymnasia wherein they learned to run, to wrestle, to jump, and ride the chariot.[448]

At Athens, the chief seat of the Ionian stock, we find the purest type of Greek nationality.

The education of Spartans was designed, as has been said, to fit youth for citizens that could defend the State. That of Athens was for free individuality. The laws of Solon enjoined upon each father in Athens to teach his son a trade, whereby he could earn his living. If the father neglected this the son was absolved from the duty of supporting him in old age. The law of Solon decreed that the boy, before all else, should learn how to read and how to swim. It was a maritime State, and the Greek lived much upon the water. The son of poor parents should be taught music, horsemanship, and gymnastics, hunting and philosophy. It was left to the father to decide whether these higher studies should be undertaken or not. But public opinion was so strong that no father dared to refuse a higher education to his son if his means allowed it. For the first seven years the Athenian boy was under the care of the women. During this period he played with rattles, balls, wooden horses, dice and tops, the skipping of stones in the water, etc. The games and plays of Greek children are interesting, when we study the development of his individuality,—interesting also in hints as to the modern experiment of the kindergarten.

At seven years began the school time of the Athenian boy. An old superannuated slave was assigned to the work, and called in the Greek language pædagogos, pedagogue, (boy-driver) who accompanied him everywhere as supervisor. In the pedagogium the boy learned to read and write. Later came the music teacher, who taught him to play the Cithæra and sing. At last he took up gymnastics and continued it till his eighteenth year. Then he took up his trade selected by the father, and at the age of twenty his education was considered complete.

In the famous funeral oration which Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles he congratulates the Athenians on the fact that their fatherland was a great educational center, a sort of school for all Greece. Their temples and works of art were objects of study to all enterprising strangers. Their artists, and poets, and philosophers were sought for the education of all who aspired to culture. The Sophists formed a guild of professional teachers. After Plato and Aristotle, Athens remained a university for many hundred years, or until Justinian closed her schools because of their hostility to the State religion.

The period of the Sophists is of great interest. As teachers of dialectic and rhetoric, they endeavored to fit the Athenian youth for skillful and effective pleas in the courts or persuasive harangues before the people. They taught how to debate and how to make the worse appear the better reason. They pushed their speculations beyond rhetorical forms into the realms of philosophy, and in the end questioned all principles of conviction, and even the bases of morality. All faith was undermined. At this juncture rose Socrates, the greatest character of his age, who showed up by a keener dialectic the firm foundations of virtue and truth, under the shifting sands of opinion and prejudice. Plato has preserved for us in his dialogues the beautiful picture of Socrates in his knight-errant exploits against the Sophists, and finally his tragic but heroic end. Plato’s works have been for more than two thousand years a liberal education into sound and deep philosophy, and, with the works of Aristotle, his pupil and successor, form the canonical books of philosophy. They have furnished the philosophical forms used by the Christian fathers in building up the great structure of Christian theology.

The Greek people have given to the world the two great elements of art and science—the æsthetic and theoretic forms of culture. Their defect is found in their exclusive devotion to those two phases. We must find in the Roman civilization the forms of the will which civilization has needed in order to form political and social institutions—the Greeks were weak on this side.

Above all, the deep spirituality, the communion with God as the one Infinite Person, creator of heaven and earth, is not to be found in Greek education, although it is the most important, nay, the all-essential point in our modern education.

After the time of Aristotle the Greek intellect dissipated itself in Stoicism and skepticism, and a cloud of darkness settled down gradually over the country, when Rome conquered its last armies, and reduced it to obedience to an alien principle. At a few centers like Alexandria and Athens, art and science were cultivated to a very high degree, but Greece had nothing new to contribute to the world, and its labors henceforth were for Roman hire, or frequently the work of bondmen. The wealthy Roman owned Greek slaves, who acted as tutors to his children and producers of art for his amusement. But as nurses and tutors the Greek soon spread his Greek education over the mighty nation that had conquered the world.

DAFFODILS AT SEA.

By J. S. HOWSON.

[449]

THE WORTH OF FRESH AIR.

[Concluded.]

A very large quantity of fresh air is spoiled and rendered foul by the act of breathing. You, yourself, spoil not less than a gallon every minute. In eight hours’ breathing a full-grown man spoils as much fresh air as seventeen three-bushel sacks could hold! If you were shut up in a room seven feet broad, seven feet long, and seven feet high, the door and windows fitting so tightly that no air could pass through, you would die, poisoned by your own breath, in a very few hours; in twenty-four hours you would have spoiled all the air contained in the room, and have converted it into poison, provided you could have lived therein so long.

One hundred years ago the English were allowed by the Great Mogul or Emperor of India, to build warehouses and dwellings in certain parts of his Empire. One of these mercantile settlements or factories, as they were called, was planted on the bank of a large river just where Calcutta, the capital city of Bengal, now stands.

In the year 1756, the nabob, or tributary king of the province of Bengal died, and was succeeded by a very young man, who bore the outlandish looking title of Surajah Dowlah. This young barbarian cast a covetous eye on the neighboring British factory, and one summer day attacked the place suddenly with a large army. The small party of English who were in the factory, despairing of their ability to effect any successful defense, tried to make their escape to some ships which were lying in the river.

Several of the fugitives reached the vessels in safety. But in the confusion of the flight, one hundred and forty-six individuals fell into the hands of the victorious nabob. These, his officers thrust for the night into a small cell, which was used as the prison of the fortress, and was known under the dismal name of the Black Hole of Calcutta. This cell had but two small square holes for windows, and was only eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide, so that the last person of the one hundred and forty-six had to be crushed in upon the rest with violence, as the door was closed and locked. The anguish of the crowded captives soon became so great, in this vile hole, that the neighborhood resounded with the noise of their struggles and cries. As the night wore on, these sounds, however, gradually sunk into silence. When the morning came, and the door of the prison was opened, the reason of this silence became sadly apparent. In the place of the one hundred and forty-six prisoners who were shut up on the previous day, they took out one hundred and twenty-three corpses, and, twenty-three miserable beings, who looked more like ghastly spectres than men, and who could hardly be said to be alive. This occurrence furnished one remarkable instance of the deadly power of the poison vapors which are poured out from the inside of living beings. Now I will tell you about another case of a similar kind.

A few years ago, a vessel started from Cork in Ireland, to take a large number of emigrants to a ship just about to sail from Liverpool. A violent storm sprung up in the night, as the vessel was crossing the Irish Channel, and the captain, fearing that the alarmed passengers would interfere with the sailors, and render it difficult to work the ship, sent them all below into the hold, and covered them closely down with the hatches. The imprisoned passengers soon found that they were suffocating, and called and knocked loudly for help, but their cries either were unheard or disregarded. In the morning the hatches were removed, and to the horror of the captain and his crew, the hold was found half full of dead bodies and dying people, instead of containing living men and women. Such are the fearful consequences which follow, when human beings are forced to breathe the same air over and over again.

You are very much shocked, both at the savage cruelty of the Indian tyrant, and at the carelessness and ignorance of the Irish captain. But what will you think of yourself if I now show that you do, in a small degree, every night, what they did on so large a scale? What was it that caused the closeness of this room before we opened the window? It was the presence of precisely the same kind of poison, as that which killed the prisoners at Calcutta, and the passengers in the hold of the ship. That poison did not destroy you in a single night, only because it had not gathered in sufficient strength to do so. Your room was not more than half as large as the Black Hole of Calcutta, but there were only two of you shut up in it instead of one hundred and forty-six. The air of your room was merely hurtful instead of being deadly. But the fact still remains. When you rose in the morning, that air was not fit for a human creature to breathe.

When you rise to-morrow morning, just go out of doors for five minutes, and observe carefully the freshness of the air. That air is in the state in which God keeps it for breathing. Then come back suddenly into your close room, and your own senses will at once make you feel how very far the air of your chamber is from being in the same wholesome and serviceable condition.

This is one way, then, in which people produce derangement in their bodies, and cause their works, or organs, to get choked up and clogged. They are not careful always to keep fresh air immediately around them. They suffocate themselves slowly; taking, perhaps, a long time to complete their task, but, nevertheless, accomplishing it none the less surely. Individuals who dwell in crowded towns, and, therefore, have to live by day as well as by night in close, impure apartments, go down to their graves, even before they have reached their prime; and their thin pale faces, dull sunk eyes, and languid movements, tell they are doing so, with painful clearness. It is well known that people who dwell in towns and work in close rooms, as a rule, die seventeen years earlier than men who dwell in the country, and work in the fields by day.

Country folks escape this severe penalty, because even when they half smother themselves by night, the thoroughly fresh air in which they spend the day goes a great way toward the removal of the mischief. Still they are by no means free from all penalty. You yourself have suffered from breathing bad air. Do you remember last autumn, when I came to see you sick in bed with the fever? Do you recollect how your limbs ached, and your skin burned then, and how you tossed restlessly from side to side, without being able to sleep, your mouth and tongue being brown and parched with dryness which water could not moisten? You could not raise your head from the pillow; and once when I asked you how you felt, you answered me by telling me something about the corn stacks and the last harvest, being quite unconscious of what you were saying. What do you think was the matter with you then? Your body and blood were full of poisonous vapor. And what do you think had made them so? Why, fresh air had not done its work of purification as it ought. You had been breathing a great deal of impure air, and were paying the penalty for having done so. If you had seen the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta an hour or two before they died, you would have found them exactly in the same state.

The term “fever” is taken from a Latin word which signifies “to burn.” The skin and the body feel burning hot in fever, because impure poisonous blood is flowing everywhere through their vessels, in the place of pure blood, and the blood is poisonous because it has not been freed from its poison-vapors as fast as they have been bred in, or thrown into its streams. In the worst forms of fever the blood gets so impure that it steams out, through the breath, vapors[450] which are able to produce the same kind of disease in other people, and which are, under these circumstances, termed infection. The infectious poison-vapors of fever get so strong when they are received into close rooms, and are not allowed to be blown away, that they often kill persons who breathe them in that state, very quickly.

But you want me to explain how all the mischief, which results from breathing foul air, may be prevented. Come down with me into the garden, and creatures that you believe to be of far inferior powers to yourself, shall give you a lesson.

You keep bees. Here is a hive, I see, crowded with the busy insects. By the numbers that I observe clustering about the low arched door, and bustling out and in so incessantly, I learn that the industrious little fellows must be very closely packed together in their straw house. There must be many thousands of them dwelling together in a place that can not, at the most, equal more than a couple of square feet; and there is not a single window in the straw wall; no opening of any kind but the low, and half-choked entrance. Really, if those bees need to breathe, you who have furnished them with their dwelling must be nearly as bad as the cruel nabob, who shut up his prisoners in the Indian Black Hole!

Those bees certainly do need to breathe every bit as much as men and women; and what is more, they manage to breathe ten times better than you do at night. Notwithstanding all the crowding there is within their close dwelling, the air never gets there into the poisonous state in which the air of your sleeping room is by the morning. The bees take care that it shall not do so. Just bend down your ear and listen near the hive for a minute. Do you hear that incessant low humming? That is the bees hard at work, making an artificial wind. It is the sound of a couple of score of broad, stiff fans, flapping to and fro with great rapidity. Look, I drop this piece of light thistle-down near the door of the hive, and you see it is at once blown away from it by a steady draught. If you could see through the straw walls, you would notice twenty little sturdy fellows holding on to the floor of the hive with their feet, just within the door, and flapping their wings backwards and forwards without a moment’s pause. Now and then one or two tired insects drop out from the line of the fanners, but their places are immediately filled by fresh recruits, who lay hold of the floor and fall vigorously to work with their wings. This is the appointed band of air-purifiers, plying their business for the good of the entire community, and wafting a fresh breeze continuously through the hive. The bees take it by turns to carry on this necessary labor, and some of them are always at it. The humming caused by the rapid vibrations of their fans, scarcely ever ceases. It has been ascertained that air taken from the inside of a hive, is quite as pure as the fresh air that floats in the open space around; so perfectly do these little earnest workmen perform their purifying task.

The industrious bees, then, are an example to mankind. If people dwell in close rooms, they must cause an artificial breeze of fresh air to blow through them. Having shut out the great wind, that it may not chill too much by its uncontrollable currents, they must introduce such a little wind as they can keep thoroughly under control, but which nevertheless is sufficient to perform the office of purification as far as it is required. This process of causing an artificial wind to blow through the inside of a dwelling is called ventilation, from a Latin word which signifies “to blow” or fan with the wind.

In very hot climates where dwellings need to be ventilated for the sake of coolness, as well as for purification, men follow precisely the example set by the bees. They hang up broad and stiff canvas fans, which they call punkas, near the ceiling, and cause these to flap backwards and forwards constantly, by pulling them to and fro with ropes. In more temperate climates, it is rarely found necessary to take all this trouble, for the air readily makes currents of its own accord inside of rooms, if only allowed to do so. All that is necessary is the furnishing of a free passage into the room, and a free passage out, and it will then make a clear march through. One opening will not do, when fans are not kept going, because then the entering and departing air would meet face to face and obstruct each other. There must be “in” and “out” doors, just as one sees in much frequented offices and banks, in great towns.

A very effectual plan for securing the ventilation of a dwelling room consists in carrying a pipe of perforated zinc across the house, from outside wall to outside wall, just beneath the ceiling, allowing the ends to pass through the walls quite into the open air; then whichever end of the pipe chances to be most towards the quarter of the heavens from which the wind is blowing, should be closed with a plug, a free passage being left for the escape of the heated air through the opposite end. A number of holes should also be made through the door, near its bottom, until altogether they afford as much room to passing air as the inside bore of the zinc pipe. If you cannot manage to fix such a zinc pipe across the ceiling, why take out one or two of the panes of the window, and put into their place, plates of what is called perforated zinc (zinc plates pierced full of holes), such as you may buy for a trifle at any ironmongers. That is the next best thing you can do.

As soon as some arrangement of this kind has been completed, you will find that the air begins to move gently through the room, cold fresh air coming in through the holes in the door, and warm impure air being pressed out before it through the perforated zinc tubes or plates. This takes place partly because the external wind rushes, in its hasty way, against the openings through which the air is intended to enter, and forces itself in; but also, and more particularly, because the inside air gets warmer than the outside, and is then compelled to shift its quarters on that account.

The air contained inside of inhabited rooms gets warmed by the bodies and breaths of the persons living there. Then it is lighter, bulk for bulk, than the colder air outside, for warmth stretches and lightens everything. But as heavy things fall or press down to the earth more strongly than light ones, the cold air always squeezes into the room through the lower openings, and pushes the warm impure air out before it, through the upper ones.

When you light a fire in your room during cold weather, it makes a quick and strong draught through the room, for the same reason. Fires, indeed, are among the most powerful ventilators that can be brought into play. Let your fire out, and go on sitting in the room with two or three of your neighbors, and you will find the air of the room will be close and foul in half-an-hour, although it was quite fresh before. While the fire is burning, the chimney takes upon itself the office of the holes in the zinc tube or zinc plate fixed in the window, and the heated air of the room is pushed up through it by the fresh cold air which rushes in through all other openings and crevices. It is only in rooms where no fires are burning—as for instance, in your sleeping room—that holes through the walls and windows can serve as outlets for impure air.

But if you live with several companions, in small rooms, as some workpeople are compelled to do by their occupation, those rooms cannot get properly ventilated, even although fires are burning. Some of the poison-vapors, poured out from your living bodies with the breath, are so light that they are at once driven up to the top of the room, and collect there gradually, spreading lower and lower as they become more abundant. They can not get out through holes[451] made in the walls or windows because, as we have seen, the fire causes streams of cold air to press in there.

A plan has been contrived, however, to ensure perfect ventilation even in small and crowded rooms, provided fires be burning. This plan consists in making an opening into the inside of the chimney, near to the ceiling, and fixing a balanced valve in it in such a way that the valve-plate is opened by outward draughts, but immediately closed by inward ones. Then the impure vapors lurking near the ceiling are continually being swept away, into the current of the chimney, through this valve.

You are sure you have no money to spare to buy valves, and zinc tubes and plates, or to pay to workmen for making holes in your walls, and in your doors and windows. I admit that properly these trifling things should be done at the expense of the landlord to whom the house belongs. It should be as much his duty to make a house fit to live in, so far as due ventilation is concerned, as it is to keep it dry by covering it with a roof of tiles or slate. As landlords, however, are commonly themselves ignorant about these matters, you must learn to look to the affair for yourself. You will be the sufferer if the right thing be not done, therefore it is alike your interest and your duty to see that it is done.

Suppose then that you have a hard landlord who will do nothing for you, and that you are so poor you can not spare a shilling or two for the purchase of metal tubes or plates. Then I will tell you what I would do, if I were in your shoes. I would borrow a large gimlet of the carpenter, and I would bore a row of holes through the upper part of the window frame in my bedroom, just above the glass, sloping them downwards a little, so that the rain may not be able to run in; next I would never quite shut the door of the chamber, and I would bore other holes through the frames of the windows down stairs, to act as channels of inlet. A few rough pegs of wood would serve to close some of the holes, if at any time too much air entered the room in consequence of a strong wind blowing outside. This is what I would do, rather than I would submit to be poisoned at night because I was poor.

A single round hole, a little more than half an inch across, would allow as much air to pass through it, as would be sufficient to supply the breathing of one person, provided the air were driven along by the movements of a fan, or by other mechanical contrivance, with the force of a very gentle breeze. Generally, however, it does not move so fast as this through rooms, when only caused to do so by the greater pressure of external colder air. It is, therefore, better that the ventilating openings, both for inlet and departure, should altogether make up much more than a hole half an inch across.

It is not possible to have too much fresh air in a room, provided only an uncomfortable and chilling draught is not allowed to blow upon the body of the inhabitant. You may easily prevent any discomfort or mischief from draught, even where a great abundance of air is admitted, by hanging a curtain to catch it and turn it aside. You will find, however, that there is very little chance of any troublesome draught when no fire is burning in the room, to make the air rush in with increased power, for it is fires, as you will remember, which cause quick and strong currents.

The warmer and stiller the external air is, the more difficult it becomes to secure free ventilation through the inside of rooms. In the calm hot nights of summer, the windows of sleeping rooms should on this account be left partly open all night long. It is better to breathe air moistened with night dew than it is to breathe air laden with poison vapors.

But if it be important when people are well that they shall have an abundance of fresh air moving through their dwellings, it is of far greater consequence that there shall be a thorough ventilation kept up in rooms where there is sickness. In all kinds of fevers the blood is overloaded with poison vapors, and these can not get out of the body unless they are blown away by pure air. The sick person can not be freed from the poison vapors that are clogging up his vital organs until fresh air is supplied abundantly. Do you remember what it was that first made you better, when you had the fever last year? Can you not recall to mind how all the doors and windows of your room were kept constantly open, and how angry I was whenever I came to your chamber and found them fast closed! Have you forgotten how delicious the fresh air felt to your parched and poisoned frame, and what luxury there was in the clean linen when supplied to your body and to the bed, and in the cold water when it was sponged over your skin?

If ever you are called upon to attend a neighbor or a relation who has to suffer from infectious fever, as you then did, be sure you furnish to that sick person the same comfort and alleviation which were provided for yourself.

Let this be your plan for nursing the sick: Open wide the doors and windows of your chamber. Keep the body of the patient and the room very clean. Change the linen both of the person and the bed very often. Allow only the very simplest kinds of food and drink to be given, and that in small quantities at a time. Prevent all noise and confusion around the bed. There are very few persons indeed who will not recover speedily from attacks of even the worst kinds of fever, if this simple and prudent plan of treatment is steadily pursued.

The poison-vapors of fever and other infectious diseases are very deadly when in their greatest strength, but remain so for a very short time when left to the influences and operations of nature. They can not bear the presence of fresh air. If they are mixed with a great abundance of it as they come out of the mouths of sick people, they directly cease to be dangerous poisons. All that is necessary to prevent infectious fevers from being communicated from person to person, by means of the breath, is to take care that fresh air is continually passing through the sick room. Attendants and visitors may remain with perfect safety in rooms where even the worst kinds of fever are prevailing, if they keep all the doors and windows of the chamber open, and are careful not to catch the breath of the patients until it has passed through some two yards of space, where there is perfectly pure air.

Such, then, is the “worth of fresh air.” It keeps the body healthy and strong. It blows away and destroys the invisible and dangerous poisons which are steamed forth from putrid and decaying matters, and which are to the delicate organs of the living frame much worse than dust and dirt are to clock-work. In disease it is nature’s chief remedy; the best medicine of the best Physician, furnished gratis, because he is full of bounty, as well as of great skill. Never let it any longer be a reproach to you, that you ungraciously turn away such a precious gift and priceless boon from your doors. Rather open wide your windows, as well as your doors, and welcome it with all your heart. Go to the bee, consider its ways, and be wise!

[452]

STREET MANNERS.

The knowledge of being able to do exactly what is done in good society puts its possessor entirely at ease in whatever sphere he may happen to move. Tact and innate refinement do much to assist one unused to society, but do not suffice; a thorough acquaintance with the social observances in force is necessary. If the etiquette of walking and driving contains few rules, they are none the less important; indeed we are very prone to form our opinions of the breeding of persons by their bearing and manners on the street. One of the first rules for everyone in walking is quietness. Loud talking and laughing are never less in good form than on the street. When and where to walk must be decided by the customs of the locality where one lives. In general it may be said that ladies should not walk unattended after nightfall in city or village, and it is not considered good taste for a lady to appear alone, in daylight, in crowded thoroughfares, fashionable promenades, or in parks and other public resorts. In short, a public place is no place for a lady if unaccompanied.

As regards the recognition of friends and acquaintances, it is the privilege of a lady to take the initiative by being the first to bow; a gentleman would not, as a rule, raise his hat to a lady until she had accorded him this mark of recognition, although the act of bowing is a simultaneous action on the part of both lady and gentleman, as a lady would hardly bestow a bow on a gentleman not prepared to return it. It has lately become the fashion for ladies to nod rather than bow to their male acquaintances; making a short decisive movement of the head only, instead of bending the neck. The nod is not in such good taste as the bow. To bow well, cordially, yet with dignity, kindly yet quietly, is a real accomplishment. Some one says, “The salutation is the touchstone of good breeding.” The bow which is perfect in welcome, and bears just enough dignity and just enough ease, is certainly effective. It is a compliment to you. You feel happy at meeting the person so accomplished.

A not uncommon rudeness is the failing to speak to people whom one has met, because they are lower in social position or, perhaps, working people. It is well, then, for us to remember the example of George Washington and George IV., who took off their hats to their servants. Bow to everyone whom you know, is the rule.

A gentleman returning the bow of a lady with whom he is but slightly acquainted, would do so with a deferential air, but slightly raising his hat from his head; but if he were an intimate acquaintance or friend, he would raise his hat with far more freedom of action, thus consequently raising his hat considerably higher; for a gentleman to bow otherwise would appear too distant. In France and on the Continent, the rule of bowing is reversed, and the gentleman is the first to bow to the lady.

Between ladies but slightly acquainted, the lady of the higher rank would bow first.

Gentlemen do not raise their hats in recognition of each other, but simply nod. When a gentleman meets an acquaintance walking with ladies, he would then, in compliment to the ladies, raise his hat to his friend instead of simply nodding. Introductions on the street are not imperative, but rather a matter of inclination. For instance: a lady walking with a friend whom she was visiting, would introduce any person whom she might happen to meet, to her hostess; and her hostess would do likewise to her guest, unless there should be some reason for not making the introduction—if so, explanations could be offered afterward.

In public promenades and watering places it is usual for gentlemen to join ladies with whom they are acquainted, and walk with them. If a lady stop a gentleman on the street he should turn and walk with her. In no case should they stand for any length of time. An important point, not always observed, is keeping to the right hand of the passer. It is never allowable to take the left unless a gentleman be guiding a lady through a crowd, when, to save her from being jostled, he may turn to the left, but under ordinary circumstances this is not “good form.”

Ladies and gentlemen, whether related or not, never walk arm in arm in promenades or public places unless the lady be an elderly one, or require support. In driving in an open or close carriage, no particular place is reserved for the owner of the carriage. When accompanied by friends, guests always enter the carriage before the host or hostess. Were there two guests, and one of them a young lady, she would naturally seat herself with her back to the horses, leaving the other seat for the married ladies. This, however, is a matter of courtesy on her part. A gentleman takes the forward seat, if two ladies are present, and a gentleman should dismount first with a view of assisting the ladies out. As a rule the hostess should descend after her guest and not before her; if necessary to do so, she should make some polite remark in excuse. If a lady were merely calling on an acquaintance to take her for a drive she would not descend from her carriage for the purpose of allowing her to enter it before her.

These are the rules, but rules of etiquette, unless seasoned with common sense, are dangerously stiff and unbecoming. It is wrong to suppose that they form the basis of good manners. Principles, not rules, do that, and the principles of high breeding may be reduced to two: consideration for others’ feelings, and familiarity with the fitness and beauty of things.

SATISFIED.

By J. C. A.

[453]

TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

During the time that France was divided into provinces (or dukedoms, as they were called), there reigned in one of these provinces an usurper, who had deposed and banished his elder brother, the lawful duke.

The duke, who was thus driven from his dominions, retired with a few faithful followers to the forest of Arden; and here the good duke lived with his loving friends, who had put themselves into a voluntary exile for his sake, while their lands and revenues enriched the false usurper. And custom soon made the life of careless ease they led here more sweet to them than the pomp and uneasy splendor of a courtier’s life. Here they lived like the old Robin Hood of England, and to this forest many noble youths daily resorted from the court, and did fleet the time carelessly, as they did who lived in the golden age. In the summer they lay along under the fine shade of the large forest trees, marking the playful sports of the wild deer; and so fond were they of these poor dappled fools, who seemed to be the native inhabitants of the forest, that it grieved them to be forced to kill them to supply themselves with venison for their food. When the cold winds of winter made the duke feel the change of his adverse fortune, he would endure it patiently, and say, “These chilling winds which blow upon my body, are true counselors; they do not flatter, but represent truly to me my condition; and though they bite sharply, their tooth is nothing like so keen as that of unkindness and ingratitude. I find that, however men speak against adversity, yet some sweet uses are to be extracted from it, like the jewel, precious for medicine, which is taken from the head of the venomous and despised toad.” In this manner did the patient duke draw an useful moral from everything that he saw; and by the help of this moralizing turn in that life of his, remote from public haunts, he could find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

The banished duke had an only daughter, named Rosalind, whom the usurper, Duke Frederick, when he banished her father, still retained in his court as a companion for his own daughter Celia. A strict friendship subsisted between these ladies, which the disagreement between their fathers did not in the least interrupt, Celia striving by every kindness in her power to make amends to Rosalind for the injustice of her own father in deposing the father of Rosalind; and whenever the thoughts of her father’s banishment, and her own dependence on the false usurper, made Rosalind melancholy, Celia’s whole care was to comfort and console her.

One day when Celia was talking in her usual kind manner to Rosalind, saying, “I pray you, Rosalind, my sweet cousin, be merry,” a messenger entered from the duke, to tell them that if they wished to see a wrestling match, which was just going to begin, they must come instantly to the court before the palace; and Celia, thinking it would amuse Rosalind, agreed to go and see it. In those times wrestling was a favorite sport even in the courts of princes, and before fair ladies and princesses. To this wrestling match therefore Celia and Rosalind went. They found that it was likely to prove a very tragical sight; for a large and powerful man who had long been practiced in the art of wrestling, and had slain many men in contests of this kind, was just going to wrestle with a very young man, who, from his extreme youth and inexperience in the art, the beholders all thought would certainly be killed.

When the duke saw Celia and Rosalind, he said, “How now, daughter and niece, are you crept hither to see the wrestling? You will take little delight in it, there is such odds in the men. In pity to this young man, I would wish to persuade him from wrestling. Speak to him, ladies, and see if you can move him.” The ladies were well pleased to perform this humane office, and first Celia entreated the young stranger that he would desist from the attempt; and then Rosalind spoke so kindly to him, and with such feeling consideration for the danger he was about to undergo, that instead of being persuaded by her gentle words to forego his purpose, all his thoughts were bent to distinguish himself by his courage in this lovely lady’s eyes. He refused the request of Celia and Rosalind in such graceful and modest words, that they felt still more concern for him; he concluding his refusal with saying, “I am sorry to deny such fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial, wherein, if I be conquered, there is one shamed that was never gracious; if I am killed, there is one dead who is willing to die. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; for I only fill up a place in the world which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.”

And now the wrestling match began. Celia wished the young stranger might not be hurt; but Rosalind felt the most for him. The friendless state that he said he was in, and that he wished to die, made Rosalind think that he was, like herself, unfortunate; and she pitied him so much, and so deep an interest she took in his danger while he was wrestling, that she might almost be said at that moment to have fallen in love with him. The kindness shown this unknown youth by these fair and noble ladies gave him courage and strength, so that he performed wonders; and in the end completely conquered his antagonist, who was so much hurt, that for a while he was unable to speak or move.

The duke Frederick was much pleased with the courage and skill shown by the young stranger; and desired to know his name and parentage, meaning to take him under his protection. The stranger said his name was Orlando, and that he was the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys. Sir Roland de Boys, the father of Orlando, had been dead some years; but, when he was living, he had been a true subject and a dear friend of the banished duke: therefore when Frederick heard Orlando was the son of his banished brother’s friend, all his liking for this brave young man changed into displeasure, and he left the place in very ill humor. Hating to hear the very name of any of his brother’s friends, and yet still admiring the valor of the youth, he said, as he went out, that he wished Orlando had been the son of any other man.

Rosalind was delighted to hear that her new favorite was the son of her father’s old friend; and she said to Celia, “My father loved Sir Rowland de Boys, and if I had known this young man was his son, I would have added tears to my entreaties before he should have ventured.” The ladies then went up to him, and seeing him abashed by the sudden displeasure shown by the duke, they spoke kind and encouraging words to him, and Rosalind, when they were going away, turned back to speak some more civil things to the brave young son of her father’s old friend; and taking a chain off her neck, she said, “Gentleman, wear this for me. I am out of suits with fortune, or I would give you a more valuable present.” When the ladies were alone, Rosalind’s talk being still of Orlando, Celia began to perceive her cousin had fallen in love with the handsome young wrestler, and she said to Rosalind, “Is it possible you should fall in love so suddenly?” Rosalind replied, “The duke, my father, loved his father dearly.” “But,” said Celia, “does it therefore follow that you should love his son dearly? for then I ought to hate him, for my father hated his father; yet I do not hate Orlando.”[454]

Frederick being enraged at the sight of Sir Rowland de Boys’ son, which reminded him of the many friends the banished duke had among the nobility, and having been for some time displeased with his niece, because the people praised her for her virtues, and pitied her for her good father’s sake, his malice suddenly broke out against her; and while Celia and Rosalind were talking of Orlando, Frederick entered the room, and with looks full of anger ordered Rosalind instantly to leave the palace, and follow her father into banishment; telling Celia, who in vain pleaded for her, that he had only suffered Rosalind to stay upon her account. “I did not then,” said Celia, “entreat you to let her stay, for I was too young at that time to value her; but now that I know her worth, and that we so long have slept together, rose at the same instant, learned, played, and eat together, I can not live out of her company.” Frederick replied, “She is too subtle for you; her smoothness, her very silence and her patience, speak to the people, and they pity her. You are a fool to plead for her, for you will seem more bright and virtuous when she is gone; therefore open not your lips in her favor, for the doom which I have passed upon her is irrevocable.”

When Celia found she could not prevail upon her father to let Rosalind remain with her, she generously resolved to accompany her; and, leaving her father’s palace that night, she went along with her friend to seek Rosalind’s father, the banished duke, in the forest of Arden. Before they set out, Celia considered that it would be unsafe for two young ladies to travel in the rich clothes they then wore; she therefore proposed that they should disguise their rank by dressing themselves like country maids. Rosalind said it would be a still greater protection if one of them was to be dressed like a man; and so it was quickly agreed on between them, that as Rosalind was the tallest, she should wear the dress of a young countryman, and Celia should be habited like a country lass, and that they should say they were brother and sister, and Rosalind said she would be called Ganimed, and Celia chose the name of Aliena. In this disguise, and taking their money and jewels to defray their expenses, these fair princesses set out on their long travel; for the forest of Arden was a long way off, beyond the boundaries of the duke’s dominions.

The lady Rosalind (or Ganimed as she must now be called) with her manly garb, seemed to have put on a manly courage. The faithful friendship Celia had shown in accompanying Rosalind so many weary miles, made the new brother, in recompense for this true love, exert a cheerful spirit, as if he were indeed Ganimed, the rustic and stout-hearted brother of the gentle village maiden, Aliena. When at last they came to the forest of Arden, they no longer found the convenient inns and good accommodations they had met with on the road; and, being in want of food and rest, Ganimed, who had so merrily cheered his sister with pleasant speeches and happy remarks all the way, now owned to Aliena that he was so weary, he could find it in his heart to disgrace his man’s apparel, and cry like a woman; and Aliena declared she could go no further; and then again Ganimed tried to recollect that it was a man’s duty to comfort and console a woman, as the weaker vessel, and to seem courageous to his new sister, he said, “Come, have a good heart, my sister Aliena; we are now at the end of our travel, in the forest of Arden.” But feigned manliness and forced courage would no longer support them; for though they were in the forest of Arden, they knew not where to find the duke; and here the travel of these weary ladies might have come to a sad conclusion, for they might have lost themselves, and have perished for want of food; but, providentially, as they were sitting on the grass, almost dying of fatigue and hopeless of any relief, a countryman chanced to pass that way, and Ganimed once more tried to speak with a manly boldness, saying, “Shepherd, if love of gold in this desert place procure us entertainment, I pray you bring us where we may rest ourselves; for this young maid, my sister, is much fatigued with travelling, and faints for want of food.”

The man replied that he was only a servant to a shepherd, and that his master’s house was just going to be sold, and therefore they would find but poor entertainment; but that if they would go with him, they should be welcome to what there was. They followed the man, the near prospect of relief giving them fresh strength; and bought the house and sheep of the shepherd, and took the man who conducted them to the shepherd’s house, to wait on them; and being by this means so fortunately provided with a neat cottage, and well supplied with provisions, they agreed to stay here till they could learn in what part of the forest the duke dwelt. When they were rested after the fatigue of their journey, they began to like their new way of life, and almost fancied themselves the shepherd and shepherdess they feigned to be; yet sometimes Ganimed remembered he had once been the same lady Rosalind who had so dearly loved the brave Orlando, because he was the son of old Sir Rowland, her father’s friend; and though Ganimed thought that Orlando was many miles distant, even so many weary miles as they had traveled, yet it soon appeared that Orlando was also in the forest of Arden; and in this manner this strange event came to pass.

Orlando was the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Boys, who, when he died left him (Orlando being then very young) to the care of his eldest brother, Oliver, charging Oliver on his blessing to give his brother a good education, and provide for him as became the dignity of their ancient house. Oliver proved an unworthy brother; and disregarding the commands of his dying father, he never put his brother to school, but kept him untaught and entirely neglected. But in his nature and in the noble qualities of his mind Orlando so much resembled his excellent father, that without any advantages of education he seemed like a youth who had been bred with the utmost care; and Oliver so envied the fine person and dignified manners of his untutored brother, that at last he wished to destroy him; and to effect this he set on people to persuade him to wrestle with the famous wrestler, who, as has been before related, had killed so many men. Now it was this cruel brother’s neglect of him which made Orlando say he wished to die, being so friendless.

When, contrary to the wicked hopes he had formed, his brother proved victorious, his envy and malice knew no bounds, and he swore he would burn the chamber where Orlando slept. He was overheard making this vow by one that had been an old and faithful servant to their father, and that loved Orlando because he resembled Sir Rowland. This old man went out to meet him when he returned from the Duke’s palace, and when he saw Orlando, the peril his dear young master was in made him break out with these passionate exclamations: “O gentle master, my sweet master, O you memory of old Sir Rowland! why are you virtuous? why are you gentle, strong and valiant? and why would you be so fond to overcome the famous wrestler? Your praise has come too swiftly home before you.” Orlando, wondering what all this meant, asked him what was the matter? and then the old man told him how his wicked brother, envying the love all people bore him, and now hearing the fame he had gained by his victory in the duke’s palace, intended to destroy him, by setting fire to his chamber that night; and in conclusion, advised him to escape the danger he was in by instant flight: and knowing Orlando had no money, Adam (for that was the good old man’s name) had brought out with him his own little hoard, and he said, “I have five hundred crowns, the thrifty hire I saved under your father, and laid by to be provision for me[455] when my old limbs should become unfit for service; take that, and he that doth the ravens feed be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; all this I give to you: let me be your servant: though I look old, I will do the service of a younger man in all your business and necessities.” “O good old man!” said Orlando, “how well appears in you the constant service of the old world? You are not for the fashion of these times. We will go along together, and before your youthful wages are spent, I shall light upon some means for both our maintenance.”

Together then this faithful servant and his loved master set out, and Orlando and Adam traveled on, uncertain what course to pursue, till they came to the forest of Arden, and there they found themselves in the same distress for want of food that Ganimed and Aliena had been. They wandered on, seeking some human habitation, till they were almost spent with hunger and fatigue. Adam at last said, “O my dear master, I die for want of food; I can go no farther!” He then laid himself down, thinking to make that place his grave, and bade his dear master farewell. Orlando, seeing him in this weak state, took his old servant up in his arms, and carried him under the shelter of some pleasant trees; and he said to him, “Cheerily, old Adam, rest your weary limbs here awhile, and do not talk of dying.” Orlando then searched about to find some food, and he happened to arrive at that part of the forest where the duke was; and he and his friends were just going to eat their dinner, this royal duke being seated on the grass, under no other canopy than the shady covert of some large trees. Orlando, whom hunger had made desperate, drew his sword, intending to take meat by force, and said, “Forbear, and eat no more; I must have your food!” The duke asked him if distress had made him so bold, or if he were a rude despiser of good manners? On this Orlando said he was dying with hunger: and then the duke told him he was welcome to sit down and eat with them. Orlando hearing him speak so gently, put up his sword, and blushed with shame at the rude manner in which he had demanded their food. “Pardon me, I pray you,” said he; “I thought that all things had been savage here, and therefore I put on the countenance of stern command; but whatever men you are, that in this desert, under the shade of melancholy boughs, lose and neglect the creeping hours of time; if ever you have looked on better days; if ever you have been where bells have knolled to church; if you have ever sat at any good man’s feast; if ever from your eyelids you have wiped a tear, and know what it is to pity or be pitied, may gentle speeches now move you to do me human courtesy!” The duke replied, “True it is that we are men (as you say) who have seen better days, and though we have now our habitation in this wild forest, we have lived in towns and cities, and have with holy bell been knolled to church, have sat at good men’s feasts, and from our eyes we have wiped the drops which sacred pity has engendered: therefore sit you down, and take of our refreshment as much as will minister to your wants.” “There is an old poor man,” answered Orlando, “who has limped after me many a weary step in pure love, oppressed at once with two sad infirmities, age and hunger; till he be satisfied, I must not touch a bit.” “Go, find him out, and bring him hither,” said the duke; “we will forbear to eat till you return.” Then Orlando went like a doe to find its fawn and give it food; and presently returned, bringing Adam in his arms; and the duke said: “Set down your venerable burthen; you are both welcome:” and they fed the old man, and cheered his heart, and he revived, and recovered his health and strength again.

The duke inquired who Orlando was, and when he found that he was the son of his old friend, Sir Rowland de Boys, he took him under his protection, and Orlando and his old servant lived with the duke in the forest. Orlando arrived in the forest not many days after Ganimed and Aliena came there, and (as has been before related) bought the shepherd’s cottage. Ganimed and Aliena were strangely surprised to find the name of Rosalind carved on the trees, and love sonnets fastened to them, all addressed to Rosalind; and while they were wondering how this could be, they met Orlando, and they perceived the chain which Rosalind had given him about his neck.

Orlando little thought that Ganimed was the fair princess Rosalind, who by her noble condescension and favor had so won his heart that he passed his whole time in carving her name upon the trees, and writing sonnets in praise of her beauty; but being much pleased with the graceful air of this pretty shepherd youth, he entered into conversation with him, and he thought he saw a likeness in Ganimed to his beloved Rosalind, but that he had none of the dignified deportment of that noble lady; for Ganimed assumed the forward manners often seen in youths when they are between boys and men, and with much archness and humor talked to Orlando of a certain lover, “who,” said he, “haunts our forest, and spoils our young trees with carving Rosalind upon their barks; and he hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies upon brambles, all praising this same Rosalind. If I could find this lover, I would give him some good counsel that would soon cure him of his love.”

Orlando confessed that he was the fond lover of whom he spoke, and asked Ganimed to give him the good counsel he talked of. The remedy Ganimed proposed, and the counsel he gave him, was that Orlando should come every day to the cottage where he and his sister Aliena dwelt. “And then,” said Ganimed, “I will feign myself to be Rosalind, and you shall feign to court me in the same manner as you would do if I was Rosalind, and then I will imitate the fantastic ways of whimsical ladies to their lovers, till I make you ashamed of your love; and this is the way I propose to cure you.” Orlando had no great faith in the remedy, yet he agreed to come every day to Ganimed’s cottage and feign a playful courtship; and every day Orlando visited Ganimed and Aliena, and Orlando called the shepherd Ganimed his Rosalind, and every day talked over all the fine words and flattering compliments which young men delight to use when they court. It does not appear, however, that Ganimed made any progress in curing Orlando of his love for Rosalind. Though Orlando thought all this was but a sportive play (not dreaming that Ganimed was his very Rosalind), yet the opportunity it gave him of saying all the fond things he had in his heart, pleased his fancy almost as well as it did Ganimed’s, who enjoyed the secret jest in knowing these fine love speeches were all addressed to the right person.

In this manner many days passed pleasantly on with these young people; and the good-natured Aliena seeing it made Ganimed happy, let him have his own way, and was diverted at the mock courtship, and did not care to remind Ganimed that the lady Rosalind had not yet made herself known to the duke, her father, whose place of resort in the forest they had learnt from Orlando. Ganimed met the duke one day, and had some talk with him, and the duke asked of what parentage he came; Ganimed answered that he came of as good parentage as he did: which made the duke smile, for he did not suspect the pretty shepherd boy came of royal lineage. Then seeing the duke look well and happy, Ganimed was content to put off all further explanation for a few days longer.

One morning, as Orlando was going to visit Ganimed, he saw a man lying asleep on the ground, and a large green snake had twisted itself about his neck. The snake, seeing Orlando approach, glided away among the bushes. Orlando went nearer, and then he discovered a lioness lie couching, with her head on the ground, with a cat-like watch, waiting till the sleeping man awaked (for it is said that lions will[456] prey on nothing that is dead or sleeping). It seemed as if Orlando was sent by Providence to free the man from the danger of the snake and lioness: but when Orlando looked in the man’s face, he perceived that the sleeper, who was exposed to this double peril, was his own brother Oliver, who had so cruelly used him, and had threatened to destroy him by fire; and he was almost tempted to leave him a prey to the hungry lioness: but brotherly affection and the gentleness of his nature soon overcame his first anger against his brother; and he drew his sword, and attacked the lioness, and slew her, and thus preserved his brother’s life both from the venomous snake and from the furious lioness; but before Orlando could conquer the lioness, she had torn one of his arms with her sharp claws.

While Orlando was engaged with the lioness, Oliver awaked, and perceiving that his brother Orlando, whom he had so cruelly treated, was saving him from the fury of a wild beast at the risk of his own life, shame and remorse at once seized him, and he repented of his unworthy conduct, and besought with many tears his brother’s pardon for the injuries he had done him. Orlando rejoiced to see him so penitent, and readily forgave him; they embraced each other; and from that hour Oliver loved Orlando with a true brotherly affection, though he had come to the forest bent on his destruction.

The wound in Orlando’s arm having bled very much, he found himself too weak to go to visit Ganimed, and therefore he desired his brother to go, and tell Ganimed, “whom,” said Orlando, “I in sport do call my Rosalind,” the accident which had befallen him. Thither then Oliver went, and told to Ganimed and Aliena how Orlando had saved his life; and when he had finished the story of Orlando’s bravery, and his own providential escape, he owned to them that he was Orlando’s brother, who had so cruelly used him; and then he told them of their reconciliation.

The sincere sorrow that Oliver expressed for his offenses, made such a lively impression on the kind heart of Aliena, that she instantly fell in love with him; and Oliver, observing how much she pitied the distress he told her he felt for his fault, as suddenly fell in love with her. But while love was thus stealing into the hearts of Aliena and Oliver, he was no less busy with Ganimed, who hearing of the danger Orlando had been in, and that he was wounded by the lioness, fainted; and when he recovered, he pretended that he had counterfeited the swoon in the imaginary character of Rosalind, and Ganimed said to Oliver, “Tell your brother Orlando how well I counterfeited a swoon.” But Oliver saw by the paleness of his complexion that he really did faint, and much wondering at the weakness of the young man, he said, “Well, if you did counterfeit, take a good heart, and counterfeit to be a man.” “So I do,” replied Ganimed (truly), “but I should have been a woman by right.”

Oliver made this visit a very long one, and when at last he returned back to his brother, he had much news to tell him, for, besides the account of Ganimed’s fainting at the hearing that Orlando was wounded, Oliver told him how he had fallen in love with the fair shepherdess Aliena, and that she had lent a favorable ear to his suit, even in this their first interview; and he talked to his brother, as of a thing almost settled that he should marry Aliena, saying, that he so well loved her he would live here as a shepherd, and settle his estate and house at home upon Orlando.

“You have my consent,” said Orlando. “Let your wedding be to-morrow, and I will invite the duke and his friends. Go and persuade your shepherdess to agree to this; she is now alone; for look, here comes her brother.” Oliver went to Aliena; and Ganimed, whom Orlando had perceived approaching, came to inquire after the health of his wounded friend. When Orlando and Ganimed began to talk over the sudden love which had taken place between Oliver and Aliena, Orlando said he had advised his brother to persuade his fair shepherdess to be married on the morrow, and then he added how much he could wish to be married on the same day to his Rosalind. Ganimed, who well approved of this arrangement, said that if Orlando really loved Rosalind as well as he professed to do, he should have his wish; for on the morrow he would engage to make Rosalind appear in her own person, and also that Rosalind should be willing to marry Orlando.

This seemingly wonderful event, which, as Ganimed was the lady Rosalind, he could so easily perform, he pretended he would bring to pass by the aid of magic, which he said he had learnt from an uncle who was a famous magician. The fond lover, Orlando, half believing and half doubting what he heard, asked Ganimed if he spoke in sober meaning. “By my life I do,” said Ganimed; “therefore put on your best clothes, and bid the duke and your friends to your wedding; for, if you desire to be married to-morrow to Rosalind, she shall be here.” The next morning, Oliver having obtained the consent of Aliena, they came into the presence of the duke, and with them also came Orlando. They being all assembled to celebrate this double marriage, and as yet only one of the brides appearing, there was much of wondering and conjecture, but they mostly thought that Ganimed was making a jest of Orlando.

The duke, hearing that it was his own daughter that was to be brought in this strange way, asked Orlando if he believed the shepherd boy could really do what he had promised; and while Orlando was answering that he knew not what to think, Ganimed entered, and asked the duke, if he brought his daughter, whether he would consent to her marriage with Orlando. “That I would,” said the duke, “If I had kingdoms to give with her.” Ganimed then said to Orlando, “And you say you will marry her if I bring her here.” “That I would,” said Orlando, “if I were king of many kingdoms.” Ganimed and Aliena then went out together, and Ganimed, throwing off his male attire, and being once more dressed in woman’s apparel, quickly became Rosalind, without the power of magic; and Aliena, changing her country garb for her own rich clothes, was with as little trouble transformed into the lady Celia.

While they were gone, the duke said to Orlando, that he thought the shepherd Ganimed, very like his daughter Rosalind; and Orlando said, he also had observed the resemblance. They had no time to wonder how all this would end, for Rosalind and Celia in their own clothes entered; and no longer pretending that it was by the power of magic that she came there, Rosalind threw herself on her knees before her father, and begged his blessing. It seemed so wonderful to all present that she should so suddenly appear that it might well have passed for magic; but Rosalind would no longer trifle with her father, and told him the story of her banishment, and of her dwelling in the forest as a shepherd boy, her cousin Celia passing as her sister.

The duke ratified the consent he had already given to the marriage; and Orlando and Rosalind, Oliver and Celia, were married at the same time. And though their wedding could not be celebrated in this wild forest with any of the parade or splendor usual on such occasions, yet a happier wedding-day was never passed; and while they were eating their venison under the cool shade of the pleasant trees, as if nothing should be wanting to complete the felicity of this good duke and the true lovers, an unexpected messenger arrived to tell the duke the joyful news, that his dukedom was restored to him.

The usurper, enraged at the flight of his daughter Celia, and hearing every day that men of great worth resorted to the forest of Arden to join the lawful duke in his exile, much envying that his brother should be so highly respected in his adversity, put himself at the head of a large force, and[457] advanced toward the forest, intending to seize his brother, and put him, with all his faithful followers, to the sword; but, by a wonderful interposition of Providence, this bad brother was converted from his evil intention; for just as he entered the skirts of the wild forest, he was met by an old religious man, a hermit, with whom he had much talk, and who in the end completely turned his heart from his wicked design. Thenceforward he became a true penitent, and resolved, (relinquishing his unjust dominion,) to spend the remainder of his days in a religious house. The first act of this newly-conceived penitence was to send a messenger to his brother (as has been related), to offer to restore to him his dukedom, which he had usurped so long, and with it the lands and revenues of his friends, the faithful followers of his adversity.

This joyful news, as unexpected as it was welcome, came opportunely to heighten the festivity and rejoicings at the wedding of the princesses. Celia complimented her cousin on this good fortune which had happened to the duke, Rosalind’s father, and wished her joy very sincerely, though she herself was no longer heir to the dukedom, but by this restoration which her father had made, Rosalind was now the heir; so completely was the love of these two cousins unmixed with anything of jealousy or envy.

The duke had now an opportunity of rewarding those true friends who had stayed with him in his banishment; and these worthy followers, though they had patiently shared his adverse fortune, were very well pleased to return in peace and prosperity to the palace of their lawful duke.

MEMORIAL BELL.

At a Round-Table last August it was suggested that the class of ’82 raise money to buy a bell which should be hung permanently at Chautauqua. The idea was a good one and was immediately adopted by the class, Mrs. M. Bailey, of Jamestown, N. Y., being made treasurer. But the enterprise is not growing as it deserves. The treasurer informs us that she has only about $60. This is but a beginning toward the completion of a project which the class has pledged itself to carry out. Many of the ’82’s have sent enthusiastic notes with their contributions. We publish a few of these, trusting that they may arouse others.

Canada.—I have been anxious to express in some way my appreciation of the untold benefits received as a member of the C. L. S. C., and I am glad to send you the enclosed for the memorial bell.

New York.—I did hope to see Chautauqua last summer, but my health did not permit, perhaps may never, yet I am interested in the place, and very much interested in the literary and scientific attainments of the great Circle. Enclosed find my subscription to the bell.

Michigan.—Enclosed find $—— for the memorial bell at Chautauqua. One of the longings of my life is that I may sometime hear it ring.

Pennsylvania.—May I express the hope that while the memorial bell may not be as large as some may desire, it may be wonderfully sweet.

Connecticut.—As I am possessed of but little of the “gold and silver,” I can only take shares in the memorial bell. I am an enthusiastic Chautauquan, although I have never seen the “Grove.” I want a part, if only a small one, in all the good deeds of the class of ’82.

Wisconsin.—The love of Chautauqua binds us together. I would my contribution were a thousand fold more. To Chautauqua I owe so much that the debt can not be cancelled.

C. L. S. C. WORK.

By J. H. VINCENT, D. D., Superintendent of Instruction, C. L. S. C.

The “Chautauqua University” bill has passed both houses of the New York Legislature and has been signed by Governor Cleveland. What may grow out of that bill in the future I can not now say, but the graduates of the C. L. S. C. are in the outer court of the “Chautauqua University.” The seal will soon be ready, and although our present course may not entitle the graduates to any “degree,” graduates they are of the “C. L. S. C. of the Chautauqua University.” Beyond these outer courts are other courts, and within these are halls and temples into which, as the years go by, diligent students may enter, and there by fidelity and thoroughness win, in ways which no university faculty can impeach, the honors that fairly belong to character, scholarship and intellectual strength.

The members of ’83 should aim to send in all reports and memoranda as early as possible. Put in a little more time if necessary each day, but make an early report to Miss Kimball.

A pleasant feature of a program in a cozy little local circle is thus reported by one of the members: “We have personations,—that is, a person assumes the character of some eminent individual, giving a sketch of his life and work, the audience guessing who the character is. We find this profitable in the study of biography, taking, of course, as we do, the characters mentioned in the C. L. S. C. course.”

A member from California says: “I appreciate the odd five minutes I pick up here and there. The text-book of Greek history is intimately associated with the dough-nut kettle and ironing-board, and also the Preparatory Greek Course in English with my small nephew’s cradle.”

From Peoria I receive cheering words concerning the C. L. S. C. at that place. Here is a postal card announcing as follows: “The C. L. S. C. will meet Tuesday evening, February 20, at 7:45, sharp. You will please be prepared to answer in a few words, not occupying more than one minute, the following question: [Here the question is inserted.] If you can not be present, please hand your answer to the secretary of the C. L. S. C., care of the Y. M. C. A. rooms.” How much the Y. M. C. A. might do through the C. L. S. C.!

Come to Chautauqua if you can this season. If this is impracticable, meet your fellows of the C. L. S. C. at Framingham, Mass., Mountain Lake Park, Md., Round Lake, N. Y., Lakeside, O., Island Park, Ind., Monteagle, Tenn., Lake Bluff, Ill., or Monona, Wis. Take the Assembly Daily Herald, and read with us if you can not be with us. And if the Heavenly Father allows limitations, and hindrances, and sickness, instead of freedom and recreation the coming season, remember that in the loving fellowship of the great C. L. S. C. you have hosts of sympathizing friends. Such sympathy helps us to bear disappointments.

“In the memoranda of last year is a question concerning the nineteenth century. Does this mean occurring in the nineteenth century, or affect it without regard to the day of occurrence?” Answer: It means events that have occurred in the nineteenth century, as discussed by Mackenzie in his book.

Concerning another question, it is asked, “In what period certain events occur? Should the answer be in some schedule of periods or divisions of time that have already appeared in the reading?” Answer: The periods refer to the twelve periods which are found in the little Chautauqua Text-Book on “General History.”[458]

A correspondent sets forth the advantages of the C. L. S. C. He says that he has become acquainted with men and things hitherto unknown; enjoyed the pleasures of a foreign trip without its discomforts; cultivated his memory until now he is able to turn to good account the regular walk to and from business in the memorizing of choice passages; fitted up in his house not only a “Chautauqua Corner,” but a whole room which is, as he says, “our family gathering room, and here the C. L. S. C. is well advertised, our certificates from the Bryant class, our membership cards, and many photographs and engravings of prominent literary men, and of historical events, adorn the wall; books and journals occupy various places within easy reach. Often during a transient call conversation has been turned from light to serious things, and thus we have been able to draw together an interested class of nine members, some of whom have already forwarded their names, and probably others will follow in due time.”

A member of the class of 1884 writes: “It is so pleasant to be learning something all these years when I once supposed I would be too old to learn. During my married life I have had more leisure for reading than before. The privilege of enjoying a course of study so carefully arranged and nicely adapted to the needs of busy people, is highly appreciated. I think I express the feelings of many housekeepers when I say that I receive a stimulus from the work which more than compensates for the time given, and makes all home work and care seem lighter. The nicest nook of the sitting room is my Chautauqua corner, and the hours spent there are the very best ones. This year we have a circle of eleven members. I find myself watching eagerly for the coming of The Chautauquan, and the testimony and reports from local circles seem like letters from friends.”

At the “Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat” for 1883 a new and delightful feature will be carried out: An Ideal Summer Trip beyond the Sea. An imaginary party of tourists (the “Chautauqua Foreign Tourists”) will pack the pleasures and profit of three months’ travel into fifteen days, by the aid of conversations, lecture-lessons, class-drills, blackboard outlines, choice readings by gifted elocutionists, musical contributions by superior singers, personal reminiscences by travelers, a voluminous library of travel, a multitude of card-photographs, and about one thousand of the finest stereopticon illustrations by one of the most powerful stereopticons in America. I can not here enter more fully into the features of this unique and useful exercise.

It appears to me that the high opinion which a man has of himself is the nursing-mother of all the false opinions that prevail in the world, whether public or private. Those people who perch themselves astride upon the epicycle of Mercury, who can dive so far into the heavens, are more annoying to me than a tooth-drawer.—Montaigne.

C. L. S. C. SONG.

C. L. S. C. ANNIVERSARY ODE. 1879.

Mrs. L. H. Bugbee.            Wm. F. Sherwin.

Copyright, 1879, by J. H. Vincent.

DISCREPANCIES IN ASTRONOMY.

By BISHOP WARREN.

All have noticed that the tables of distances, magnitudes, etc., as printed in “Studies of the Stars” and “Recreations in Astronomy,” do not in all cases agree. In the latest edition of “Studies of the Stars,” the tables have been made to correspond to those in the “Recreations.” The reason of the discrepancy is the fact that we do not absolutely know the distance of the earth from the sun, which distance is the golden reed with which we measure the city of God. We are seeking to determine this distance. To this end we have fitted out expeditions to observe the transit of Venus, and are now expending time and money most prodigally. The difficulties are alluded to, page 61 of the “Recreations”: “To mistake the breadth of a hair, seen at the distance of 125 feet would cause an error of 3,000,000 miles at the distance of the sun, and immensely more at the distance of the stars.” That accounts for the greater discrepancies in the tables as the objects measured are farther off. It is better to commit to memory the tables in the “Recreations,” as they are the latest.

[459]

LONGFELLOW’S BIRTHDAY.

CELEBRATIONS BY THE LOCAL CIRCLES.

We have received many reports of the interesting celebrations held in honor of Longfellow, on February 27—his birthday. These memorial services are an excellent feature of the social work of the C. L. S. C., and circles would do well to make an effort to observe them.

A public memorial service was held in Franklin, Mass., and the Sentinel, of that place, expresses hearty commendation of its character.

A very neat, printed program has been sent us from Spencer, Mass. The exercises, held at the home of one of the members, consisted of essays, recitations, and music, and were followed by supper.

The “Longfellow” afternoon at Westfield, N. Y., must have been very pleasant. The society spent the time reading “Evangeline,” and talking of incidents in the life of the author, completing the entertainment with a supper.

The Lockport, N. Y., Daily Journal congratulates the C. L. S. C. of that town upon the success which attended their celebration, and expresses the wish that the society will have many more such gatherings.

At Hiawatha, Kansas, the circle carried out an excellent program of music, essays, and recitations.

At Media, Pa., an entertainment was given in honor of the poet. A pretty feature was the response by a sentiment from each of the guests, quotations having been written on cards and presented with their invitations, so that all might join in the exercises. A novel exercise was the reading of character sketches, the audience being permitted to guess who it was that was portrayed therein. The literary feast was followed by refreshments.

The C. L. S. C. of Westminster, Minn., held a celebration with appropriate exercises.

The Longfellow Memorial Day was observed by the St. Louis, Missouri, local circle, in a meeting of unusual interest, held Monday evening, February 26, in their regular place of meeting, the pleasant parlors of Pilgrim Congregational church. Though quite long, the program was heard through to the end by a large and intelligent audience, mainly friends of the members from without.

From Auburn, N. Y., we receive the following: “February 27 we celebrated Longfellow’s birthday. It was the first really premeditated entertainment we have had, and we of the committee looked forward to it with fear and trembling, only to be so pleasantly surprised at the willingness to do, and the amount of stored-away talent, that now we complacently think our local circle can do almost anything. Prof. R. Holmes talked to us, and it was such a delightful, encouraging talk, I wished for the magic art of the stenographer, that I might send his pleasant words to you all. Some of us had felt certain he would ‘tell us all about Chautauqua,’ but when he told us it was simply indescribable, we gave a little sigh, and will try and wait until 1886, the year to which most of us belong; then we just hope to go there, and behold and appropriate for ourselves. Prof. Holmes explained to us the full significance of the mystic C. L. S. C., and made us understand more fully than ever how much we might make of it if we would.”

LOCAL CIRCLES.

Maine (Saco).—The Wilbur F. Berry Circle was started January 1, 1882. No organization was formed, however, until the next October. As we were three months behind at the beginning, the work seemed somewhat hard, but the interest did not flag, and the course for the second year was entered upon with much zeal. We have a membership of sixteen. Deep interest is manifested by the members.

Massachusetts (Magnolia).—We have received the sad news of the death of Miss E. O. Tuck. Her mother writes: “My daughter died very happy; her Savior’s presence lighted the dark valley. She was much interested in the C. L. S. C., having induced more than twenty to join it. She would have graduated this year, having completed the reading required for the White Crystal Seal Course.”

Massachusetts (Rockville).—Our village is so small that we try to be united in every good work; therefore when we started our circle we found only six who thought they could afford time and money for the full course. Seven others subscribed for The Chautauquan, five of whom met with our circle as often as convenient. We sold tickets for a course of lectures, and all who bought them were made local members, to give them an ownership feeling in the C. L. S. C. One of our members lives at Norfolk, three miles away. She must harness and drive over herself when she comes, and she has not been absent a half dozen times since we organized. One of our members, a young girl, has a bed-ridden sister, and is unable to go from home for an education, so the C. L. S. C. is a God-send for her. As we have no minister here and can not call upon those in the neighborhood, we are reading the sermons from The Chautauquan. Thus the good seed reaches many hearts.

New York (Troy).—The Troy Times contains the following: “The ‘Vincent Circle’ of the C. L. S. C. met at the North Second Street Methodist Church last evening and had a packed house, a fine program and a most spirited meeting. The program was wholly astronomical in character. The Round-Table conducted by the president was facetious, varied and instructive. It is looked forward to by the circle with keen relish. The conversazione on Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler added interest, and showed how the members were posting themselves on the subject of astronomy. It was announced and received with great delight that Dr. John H. Vincent would lecture in our city shortly before the circles of this vicinity.” This circle numbers over two hundred, and enthusiastically writes us: “We’re alive.”

New York (Friendship).—We have a small circle of seven ladies of the classes of 1883 and 1884. We follow the plan of work given in The Chautauquan and find it a help, as all know what is to be reviewed; our plan is to talk the lesson over. While going through Greek history we had one or two short essays each week—subject assigned by the president. A lady nearly seventy years old gave us a beautiful essay on Geology. She is a member of the class of 1883, and expects to be at Chautauqua next fall to receive her diploma. There are none of the class more enthusiastic than she. Her reading has been a source of comfort, as well as profit; has lightened her burdens, giving her little breathing spells in the busy whirl of her life. Last year we had no organized class and feel that much is gained by meeting and conversing on the subjects.

[460]New York (Jamestown).—By the March number of The Chautauquan I see that the president of the Pittsburgh association, Mr. Martin, did not know when he hopefully placed that organization of C. L. S. C. as “first in paying homage to our alma mater.” On the evening of September 30 the graduates of Jamestown, the class numbering twenty-five, met for a “jubilee reunion.” The secretary of all the years, Mrs. D. W. Hatch, read a condensed history of the work and life of the circle, and its diminishing size during the years’ siftings. The president discussed the “Chautauqua Idea,” congratulating the members in this the overcoming of the hindrances and discouragements, that he knew had attended the years now ended. If there had been any lack of enthusiasm it would have been supplied by the “real presence” of the C. L. S. C. flag and banner, that had been brought from its secure storage for another purpose, and which, for the first time, was hailed by a few who had not been able to follow it through the Golden Gate; and that old flag told such a story that it seemed almost sacred. Jamestown has also an earnest circle of twelve girls from the Sunday-school of the Methodist Episcopal Church, organized this year, and doing good work, under the supervision of Mrs. M. Bailey. Good idea.

Pennsylvania (Allegheny).—A local circle was formed here December 22. We are now advancing splendidly, and every meeting shows an increased interest in the work.

Pennsylvania (Stroudsburg).—On Saturday evening, June 24, 1882, Mr. O. W. Deck, of Rehresburg, also a member of the C. L. S. C., delivered a public lecture under the auspices of the circle, his subject being one of the mottoes of the C. L. S. C., “We study the word and the works of God.” The lecture has been very highly spoken of by all who attended. Our circle is growing, and we believe a great amount of good has been and is being done.

Pennsylvania (Media).—A number of the ladies of Media, feeling the need of higher culture, and the pleasure of seeking that culture in connection with each other, met on the evening of October 3, 1882, and organized a society, with constitution and by-laws, the society to be called the “Chautauqua Local Circle of Media.” There are seven now in our circle, with abundant promise of a larger circle next year.

Pennsylvania (McKeesport).—We have received a poem read by Charles A. Pitts, of McKeesport, Pa., on board the “Vincent” on the evening of August 16, 1882, at an excursion tendered the class of ’84 by Mr. Fairbanks, of Chicago. We regret that we cannot publish the entire poem, but lack of space prevents. We give the following stanzas:

Pennsylvania (Girard).—At Girard, Pa., a little town of about one thousand inhabitants, the C. L. S. C. members of the Class of ’82 organized a local circle in 1878. The circle was reorganized in October, 1882, and at present has a membership of thirty-four, five of whom were graduated with the Class of ’82; four are of the Class of ’83, twenty-one of the Class of ’86, and the other four are local members. The object of our circle is to hold together and help the regular members of the C. L. S. C.; hence we have not made our meetings public, and admit local members only on condition that they read at least one hour a week of the required reading. Most of our work, aside from reading and study at home, is done in sub-local circles, of three or four members each, who meet about once a week, talk over their special work, and bring difficulties and results to the regular monthly meeting.

Pennsylvania (Houtzdale).—This is a community of about eight thousand people. The Philomathic Circle was organized November 28, 1882. We now have succeeded in reading up with the advance, and are taking a review. The membership has been limited to twenty-five, because we are obliged to meet at the houses of the members. We are looking forward to the time when we can have a regular place of meeting and increase the membership. There are many here who would like to join us.

Pennsylvania (Bradford).—The Bryant branch of the C. L. S.C. was organized in November. We have nine regular and several local members. Thus far the meetings have been very prosperous, and out of nine members we have had an average attendance of eight. We have some hope of increasing the numbers of our circle, as another circle here has been broken up and several members have expressed a desire to join us. At our last meeting we voted to have a critic appointed at each meeting, who shall take notes, and at the end of each exercise shall bring his criticisms before the circle.

Pennsylvania (Erie).—We commend to local circles everywhere the following excellent plan for studying the geography of the heavens, sent us by Prof. H. A. Strong, of Erie:—At the beginning of the study of astronomy, the circle took up the subject of celestial geography, and intend to pursue it the entire two months until the map of the heavens becomes as well outlined as that of the earth. We turned to the chart of the heavens given on pages 201, etc., in Warren’s Astronomy, and entered on the study of these celestial maps immediately. We had no trouble with the circumpolar constellations as given in figure 67 of the text-book. These were readily found in the heavens above, traced and mastered. But further on we find the other constellations are described and located in the heavens for September and November, and such location only confused and led astray for the present study. Our researches in the heavens were well nigh blocked, when we had the good fortune to find a chart of the entire heavens that removed all our difficulties and made the study of the stars easy and delightful. This chart is entitled a “Movable Planisphere of the Heavens,” the work of Henry Whitall, 130 Grand St., New York, adapted as an atlas to go with Burritt’s “Geography of the Heavens,” and the chart was copyrighted in the year 1862. The perfection of this atlas of the heavens is that it can be so arranged by a simple adjustment as to show the visible heavens, with the position of all the constellations, and the names of all the principal stars, for any observer in any hour or any night of the whole year. It is a key that unlocks the heavens, and any layman can use it. The chart consists of two circular boards about fifteen inches in diameter attached to each other, with the upper one pivoted upon and revolving about the lower one. The lower and immovable board has painted upon it the geography of the starry heavens as divided into constellations, and the upper board being set for any night of the month shows what constellations are rising, setting, on the meridian, or in any part of the firmament. Actual trial has proved its use and success[461] as compass and guide book. Such a method in this study gives a delight that only trial can reveal. Astronomy thus studied illumines the page of inspiration; and the works of God explain the Word of God. Such readings of the heavens gem with added lustre the divine question, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion?”

District of Columbia (Washington).—A few of us concluded to push the Chautauqua movement here, and so we went to work to ascertain how many circles had been formed, and as a result representatives from Parker, Union, Foundry, and Dumbarton circles met and organized a Chautauqua Union, the object being for mutual interest and to endeavor to organize other circles during the coming summer and fall, to secure lectures upon the topics connected with the readings, and to do anything that would bring to popular attention the grand C. L. S. C. The first thing we did was to go to the fountain-head, and on March 16, Dr. J. H. Vincent lectured in the Foundry Methodist Episcopal Church, before the Union and a very large audience, upon the Chautauqua work, with marked success, and with his usual eloquence and power to interest and instruct. The lecture was free, as we wished those to come who could not well afford to pay for admission. We wish to reach the very lowliest. His lecture caused many to join circles, even at this late day, and we expect to reap a grand harvest next October. But this is not all. Our lines have fallen in pleasant places. On the 20th Mrs. Spofford, a large-hearted lady, invited the Union, through Foundry Circle, to meet in her parlors Bishop H. W. Warren, a counselor of the C. L. S. C., and author of “Recreations in Astronomy.” There was a large gathering, and the bishop and his fair daughter were cordially welcomed. Mrs. Lydia H. Tilton welcomed the bishop with the following lines:

Florida (Miccosukie).—Our local circle was organized March 14, with Rev. W. S. Richardson, president. I think it is the first local circle in the State; there are several members of the C. L. S. C., however, who are pursuing their studies alone. We organized with five members, all of whom seem deeply interested in the work.

Ohio (Plain City).—About October 1 we organized a local circle of fourteen members. Soon after, by the appointment of conference, our pastor’s family was removed, which, with the removal of another family, deprived us of five of our most reliable members, and disspirited the remaining ones. The consequence is that we have not attained a very sure footing as yet. We have not succeeded in having enough members present to accomplish anything at meetings more than once or twice, although one or two of us have exerted ourselves to secure an attendance, and have a program prepared. Most, however, are doing the reading and enjoying it. If some enthusiastic Chautauquan can suggest a plan by which we may bring about a better state of affairs in our circle, we shall be glad to hear from him or her.

Ohio (New Albany).—We are all very well pleased with the course. We feel much stronger now than when we commenced last October. The work commends itself to all, old and young.

Ohio (Norwalk).—Our circle is doing a grand work. All of the graduates are members of the local circles, and are reading the seal courses.

Indiana (Monticello).—We organized a local C. L. S. C. January 24, 1883. Seven of us are taking the full course, two of whom did last year’s work. Besides those taking the regular course, nine are taking The Chautauquan this year with the intention of reading the full course next year. It is impossible to tell you how much we love the work. Many are becoming interested in the readings, and we hope to have a better report next year.

Illinois (Chicago).—One of the most difficult things we found was naming the circle. It was weeks before we could find a suitable name, but our motto was “nil desperandum” and at last we came off conquering, for we are now the “Vincent (conquering) Circle,” of Chicago.

Illinois (Hampshire).—Our meetings are conducted wholly on a conversational plan, led by our president and everyone taking part. The members are all very much interested in the work, and show a great deal of enthusiasm. Each book is left with regret.

Illinois (Peoria).—The Y. M. C. A. of Peoria has been trying to find the best method for putting their members in the way of doing themselves a permanent good, and to get an interest in their thoughts and hopes, tastes and inclinations, so as to guide them to that which is higher and better. After many efforts they believe they have found it: “We have our gymnasium for those who like it, some receptions with refreshments, and some games, chess, checkers, etc., and a library, and the periodicals, but such things do not take a hold upon earnest natures so as to create a new life in them. They are not exhilarating or inspiring. We finally have concluded that the C. L. S. C. was just what we wanted, and adopted it. There is certainly a very great benefit in the knowledge that 30,000 people are taking the same course, that our work is all laid out for us, a definite amount for each week. It is a great advantage to the committee on program; they are not compelled to spend any time in discussing what they will take up next, and how much. The members of the circle waste no time in suggesting this, that and the other thing to the committee. Many a circle would be disintegrated and broken up if they should attempt to discuss what study they would take up next, and how much and in what manner it should be studied; just as many persons waste their lives vainly attempting to determine the question what they shall do, and most people waste a large part of their leisure moments because they have no plan for using them systematically. I look upon the ‘Chautauqua Idea’ as one of the greatest and best ideas of our wonderfully rich and fruitful century, and I believe it is only in its infancy, and anything I can do to help it along I desire to do. It seems to me that the C. L. S. C., and the Book-a-month, and the C. Y. F. R. U, are very proper departments of Y. M. C. A. work, and that their introduction into Y. M. C. A.’s would greatly strengthen the associations and greatly benefit the members, and I can (now) see no objection to the Y. M. C. A. being used to introduce the ‘Chautauqua Ideas,’ and thus be made to do good and get good. Mr. Hill, of Ohio, has succeeded in having the movement favorably endorsed by the Y. M. C. A. State Conference of Ohio.[462] I think I will try to attend the International Y. M. C. A. Conference at Milwaukee this spring, and bring the matter up there; but in the meantime if it could be brought before State and local organizations, it would be so much time saved. It seems to me that small Y. M. C. A.’s would be even more benefited than large ones by the C. L. S. C., and that they might be maintained with a C. L. S. C. in country neighborhoods and small hamlets where they could not exist alone. The size of our C. L. S. C. puzzles me now, and I hardly know what to do about it. Owing to the large number of members we are compelled to limit each member to answering one question, and to something like one minute in which to do that. If the circle were smaller each one would have more time. But I am afraid to try to divide it, for fear some will thereby be discouraged. Still there are new members who wish to join, and if size was no detriment to a circle, I think we could commence the next year with two hundred members. We have rather encouraged the organization of a local circle in the R. E. Church, of which Alex. G. Tryng is a member. I think they have about fifteen (all local) members, no regular C. L. S. C. We have not encouraged any but regular C. L. S. C. members to join our circle, though we have seven local members.” This circle sends in a report of fifty-seven regular members, with an average attendance of forty-five.

Wisconsin (North Leeds).—I have read much, but no course of reading that I’ve ever undertaken has afforded me the genuine satisfaction which I have received from the C. L. S. C.

Michigan (Davison Station).—We organized a circle here in December last, and now have a membership of fifteen. Commencing so late in the year, we are still somewhat behind in our reading, but we are trying to do extra work, and hope to finish the year’s work in time to begin with the class next October.

Tennessee (Memphis).—The Memphis local circle was organized on July 23, 1880, with eight members. Mr. J. R. Pepper was elected president. The membership increased to twenty-nine during the first few months following its organization, and thirty-five joined the Class of 1885 formed in October-December, 1881. During the winter of 1881-82 there were seventy-five persons engaged in reading the course, although only fifty belonged to the local circle. The Memphis local circle held monthly meetings from the date of its organization until October last, when its members were divided into three local circles, the smaller bodies proving more beneficial in their results and more convenient, since the members are scattered over the entire city. The three societies now in existence are the Central, Chelsea, and the South Memphis local circles. The Central circle consists of sixty members, and meets on the first Friday evening of each month. The Chelsea circle meets in the school room at the brick church, on the evenings of the first and third Tuesdays of each month. It contains thirty-two members. The South Memphis circle, containing about twenty members, meets in the Second Presbyterian church, on the second and fourth Tuesday evenings of each month. All the circles are in a prosperous condition, and the interest taken in them is progressing steadily.

Minnesota (St. Paul).—We have received from Professor Daniels, of the Academy of Science at St. Paul, some encouraging words: “I came up here on account of some Geological work in the Rocky Mountains last fall, and have remained with my family to begin the organization of a campaign for scientific and industrial education in these new States. I have hunted up the scattered Chautauquans, and endeavored to persuade them to enlarge their circle, and take up the scientific part of the course with greater earnestness. I see a mighty future for your work, and am stirred to enthusiastic admiration of it, and it seems to me a grand opportunity is opened to ally it with scientific development and place it in the front rank of educational progress. Myself and my whole family have joined the class, and we are live Chautauquans, doing our class readings and drawing others into it as we can. We meet to-morrow evening at the house of Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller, well known to you I presume.”

Iowa (Maquoketa).—This is the first year of a branch of the C. L. S. C. in Maquoketa; although we did not organize our local circle until late in November, we have thirty-eight members, who seem to be in earnest and doing good work. Rev. F. C. Wolf is our president. It was through his efforts that the interest in the C. L. S. C. was awakened and a circle organized. We have a committee of three, who arrange a program for each meeting. We have essays and talks on subjects assigned, written questions brought in by the members to be answered by the circle, readings of selections from The Chautauquan, or the books we have been reading, and the last half-hour devoted to “Round-Table Talk.” Our president had great difficulty at first to get the tongues loosened, and we had numerous long pauses in the conversation, but we know how to improve the time now, and all enjoy it.

Iowa (Washington).—Our local circle has a membership of thirty-eight, six of whom have taken up the four years’ C. L. S. C. work. We meet every Monday evening at the homes of the different members, and our program consists in reading, answering questions in The Chautauquan, and general discussion of the subjects under consideration, after which the secretary calls the roll, and each member responds with a quotation from a favorite author.

Missouri (St. Louis).—Under the efficient leadership of its president, Miss Helen Peabody, the circle here is doing good work, and is one of the largest and best sustained literary societies in the city.

Kansas (Leavenworth).—This circle was organized March 5, 1883, with eighteen members, which have since been increased to twenty-nine. At the meeting, Mrs. Burrows, of Ohio, a graduate of C. L. S. C., was present, and it was largely through her influence and zeal (according to knowledge) that the circle started so auspiciously. The membership includes teachers, lawyers, merchants and others, and all seem thoroughly alive to the benefits of the mental and social culture which the course affords. We begin several months behind the class of 1886, but we don’t forget that we live in a State whose motto is “Ad astra per aspera,” (“To the stars through difficulties.”)

Idaho Territory (Ketchum).—We are two. Only a Chautauquan couple in this far-away little mining-camp, whose natural location brings to mind with new beauty the words, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever.” We have had our books less than one month, and are still in our first enthusiasm over the glad fact of each being one of the 12,000 of the class of 1886. Beginning with the readings for October, we have read up to date—everything on English History—Ancient Greece, Preparatory Greek Course, Scandinavian, and Sunday Readings, besides pouring delightedly over every thing in The Chautauquan relating to the C. L. S. C. work, longing for the time when the completion of the required reading will allow us to enjoy all of the excellent things therein. With cordial greetings for all Chautauquans, and especially warm ones for the[463] lonely ones scattered in solitary places, we hope to remain unto the end.

Oregon (Portland).—On December 11, 1882, was organized the first Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (within our knowledge) in Oregon. We feel quite encouraged, as we had so little difficulty in getting started, and all seem to take a great interest, notwithstanding our class is composed almost entirely of working people. By this I mean those who have little or no leisure even, outside of daily labor, but what should in a measure be devoted to the home circle; still we are becoming (even within so short a time) so attached to our class or circle, that we class it among one of our household and family treasures that both old and young can cherish and enjoy. Our class numbers sixteen. Now we are prepared to go along with the lessons of The Chautauquan, and feel that we are more united to the Class of 1886.

Southern California (Riverside).—We have a large circle, meeting monthly in the Methodist Episcopal church, and each two weeks at the residences of members.

Canada (Toronto).—The Toronto Central Circle has a membership of about two hundred, and includes all Chautauquans in Toronto and vicinity. About seventy-five of the two hundred members are of the class of 1886, and have therefore only just begun, while others are completing their course. As yet we have only one alumnus, our enthusiastic secretary, Mr. L. C. Peake. In connection with the Central Circle are two or three strong local circles, one at least of which meets regularly, and has very interesting meetings. I think, if we may have a little space in The Chautauquan occasionally, we can furnish you with an item now and then to let Chautauquans know that Toronto is pushing ahead, and will soon have a band of Chautauquans second to no city of its size in numbers and enthusiasm. I may say we expect to have Dr. Vincent lecture here in Shaftesbury Hall soon—subject, “On the Heights.” We anticipate a rare treat. Dr. Vincent is perhaps the most popular lecturer we have on the Toronto platform.

OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. STUDIES.

MAY.

The required C. L. S. C. reading for the month of May is Longfellow’s Evangeline, and the designated reading in The Chautauquan. The division according to weeks is as follows:

First Week (ending May 8)—1. Longfellow’s Evangeline, sections I, II, and III of part the first—381 lines.

2. History of Russia, in The Chautauquan.

3. Sunday reading, selection for May 6, in The Chautauquan.

Second Week (ending May 16)—1. Longfellow’s Evangeline, sections IV and V of part the first—from line 382 to line 665, inclusive.

2. Scandinavian History and Literature, in The Chautauquan.

3. Sunday reading, selection for May 13, in The Chautauquan.

Third Week (ending May 24)—Longfellow’s Evangeline, sections I, II and III of part the second—from line 666 to line 1077, inclusive.

2. Pictures from English History, in The Chautauquan.

3. Sunday reading, selection for May 20, in The Chautauquan.

Fourth Week (ending May 31)—Longfellow’s Evangeline, sections IV and V or part the second—from line 1078 to line 1399, inclusive.

2. Readings in Physiology, in The Chautauquan.

3. Sunday reading, selection for May 27, in The Chautauquan.

[Not Required.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.

1. Q. Who is the author of Evangeline? A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

2. Q. When and where was Longfellow born, and when did he die? A. He was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and died March 24, 1882.

3. Q. To what did he devote the greater part of his life? A. To literature, and to teaching in connection with literature.

4. Q. What was the first volume he published? A. An essay on the moral and devotional poetry of Spain.

5. Q. What are two of his best known prose works. A. “Outre-mer” and “Hyperion.”

6. Q. What is perhaps the best known of Longfellow’s short poems? A. “The Psalm of Life.”

7. Q. What celebrated work did Longfellow translate out of the Italian? A. Dante’s “Divina Commedia.”

8. Q. Name three of the longer well known poems that Longfellow wrote. A. “The Song of Hiawatha,” “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and “Evangeline.”

9. Q. On what historical incident is the story of “Evangeline” founded? A. The forcible removal of the French from Acadia by the English in 1755.

10. Q. By what name is Acadia now known? A. Nova Scotia.

11. Q. How many of the Acadians were sent out of the country at this time? A. About three thousand.

12. Q. To what parts of the United States were they taken? A. To North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

13. Q. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, what occurred as to many families? A. They were separated, and some at least never came together again.

14. Q. What is the story of Evangeline? A. It is the story of such a separation.

15. Q. What is the measure in which the story of Evangeline is written? A. It is what is commonly known as English dactylic hexameter.

16. Q. What is a dactyl? A. It is a poetical foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.

17. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.

18. Q. Name some noted classical poems written in dactylic hexameter. A. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Æneid.

19. Q. With what description does part the first of Evangeline open? A. With a description of Grand Pré in 1755.

20. Q. What person is introduced as the wealthiest farmer of Grand Pré? A. Benedict Bellefontaine, the father of Evangeline.

21. Q. What was the age of Evangeline at the time the story opens? A. Seventeen.

22. Q. Who was the accepted suitor of Evangeline? A. Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith.

23. Q. Who attested the contract for the marriage of Evangeline and Gabriel? A. René Leblanc, the notary.

24. Q. On the 5th of September, 1755, the day following the execution of the marriage contract, what had the male inhabitants of Grand Pré and the surrounding country been summoned to do by proclamation of Col. Winslow, the commander of the New England troops? A. To attend him in the church at Grand Pré to hear a communication which the governor had sent.

25. Q. How many assembled in the church on this occasion? A. Four hundred and eighteen men and boys.[464]

26. Q. After they had assembled, what did Winslow do? A. He surrounded the church with a guard and made all the inmates prisoners.

27. Q. What did he state was the decision of the king in reference to them? A. That all their lands, dwellings, and cattle were forfeited to the crown, and they themselves were to be transported to other provinces.

28. Q. How long were they kept prisoners in the church? A. Until the 10th of September.

29. Q. While the people were being taken on board the fleet for transportation from their homes, what occurred to the village of Grand Pré? A. It was set on fire and burned.

30. Q. What became of the father of Evangeline? A. During the delay on the shore he died, and his body was buried by the seaside.

31. Q. How were Gabriel and Evangeline separated? A. They were taken to different ships.

32. Q. In what does the story of Evangeline thereafter chiefly center? A. In her long and fruitless search for Gabriel.

33. Q. To what city in the South did a large number of the Acadians go? A. New Orleans.

34. Q. Where did they form settlements? A. On both sides of the lower Mississippi.

35. Q. In what part of her wanderings is Evangeline first specially introduced to the reader? A. With a band of Acadians on a raft descending the Mississippi toward these settlements.

36. Q. While their raft was moored at the Atchafalaya who passed them during the night in a boat going north? A. Gabriel.

37. Q. At a settlement on the banks of the Têche what Acadian did they find? A. Basil the blacksmith, now a herdsman.

38. Q. What did Basil report as to Gabriel? A. That he had that day started for “the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards,” and thence he would follow “the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,” hunting and trapping.

39. Q. The next morning who started to attempt to overtake Gabriel? A. Basil and Evangeline.

40. Q. When they arrived at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes what were they told by the landlord? A. “That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions, Gabriel left the village and took the road of the prairies.”

41. Q. At a Jesuit mission in the region of the Ozark Mountains, what did the priest inform them of Gabriel? A. That “not six suns” had “risen and set since Gabriel” had told him the same story, and then had continued his journey to the far north.

42. Q. What did Basil and Evangeline now do? A. Basil returned to his home, and Evangeline remained at the mission.

43. Q. While at the mission, where did Evangeline next hear that Gabriel was? A. In the Michigan forests by the banks of the Saginaw River.

44. Q. When she reached this place of his lodge, what did she find? A. “The hunter’s lodge deserted and fallen to ruin.”

45. Q. Where had Evangeline landed when she came from Acadia? A. At Philadelphia.

46. Q. Who among those mentioned in the story had died there? A. René Leblanc, the notary.

47. Q. After Evangeline had given up finding Gabriel, to what place did she go? A. To Philadelphia.

48. Q. In what way did she employ her time? A. In administering to the sick and distressed as a Sister of Mercy.

49. Q. In the year 1793 what terrible pestilence was in Philadelphia? A. The yellow fever.

50. Q. Where did Evangeline at length find Gabriel? A. In the Friends’ alms-house as he was dying from the fever.

C. L. S. C. ROUND-TABLE.[I]

Dr. Vincent: All interrogations are in order in the way of criticism, questions relating to blunders in speech overheard, to infelicities on the platform, provincialisms, or to any imperfections of speech, which we desire in the interest of the English language and of a true culture to correct.

I receive a great many very sensible letters from members of the Circle. I received one during the summer or spring, to which I call your attention. I will read it. We have not been able to carry out the idea here, but at some time I trust will do so:

The letter closes:

It is a very happy, practical letter, and it was in pursuance of the suggestions made in that letter that Colonel Daniels was invited to take the class which he organized in geology. I have no doubt that many of you who attended several sessions of this class in geology found great benefit, and you have seen how the same kind of work may be continued on a smaller scale at home. If you have any thoughts in that direction, I shall be very grateful if you will write them to me. I hope to do something a little more thorough next year. We have in the history of Chautauqua had Prof. Winchell, and Prof. Rice, of Middletown, for very able lectures on geology. We shall do something in this line in the future. I read the letter because it was practical, just such as I like to receive.

A voice: How would it do for all of us to send on forty to fifty pounds of geological specimens to the museum from the various localities?

Dr. Vincent: Express prepaid. It might be well to write in advance to let us know the localities you represent, so that certain portions of Ohio, where the C. L. S. C. furore prevails, may not send several tons from the same neighborhood. [Applause.]

A voice: A lady here proposes to send specimens from Colorado.

Dr. Vincent: We should be very glad of them. There is no reason why, with our large organization through the world, we should not have at Chautauqua one of the best geological museums in the country.

A correspondent, a lady, writes from Colorado: “I think a knowledge of hygiene and medicine very essential to house-keepers, but it is one very little understood in the[465] majority of households. I wish to offer the suggestion that a course should be founded in connection with the C. L. S. C. I can not go away from my home and spend time and money to take the course, but would be glad to take it up in the C. L. S. C., if offered.”

Dr. Vincent: Why may we not have a department, in which mothers and house-keepers might be interested; a department which would collect the various suggestions and devices for promoting house-keeping, that we may have the “house beautiful” in every home. Wealth is not necessary to such a result. Some of the most doleful places that I visit are the richest homes, where they have bare walls, or poor pictures on them, and carpets selected in the worst taste, and furniture that cost enough, to be sure, but was not selected wisely. When I go into a house, though it have very low ceilings, very small windows, and is very old-fashioned—built years ago, and though the people who built it did not have very much to build with—when I look at a house like that, and see on the walls pictures, selected for their real artistic value, even though inexpensive; when I see flowers and vines growing about; when I see the Atlantic, or Harper’s, or the Century on the table—and a few well-chosen books on the shelves—when I get into a house of that kind, my heart always warms toward the people who live there. We might have delightful homes all over the land. Brick and boards, lath and plaster do not make homes. It is not the large, costly house, I commend, but the house, little or large, cheap or costly, with evidences of taste here and there. Do you know that the first movement of true taste in many a house would not be the putting in of new pictures so much as the taking out of the old. (Laughter.)

Mr. Martin: Are the “Hall in the Grove” and the “Outline Study of Man” absolutely required for ’83?

Dr. Vincent: We put them on the list, but when asked if it were absolutely necessary to read them I said “No.”

Mr. Martin: I think that the memoranda will show that at least ninety per cent. of the class of ’82 have read it.

Dr. Vincent: I am glad to hear it; but you remember when an objection was made two years ago to the “requiring” of a local, modern book like the “Hall in the Grove,” I said in a general way we did not require it, but we preferred it. I will tell you why the “Hall in the Grove” was written. It is my old story of the esprit du corps. The college provides for this by its surroundings—the old buildings, the old elms, the old campus, the class songs, the memorial days, the pleasant memories, the struggles and rivalries in recitation, the sports, the diploma, the honor, the prestige in the world outside, the relative standing of “our” college and the other colleges. All these things create in the student the esprit du corps which makes him glad to say, “I belong to this or that college.” See the working of this spirit in a college boat-race. Take these old dignified and pious editors of religious papers, who have not been in a boat, unless to cross to Europe, for twenty-five years. Let old Wesleyan row with Cornell, and Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, you will find the old Baptist editor, or the old Methodist editor, who opposes all that sort of thing, close up an editorial on the modern follies in college, “Nevertheless, we were somewhat glad when we read that Wesleyan stood so well in that race.” [Laughter.] That is the spirit which characterizes the college life. There is educating power in it. It is a good thing for a boy to have it, and for a man to keep it. Now, we of the C. L. S. C can have nothing of this kind unless we construct it or grow it in our own way. So we have “Our Hall”—the Hall of Philosophy. Look at it by moon-light, or in the morning, or with its eager crowds at the vesper hour. The other evening a lady said, “There is something very fascinating about this Hall.” Then here are our St. Paul’s Grove; our path-way from the gate to the steps. Do you remember on Commencement Day the flowers strewn by those little darlings, who only knew that they were doing a beautiful thing, and did not see how far down it went into your hearts? Then there are our Athenian Watch-fires and our songs that excel for poetry and inspiration all the songs that were ever written for any educational society on earth (I am proud of our Chautauqua songs and our Chautauqua poetess, Miss Lathbury),—all these things help to create the spirit of Chautauqua. Pansy has given in her “Four Girls at Chautauqua,” and especially in the story of “The Hall in the Grove,” a true interpretation of Chautauqua and in a delightful way has shown the effects of the movement on society. All these things tend to give an esprit du corps to the C. L. S. C., and when you carry your diploma and remember your march from gate to goal the other day, you say, “I was present at the graduation of the class of ’82, and I shall go there as often as I can.” What the vision and the experience do for us who come here “The Hall in the Grove” will to some extent do for those who can not come. This enthusiasm will do for our members what the similar element in four years of college discipline and experience do for college students. And that is why I said let us have “The Hall in the Grove” written, so that people who never come to Chautauqua shall feel that they are one of us, that they really seem to have been there.

Questions concerning pronunciation of words were then taken up. The words “wiseacre,” “housewife,” “area-r” (a New England mispronunciation), “septuagint,” “Charlotte Yonge,” “khedive,” “Chautauqua,” “Celtic,” “truths,” were considered. The differences of opinion expressed justify our readers in consulting Webster or Worcester.

Dr. Vincent: I hope the Class of ’83 will be here to-night, according to the program, at nine o’clock for the Class Vigil. I am very anxious to see every member of that class. The Class of ’84 will please meet here when this service closes.

Written question: Where is volume four of the “History in Literature?”

Dr. Vincent: That work on English Literature (Chautauqua Library) was commenced by an accomplished lady who has been ill ever since she wrote the first volume.

Written question: Are we to use the same text-book on Greece as the first year?

Dr. Vincent: We are.

Written question: What is the Bryant Bell? Did Bryant give it?

Dr. Vincent: He did not. We gave that name to the bell we purchased. We own only one bell. The other bells are furnished by the house of “Clinton H. Meneely Bell Company,” of Troy, N. Y.

Written question: Will reading the White Seal Course for the last two years give us the white seal?Dr. Vincent: Yes, sir.

I will now proceed to state the objects of the S. H. G. “The Society of the Hall in the Grove” has for its object the improvement of the graduates of the C. L. S. C. in all things that tend to true life, physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual; the permanence of the Chautauqua Idea and spirit, the keeping of the place, and the protection of the articles which have acquired a peculiar sacredness to all C. L. S. C. Chautauquans. In furtherance of these objects the Society of the Hall in the Grove shall select an executive committee of twenty-five members, whose business it shall be to appoint the working committees for each year. And each year all the members who are elected in 1882 shall constitute the nucleus or foundation of that committee. For example, if you elect twenty-five ladies and gentlemen this year, and next year ten of them are absent, the fifteen who are present make the nucleus of that executive committee. In[466] that way we shall keep up a permanent element. It will be your duty to elect twenty-five members. The “Messenger of the Hall,” appointed by the Superintendent of Instruction, shall be chairman of that executive committee. We hope to retain this Messenger for years. The committee shall be elected in 1882. Then there ought to be several special committees. We had some annoyance on Saturday. That banner was left standing in the Amphitheater. It is a banner that no money could buy. It might be easily mutilated. We need a committee to protect that banner from one end of the year to the other. We need also a permanent “Guard of the Gate.” It is only a conceit, and some people may think it is ridiculous, but we do not mind that. It is a pleasant conceit that no one pass under that arch who has not a right to pass under it. It is the business of the Guard to carry out this law. We had the gate photographed to-day, but the gate was opened, and opened by the Guard. There should be a committee on correspondence. You see we have quite an amount of work to do as a “Society of the Hall in the Grove.” I make these announcements so that you all who are interested may know, and that we may become a formal “order” and duly elect our committees.

EDWIN AND CHARLES LANDSEER.

The writer of an obituary of Charles Landseer, who died in July, 1879, records an interesting incident connected with that artist’s picture, “The Eve of the Battle of Edgehill.” This, perhaps his best work, was painted in 1845. When it was nearly finished, Edwin Landseer was asked by Charles to come and look at it; and remarking that it was a very good picture, but “How nice a spaniel would look in that corner!” Charles said, “Will you put it in, then?” At which the master took up the brush, and at once painted in a fine old English spaniel with some leather dispatch-bags lying on the ground by him. The picture was duly exhibited and admired, the spaniel especially; but the dealer who bought it, being a simple man of business, bethought him that Sir Edwin’s dog would be worth more than the whole picture. So he coolly cut it out and sold it, filling the place by a common dog copied from it. Several years afterwards the owner of the picture showed Sir Edwin, with some pride, the picture in which he had painted the dog; but the great master declared “he’d be hanged if ever he did that dog.” The picture was examined more closely, and then the trick was found out. The identical picture, as cut out and put on another canvas, was sold shortly before Charles Landseer’s death at Christie’s, in the collection of the late Mr. White, for the sum of £43!

THE SONNET.

By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD.

By Mrs. JOSEPH COOK.

Two months have passed since the journeyings of the Chautauqua quartette were interrupted by the illness of their beloved commander-in-chief, and now, under new leadership, they are about to resume their travels with the “limited time” for which American tourists are famous. Much must be omitted which was in the original program, and piteous are the groans of these disappointed Chautauquans, as one after another of their anticipated delights is ruled out of the new plan. “We can not go to Germany!” “Can not go to Germany!” exclaim the four as with one voice. And then one by one they utter their separate laments. “Not see the Sistine Madonna!” “Nor the Rhine!” “Nor Rauch’s lovely marble of Queen Louisa at Charlottenburg!” “Nor Heidelberg Castle!” “I feel for you from my heart,” says the leader, “but let me beg of you to reserve some of your emotion, for I have other disappointments in store for you. It is quite likely that you will visit the continent of Europe again, but this may be our only opportunity to go around the world. We do not want to make the circuit of the globe after the fashion of Jules Verne. Be prepared for another shock. We can not stop in Switzerland!” The faces of the quartette grew positively pale at this announcement. There were tears in the eyes of the æsthetic member, who had been improving the two months’ delay in practising sketching from nature, and confused murmurs of “Interlaken—Chamounix—the ascent of the Rigi—Lucerne and Thorwaldsen’s lion—the Lake of Geneva, and the Castle of Chillon—alas! alas!” came from the party.

“Let me tell you our best plan,” said the leader, who felt herself in an awkward position in thus coming in to take the place of another, and obliged at the outset to insist upon slaying the cherished hopes of the Chautauqua quartette. “I am sure none of you want to visit any of these famous places simply to say that you have been there, or to ‘see all that you can in five minutes,’ like the over-hurried traveler Howells describes in his ‘Venetian Journeys.’ We must reach Italy by the shortest possible route. We can not stop there half as long as we shall desire. Rome is inexhaustible, and we want to see the Pyramids and be ready next month to set sail from Suez for India.” The gloomy shadows which had fallen on the faces of the eager Chautauquans lifted a little at the mention of Rome and the Pyramids, and a sweet reasonableness began to take possession of them. The leader continued: “We leave Paris at nine o’clock this evening, and in twenty-four hours we shall be in Turin. We shall cross the Alps by the Mont Cenis tunnel, and you will have a glimpse of Switzerland, and be in the midst of grand mountain scenery all day to-morrow. When we reach Turin we will decide which route we will take to Rome, for the City of the Seven Hills must be our chief objective point.”

Packing to resume the journey was now the business of the day. Our practical member made all necessary arrangements for us. She visited the Gare de Lyons that afternoon and had our tickets visèd, for we had been assured that, disagreeable as it might be to join a superintended party which moves according to an inexorable plan, it would save us some annoyance to buy the tickets issued by any of the responsible tourist organizations and then there would be no awkward mistakes at small railway stations, where only Italian was spoken, and we found that this arrangement worked admirably. Our energetic little woman of business, with her imperturbable good nature and winning smile, which always melted the hearts of stern railway officials, came back to the pension with the assurance that everything was satisfactorily arranged, and by judiciously feeing the[467] guard we should be able to secure a railway carriage to ourselves.

Twenty-four hours of railway travel and we reach Turin, fatigued enough for a good night’s rest at the Hotel Trombetta. We make an early visit the next morning to the Royal Palace, the residence of Victor Emmanuel, while Turin was the capital of Italy, which position she held from 1859 until 1865. The palace has the plainest possible exterior, but the long suites of apartments are fitted up in a lavish manner, and these rooms are reached by a magnificent marble stair-case. Glass chandeliers, gilded and frescoed ceilings, beautifully polished floors of inlaid woods, were the main characteristics of the rooms. A marble bust of the wife of Victor Emmanuel showed a sweet, womanly face, with a queenly pose of the head. Here were many interesting portraits and miniatures of the house of Savoy—among others one of the Princess de Lamballe, who suffered such cruel indignities from the Paris mob for being the friend of Marie Antoinette. Powdered hair, rolled back from the forehead with a long curl each side of the neck, gentle brown eyes and a refined face, with a touch of sadness in it, which seemed to forebode her fate, made up the picture.

In our drive about the city we talk over our future route. “There are two ways to Rome,” says the leader, “and we should not long hesitate which of them to take if it were not for this serious embarrassment in respect to time. Our inclinations point to Milan, Venice and Florence, but it is not safe to trust ourselves in those alluring places, so we will proceed to-morrow to Genoa, and thence to Pisa, and so on to Rome.” The Chautauquans are becoming philosophic. “The Continent of Europe another time!” saves them from despair under these repeated disappointments.

Genoa, with its memories of Christopher Columbus, is not a very attractive place except for those who have a fondness for silver filigree jewelry. Our few hours here gave us opportunity to visit several gaudily decorated churches; to see the exteriors of palaces, cold and cheerless-looking under a gray sky, though warmth and sunlight might have made the courts pleasant, in which we caught glimpses of fountains, statuary and colonnades. In the Andrea Doria palace we saw a portrait of the old admiral with his favorite cat, but most of the rooms were desolate and unadorned.

The journey from Genoa to Pisa is a succession of tunnels, eighty in all, many of them of considerable length, so that it seemed as though we were traveling by night instead of day. The views of the Mediterranean were aggravatingly beautiful as we emerged from the tunnels, but we had only time to exclaim and spring forward toward the window when our enthusiasm would receive a sudden check as we plunged into darkness again. Now and then our unobstructed vision permitted us to see these bold promontories, through which our course lay, bordering the coast and pushing their sharp tusks into the sea. At Massa the Marble Mountains, rivalling those of Carrara, contrasted finely with nearer green slopes.

The objects of chief interest at Pisa center in one square. Here are the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower, the Baptistery and the Campo Santo. These beautiful buildings, from four to six hundred years old, have been wonderfully preserved from the ravaging tooth of time. The interior of the Cathedral is a basilica with nave, double aisles and elliptical dome over the center. Its sixty-eight columns are ancient Roman and Greek, and were captured by the Pisans in war. The flat ceiling of the nave, though richly gilded, marred the beauty of the otherwise noble interior, but the aisles were vaulted. The swaying of the bronze lamp which hangs in the nave is said to have suggested to Galileo the idea of the pendulum.

A burial place in Italy, called a Campo Santo, is arranged in the form of a square with covered arcades like the cloisters of a cathedral, and a sunny, open central space. The one at Pisa is particularly sacred because the earth in the open court was brought from Jerusalem. We wandered through these aisles filled with mortuary marbles and tablets enjoying the reflection of the sunlight falling through the beautiful tracing of the open, round-arched windows. The frescoes by Orcagna representing Death and the Last Judgment, were fascinating from their horrible realistic treatment. The Baptistery, a circular, dome-crowned building, is a perfect gem inside and out, exquisitely finished as an ivory toy. There is a wonderful echo here which comes floating down from the dome like music from an angelic choir. Two hundred and ninety-four steps lead to the top of the famous Leaning Tower, and one is repaid for the ascent by a wide outlook on the Apennines; the city itself through which the Arno winds; the cluster of fine buildings at the base, and the flashing Mediterranean six miles distant. And so, closing our eyes repeatedly to see if we could reproduce in mental vision the picture before us, we bade farewell to Pisa and are next to be found at Rome.

In order to begin acquaintance with a new city, it is a good plan to take at the outset what the guide books call an “orientation drive,” obtaining in this way a general idea of the topography of the city, a first vivid glance at the buildings, monuments, and ruins, closing the drive with an outlook over the city from some commanding height. Starting from the head of the Corso, the principal business street of Rome, we paused at the column of Marcus Aurelius, then on to the Piazza Venezia and Trajan’s Forum. At the Roman Forum the nineteenth century grows dim as the imagination calls up the orators, senators, warriors, and famous men of old Rome, who once paced among these gray, broken pillars. Jerusalem and her woes come before us as we reach the Arch of Titus, and see in bas-relief the pictured story of the capture of the golden candlestick, the sacred vessels, and the treasures of the Temple. To this day pious Jews will not pass under this arch. It is but a step from here to the Colosseum, where again we are reminded of the overthrow of the Holy City, for this huge amphitheater was built by the enforced labor of sixty thousand captive Jews. The best piece of descriptive literature to read here is found in Richter’s Titan. Past St. John Lateran and S. Maria Maggiore, we drive down the Via Nazionale, a broad, new street lined with stately marble buildings, called palaces, in one of which we find most agreeable and healthy quarters during our stay in Rome. Arriving in front of St. Peter’s, we can not resist the temptation of entering for a moment. The fountains were shot through by the brilliant mid-day sunlight as we walked up the magnificent piazza to the largest and most imposing, if not the most beautiful, cathedral in the world. One who regards Gothic architecture as the best expression in stone of religious aspiration, is not likely to be enthusiastic over St. Peter’s. The proportions are so harmonious that the vastness of the interior fails to impress the new comer. It is only by repeated visits, and by studying St. Peter’s in sections, that one appreciates the size, and comes to discover that modern places of worship could easily find room in a single arm of this gigantic cross. Colored glass, instead of these barn-like windows, would be an improvement, although the broad shafts of white light falling across the high altar made a fine effect. Priests in black, priests in white, and rope-girdled monks move noiselessly about. They kneel in the various chapels: they kiss the well-worn, extended foot of the bronze statue of St. Peter, and descend to the shrine where, according to Church tradition, the apostle is actually buried.

Leaving the cathedral, we drive up a pleasant, winding road, past terraces of century plants and curious cacti, to S. Pietro, in Montorio, where from the piazza we obtain such[468] an outlook as would be hard to surpass, embracing the tremendous sweep from St. Peter’s dome to the flats of the Campagna. All Rome is at our feet. The Apennines from Soracte to the Alban Mount are bathed in sunlight, shadow and shower. Historic villages lie along the slopes, nestling in the valleys, and crowning the hill-tops. The giants of the past move through the spiritual sky and hover over this ancient city where they lived, and suffered, and died. The view from the terrace of the Pincian is justly celebrated, but it does not equal the outlook from this height.

If one desires to use his time in Rome to the best advantage let him have nothing to do with half-educated guides, whose information is often untrustworthy. There are promenade lectures given by well-informed English archæologists, who have spent years in Rome, making a special study of the ruins and modern excavations. The Chautauqua quartette were fortunate in securing the services of Mr. S. Russell Forbes, whose recent book, entitled “Rambles in Rome,” gains for him the gratitude of all those who have felt the need of just such a printed guide. Our first morning was spent at the Roman Forum and Colosseum, under Mr. Forbes’s delightful leadership. Starting from the temple of Castor and Pollux we went over the whole ground of the Forum, pausing before the mound which covers the ashes of the great Cæsar, seeing the rostrum from which Mark Antony made his funeral oration, and also the rostrum where Cicero delivered his famous speeches, and on which, after his assassination, his head and hands were nailed, “that everybody might see them in the very place where he had formerly harangued with so much vehemence.” We walked over the identical pavement used in the days when Rome was mistress of the world, and saw ruts in the stone made by chariot wheels, when England was but a barbarous isle. The Flavian Amphitheater, known to us as the Colosseum, received this name from the colossal statue of Nero, that stood near, and it was first spoken of in this way by Venerable Bede, of England. Byron is responsible for the mis-spelling of the word, which he writes Coliseum. Mr. Forbes thinks there is no evidence that Christians suffered in this arena, with the exception of St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. The cross which formerly stood in the center is now removed, and the excavations have revealed three parallel curving walls, which were put up by the Emperor Commodus, who boasted that he could kill an hundred lions with as many javelins. Standing in safety on one of these high walls the beasts were led out to meet the cruel, murderous spears cast at them with unerring aim by this brutal emperor. From the upper gallery one can look down on what Richter calls “the crater of this burnt out volcano” and imagine the vast Amphitheater in the year of its dedication, A. D. 80, when the games continued for one hundred days, and 5,000 beasts were slain, while from 80,000 to 100,000 spectators crowded these now deserted spaces. Visiting the Colosseum by moonlight a solemn hush broods over the place where was once such abounding, riotous life, the roar of wounded and infuriated wild beasts, mingling with the death-groans of gladiators and martyrs. The silence is broken by the musical monotone of a tolling church bell, suggesting the new light which had just risen on the world when this amphitheater was in process of construction, and which has been the chief force in extinguishing the desire for such brutal and bestial exhibitions.

It is a brilliantly blue morning and the Chautauquans are in high spirits, for at 10 o’clock they are to start in open carriages, with Mr. Forbes as guide, for the Appian Way and the Catacombs. They first visit the baths of Caracalla, which even in ruins give one some conception of the magnificence of Rome under the Empire. These sunken mosaic pavements are still beautiful, the vacant niches suggest the fine works of art that once adorned them, and the grass-grown arches and walls, over which rooks and jackdaws now fly, speak of the gay life that once assembled here. It was a vast structure covering a mile square, and accommodating 1,600 bathers at once. Here were not only every conceivable kind of bath known to us moderns, but rooms for games, reading and conversation, each of these most elegantly fitted up, and on top of all were the gardens. It was a place of fashionable resort, where the pleasure-loving Romans could spend their days. Built by the emperor, it was then thrown open free to all, in order to curry favor with the people.

The Appian Way is lined with temples, villas and tombs. As it was against the law to bury inside the walls, the ancient Romans were accustomed to place their dead on either side of the principal roads leading from the city. At the despoiled tomb of the Scipios we each of us took a lighted candle and went down into gloomy, subterranean passages, to see the niches which once held the sarcophagi of Scipio Barbatus, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, and other distinguished members of the Scipio family.—

The treasures of this tomb have been carried to the Vatican Museum.

At the Columbaria we walked through blossoming hedges of pink roses to the great sepulchers for those whose bodies were burned as was customary during the first centuries of the Christian era, although even then the distinguished Patrician families followed the ancient mode of interment. This early cremation did not consume the body to powder as in our days, but the bones were left and gathered into an urn. These funeral vases were placed in little niches, resembling the nests in a modern pigeon-house, and therefore called Columbaria. Here were placed the remains of the officers of Cæsar’s household—we read one inscription to the barber of the mighty Julius, and other names are familiar from St. Paul’s letters. Tryphena, Tryphosa, Onesimus—are these the funeral urns of the persons mentioned by the apostle? So our learned guide was inclined to think, and we were well pleased to believe it possible.

The Catacombs of St. Callixtus was our next stopping place, and here again we each received a lighted taper, and forming a procession descended out of the gladsome light of day into the gloomy bowels of the earth—the burial place, and, as many think, the hiding place of the first converts to Christianity. We wind in and out a mazy labyrinth, excavations on either side of us in the soft greenish brown tufa for graves, one above another, and of irregular size. Many of these graves were rifled by barbarians for the treasure supposed to be contained therein. The sarcophagi and slabs have been carried to museums, especially to the Lateran, where, on another occasion, we studied the touching inscriptions, some of which were evidently wrought by affection and not by skilled workmen. Some frescoes remain in the Catacombs which are interesting from their very rudeness, showing that the Christians would not employ pagan art for their sacred places. Coming to the Chapel of the Bishops, we see engraved in beautiful characters this inscription, put up by Pope Damasus: “Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a number of the holy. These honored sepulchers enclose the bodies of the saints, their lofty souls the palace of heaven has received. . . . Here lie youths and boys, old men and their chaste descendants, who kept their virginity undefiled. Here I, Damasus, wished to have laid my limbs, but feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.” From the chapel a gallery leads to the Crypt of St. Cecilia. When Paschal I. had the body of this martyred virgin removed in 820, it was[469] found “fresh and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad in rich garments mixed with gold, with linen cloths, stained with blood, rolled up at her feet.” Although there are shafts for ventilation and light, how good it seemed to reach once more the upper air and the flood of sunlight, and to see the blue sky and green earth!

On our way to the Three Taverns we pass the tomb of Seneca, the tombs of the Horatii and the Curatii, and the circular tomb of Cecilia Metella, on which Paul himself must have looked. We drive under the Arch of Drusus, which spanned the road in the apostle’s day, and so came to the Three Taverns, where the brethren met Paul, “whom, when he saw, he thanked God and took courage.” Crimson-tipped daisies were blossoming on the site of this famous meeting-place; the afternoon sun was shining on the Sabine hills and Alban Mount, and a happy lark, thinking the spring had come in this soft air, warbled to us his divine melody as our thought took flight across the centuries to that day when the apostle to the Gentiles paused here on his way to imperial Rome, where he lost his earthly life, but the message that he brought conquered Cæsar, and will yet conquer the world.

The festival of All Saints Day came while we were in Rome, and we found shops and museums more generally closed than on the Christian Sabbath. Driving to the Capitoline Museum, with Merivale and Suetonius to read in presence of the portrait busts of the Roman emperors, we found the doors closed on account of the festa, and when we reached St. Luke’s Academy there was no admission; so we concluded to go with the crowd, and in the dark, dull and dismal November afternoon we drove to the Campo Verano, one of the largest cemeteries of Rome. This is the day that the rich and poor visit their dead, carrying flowers to decorate the graves. For a mile or more the road was lined with young men and maidens, old men and children of the middle and poorer classes, who were walking to the cemetery, carrying wreaths, while the occupants of elegant private carriages were almost invisible under heaps of choice flowers. We made slow progress, as the street was blocked with vehicles and pedestrians, all moving in one direction, while vociferous beggars, halt, lame, and blind, stretched out their hands, crying lustily for charity. The walls along the way were covered with wreaths of natural and artificial flowers, with bead wreaths and wreaths of immortelles for sale to those who had failed to supply themselves at the outset of their journey. Leaving our cab at the cemetery gates, we walked through the covered Campo Santo, in which were many elaborate monuments, and on most of these there was some likeness of the deceased, either a portrait in oil, or a bust, or bas-relief in marble. A life-size sitting figure of a young mother holding her little son in her arms, who was reaching up to kiss her, was the work of a distinguished Milanese sculptor in memory of his lost wife and child, and these were both portraits. Another very touching representation was of a lovely young woman lying dead on a funeral bier, while her little child was standing at one side on tip-toe, pulling the drapery of the couch, as if trying to wake the sleeper. The graves of the poor were simply marked by a black cross, on which was a number, instead of a name, but even over these graves a burning lamp was suspended. In the funeral chapel we heard the distant chanting of invisible monks.

Excursions to Tivoli and to the Alban Mount; sunny afternoons in the ornamental gardens and park-like enclosures of the villas Borghese and Albani; drives to the Pincian, where there is music and a gay moving throng of vehicles and pedestrians; study of ancient art at the Capitoline Museum and the Vatican; repeated visits to the Sistine Chapel, where one comes under the spell of Michael Angelo’s mighty genius; a day’s wandering over the ruined palaces of the Cæsars on Palatine Hill; a search for the masterpieces of art in churches and palaces; diligent reading during the evenings of Merivale and Suetonius, Grimm’s “Michael Angelo” and Hare’s “Walks,” a re-reading of Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun,” and a dozen lessons in Italian—such were the absorbing and delightful occupations of the Chautauquans during their stay in Rome. And now it was time to start for Naples, in order to catch the next steamer to Alexandria. The statues on St. John Lateran stood out against the blue sky as we moved out of Rome. The desolate Campagna; the long, solemn stretch of aqueduct arches; the tombs on the Appian Way; the sun sinking as a ball of fire; the dome of St. Peter’s, visible long after the city had been blotted out—these were our last views of the Eternal City. We arrive in Naples at 11 o’clock, but there is delay about luggage, and it is midnight when we reach the Hotel Royal des Etrangers, after a long rattling drive from the railway station. Stepping out on the balcony, under the clear star-lit heavens, we see the matchless curve of the Bay of Naples, and Vesuvius sending its dull, red glare into the holy night. The next morning we take an early train to Pompeii, and on the journey read Pliny’s description of the three days of horror in the year 79, when the great eruption of Vesuvius destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is a short walk from the station to the gates of the ruined town, and after escaping from the importunate beggars, the desolation of these deserted streets is all the more impressive. Everything seems on a diminutive scale here—the streets narrow, houses small, and the sleeping apartments no larger than those on an ocean steamer. The people spent most of their time in the open courts, which were surrounded by covered arcades and were a necessary part of every dwelling. Comparatively few of the adornments of these Pompeiian homes remain in situ, the choicest specimens of art found here have been carried off to the museums. A fountain in the court, a mutilated statue, a broken pillar, a bit of mosaic pavement, a partially obliterated fresco-painting are all that remain to tell of the beauty of the city so suddenly buried, with 2,000 of its inhabitants, under twenty feet of ashes and lava. One of the most interesting spots was where the Roman soldier was discovered, grasping his spear and remaining faithful to his post, although he might well have supposed that the last great day had come. In the museum at Pompeii the most striking and interesting objects are casts of eight human corpses, and one of the body of a dog, fearfully twisted and contorted in the final death agony. The casts were obtained in 1863, by an ingenious experiment made by Signor Fiorelli, the present director of the excavations. While the soft parts of the bodies had decayed, their forms frequently remained imprinted on the ashes, which afterward hardened. The bones of a body thus imbedded were carefully removed and the cavity filled with plaster, and thus the figures and attitudes of the poor creatures in the death struggle have been preserved.

On the third day after our arrival in Naples we set sail for Alexandria. The soft, bright skies of Southern Italy smile on us as we stand on the rear deck of the French steamer “Mendoza,” looking back at Naples as we slowly move down the bay, Vesuvius every now and then sending out a solemn, thunderous boom. We read with delight and amazement Richter’s marvelous word paintings in “Titan” of places which he never saw but with the mind’s eye. We sail out of the two encircling arms which are thrust into the blue waters, Ischia and Pozzuoli, the modern name for Puteoli, on the one side, Castellamare and Sorrento on the other. The rocky island of Capri is passed; we peer along the shore of the Gulf of Salerno hoping to get a glimpse of Pæstum and its famous temple, and on we go, the white gulls following us into the open sea.[470]

As a preparation for Alexandria we read Ebers’s “Egyptian Princess,” and like true Chautauquans re-read Charles Kingsley’s “Hypatia.” We are so unfortunate as to arrive at the end of our voyage just after dusk, and although the lights of the city are in view, we are forced to cast anchor and remain on shipboard another night. As the twilight falls upon us, the great spirits of the past begin to loom up in the sky—the Cæsars and Ptolemies; Pompey and Antony’s fascinator, Cleopatra; Euclid and Theocritus; Cyril and Apollos; the early Christian Church struggling with Greek learning and Jewish prejudice. Such is the atmosphere of the early ages of this ancient city. Under the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, Alexandria was a world-renowned city of 500,000 souls, adorned with the arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt, while its schools of learning far outshone all those of the more ancient cities. At the beginning of the third century it began to wane and from the time it was taken by Omar in A. D. 641, its commerce and importance sunk rapidly. The discovery of the route to India by the Cape of Good Hope completed its ruin.

Anchoring outside the quay we were quickly surrounded by a crowd of row-boats, with black-faced sailors in a picturesque costume of white full trowsers, with red jackets and sashes, and red and white turbans. These boats brought to our ship several visitors, who came to meet their friends, and it was amusing to see the Oriental salutations and effusiveness. In our drive of two hours, strange sights met us at every turn, and the street scenes were most curious and interesting. The veiled women, with their black, flashing, restless eyes; their flowing robes of black or blue or white, and their stately gait, made one long to see their entire countenance and to know what is their manner of life. There is every variety of color here, from the intense black of the Nubian to the delicate yellow tinge of the Octoroon. Some of the children’s faces were attractive, but most of the old faces were so haggard and evil that it was painful to catch a glimpse of them. Groves of the date palm, the luscious, freshly-picked fruit of which seemed to us far more tempting than the leeks and onions after which the children of Israel lusted; donkeys, carrying their riders far back on their haunches, and pursued by runners who give the poor animal a shove when he slackens speed; camels, with their slow gait and quizzical expression, as much as to say, “Don’t you think I’m handsome? Isn’t life a great joke?”; merchants, sitting calmly in their booths, smoking their nargilehs with the utmost unconcern as to custom—these were a few of a multitude of objects new and striking that attracted our attention.

Pompey’s Pillar is a solid shaft of polished red syenite, which resembles Scotch granite, and placed on an eminence lifts itself grandly against the deep blue of the sky. But it was erected in Diocletian’s time, and that seems quite modern here. The Pasha’s palace and harem are of stucco, and far from being impressive or elegant. We drove through the grounds, which have a fountain in the center, a few sickly looking plants, and a fine view of the sea.

Shepheard’s hotel in Cairo has been for many years the favorite stopping place of English travelers, and one finds here a degree of comfort and cleanliness not often to be met in this part of the world. Here the English language is spoken by all the servants, and, although our method of summoning a waiter is unknown, the Oriental fashion of clapping the hands is quite as effective. Mounted on donkeys we rode to the museum at Boulak, where are to be found the best specimens of Egyptian ancient art. Massive and grand are some of these sitting figures of kings who reigned thousands of years ago. One, with the body of a sphinx, is said to represent the Pharaoh under whom Joseph attained power and position in Egypt. Exquisitely wrought and polished are these black granite statues, but there is no soul in the stone. The royal mummies recently found near Thebes are here, and we saw these hoar monarchs as they lay in their varnished and hieroglyph-inscribed coffins of sycamore wood, wrapped in the shrouds of fine linen in which their embalmers had enswathed them, wearing on their faces their sharp-cut and life-like effigies, encircled with the flowers and garlands which had been placed there by the hands of mourners over three thousand years ago. Rameses II., the Pharaoh of the Bondage lay, holding in his right hand, appropriately and significantly, a scourge of four cords. He was the only one of the royal group who bore this emblem. Here, too, is Thothmes III., that Pharaoh who ordered the construction of the obelisks, one of which stands on the Thames embankment, and the other in our own New York. In another case lies the second king of the nineteenth dynasty, who occupied the throne during the grandest era of Egyptian history. He was the builder of the “Hall of Columns,” at Karnac, the most magnificent temple in all Egypt, and one of the ten or twelve architectural wonders of the world. It is a significant fact that Menephtâh, the son and successor of the Pharaoh of the Bondage, is not in the group. The question which naturally rises to the Biblical student is, “Are we to seek for him in the Red Sea?”

Starting one bright morning at 7 o’clock in an open barouche, with Jūseph Hakè as dragoman, a tall stately Egyptian as coachman, with the imperial buttons on his coat, for he was formerly in the service of Ismail Pasha, and an Arab runner to clear the passage through the narrow and crowded Cairo streets, we drove in the fresh morning air over the arched stone bridges of the Nile, with their bronze lions, the gift of France, and on smooth, straight avenues lined with lebeck trees, until we had accomplished the ten miles which lie between Cairo and the Pyramids. Barricades of corn-husks enclosing heaps of yellow corn, and the busy, dark-skinned huskers were a noticeable feature by the roadside. We could not look at a child without his little hand was extended with the call for backsheesh, and sometimes our carriage was followed by half a dozen girls and boys whose cries, when they got short of breath in running, would be simply “’sheesh, ’sheesh.” Our first view of the Pyramids of Gheezeh was over the lebeck trees and corn-husks, and they seemed close at hand, although then five miles away. Among the three pyramids of Gheezeh the pyramid of Cheops, or the “Great Pyramid,” is by far the most important. It is the pyramid as the mysterious Sphinx at its base is the sphinx. It is probably the oldest, and certainly the largest building in the world. Egyptologists differ widely in their chronology. Mariette puts the building of Cheops’s pyramid back to B. C. 4235, Brugsch to B. C. 3733, while Piazzi Smyth places it in the age of Abraham and Melchisedek, B. C. 2170.

As soon as we left our carriage we were approached by the sheik of the village and a dozen swarthy Arabs, who, with their usual vociferous volubility, tried to prove that we, each of us, needed three men to help us up the pyramid. One took hold of each hand, and the other pushed and lifted us on the highest stones of this rough staircase. Pausing frequently for breath, we consumed three-quarters of an hour in the ascent, but the summit reached, one speedily forgets the physical effort required in the grand, solemn, far-reaching prospect over green plain and sandy desert—the living and the dead. Far away on the horizon line of the desert appear the sharp outlines of ten or twelve pyramids. Near us is a pyramid almost as large as the one on which we stand, the smooth casing still remaining on the top, and making that portion of it inaccessible. Clearly defined is the line of verdure which marks the overflow of the river. From June to October this broad plain is inundated to the depth of from ten to fifteen feet. This remarkable rise of the Nile waters is occasioned by the tropical[471] rains, and the melting of the snows on the high mountain ranges at the equator. The rise and the retreat are equally rapid. In May the volume of its waters is only one-twentieth of that in October. The eternal youth of Nature, “as fresh as on creation’s morn,” and the hoary past contrast here most vividly. Where are they who planned and reared these mighty monuments? Gone and forgotten as we too shall be. The Arabs sat by themselves and chattered in low tones when they saw we wanted to be alone, but now and then they would gather around us like children, asking in very good English all sorts of questions, some in regard to America, its extent, climate, the cost of getting there, and prices paid to a laboring man.

The dark, slippery, suffocating, steep slope which leads to the King’s Chamber is a much more trying journey than that to the summit, and yet one can hardly understand the Pyramids without exploring this interior room, which contains nothing but an empty stone sarcophagus. Over this rifled coffin we repeated that portion of the fifteenth of 1st Corinthians, which relates to the resurrection, while the four Arabs held the candles in perfect silence, and looked into our faces with a kind of wondering awe.

After a bountiful lunch in our carriage, we walked to the Sphinx, and saw that face, sadly mutilated now, but still with an expression of cheerful courage, which has looked across these dreary wastes under the midnights and the noons, while men have come and gone like shadows, and kingdoms have been born and fallen to decay. The body of the Sphinx is the natural rock, here and there adapted by a little carving, or the addition of masonry, and is one hundred and forty feet in length. The head is carved out of the solid rock, and measures thirty feet from brow to chin, and fourteen feet across. The Sphinx is merely a ruin of what he was when sacrifices were offered on the altar between his lion paws of fifty feet in length. And yet he makes an overpowering impression of majestic repose, and is worthy of the name given him by the Arabs—the Father of Terror, or Immensity.

[To be continued.]

APPLICATIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHY.

It is naturally impossible to give even an outline of all the many and varied applications to which photography can be and has been applied. In this article it is proposed to give a few of them, more for the sake of informing the student what has been done, than for teaching him the practical method of working them. The method of securing the automatic registration of barometers, thermometers, and magnetometers should command our attention first. It will be necessary to divide these into two classes which require different treatment. A mercurial thermometer may be taken as the representative of the first class.

Supposing we have a darkened chamber, in the side of which is a slit of just sufficient dimensions to allow the bore of the capillary tube to fill it, and that light can only have access to that chamber after passing through that slit when so closed, it is manifest that if a strip of sensitive paper be caused to pass gradually behind such a thermometer tube the different height of the mercury will be registered, owing to the opacity of that fluid to light. If the supply of paper be properly regulated it is also manifest that the height of the mercury at any particular instant will be known. Since daylight is not always available, resort must be had to artificial light to impress the sensitive paper, and a suitable process of development employed.

Such a method exists for registering the movements of this class of instruments, the details of apparatus and manipulation being altered to suit each individual case. There are, however, other instruments to which such would be totally inapplicable. As an example, we may take the magnetometer. The oscillations of the suspended magnet as used for measuring the horizontal or vertical components of the earth’s magnetism are very minute, so minute indeed that they can scarcely be perceived by the eye. If to one of these magnetometers, however, we attach a very small and light mirror, the plane of which is at right angles to the axis of the magnet, and cause a beam, proceeding from a source of light, to pass through a small aperture, thence to a fixed lens on to the mirror, which reflects the beam of light on to a screen so placed that the image of the aperture is in the focus of the lens, any small deviation of the magnetometer will cause the beam of light to deflect on the screen. The amount of the deflection will be dependent on the focal length of the lens, and the distance of the aperture and screen from the mirror. Suppose the screen to be opaque, and that a slit is cut in it in the direction that the deviation of the beam would take, and lying in the same plane as the deviation, and that a strip of sensitive paper moves behind that slit in a direction at right angles to its length, then at each instant the position of the beam of light will be registered on the paper. On developing the image we shall have a sinuous line corresponding to the deflections of the magnetometer at every time of day and night, the reading of the time being dependent on the rate at which the paper travels.

For meteorological purposes we may also hope that photography will be more utilized than it has hitherto been. Mr. A. Mallock, at the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth, has shown a way in which it may be made subservient to ascertaining the heights of clouds.

In military science it is only necessary to call to mind the service that the pigeon post performed during the siege of Paris. A large series of letters were printed on one sheet, and then photographed to a very small scale on collodion pellicle. Such pellicles, measuring about 6×2 centimeters, were tied to pigeons, which when liberated carried the dispatch to Paris, where they had been trained. On arrival the collodion pellicle was detached from the pigeon, placed in a lantern, and the letters transcribed and sent to the various addresses. Of so much use was this pigeon post that the German military authorities have established a regular service of pigeons in the chief fortresses of the empire, which would be used in case of investment or siege by a hostile army.

During the investigation of the action of torpedoes the use of photography was also largely brought into requisition by the writer in order to ascertain the work that was expended by different charges of gun cotton. The method adopted was roughly this: A mine having been laid down at a known depth and position in water, a scale was placed over it, and photographed from the position the camera was to occupy. On the explosion of the gun-cotton or powder an instantaneous exposure was given to a specially sensitive plate, and the height, breadth, and general form of the resulting column of water was obtained from the photograph after comparing it with the photographic scale.

At Shoeburyness, again, a regular staff of photographers is kept in order to photograph all the experimental work carried on by the artillery against iron shields, &c., and the series of such pictures has been able to convey more to the minds of committees than elaborate drawings could do.

We can not conclude these applications of photography without recalling the fact that it has proved exceedingly useful in the repression of crime. The portrait of every convict is taken by an authorized photographer in each convict establishment, and when necessity arises prints from such negatives are produced by the hundred and distributed, in order that the various police authorities may be enabled to identify a criminal who may have happened previously to be placed under their surveillance.

[472]

DANIEL WEBSTER versus STEPHEN GIRARD.

The true relation of Christianity to education has seldom, if ever but once, been before the Supreme Court of the United States for adjustment. That time was when Daniel Webster made his great argument to break the will by which Mr. Girard founded his college in Philadelphia. Mr. Webster rose to the demands of his opportunity, and made what was at once a masterly argument for his cause, and a splendid defense of Christian charity, Christianity, and the Christian ministry. In the following article we have abridged his speech, but we have tried to preserve the chain of his argument. It is wholesome reading from the mind of America’s greatest constitutional lawyer, in the times when rhetoricians hurl flippant statements against the bulwarks of divine truth, as though with these they would batter them down.

Two millions of dollars were bequeathed by Mr. Girard for the erection of a college; detailed plans were drawn specifying where, how, and for whom it was to be built. The validity of this will was contested by the heirs-at-law in 1836. In 1841 the case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States. In course of the argument, Daniel Webster made the speech of which we give a synopsis. We follow the argument, giving only brief quotations. Mr. Webster passes over the details of the will, taking up the following clause, or restriction, which Mr. Girard prescribed as among the conditions on which his bequest for the college was to be enjoyed.

These are the words: “I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or any minister of any sect whatever, shall ever hold or exercise any station whatever in the said college; or shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college. In making these restrictions I do not mean to cast any reflections upon any sect or person whatsoever; but, as there is such a diversity of opinion among them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans who are to derive advantage from this bequest free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce.” Upon these statements Mr. Webster argues: “The first question is whether this bequest can be sustained otherwise than as a charity. The bequest is void according to the general rules of the law, on account of the uncertainty in the description of those who are intended to receive its benefits, and must therefore stand, if it stand at all, on the peculiar rules which equitable jurisprudence applies to charities. This is clear. The question is whether in the eye of equitable jurisprudence the bequest be a charity at all. I deny that it is so. It is no charity; because the plan of education proposed by Mr. Girard is derogatory to the Christian religion, tends to weaken men’s reverence for that religion, and their conviction of its authority and importance; and, therefore, in its general character, tends to mischievous and not useful ends. This scheme begins by attempting to attach reproach and odium upon the whole body of the clergy of the country. It places a brand, a stigma upon every individual member of the profession. No minister of the gospel of any denomination is allowed to come within the grounds of this college on any occasion, or for any purpose whatever. They are excluded as if their presence might cause a pestilence. When have they deserved it? Where have they deserved it? How have they deserved it?

“I hope that our learned men have done something for our literature abroad. I hope that our courts of justice have done something to elevate the profession of law. I hope that the discussions of Congress have done something to ameliorate the condition of the human race. But I contend that no literary efforts, no constitutional discussions, nothing that has been done or said in favor of the great interests of universal man has done this country more credit, at home and abroad, than the establishment of our body of clergymen—their support by voluntary contributions, and the general excellence of their character for piety and learning; and yet every one of these, the Christian ministers of the United States, is denied the privileges which are opened to the vilest of our race. Did a man ever live that had respect for Christian religion and yet had no regard for any one of its ministers? Did that system of instruction ever exist which denied the whole body of Christian teachers, and yet called itself a system of Christianity?

“I maintain that, in any institution for the instruction of youth, where the authority of God is disowned, the duties of Christianity derided, and its ministers shut out from its proceedings, there can be no more charity found to exist than evil can spring out of the Bible, error out of truth, or hatred from love. If charity denies its birth and parentage, turns infidel to the great doctrines of the Christian religion, it is no longer charity. It is no longer charity either in a Christian sense nor in the sense of jurisprudence, for it separates itself from its own creation.

“Now let us look at the conditions and prospects of these tender children who are to be submitted to the experiment of instruction without Christianity. They are taken before they know the alphabet, they are kept until the period of early manhood, and then sent into the world. By this time their characters will be stamped. If there is any truth in the Bible, if there is anything established by the experience of mankind, in this first third of life the character is stamped. What sort of a character is likely to be made by this experimental system of instruction? What will be the effect on the minds of children left solely to its pernicious influences? Morality without sentiment; benevolence toward man without a sense of responsibility toward God; the duties of this life performed with no reference to the life to come,—this is Mr. Girard’s theory of useful education. I do not intend to leave this part of the cause without a still more distinct statement of the objections to this scheme of instruction. I deem it due to Christianity to take up this scheme of Mr. Girard, and show how mistaken is the idea of calling it a charity. In the first place, this scheme is derogatory to Christianity, because it rejects Christianity from the education of youth by rejecting its teachers, by rejecting the ordinary methods of instilling religion into the minds of youth. He who rejects the ordinary means of attaining an end, means to defeat the end itself, or else he has no meaning. And this is true, although the means originally be means of human appointment, and resting on no higher authority.

“This scheme is derogatory to Christianity because it rejects the ministry. Where was Christianity ever received, where were its waters ever poured into the human heart, except in the track of a Christian ministry? It is all idle and a mockery to pretend that any man has respect for the Christian religion who yet derides and stigmatizes all its ministers and teachers. It is all idle, it is a mockery and an insult to common sense to maintain that a school for the instruction of youth from which Christian teachers and the ministry is sedulously shut out, is not deistical and infidel, both in its purpose and tendency.

“In the next place, this plan is derogatory to Christianity because it proceeds upon the presumption that the Christian religion is not the only true foundation, or any necessary foundation of morals.

“In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere, never. Everywhere and at all times it has been[473] and is regarded as essential. It is the essence, the vitality of useful instruction. From all this Mr. Girard dissents. He dissents not only from all sentiments of Christian mankind, from common conviction and the experience of all, but from still higher authority, the Word of God itself. When little children were brought into the presence of the Son of God, he said, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ Unto me. He did not send them first for lessons in morals to the schools of the Pharisees or Sadducees, or to the lessons and precepts phylactered on the garments of the Jewish priesthood, but opened at once the everlasting fountain of living waters. That injunction is of perpetual obligation. It is of force everywhere and at all times. Not only my heart, my judgment, my belief, and my conscience instruct me that this great precept should be obeyed, but the idea is so sacred,—the solemn thoughts connected with it so crowd upon me, it is so utterly at variance with the system of philosophical morality advocated here, that I stand and speak in fear of being influenced by my feelings to exceed the proper line of my professional duties.

“Another important point involved in this question is, what becomes of the Christian Sabbath in a school thus established? I say that in this institution, under Mr. Girard’s scheme, the ordinary observance of the Sabbath could not take place, because the means of observing it are excluded. There can be no Sabbath in this college. It would be just as much opposed to Mr. Girard’s whole scheme to allow these children to go out and attend public places of worship as it would be to have ministers of religion preach to them within the walls; because, if they go out to hear preaching, they will hear just as much about clashing doctrines, and more, than if appointed teachers officiated in the college.

“I come now to the consideration of the second part of this clause in the will; that is to say, the reasons assigned by Mr. Girard for making these restrictions with regard to the ministers of religion, and I say that these are much more derogatory to Christianity than the main provision itself, excluding them. He says that there are such a multitude of sects and such diversity of opinion that he will exclude all religion, and all its ministers, in order to keep the minds of the children free from clashing controversy. Now, does not this subvert all belief in the utility of teaching the Christian religion to youth at all? Certainly it is a broad and bold denial of such utility. To say that the evil resulting from the differences of sects and creeds overbalances all the benefits which the best education can give them, that is but to say that the branches of the tree of religion are so twisted and twined, and run so much over and into each other that, therefore, there is no remedy but to lay the ax at the root of the tree itself. It means that and nothing less. But this objection to the multitude and differences of religious sects is but the old story, the old infidel argument. It is notorious that there are certain religious truths which are admitted and believed by all Christians. All believe in the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the responsibility in another world for our conduct in this, in the divine authority of the New Testament; and can not all these truths be taught to children without their minds being perplexed by the clashing doctrines of controversy? Most certainly they can. Apply the reasoning advanced by Mr. Girard to human institutions and you will tear them all up by the root, as you would inevitably tear all divine institutions up by the root if such reasoning is to prevail. At the opening of the first Congress there was a doubt as to the propriety of opening with prayer, and the reason assigned was, as here, the great diversity of opinions. At length Mr. Samuel Adams, with an air of impressive venerableness, rose in that assembly and, with the air of a perfect puritan, said that it did not become men, professing to be Christians, who had come together for solemn deliberation in an hour of extremity to say that there was so wide a difference in their religious beliefs that they could not bow the knee in prayer to the Almighty, whose advice and assistance they hoped to attain. Opposed to all prelacy as he was, Mr. Adams moved that the Episcopalian clergyman should address the throne of Grace in prayer. The minister read the service and then, as if moved by the occasion, broke out into extemporaneous prayer. Those men who were about to resort to force to obtain their rights, were moved to tears. Depend upon it, where there is a spirit of Christianity there is a spirit which rises above forms, above ceremonies, independent of sect or creed, and the controversies of clashing doctrine.

“It has been said by the other side that there was no teaching against religion or Christianity in this system. I deny it. The whole testament is one bold proclamation against Christianity and religion of every creed. The children are to be brought up in the principles declared in that testament. They are to learn to be suspicious of Christianity and religion; to keep clear of it, that their breasts may not become susceptible of the influences of Christianity in the slightest degree. They are to be taught that religion is not a matter for the heart or conscience, but for the decision of the cool judgment of mature years; that at the period when the whole Christian world deems it most desirable to instil the chastening influences of Christianity into the tender and comparatively pure mind and heart of the child, ere the cares and corruptions of the world have reached and seared it: at that period the child, in this college, is to be carefully excluded therefrom, and to be told that its influence is pernicious and dangerous in the extreme. Why, the whole system is a constant preaching against Christianity and against religion, and I insist that there is no charity and can be no charity in that system of instruction from which Christianity is excluded. Before closing the argument I repeat again the proposition that the proposed school in its true character, objects and tendencies is derogatory to Christianity and religion. If it be so, then I maintain that it can not be considered a charity, and as such entitled to the just protection and support of a court of equity. I consider this the great question for the consideration of this court. I may be excused for pressing it on the attention of your honors. It is one which, in its decision, is to influence the happiness, the temporal and spiritual welfare of one hundred millions of human beings alive and to be born in this land. Its decision will give a hue to the apparent character of our institutions. It will be a comment on their spirit to the whole Christian world. I again press the question to your honors: Is a clear, plain, positive system for the instruction of children, founded on clear and plain objects of infidelity,—a charity in the eyes of the law and as such entitled to the privileges awarded to charities in a court of equity?”

MAY.

By LUELLA CLARK.

[474]

TALK FROM HEADQUARTERS

CONCERNING CHAUTAUQUA—1883.

President Fairbairn, of England, has requested the postponement of his lectures on English Philosophy until the season of 1884.

The new building for the “School of Languages” and the “Teachers’ Retreat,” will not be erected this spring.

The C. T. R. and the C. S. L. will open July 14, Saturday, with one of the most brilliant popular programs ever given at Chautauqua.

The “Ideal Summer Trip to Europe,” by the “Chautauqua Foreign Tourists,” packing a three mouths’ journey “abroad” into fifteen days at home, will begin on Monday, July 16.

Dr. Chas. J. Little, of Dickinson College, will give ten “Thirty Minute Talks” before the “Retreat,” on “A Teacher’s Look at the Soul, or the Relations of Psychology to the Art of Teaching.” He will also lecture on “Literature of the Nineteenth Century.”

Profs. Sherwin and Case have control of the musical department this year. There are rumors concerning a “Chautauqua quartette,” a band, rare choruses, a class in “Music Teaching in the Public Schools,” grand concerts, classic music, etc.

Edward L. Wilson, Esq., of Philadelphia, with the new “Chautauqua stereopticon,” and over one thousand views in Europe, Egypt, Arabia, and Palestine, will, it is hoped, be present at the “Retreat.”

Melvil Dui, of Boston, will open at Chautauqua, July 14 a “Museum of Useful Things for Students and Teachers.” He will lecture on “The Metric System.”

Wallace Bruce, Esq., at the C. T. R., on “Walter Scott,” “Men of the People,” “Shakespere’s Heroines,” “Legends of the Hudson,” “Growth and Influence of Poetry,” “Bacon and Shakspere.”

“The Day Fireworks,” in all probability this year—July 14. “Not a menagerie in the air?” Why not?

A “Pestalozzi Day” and a “Rugby Day” this year at the C. T. R.

Dr. J. T. Edwards’s course of illustrated lectures on “Physical Science;” Prof. W. D. MacClintock on “Anglo-Saxon, Chaucer, and Shakspere;” Mrs. Kraus-Boelte on “Kindergarten;” Prof. Frank Beard on “Art;” E. A. Spring, sculptor, on “Clay-Modeling;” Prof. R. L. Cummock on “Elocution;” with sermons by Drs. Sims, Payne, etc., help to make a rich program for the C. T. R. of ’83.

It is just like Lewis Miller, Esq., of Akron, O., to present that magnificent stereopticon to the C. T. R. He dreams—and lo, his dreams are deeds!

Picnics, excursions on the lake, spelling school (prizes), public debate, parlor receptions, museum, concerts, etc., at the C. T. R.

A course of lessons in “Cookery,” by Mrs. Emma P. Ewing, of Chicago.

Prof. W. D. Bridge, V.D.M., will continue his instructions in “Stenography.”

The excursion rate from New York City to Chautauqua and back, last year, was eighteen dollars.

In the “Chautauqua School of Languages,” instruction will be given by

Prof. J. H. Worman, Ph.D., in German.

Prof. A. Lalande, in French.

Prof. H. Lummis, in Greek and Latin.

Prof. W. R. Harper, Ph.D., in Hebrew.

Prof. W. D. MacClintock, in Anglo-Saxon.

The Rev. J. A. Worden, D.D., will attend the Chautauqua Assembly this season.

The “Chautauqua School of Theology,” under the direction of Rev. A. A. Wright, will hold several “Jerusalem Chamber Conferences.”

The following are a few of the lecturers and workers for ’83 already pledged:

Joseph Cook.

Dr. J. B. Thomas, of Brooklyn.

Dr. A. G. Haygood, of Georgia.

Bishop H. W. Warren, who will preach, and will also lecture on “Will Man Outgrow the Bible?”

Judge A. W. Tourgee, of Philadelphia, will lecture on “Give Us a Rest.”

Prof. W. C. Richards, a course of nine lectures in science.

Dr. J. B. Angell, president of Michigan University.

Frank Beard, on “Ten Years at Chautauqua.”

Dr. Joseph Cummings, president of the Northwestern University.

Dr. D. A. Goodsell, of New Haven, Conn.

Dr. P. S. Henson, of Chicago, on “The Plagiarism of Modern Science.”

Dr. J. S. Jewell, of Chicago, four lectures on “Brain and Nerve Health, and How to Preserve it.”

Dr. H. H. Moore, of Erie Conference.

Dr. W. F. Mallalieu, of Boston.

Rev. Frank Russell, of Mansfield, O., on “The Man Invisible.”

Rev. Dr. Julius Seelye, president Amherst College.

Students of the “Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat,” and of the “School of Languages,” are requested to be careful not to engage rooms and board for the season without consulting the authorities at Chautauqua. Some cottages make insufficient provisions of furniture, bedding, etc., and the management is determined to protect all students against imposition.

The Xth year of the Chautauqua Assembly will open in a storm of enthusiasm on Tuesday evening, August 7, 1883.

The courses of lectures—literary and scientific—during the “Teachers’ Retreat,” July 14 to August 2, and especially the “Ideal Summer Trip Beyond the Sea,” will attract the people from all parts of the lake and vicinity. Tickets admitting to the “C. T. R.,” $4. This will include the “Foreign Tourists’ Conference,” as well as the stereopticon exhibitions.

The following letter, addressed to Dr. Vincent, explains why Dr. Fairbairn, of England, will not be at Chautauqua the coming season:

[475]

THE CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES.

The following excellent plan for the study of French at home has been proposed by Prof. Lalande. It meets with the hearty approval of Dr. Vincent, and will, we trust, find favor with many. The prospectus speaks for itself.

CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES.
FRENCH CIRCLE.

PROSPECTUS.

I. AIM.

This new organization aims to assist students of the French language to overcome the idiomatic and other difficulties of interpretation, as well as to acquire general facility in reading and writing French.

To this end it is intended to organize a French circle for regular and systematic home study, to be directed through the mail by Prof. A. Lalande.

Every member of the French circle will receive certain exercises, comprising a definite amount of reading, translating, and idiomatic and grammatic expounding, to be performed by the members and mailed to the Professor.

These exercises will be corrected by Prof. Lalande and returned to the student with notes and suggestions adapted to his individual needs. This series of graduated exercises will carry the student over all important difficulties in the language, and the required readings, etc., will insure to the faithful student such attainments in the French language as will fit him to profit fully thereafter by the most advanced instruction in class, or under a living teacher.

II. COURSE OF STUDY.

The course of study prescribed by the French circle will be divided into the following arrangement of classes:

First—Primary.

Second—Intermediate.

Third—Advanced.

(1) Primary.—In this department the students will have to translate into French the exercises contained in Fasquelle’s French course, and will also answer in French the easy questions sent to them by the Professor.

(2) Intermediate.—Pupils will be required to translate into French exercises prepared by the Professor, and study under his direction “Causeries avec mes élèves,” by L. Sauveur, and Noël & Chapsal’s French grammar.

(3) Advanced.—This class will study the French grammar and literature, and translate into French, under the direction of the Professor, some selections from Irving’s “Sketch Book.”

III. TIME OF STUDY.

Each pupil will receive twenty-five letters during the term, which will begin the 1st of September and end the 1st of the following July.

Persons may enter at any time and back numbers will be sent to them.

IV. APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP.

Persons desiring to enter the French circle should write to Prof. Lalande, answering the following questions:

1. Give your name in full.

2. Your postoffice address, with county and State.

3. The proficiency of French already attained.

V. TERMS.

To defray the expenses of correspondence, etc., an annual fee of seven dollars ($7.00) will be required. This amount should be forwarded to Prof. A. Lalande, one-half at the beginning of the term, and the balance after the twelfth exercise.

Note.—At the expiration of one term all students who understand the course which they have been studying, will be advanced into the one above it; and after having completed the entire course and passed a satisfactory examination, they will receive a diploma signed by the president and the professor.

SIX REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF GERMAN.

Ever since Carlyle began to study and translate the German literature, the German language has been growing in favor with English speaking people. For years past in the United States, it has held a large place in the curricula of colleges, academies, and even the public schools. Extremists, in some cases, have gone so far as to propose the exclusion of one or both of the old tongues and the substitution of German. Whilst such practice would be extreme, it is but just to say that all attention and study thus far have been worthily bestowed. The following are a few of the many valid reasons for the study of German:

1. This language possesses, in an unusual degree, those qualities which give discipline to the mind. One of the greatest linguists and comparative philologists of the age, has ranked it not inferior, but superior to the Greek in this regard. The German is an inflected language like the Latin. This gives exercise to memory, and demands the utmost exactitude in construction. At the same time it has synthetic power, a capacity of word-building unsurpassed by any other language; so that the nicest shades of meaning can be expressed, thus giving the mind an exercise of the highest disciplinary character.

2. German ought to be studied, if for no other reason, for its wealth of literature. The student can not come into full sympathy and appreciation with these mines of literary riches except by the avenue of the language in which they are found. Much and the best is lost in translations. It ought to be borne in mind that as students for centuries past have toiled over Greek and Latin for the sake of the old masters in literature, that the same reason should incite to the study of German. For one of the four Titans of literature was a German, and besides Goethe, there is Schiller, Lessing, Klopstock, Wieland, Herder, Richter, and others, making a literary bloom comparable to that of the English age of Elizabeth. It belongs in its fullness and beauty only to the German scholar.

3. To the student of theology or science the German language is of very great value and importance, especially to the former. A scholar in divinity recently said, “Hebrew, Greek, and German are indispensable to the theological student.” Joseph Cook discredits Mr. Herbert Spencer in many things, because, as he says, he “doesn’t know German.” Certain it is that whilst happily we are not obliged to accept all the views and notions of German theologians, yet not to be abreast with the results of German investigations and discoveries in the various departments of theology is to lag behind the advanced knowledge and thought of the times. And here in many instances it is impossible to rely on translations, for many of the best works are not translated. Owing to the cost and difficulty of translation they are not likely to be, and when they are the process is slow, and the result often unsatisfactory.

4. The American student should study German with a view to converse easily with his neighbor of that tongue and nationality. Living, as we do, neighbor to two Germanies, it is of no little commercial and social advantage to speak their language. One of these Germanies is established on our own soil, and we meet and mingle with it every day; the other, with the facilities for travel and communication, is as near to us as the remote parts of our own nation are to each other. Not to be able to speak their tongue, but always[476] to compel them to speak ours, is to meet them on unequal ground.

5. The large and growing demand for teachers of German is a practical inducement to those who contemplate the teaching profession. Not only in the college and university, where broad courses of study in German, including the history and literature, are provided, but in the graded schools of the smaller towns, school boards are including German, and are seeking teachers competent to give such instruction.

6. Last, though not the least of the reasons here given for the study of German, is that which arises from its relationship to our own English tongue. Both the German and the Saxon are the descendants of the old Gothic, the language of Ulfilas, in which he wrote the famous “Codex Argentens.” It is estimated that thirty per cent. of our English is of Saxon origin, enough to establish a strong connection, making cousins, at least, between English and German. Thus we observe that many of the commonest household words are often the same in sound, and many times in orthography. To the philologist such relations and correspondences are of great interest and importance. They furnish some explanation of the resemblances to be observed between the race, types, usages, and domestic institutions.

HINTS TO BEGINNERS IN THE STUDY OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.—II.

By Rev. ALFRED A. WRIGHT, A.M.[J]

3. Moments Undervalued.—A young collegiate of our acquaintance during his four years’ course read every word in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, correcting his spelling and his pronunciation thereby, and acquired an almost inexhaustible fund of information as to the derivation of words. It was all done in odd moments; scraps of time useless for regular work; time that some people spend in gossip, yawns, plannings to vault to the moon, or in misanthropy.

A German critic memorized every line of Homer’s Iliad while going from one medical patient to another.

Bishop Gilbert Haven dropped quills from a flying wing as he flew across continents and seas, and the snowy feathers fell in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and New York.

Moments are gold dust. Sweep every one up. The assayer washes his hands in water that is carefully saved. His men at the benches save every filing of the precious ore. His shop boy sweeps the very dirt into a safe. His workmen clean their feet upon a mat as they go home from work. All this to save a little gold. And yet that gold is worth, in large establishments, more than one thousand dollars annually.

You can learn Greek by saving minutes. And the mental discipline gained in the endeavor will in itself be worth a fortune to you. You will learn to save moments on other accounts.

Henry Clay, speaking about courtesies of a trivial character as affording gratification to others, says, “It is the picayune compliments which are most appreciated.” He does not give us the philosophy of the fact. Possibly it is to be found in this, that we all have an abundance of this small change, and fling it forth as being valueless. But “picayune” moments must be better treated.

Dr. Johnson is credited with the saying, “The habit of looking on the bright side of things is worth a thousand pounds a year to any man.”

The habit of saving moments is worth more than thousands of gold and silver.

[To be continued.]

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

The C. L. S. C. on the Pacific Coast.

The following is a report of C. L. S. C. work on the Pacific coast, sent us by Miss Norton, the Secretary of the Pacific Branch. It contains so much information and inspiration that we publish it as an editorial. The growth of which it tells is marvelous; the enthusiasm it breathes is as sunny, vigorous, and fruitful as the fair land from which it comes. It is such broad views and high endeavor that are accomplishing the great results in our work. To know that far away ranches and lonely camps are finding growth, life, happiness in this work, ought to inspire every earnest heart to work, as our friends of the Pacific coast are doing, that “its influence may go out to needy sections where even school and church have failed.”

At the reunion held recently at the University of the Pacific, the following report was read by Miss Norton:

Trial by Jury.

The constitution of the United States guarantees that every American citizen shall have the privilege of having his cause tried and decided before a jury of twelve of his[477] peers. For centuries this jury system has prevailed among the English. The framers of our constitution modeling their laws on the basis of English jurisprudence, incorporated it into our judicial system. Its purpose is to secure in every case a just and impartial verdict, and one that is in accordance with the evidence adduced in the progress of the trial.

It is the duty of every government to see that justice is meted out to all its citizens, that their rights are duly respected, and that the poor and weak among them are placed on at least civil equality with the rich and the powerful. Many centuries of trial has proven it to be the best means of securing these desirable results. The juror is supposed to take his place in the jury-box with his mind wholly unbiased with reference to the case to be tried. In many instances the jurors have never heard of the case which they are summoned to try. The parties in the suit are entire strangers to them, or at least are usually persons in whom they have no especial interest. Under such circumstances a jury of fair intelligence is pretty sure to bring in a righteous verdict.

But the matter of ignorance in reference to the case to be heard by the jurors may be, and of late in many instances has been, carried to an unreasonable extent. In many cases which are of public interest, and which are of sufficient importance to be discussed by the press, familiarity with what has been said is deemed sufficient to bar an individual from sitting as a juror during their trial. As a result of this it is often difficult to secure a jury in a case which has excited much comment, and which has been the subject of discussion by the press. The mere fact that a man has read newspaper accounts of events that have transpired, or even editorial comments upon them, does not necessarily disqualify him for being an impartial juror.

All intelligent men are to a greater or less extent readers of newspapers, and to hold that knowledge thus obtained disqualifies one for sitting as juror when the case is brought to trial, virtually excludes men of even ordinary intelligence from the jury-box, and, too, in those very cases where they are most needed in order to secure just and righteous verdicts. The legitimate fruits of the exclusion of the reading classes from sitting as jurors are such verdicts as that rendered recently by a Fayette County (Pa.) jury, in the Dukes trial, where, disregarding the charge of the judge,—the evidence set forth,—the opinion of an entire community,—the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The whole country was horrified and disheartened, that a man clearly guilty could under this system be cleared. Such outrages on right and justice are sure to result whenever ignorance takes the place of intelligence in the jury-box, and will sooner or later bring the whole matter of trial by jury into disrepute. It is not intelligence, but ignorance, prejudice, and partiality that should be excluded. The only question in this regard which a jury when impaneled should be expected to answer is whether, under their oaths, they can take their place on the jury and render an honest and impartial verdict.

There is another grave danger in this custom. Not only are the non-reading and ignorant classes disqualified for rendering a fair and intelligent verdict, but they are for the most part sadly deficient in principle and integrity, and hence are more readily corrupted, more easily bribed, and more likely to be influenced by designing lawyers than men of average intelligence and general information. The numerous acquittals of individuals adjudged guilty by the popular verdict, and in the very face of the evidence adduced, is proof positive that in such instances the twelve men in the jury-box are in no sense the custodians of the law or the mouthpiece of justice. If, for any reason, intelligence is ruled out of the jury-box, the jury system will cease to be regarded as a reliable instrument for the administration of justice.

Stevens’s Madame De Staël.

This book, the American edition of which was published in two handsome volumes by the Harpers, some little time ago, will perpetuate the fame of a woman of regal intellect and immense influence upon her times. In Byron’s judgment she was “the greatest woman in literature;” Macaulay called her “the greatest woman of her times;” and many others, whose opinions carry weight, could be quoted as giving her a foremost place among the worlds gifted women. The biography fills a want; for, while numerous pens have written of this woman, there has been before no adequate portrayal of her career. The author, Dr. Abel Stevens, whose reputation as a writer in history and biography is high and secure, has for some years been living in Switzerland, where he has enjoyed excellent facilities for the preparation of the work, “Madame De Staël, a Study of her Life and Times, the first Revolution and the first Empire.” The work is called, and in its completeness it will probably remain, the standard biography of this illustrious woman, and will need no successor. It shows great research and pains-taking, as well as a skilled literary hand. A complete, much-needed biography, it is more than this, it is a valuable history of that marvelous epoch in the annals of France. It is of great value for its sketches of other eminent persons, contemporaries of its subject, and for its intelligent narration of events as sensational as any ever witnessed upon the theater of Europe.

Madame De Staël lived from 1766 to 1817. Her full maiden name was Anne Louise Germaine Necker. Her father was the great Necker, for a time Minister from Geneva at the French court, and afterward the powerful French Minister of Finance. Her mother was the daughter of a Swiss pastor, and a woman of beautiful person and fine accomplishments, with whom, while Mademoiselle Curchod, the historian Gibbon fell in love, and for whom he always cherished a tender regard. The love of Madame De Staël for her father approached idolatry, but for her mother was much less ardent. She was an only child, and received a careful training and the highest advantages. She was born and died in Paris, and this was the place always where she loved best to live, though for many years, through the persecutions of Napoleon, she was an exile from France. As a child she was very precocious; a girl in her mother’s salon, she astonished the people by the brilliancy of her conversation; she very early tried her hand at writing, and showed marked literary gifts; when fifteen years old, she had the maturity which might be looked for in a young woman of twenty-five. At the age of twenty she became the wife of Baron De Staël. The baron was thirty-seven. It was a marriage of convenance, such as in France were customary, and on her part, at least, there was no love. For a number of years they lived apart, but she went to the baron in his last illness and remained with him until his death. When she was forty-five years old, she made a second marriage, with a young French officer, Rocca by name, twenty-two years her junior. Strange as it may seem, this was a true love-match, and the two, notwithstanding the disparity of age, lived together in great devotion and happiness until her death. The marriage was secret, and was known to but few persons in the life-time of Madame De Staël. Of three children, offspring of the first marriage, one was killed in a duel while the mother lived, and the others survived her and did her honor. A son was also born from the second marriage.

What eventful years were those for France in which this woman lived. If one with such a theme as our author can not make an interesting story, the fault surely is not with[478] his subject-matter. Madame De Staël saw her father, whom she idolized, the idol of the French people; she saw him—and it was a proud time in her life—after the jealousy of rival ministers had brought about his retirement from the office of finance minister, recalled by the king, and welcomed back to his old position by such demonstrations of popular homage and devotion as have been accorded to but few; and later she saw him again seeking the retirement of his Swiss home execrated by the same fickle populace of France. She saw the downfall of Louis XVI. and deplored this ill-starred monarch’s fate, whose head was one of the trophies of the guillotine. She saw the First Revolution with its horrors, and ardent champion as she was for human freedom and popular rights, her heart was sickened at the spectacle. She saw the hero of Corsica arise from nothingness to be the terror of all Europe; the strides of his ambition she witnessed until he stood the first monarch of the world, with crowns in his hands as baubles to give away. She saw his “vaulting ambition o’erleap itself” at last, and the tide of his fortunes reversed; the exile of Elba and that of St. Helena passed before her view, and while she rejoiced to see Napoleon crushed, she sorrowed as a true French woman over the humiliation of France. She saw another Louis upon the French throne, and was his trusted adviser and friend. Napoleon she hated with all her soul. Acknowledging his consummate military genius, she loathed him as a monster of selfishness—a tyrant whose god was self. The emperor feared her pen in the cause of popular freedom, and after trying in vain to gain her support he showed in various ways his malice toward her. He banished her from France at length, and the story of her years of exile—bravely borne with all its hardships, though she could have escaped it by writing in praise of Napoleon—is very affecting. Dr. Stevens uses as the appropriate motto of his book the saying of Lamartine: “This woman was the last of the Romans under this Cæsar, who dared not destroy her, and could not abase her.”

And mighty was the influence of Madame De Staël upon her age. To say that it was equaled by that of no other woman is not to say enough. Kings and queens were her personal friends. With chief men and women in different lands—statesmen and warriors, persons distinguished in science and letters—her relations were intimate. They admired her, and bowed to her genius. In political affairs her influence was great, and in the world of letters she made an impression deep and abiding. As a writer, perhaps no woman of any time will be accorded equal rank with her, unless some would concede it to George Eliot and Mrs. Browning. Her best known works are “Delphine,” “Allemagne,” and “Corinne,” though others have had a wide reading and been much admired. The “Allemagne” produced a profound impression. Great as this woman was as a writer, some have freely said she was greater as a conversationalist. With wonderful brilliancy she shone in the salon. Her own salon in Paris would be thronged by distinguished men and women, and the great attraction was herself. She would dazzle with her eloquence, as she discussed various questions, some of them deep questions of philosophy and religion. Her love of society was a passion. Her power of affection was mighty, and her attachment to her friends most strong. When the light of her life was quenched at the comparatively early age of fifty-one, the number was large who mourned, not simply for a rare woman of genius lost to the world, but for a friend, true, sympathetic, loving, whose place could not be filled. More than one have said of her that she was a man in intellect—though we do not make the remark our own—but it is certain she was a woman in heart. Let our readers turn to the new and best record of her life, which Dr. Stevens has given us, and find delight from its perusal.

The Educational Problem.

One of the gravest matters claiming the attention of the American people to-day is indicated by the above heading. It is a truism that popular education is a prerequisite to the success of popular government. We may be said, as a nation, to have done grand things already in the way of the education of the people. Nearly fifty years ago there was a wonderful awakening to the importance of this matter. The people must be educated, was the thought which took possession of the soul of Horace Mann, and his beneficent work has lived and grown. Our common school system was set in operation. It has become our pride and boast. In a way very gratifying we have seen the cause of education advancing in our land. Compulsory education in late years has been introduced to some extent.

At the present time, however, we are confronted with facts of a nature to excite alarm. The late census shows a condition of things in popular education in America over which it is impossible for citizens to feel self-complacent. These facts have been set forth in a most impressive manner by General Eaton, National Commissioner of Education, and by Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, whose speech in the United States Senate last summer on “Aid to Common Schools” has attracted much attention. Some of the things we have to consider are as follows: In a population of fifty millions in the United States, five millions of people over ten years of age can neither read nor write; six and a quarter millions can not write. There are two million of illiterate voters here, in a total of ten millions. The number of illiterate voters in the last presidential election was large enough to reverse the result in all of the States but five. In illiteracy the North of course does not approach the States of the South. In the latter there are, in round numbers, five and a half millions of persons over ten years of age unable to write, the number of white illiterates being to the colored in the proportion of two to three. Nearly one-third of all the voters in the South are illiterate, and more than two-thirds of the colored voters. But with regard to the States of the North, the showing is far from being what we could desire. From a recent report to the Massachusetts Legislature, by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, it appears that in this State even—the State of Horace Mann, and the vanguard always in the cause of education—there are nearly seventy-five thousand persons more than ten years of age, in an entire population of less than two millions, who can not read. These are startling facts, and the alarming truth is, that illiteracy in our land, instead of diminishing, is on the increase. Ex-President Hayes, in his address at Cleveland in October last, made this statement: “In more than one-third of the Union the ignorant voters are almost one-third of the total number of voters.” And the number of the illiterate voters is growing larger. It was swelled in the South, in the decade from 1870 to 1880, by nearly two hundred thousand. In the country at large the number of children not attending school is increasing at a rate which, it is affirmed, if it continues, will in ten years make the aggregate of children of school age outside of school larger than of those within.

Surely, in view of these things, one of the greatest problems before this nation is the educational problem. As a national safeguard the people must be educated. If this mass of ignorance continues an element of our population, and if it goes on increasing, how can we hope for the perpetuity and prosperity of this “government of the people, for the people, and by the people?” There must be compulsory education. The different States must adopt the principle, and enforce it. It is not strange that our statesmen are turning their thoughts to the great question of national aid to education. Hitherto the national government has done but little in providing ways and means for[479] the education of the people. It has been left for the several States to look to the educating of their citizens. But it can hardly be doubted that the time has fully come when the nation on a grand scale should provide for this cause of such vital moment—popular education. We are very ready to agree with General Eaton, when we consider the astounding statistics he adduces, in the judgment that none of the measures proposed by statesmen thus far are sufficiently large and liberal in their devising. Enormous is the work to be done, and vast is the expenditure of money needed. But whatever the nation expends to elevate her people and fit them for citizenship is an investment for her own safety, and is well expended. Joseph Cook, in the prelude to one of his lectures, dwells upon such facts as we have cited. He affirms that America is doing less for the education of her people, in proportion to her wealth, than certain European nations. We fear that what he says is true: “Instead of being, as a whole, at the front of the educational advance of civilization, our proud nation is gradually dropping into a laggard place.” Let us trust the time will come in the near future when this can not be truthfully said; and while we may regret the delay of needful national action, let us honor individuals who are giving so nobly to make ignorance less in our land. If the generous scheme of Mr. Slater for the good of the benighted millions of the South were to be duplicated by other millionaires, how grand the results might be.

EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.

The Chautauqua University is the latest development of the Chautauqua Idea. It has been incubating for ten years, and just as we come near the tenth session of the Chautauqua Assembly the New York Legislature passes an act granting a charter for the new University. Dr. Vincent says that hereafter it will be the “C. L. S. C. of the Chautauqua University.”

Dynamite has excited the fears of people in London. Dennis Deasy, who carried a box containing explosives and infernal machines, and a railway porter named Patrick Flanagan, supposed to be his accomplice, were arrested in April in Liverpool. At Flanagan’s lodgings were found a number of explosives and a false beard, besides a revolver and other equipments for doing mischief to life and property in London. The most interesting evidence given during the examination was that of expert scientific witnesses, who testified that the explosive material in question was known as “lignine dynamite,” an article that could not by any possibility be connected with commercial or business transactions, and which was not made for any legitimate purpose.

A number of gentlemen who have recently come here from Europe, and most of them from England, have determined to buy land for grazing purposes in Virginia. It seems strange that Americans go to the far West to invest in great farms, and thus locate their herds of cattle thousands of miles from the sea coast, while in the Eastern States, near to markets at home and abroad, may be found hundreds of thousands of acres of lands good for nothing else but grazing.

The first reunion of the Christian and Sanitary Commissions was held at Chautauqua several years ago, amid a blaze of enthusiasm. This year, from July 22 to 24, they will meet at Ocean Grove, in New Jersey. The chaplains of the Federal and Confederate armies will meet with them. Mr. George H. Stuart, president, and the Rev. John O. Foster, of Waterman, Ill., secretary, issue the call.

Joseph Cook has closed his Monday lectures in Boston for the season.

The Postmaster General, Timothy O. Howe, died within the past month. This is the first death of a Cabinet officer since 1869. General Howe served as a judge, in Congress, and in the Cabinet. He was a warm friend and admirer of General Grant. He did not support civil service reform. His name was never connected with frauds or scandals during his public life. Judge Walter Q. Gresham, of Indiana, has been appointed to fill the vacancy in the Cabinet. His record as a soldier, citizen and judge has been of the best, and those who know him say that he will be one of the strongest among the President’s secretaries.

Arrangements are being made to institute a Musical Reading Circle, in connection with the Chautauqua movement, which shall be to musical literature what the C. L. S. C. is to general literature. The plan is being wrought out by Prof. E. E. Ayres, of Richmond, Va., and when the details are perfected they will be duly announced. Any inquiries or suggestions concerning this matter may be addressed to Prof. Ayres. Other musical attractions are in contemplation which will be announced in the July number of The Assembly Herald.

The Rev. D. H. Wheeler, D.D., LL.D., of New York, was elected president of Allegheny College, at Meadville, Pa., on the 4th day of April. This action on the part of the authorities will bring into this section a gentleman who has reached a high position as an educator and a religious journalist. In the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Ill., he distinguished himself by his abilities as a teacher, writer, and preacher. He served for five years under President Grant’s administration as United States Consul at Florence, Italy. More recently he made a brilliant periodical of The Methodist, in New York, which, though it died, went down with its colors flying, and because no editor could keep it alive. Dr. Wheeler is a local preacher, and not in the regular order of the ministry. We congratulate the friends of Allegheny College on his election, and predict that under his administration the college will have a new lease of life and be favored with renewed prosperity.

The Longfellow Memorial Association of Cambridge, Mass., has received a letter from Mr. Bennock, in London, which says that all the preliminaries for placing a bust in Westminster Abbey are now arranged, sufficient capital having been subscribed, the sculptor engaged, and the position for the bust selected. The latter is a column standing between the memorial niche of Chaucer and the Independent bust of Dryden, with a full and uninterrupted stream of light falling on the position, so that the bust will occupy a central and conspicuous place in the poet’s corner.

The old school of statesmen are represented at Washington by Senators John Sherman, of Ohio, Anthony, of Rhode Island, and Bayard, of Delaware. Of the more recent and vigorous school since President Garfield’s death, are ex-Senators Blaine, Windom, and Kirkwood, with ex-Senator Conkling, who have retired to private life, while Senator Edmunds is still recognized as a leader in the Senate. A new generation of statesmen is gradually appearing—President Arthur, Secretary W. E. Chandler, Robert Lincoln, Frank Hatton, and others, no one of whom has been tried except in routine duties. The new administration is one of peace and quiet, but it is not vigorous on lines of reform.

President Arthur made a trip to Florida in April. This is the first journey of any extent he has made from Washington since his inauguration, and he is the first President[480] who has visited the Southern States so long and so extensively since the war.

The trial of the Phœnix Park murderers, in Dublin, commenced April 9. The dynamite criminals in London will be tried before a jury, perhaps before these lines go out from the press, while in Washington the Star Route trial drags its length along as a trial to patience, and for the humiliation of every true American citizen.

The Committee on Public Education in the New York Legislature, led by Mr. Abel Goddard, made a report on a “Dime Novel Bill,” recently, in these words: “Any person who shall sell, loan, or give to any minor under sixteen years of age, any dime novel or book of fiction, without first obtaining the written consent of the parent or guardian of such minor, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment or by a fine not to exceed fifty dollars.” Objection is made to this bill, that it is indefinite, in that it fails to explain what a dime novel is, and that we can not deal by legislation with the injurious influences of any form of literature. In reply, it may be said, there are more than forty thousand miles of railway in this country from which the sale of certain pernicious publications are excluded. Mr. Anthony Comstock and his co-laborers have been explaining for several years what the “dime novel” is, and how injurious it has been to boy and girl readers. This bill is a new ray of light on a dark subject.

Karl Marx, the father of modern socialism, has recently died. He was a former correspondent of the New York Tribune, and the author of “Capital.” He has been expelled from half the countries of Europe, and proscribed in nearly all of them. The fruit of the seeds he has sown can not now be told.

The motto of M. De Lesseps seems to be—excavate. After giving us the Suez Canal and beginning a scheme for linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, he tells us that Sahara shall cease to be a burning waste, and be made to furnish vapors and cooling winds; that the desert shall become a sea. The project is not a new one, but has presented such monstrous obstacles that no one but engineers of the wildest imagination have contemplated it seriously. M. De Lesseps announces that, let him have one hundred machines of a power equal to one hundred thousand men, and the work shall be accomplished. The scheme will be discouraged. M. De Lesseps’s trip to Tunis has already been called “a fool’s errand,” but when we see the mountain tunnelled, the continents joined, the oceans about to join hands, it is best to consider before we say that any project is impossible, especially when M. De Lesseps is the engineer.

Apropos of the Panama Canal, the work is begun; ten thousand men are there, and out of these but a few are sick, thus largely disarming the statement that men can not work there. It need not be feared that the international squabbling will in any way interfere with the canal company’s work. The son of De Lesseps recently stated in an interview that that canal company was simply a business firm, and was there to dig the canal—all other questions were for the nations to settle.

As wise and true a policy as has been advanced on the Irish question, is contained in a remark by Lady Frederick Cavendish, whose husband was murdered at Dublin. She says: “I pray that neither the unspeakable greatness of my sorrow nor the terrible wickedness of these men, may blind either myself or any of the English people to the duty of patience, justice, and sympathy, in thoughts, words, and deeds, with regard to Ireland and its people at large.”

The greatest achievement of the telephone is talking over the six hundred and fifty miles between New York and Cleveland. To make the test complete, it was asked in New York that something be read in Cleveland from the Herald of that morning. Several items were read and written down at the New York end of the line. A day or two following, on receipt of the Cleveland paper, the items were compared and found to correspond exactly. The wire used on this line is of recent invention, composed of steel and copper, and remarkable for its conductivity. This great enterprise has been accomplished by the Postal Telegraph Company, who are finishing a line from Cleveland to Chicago. By the time The Chautauquan for June is issued, New York will probably be able to talk to Chicago—one thousand miles distant.

The great statue of Liberty is affording the committee some trouble. They have eighty thousand dollars with which to commence the erection of the pedestal, but no engineer has been found willing to undertake the work. The statue weighs about eighty tons, and presents an enormous surface to the wind, while its pedestal is not large. How to secure it becomes a problem. The American Architect gives a method used in Japan for securing the light pagoda towers. A pendulum is hung from the top of the tower, and reaches nearly to the floor. This method was used by Sir Christopher Wren in securing the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, a heavy wooden framework being suspended, free to swing in any direction. The Architect advises a trial of this plan for the statue.

Julian Hawthorne has recently given us three inscriptions for the modern novelists. They will be useful to many others. Here they are: “Be cultured. Be cultured, ever more be cultured. Be not too cultured.”

The Vanderbilt ball is said to have cost twice the amount that the city of Moscow has devoted to the coronation of the czar. It is not pleasant to reflect that the most prominent feature in American social life is extravagance. “Extravagance” and “folly” would have been proper words inscribed over the Vanderbilt doorways that night.

In July the new postal order will take the place of the expensive and inconvenient money order, while in September we will be allowed to send a letter for two cents which now costs us three.

Perhaps no recent story has caused more comment among the young than Mrs. Burnett’s “Through One Administration,” recently finished in The Century. The story follows the modern plan of leaving hero and heroine in a hopeless, helpless state, and to all appearances perpetually so. There can be no question about both the artistic and moral value of such a finale. It is inartistic because unfinished; immoral in influence because it leaves the impression that the great end of life is human love, and that lost, all is lost. We contend that the story is incomplete. The whole plan of life, the teaching of individual and national history, is that one thing taken from life another will be found to fill the want. To teach through the medium of the novel, and especially a novel so well written and captivating as Mrs. Burnett’s always are, that the end is misery, is a wrong to the young, and an argument against the school of novelists to which this writer belongs.

Peter Cooper died in New York City on the 4th of April, in his ninety-third year. Not since the death of Lincoln has the city witnessed such general mourning. He has been a man of great business ability, of mechanical skill, of the broadest philanthropy. His business transactions have been marked by the strictest integrity, his philanthropy by unostentation. The greatest work of his life has[481] been the Cooper Union, where, free of cost, the poor may obtain instruction in industrial arts. To this great institution he gave $1,592,192, and quite as important, the best thought and plans of his teeming brain. One can only appreciate the wide-spread benefit of the Union when they know that 40,000 men and women have been fitted there for lives of usefulness, and free of cost. His life and character were above reproach, and present a type of what an American man should be,—energetic and successful, yet simple, kindly, and noble.

The late Gustave Doré frequently compared his head to “a witch’s cauldron, always boiling and shooting up blue flames.” Anybody who studies his illustrations of “Dante’s Inferno,” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” will be likely to agree with him, yet he was the great genius among artists of his times.

John G. Whittier says that he is still one of those who hope that the dreadful evil of intemperance may be checked, and finally abolished, by legislative action. He believes in the right and duty of the community to protect itself by legal enactments, whenever there is a public sentiment strong enough to enforce the prohibition of the liquor traffic. “I despair of any direct assistance from politicians,” he writes, “but the great majority of the individuals composing these parties have a moral sense that may be awakened into action by precept and example.” Looking at the drinking habits of New Englanders sixty years ago, and at the general temperance among them at the present day, he sees reason for the greatest encouragement.

The following items belong to Dr. Vincent’s page, C. L. S. C. Work, but were received too late for insertion in their proper place:

“We notice in the spelling of many Greek names of our history, ei where i was formerly used. We do not know the proper pronunciation.” Prof. T. T. Timayenis replies to the above as follows: “Names spelled with ei are pronounced as English i in kite. Those spelled with i are generally pronounced as English i in the word in.”

The memorial days for May are Addison’s Day, May 1; Special Sunday, May 13.

The studies for May are Evangeline, by Longfellow; English, Russian, Scandinavian, and religious history and literature, with readings in Physiology, in The Chautauquan.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

Q. How long was the Long Parliament?

A. From October, 1640, to April, 1653.

Q. Which is the oldest town in the United States?

A. St. Augustine is said to be the oldest town. A fort was built there in 1565. It is not known when Santa Fé was settled by the Spaniards, though they visited it in 1542, and the town was then a populous Indian pueblo; but the actual settlement was not made until some time later.

Q. What is the exact area in square miles of Europe?

A. 3,733,008 square miles.

Q. Were the Kimmerian Kelts mentioned in History of Russia for October the same as the Celts mentioned by Prof. Sherman?

A. The latter tribe were of the Aryan race, and settled England and parts of the continent. The origin of the Kimmerians has never been decided. For further information see the authority given by Mrs. Robinson.

Q. Who is the author of the German Reader and Grammar used by Prof. Worman?

A. Prof. Worman is the author. Information concerning text-books can be best obtained from him—Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Q. What is the period of the moon’s revolution?

A. Her mean sidereal revolution is accomplished in 27.32 days; the synodical revolution, or lunar month, in 29.53 days.

Q. What legend or story has fastened the scallop, or cockle-shell, as an accessory to the pilgrim’s dress, and made it an emblem of St. James?

A. Pilgrims formerly went in great numbers to the tomb of St. James, at Compostella, in Spain. They were often poorly provided with utensils, and, as the adjacent sea shore was covered with the scallop-shell, they gathered them to use as spoons, cups, saucers, etc. Naturally, upon their return, they carried the shell as a relic, often fastening it in their hats; and thus it became part of a pilgrim’s outfit, and the token of St. James.

Q. What is the best work on Florida?

A. A good work is “Florida: Its History, Growth, Condition, and Resources,” by S. A. Drake. Published by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass.

Q. What is the origin of St. Valentine’s Day?

A. It is said by some that St. Valentine was so lovable a man that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from his character. Others derive the custom from a Roman fashion of placing the names of young women in a box, from which they were taken by the youth, by chance. This always was done during the festival of the Lupercal, in February, and afterward the day fixed was the 14th of February. This account declares the connection of the day with St. Valentine to be accidental.

Q. What is the meaning of the word fjord?

A. It is a Scandinavian word for arm of the sea—the bays or inlets extending into the land from the sea.

Q. Who was Froebel?

A. A German educator: born 1782, died 1852. The inventor of the kindergarten.

Q. Pronounce Cœur-de-Lion; Hengist.

A. Kur-de-Lī´on; Hĕng´gĭst.

Q. Correct the sentence, “The crafty king asked time to consider of it.”

A. The crafty king asked time to consider the request.

Q. In the sentence, “If it is time,” is the verb correct for subjunctive mood?

A. It is not. If subjunctive, the sentence should read, “If it be time.”

Q. Are the “Golden Fleece” and “Gideon’s Fleece” identical?

A. They are not. The Golden Fleece is said to have been taken from a ram which Phryxos sacrificed to Zeus, in Colchis. The fleece was given to the King of Colchis, and afterward stolen by Jason.

Q. How came Greek to be the language of the New Testament?

A. At the time the New Testament was written, Hellenistic Greek was used by most Jews, owing largely to the number of Greek cities in Palestine. It was the language of Christ and the disciples, and, naturally, the language of the disciples’ writings.

Q. What brought out the difference of the Greek language that existed at the time of Christ’s advent?

A. We suppose the question to mean what caused the difference between the Greek of the New Testament and classic Greek. As spoken by the Jews, Greek was modified by Syro-Chaldaic, which had been spoken by them since the Babylonish captivity. The changes were in orthography, the spelling of words, introduction of new words, and in rare and novel construction.

Q. Who are the Roumanian peasants?

A. The peasants of Roumania—a country consisting of[482] the Danubian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. The country contains about 200,000 gypsies who constitute a large part of the peasantry.

Q. What are the epic poems of the different countries?

A. Greece, “The Iliad;” Rome, “The Æneid;” Italy, Tasso’s “Jerusalem;” England, “Paradise Lost.” The above are recognized as the chief epic poems.

Q. What is an agnostic?

A. One who professes to know nothing absolutely, neither asserts nor denies; especially those who neither affirm nor deny the existence of Deity.

Q. How much larger is the earth around the equator than around the poles?

A. The equatorial diameter is 7,926 miles; the polar diameter is 7,898 miles.

C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR MAY.

HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

P. 427, c. 1—“Vsĕv´ō-lōd.”

P. 427, c. 1—“Tor´jōk.”

P. 427, c. 1—“Merchants.” The corn for Novgorod was brought from the south by the Volga.

P. 427, c. 1—“Smolensk,” smo-lensk´, or smo-len´sko. A fortified town about two hundred and fifty miles southwest of Moscow. It is one of the oldest cities of Russia, lying in a very fertile province. On his march to Moscow, in 1812, Napoleon passed through Smolensk, and the Russians were defeated there.

P. 427, c. 1—“Lip´etsh.” A town of Southern Central Russia, two hundred and thirty miles southeast of Moscow, with a present population of about 15,000.

P. 427, c. 1—“Vetch´é;” pronounced as spelled. The Vetché was a legislative or executive assembly composed of representatives of the people.

P. 427, c. 2—“St. Sophia.” Not, as commonly supposed, the name of a saint, but the second person of the trinity, the spirit of wisdom; taken from the Greek, Hagia Sophia (holy wisdom).

P. 427, c. 2—“Eucharist,” yu´ka-rĭst. A word signifying, in the Greek, giving of thanks; a name for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

P. 427, c. 2—“Nĭ-kĭ´tā.”

P. 427, c. 2—“Nē´va.” A river of Russia, emptying into the Gulf of Cronstadt. It is but forty miles in length, but very important in Russian commerce. St. Petersburg lies on the Neva, nine miles of whose length are within the city. An immense traffic is carried on by its waters, both from the interior and the Baltic.

P. 427, c. 2—“In´gri-an.” An inhabitant of Ingria, a strip of land lying on either side of the Neva, and formerly inhabited by a Finnish tribe. It now belongs to the government of St. Petersburg.

P. 427, c. 2—“Boris and Gleb” were sons of Saint Vladimir (Chautauquan for Nov., ’82, p. 62, col. 1), put to death by his nephew, Sviatopolk, who wrested for himself the principality of Kief. Their memory is cherished and revered among the saints of the Russian Church.

P. 427, c. 2—“Burger,” bur´ger (g hard).

P. 427, c. 2—“Skuilaf,” sku´ĭ-laf.

P. 427, c. 2—“Galley.” A low vessel with one deck, navigated by oars and sails.

P. 427, c. 2—“Lake Peïpus,” pā´e-poos. A lake of Russia located on the map of Russia in The Chautauquan for April, but not marked. It lies midway between Novgorod the Great and the Baltic Sea.

P. 428, c. 1—“Redoubtable,” re-dout´a-ble. Formidable to foes, hence valiant.

P. 428, c. 1—“Ri´ga”—An important seaport of Russia, near the mouth of the Dwina River.

P. 428, c. 1—“Reprisals,” re-priz´als (re, again, and prehendere, to lay hold of). To retaliate on an enemy by seizing property or inflicting suffering upon them in some way.

P. 428, c. 1—“Posadnik,” pos-ad´nik. Chief magistrate, along with the prince. He combined the functions of mayor and general.

P. 428, c. 1—“Bäs´käks.”

P. 428, c. 1—“Burghers,” bür´gers. Members of a borough enjoying all its privileges.

P. 428, c. 1—“Contingent.” Suitable share, proportion.

P. 428, c. 1—“Mĕt-ro-pŏl-i´tan.” The bishop of a metropolis, or mother city, upon which other cities are dependent. In England the archbishops of York and Canterbury are metropolitans. The word is more commonly used as an adjective, meaning to have the characteristics of a metropolis, or the chief city of a country.

P. 428, c. 2—“Lauras.” From the Greek for monastery. A collection of hermitages, the inhabitants of which are lodged in separate cells, but under the same superior.

P. 428, c. 2—“Ap´pan-age.” Literally, the word means to furnish with bread. That portion of land given by a sovereign for the sustenance of a younger son.

P. 428, c. 2—“Mŏs´kō-va.” The river upon which Moscow is built.

P. 428, c. 2—“Kreml,” or “kremlin.” One of the five quarters of Moscow. It is the ancient citadel, is surrounded by a wall from twenty-eight to fifty feet in height, and about one and a quarter miles in circuit, with massive towers and battlements. It is entered by five gates, and within are some of the finest public buildings and monuments of Moscow, besides churches, cathedrals, palaces and monasteries.

P. 428, c. 2—“Enjoying the chase.” This khan was Usbeck. The descriptions of this expedition, taken from the annals of the time, are almost beyond credence. Several hundred thousand soldiers were in motion, equipped gorgeously, and mounted on fine horses, the train presenting the appearance, when encamped, of a beautiful and populous city.

P. 428, c. 2—“Cau´ca-sŭs.” The Caucasus provinces are in that arm of Southern Russia which runs between the Black and Caspian Seas to the boundary of Asia.

P. 428, c. 2—“Pilloried.” To be punished by the pillory, an ancient instrument of torture, consisting of a framework of wood, upon which was put movable boards with holes for head and arms, into which the guilty were fastened.

P. 428, c. 2—“Da-ghes-tan´.” A province of what is called Asiatic Russia, lying between Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.

P. 428, c. 2—“Käv-gäd´i.”

P. 429, c. 1—“Russ.” A Russian; also used as an adjective, and for the Russian language.

P. 429, c. 1—“Pōl-tï-räs.”

P. 429, c. 1—“Uspenski sobor,” us-pen´ski so´bor.

HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.

P. 429, c. 1—“Carolinian.” Belonging to the age of Charles XII.

P. 429, c. 2—“Frithiof’s Saga,” freet´yof’s sä´ga.

P. 429, c. 2—“Böttiger,” böt´e-ger. A Swedish poet born in 1807. He obtained his degree at Upsal, and was twice crowned by the Swedish academy. He has published many short poems of superior merit, besides translations from Tasso.

P. 429, c. 2—“Tegnaby,” teng´nabi.

P. 429, c. 2—“Lucas Esaiasson,” lū´cas es-ī´as-son.

P. 429, c. 2—“Ingeborg Mänsdotter,” ing´e-borg mens´dot-ter.

P. 429, c. 2—“Shot.” Referring to the shot which killed Charles XII. “The shot” is the common reference in Swedish books to Charles XII.’s death.

P. 429, c. 2—“Temple progeny.” The names being so common in the Scriptures, the author calls the children a sacred or temple progeny.

P. 429, c. 2—“Aptitude,” apt´i-tude. Fitness.

P. 429, c. 2—“Wexiö,” wek´she-o. A town in the southern part of Sweden, but northeast of Lund, where Tegnér attended the university.

P. 429, c. 2—“Having but one name.” The use of fixed surnames did not extend much farther back than the latter part of the tenth century. They first came into use in France, and by the Normans were introduced into England. The adoption of surnames by the common people was much later than by the nobility, and similarly the more remote and less highly cultivated districts were slower to accept the fashion than more advanced nations; thus in some parts of Wales it is said that surnames are not yet fully adopted. Prior to the Reformation surnames were less fixed than now. Younger sons particularly, dropped their patronymic and often, instead, adopted the name of their estate or place of residence, as did Tegnér.

P. 429, c. 2—“Kykerud,” chi´ker-ud. Near Millesvik.

P. 429, c. 2—“Crown bailiff,” or bailiff to the crown or sovereign. One whose duties were to collect rents, taxes, fines, summon juries, etc.

P. 430, c. 1—“Ossian,” osh´yan. A Scottish poet, said to have lived[483] in the second or third century. The genuineness of his poetry is, however, doubted. In the eighteenth century James MacPherson claimed that he had translated fragments of Ossian’s poetry. He published these, and soon afterward two long poems. These works caused a fierce war between Scottish and English writers, the Highlanders maintaining their authenticity, and the English disputing it. The general opinion now is that they are to be classed with the literary forgeries of the day, and MacPherson with Chatterton.

P. 430, c. 1—“Rämen,” ray´men. In the mountain region near Filipstad.

P. 430, c. 1—“Myhrman,” mir´man.

P. 430, c. 1—“Multifold.” A word derived from the Latin multi, many, and the English fold; it signifies various, numerous.

P. 430, c. 1—“Patriarchic,” pa´tri-arch´ic. An adjective of the same meaning as patriarchal, i. e., belonging to a patriarch, or the father of a family.

P. 430, c. 1—“Homerus,” Homer (Latin). The book was written in Latin, still to a wide extent the language of learning.

P. 430, c. 1—“Castelio,” käs-tāl´yo. A theologian, born 1515, died 1563. In 1540 he was invited by Calvin to Geneva, and became Professor of Humanities. Unfortunately he afterward differed from his patron in religious belief, and was expelled. He went to Basel, where he lived in great poverty. Among his works is a translation of the entire Bible into Latin.

P. 430, c. 1—“Basel,” ba´sel. A city of Switzerland lying in a canton of the same name. Its history begins with the building of a fort there by the Romans. In the middle ages it had become a flourishing city, more populous than now, though it still numbers about 50,000 souls. Basel boasts many ancient works, among which is a bridge built in 1226. It has a library of 50,000 volumes. The Council of Basel was held there in 1431, and in 1795 two treaties were ratified there between the quarreling European States.

P. 430, c. 1—“Dialectic,” di´a-lect´ic. The word dialect comes from two Greek words signifying to pick out, to choose; hence it means the form of speech chosen in a certain locality, or peculiar to limited regions; in distinction from others nearly related.

P. 430, c. 1—“Xenophon,” zĕn´o-phon. A Grecian historian, general, and philosopher, born about 445 B. C. He joined the expedition which Cyrus the Younger undertook against his brother, the King of Persia. Upon the defeat of Cyrus, the Greeks made their famous retreat, Xenophon being their chief counselor. Upon his return to Greece he began to write. His “Anabasis; or, Retreat of the Ten Thousand,” is, perhaps, his best known work, though the “Memorabilia,” or account of the acts and conversation of Socrates, Xenophon’s former teacher, holds a high rank. Died about 355 B. C.

P. 430, c. 1—“Lucian,” lū´shan. A Roman satirist, living in the second century. Born in Syria, he spent his life, until forty years of age, wandering through Italy, Greece, and Gaul. In the latter country he taught rhetoric with success. Returning to Syria he began his literary work, which included histories, biographies, criticisms, poems, satires, etc. As a satirical and humorous writer he ranks very high.

P. 430, c. 1—“Homer,” hō´mer. The greatest of all epic poets. When he lived is unknown; critics have disputed his existence, but the best authority of the times is opposed to this. Homer was probably an Asiatic Greek, born at Smyrna about 850 B. C. His most famous works are the Iliad and Odyssey.

P. 430, c. 1—“Horace.” (Born 65 B. C., died 8 B. C.) The southern part of Italy was the birth place of the poet Horace. At eighteen he was sent to Athens to study, as was the custom then. When the civil wars, which followed the death of Cæsar, broke out (44 B. C.) Horace joined Brutus and Cassius. After their defeat he lost all his property and was very poor until, through the influence of Varius and Virgil, Mæcenas became his friend. After this his wants were provided for and he gave his time to his writing. His work consists of two books of satires, one book of epodes, two of odes, two of epistles, and a treatise on the art of poetry.

P. 430, c. 1—“Rousseau,” rôus-sō´. See Chautauquan for April—notes on Sunday Readings.

P. 430, c. 1—“Voltaire,” vol-têr´. (Born 1694, died 1778.) The real name of this celebrated Frenchman was Arouet. His early life was spent in Paris until, because of his irregular conduct, he was obliged to leave the country. In 1743 the French Government sent him on an embassy to Frederick the Great, with whom he became intimate; but afterward, quarreling with his royal friend, he retired to Switzerland. His belief was strongly infidel and his mind wonderfully vigorous. The quantity and wide range of his writings are surprising.

P. 430, c. 1—“Racine,” rä-seen´. (Born 1639, died 1699.) The most famous of French dramatists. He began his career in Paris in 1662, and for ten years achieved wonderful success; but at thirty-eight years of age he suddenly decided to abandon the stage and become a Carthusian monk. He was prevailed upon to modify his views and marry. Afterward Racine became historiographer to the king. “Esther” and “Athalie,” the only plays produced after his conversion, are deeply religious.

P. 430, c. 2—“Iliad.” Homer’s finest epic, treating of the anger of Achilles, an episode in the Trojan war.

P. 430, c. 2—“Odyssey,” ŏd´e-se. An epic poem relating to the adventures of Ulysses as he returned to Ithaca after the fall of Troy.

P. 430, c. 2—“Virgil,” ver´jil, (70 B. C.-19 B. C.) After Homer, the greatest of epic poets. His life was mainly spent in Italy. At thirty-four he began his “Georgics,” and worked seven years at them. The rest of his life was given to his epic, the Æneid. In 19 B. C. he went to Greece to revise this, but meeting the Emperor Augustus, then on his triumphal march, he started back with him. On the voyage he contracted a fatal illness and died a few days after reaching Italy.

P. 430, c. 2—“Ovid,” ŏv´id. (43 B. C.-18 A. D.) A Roman, educated for the law, but most famous as a poet. He was banished by the Emperor Augustus in 8 A. D., and died ten years later in the tower of Ovid, at the mouth of the Danube, where he is supposed to have been confined.

P. 430, c. 2—“Mĕ-ta-mor´phō-ses.” One of Ovid’s best-known works, treating of the transformation, or changes of form, which were so often the subject of ancient stories and legends.

P. 430, c. 2—“Lund.” A town in the extreme south of Sweden. There are two famous universities in Sweden, at Upsala and at Lund. The latter was founded in 1628, and has thirty professors, about five hundred students, and a library of fifty thousand volumes. In 1853 Lund erected a colossal statue to the memory of Tegnér.

P. 430, c. 2—“Idyl,” ī´dyl. A short pastoral poem in a highly finished style.

P. 430, c. 2—“Æsthetics,” ĕs-thet´ics. The theory of taste, or the science of the beautiful.

P. 430, c. 2—“Dithyramb,” dĭth´e-rămb. The word comes from Dithyrambus, an ancient name of Bacchus, and afterward applied to lyric poetry of an enthusiastic and vehement style.

P. 430, c. 2—“Phosphoristic.” An unusual word of about the same meaning as phosphorescent, but not as yet accepted by lexicographers. It is applied to that school of poetry which may be said to seek its source entirely from within, or from the spirit—a kind of transcendentalism.

P. 430, c. 2—“Whitsun Idyl.” A story of White-Sunday-tide, or, contracted, Whitsuntide, the English name for the Pentecost. It is so called from the white garments which were prescribed for those to wear who were about to receive the Lord’s Supper for the first time.

P. 430, c. 2—“Gei´jer,” yi´er (1783-1847). A Swedish poet and historian, who for many years held the chair of history at Upsala. His influence was very strong.

P. 430, c. 2—“Goethe,” gö´tēh. (1749-1832.) The most famous of German authors. He received the degree of Doctor of Laws, but soon began to write. Being successful, the Grand Duke of Saxony invited him to Weimar, his capital. He became a statesman, and rose to the position of privy councilor. In 1782, Goethe received a patent of nobility, after which time he traveled extensively. His works include his autobiography, many essays and travels—“Iphegenia,” “Faust,” etc.

P. 431, c. 1—“Linnæus,” lin-ne´us. (1707-1778). A Swedish botanist. His life was almost entirely devoted to the study of botany. He was held in high repute at Upsala, where he was in turn professor of medicine and of botany. He published a book on the “Flora of Lapland,” “Natural System,” “Fundamental Principles of Botany,” and other works.

P. 431, c. 1—“Bishopric.” A district presided over by a bishop.

P. 431, c. 1—“Diocese,” dī´o-cese. The circuit of a bishop’s jurisdiction.

P. 431, c. 1—“Unremitting.” Incessant, continuous.

P. 431, c. 1—“Diet.” An assembly or council. The etymology of the word is probably the same as the word diet or food. Its peculiar sense is said to have risen from its being so similar to the Latin word for day, dies. This word meant particularly a set day, so that diet came to mean a day set for deliberation; or, an assembly.

P. 431, c. 1—“Emanating.” Flowing forth.

P. 431, c. 1—“Schleswig,” sles´wick. A city in Denmark, at the head of a narrow bay, and some twenty miles from the Baltic. It now belongs to Prussia.[484]

P. 431, c. 1—“Au-rō´ra bō-re-ā´lis,” the northern daybreak. A luminous phenomenon, seen only at night and supposed to be of electric origin. The light usually appears in streams rising from an arch a few degrees above the horizon. When reaching beyond the zenith a corona is formed.

P. 431, c. 2—“Belles lettres,” bel-lĕt´ter. The French for polite learning, including history, philology, poetry, criticism, and language; the humanities.

P. 431, c. 2—“Runeberg,” run´e-berg.

P. 431, c. 2—“Romantic era.” That period in the history of literature in which the materials were drawn from the stories of the Middle Ages, and from imagination. The ideal in distinction from the real was treated, the beautiful and not the base, the fantastical and wonderful rather than the practical and common. The name was first used in Germany. Tieck and the Schlegels are considered the founders of this school. An essay translated from Heine, and published by Henry Holt & Co., gives a masterly analysis of the “romantic school.”

P. 431, c. 2—“Realistic.” A school of literature holding principles contrary to the romantic school. They contend that nature must be followed in all cases and things represented exactly as they are. Many of our first writers have followed these principles, though many have treated life as though the only real part were the vice and misery. The realistic school claims strength as its chief characteristic, that is, a direct expression of facts and passions unchanged by fancies or culture.

P. 431, c. 2—“Nadeschda,” nä-desch´da.

P. 431, c. 2—“Fjalar,” fyä´lar.

P. 431, c. 2—“Wirsén,” vir-sain´.

P. 431, c. 2—“Snoilsky,” snoil´ski.

P. 431, c. 2—“Viktor Rydberg,” vick´tor rid´berg.

P. 431, c. 2—“Kalevála,” kä-le-vä´la.

PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.

P. 432, c. 1—“Franklin.” (1706-1790.) An American statesman and natural philosopher. He spent his early life in Boston as a compositor in his brother’s printing office. Going to Philadelphia, he edited and published the Gazette, and in 1732 published “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” since translated into many languages. In 1757 he was sent to England to settle matters for the Assembly, and from that time was active in the affairs of the country, helped to bring about the declaration of independence, and the treaty with France. Franklin discovered the identity of electricity with lightning, and proposed the plan of protecting buildings by pointed conductors.

P. 432, c. 1—“Jack Falstaff.” A character in the first and second parts of “Henry IV.” and in “Merry Wives of Windsor.” Many have said that Shakspere found the original of Falstaff in Sir John Folstaffe, who is introduced into “Henry VI.,” but recent commentators deny this. Others have said Sir J. Oldcastle to be the original. Shakspere himself denies this in the epilogue to Henry IV., where he says, speaking of Falstaff, “Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.”

P. 432, c. 1—“Com-mit´ment.” The act of committing, keeping, putting in charge; particularly committing to prison.

P. 432, c. 1—“Gascoigne,” gas´koin. (1350 ?-1420 ?) A man noted for his moral courage. He was appointed chief justice of the king’s bench by Henry IV. On the accession of Henry V., Hume says that Gascoigne “met with praise, not reproach, for his past conduct.”

P. 432, c. 1—“Campbell.” (1779-186-?.) A British jurist; he held many important offices under the government, was lord chancellor of Ireland in 1841, and in 1859 lord chancellor of England. He wrote the lives of the chief justices of England, and of the lord chancellors.

P. 432, c. 1—“Cut-purses.” Now a pick-pocket. The words show the different ways of carrying the purse. Formerly men hung their purses at their girdles, and thieves cut the string by which they were attached; but when the purse was transferred to the pocket, the cut-purse became a pick-pocket.

P. 432, c. 1—“Eftsoon;” obsolete. Soon, afterward; in a short time.

P. 432, c. 1—“Pre-cā´ri-ous.” Uncertain, doubtful.

P. 432, c. 1—“Oldcastle,” Lord Cobham. An Englishman who, by his valor and talents, gained the favor of both Henry IV. and V.; but, becoming the leader of the Lollards, he was condemned, and in 1418 he was hanged.

P. 432, c. 1—“King of France.” Charles VI. is referred to.

P. 432, c. 2—“Queen Regent.” She aspired to royal power, and united with the Burgundians against her son.

P. 432, c. 2—“Orleanists.” The followers of the Duke of Orleans, the brother of the king.

P. 432, c. 2—“Burgundians.” Those who adhered to the Duke of Burgundy, who wished to obtain control of affairs.

P. 432, c. 2—“Pseudo.” The Greek for false.

P. 432, c. 2—“Claim.” The daughter of Philip the Fair, of France, had married Edward II. of England. The sons of Philip had died without male heirs, and Edward III., the son of Edward II., claimed the throne through his mother, though the Salic law, by which French succession was determined, denied the throne to women. In no case could this claim revert to Henry, who belonged to another family.

P. 432, c. 2—“Cressy,” krĕs´e. See The Chautauquan for March: “Pictures from English History.”

P. 432, c. 2—“Poictiers,” poi-tērz´. See The Chautauquan for March: “Pictures from English History.”

P. 431, c. 2—“In´dē-fēa´si-ble.” Not to be defeated.

P. 432, c. 2—“Harfleur,” ar-flŭr´. A town in the north of France, near the Seine, formerly a most important bulwark against invasion.

P. 432, c. 2—“Invasion of Edward III.” See The Chautauquan for March: “Pictures from English History.”

P. 432, c. 2—“Somme,” som. A river of Northern France, flowing into the English Channel.

P. 432, c. 2—“Blanchetacque,” blan-´sh-tāk.

P. 432, c. 2—“Agincourt,” a´zhăn-koor. A town on the road from Calais to Paris. A wood corresponding to the one here spoken of still exists. Agincourt is but twenty miles from Cressy.

P. 432, c. 2—“Pix.” The box in which the host is kept. The host is a consecrated wafer believed, by Roman Catholics, to be the body of the Savior, and is offered at mass as a sacrifice.

P. 433, c. 1—“Recoup;” to diminish.

P. 433, c. 1—“Calais,” kăl´iss.

P. 433, c. 1—“Rouen,” roo´en. A city in the north of France, on the river Seine. It has a famous cathedral and a fine museum. The French regained the city in 1449, and it was in their possession until the Franco-Prussian war, when the Germans occupied it for six months.

P. 433, c. 2—“Nem´e-sis.” In Grecian mythology the daughter of night; a personification of conscience; the goddess, that, watching over the affairs of men, distributes to each a just reward for their deeds; thus she became an avenger of all crime, and in this character is ordinarily conceived.

P. 433, c. 2—“Penitential Psalm,” psalm li.

P. 433, c. 2—“James I.” (1394-1437.) At the age of nine this prince was captured by the English and held by them for nineteen years. He was well educated and given all advantages. Upon his restoration to the throne he treated the rebellious nobles so severely in his attempts to restore order, that a conspiracy was formed against him, and he was murdered.

P. 433, c. 2—“Beaugé,” bo-gā.

PHYSIOLOGY.

P. 434, c. 1—The article on physiology needs few explanatory notes. It is really a series of experiments, and if it be possible to use the illustrations the subject will be found much more plain and interesting. Much ingenuity is possible in arranging experiments. Any specimen, large or small, may be made to contribute valuable information in regard to the action of the muscles, the circulation of the blood, and the process of digestion.

P. 435, c. 1—“Căp´il-la-ry,” or “ca-pil´la-ry.” The fine thread-like end of a vein or artery.

P. 435, c. 1—“Venæ cavæ.” Hollow veins. There are two of these hollow veins carrying the blood to the heart, although but one aorta or passage from the heart.

P. 435, c. 1—“Pŭl´mo-na-ry artery.” The artery of the lungs, carrying blood from the heart to the lungs.

P. 435, c. 2—“Heart.” Ask the butcher for a sheep’s pluck, and the whole structure of heart, lungs and liver may be studied. By cutting away the liver and spreading the lungs on the table with the heart between them, you may soon understand the whole subject. A beef’s heart will, of course, do as well; or a smaller subject’s, as a rabbit.

P. 435, c. 2—“Osmosis,” ŏs´mō-sis.

P. 436, c. 1—“Oxidation,” ŏx-ī-dā´tion.

SUNDAY READINGS.

P. 436, c. 2—“Apples of Sodom.” Therenot says: “There are apple[485] trees on the sides of the Dead Sea which bear lovely fruit, but within are full of ashes.”

P. 436, c. 2—“Ob´so-lēte.” No longer common.

P. 436, c. 2—“Lē´thal.” Deadly, fatal.

P. 437, c. 1—“Hecatomb,” hĕk´a-toom. A sacrifice of an hundred oxen.

P. 437, c. 1—“Bestial,” bĕst´yal. Like a beast, brutal.

P. 437, c. 2—“Rev. W. Jay” (born 1769, died 1853.) A popular English minister, called by John Foster “the prince of preachers.” Several volumes of his works have been published.

P. 438, c. 1—“Subtlety,” sut´tl-te. Acuteness of intellect, shrewdness.

P. 438, c. 1—“Un-wiëld´y.” Unmanageable because of size.

P. 438, c. 1—“Prĭs´tine.” Belonging to former times, primitive.

P. 438, c. 1—“Calvin,” kăl´vin. (Born 1509, died 1564.) One of the leaders of the Reformation; he was educated for the church, but becoming convinced of its errors joined the Reformation. He was driven from place to place by persecution. In 1536 was published his “Institutes of the Christian Religion,” in which he advanced the doctrines of predestination, election, and reprobation. Afterward he published a catechism and “Confession of Faith,” and in 1541 the presbyterial system was introduced by him into the church at Geneva. An important element of his work was teaching in the Geneva Academy. Students flocked to him, and Calvinism spread through Europe. Besides his great work of organization and teaching, Calvin preached almost daily, and wrote commentaries on nearly the whole Bible.

P. 438, c. 1—“Arminius,” ar-mĭn´i-us. (Born 1560, died 1609.) A Dutch theologian and pastor at Amsterdam. He denied the doctrine of predestination and maintained the subordination of ecclesiastical to civil power. Becoming a professor at Leyden, a dispute arose between him and Gomar, a Calvinist. The states enjoined the parties to drop the dispute and teach nothing contrary to the creed and catechism. One public declaration of sentiments was made, but while preparing for another conference Arminius died.

P. 438, c. 1—“Baxter.” (1615-1691). An English nonconformist divine. At the time of the civil war he joined the parliamentary army. Not favoring the assumption of supreme power by Cromwell, he advocated the restoration. Subsequently, at the age of seventy, he suffered persecution for nonconformity. He was a voluminous writer. Of all his works, the “Saint’s Everlasting Rest” has had, probably, the widest circulation.

P. 438, c. 2—“So-cĭn´i-an.” A follower of Socinus, who, with Faustus, was a prominent Italian theologian of the sixteenth century. They denied the trinity, the deity of Christ, the eternity of future punishment, the personality of the devil, and total depravity of man. They taught that Christ was merely a man, human sin was the imitation of Adam’s sin, human salvation the adoption of Christ’s virtue, and the Bible was to be interpreted by human reason.

P. 438, c. 2—“A-năth´e-má.” A curse pronounced with ecclesiastical authority.

P. 438, c. 2—“Măr´a-năth´a.” The word was used in anathematizing persons for great crimes. As much as to say, says Calmet, “May the Lord come quickly to take vengeance on thee for thy crime.”

P. 439, c. 1—“John Wesley.” (1703-1791.) A religious reformer and the founder of Methodism. By the advise of his mother he undertook to make religion the work of his life. At Oxford he was known as a superior classical scholar. In 1727 he received the degree of Master of Arts, and having become a priest of the Church of England, he went, in 1835 as a missionary to Georgia, where he remained three years. Upon his return, through the influence of certain Moravians, he became convinced that a deeper religious experience was possible, and after his conversion he became an evangelist. He organized the first Methodist Society, in 1739, and for more than fifty years was its leader. His energy and industry were perfect; he is said to have traveled two hundred and fifty thousand miles in his itinerant ministry, and preached forty-two thousand sermons. At his death the society which he organized had five hundred and eleven ministers and a membership of one hundred and twenty thousand.

P. 439, c. 2—“Id´i-om.” Here signifies the mode of expression peculiar to the language.

P. 440, c. 1—“Assembly’s Catechism.” The Assembly appointed by the Long Parliament for the settling of doctrine, liturgy, and church government, sent out among other things the Shorter and Longer Catechisms.

P. 440, c. 1—“Thomas à Kempis” (1379-1471). An Augustinian monk whose whole life seems to have been spent in the cloister. His character was famous for sanctity. He is best known to us by his work on “The Imitation of Christ.”

EVANGELINE.

PART I.

“Primeval,” prī-mē´val. Belonging to the first ages, primitive.

“Drū´ids.” Ministers of religion among the Celts in Gaul, Britain, and Germany. They were both priests and judges among the people, and were divided into three classes—prophets, priests, and bards.

“Harper.” A player on the harp.

“Grand Pré,” gran prā.

“Basin of Minas,” mee´näs. A bay on the western coast of Nova Scotia, opening into the Bay of Fundy.

“Normandy.” A former province of France, lying in the northwest of the country. It takes its name from the Northmen, who settled it in the tenth century. The sixth duke of Normandy was William, the conqueror of England.

“Dormer-windows.” Literally the window of a sleeping apartment, belonging to a room in an inclined roof, the frame being placed vertically on the rafters.

“Kir´tles.” An upper garment—a loose jacket.

“Angelus,” an´ge-lus. A prayer to the Virgin, beginning with the word “angelus.” Pious Catholics recite the prayer three times a day at the sound of the angelus bell. This custom has recently been beautifully represented in a picture called the “Angelus.” Two peasants at their toil hearing the bell in the distance stand with uncovered bowed heads while “Angelus Domini nunciavit Mariæ,” etc., (the angel of the Lord announced to Mary) is repeated.

“Bellefontaine,” bĕl-fŏn´tĕn.

“Hyssop,” hĭs´sup. An aromatic perennial plant, a native of Europe.

“Mĭs´sal.” The Roman Catholic mass book.

“Pent-house.” (Pent is derived from the Latin word pendere, to hang.) The whole word signifies a sloping shed, or, as we ordinarily call it, a “lean-to.”

“Wain.” From the Anglo-Saxon. A wagon.

“Seraglio,” se-răl´yo. The palace of the Turkish sultan, inhabited by his officers and wives. Because the latter live there the word is often used in the sense of harem.

“Mutation.” Change.

“Gabriel Lajeunesse,” la-jeu-ness.

“Felician,” fe-lĭsh´an.

“Plain-song.” A chant in which the tones are of the same length, and the compass rarely beyond an octave.

“Wondrous stone.” The swallow is said to give sight to her young by bringing to her nest a certain stone.

“St. Eu´lalie.” A virgin martyr. When only twelve years of age the young girl left home during the persecution of Diocletian, and in the presence of the judge threw down the idols he had set up. She was tortured to death in 308.

“Summer of all Saints.” The season which Longfellow so beautifully describes here is better known as the Indian Summer. All Saints’ Day is the 1st of November, and as, ordinarily, our Indian Summer comes about that time, the origin of the name is obvious.

“Sheen.” Brightness.

“Plane tree.” An Oriental tree much esteemed for its size and beauty. It is of the same genus as our buttonwood, or button tree.

“Bur-gun´di-an.” From Burgundy, an ancient province of France lying along the Saône and Rhône rivers.

“Gaspereau,” gas´pā-ro.

“Mandate.” An official command.

“Lou´is-bûrg.” Captured by the English in 1745.

“Beau Sejour,” bō sā-jour.

“Glēbe.” Turf, soil; derived from the Latin word gleba, which signifies soil.

“Réné Lablanc,” rā-nā lă-blang.

“Supernal.” Belonging to a higher sphere; celestial.

“Loup-garou,” lou-ga-rou. The French for bugbear.

“Letiche,” la-tish´.

“Irascible,” ī-răs´ci-ble. Out of temper.

“Embrasure,” em-brā´zhur. An embrace.

“Curfew,” kŭr´fū. The ringing of a bell as a signal to extinguish the fires. [See Longfellow’s poem, “Curfew.”]

“Tous les bourgeois de Chartres.” All the citizens of Chartres.

“Le Carillon de Dunkerque.” The chime of Dunkirk.[486]

“Im´pre-cā´tions.” Curses.

“Mien,” meen. Manner, carriage.

“Tocsin,” tŏc´sin. Alarm bell, derived from the verb toquer, to strike, and sein, or seint, a bell.

“Ave Maria, ä´ve ma-rï´a. Hail, Mary; the first words of the prayer to the Virgin used by Roman Catholics.

“Emblazoned,” em-blā´zned. Decorated.

“Ambrosial,” am-brō´zhal. Delicious.

“Refluent.” Flowing back.

“Kelp.” Sea weed which is reduced to powder and is used in making glass; the name is also applied to the sea weed from which kelp is made.

“Leaguer,” leeg´er. A camp of a besieging army.

“Bĕn-e-dic´i-te.” A prayer signifying praise, blessing.

“Titan-like.” The Titans with the Cyclops and Centimanes (hundred-handed), were giants and the first inhabitants of the earth. Strictly the hundred hands belong to the brothers of the Titans, the Centimanes.

PART II.

“Savannas,” sa-văn´nas. A wide plain without trees, and covered with grass.

“Father of Waters.” Mississippi is an Indian word meaning “father of waters.” The following line refers to the immense quantities of débris that the river carries from hills and mountains, and in which many relics of the past are found buried.

“Prairie,” prā´re. Often incorrectly pronounced.

“Courier-des-bois.” French—literally scouts of the forest.

“Voyageurs.” Travelers.

“St. Catherine’s tresses.” St. Catherine lived a virgin; hence the expression means to live unmarried.

“Shard.” A shred. The word is obsolete in this meaning.

“Op-e-lou´sas.”

“Chutes,” shoots. A rapid descent in a river, or the opening in a river dam.

“Lagoon,” la-goon´. A marsh, shallow pond, or lake.

“Wimpling.” Lying in folds; rippling.

“Pĕl´i-cans.” A web-footed bird of large size, and remarkable for its bill, to the lower edge of which is attached a pouch which will hold many quarts of water.

“Bayou of Plequemine,” bī´oo of plak-mēn´. One of the numerous lakes, outlets, or, as they say in the South, bayous, of the delta of the Mississippi. The southeast province of Louisiana, lying on the Gulf and containing the delta, is called Plaquemine.

“Ten´e-broŭs.” Gloomy, dusky.

“Mi-mō´sa.” The sensitive plant; its name comes from a Greek word signifying imitator, because the plant seems to imitate animal sensibility.

“Atchafalaya,” atch-af-a-lī´a. A river or bayou of Louisiana connecting with the Mississippi just below the Red River. The Atchafalaya river is the outlet to the volumes of water bound by the levees of the Mississippi. “Where thirty-eight years ago,” says a writer in Harper’s Weekly, “the farmer waded across the Atchafalaya, now they find a depth of one hundred and twenty-two feet. The question that this wonderful change raises is whether the Atchafalaya will not eventually absorb the Mississippi current. The results would certainly be serious, and it is the opinion of many that unless proper care be taken, the Mississippi will take this short cut to the Gulf.”

“Lō´tus.” An aquatic plant.

“Wa-chi´ta.”

“Cope.” An arch, or cover.

“Pĕnd´ū-loŭs.” Swinging.

“Under the lee of.” The word lee comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for shelter; hence the expression means under the shelter of the island.

“Pal-mĕt´tos.” A species of the palm tree.

“Thōles.” The pin used to keep the oar in the row-lock when rowing.

“Têche,” tesh.

“Bac-chăn´tes.” Devotees of Bacchus, the god of wine in Roman mythology.

“Yule-tide.” Christmas-time.

“Sombrero,” som-bra´ro. A kind of broad-brimmed hat.

“O-zark´.” A range of hills running from the Missouri River in Missouri into Indian Territory.

“Olympus.” The chief abode of the gods in Grecian mythology.

“Cidevant,” se-de-vong´. Former.

“Natch-ī-tōch´es.” Said to be pronounced by the inhabitants, nak´-e-tush. A northwest province of Louisiana having a capital of the same name.

“Carthusian,” kar-thū´zhan. One of the order of Carthusian monks, a body famous for their austerities.

“Upharsin.” Dan. v:25.

“Oregon.” A name for the Columbia River.

“Wall´e-way.”

“O-wy´hee.”

“Fontaine-qui-bout,” fōn-tān-ke-bou´.

“Sierras,” sï-ĕr´ra. A saw-like ridge of mountains.

“Anch´o-rīte.” Hermit.

“Fä´ta Morgäna.” A phenomenon similar to the mirage in the desert. Through atmospheric refraction objects at a distance appear contorted, doubled, or inverted. It is oftenest seen in the Straits of Messina, and is named from a fairy who is said to cause it.

“Shaw´nee.” A tribe of American Indians bore this name; they are nearly all Christianized.

“Ca-măn´che.” A fierce tribe of Indians.

“Mo´wis.”

“Li-li-man´.”

“A-ē´ri-al.”

“Su-sŭr´rus.” Whispering.

“Asphodel,” as´phō-del. A species of perennial plant, famous for its beautiful flowers.

“Ne-pen´the.” A drug used by the ancients to relieve from pain and exhilarate. The word is derived from the Greek, signifying taking away sorrow.

“Sag´ĭ-naw.”

“Wōld.” Wood, forest.

“Ab-ne-gā-tion.” Denying.

“Prĕs´aged.” Foretold.

“Wi-cā´co.”

Errata, in “Notes on Required Reading” for April.

P. 419, c. 2—“Amoor Darya” should read “Amoo Darya.”

P. 420, c. 1—The Russian Saint Anthony was not Saint Anthony of Egypt, but of Mount Athos, and belonged to a later age.

P. 420, c. 1—“Laraï” should read “Saraï.”

PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY.

NAMES OF STARS.

• A-chër´ner.
• Al-dĕb´a-răn, or Al-de-ba´ran.
• Al´ge-nĕb.
• Al´gol.
• Al´go-răb.
• A´li-ŏth.
• Al´tair.
• Ant-ä´rĕs.
• Arc-tū´rus.
• Bel-lā´trix.
• Be-tĕl´geuse (gēz).
• Be-nĕt´nasch.
• Ca-no´pus.
• Căs´tor.
• Dē´neb.
• Düb´he.
• Fō´mal-hâut.
• Hyades (hī´a-dēz).
• Mär´kăb.
• Mī´ra.
• Mī´rach.
• Pleides (plē´ya-dēz).
• Pŏl´lux.
• Pro´cy-ŏn.
• Rĕg´u-lŭs.
• Rī´gel.
• Schē´dar.
• Sĭr´i-ŭs.
• Spī´ca.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Harpers have recently issued the following books: Two of William J. Rolfe’s series of Shaksperian plays, “The Two Noble Kinsmen,” by John Fletcher and William Shakspere; and “Pericles, Prince of Tyre.” “English Literature in the Eighteenth Century,” by T. S. Perry. “Shandon Bells,” by William Black. “Tip and Tim,” by James Otis. “Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates”—seventeenth edition. “A History of Latin Literature,” by G. A. Simcox, M.A.

Lippincott & Co. send out a work, by W. W. McLane, “The Cross in the Light of To-day;” also, “Perfect Prayer, how Offered, how Answered,” by Rev. Chauncey Giles.

We have received from Scribner’s Sons “The Blockade and the Cruisers,” by J. R. Soley. “On the Desert; with a Brief Review of Recent Events in Egypt,” by Henry M. Field, D.D. “Chats About Books, Poets, and Novelists,” by Mayo Williamson Hazeltine; and “The Religions of the Ancient World,” by G. Rawlinson, M.A.

“Books, and How to Use Them,” is a new work by J. C. Van Dyke, published by Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

T. Nelson & Sons have published a “Manual of Bible History in connection with the General History of the World,” by W. G. Blaikie.

“A new Index Rerum for Students and Professional Men” is published by Joel A. Miner, Ann Arbor, Michigan.