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THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

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

    VOL. III.      APRIL, 1883.      NO. 7.




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.


[Transcriber's Note: This table of contents of this periodical was
created for the HTML version to aid the reader.]


CONTENTS

                          REQUIRED READING
  History of Russia
  Chapter IX.—The Tatar Invasions—1224-1264                       365
  A Glance at the History and Literature of Scandinavia
      VI.—The Romance of Axel                                     368
  Pictures from English History
      VII.—The John Brown of the English Slaves                   371
  PHYSIOLOGY                                                      374

                          SUNDAY READINGS
  [April 1.]
      The Law of the Household                                    377
  [April 8.]
      The Law of the Household                                    378
  [April 15.]
      Finding and Bringing                                        379
  [April 22.]
      Finding and Bringing                                        380
  [April 29.]
      Faith the Soul Saving Act                                   380

  They Grow to Flowers, Or to Weeds                               383
  Habit of Taking Pains                                           384
  A Chaplet of Pearls                                             385
  The Worth of Fresh Air                                          386
  The Mammalia                                                    389
  Washington Irving                                               390
  Hours of Rest                                                   392
  The Resources of the United States                              393
  Montana                                                         394
  Tales from Shakspere
      Much Ado About Nothing                                      395
  The Head and the Heart                                          398
  Defects in Our American Homes                                   399

  C. L. S. C. Work                                                401
  C. L. S. C. Testimony                                           402
  C. L. S. C. Song                                                402
  Local Circles                                                   403
  Robin and I                                                     407
  Questions and Answers
      Fifty Questions and Answers on Hampton Tracts, No. 5,
          “A Haunted House,” and No. 9. “Cleanliness and
          Disinfection.”                                          407
  Outline of C. L. S. C. Studies                                  408
  Thomas Hood                                                     409
  An Unnoted Evidence                                             412
  Loss and Gain                                                   413
  Chautauqua Emerging from Winter                                 413
  Chautauqua School of Languages                                  414
  Editor’s Outlook                                                415
  Editor’s Note-book                                              417
  Editor’s Table                                                  419

                     REQUIRED READING FOR APRIL
  English Literature
      The Poet Described                                          423
      On Giving Advice                                            424
      Education Compared to Sculpture                             425
  New Books                                                       426



REQUIRED READING[A]

FOR THE

_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1882-83_.

APRIL.




HISTORY OF RUSSIA.

By MRS. MARY S. ROBINSON.


_CHAPTER IX._

THE TATAR INVASIONS—1224-1264.

The Russian principalities, weakened by civil wars, had no time for
federation or concentration against the race that, moving with the
swiftness of wild horses, darkened the horizon of the realm with
their coming in 1224. Their aspect was rude, gross, and frightful:
collectively, they were like an army of goblins. An English writer, who
had perhaps witnessed one of their attacks, describes them: “They have
broad and flat visages of a tanned color, yellow and black; thin hayre
upon the upper lip, and a pit upon the chin. Their speeche is sudden
and loud, speaking as if out of a deep hollow throat. When they sing,
you would think a cow lowed, or a great Ban dog howled. They suffer
not their children to eat till they have shot near the Marke, within
a certain scantling.” The bellowing of their cattle, the neighing of
their wild horses, the grinding of the wooden wheels of their wagons,
heightened the din and terror of their approach. In appearance and in
warfare they were, in effect, half a million maniacs, mounted on horses
as frenzied as themselves. Such conception of government as they had,
took form in companies or hordes, who lived together in consenting
communities, guarded by hosts of mounted archers. The poet, Matthew
Arnold, in “Sohrab and Rustum,” gives a vivid enumeration of a Tatar
host, as it mustered “by the broad-flowing Oxus,” many centuries prior
to the period whereof we write:

    “Kalmucks and Kuzzaks, tribes who stray
     Nearest the pole; and wandering Kirghizes,
     Who come on shaggy ponies from Pamere:[B]

           *       *       *       *       *

     The Tatars of the Oxus, the king’s guard,
     First, with black sheepskin caps, and with long spears;
     Large men, large steeds, who from Bokhara come,
     And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.
     Next, the more temperate Toorkums of the south,
     The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,
     And those from Attruck, and the Caspian sands—
     Light men, and on light steeds, who only drink
     The acrid milk of camels, and their wells.
     And then a swarm of wandering horse, who come
     From far, and a more doubtful service owned—
     The Tatars of Ferghana, from the banks
     Of the Jaxartes—men with scanty beards,
     And close-set skull-caps; and those wilder hordes
     Who roam o’er Kipschak and the northern waste.”

The lieutenants of Genghis, Tchep and Subudaï-bagadur, leaders of the
invasion, fell upon the princes successively, cut down their small
armies, struck terror into the remoter regions of the realm by the
renown of the Asiatic conquests, and by the well-nigh incredible
devastations made on Russian soil. The report was bruited that the
Tatars had closed with the Polovtsui in southeastern Russia. These
sent messengers imploring help from the descendants of Vladimir,
saying: “The Tatars have taken our country; to-morrow they will take
yours.” Scarcely had Mstislaf the Bold, in Galitsch, son of Mstislaf
the Brave,[C] summoned Daniel of Volhynia, Mstislaf Romanovitch of
Kief, and the other leading princes of the south to arm for the common
cause, when the Tatar scouts had wet their horses’ hoofs in the Lower
Dnieper. By the Kalka, a small stream coursing to the Sea of Azof, the
brave, incautious Russian chivalry came within view of the innumerable
mounted barbarians, moving with the speed and the obedience of one man.
Mstislaf the Bold, Daniel of Volhynia, and Oleg of Kursk, precipitously
urged by their angry contempt of the wild pagans, and by their
eagerness to seize the honors of victory, closed with the dark swarms.
In the height of battle, the Polovtsui, seized with affright, fell back
disorderly upon the Russian ranks, causing disturbance and discomfiture
throughout the army. The strange, wild sounds of the foe, the dust and
clouds of arrows, added to the confusion, and soon the rout became
general. The soldiers fled in terror from horsemen, the like of whom
they had never seen, not even among the Petchenegs or the Drevliané;
and for the princes nothing remained but instantaneous death, or flight
to the Dnieper. Six of them already lay stiff and stark upon the field,
amid seventy of their chief boyars, and nine-tenths of the fighting
force; for of the one hundred thousand Russians, barely ten thousand
escaped alive from the banks of the Kalka. Mstislaf Romanovitch of
Kief had not been apprised of the rash advance of the three Princes,
and consequently had remained within his earth-works on the bank of
the Kalka. Abandoned by the fleeing remnant of the Russian host, he
maintained a show of self-defense, until the Tatars made proposals
permitting him to retire without molestation, on condition that ransom
were paid for himself and his drujina; a condition violated as soon as
it was accepted. The drujina were cut down by the sword; the prince
with his two sons-in-law was stifled between planks. This day of
national ruin closed with a festival held by the invaders over their
slain victims.

The realm was silent with terror. Mourning for the fallen brave,
burial of the dead, universal dismay followed this onslaught, that had
been so sudden, so overwhelming, as to overpower any resolution for
further defense. All at once, without notification, the multitudes
of the Tatars vanished as swiftly and as mysteriously as they had
appeared. One would have said their horses had invisible wings. They
had crossed the Ural River, and were reported as beyond the Caspian
Sea. They had returned to their late conquered lands of the East,
where they remained during thirteen years, strengthening their hold,
increasing in boldness, and ever and anon invading China with their
cloud-like hordes. The Princes reverted to their usual discords,
the Mongols gradually ceased to be talked of, save as a frightful
apparition that had disappeared as unaccountably as it had advanced.
Yet the sagacious and the learned among the Russians were not without
forebodings. A comet had traversed the heavens in 1224, prior to the
devouring invasion. Its re-appearance was regarded as a warning, an
_avant-courier_ of the Tatars. The chroniclers record with alarm the
seasons of scarcity and of pestilence, the conflagrations of towns, and
especially the earthquake and sun eclipse of 1230, as portentous omens
for the imperiled realm.

In 1237 the nomads who traversed the lands long before occupied by the
Bulgarians of the Volga,[D] gave notice of a second irruption of the
Mongol hosts, in a line of approach toward Suzdalian Russia. Forthwith
followed tidings of the destruction of the “Great City,” capital of the
half-civilized Bulgarui, and the massacre of all, or nearly all, of the
people of that region. The invaders, led by Batui, nephew of Genghis,
plunged into the forests of the Volga, and sent forward to Riazan two
envoys with a sorcerer or Shaman. “If you want peace give us a tribute
of the tenth of your goods,” ran their message. The ancient Slav
courage and quickness that had spurred the Princes by the Kalka, was
still regnant; and Riazan, with the neighboring States, represented in
all by seven Princes, made answer: “When we are dead you may have the
whole, if you can get them.” But, as before, the rude, wild race laid
low the bravery of the nobler one. The Russian soldiers were cut down,
till scarce any were left to tell the story of the day of ruin. Feodor,
one of the fair youth of the Russian chivalry, as he lay bleeding on
the field, exclaimed: “I thank thee, Great God, that thou takest me now
to thyself. Mine eyes shall not behold Euphrasia the spoil of Batui.”
Euphrasia, his beautiful wife, learning his fate, and forecasting her
own, leaped from her castle window, her infant boy in her arms, crying:
“Receive me, Christ and Feodor! Me, the hunted prey of the savage!”
Oleg the Handsome, found bleeding from many wounds, among his dead
drujina, repelled the offers, the caresses of the Khan, and was hewn
into fragments. The ancient capital, the whole principality of Riazan
was laid waste with sword and fire.

The stronger powers of Tchernigof and Suzdal had stood aloof in this
unequal conflict, but were speedily punished for their supineness.
Iuri (George) the Second, Grand Prince of Suzdal, and nephew of Andrei
Bogoliubski, was driven from the field of battle by his mounted foemen,
who also burned the young growing city of Moscow, and laid siege to the
ancient capital, Vladimir-on-the-Kliasma, left to the guard of Iuri’s
sons, while he went northward in search of help. The citizens prepared
for their fate. Their bishop, Metrophanes, invested the princes and
the boyars with the tonsure and the monastic garb: for the ancient
custom of Russian royalty and nobility is to go down to death thus
habited, symbolizing a formal renunciation of and separation from the
world. When the Mongols, breaking in at all the gates simultaneously,
swarmed into the revered capital, their first act was to burn the
cathedral, whither had taken refuge the family of Iuri, with all the
wealthy and powerful of the principality. Amid the crackling of the
conflagration, the falling of timbers and roofs, the fierce war-cries
of the barbarians, the souls in the sanctuary passed to their eternal
destiny. The cities of Suzdal, Rostof, Iaroslavl, fourteen other large
towns, and nearly all the villages of the principality were destroyed
to the last house, and the last man, in this all-devouring campaign.
The Mongols went in search of Iuri, who was in the realm of Novgorod
raising recruits for his army. When he learned the fate of his capital,
he cried: “Alas, that I have lived to see this day! Why am I left of
all my people?” His headless body received burial at the hands of the
Bishop of Rostof. Vasilko, Iuri’s son, was of comely mien and gracious
manners. The Tatars, notwithstanding their ferocity and brutishness,
were susceptible to the charm of beauty, and certain among them spoke
gently to him: “Stay with us. You shall bear the banner of Batui. He
is worthy.” “Never will I put my hand to the banner of the foemen of
my country, and of the Lord Christ,” replied Vasilko. “Great as is my
woe, ye shall never force me to lift my hand against a Christian. Thy
destruction will also come, O heavy and cursed power! There _is_ a
God, and you are doomed to perdition. Thither will you be hurled, when
your cup is full, ye human tigers!” At these bold words, wrung from
an agonized, but noble Slavic heart, the barbarians “gnashed upon him
with their teeth,” thrust at him with their sabers, and flung his body
into the forest of Scherensk, whither it was rescued, in time, and laid
beside the remains of his father.

On their return route, the Tatars razed “Tver, the ancient and the
rich,” and Torjok, where “the Russian heads fell beneath the Tatar
swords as falls the grass before the scythe.” All traces of human
habitation and human life disappeared in the track of their wanderings;
for their cloud-like advances could not be called a march. The Great
Republic began to tremble, for they had passed within her frontier. But
swollen rivers, and forests till then untrodden by human feet, delayed
the host, who sought, moreover, a softer clime and booty more easily
obtained. It surged up to the Cross of Ignatius, within fifty miles
of Novgorod Veliki, and there turned to the southeast. The village of
Kozelsk (in the modern government of Kalouga), resisted to the death,
and caused severe loss to the attacking squadrons. They named it the
Wicked Town, and left not one of its people alive. Its young prince,
Vasili, was drowned in a pool of blood.

Pereiaslaf and Tchernigof, though defended with similar desperation,
suffered the same destruction (1238). All Russia, save the principality
of Kief, was red with the blood of her children, or marred by the
conflagrations kindled by the Asiatics. Mangu, grandson of Genghis,
coveted the city whose praises had been uttered ofttimes by travelers
and merchants in the Orient. From the left bank of the Dnieper he gazed
upon its walls of hewn stone, its springing towers, its many-domed
churches, roofed with silver and gold. Such a city in such a sunlight,
not even a Tatar could despise. Could it but be preserved intact, a
trophy of the conquest, it might well serve as a capital, a center for
the incoming conquering race. Messengers were sent across the river,
offering what the chief considered doubtless as fair conditions of
surrender. But though Riazan, Vladimir, Tchernigof, Tver, venerable
capitals of powerful states, had been burned to ashes, the indomitable
Slavic heart would

[Illustration: [_Map showing the position of the tribes formerly
inhabiting Russia._]] not endure the thought of servitude. The Kievans
trampled the envoys under foot, and awaited their own fate. Mikhail the
Prince, with Daniel of Galitsch, and the Prince of Volhynia took refuge
in Poland and Hungary. Dmitri, deputy of Daniel, led the citizens in
defending the Polish Gate, the attacking point of the enemy. Batui
brought up its main body with an uproar that seemed to cause the earth
to quake; the grinding of the wooden chariots, the cries of the camels,
the neighing of wild horses, the war shrieks of the Tatars, the plying
of their rude rams, united in such a confused turmoil as drowned
the voices of those within the walls. Scarcely could the commands
of Dmitri be understood. He with his Kievans, however, stood in the
breach till sundown. The next day they retreated to the enclosure
palisaded around the Church of the Tithe, defending their shrine as men
defend their altars when their last hour has come. The greater part of
them perished, write the chroniclers, around the tomb of their great
Iaroslaf; the khan, however, commanded that Dmitri’s life should be
spared; he would not see so noble a foeman ignominiously cut down. The
city was then given over to the fury of the Asiatics. The venerable
Church of the Tithe was so far destroyed that nothing remains of it, at
present, save a few fragments of mosaic, preserved in the museum of the
modern town. The Monastery of the Catacombs, founded by Saint Antony
from Mt. Athos, where the saints lived and died in tombs of their own
construction, was violated; no spot more redolent of sanctity, more
revered than this, exists in the vast Russian Empire.[E] The splendor
of the ancient Slav capital, fatally obscured by this second and most
ruinous violation, has never been recovered. Kief has never thoroughly
shaken from her garments the ashes of the Tatar brands.

The great states of Volhynia and Gallicia, abandoned by their princes,
were in no condition for a resolute resistance, after the ruin of the
rest of the realm. They bent themselves to the Mongol yoke, which had
now been imposed upon all Russia outside the Great Republic. Those of
the people who had escaped the Tatar arrows, were made slaves. The
wives of boyars who had been surrounded with luxury, clothed in costly
stuffs from the Orient, adorned with jewels and with golden collars,
became the menials of the rude and filthy Tatars, were forced to cook
their mutton and grain, and to grind their mills.

When the Princes of Galitsch, Volhynia, and Kief reached Western
Europe, the nations were greatly moved. Louis IX. prepared for a
crusade. Friedrich Second, Emperor of Germany, wrote to the other
sovereigns: “This is a moment to open the eyes of all men, now that
the gallant princes on whom we counted are enslaved or slaughtered.”
Meanwhile the Mongols, ever wandering, impelled by the assertion of the
great Genghis, that all the earth should become subject to one emperor,
passed westward to the hills of Hungary, and were met by a Polish host
at Liegnitz in Silesia. Their advance was strongly contested at Olmütz,
in Moravia, where the Tchek voïvode, Iaroslaf, conducted a stubborn
defense; nor did they pass eastward of this strongly fortified place:
for learning there from the west that the King of Bohemia, allied with
the Dukes of Austria and Karinthia, was coming with a mighty host to
confront them: learning too, from the east, of the death of Oktai,
successor of Genghis, Batui turned his horses’ heads, and made his way
back to the Caspian, his force greatly diminished by the dense and
hostile population of the hill region of Silesia, and by the continual
molestation of a well-trained Polish cavalry, alert and well-prepared.
It was the Slavic peoples,—the Russians, Poles, Silesians, and
Moravians,—who bore the shock, and suffered the terrors of this last of
the great Asiatic incursions. A few heroic Europeans on the outskirts
of European civilization, sent backward the last tidal wave of barbaric
invasion.

Upon the European steppes, apparently extensions of the Asiatic plains,
beside a branch of the Lower Volga, Batui paused to build a “castle,”
or city, Saraï, that became in time the capital of the Russian Tatar
empire, the Golden Horde—so called from its sending a tent made of
cloth of gold to the Grand Khan in Asia, as a part of its annual
tribute; or perhaps from the chief tent of Batui, which was made of
this precious stuff. This empire, called also Kipschak, extended from
the Ural River and the Caspian Sea, westward to the mouth of the
Danube, seventeen hundred miles; and from north to south, above a
thousand miles, covering an area of one million seven hundred thousand
square miles, or about half the area of our republic. Here gathered
the Tatar Mongols, or modern Nogais, the remnants of the Petchenegs
and the Polovtsui (Kumans), the Bashkirs, and later the Kalmucks, with
various Turkish nomad tribes, such as the Tatars of Astrakan, and the
aboriginal Finnish populations,—all save the last named invaders of the
Russian realm from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries. The Golden
Horde remained tributary to the first three successors of Genghis,
but revolted from the fourth, Khubulaï, conqueror of the Chinese, and
announced itself an independent empire in 1260. United and strong
under the firm reign of Batui, it fell into dismemberment under his
successors, till Khan Uzbek, in the fourteenth century, restored its
unity and its primal prosperity. Gradually the nomads who settled upon
its vast plains accepted the faith of Islam, and enrolled themselves
among its fiercest propagandists. Gradually, too, they adopted
partially the civilization of the people they had enslaved. The modern
Russian Tatar is mild, peaceable, industrious, has a keen eye to trade,
and unless in military ranks, cares nothing for warfare. But the advent
of his race ushered a night of gloom over the young empire. All its
arts and industries were annihilated for a century or more; its people
were massacred or enslaved, its governments shattered, its national
growth hopelessly obstructed. Its original Orientalism was intensified
and used as the groundwork for the uprearing of an Oriental barbarism.
The fine sensibilities, the poetry and grace, the generous spirit and
gentle, hospitable manners of the Slav, were inoculated and depraved by
the cruelty, the contempt of life, the falsehood, treachery, perfidy,
and filthiness of the Mongol barbarians. One of the laws of Genghis
was that clothes must never be washed, but worn without washing till
they decayed. A like prohibition extended to the cooking utensils. The
virtues and vices of his race have been enumerated as those of the
animals of their zodiac:

    Thievish as mice,
    Strong as oxen,
    Ferocious as panthers,
    Cautious as hares,
    Subtle as serpents,
    Horrible as dragons,
    Mettlesome as horses,
    Obedient (to their rulers) as sheep,
    Child-loving (of their offspring) as apes,
    Faithful (to their over-lord) as dogs,
    Unclean as swine.

Their ferocity led to the report in Greece and Western Europe that
they had dog’s heads, and lived on human flesh. The degeneracy of
the ancient Slav began with the entrance of the horsemen of Tchep
and Subudaï-bagadur into the Russian realm. In the modern Russian,
compounded of Finn, Turk, Tatar, and German, scarcely a trace of the
nobler Slav lineaments is evident; and from the fourteenth century the
current maxim gains continually in veracity: “Scratch a Russian and you
find a Tatar.”

    [To be continued.]




A GLANCE AT THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.


VI.—THE ROMANCE OF AXEL:

[Concluded.]

Translated by L. A. SHERMAN, PH.D.


           *       *       *       *       *

       From their celestial flight restored
     Spake Axel first: “Now by my sword,
     By Northland’s honor, by each star,
     Which like a bride-maid standing far
     Looks down on us with beams benign,—
     By earth and heaven, thou art mine!
     Oh! it were blessed, far from strife
     In some sweet vale where peace has made
     Her home beneath the mountain’s shade,
     To live with thee in blended life.
     Alas! my oath, my oath prevents.
     With hateful look, as here we stand,
     It speechless thrusts its icy hand
     Between our hearts, and bids me hence.
     But fear not; I shall be released
     With honor from my stringent oath,
     And when next May shall bid us both
     To her luxuriant, floral feast,
     Then shall I surely come again,
     And claim thee as my bride, my wife.
     Farewell, thou jewel of my life,
     Farewell, a long farewell till then!”

       And with the word he turned away.
     He took his sword, and king’s commands,
     And through Czar Peter’s hundred lands
     Resumed his swift and dangerous way,
     Oft hid in woods the whole day through,
     And guided in his paths by night
     From heaven’s peerless signal light,—
     The star of Northland, steadfast, true,
     Or by those stars in heaven’s crown,
     Which know no hour of going down,
     The Wain of Charles, with argent beam,
     And wheel-spikes forged of brightest gold.
     And thus he rode through risks extreme,
     And hordes of foemen manifold,
     To Mälars palace, where amid
     The council’s wonderment he told
     How had escaped their sovereign bold,
     And gave the letter as he bid.

       But meanwhile in her vacant halls
     Maria murmured Axel’s name,
     In woods her sighs repeat the same,
     And vales and hills send back her calls.
    “What oath, pray, was it so austere?
     Some maid in that bleak land so dear,
     An older flame? or is there more
     Than one? My heart spurns three or four!
     Thou Northern maid in snow attire,
     One of us twain must to the grave!
     Thou knowest naught of Southern fire.
     Beyond thy farthest frozen wave,
     Beyond thy snow-peaks burdened high,
     I’ll search thee out, for thou must die!
     Yet—went not Axel when a boy
     From home? Nor has he since that day
     Returned, and far from all annoy
     Of camps and strife love flees away.
     Yes, only truth and honor dwell
     On such a brow, and arched so well.
     His steadfast gaze have I looked through,
     Down to the bottom of his heart,
     As deep the searching sunbeams dart
     Through spring-depths, clear and silver-blue.
     Why fleest thou then? What craved the test
     Of oaths? Was it to crush this breast?
     What—but in space my protest dies,—
     A widow faint with bitter sighs,
     A dove which roams with weary cry
     Through earth and heaven without reply.
     Yes, forests sigh and torrents fall
     Between us, he hears not my call.
     What! if I followed him?—But no!
     It were not meet for woman so.
     A _woman_,—who will know? If I
     But wear a sword, the man is made.
     With danger I have often played,
     And staked life when I threw the die.
     From horseback I was never thrown,
     Nor ever carbine failed me aught.
     Yes, God inspired in me the thought.
     Now Axel thou art all my own!
     I seek thee in thy land of birth,
     I search for thee throughout the earth,
     From dale to dale, from strand to strand,
     And all oaths from thy lips I wring.
     Now take me, War, upon thy wing,
     And set me down in Axel’s land!”

       So said so done. Resolve and deed
     Are one with woman, and with speed
     She is disguised. A casque compressed
     And hid her dark abundant hair,
     A doublet stayed her swelling breast,
     Her powder-sack she filled with care,
     And from her fair white shoulder slung
     Death’s telescope, her carabine.
     Down from a belt of Greek design
     A crooked sabre gleaming hung,
     And either lip and cheek she smeared
     With black,—the hint of future beard.

           *       *       *       *       *

     She seemed, thus girt with belt and sword
     Like Love in hero’s garb concealed,
     Or Klinias’ son’s fair form restored,
     Once painted on the gleaming shield.

       “Farewell, my father’s home, farewell!
     I shall return with love and dwell
     Again within thy walls some day.
     I can not wait, I must away.
     Hide me beneath thy veil, O Night,
     And give my Axel to my sight.”
     Already lay upon the strands
     Of slumbering Sweden’s vanquished lands
     Czar Peter’s city, which has since
     Held crowns in pledge from many a prince.
     Then was it paltry. On its bay
     It like a new-born dragon lay.
     Yet nature is betrayed in young
     That coils itself on heated sands,
     Already venom in its glands,
     And hisses on its cloven tongue.
     A fleet to ravage Svea’s[F] shores
     Was lading there with murderous stores,
     And thitherward Maria pressed,
     And where the ships received their hoard
     Traced out her way, and made request
     That she might have a place on board.
     An officer who walked the quay,
     And saw, surprised, addressed her then:
     “You seem more dangerous, Sir youth,
     To Northern maids than Northern men.
     However it shall go with thee,
     They can not tweak thy beard, forsooth!
     Yet thou canst learn of them the whole
     Of war: it is for death or life;
     But either issue of the strife
     God and Saint Nicholas control.”

       The sails are set, the keel cuts through
     The foam, and hastens toward the west,
     And Svea’s cliffs soon rise to view
     In sunset flames: they stand at rest
     Amid the swirl of tide and wave,
     The giant landmarks nature gave
     Of old to warn of dangerous strands.
     They landed on the famous sands
     Which skirt the base of Sota’s reef,
     Where parted Hjalmar[G] from the side
     Of Ingeborg,[G] his faithful bride,
     Where afterward she died of grief,
     When Odin called the youth above
     To Valhall’s courts, to do his will;
     And there her ghost sits lingering still
     Upon the cliff and mourns her love.

           *       *       *       *       *

       But towns are blazing one by one,
     And children shriek and women fly;
     Too well they know the war begun,
     And bells are ringing far and nigh
     Both night and day the call to arms.
     Alas! the dead hear no alarms.
     Woe! wretched land! what arm can save?
     Thy valiant men are in their grave.
     But still the peril of the land
     Joins boys and old men in a band
     With swords which smote on German mail,
     And saw Gustavus’s hosts prevail,
     And halberds wielded with despatch
     In Denmark, worn with victory,
     And curious shapes of musketry
     With rusted locks, and kindled match.
     Such was the kingdom’s sole defence,
     A paltry troop, and weaponed ill;
     Without surprise or doubt it still
     Went forth to drive the foemen thence.
     These did not battle hand to hand,
     But spread their cloud across the land,
     And lightened from the mountain’s crown
     Where boldest hearts could not aspire,
     And unrevenged death thundered down
     On scanty ranks with ceaseless fire.

       But then, as cometh angry Thor
     With hammer, girt with manhood’s belt,
     So Axel came and joined the war,
     Where flight prevailed and horror dwelt,—
     An angel sent in time of need.
     His arm is death, his glance a frown;
     He posts his men, spurs up and down
     The lines upon his foam-white steed.
    “Stand, Swedes, close up the ranks again!
     I have been sent by Carl to bring
     His greeting home to all his men.
     Our watchword, God, and Carl our king!”
     God and King Charles sound through the field.
     They follow where he leads the way,
     And heights from which the death-shots play
     Are stormed, and in a moment yield.
     And so was stopped the throat of hell,
     And fields were sown with weapons well,
     And blindly raged the sword throughout
     The terrible and bloody rout,
     Till awe-struck swept the robber-band,
     With quick-snatched cables from the strand.

       Now like a sated beast of prey
     Lay Slaughter sleeping on the field.
     From heaven’s tent the moon revealed
     The awful scene with pitying ray.
     Along the shore, with sighs, alone,
     Went Axel where the dead were strewn.
     They lay by twos, men face to face:
     How fierce the grasp of their embrace!
     A faithful clasp wouldst thou behold?
     Think not of lovers who enfold
     Each other, smiling tenderly;
     Go to the battlefield and see
     How hate, inflamed by death’s fierce smart,
     Can press its foeman to its heart!
     Ah! charms of love and happiness
     Are fleeting as the zephyr’s breath,
     But hate, and sorrow, and distress
     Are faithful even unto death.
     Thus musing, in the darkness nigh
     He heard the words of weak complaint:
    “O Axel, water! I am faint,—
     A last farewell before I die!”
     He started at the well known sounds,
     And looking on the rocks espied
     A youth unknown who leaned beside
     The sharp cliff, pale and weak with wounds.
     The moon broke through the cloud and shone
     Upon the face, and with a groan
     Of trembling horror bitterly
     He shrieked, “O Jesus, it is she!”

       Yes, it _was_ she. Despite constraint
     Of pain she spoke in accents faint:
    “Adieu, O Axel; we must part,
     For death stands knocking at my heart.
     Ask not why we meet here to-day.
     Naught but my love brings me away.
     Oh! when the endless shadows close
     And man stands by death’s open door,
     How changed from what it was before
     Seems life with all its paltry woes;
     And nothing but a love like ours
     Shall rise with him to heaven’s powers.
     I craved to know thy oath austere,
     And that it was which brought me here.
     Now I shall search it out on high
     Among the stars of purest ray
     Where it is writ, and shall espy
     Thine innocence as bright as they.
     I know I acted foolishly,
     I know thou sorely mournest me.
     Forgive me, for my love and trust,
     Each tear let fall upon my dust!
     I had not brother, sire or mother;
     _Thou_ wast my mother, father, brother,—
     Thou wast my all! O Axel, swear
     In death that I am dear to thee!
     Thou sayst it,—thou contentest me.
     The sweetest of its sagas rare
     Hath life told me. Shall we not part,
     Thy maiden folded to thy heart?
     And shall not here her dust be blended
     With this dear soil thou hast defended?
     See, Axel, yonder cloud shut in
     The moon. When it shines out again,
     I shall be dead. My spirit then
     Shall on far-distant shores begin
     To pray all good, and with all eyes
     Of heaven, watch thee from the skies.
     Set on my grave a Southern rose,
     And when in snows its bloom shall fade,
     Child of the sun, think of thy maid
     Who slumbers under Northern snows.
     Her morning years were quickly passed,—
     See, Axel, now the cloud moves fast—
     Farewell,—farewell!”—She sank, and sighed
     And pressed her lover’s hand, and died.

       Then forth from realms of nether air
     Not death, but death’s young brother rose,—
     Pale, fierce insanity, which goes
     With poppy wreaths in streaming hair,
     And glares up sometimes at the sky,
     And sometimes downward at the earth,
     Distorts its ashen lips in mirth,
     And weeps from its low-burning eye.
     It comes and touches Axel’s brain,
     And ever afterwards his feet
     Pace round the grave with restless beat,
     As once in saga-days the slain
     Were wont to flit, and linger nigh
     Where some deep-buried treasure lay,
     And all the shore heard night and day
     His pitiful, dejected cry:—
    “Be still, ye billows, cease your roar;
     Ye must not smite so on the shore.
     What do ye but disturb my dreams?
     I can not love your foamy streams
     That dance blood-mixed along the sands,
     For ye bring death to these my strands.
     Here lately lay a youth and bled,
     And roses on his grave I spread,
     For he was like—I know well whom;—
     I bear _her_ home in spring’s first bloom.
     They tell me that earth lulls my love
     To slumber, that grass grows above
     Her faithful breast: they are deceived—
     She sat upon the rock and grieved,
     Pale was she as one painteth death,—
     But that came of the moon’s faint light;
     And cold her lips and cheek that night—
     That came but of the north wind’s breath.
     I bade my own beloved stay,
     Her fingers stroked my locks away:
     My brain was dark and heavy then,
     But soon methought it light again.
     Far off in yonder east there shine
     The vanished days, alas! how few,
     Those days as fair as heaven’s blue
     When Axel lived the life divine.
     A castle stood in groves of green,
     And in that castle dwelt a queen.
     I lay in forests murdered there;
     She brought my life back in a kiss,
     And from her heart she gave me bliss,—
     Her heart of love, so warm and rare.
     Now lies it frozen in her breast,
     Her withering breast, and all is past!—
     Ye stars of yonder spaces vast,
     Take off from me your burning eyes!
     A morning star as bright as ye,
     I saw sink in a bloody sea.
     It smells of blood yet by the strand
     And blood there is upon my hand.”

       Such was his plaint on Sota’s shore,
     Where yet he stands at break of day,
     At night-fall will not go away,
     But lingers weeping as before.
     One morning saw him lifeless there,
     His hands clasped upward as in prayer,
     While on his cheeks the last tears lie,
     Half stiffened in the morning’s chill;
     But on the grave is fastened still
     The viewless luster of his eye.

           *       *       *       *       *

       Such was the saga that I heard;
     How deep my tender heart was stirred.
     Full thirty years have passed away,
     Yet lives it in my soul to-day.
     For with lines definite and sharp
     Stand childhood’s fancies graven well
     In hearts of skalds, where small they dwell,
     As Aslög[H] in King Heimer’s harp,

     Till summoned they come forth as she,
     Betraying god-like pedigree
     In dazzling raiment, gestures high,
     And golden hair, and kingly eye.
     Ah! full with golden lyres is hung
     The heaven of our childhood’s hours,
     And all that skalds may since have sung,
     As great as heroes, small as flowers,
     Already in a fairer guise
     Has passed before our youthful eyes.
     Yet when melodiously ring
     The far-piped notes of quails in spring,
     When leaves the moon its eastern wave,
     A ghost uprising from the grave,
     And paints so mournfully and still
     The hue of death on dale and hill,
     Then sounds of sighs invade mine ear,
     Then seems as if I still could hear
     The ancient tale, and told so wide,
     Of Axel and his Russian bride.

    [To be continued.]




PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.

By C. E. BISHOP.


VII.—THE JOHN BROWN OF THE ENGLISH SLAVES.

Macaulay has remarked as singular the fact that two great relics of
barbarism in England were never abolished by law: disappeared, melted
away before the advance of civilization. These were feudalism and human
slavery.

It is also a remarkable fact that there never was in England an
insurrection of the laboring classes, save one, that in the reign of
Richard II., of sad fortune. The same can not be said of any other
nation. This favorable contrast for England is due to several causes
which we need not recount. But England’s one servile rising came very
near putting an abrupt end to serfdom by violence; emancipation was
sanctioned and pardoned by royal writs, and would have been confirmed
by act of Parliament had that body contained fewer slaveholders at the
time; _i. e._, had it been more truly a representative body of the
English people.

Wat Tyler was the John Brown of that movement, and Richard of Bordeaux
came near being its Abraham Lincoln. Death in the guise of the Black
Plague had struck a fierce blow at English slavery about the middle
of the fourteenth century. [See last CHAUTAUQUAN.] It made labor so
scarce that the old laws binding the laborer to the soil and compelling
him to work without hire, proved abortive; insomuch that we find
Parliament soon at work passing the new “Statute of Laborers.” It
was made to reach as well freedmen as serfs, for it said any man who
was out of work “must serve the first employer who shall require him
to do so,” and must not accept higher wages than obtained before the
plague; and it forbade him going beyond his parish to hire out, under
pain of arrest as a vagabond, branding on the forehead with a hot iron
being one of the penalties. But this statute did not work, either; for
succeeding Parliaments adopted it over and over again. That was the
way they made laws more binding. King Edward I. reaffirmed to respect
the Great Charter some thirty times. And yet, farmers and lords whose
lands were lying waste, or whose herds were running wild for want of
help, would offer large pay to get it and men were reckless enough to
hire out to those who would pay the most, the much-enacted Statute of
Laborers to the contrary, notwithstanding.

Then a crazy step was taken. An effort was made to supply landlords
with unrequited help by remanding freed serfs to slavery on frivolous
pretexts and legal technicalities, the ex-master usually controlling
the decision of the manorial court before which these questions were
tried. Of course the accused freedman had there little chance for
right. The consequence was that the woods and wastes Boon became
filled with bands of men who had been slaves, had tasted the sweets of
freedom, and had turned outlaws and chronic vagabonds sooner than come
within the reach of such “justice.”

While this was going on, during twenty years, other things helped to
create the spirit of insubordination. John Wickliffe had begun to
thunder against the tyranny of Rome and the corruptions of the clergy,
and to preach individual liberty of conscience. The sect of Lollards,
of which he was the head, had offshoots of ruder tenets and practices.
A preacher named John Ball had for many years itinerated, with all
England for his circuit and the fields, market-places and church-yards
for his chapels. He “preached politics” with an unction and genuine
eloquence, as this condensed report of one of his sermons will show:

    “Good people, things will never go well in England so
    long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right
    are they whom we call lords greater than we? Why do
    they hold us in serfage? If we all came of the same
    father and mother, of Adam and Eve, [see the danger of
    putting the Bible into common people’s hands!] how can
    they say or prove that they are better than we, if it
    be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what
    they spend in their pride? They are clothed in velvet
    and warm in their furs and their ermine, while we are
    covered with rags. They have wine and spices and fair
    bread, we oat-cake and straw and water to drink. They
    have leisure and fine houses; we have pain and labor,
    the rain and wind in the fields. And yet it is of us
    and of our toil that these men hold their state.”

And John Ball, like all men who move the masses, boiled his whole
political and religious platform down into a motto with a rhyme to it,
so that the most stolid ignorance could learn and remember it—for,
mark you, poetry is the aspiration of the ignorant as well as the
inspiration of the gifted:

    When Adam delved and Eve span,
    Who was then the gentleman?

Immortal old epigrammatist and poet of democracy! His lines are heard
to-day wherever manhood rebels against the pride and tyranny of
property. It was in every poor man’s mouth in England for a quarter of
a century, and it did a wonderful work, that little couplet. Such is
the power of a thought!

There were other street orators and other poets. An Oxford student
wrote “The Plaints of Piers, the Ploughman,” the saddest, fiercest
protest against caste that England ever heard.

While all this work was going on in the huts and fields of England, her
proud nobles were squabbling over the dotage and around the dying bed
of Edward III., and for the control of his grandson, Richard II.; and
while they were thus dissipating government, her enemies were assailing
her on all sides. Armies and fleets were raised, and campaigns and
expeditions fooled away, while the treasure was squandered in both
military failures and court prodigality and corruption. Taxes were
laid, on the heels of defeats which made the old archers of Cressy,
Nevill’s Cross, and Poictiers mad with shame and rage.

The crowning act of folly and injustice came when Parliament laid a
poll-tax on every person in the kingdom over fifteen years of age. This
made the poor man pay as much as the rich; and more, if the poorer the
man the larger his family, which was probably the case then as now.
There were no census statistics, and the tax-gatherers had to make a
domiciliary visit in every case, an inquisition Englishmen especially
resent; for the feeling that every man’s house is his castle dates
back to the life of family segregation for which they were remarked in
old Roman times. The tax, payable in money, came hard on poor people,
who generally worked for their food and clothing, paid in kind. With
an exaggerated idea of the population of England, Parliament had not
levied a large enough unit per head. The rich, instead of helping
the poor heads of families to pay the tax, as directed in the writs,
shirked their own share. Thus the returns were insufficient to meet
government needs, and the tax-gatherers were sent out again, with
sheriffs’ posses, to glean more thoroughly.

With all these exactions when the times were ripe for an outbreak, you
may be sure England was soon in a fever of excitement. Collectors’
processes began to be resisted, and they and their posses driven away
by force. One day a rough collector went into the house of a man in
Dartford, Kent, named Walter, a tyler by trade. Demanding his tax the
collector insisted, in spite of the mother’s denial, that the eldest
daughter was over fifteen years of age, and at last, to settle the
dispute, he made an insulting proposition and laid hands on the girl.
The screams of the mother and children brought the father running from
his shop, hammer in hand, and seeing his daughter struggling in the
arms of the man, he smashed his brains out with the hammer, regardless
of the royal coat-of-arms. Walter himself had worn that uniform, for
he had been a brave campaigner in France. The deed was done, and his
life was forfeit. Instead of shrinking from the consequences, he placed
himself at the head of his neighbors, who now gathered around him. His
hammer had struck the percussion cap to the mine long prepared.

In another part of Kent there was another outbreak. A noble claimed
a runaway bondsman and shut him up in Rochester Castle. The people
stormed the castle and delivered the prisoner-slave to a double
freedom. Couriers now went through all England bearing calls to rise,
couched in rude rhymes which tell at once of the lowly state of the
masses and of the art of those who called to arms. One ran thus:

    “John Ball greeteth you all,
     And doth for to understand he hath rung your bell,
     Now, right and might, will and skill,
     God speede every dele.”

There were several other leaders, and some of the proclamations were
issued anonymously. They ran thus:

    “Help truth and truth shall help you. Now reigneth
    pride in place and covetise [covetousness] is counted
    wise, and lechery withouten shame, and gluttony
    withouten blame. Envy reigneth with treason, and sloth
    is taken in great season. God do bote! for now is time.”

    “Jack Carter prays you all that ye may make a good end
    of that ye have begun, and do well and aye better and
    better. For at the even men heareth the day.”

    “Truth hath been set under a lock, and falseness and
    guile reigneth in every stock. True love is away that
    was so good and clerks [priests] for wealth work us
    woe. God do bote for now is tyme.

                               [signed] “JACK TREWMAN.”

These unmistakable references to preparations already made, help us
to understand how it was that almost in a day Wat Tyler found himself
at the head of a hundred thousand men marching on London. One force
under a leader named Jack Straw, came by Canterbury, which threw open
its gates, as “the whole town was of their sort,” and they gutted
the palace of the archbishop, who had ground the face of the poor by
assuming a monopoly of all the grinding of grain in his district, on
which he had placed excessive toll.

There is something very pathetic in this movement on London. They
would appeal to the young king himself, and not to the selfish dukes,
his uncles, who guarded him and misgoverned the realm. The son of the
Black Prince, the defender of England, and, so long as he lived, the
protector of the people against the cruelty of the nobles, should
hear their appeal and do them right. It was said the boy king was no
better than a prisoner in his uncles’ hands; peradventure they might
deliver him and themselves by the same blow. All the way to London
they made everybody they took swear allegiance to Richard. But all the
lawyers they captured they hung, as the instruments of oppression, the
contrivers of technicalities by which freedmen had been re-enslaved.

And thus they settled down on Blackheath, before London, June 12,
1381. Panic had gone before them. John, the Duke of Lancaster, fled
to Scotland, deserting the young king he had overruled with no gentle
hand. All the knights and nobles about the king threw themselves into
the tower. The king’s mother, the widow of the Black Prince, hearing
of the disturbance in her country home, made brave by a mother’s fear,
hastened to London, passing through the camp of the insurgents unhurt
and with honor; she kissed Walter Tyler and Jack Straw and took their
devotion to her son.

In the general panic Richard was the only man in England equal to the
emergency. Man! He was only sixteen, but at about that age his father
had won his spurs at Cressy. He took boat on the Thames and rowed
down to the insurgents’ camp. The Archbishop of Canterbury and some
ministers were with him, and when Tyler asked the king to land and talk
with them, promising respect and loyalty, this prelate prevented him,
thus confirming the stories of the king’s duress. The rescue of their
sovereign became their first object. They marched on the city, and the
sympathizing citizens threw open the gates.

Lancaster’s stately Savoy Palace was soon in flames; also the
Marshalsea and the King’s Bench Temple, the dwellings and offices of
the hated lawyers. But one of their number who undertook to carry off
a silver tankard from the destruction was immediately drowned in the
Thames. “We are no thieves and robbers; we are not nobles and bishops;
we are honest workingmen, come to deliver the king and ourselves,”
said Tyler. The next day they captured the tower, took the archbishop,
the royal treasurer, and the commissioner of the poll-tax, and cut off
their heads as traitors on Tower Hill.

The king, now delivered from his court, sent word to Tyler that
he would meet them at Mile-End, just out of London, to hear their
grievances. The knights of the Tower and the guards wanted to gather
a force and attack the mob, but the king rode out unarmed, with a few
companions, to this historic appointment.

It was a memorable scene, and a poetic coincidence. The day was the
anniversary of that other demand for rights from King John. Just one
hundred and sixty-six years before Magna Charta has been wrung from
a king at Runnymede. Now the boy king and the peasant leader meet to
treat on equal terms. Justice levels all distinctions. The graceful,
delicate and beautiful descendant of the Plantagenets and the rough,
unkempt, Celto-Saxon artisan—the personification of the two armies at
Hastings—the types of the extremes of English civilization; extremes
destined to draw nearer together through centuries of civil war, of
martyrdoms for free thought and speech, of sufferings and defeats, ever
bravely and persistently renewed by generation after generation of
laborers on the one side: through discrownings, beheadings and gradual
curtailment of royal power on the other. Two chief agencies were to
draw these extremes together—gunpowder and printer’s ink. The one to
blow feudalism off the earth and put an end to baronial domination—the
other to unlock the storehouses of thought and introduce the rule
of mind, to the permanent limitation of those other two classes of
tyrants: priests and kings. The despised class, represented by the
ruder of these two “high contracting parties,” is to rise by slow and
stormful evolution: the slave to become freeman—the freeman, yeoman—the
yeoman, citizen—the citizen, an elector of rulers; out of all to be
evolved that splendid, conservative, expansive power of England, the
Middle Class. Happy England! that the two extremes stood that day and
thereafter not as antagonists but as treaty-makers.

Richard found the Toussaint l’Overteur of that day prepared with
very distinct and well-grounded grievances, though not numerous or
unreasonable. He asked—

First—The abolition of slavery.

Second—Limitation of rent of land to fourpence an acre.

Third—Liberty to buy and sell in all markets and fairs, without
favoritism or toll.

Fourth—Pardon for what they had done in order to obtain this interview.

The young king, more just than well-informed, more generous than
politic, promised it all, and said he would immediately cause
franchises and letters of pardon and emancipation to be drawn up under
the royal seal. Great shouts of joy went up—premature shouts indeed!

During all that day and succeeding night thirty clerks were busy
drawing up the charter of freedom and amnesty for every parish and
township; and the next day the great body of the insurgents marched
home, the king’s proclamation in their hands, the king’s banners over
their heads, and in their hearts such joy as the children of Israel
felt when Miriam’s timbrel rang out its triumph over the Red Sea.

Well if this had been the end of it; but there was to be a dark and
bloody finale for Richard and Walter. Walter Tyler and many of the
Kentish men remained behind, dissatisfied with the terms of the writs.
We do not know the causes of Tyler’s refusal to accept the charters.
Perhaps he foresaw what must and did come: that as soon as this
pressure was removed from the young king, and his evil counselors
again got control, all that had been given to the people would be
withdrawn, and he wanted guaranties of fulfillment, just as the barons
had done with John. However it was, we only know that the King and his
attendants riding through Smith Fields the next day, chanced upon Tyler
and his followers. Tyler rode out alone to speak with the king, and the
mayor of London reproached him for approaching the king uninvited. Hot
words followed, and the mayor stabbed Tyler dead, in sight of all his
men.

Instantly thousands of arrows were drawn to let fly on the king and
his party. Well for him had they sped and ended his unhappy career
there, with the crown of emancipator upon it, instead of the failure,
disgrace, and violent death that were to terminate it. Putting spurs to
his horse he rode directly into the midst of the angry mob. “I will be
your captain! Follow me!” he cried. This seemed to their simple-minded
loyalty the obtaining of the end for which they had come out, and they
followed the boy with docility to the fields at Islington, where a
considerable force of royal troops was met. The king restrained the
courage which now returned redundantly to the nobles and forbade the
slaughter they were anxious to begin, dismissing the peasants to their
homes.

And now the nobility began their revenge everywhere, and the embers of
resistance were again blown into flames here and there. Green sketches
the stamping-out of the fire:

    “The revolt, indeed, was far from being at an end. A
    strong body of peasants occupied St. Albans. In the
    eastern counties 50,000 men forced the gates of St.
    Edmondsbury and wrested from the trembling monks a
    charter of enfranchisement for the town. Sittester, a
    dyer of Norwich, headed a strong mass of the peasants,
    under the title of the ‘King of the Commons,’ and
    compelled the nobles he had captured to act as his
    meat-tasters, and to serve him during his repast. But
    the warlike Bishop of Norwich fell lance in hand on
    the rebel camp and scattered them at the first shock.
    The villagers of Billericay demanded from the king the
    same liberties as their lords, and on his refusal threw
    themselves into the woods and fought two hard fights
    before they were reduced to submission.”

For many years there were camps of refuge of these outlawed peasants in
forests and upon lonely islands—Englishmen exiles in their own country
for the cause of human rights.

The prelates and lawyers gathered around Richard with their sophisms
and technicalities, to show him he had done an unlawful thing with
his proclamations of emancipation and clemency; the barons backed the
constitutional arguments up with fierce threats about this “royal
usurpation,” insomuch that Richard within two weeks recalled and
canceled all his charters, and let loose the unrestrained arrogance of
the nobles on the people. So many and such unwarranted executions took
place that Parliament subsequently granted an act of indemnity to the
savage perpetrators, who, it says, “made divers punishments upon the
said villeins and other traitors without due process of law, but only
to appease and cease the apparent mischief.” All manumissions were
declared void. But Richard submitted to the Parliament the proposition
to abolish slavery if Parliament would lend its sanction. The lords
and gentlemen replied, “The serfs are our chattels, and the king can
not take our property from us without our consent. And this consent we
have never given, and never will give were we all to die in one day.”
Had Richard insisted on keeping faith with the lower classes of his
subjects, had he placed his crown and life in the scale against human
slavery, he would have gone into history as the Great Emancipator
of Englishmen, or as Freedom’s Greatest Martyr. Either destiny was
preferable to the ignominious end he did meet. He was a man for an
emergency, but not a statesman for one of the world’s great crises. But
in a boy of sixteen were not his conduct and his attempt at a great
deed wonderful?

It is a curious thing to reflect on that Abraham Lincoln, in a
government of constitutional law and in a position of very limited
powers, could with a stroke of the pen decree emancipation, while
Richard, a ruler of almost absolute powers in an age of ill-defined
authority and much lawless administration, could not take the chains
off one of his subjects.

At this distance it is difficult to determine just how much influence
the only servile uprising of England had upon the emancipation of her
serfs. It at least stamped a wholesome dread of the laboring classes
into the selfish souls of the nobles, a dread that had much influence
on the contentions of succeeding reigns, and raised the common people
in importance. Slavery did not disappear for over two centuries; “Good
Queen Bess” got her much gain by selling her subjects for slaves in
the West Indies. But if “they never die who perish in a good cause,”
the blood of Walter the Tyler aided the cause of human liberty, and he
ought to be canonized as one of her martyrs, instead of being treated
as the violent and bloody rioter that most historians make him.

    [To be continued.]


ANECDOTES IN SERMONS.—The fashion which once prevailed of introducing
historical anecdotes into addresses from the pulpit, is illustrated
by the following extract from a sermon by the martyr Bishop Ridley:
“Cambyses was a great emperor, such another as our master is; he had
many lord-deputies, lord-presidents, and lieutenants under him. It is
a great while ago since I read the history. It chanced he had under
him, in one of his dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of
rich men; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding;
a hand-maker in his office, to make his son a great man; as the old
saying is, ‘Happy is the child whose father goeth to the devil.’ The
cry of the poor widow came to the emperor’s ear, and caused him to flay
the judge quick, and laid his skin in his chair of judgment, that all
judges that should give judgment afterward should sit in the same skin.
Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge’s
skin. I pray God we may once see the sign of the skin in England.”




PHYSIOLOGY.


Physiology is a science, because it embodies a collection of general
principles and ascertained truths relating to a particular subject,
and is called a natural science because these truths are founded on
observation. The word “physiology” is derived from two Greek words
meaning a discourse about nature; but it is used in a restricted
sense, and is the science of the functions of the different parts of
any living body. Thus we have animal and vegetable physiology, while
the former is divided into human and comparative. The first of these
divisions relates only to man, while the other reviews the entire
animal kingdom.

Our object is to teach some of the simple truths of human physiology;
such as may be intelligible without any extended knowledge of other
sciences. It must be remembered, however, that a more thorough
and complete study of physiology can not be undertaken without a
considerable acquaintance with such sciences as mechanics, hydraulics,
optics, etc., without which the action of the muscles, the circulation
of fluids, and vision can not be properly and fully comprehended.

Whenever a piece of mechanism, designed for some particular use,
is brought under our notice, and we wish to understand its manner
of working, we naturally inquire about its structure; for without
some knowledge of how its component parts are put together, and by
what means it is put in motion, we can not hope to understand how it
performs the part which we see it do. Such is the case, for example,
with a watch or steam engine; their parts must be carefully studied in
order that their workings may be fully understood.

Hence, it will be observed from what has been said, that it is
impossible to study the uses of various parts of the body without some
knowledge of anatomy, this being that branch of knowledge which treats
of structure.

In order that anatomy may be studied the organs must be dissected.

The words “anatomy” and “dissection” have the same literal meaning, the
former being derived from the Greek language, and the latter from the
Latin, meaning to cut apart or separate. But anatomy is employed to
signify the science of structure in living bodies, and dissection is
used to denote the unravelling or laying bare the parts of the body, by
means of which anatomy is studied.

The words “organ,” “organization,” and “organize,” are so convenient
and necessary that we must know what they mean. The word “organ”
signifies some part or parts of the body that have a particular use or
function: thus, muscles are organs of motion, and nerves of sensation;
the eye is the organ of sight, and the heart and blood vessels are the
organs for circulating the blood. Now, any structure is said to be
organized, or to have organization, that possesses the properties which
distinguish a living body from one that never had life. Therefore we
speak of the organic world as distinguished from the inorganic; the
former includes plants and animals, the latter minerals, etc.

The nature of that mysterious principle which we call life is unknown
to scientists. Yet we may know and understand many of those things
which are believed by physiologists concerning life. Certain of them
believe that life is a phenomenon that follows organization; or, in
other words, that organization is the cause, life the result; while
others contend that organization is the result of life. In the former
life is produced by changes that take place in matter, under the
influence of those forces of nature called heat, light, electricity,
and chemism; by the latter theory all these forces are present and
act under the influence of a potent force called life. This will be
our belief: Life is a distinct endowment, capable of propagation, and
superior to all other forces by which it is attended. Let us see by
what means living bodies are distinguished from unorganized. Living
bodies increase in size; so do minerals; the former by the addition
of material throughout the tissue, the latter by outside additions.
Organized bodies have a limited existence. All are subject to constant
change, and to final dissolution. They all spring from a parent, and
only originate in this method. The opposite characteristics belong to
unorganized matter.

It has been the business of chemistry to determine the ingredients
of the earth and atmosphere, by resolving them into what are called
elements. By the word element we mean that which can not be resolved
into any simpler form. For example, take a piece of chalk; by chemical
action it can be divided into a gas called carbonic acid, and a solid
called lime; therefore, it is known that chalk is a compound body. If
we take a piece of iron or gold there is no process known by which we
can resolve it into simpler form, and these are therefore elements.
There are over sixty elements and many of them are found in the human
body. All these elements are derived from unorganized matter, and the
special conditions under which they are formed in organisms is due to
the principle of life. The predominant elements that make up the human
body are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, while iron, potassium,
sodium, phosphorous, calcium, exist in smaller quantity. These
different elements are variously combined to form compounds, of which
water is the most abundant, for it forms more than two-thirds of the
entire weight of the body: water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen.
The principal organic compounds are albuminous, of which the white of
the egg is a typical example; the gelatinous, or jelly-like compounds,
including cartilage, oleaginous, or fatty compounds, and saccharine,
or sugary compounds, such as starch. The first two contain nitrogen,
hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, while fat and starch are rich in carbon,
but lack nitrogen. In tracing back the development of living matter to
its simplest form, it is found to exist as specks without any definite
shape or structure, or as granules of extreme minuteness, perhaps the
ten thousandth part of an inch in diameter.

This elemental living matter is called protoplasm. Its simplest form is
termed a cell, and the word is applied to little bodies varying much in
form. Thus some cells are really little bags filled with fluid. Such
are those in which the fat is deposited; others are disk like, others
lengthened, while some so-called cells are simply masses of jelly.

Out of these organic compounds all the softer tissue of the body is
formed, such as fibrous, muscular, cellular, and adipose tissue.

_Fibrous tissue_ consists of fine threads, arranged in various ways, to
adapt it to some special use; some of these threads are elastic, others
are wholly inelastic. These tissues of mixed character form what is
called connective tissue, which is found throughout the body.

Fat is deposited in little cells situated in the connective tissue.

_Muscular tissue_, which forms the great bulk of the body, is easily
recognized by its ruddy color, and it constitutes what is known as
“flesh.” It is fibrous, and if these fibers be examined under the
microscope there will appear, in those under the influence of the will,
transverse markings, while the muscles not under the will-power lack
these markings.

_Nervous tissue_ is that which superintends all the actions of the
living body. It is accumulated in nerve centers of which the principal
is the brain. It consists of minute cells in these nerve centers, and
of delicate tubes filled with nervous matter throughout the organs of
the body. Such tubes are called nerves.

_The skeleton_ is the frame-work of the body, and serves to support all
the softer organs as well as to protect them. It is composed of bones
which serve as attachments for the muscles.

_Bone_ is the firm tissue of the body, and to a certain degree is hard
and brittle. If bone be burned its brittleness is very much increased,
but if it be placed in acid it loses its brittle properties. Thus we
see that bone is made of two entirely different materials. The one
called “animal matter” is easily burned out, while the other called
“mineral matter” resists the action of heat, but is quickly dissolved
by acid. The mineral matter is a compound of lime. This it will be seen
gives to the bones their rigidity. Bones are of various shapes and
sizes, adapted to the work which they have to perform.

The most remarkable part of the skeleton is the spinal column, commonly
called the back-bone. It is made up of twenty-six bones, or spines,
which are united together in a marvelous manner, combining strength and
freedom of motion. Each spine has a central aperture which communicates
with that of the adjoining spines, thus forming a long canal in which
the spinal cord lies. This cord connects the brain with the various
parts of the body. There is a soft cushion of cartilage between each
spine, which adds much to the elasticity of the back-bone, protecting
the brain from shocks. This protection is further accomplished by
the curvature of the spine. These bones are not placed directly over
each other, but are so arranged as to give three curves to the spinal
column. Along the column there are openings, at each joint, through
which the nerves come to supply fibers to the different organs of the
body.

_The spine rests on the pelvis_, which is a large double bone,
basin-shaped, that sustains the abdominal organs. The pelvis, in turn,
rests on the thigh bones.

_The thigh_ bone, “femur,” is the largest single bone in the body; it
is joined to the pelvis by a ball and socket joint, an arrangement
which permits its motion in any direction. The femur is supported by
the bones of the leg. These are two in number in each leg, the tibia
and fibula. The former is much the larger, and the latter is often
called the “splint bone.”

The bones of the arm corresponding to those of the leg are the humerus,
the radius, and the ulna. The humerus is the bone of the upper arm,
and is large and strong; it articulates with the body in so perfect a
manner that the great variety of motions required to be performed is
easily and gracefully accomplished. This bone is fastened by a ball
and socket joint, but is not, like the thigh bone, firmly fixed to an
immovable bone. It is attached to a broad bone called the scapula, or
blade bone; this is fastened to the body by muscles which give it great
freedom of motion. The bones of the fore arm are the radius and ulna:
these are nearly of the same size; in this they differ from the leg
bones.

_The wrist_, composed of eight bones, forms the support for the
tendons, blood vessels, and nerves which pass to the hand. To these are
attached the metacarpal bones which support the phalanges, or bones
of the fingers. The arrangement of the bones of the foot is, in many
respects, like that of the hand. However, the bones of the foot form an
arch which acts like a spring when the weight of the body falls on it,
thus helping to ward off shocks and jars.

_The skull_ is a large bony case in which the brain is lodged, and by
which it is protected. It is composed of several pieces firmly united
by a very irregular line of union. The attachments of the skull are the
jaw bones, nasal bones, and the cheek bones.

_Joints_ have been provided wherever parts of the skeleton require
motion; they are of several kinds, chief among which are the ball and
socket, hinge, and flat joints. The hip has been mentioned as a perfect
example of the ball and socket joint, while the knee presents an
example of the hinge.

_Muscles_ are necessary to all motion, and are found everywhere
throughout the body. They are the active agents, which, under the
control of the nerve centers, do all the work necessary to carrying
on the functions of the organs. They are endowed with a remarkable
property called contraction. How this is accomplished is not fully
understood, but when stimulated by nerve force or electricity they
shorten and widen. This brings their ends nearer together; also the
parts to which they are attached. They are always attached to movable
parts; their attachment is a tendon at one end, and a fan-like
distribution of their fibers at the other. Tendons are inelastic
fibrous tissue, very strong, and consequently much smaller than the
muscle. They are to muscles what tugs are to horses. Muscles are either
flexors or extensors; the former bend the joints, the latter straighten
them.

_The skin_ forms an exterior covering for the body, and is employed for
other and very important functions. Its appendages are the hair and
nails. Some of the uses of the skin are these: It is highly sensitive
and capable of distinguishing various sensations; it has the property
of excreting, of secreting, and of absorbing. It is an organized
texture containing blood vessels, glands and nerves. It is composed of
several layers; the outside, called the epidermis, is not supplied with
blood vessels, and is produced by the under layers.

_The glands_ of the skin are first, those which secrete the
perspiration. This is poured out to keep the temperature of the body
even, also to rid the circulation of many injurious substances. Then
there are glands which secrete an oily matter which aids in preserving
the softness and pliability of the skin. These glands are called
sebaceous glands. Hair is said to be an appendage of the skin because
its texture is essentially similar to that of the cuticle. Nails, also,
are but modifications of the skin. The fact that the epidermis is being
constantly cast off and renewed, and that matter is both secreted and
excreted continually, renders frequent washing of the skin necessary to
health.

_Digestion_—In animals the arrangements which exist for converting
aliment into blood are more or less complicated according to the
requirements of each class; and this conversion is called assimilation,
a term which includes digestion and those changes which take place in
the blood and tissues, by which new material is added to them.

The preparation of the food for assimilation by the tissues is
accomplished in a long tube called the alimentary canal. This canal
is made up of various parts having different functions and different
construction. These parts we will briefly describe. They are the mouth,
pharynx, æsophagus, stomach, small and large intestine.

As solid food requires to be broken up or ground before it passes
into the stomach, the mouth is provided with teeth firmly implanted
in the jaws, while the lower jaw is moved by strong muscles in two
directions, one vertical, the other lateral. Man is supplied with two
sets of teeth; the first adapted to the jaws of childhood; the second
larger, which replace the former, are designed to last through life.
The rudiments of each set are found in the jaws before birth. During
the grinding or mastication of the food it is moistened and softened by
a fluid called saliva. This also acts chemically upon it, changing the
starch into sugar. The food is carried from the mouth to the stomach in
a long tube called the æsophagus, by means of the muscular contraction
of this tube.

_The stomach_ is a flask-shaped organ consisting of a double wall of
tissue, the outer one being muscular, the inner one vascular. This
latter membrane has a large supply of blood vessels, which convey the
blood out of which the gastric juice is manufactured and secreted by
the little glands of this membrane. The gastric juice is a fluid which
contains an active ingredient called pepsin. This, aided by the acid
which this fluid contains, effects a remarkable change on the albumen
of the food, making it a liquid. From the stomach the food passes into
the small intestine, where it receives from a small tube the pancreatic
juice which changes the fat into an emulsion.

_The intestine_ is a tube, about twenty-five feet in length, which,
like the stomach, has a double wall. Its inner coat contains multitudes
of little projections called “villi.” These contain blood vessels which
absorb and carry off the liquified food. It also secretes a fluid
called intestinal juice, which acts upon the unchanged starch, making
it into sugar. Its muscular wall by a continuous contraction produces a
motion known as the “peristaltic motion,” which carries the food onward
in its course. The intestine also receives the bile, a fluid produced
by the liver.

_The liver_ is the largest gland in the body. It receives the portal
vein which conveys the blood from the intestines. This vein, after
dividing and sub-dividing, thus bringing blood into communication with
all parts of this organ, is again collected into a main trunk which
passes on toward the heart. During its passage through the liver the
bile is eliminated from the blood by the little cells of which this
gland is composed. From the liver the bile is carried toward the
intestine, into which it is poured to assist in digesting the food, and
to be itself changed.

Besides the little blood vessels in the _villi_ of the intestines there
is another set of vessels called the lacteals, which aid in taking up
the digested food and pouring it into the circulation; also, throughout
the body a set of similar vessels collect the waste material and pour
it into the great veins, returning to the heart, in order that it may
be renovated or cast off; these are the lymphatics.

_The kidneys_ are great excretory organs, and are similar in shape to
those of a sheep, but are somewhat larger. They are glands, and excrete
urea, as well as other salts and waste materials, all of which are
highly poisonous if not removed from the blood.

_Blood_ is the life-giving fluid of the body: it is the source from
which all tissues are built, and it is the workman that carries the
waste material away from the tissues. In order to accomplish its work
it must circulate, and this requires a separate set of organs. First,
the impure blood must be carried back from the different parts of the
body; then it must be distributed again. It must also be made to flow
onward in a continuous current. Blood is a viscid fluid, of a red
color, containing over seventy per cent. water, with solid matter. Its
color differs on each side of the heart. When it returns from the body
it is blue, but when it leaves it is red. Under the microscope it is
seen to contain minute globules, or disk-like cells; to these the blood
owes its color. It possesses the remarkable property of spontaneous
coagulation when drawn from the veins. It is forced on by the heart.

_The heart_ is a muscle and consists of four cavities; two called
auricles having weak walls, and two ventricles with strong muscular
walls. The blood returning from the body is poured into the right
auricle, thence into the right ventricle; from this cavity it is forced
through the lungs and returns again to the heart, being poured into the
left auricle, which empties into the left ventricle. This ventricle
forces the blood throughout the body. The blood received by the heart
from the body is impure, and is sent to the lungs, where it gives up
part of its impurities and receives oxygen from the air.

_Arteries_ are those vessels that distribute the blood, while the
veins collect it and return it to the heart, thus all streams of blood
leaving the heart are conveyed in arteries, and those pouring into it
are carried in veins.

_The lungs_ are the organs that purify the blood, and in order that
this be thoroughly done, the blood is distributed throughout their
substance in minute capillary vessels. The lungs themselves are
vascular; being made up of a multitude of air cells, their surface
is greatly increased; hence their power of absorption. The diaphragm
is a muscular partition lying below the lungs. It is dome-shaped, and
when its fibers are shortened it enlarges the cavity in which the lungs
are situated. This creates a partial vacuum, causing the air to rush
into the lungs. The blood absorbs the oxygen from the air and gives up
carbonic acid gas. When the muscles of the diaphragm are relaxed the
elastic force of the air cells in the lungs expels the remaining gases
from the lungs. The diaphragm is assisted by the action of muscles
situated between the ribs; these lift the ribs and enlarge the cavity
of the thorax. The lungs also act as a reservoir for the air used in
the production of vocal sounds. They communicate with the atmosphere
by means of a tube called the trachea; this terminates in the pharynx,
with which the nostrils also communicate, thus completing a passage to
the outside air.

_The voice_ is produced by the modifications which the teeth, tongue,
lips and throat make upon the sound produced by the vocal cords. The
vocal cords are stretched across the upper end of the trachea, which is
called the larynx. The air from the lungs is forced past them, setting
them in vibration, thus producing sound.

_The nervous system_ consists first of all of the brain. This is
composed of nervous matter and constitutes the mass contained in the
skull. It is divided into three parts: the cerebrum, the cerebellum,
and the medulla oblongata. These three parts seem to preside over
different functions. Thus, the cerebrum is the seat of the faculties of
the mind, while the cerebellum presides over the muscular actions. The
brain is connected with distant parts of the body by means of fibers
which are distributed to all parts. These fibers are of two kinds,
one set carrying the impressions to the brain, the other carrying the
stimulus from the brain to the organs. The former are called sensitive,
the latter motor nerves. A deep fissure separates the brain into two
lateral halves, and these parts are connected with opposite sides of
the body. Besides these nerves, which originate in the brain and pass
through the spinal cord, there are twelve pairs that pass directly
through the skull to the organs which they supply. These are called
cranial nerves, and are distributed to the eyes, the nose, the ears,
the larynx, the lungs, the face, stomach, etc. Ten of these pairs of
nerves originate in the medulla oblongata. Of the functions presided
over by these nerves may be mentioned those performed by the tongue,
(taste), eyes, ears, and nose.

Many of these nerves are not sensitive, in the ordinary use of the
word. Thus, the retina of the eye is the expansion of the optic nerve,
and, while it is sensitive to light, it is not to ordinary impressions,
such as material contact. Also, the nerve of the ear is only sensitive
to the vibrations of fluids. We see by light reflected from objects.
This light passes through a set of lenses, and by means of these an
image is formed on the retina, which impression is carried to the
brain. Just how all this is accomplished is not known. The nerve of the
ear floats in a fluid called lymph. This fluid receives the vibrations
of bodies through the air, through the membranes and chain of bones,
and thus the nerves receive and transmit them to the brain, which act
constitutes hearing.

Volumes could not tell all that one single fiber of muscle contains
that is instructive, much less the entire functions, constructions,
and mysteries of a single organ of special sense. And to perform all
the allotted functions every part must be in the best repair. This
constitutes health. Health is maintained by cleanliness, by repose,
by muscular activity, by moderate eating, by plenty of fresh air, by
a contented disposition, and a clear and active mind. Watch over your
body with a jealous care, for all your future depends upon its good
condition.




SUNDAY READINGS.

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


[_April 1._]

THE LAW OF THE HOUSEHOLD.

By E. A. WASHBURN, D.D.

    “Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may
    be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth
    thee.”—Exod. xx: 12.

We open this second division of the Law with the duties of man to man;
and at its head stands the commandment of the household. I must repeat
here the remark of eminent scholars, that each of the original tables
probably contained five statutes; and thus the maxim we now consider
was directly joined with the four concerning the worship of God. Such
a view gives us indeed a new insight into the Hebrew religion, which
linked the first of social truths with a divine faith; it is the
anticipation of his Gospel, who has taught us that the love of parent
and children is the type of our holier bond in the family of Christ.
But there is a yet further thought in the words of this “commandment
with promise.” That “thy days maybe long in the land.” Those earlier
commandments tower above us like the lonely heights, where Moses
communed with God; but as we read this sentence, we see rise on the
eyes of the lawgiver the landscape of far Judea, with its laughing
fields, the voice of children and the home of calm old age. These
words suggest the whole line of our reasoning on this subject. Filial
reverence is the fountain of all affections, all duties; it flows like
the river of Eden, parted into its branching heads, through every
channel of human life.

It is then the family, as the institution which God has implanted in
our nature, and Christianity has hallowed, that we are to consider. I
know indeed no richer study than thus to trace its growth. I have no
theories to offer you. It is the simplest of facts. There has been no
more favorite field for our philosophers than that of the origin of
human government. Some have fancied that men met together in formal
compact; others have held the state of nature that of a pack of wolves,
at last brought together by self-interest to choose some kingly wolf,
who could keep the peace; and we have to-day our sages, so enamored
of their researches into comparative anatomy, that they can pass by
all the nobler facts of social history, and find the primitive man in
some anthropoid ape. Yet as the grandest laws of God are revealed in
the nearest example, we learn more than volumes of such theory in the
life of our own households. Government began with the family. It is
no artificial thing. It was not imposed by force. There is no state
of nature that goes before it; but as all our discoveries in organic
life lead to the primary cell, so all social formations are only the
enlargement of this little human embryo. We need no other truth than
that he, who gave us this moral being, made us to dwell in mutual
dependence; and thus the germ of all authority lies in the relation
of parent and child, in the care it calls forth, in the weakness
of infancy, and the natural reverence that springs from the heart.
Open the Book of the Genesis; you see the patriarch Abraham dwelling
in the tent with his children; you see this household passing into
tribes, linked in a bond of brotherhood, reverencing the father of
them all, who is priest and head; and you trace further on a Mosaic
commonwealth. History repeats the same early chapter in the Arab of
the desert to-day, or in the beginnings of ancient Rome. “Society in
primitive times,” it is said by one of the wisest of English jurists,
in his work on Ancient Law, “was not a collection of individuals; it
was an aggregation of families.” Among all early peoples the law of
the household is thus supreme; it embraces all duties, and reaches to
the nicest detail of courtesy. The oldest laws of China are as rich
in their family wisdom as any in the world. Filial reverence was the
corner-stone of the state. I well remember with what surprise I saw
the son of a venerable Parsee, himself a man of fifty, wait behind
his father’s chair during a long interview; it was a vestige of the
stately manners of the East, strangely contrasting with our civilized
rudeness. But if we will find the finest examples in the past, we must
turn to those scenes in the Old Testament, where the aged patriarch
lays his hands on his eldest born in token of his birth-right, or the
twelve gather reverently about the bed of the dying Jacob to receive
his blessing. In this household life, interwoven with all their social
habits, the heart of the Hebrew was nursed; and in many a quiet home,
like that of Nazareth, there grew the blossoming graces of childhood,
that made this history so pure amidst all its decays.

But we must pass from this earlier view to the new life of
Christianity, if we would know its nobler influence. Many pure
affections and virtues grew without doubt in a heathen civilization.
But the family authority was almost a despotism; the father had power
of life and death over the child, and woman was little more than a
slave. The one great feature of all social progress, we are told by
the jurist already cited, has been the recognition of the rights of
the person, instead of absolute family dependence. Here it was that
the religion of the Gospel had its living power, and I ask you to
study this wonderful fact in its early history. As we look back on the
state of society at that time, we are struck everywhere with the decay
of those fair examples of chastity, of maternal virtue, of household
strength which bloomed in the old Roman commonwealth. Family life had
withered, because it had not in its ancient pagan form those elements
which could preserve its influence amidst the shameless sensuality
of the world. The public talk of the forum, the theater, the games,
the busy out-of-door existence, such as you see to-day in Southern
Europe, were everything; nor was there a purer tide flowing into the
great city, as from the country homes of England and America, to
cleanse and freshen it. Religion was a brilliant temple pageantry.
Thus, as in all pagan lands, you have the same striking facts; the
degradation of woman and the degradation of man with it. This it was
that the religion of Christ changed. It taught, as its first truth,
that God was our Father, and all men one brotherhood in Christ. What
a revelation was this beyond all that the pagan mind had known! The
paternal power was no longer a despotism to the believer; the father
knew that he had a Father in heaven, and that his child was no serf,
but the household tie was a type of the holier family of God. Read that
clear utterance of the household law in St. Paul: “Children, obey your
parents in the Lord; fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.” The
Gospel cherished above all else the family authority; yet it hallowed,
sweetened, enlarged it. It nursed the virtues of the household. It
made woman the companion of the heart and home; it hallowed marriage;
it taught the love of Christ and the brethren, contentment, industry,
frugality, sacrifice, and charity to the poor. What picture so fair as
in the letters of that time of its fresh, healthful life; that “church
in the house,” breathing the soul of the early religion? The kingdom
came without observation, without noise; and a new home-born, home-bred
society grew in the midst of the dying civilization.


[_April 8._]

THE LAW OF THE HOUSEHOLD.

In this light, then, we can understand, brethren, the place of the
Christian family, as always the first of social institutions. Such
is the view I wish to urge, because I believe that, far more than we
suppose, this law of the family enters into the most real questions of
our time as to popular education or social reform. We live in a day
of theories; and in such a day we are most apt to forget the simple
truths, which, in Coleridge’s words, “are so true, that they lie
bed-ridden by the side of the most exploded errors.” I speak no mere
sentiment; I address myself to the plain sense and Christian experience
of all. It is the problem that presses on us to-day more than ever,
when we look at the mingled good and evil of our modern world; when
we enter one of our great cities, where wealth glitters as if there
were no suffering, yet a step apart there lurks a world of beggary and
crime, which our Christianity has hardly pierced, although it has sent
a Livingston into the heart of Africa;—what is the hope of Christian
more than pagan progress, of a Paris or New York more than a Rome?
I give the answer, which I think all history as well as the Gospel
gives. The purity of the household is the salt of our civilization. I
know no other answer. Need I then, state the ground on which such a
truth rests? The only lasting influence which can preserve or heal the
social body is one that works from the root. We can not, with dreamers
like Rousseau, believe the savage better than the civilized state.
Art and science bring manifold vices with the good, yet we can never
grapple with the sins of our day by vague railing against luxury. In
the decaying age of the Roman world a Jerome retired into his cave
at Bethlehem; but his idle despair did not cure the evil. We often
indulge the same false humor. We speak of a London or a New York as the
swollen ulcer of society, but we forget that we may as well talk of a
body without its brain; that it is in mutual circulation, the country
feeding the city with fresh blood, the city pouring it back enriched in
its double circuit, the life is maintained; and thus while we see the
vices, we should see also the enlarged activities, the myriad callings
for the poor, the treasures of art and culture for all, the uncounted
charities walking in every haunt of sorrow or sin. But this growth of
civilization has in it no self-preserving might. A refined culture is
no safeguard against our moral diseases. We repeat often that this
American people is abler to keep its freedom and virtue, because of the
education of all: yet it is one of those surface truths that may cover
a fallacy. I believe heartily in popular education. But there is a more
knowing vice as well as virtue. The mob of Paris is more intelligent
than the country boor; but it is a witty and polished animal. Such
training, without a deeper root, only quickens the weeds in the rank
field of our time, and chokes the public conscience.

Whatever, then, the form of our civilization, it must depend on the
tone of our household life for its healthy growth, because this
precedes all else in its shaping power. All the germs of personal
character, truth, purity, honesty, reverence of law, must be implanted
in this soil. The state rests on it. The church rests on it, and its
teaching is barren, unless it begin with home nurture. We may make
what laws we will for the suppression of vice, what plans we will of
education, what better methods of industry; but what are they without
the education of the character? What is our most perfect theory of
government, unless there be a self-governed people? What are commercial
rules, if there be no conscience of integrity and honor? Study this
truth in its widest bearings. Our time is marked by its noble efforts
for reform. We hail each healthy improvement in the condition of the
poor, the opening of new channels of labor, the breaking down of false
monopolies.

It is thus, my friends, we are to learn the bearing of such a truth
on our own land and time. We can not study the growth of society,
especially in our great cities, without observing that there are
many influences, such as I have already described in the old Pagan
civilization, which tend to impair the purity of home. The family
habits decay in the larger world of sensual splendor. It is becoming
a hard thing for our young men of fashion to afford the luxury of
marriage; and our young women learn that the aim of life is a rich
husband, who can supply the gold for the wardrobe and the glitter of
an establishment. We have imported from abroad within these few years
many of the loose ideas of modern Epicurism. But there are, besides,
influences peculiar to our American society, which are developing a
type of precocious youth not pleasant to look upon. I know not whether
it be the abuse of our free institutions, that begets our style of
manners: but we are too fast losing the habits of home authority and
filial reverence. It has been truly said of us, that we have as much
family government as ever, but the young govern the parents. We have
no children now-a-days. Our infants leap from the nursery into the
drawing-room; and while abroad a son or a daughter has hardly left
the retreat of home, here they are already veterans in the ways of
fashion, and society is quite surrendered to them. Many of our foreign
visitors have repeated the remark of De Tocqueville, that an American
girl has more of self-poised ease, but is wanting in the fresh charm
seen so often in the young maidens of England or France. I doubt not
there is a better side to this. I would not keep them, as is too often
done abroad, shut in nursery or convent without the education of the
character. I love the intelligence, the generous freedom of youth, but
I wish we might not lose with these the modest heart, the simple tastes
of past years. It maybe the passing excess of our national childhood,
but it is not to be flattered as it is too often. I know that I am very
old-fashioned in my ideas, yet it may be well if we soberly reflect on
these things. We may grow in wealth and all the arts of social culture,
but let these fast habits of the time, this whirl of our modern life
eat into the heart of our home piety, and the whole body must die of
its own gangrenes.

In that conviction I urge on you, my friends, your personal obligation.
Who of us can enough appreciate its meaning? Who of us, if he could
keep afresh the feeling of awe and tenderness with which he looked on
the face of his first-born infant, and felt what an undiscovered world
was opened to him, who would ever need to learn his duty? What a work
it is, how ceaseless, how growing at each step, how delicate in all its
adaptations, how asking all our love, our thoughtfulness, our patience!
I offer you no system of education. I repeat only the principle, which
I thank God is the root of all wholesome teaching, that a Christian
godliness is the growth of the whole character; and therefore it begins
with the recognition of the child as a new-born member of the family
of Christ; and plants its simplest truths in the moral affections,
and blends them with the real duties of life. This is sound sense and
piety. This, in Wordsworth’s happy line, is

    Pure religion breathing household laws.

Give your offspring this training of the character; teach them to be
frank and open-hearted, to hate a lie or a mean action, to be kind to
the poor, to protect the weaker, to respect gray hairs, to reverence
your authority from love not fear, to cherish the natural pleasures
and employments of home, a book or a ramble more than the finery of
modish children young or old; above all to be always constant in their
Christian habits, with no affectations of a premature piety, with a
child’s faults, but a child’s sweet faith; give them, I say, this
training, if you will have them men and women indeed.


[_April 15._]

FINDING AND BRINGING.

By the REV. WILLIAM M. TAYLOR, D.D.

It is a great thing when a man “finds” Christ. Now, in working out this
thought, we must have a clear idea of what we mean by “finding” Christ.
Andrew and John were in visible and bodily contact with Jesus, and it
might seem, therefore, that it was an easier thing to come to Christ
when he was on earth, than it is now, when he is enthroned in heaven.
But that is a mistake. Many came to converse with him when he lived in
the world, who yet failed to find the Savior in him. Multitudes might
be pushed into contact with him that day when the poor woman timidly
sought a cure by touching his clothes; but it was to her alone that
he referred when he said, “Somebody hath touched me.” Therefore, the
contact in her case must have been something more than physical, and
could be nothing else than the application of her soul to him in simple
faith for healing.

In like manner, the finding of the Messiah by Andrew and John must
have been something else than their coming into conversation with him,
and could be nothing less than a description of the fact that they
were intellectually convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised
Messiah, and were sincerely willing to accept him as their Savior and
guide.

But the presence of Jesus in actual humanity before us is not essential
to the exercise of such confidence as that; and so soon as a man
becomes convinced that Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners, and is willing to accept salvation at his hands, he “finds”
Christ just as truly as he was found by Andrew and John, as recorded in
this section of the sacred narrative. Now, when a man “finds” Christ
thus, it is for him the greatest event of his life, dominating and
directing every after-circumstance in his career.

How much the history of the world has been affected by the discoveries
which men have made! Take a few. The discovery of America; the
invention of printing; the discovery of the power of steam, and
the manifold application of the steam-engine; the invention of the
telegraph: who shall say how much all these have done for the progress
of civilization? But put them all together, they have not done so
great things for the world at large as the discovery of Christ does
for every soul that “finds” him. It opens up a whole new world for
his exploration; it enstamps a new name and nature upon his heart; it
brings him under the influence of a motive principle which “laughs at
impossibilities,” and removes mountains; and it gives him a means of
communication with the unseen as real, as mysterious, and as immediate
as that hidden cable whereon the messages of two hemispheres vibrate
in response to each other. It relieves his conscience from the weight
of guilt; it elevates his intellect; it purifies his affections; it
forms his character; it gives a new aim to his life and new center to
his heart, and brings him so under the constraining influence of the
love of Christ, that, while retaining the great outstanding marks of
his individuality, he may yet truly be said to be a new man. See how
this comes out in Paul. Converted or unconverted, the man of Tarsus
would still have been a leader of his fellows. But mark how, after
he has found Christ, his whole being goes into a new direction, and
becomes transfigured and ennobled by the change. His energy becomes
sublimed, his ambition purified, his nature elevated. Behold, also,
how it appears in Peter! What a contrast between the fisherman and the
Apostle! And how much this discovery of Christ made by him, through
Andrew’s guidance, did to give him character and influence among men!
Had he never found the Messiah, who had ever heard his name. But from
this hour he begins to be illustrious! Said I not truly, therefore,
that it is a great thing when a man finds Christ? It is indeed the very
greatest thing for safety, for happiness, for usefulness, for honor,
that can be said of any man, when it is affirmed of him that he has
found Christ. My hearer, can it be truly said of you?

Notice, thirdly, that when a man has found Christ, he ought to bring
others to Jesus. The first thing Andrew did was to tell to another
the good news which had already thrilled his own heart. So Philip,
as recorded in this same chapter, found Nathanael, and repeated this
same news to him. Indeed, it is quite worthy of note how often this
“finding” occurs in this delightful narrative. Andrew “findeth”
Messiah; then he “findeth” his brother. Jesus “findeth” Philip; and
Philip “findeth” Nathanael. So that, as Trench has beautifully said,
in allusion to the well-known exclamation of Archimedes in connection
with one of his discoveries, this “is the chapter of the Eurekas.”[I]
“I have found him! I have found him!” Indeed, the promptings of one’s
own nature here are in perfect accordance with the commands of the
Lord; for we can not but tell to others the tidings which have made
us glad; and in proportion to the happiness which they have produced
in us, will be our eagerness to make others sharers with us in our
delight. As Matthew Henry says here, “True grace hates all monopolies,
and loves not to eat its morsels alone.” The woman of Samaria ran to
tell her townspeople of the great Messiah, and the disciples who were
scattered abroad by the first persecution “went everywhere preaching
the Word.” The command is, “Let him that heareth say, Come!” and every
Christian should become thus a missionary of the Cross. Indeed, we have
not rightly heard, if there is not within us an impulse to say “Come.”
If there be no enthusiasm within us for the diffusion of the Gospel, or
the conversion of sinners, we make it only too apparent that we have
not the spirit of Christ; but if our souls are stirred at the sight of
our perishing fellow-men, and our hearts prompt us to make efforts for
their salvation, we prove that we are in sympathy with those celestial
beings among whom there is “joy over one sinner that repenteth,” and
that the same mind is in us which was in him who died that men might be
redeemed.

“As ye go, preach.” “Go into all the world, and preach the Gospel
to every creature.” These are what the Great Duke once styled the
“marching orders” of believers; and it is at our peril, if we refuse
to carry them out. But when the word “preach” is used, let us beware
of supposing that we need all the outward accessories of a crowded
congregation and a modern church, in order to obey this command.
The meaning simply is, that we should tell the good news as we have
opportunity. We may “preach” by conversing with our friend as we
walk down with him to business in the morning, or by an incidental
remark introduced, not obtrusively and impertinently, but naturally
and lovingly, as we talk with our fellow-traveler in the steamboat or
in the railway car; or by the giving of an interesting volume that
contains the truth to some ingenuous youth upon his birthday; or by
repeating at the couch of some sick one the leading portions of a
sermon which we have just heard in the sanctuary; or by teaching a
class in the Sabbath-school; or by bringing a friend with us to church
where we know that the faithful preacher will be sure to have some word
that will point out the way to the Cross; or even, without a word at
all, we may preach the most eloquent and powerful of all sermons, by
simply living for Jesus where we are. There is a sphere for every one;
and none can claim exemption from this great Gospel law, “As ye go,
preach.”

But who would desire exemption when there is so great need for the
exertions of all? See how earnest the apostles of evil are to allure
men to destruction, through one or other of the several avenues that
lead to death; and shall we be less eager to labor for their salvation?
Behold how indefatigable are the endeavors of those who live to spread
abroad the news of every day! What telegraphic agencies they use to
bring to this one center the record of important occurrences the world
over! What magnificent machinery they employ to multiply the number of
impressions of their journals! And how eager they are to send forth
their messengers in the gray morning twilight, to leave at every
door their daily photographs of God’s providence as it reveals itself
to their eyes—alas! not always clear enough to read it right. Shall
they be so enthusiastic about the news of earth, and we be inactive
with the better news of the Gospel? It is told of the commentator
Thomas Scott that, as he went to preach in a church in Lothbury at six
o’clock in the morning, he used to observe that, if at any time in
his early walk he was tempted to complain, the sight of the newsmen,
equally alert, and for a very different object, changed his repining
into thanksgiving. So, every time we take up a newspaper let us feel
reproved for our remissness in telling the good news of God’s salvation
to our fellow-men; let us be stirred up to self-sacrifice and devotion
in this glorious cause, and let us resolve to do our utmost in bringing
others to the Savior whom we have found for ourselves.

Notice, in the fourth place, that, in seeking to bring others to
Jesus, we should begin with those most intimately connected with us.
Andrew first went to find Simon, his “own brother.” In like manner,
Philip sought his friend Nathanael. And the Lord Jesus himself laid
down the same general law when he commissioned his disciples to preach
repentance and the remission of sins “among all nations, beginning at
Jerusalem.” Now, this is a point of pre-eminent importance; for among
those who really desire to be useful in the world the idea is too
common, that they must go somewhere else than where they are in order
to find their proper and peculiar work. They look so far away, and so
high up, for a missionary field, that they overlook the work that is
already waiting for them just at their feet. Thus, while professing to
be eager for labor, they are standing in the market-place, “all the day
idle.”


[_April 22._]

FINDING AND BRINGING.

In spiritual activity, as in all other matters, it is a good rule
to begin at the beginning. How many, in trying to learn some of the
sciences—say geology, for example—have disdained the use of hand-books
for the mastering of the elements, and, plunging at once into some
elaborate treatise, which presupposed familiar acquaintance with the
rudiments, have felt themselves unable to understand it, and have
thrown up the whole study in disgust! Now, it is just thus many do in
Christian work. They begin at the wrong place, and so they speedily
become discouraged. Work from the center out, and the radii of your
influence will go out to every point of the circumference; but if,
leaving your own proper center, you take your station somewhere on the
circumference, your labor will produce very little result. Now, home is
the center of every man’s sphere; and it is there he must begin to work
for Jesus. Let the husband begin with the wife, and the wife with the
husband; the parents with the children; and the children, where need
is, lovingly and humbly, with the parents; the brother with his sister;
and the sister with her brother. Then, when the home sphere is filled
up, let your life’s influence flow over, and seek to benefit those with
whom you are coming into daily business contact. Thus the branches of
your vine will “run over the wall,” and your sphere will widen ever
with your endeavors.

“Oh yes!” you will say to me, “that may be all very true. But it is
far more difficult thus to begin at home than to commence abroad. I
would rather teach a class in the mission-school than to speak to my
own family about Jesus. I would almost sooner address a meeting than
make a private appeal to my brother or my sister.” But why is this?
Surely it can not be because you love those who are nearest to you less
than you do those who are farther away! Can it be because you would
get more prominence and honor among men, by working abroad, than you
could secure by laboring at home? Or is it because you are conscious
that your home conduct would destroy the influence of any teachings
on which you might venture there? You know best. But whatever be its
cause, let me beseech you to revise your whole procedure, and make
home the headquarters of your effort. Can it be that there are here a
wife and husband who have never had one hour of heart communion with
each other on this all-important matter? If there be, may God himself
in some way break that silence that has sealed their tongues; and let
us all rest assured that the truest revival of religion will be gained
when our church members are resolved to test what shall be the result
of beginning to labor thus for Christ at home.

We are making far too little in these days of the Church in the
house. We are waiting for our children to be converted by outside
influences, when, if we were to look at the matter rightly, it should
be our ambition to be ourselves the leaders of our sons and daughters
to the Lord. Some years ago I read an account of the manner in which
a cold church was stirred into warmth and vitality; and as it bears
directly on the point to which I am now referring, I will take the
liberty of introducing it here. At one of the conference meetings, a
simple man, not remarkable for fluency or correctness of speech, made
an appeal something to the following effect: “I feel, brethren, real
bad about the people who don’t love the Lord Jesus Christ here in our
own neighborhood. We’re not as we ought to be, that’s very certain,
but it’s hard work rowing against the stream. We find that out when we
talk to men about religion on Sunday who haven’t any religion all the
week. They don’t mind us. And just so with the young folks. Their minds
all seem running one way. Now, what’s to be done? Not much with the
grown folks, for they aren’t controlled by us, and we can only drop a
word now and then, and pray for them. But here’s our own children. I
have four boys, and only one of them comes to the communion with his
mother and me. And I don’t think I have done my duty to those younger
boys. They love me, and God knows I love them; but I kind o’ hate to
speak to them about religion. But rather than see them go farther
without my Jesus for their Jesus, I’m going to ask them to join him.
I’m going to pray with them; and if I can’t tell them all they want to
know, why, our minister can. Brethren, I’m going to try to turn the
stream for my boys. Home is the head of the river. I mean to begin
to-night. Won’t some father do like me with his boys, and give me his
word out?” Scarcely had he seated himself, when, one after another,
some thirty people pledged themselves, saying, “I’ll do the same at my
house;” and the pledge was kept. In a short time the minister’s labors
began to tell as they had never done before. The influence spread, but
there was no excitement. On the occasion of the communion service,
from family after family, one and another came to enroll themselves
among the followers of Jesus, and nearly every one that came was under
twenty-five years of age. So, through revived home effort, the work
of God was stimulated both in the church and in the neighborhood. My
friends, this witness is true, “Home is the head of the river.” Is
there no one here to-night who will join in the resolution made by
that earnest man, and say, “By the grace of God I’ll do the same at my
house?”

Notice, finally, that in following this plan of working for Christ we
may, all unconsciously to ourselves, be the means of introducing to
Jesus one who will be of far more service than ever we could have been.
It was Simon Peter whom Andrew brought to Christ. We do not hear much
in the New Testament of Andrew’s after-history, but if he had never
done anything else than lead his brother to the Lord, it was worth
living for just to do that; and when we get to heaven, we shall see
that the lustre of Peter’s crown casts special radiance on Andrew’s
face. When we read of the conversions on the Day of Pentecost; of the
heroic protest before the council; of the conversion of Cornelius; and
above all, when we peruse those two precious letters which Peter has
indited, let us not forget that, humanly speaking, but for Andrew,
Peter would not have been himself a Christian. Doubtless, God could
have called him by some other instrumentality, but he made use of
Andrew to teach us the lesson that, in doing the good that lies at our
hands, we may at length really do more for the Church than we could
have effected by more ostentatious effort in other places. Let the
lowly and timid, therefore, take courage. They may not have shining
talents or commanding position, yet by working where they are they may
be honored in bringing to Jesus some who shall take foremost places
in the Church, or become leaders in some missionary or evangelistic
movement.

Many of the greatest men the Church has known have been converted
through the agency of individuals all but unknown. A humble dissenting
minister, whose name was scarcely heard of a few miles from his
manse, was honored to be of signal service to Thomas Chalmers in the
crisis-hour of his history; and I have heard Mr. Spurgeon tell how he
was led to the Lord by a sermon preached by an unlettered man in a
Primitive Methodist chapel.

Some of the greatest theologians the Church has ever seen, and some
of the most useful ministers who have ever lived, have been made and
molded by so common a thing as a mother’s influence. Robert Pollok,
whose “Course of Time” used to be a household book throughout Scotland,
said once of his poem, “It has my mother’s divinity in it.” Mother,
will you take note of that? Many a time you have regretted that you
could not take part in any public work for Christ, by reason of the
bond that held you to your boy. Regret no more, but bring that boy to
Christ, and he will live to do his own work and his mother’s too; and
when the crown is placed upon his head its diamonds will flash new
glory upon your countenance.

The sum of what we have been saying, then, is this: that each of us
should begin to do all that he can, where he is, for Christ. But if
we would succeed in that effort, we must be sure that we have already
found him for ourselves. A minister had preached a simple sermon upon
the text, “He brought him to Jesus;” and as he was going home, his
daughter, walking by his side, began to speak of what she had been
hearing. She said, “I did so like that sermon.” “Well,” inquired her
father, “whom are you going to bring to Jesus?” A thoughtful expression
came over her countenance as she replied, “I think, papa, that I will
just bring myself to him.” “Capital!” said her father, “that will do
admirably for a beginning.” This, brethren, is the true starting-point.
We must be good, if we would do good. Bring yourselves to Jesus,
therefore; and, as iron by being rubbed upon a magnet, becomes itself
magnetic, so you, being united to Christ, will become partakers in his
attractive power, and will draw men with “the cords of a man,” which
are also “the bands of love.”


[_April 29._]

FAITH THE SOLE SAVING ACT.

By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D.D.

In asking their question, the Jews intended to inquire of Christ
what particular things they must do, before all others, in order to
please God. The “works of God,” as they denominate them, were not any
and every duty, but those more special and important acts, by which
the creature might secure the Divine approval and favor. Our Lord
understood their question in this sense, and in his reply tells them,
that the great and only work for them to do was to exercise faith in
him. They had employed the plural number in their question; but in
his answer he employs the singular. They had asked, “What shall we do
that we might work the works of God,” as if there were several of them.
His reply is, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent.” He narrows down the terms of salvation to a single one;
and makes the destiny of the soul to depend upon the performance of a
particular individual act. In this, as in many other incidental ways,
our Lord teaches his own divinity. If he were a mere creature; if he
were only an inspired teacher like David or Paul; how would he dare,
when asked to give in a single word the condition and means of human
salvation, to say that they consist in resting the soul upon him? Would
David have dared to say: “This is the work of God,—this is the saving
act,—that ye believe in me?” Would Paul have presumed to say to the
anxious inquirer: “Your soul is safe, if you trust in me?” But Christ
makes this declaration, without any qualification. Yet he was meek and
lowly of heart, and never assumed an honor or a prerogative that did
not belong to him. It is only upon the supposition that he was “very
God of very God,” the Divine Redeemer of the children of men, that we
can justify such an answer to such a question.

The belief is spontaneous and natural to man, that something must be
done in order to salvation. No man expects to reach heaven by inaction.
Even the indifferent and supine soul expects to rouse itself up at
some future time, and work out its salvation. The most thoughtless
and inactive man, in religious respects, will acknowledge that
thoughtlessness and inactivity if continued will end in perdition. But
he intends at a future day to think, and act, and be saved. So natural
is it, to every man, to believe in salvation by works; so ready is
every one to conceive that heaven is reached, and hell is escaped, only
by an earnest effort of some kind; so natural is it to every man to ask
with these Jews, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”

But mankind generally, like the Jews in the days of our Lord, are under
a delusion respecting the nature of the work which must be performed in
order to salvation. And in order to understand this delusion, we must
first examine the common notion upon the subject.

When a man begins to think of God, and of his own relations to him,
he finds that he owes him service and obedience. He has a work to
perform, as a subject of the Divine government; and this work is to
obey the Divine law. He finds himself obligated to love God with all
his heart, and his neighbor as himself, and to discharge all the duties
that spring out of his relations to God and man. He perceives that
this is the “work” given him to do by creation, and that if he does
it he will attain the true end of his existence and be happy in time
and eternity. When therefore he begins to think of a religious life,
his first spontaneous impulse is to begin the performance of this work
which he has hitherto neglected, and to reinstate himself in the Divine
favor by the ordinary method of keeping the law of God. He perceives
that this is the mode in which the angels preserve themselves holy
and happy: that this is the original mode appointed by God, when he
established the covenant of works; and he does not see why it is not
the method for him. The law expressly affirms that the man that doeth
these things shall live by them; he proposes to take the law just
as it reads, and just as it stands,—to do the deeds of the law, to
perform the works which it enjoins, and to live by the service. This
we say, is the common notion, natural to man, of the species of work
which must be performed in order to eternal life. This was the idea
which filled the mind of the Jews when they put the question of the
text, and received for answer from Christ, “This is the work of God,
that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.” Our Lord does not draw out
the whole truth, in detail. He gives only the positive part of the
answer, leaving his hearers to infer the negative part of it. For the
whole doctrine of Christ, fully stated, would run thus: “No work of
the kind of which you are thinking can save you; no obedience of the
law, ceremonial or moral, can reinstate you in right relations to God.
I do not summon you to the performance of any such service as that
which you have in mind, in order to your justification and acceptance
before the Divine tribunal. This is the work of God,—this is the sole
and single act which you are to perform,—namely, that you believe on
him whom he hath sent as a propitiation for sin. I do not summon you to
works of the law, but to faith in me, the Redeemer. Your first duty is
not to attempt to acquire a righteousness in the old method, by doing
something of yourselves, but to receive a righteousness in the new
method, by trusting in what another has done for you.”

I. What is the ground and reason of such an answer as this? Why is man
invited to the method of faith in another, instead of the method of
faith in himself? Why is not his first spontaneous thought the true
one? Why should he not obtain eternal life by resolutely proceeding to
do his duty, and keeping the law of God? Why can he not be saved by the
law of works? Why is he so summarily shut up to the law of faith?

We answer: Because it is too late for him to adopt the method of
salvation by works. The law is indeed explicit in its assertion,
that the man that doeth these things shall live by them; but then it
supposes that the man begin at the beginning. A subject of government
can not disobey a civil statute for five or ten years, and then put
himself in right relations to it again, by obeying it for the remainder
of his life. Can a man who has been a thief or an adulterer for twenty
years, and then practices honesty and purity for the following thirty
years, stand up before the seventh and eighth commandments and be
acquitted by them? It is too late for any being who has violated a law
even in a single instance, to attempt to be justified by that law. For,
the law demands and supposes that obedience begin at the very beginning
of existence, and continue down uninterruptedly to the end of it. No
man can come in at the middle of a process of obedience, any more than
he can come in at the last end of it, if he proposes to be accepted
upon the ground of obedience. “I testify,” says St. Paul, “to every man
that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law” (Gal.
v: 3). The whole, or none, is the just and inexorable rule which law
lays down in the matter of justification. If any subject of the Divine
government can show a clean record, from the beginning to the end of
his existence, the statute says to him, “Well done,” and gives him the
reward which he has earned. And it gives it to him not as a matter of
grace, but of debt. The law never makes a present of wages. It never
pays out wages, until they are earned,—fairly and fully earned. But
when a perfect obedience from first to last is rendered to its claims,
the compensation follows as matter of debt. The law, in this instance,
is itself brought under obligation. It owes a reward to the perfectly
obedient subject of law, and it considers itself his debtor until it is
paid. “Now to him that worketh, is the reward not reckoned of grace,
but of debt. If it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise
work is no more work.”

    [_End of Required Reading for April._]

       *       *       *       *       *

TRANSLATION.—A Welsh curate having preached several sermons which were
considered superior to his own powers of composition, was asked by a
friend how he managed? He replied: “Do you see, I have got a volume of
sermons by one Tillotson, and a very good book it is; so I translate
one of the sermons into Welsh, and then back again into English; after
which the devil himself would not know it again.”




THEY GROW TO FLOWERS, OR TO WEEDS.


THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

    ’Tis he whose very thought and deed
      By rule of virtue moves;
    Whose generous tongue disdains to speak
      The thing his heart disproves.
    Who never did a slander forge,
      His neighbour’s fame to wound;
    Nor hearken to a false report,
      By malice whispered round.
    Who vice, in all its pomp and power,
      Can treat with just neglect;
    And piety, though clothed in rags,
      Religiously respect.
    Who to his plighted word and trust
      Has ever firmly stood;
    And, though he promise to his loss,
      He makes his promise good.
    Whose soul in usury disdains
      His treasure to employ;
    Whom no reward can ever bribe
      The guiltless to destroy.

Be honest. Not only because “honesty is the best policy,” but because
it is a duty to God and man. The heart that can be gratified by
dishonest gains; the ambition that can be satisfied by dishonest means;
the mind that can be devoted to dishonest purposes, must be of the
worst order.

Having laid down these general principles for the government of
personal conduct, we will epitomize what we would still enforce;—

Avoid idleness—it is the parent of many evils. Can you pray, “Give us
this day our daily bread,” and not hear the reply, “Do thou this day
thy daily duty?”

Avoid telling idle tales, which is like firing arrows into the dark;
you know not into whose heart they may fall.

Avoid talking about yourself; praising your own works; and proclaiming
your own deeds. If they are good, they will proclaim themselves; if
bad, the less you say of them the better.

Avoid envy, for it cannot benefit you, nor can it injure those against
whom it is cherished.

Avoid disputation, for the mere sake of argument. The man who disputes
obstinately and in a bigoted spirit, is like the man who would stop the
fountain from which he should drink. Earnest discussion is commendable;
but factious argument never yet produced a good result.

Be kind in little things. The true generosity of the heart is more
displayed by deeds of minor kindness, than by acts which may partake of
ostentation.

Be polite. Politeness is the poetry of conduct—and like poetry it has
many qualities. Let not your politeness be too florid, but of that
gentle kind which indicates refined nature.

Be sociable—avoid reserve in society. Remember that the social
elements, like the air we breathe, are purified by motion. Thought
illumines thought, and smiles win smiles.

Be punctual. One minute too late has lost many a golden opportunity.
Besides which, the want of punctuality is an affront offered to the
person to whom your presence is due.

The foregoing remarks may be said to apply to the moral conduct, rather
than to the details of personal manners. Great principles, however,
suggest minor ones; and hence from the principles laid down many hints
on personal behavior may be gathered.

Be hearty in your salutations.

Discreet and sincere in your friendships.

Like to listen rather than to talk.

Behave, even in the presence of your relations, as though you felt
respect to be due to them.

In society never forget that you are but one of many.

When you visit a friend, conform to the rules of his home.

Lean not upon his tables, nor rub your feet against his chairs.

Pry not into letters that are not your own.

Pay unmistakable respect to ladies everywhere.

Beware of foppery and of silly flirtation.

In public places be not too pertinacious of your own rights.

Find pleasure in making concessions.

Speak distinctly.

Look at the person to whom you speak.

When you have spoken, give him an opportunity to reply.

Avoid drunkenness as you would a curse; and modify all appetites,
especially those that are acquired.

Dress well, but not superfluously.

Be neither like a sloven, nor like a stuffed model.

Keep away all uncleanly appearances from the person. Let the nails,
the teeth, and, in fact, the whole system receive _salutary_ rather
than _studied_ care. But let these things receive attention at the
toilet—not elsewhere.

Avoid displaying excess of jewelry. Nothing looks more effeminate upon
a man.

Every one of these suggestions may be regarded as the center of many
others, which the earnest mind cannot fail to discover.


HABITS OF A MAN OF BUSINESS.

A sacred regard to the principles of justice forms the basis of every
transaction, and regulates the conduct of the upright man of business.

He is strict in keeping his engagements.

Does nothing carelessly nor in a hurry.

Employs nobody to do what he can easily do himself.

Keeps everything in its proper place.

Leaves nothing undone that ought to be done, and which circumstances
permit him to do.

Keeps his designs and business from the view of others.

Is prompt and decisive with his customers, and does not over-trade his
capital.

Prefers short credits to long ones; and cash to credit at all times,
either in buying or selling; and small profits in credit cases, with
little risk to the chance of better gains with more hazard.

He is clear and explicit in all his bargains.

Leaves nothing of consequence to memory which he can and ought to
commit to writing.

Keeps copies of all his important letters which he sends away, and has
every letter, invoice, etc., relating to his business, titled, classed,
and put away.

Never suffers his desk to be confused by many papers lying upon it.

Is always at the head of his business, well knowing that if he leaves
it, it will leave him.

Holds it as a maxim that he whose credit is suspected is not one to be
trusted.

Is constantly examining his books, and sees through all his affairs as
far as care and attention will enable him.

Balances regularly at stated times, and then makes out and transmits
all his accounts current to his customers, both at home and abroad.

Avoids as much as possible all sorts of accommodation in money matters
and lawsuits where there is the least hazard.

He is economical in his expenditures, always living within his income.

Keeps a memorandum-book in his pocket, in which he notes every
particular relative to appointments, addresses, and petty cash matters.

Is cautious how he becomes security for any person; and is generous
when urged by motives of humanity.

Let a man act strictly to these habits; when once begun they will be
easy to continue in—ever remembering that he hath no profits by his
pains whom Providence doth not prosper—and success will attend his
efforts.




HABIT OF TAKING PAINS.

By JAMES KERR, M. A.


Who can doubt that the habit of taking pains, the habit of minute
attention, of patient thought and persevering study, is one of the
leading characteristics of genius! To this rule there seems to be no
exception.

We see it illustrated in the lives of our greatest thinkers. Did a
genius like Lord Bacon compose his immortal works with ease, and, as
it were, without effort? Far from it. On the contrary, he took great
pains. They were written and re-written. They were the fruit of much
patient thought, of repeated revision and persistent effort. Thus, we
are told that he transcribed his “Novum Organum” twelve times with
his own hand, each time revising it carefully. He was employed on
this great work at intervals for a period of thirty years. When he
transcribed it he did not merely recopy what he had written, with a few
verbal alterations only, but changed it in substance, so as to bring it
nearer the model in his own mind. This was his constant practice, as we
know from his own words. Writing to a friend, he says—“My great work
goeth forward, and, after my manner, I alter even when I add; so that
nothing is finished till all be finished.”

Who is there among us who would have the patience to write any literary
production in which he might be engaged twelve times over with his
own hand! Think, too, of the patient thought that must have been
bestowed on the work each time it was transcribed! If Bacon’s genius is
immensely greater than what any of us can boast of, do not his patient
thought, his persevering study, his habit of taking pains, exceed ours
in the same proportion!

Bacon’s precept corresponded to his practice. How does the great author
of the inductive method direct us to make discoveries? Not by volatile
flights of fancy, but by patient labor. We are patiently to observe and
make experiments. We are to collect all sorts of facts which have any
bearing on the subject, not even neglecting what may appear trifles. We
are to arrange them under proper heads. We are to examine them under
every aspect, and reflect upon them with deepest thought. Thus only, he
tells us, will discoveries be made worthy of the name.

Let us turn to another great philosopher of our own country. How did
Newton succeed in making his name immortal? The poet says of him—

    “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night,
     God said—Let Newton be, and there was light.”

Yet it was not without effort and painstaking care that he made
his discoveries. The laws of light and gravitation did not reveal
themselves to him at a glance. The process of discovery was much
slower. Let us go to the man himself and learn the secret of his
success. He tells us that he made his discoveries by _always thinking_
about them. This patient thought, this persevering study, this
painstaking care, enabled him at last to succeed where others failed.
This it was, and not mere genius alone, that shed a luster on his name,
which shall last so long as the sun and the moon endure.

To come nearer our own times and to men of less dazzling fame. George
Stephenson, the inventor, we may say, of railways, will be allowed
to have been a great mechanical genius. The lesson we learn from his
life is to take pains and persevere. His inventions were, in no small
degree, the result of careful study. We see the pains he took to
acquaint himself with every detail as to the habits of “the engine”
while still a brakesman. He thus laid the foundation of his future
success in applying the steam-engine to the railway. We read, also,
that when he retired for the night, it was not always to sink into
slumber. He worked out many a difficult problem in bed, and for hours
he would lie awake and turn over in his mind, with painstaking care and
patient thought, how to overcome some mechanical obstacle that stood in
his way.

In the later years of his life, when railways had spread over the
kingdom, he was fond of pointing out to others the difficulties he had
to surmount, and what pains and perseverance had brought him to. It was
not talent, it was not genius, in the ordinary sense of the word, to
which he attributed his success; it was to perseverance. In addressing
young men his grand text was “persevere,” and on this theme the old
man grew eloquent, glowing with the recollections of his own personal
experience.

Hugh Miller was another man of undoubted genius. When we contemplate
such a man rising to distinction both in science and literature, in
spite of the most adverse circumstances, we are apt to think that he
must have been indebted to the native vigor of his mind alone, without
the aid of any extraneous advantages. But what do we find to be the
case? No one can peruse his works without perceiving that he was a
great reader, and that the thoughts of others supplied the food on
which his mind grew. Like Dr. Johnson, he was a robust genius, capable
of grappling with whole libraries. He seems, while yet unknown to
fame, to have ransacked our whole literature, quarrying his way into
many hidden recesses not generally explored. Even classical works,
translated into English, he read with avidity. He says himself—“I have
read Cowper’s ‘Homer’ and Dryden’s ‘Virgil’ again and again, and drunk
in all their beauties.”

This appetite for reading commenced at an early age. When a lad about
twelve he got access to a small library belonging to one of his
neighbors, and was allowed freely to peruse its contents. He says,
casting a glance back to these times:—“I read incessantly; and, as the
appetite for reading becomes stronger the more it is indulged, I felt,
when I had consumed the whole, a still keener craving than before.”

By these steps he rose to eminence. He thus became a distinguished
man. His mind was enriched by much reading. It received a training
which qualified him in future years to become a geologist of the first
rank, to write on scientific subjects in a style of rare beauty, so
picturesque and expressive that men of distinguished parts have said
they would give their “left hand” if they could only imitate it, and,
in a word, to handle skilfully any subject to which he turned his
attention, not excepting just and delicate criticism on some of our
less known poets.

Among men of science there are few, if any, whose writings have made
a greater impression on the present generation than those of Charles
Darwin. How were his works produced? Not by fits and starts. Not by
flights of fancy. He is penetrated by the true scientific spirit, and
steadily pursues his object for years, patiently accumulating facts,
and by their light drawing conclusions in which, though men may differ
on some points, there will always be found large portions of solid
truth. Let us see, for example, how his remarkable book on the “Origin
of Species” was produced. It was not struck out at a blow, but was the
labor of years and of much patient thought. He himself says of it:—“On
my return home it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps
be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting
on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing upon it.”
He steadily pursued his object from that time, for more than twenty
years, and then his work was published to the world.

This is the way in which great works on science are produced. The
author takes great pains. He steadily pursues his object for years,
with patient thought and unremitting attention, leaving no stone
unturned. It is this that accomplishes great things, and not mere
flight of untutored genius.

It is needless to say that his latest work, on the modest subject of
earth-worms, exhibits the same painstaking care, the same laborious
study, and the same patient accumulation of facts.

Hitherto the examples adduced have been more of a scientific than
literary character. If, leaving science, we take a glance at general
literature, it will be found that those also who come to the front
as writers in this branch of learning are, without exception,
distinguished by their habit of taking pains with the subject in hand.

Were the writings of the brilliant Macaulay the outpourings of pure
genius, unaided by painstaking labor and diligent study? Far from it.
When he wrote on any subject he was unwearied in his researches. No
amount of labor appalled him. Even when husbanding his resources, and
engaged in no particular literary task, he read continually, laying in
a store for future use. To read was his passion and delight. It was his
solace under all circumstances. It cheered him in his Indian exile. In
turning over the pages of his life we are absolutely struck with awe
at his insatiable appetite for books. It would be difficult to find an
example of anyone in these modern times whose reading, especially in
the Greek and Roman classics, took so wide a range. He read, not only
in his study, but in his long walks he had always a book with him,
which he read incessantly.

Nothing is said in his life of his habits of composition, but there
can be little doubt that his clear and vigorous style was not formed
without much study and practice. In addition to his admirable prose
style, he had great facility in writing verses. How did he acquire
it? By long continued practice. He says, in a letter to one of his
sisters:—“As you like my verses, I will some day or other write you
a whole rhyming letter. I wonder whether any other man ever wrote
doggerel so easily. I run it off just as fast as my pen can move. This
comes of a schoolboy habit of writing verses all day long.”

Of our modern prose writers, there are few whose writings are more easy
to read than those of Charles Dickens. They look like the spontaneous
outpourings of genius, flowing freely from his pen without effort.
And yet, in point of fact, he took great pains with what he wrote.
When engaged on “Little Dorrit” he jots down these words in his
journal:—“Now to work again. The story lies before me strong and clear.
Not to be easily told; for nothing of that kind is to be easily done
that I know of.”

Then, in another direction, look at the pains he took in preparing
his “Readings” for the public. He learned them all by heart, so as to
have no mechanical drawback in looking after the words. He was also
at great pains to correct his pronunciation, and cultivate the habit
of self-possession. As the reputation of these “Readings” widened, he
was ambitious that they should grow better and better. When engaged
in giving a series of readings, he used to repeat them to himself,
often twice a day, and with exactly the same pains as at night when
before his audience. He felt that nothing could be done well, that no
great perfection could be reached, without taking pains. We are here
reminded of Mrs. Siddons, who played the character of Lady Macbeth
for thirty years. Such was her solicitude to act the part well, that
she invariably read over the play, once more, on the morning of the
performance, and with such care as always to discover something new in
the character which she had not observed before.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whoso acts a hundred times with high moral principle before he
speaks once of it, that is a man whom one could bless and clasp to
one’s heart. I am far from saying that he is on that account free
from faults, but the _plus et minus_, the degree of striving after
perfection and virtue, determines the value of the man.—_George
Forster._




A CHAPLET OF PEARLS.

By WILLIAM JONES, F.S.A.


There is a magic charm in the pearl that seems to have fascinated the
world in various countries. The modest splendor and purity of the jewel
made it the favorite of all others among the Orientals.[J] Chares, of
Mitylene, alludes to the Margaritæ necklaces as far more highly valued
by the Asiatics than those made of gold. The Romans went wild over
them, and of all the articles of luxury and ostentation known to them,
pearls appear to have been most esteemed. Pompey, as the richest spoils
of his victories in Asia, displayed in his procession into Rome, after
his triumph over the third continent, among his treasures, thirty-three
crowns made of pearls, a temple of the Muses with a dial on the top,
and a figure of himself, formed of the same materials. This roused
the ire of the stoic Pliny, but contributed to the popular passion
for obtaining these jewels. He remarks of Lollia Paulina (wife of the
Emperor Caligula) that she was covered with emeralds and pearls, strung
alternately, glittering all over her head, hair, bandeau, necklaces,
and fingers, valued at forty millions of sesterces (£400,000).

Servilia, the mother of the famous Brutus, received from Julius Cæsar a
pearl as a present which cost the donor £50,000. The celebrated pearls
of Cleopatra, worn as earrings, were valued at £161,457.

Some consider bdellium, which is mentioned in the Scriptures (Genesis
and Numbers), as a precious stone, and the Jewish rabbins, together
with some modern commentators, translate it by _pearl_, but it is more
than probable that the pearl was unknown in the time of Moses. Most
probably, the Hebrew _bedolach_ is the aromatic gum bdellium, which
issues from a tree growing in Arabia, Media, and the Indies.

According to the poetic Orientals, every year, on the sixteenth day of
the month of Nisan, the pearl-oysters rise to the sea and open their
shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and
the drops thus caught become pearls. On this belief the poet Sadi, in
his “Bostau,” has the following fable: “A drop of water fell one day
from a cloud into the sea. Ashamed and confused at finding itself in
such an immensity of water, it exclaimed, ‘What am I in comparison of
this vast ocean? My existence is less than nothing in this boundless
abyss!’ While it thus discoursed of itself, a pearl-shell received it
in its bosom, and fortune so favored it that it became a magnificent
and precious pearl, worthy of adorning the diadem of kings. Thus was
its humility the cause of its elevation, and by annihilating itself, it
merited exaltation.”

Moore alludes to this pretty fiction in one of his sweetest melodies:

    “And precious the tear as that rain from the sky
     Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.”

Sir Walter Scott, in the “Bridal of Triermain,” says:

    “See these pearls that long have slept;
     These were tears by Naiads wept.”

Lilly, in “Gallathea:”

    “Is any cozen’d of a teare
     Which (as a pearle) disdaine does weare?”

Shakspere (“Richard III.”):

    “The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
     Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl,
     Advantaging their loan with interest
     Of ten-times-double gain of happiness.”

In Lee’s “Mithridates” we have:

    “’Twould raise your pity, but to see the tears
     Force through her snowy lids their melting course,
     To lodge themselves on her red murmuring lips
     That talk such mournful things; when straight a gale
     Of startling sighs carry those pearls away,
     As dews by winds are wafted from the flowers.”

Elena Piscopia (1684), of the Corraro family of Venice, had a medal
struck in her honor, on the reverse of which is an open shell,
receiving the drops of dew from heaven, which form into pearls: the
motto was _Rore divino_—by the divine dew.

Pearls have for ages been significant for tears. It is related that
Queen Margaret Tudor, consort of James IV. of Scotland, previous to the
battle of Flodden Field, had strong presentiments of the disastrous
issue of that conflict. One night she had fearful dreams, in which she
thought she saw her husband hurled down a great precipice and crushed
and mangled at the bottom. In another vision she thought, as she was
looking at her jewels, chains, and sparkling coronets of diamonds, they
suddenly turned into pearls, “which are the emblems of widowhood and
tears.”

A few nights before the assassination of Henry IV. of France, his queen
dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and
she was told that they were significant of tears.

Milton, in his “Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester,” says:

    “And those pearls of dew she wears
     Prove to be presaging tears.”

Similes of pearls and tears are frequent in our old writers. Thus
Shakspere in “Midsummer Night’s Dream:”

    “And that same dew which sometimes on the buds
     Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,
     Stood now within the pretty floweret’s eyes,
     Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.”

In “King John:”

    “Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes
     Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;
     Ay, with those crystal beads heaven shall be bribed
     To do him justice and revenge on you.”

The metaphor is a favorite one with Lovelace:

    “Lucasta wept, and still the bright
       Enamor’d god of day,
     With his soft handkerchief of light,
       Kiss’d the wet pearls away.”

And—

    “If tears could wash the ill away,
     A pearl for each wet bead I’d pay.”

In Chalkhill’s “Thealma and Clearchus,” we find of the former:

                “Anon she drops a tear,
    That stole along her cheeks, and falling down,
    Into a pearl it freezeth with her frown.”

Robert Southwell, in “St. Mary Magdalen’s Tears,” says: “The angels
must bathe themselves in the pure stream of thine eyes, and thy face
shall be set with this pearly liquid, that, as out of thy tears were
stroken the first sparks of thy Lord’s love, so thy tears may be the
oil to feed his flames.”




THE WORTH OF FRESH AIR.


Your neighbor, John Stedman, is set fast with aches and pains, and is
very ill. You have just been to see him, you say, and you can not think
why it is that people are every now and then attacked in this way with
sickness. You have been told that God sends disease; but for your own
part you can not understand why it is that some of your neighbors,
who, like John Stedman, seem to be the most honest and deserving, get
the largest share of it. I think, my industrious friend, I can perhaps
help you to the explanation of the riddle. At any rate, there are many
things touching upon this very subject, which as an old acquaintance,
and one who has learned through long intimacy to take great interest
in all that concerns you, I have for some time desired to say. I shall
now seize this opportunity to make a beginning, and shall seat myself
comfortably that I may chat with you more at my ease. Pray do not
trouble yourself to move anything. This empty chair near the door will
do excellently well for me. I know you will listen to me with attention
and patience, first for old friendship’s sake, and then because you
will very soon feel that what I do say is intended frankly and solely
for your good.

You have a fine, smart-looking clock, I see, ticking away there
opposite. But the old fellow can hardly be so correct as he seems; his
hands point to eight, although the day wants but a couple of hours of
noon. I fear there must be something wrong about him, notwithstanding
his looking so vastly well in the face.

You say you can not make the clock keep time. You wind it up carefully
every Saturday, and set it correctly, and yet before the next Saturday
comes round, it has either lagged hours behind, or it has galloped on
hours too fast. It goes as if it were moved by the uncertain wind,
instead of being driven by regular machinery, and it was a shame for
the man to sell you such a bad-going thing. If the clock never did
behave itself any better, you are right in this: but perhaps you are
too hasty in finding fault with the maker; he may not altogether
deserve the blame. Let us just open the door of the case, and peep at
the inner workmanship, and see whether we can not discover some cause
for the irregular performance.

What is this? As soon as I open this little door I stumble upon
something that looks rather suspicious; it is a quantity of light flue,
and hair, and dust, mingled together. The clockmaker never put that
into the case. Then, observe how every wheel and pinion is soiled with
dirt, and every crevice and corner is choked up with filth. It really
would be a very wonderful thing if the wheels did move regularly. The
secret of the bad working of your clock is, simply, that you have not
known how to take care of it, and use it fairly. I dare say it went
very well when it was turned out of its maker’s hands, but he never
meant it to be in the state in which it now is. You must send it back
to him, and get him to clean the works and oil the wheels, and then
you must try whether you can not prevent it from getting into such sad
disorder again.

Now, your neighbor yonder with his aches and pains and his sickness,
are you sure that he is not in very much the same predicament as this
clock? If we could look into the works of his body, are you confident
that we should not find them choked up and uncared for, instead of
being in the condition in which they were intended to be? His aches and
pains, are they not the grating and complaining of deranged and clogged
machinery? I am quite aware that sick people generally are not sensible
of having allowed anything to come near to their bodies which they
ought to have kept away. But neither did you know that dirt was getting
to the works of your clock, although we discovered it there in such
plenty. The dust and dirt which collected there, first flew about in
the air, scattered so thinly and lightly that you could not see them.
So, too, other things which you can not see may have been floating in
great abundance around you, some of them being to the living frame what
dirt and dust are to clockwork. That there are such invisible things
floating around living creatures, and that some of these clog and
derange the working of their frames, I think I shall have no difficulty
in showing you. I hope I shall also be able to point out to you, that
many of them may be discovered, although they can not be seen, and may
be driven away or avoided.

That wonderful object which you call your _body_, is actually a machine
like the clock, contrived and put together for a certain service. It
has for its works, muscles and bones, and blood vessels and nerves.
These works have been most beautifully fitted and adjusted: indeed,
they are the workmanship of a skill which can not fail. The maker of
your body is the great and unerring Power, who has also made all the
rest of creation. It is God.

God made your body with supple joints and free limbs; with strong
muscles and ready nerves. The machine was perfect when it came from
his hands. It was then capable of going better than the best clock
that was ever constructed by human ingenuity. It was able even to
cleanse, and oil, and repair itself, and it was prepared to continue
its orderly movements, without suffering the slightest derangement, for
sixty or seventy long years. But when God placed this perfected piece
of delicate workmanship at your disposal, he, like the clockmaker with
his clock, required that you should at least take care of it, and use
it fairly. If, however, you do not do this, then as with the clock, so
will it be with your body. If you keep it amid dust and dirt, no other
result can come but the clogging of its works, and the derangement of
their movements. Out of that dusty old clock-case it is my purpose to
draw this very surprising and important lesson in your behoof. Whenever
men get out of happiness and ease into wretchedness and disease, it is
almost sure to be their own fault, and the consequence of their own
doings. Either they perversely and wilfully do something which they
know very well they ought not to do, or they do something which they
ought not to do, in ignorance.

Comfort and ease are to body and mind, what steady and even movements
are to clock-work—signs that the machinery is in perfect order.
Discomfort and _dis-ease_ (_absence of ease_) are to body and mind
what fitful and irregular movements are to clock-work;—signs that
the machinery is clogged and in disorder. You are always inclined to
rebel against discomfort and pain. Never give way to this inclination.
Discomfort and pain are friendly monitors, that come to you to perform
a kind service. They come to warn you that there is something wrong in
and around your own body, which requires to be set right.

You will observe that I have said men _nearly_ always have themselves
to blame when they get out of health and into disease. I have said
nearly always, because it occasionally does happen that the suffering
is not immediately caused by the sufferer’s own wrong doing. This, for
instance, is the case when a child has a constitutional disease, which
has been communicated to it by a parent. It is, however, even in these
instances none the less true, that _human blindness or wilfulness_
leads to the mischief, and this is really the practical point that I am
desirous you should see. These are the cases in which, in accordance
with God’s law, “the sins of the fathers are visited upon the
children.” The parents have done wrong, and the offspring have to pay
the penalty. The line of obvious duty, however, is in no way altered
here. If a man suffers because his parents did what was wrong, this
really is an additional reason why he ought never to do that which may
cause his own children to suffer, in like manner, with himself.

There is this further proof, that even in these cases it really is
_man’s wrong doing which leads to human suffering_. When the children
of parents who have done what was wrong, go on doing only what is right
through several generations, their offspring at last cease to suffer,
and become altogether healthy and sound. The burden of the fathers’
sins is then, at length, mercifully taken off from their shoulders.

Having listened patiently to this little sermon, you would now like
me to come to the point, and show you some of the dust and dirt which
are scattered around the living body, and which at times get into the
machinery to the damage of its working. First of all, in my endeavor to
do this, I should like to make you quite comprehend the possibility of
there being very weighty matters pressing close round you, which you
nevertheless are entirely unable to see, even in bright daylight. Just
come out with me, here, upon the road. How pleasant and fresh the day
is! Do you not feel the gentle breeze fanning your cheek as you turn up
the lane? Yet you can not see the breeze! What is it, then? Certainly
it is _something_, for it touches and even presses against your skin.
But it is something, too, which has weight and power of its own.
Observe how it shakes the leaves of the trees as it sweeps past them.
It is, as you know, the same unseen breeze which also drives round
those great mill-sails yonder with such violence, and which grinds as
much corn in that mill, as could be ground by the efforts of a dozen
horses, kept up to their work by the whip. We have not had to move far,
then, before we have come upon something which we cannot see;—before we
have proved to ourselves that we must not altogether depend upon our
eye-sight for information, even concerning the existence of surrounding
things.

But what is this? The breeze is not so fresh here as it was just now at
the end of the lane. There is some very disagreeable smell now floating
upon it. Here again we can see nothing, any more than we could when we
had only the fresh breeze blowing around us. But there must be some
cause for the unpleasant odor. The smell gets stronger and stronger
as we approach this bank. We climb over the bank, and we find on the
other side, in the corner of a field, a manure-heap, from which the
smell is evidently poured out. Now that smell is really a vapor, bred
of decay in the manure, and then steaming up from it into the air. If
our eyes were as sharp as our noses, we should be able to see a host
of little bodies rushing up from the manure, and scattering themselves
through the air. It is because some of those little bodies strike upon
the lining of our noses, as they are drawn in by our breathing, that we
smell the unpleasant odor. The nose feels the touch of those bodies as
a smell.

Wherever substances which have been alive, are dead and undergoing
decay, vapors of this kind are bred and steamed forth. This is the way
in which dead things are got rid of; they turn to vapor and crumble to
dust. If we could see all the vapors that are being bred of decay, we
should be sensible of a thick mist covering the entire face of the land
and sea, and rising up from it continually. Some of these vapors have
strong smells, like those which issue from the manure-heap; but some of
them can not even be smelt, any more than they can be seen.

But these invisible vapors, bred of decay, were not intended to be
breathed by living creatures; and indeed, can not be breathed by
them without mischief. We are able to stand near the manure-heap for
some time without taking any particular harm, because the vapors
are scattered as fast as they are formed, and are mingled in small
quantities with large quantities of pure air. We thus breathe air
tainted with these vapors, rather than the vapors themselves. But
suppose all the air were taken away, and you were left standing with
nothing around you but these vapors, what do you think would happen
to you? You would be dead in less than three minutes, killed by their
poisonous power. The vapors which are bred in decaying substances are
poison vapors.

You would like to know why it is, as these poison vapors are poured out
in such quantities from all decaying substances, that you do not see
people dying all around from breathing them. Did I not tell you, in the
case of the poison vapors of the manure-heap, that you could breathe
them because they were freely scattered into the fresh air? Now just
come a few yards this way. You observe the smell of the manure grows
less and less. Here you can not any longer perceive it, although the
wind is actually blowing over the manure-heap toward us. The fact is,
these poison vapors can not bear the presence of pure air. Pure air
is the natural _antidote_ or remedy for their poison. The instant it
mingles with them it begins to destroy their hurtfulness, and in a few
moments it has so thoroughly accomplished this good work that no single
trace of mischievous power remains.

Has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself why the pleasant wind blows
over hills and fields, and through lanes and streets? You know very
well that the wind always is blowing, more or less. Go out when you
will, you find it, if you turn the right way. It is the most uncommon
thing in the world for the air to be altogether still. The fresh wind
blows so constantly over hill and plain, because God sends it to
sweep away and destroy the poison vapors that steam out from decaying
substances. The breeze is God’s invisible antidote to the invisible
poison. The pleasant wind blows in order that the air may be kept fresh
and pure.

In the open air the fresh wind very soon scatters and destroys all
poison vapors. But civilized men do not dwell always in the open air.
The wind sometimes makes them feel cold, so they build themselves
houses to shut out the wind. To-night, before you go to bed in your
small sleeping room, you will close the windows and the door; and you
will think, when you have done so, that you have shut out everything
which could harm you, with the cold. But what will you say to me if I
show you that after you have closed the windows and the door, poison
vapors are bred in great quantities in the room where you are lying?
and that so long as you remain in it, they keep gathering more and more
strength, and becoming more and more dangerous. Just come back with me
to the cottage, and let us look at the room in which you were sleeping
last night. The beds, you believe, are not yet made. Never mind that.
I often go into rooms under such circumstances, and perhaps upon this
occasion it may be even better for the purpose I have in view, if I
find the chamber in disorder. At any rate let us go upstairs and take
our chance.

Sure enough you have been at great pains here to keep the cold from
getting in. There is only one casement in this low small room, and
that casement has not been unbarred since yesterday. I do not need
to be told this. I make the discovery myself; for you have also kept
something from getting out, which had better have been away. I feel
at once this is not the same kind of air which we were breathing just
now in the open garden. Indeed, I can not remain in the room without
opening the window. There; I throw open the casement, and in a few
minutes the air will be as fresh here as it is outside of the house.

Now what do you think it was that made the air of this room so
unpleasant? It was the poison-vapor with which it was laden, and which
had steamed out of your body mixed with your breath during the night.
Poison-vapors are bred in the bodies and in the blood of all living
animals, just as they are in manure-heaps. All the working organs of
your frame being exhausted by use, undergo decay and are turned into
vapor, and that vapor, being _bred_ of decay, is _poison-vapor_, which
must be got rid of out of the body as quickly as it is formed. Living
bodies are worn away into vapor by working just as mill-stones are worn
away into dust by grinding. You would see them waste under work, if
it were not that they are repaired by food. You wonder, then, that as
this vapor is poisonous, living creatures do not destroy themselves by
the poison they form in their blood? Occasionally human creatures do
so destroy themselves, as I shall presently show you. But the merciful
Designer of the animal frame has furnished a means by which, in a
general way, the poison is removed as fast as it is formed. Can you not
guess what this means is?

God employs the same plan for driving away poison vapors from the
inside of living animal bodies, that he uses for the purification of
the air in the open country. He causes a current of air to circulate
through them. Notice how, while we are talking together, our chests
heave up and down. You know this is what we term breathing. Now, when
we breathe, we first make the insides of our chests larger by drawing
their walls and floors further asunder. Then we make them smaller
by drawing their walls and floors once more nearer together. When
the chest is made larger, fresh air rushes in through the mouth and
wind-pipe, and through the twig-like branches of this pipe, until
it fills a quantity of little round chambers which form the ends of
those branches. The wind-pipe branches out into several millions of
fine twig-like tubes, and then each tube ends in a blind extremity, or
chamber exactly like this.

The air-chamber in the body is covered by a sort of net-work, stretched
tightly over it. That net-work is formed of blood-vessels, through
which the blood is constantly streaming, driven on by the action of
the heart. This blood sucks air from the air-chambers into itself,
and carries that air onward to all parts of the living frame. But
the blood-streams in the net-work of vessels also steam out into the
air-chambers poison-vapors, which are then driven out through the
windpipe and the mouth. Thus the breath which goes into the mouth is
_fresh_ air; but the breath which comes out of the mouth is _foul_
air. Air is spoiled, and, as it were, converted to poison, by being
breathed; but the body is purified by the breathing, because it is its
poison-vapors that are carried away, mingled with the spoiled air.

This, then, is why men breathe. Breathing is the blowing of a fresh
wind through the living body for the cleansing away of its impurities.
The purifying part of the air which is breathed actually circulates
with the blood through all parts of the frame.

Exercise quickens and exalts the cleansing powers of the breathing—and
this is why it is of such great importance to the health. When you
go and take a brisk walk in the open air, you increase the force of
the internal breeze. The exertion makes your chest expand to a larger
size, so that it can admit more fresh air, and it also causes your
blood-streams to course along more rapidly, so that a greater abundance
of the air is carried on through your frame.

    [To be concluded.]

       *       *       *       *       *

I could never find out more than three ways to become happier (not
happy). The first, rather a high one, is this: to soar so far above
the clouds of life that one sees the whole external world, with its
wolf-dens, charnel-houses, and thunder-rods, down far beneath us,
shrunk into a child’s little garden. The second is—merely to sink
down into this little garden, and there to nestle yourself so snugly
in some little furrow, that when you look out of your warm lark-nest
you likewise can perceive no wolf-dens, charnel-houses, and poles,
but only blades, every one of which, for the nest-bird, is a tree,
and sun-screen, and rain-screen. The third, finally, which I regard
as the hardest and cunningest, is that of alternating with the other
two.—_Jean Paul F. Richter._




THE MAMMALIA.

From the French of ERNEST MENAULT.


This is a class of animals which, by their organization and
intelligence, approach nearest to man. The mammalia have a bony
skeleton, the center of which is the spine, to which the other organs
are attached, and whence they all radiate. They possess, also, a
brain, in which the hemispheres are well developed; a heart with two
ventricles and two auricles; lungs for inhaling air to oxydize the
blood and stimulate all the organs, the brain especially. The thoracic
cavity contains the lungs and the heart, which are always separated
from the abdominal cavity by a complete diaphragm.

In this class the organs of sense acquire great perfection, even in
their accessory parts. For instance, the greater number of each species
have distinct eyelids, an external ear, and other peculiarities which
are not found amongst the oviparous animals. The mouth is furnished
with fleshy lips (except the monotrematous animals[K]), and the body is
habitually protected with a specially adapted covering.

All the mammalia have five senses, but in different degrees. Thus,
one species, such as the chamois and wild goats, that live upon the
mountains, have long sight, and can see better far away than near. On
the contrary, the heavy races which inhabit the valleys, such as the
hog and rhinoceros, can see objects best when near them. Those whose
eyes are too sensitive to bear the bright light of day, only go out
during the night, like bats, or even hide themselves under the earth,
as the armadillo and hedgehog. Those creatures which are the weakest,
being on that account the more timid, are gifted with a keen sense of
hearing. This enables them to avoid danger. The hare, the rabbit, the
jerboa, the mouse, and other rodentia, on hearing the slightest noise
prepare for flight. The more powerful or courageous races, the lion,
tiger, cat, and lynx, whose sight is keen, even at night, have short
ears and weak hearing, the strength of one sense generally compensating
for the weakness of others.

With the carnivora the sense of taste becomes an eager, sanguinary
appetite, while the herbivorous animals require a delicacy of taste to
enable them to distinguish the nourishing plant from that which would
poison them. “Thus,” says Virey, “nature adapts the constitution of
each individual to its destiny on earth.” In depriving the armadillo
and pangolins of teeth, she covers them with a coat of mail or scales.
In making the hedgehog and porcupine weak and defenseless, she enables
them to raise at pleasure a forest of sharp quills, and these animals
have only to roll themselves up and become a prickly ball, which is
quite impregnable. In denying to the herbivorous animals strong teeth
and hooked claws, nature has armed the head of the ruminants with
formidable horns; finally, she gives to the timid animals, such as the
rodentia, either the industry to hide themselves in the earth, like
the marmot, the rabbit, and the rat; the agility to jump from tree
to tree, like the squirrel; or great quickness in running, and power
to take immense leaps in fleeing from danger, as the kangaroo, which
bounds along like a grasshopper. The llama is quite defenceless, but,
if attacked, it covers its enemies with a disgusting and bitter saliva.
The pole-cats, and all of that species, when pursued, throw off such
execrable odors that their most ferocious enemies are obliged to give
up the pursuit.

Some animals frighten their persecutor by frightful cries, like the
howling monkey; others mislead their foes by a number of tricks and
careful precautions, and know where to obtain safe shelter and seek
obscure retreats.

The smallest species, besides being more numerous and multiplying more
abundantly, are also more lively in proportion to their size than the
larger animals. Before an elephant or a whale could turn round, a
dormouse or a mouse would have made a hundred movements, the smallness
of the limbs giving more unity and more control over the body; the
shorter muscles contract more easily, and each movement is more rapid
than amongst larger creatures. The mammalia form the intermediate class
by which the other animals approach to us, and by which the inferior
species are grouped around man. In fact, the family of the apes seems
to come very near to the human race. On the other hand, the bats,
the flying squirrel of Siberia, and other like species, appear to
link the birds to the mammalia; while the armadillo and the pangolin,
quadrupeds covered either with a cuirass or with scales placed one over
the other, seem related to the reptile, such as tortoises and lizards.
The amphibious mammalia, such as the seal, sea-cow, and other cetacea,
which _apparently_ partake of the nature of fishes, are linked to the
large and numerous classes of aquatic animals.

“Thus,” says Virey, “the mammalia form the nucleus round which are
grouped the different superior classes of the animal kingdom as being
the most perfect type of creation, and the first link in the chain of
animated nature next to man.” Let us compare the various other classes
with the mammalia. The bird, inhabitant of the air, has received a
temperament warm and lively, delicate and sensitive; always gay, full
of fire and inconstancy, like the variable region he traverses. The
fishes again, the cold creatures of the waters, are more apathetic, and
occupy themselves chiefly with material wants; their scaly covering
seems to steel them against gentle impressions, and hinder them from
feeling acutely, or bringing their intelligence to anything like
perfection. The quadrupeds, on the contrary, existing in a medium
state, equally below the airy heights, as above the deep abyss of
the waters—sharing with man the possession and sovereignty of the
earth—seem to hold the middle place between two extremes. They have
neither the ardor nor petulance of the bird, the lower sensibility of
the fish, nor the apathy of the reptile; but, living as they do on a
dry and firm soil, their nature has received more consistency, and
their frame more solidity. The locomotion of the quadruped has not the
rapidity of flight, nor the nimbleness of swimming; but it has not the
painful slowness of the tortoise and other reptiles.

All the series of these mammalia represent a long succession of
inferior structures below that of man. The monkey, considered either
with regard to his external form of internal organization, seems but
a man degenerated. Skeleton, members, muscles, veins, nerves, brain,
stomach, and principal viscera resemble ours almost entirely, not only
in general structure, but in the ramifications of the lesser vessels.
In comparison with us it appears an imperfectly formed being, although
it is perfect as regards its own species.

The same scale of graduated inferiority is observed in descending from
the monkey to the bat; from the latter to the sloth, to the carnivora,
and through all the series.

The smaller the extent of the brain, especially the hemispheres,
and the fewer the number of its circumvolutions, the more brutal or
more animal do we find the creature. In fact, in the monkey itself,
and the quadrupeds with long snouts, which bend toward the earth,
everything tends to the growth of the appetites and the development
of the senses. They think only of satisfying their physical wants.
Of all animals the quadrupeds are the most capable of understanding
us; not only on account of their organization, but also because they
are the more susceptible of being domesticated. The bird has less
relationship with us; for, whatever familiarity or intelligence may
be attributed to the parrot or tame canary, the qualities of the dog,
the beaver, and the elephant always surpass those of the most clever
birds. The more closely a well-organized animal approaches to us, the
more it can comprehend us, and we can more easily aid in developing its
intelligence. This is especially the case with the mammalia.

Nevertheless, the influence of man upon the domestication of the
animals is limited by their fitness for sociability. There is not a
single domesticated species which does not, naturally, live in society.
Of all the solitary species, there is not a single one which has become
domesticated; and sociability does not in the least depend on their
intelligence, for the sheep lives in companionship, while the lion,
fox, and bear live solitarily. Neither does it depend on habit; for
the long continuance of the young ones with their parents does not
produce it. The bear cherishes its young ones with as much tenderness
and for as long a time as the dog, and yet the bear is amongst the most
solitary animals.

Frederic Cuvier has observed three distinct conditions amongst
animals:—The solitary species, such as cats, martens, bears, and
hyenas; those which live in families, such as wolves, roebucks, etc.;
those which live in societies, such as beavers, elephants, monkeys,
dogs, seals, etc.

Cuvier has devoted himself to the study of these societies. He follows
the progress of the animal, which, born in the midst of the flock, is
there developed, and which, at each epoch of its life, learns from all
which surrounds it to place its new existence in harmony with that of
the old ones. The feebleness of the young animals is the cause of their
obedience to the old, which possess strength; and the habit of obeying
once adopted by the young, is the reason why the power still remains
with the most aged, although he has become in turn the most feeble.
Whenever a society is under the direction of a chief, that chief is
nearly always the most aged of the troop. Mons. Flourens thinks that
this order may, perhaps, be disturbed by violent passions. If this be
the case, the authority passes to another: and, having commenced anew
by reason of strength, they preserve the same by habit. There are,
therefore, amongst the mammalia, species which form real societies;
and it is from these alone that man takes all domesticated animals.
The horse becomes, by domestication, the companion of man; and of all
animals of his species is the most naturally so.

The sheep, which we have reared, follows us, but he also follows the
flock, in the midst of which he was born. According to Cuvier, he looks
upon man as the leader of the flock. Man, says M. Flourens, is to the
animals only a member of their society; all his art is reduced to
making himself acceptable to them as an associate; for, let him once
become their associate, he soon becomes their chief, being superior
to them in intelligence. Man does not, therefore, change the natural
state of these animals, as Buffon says; on the contrary, he profits
by it. In other terms, having found the animals sociable, he renders
them domesticated; and thus domestication is not a singular case, but
a simple modification, a natural consequence, of animal sociability.
Nearly all our domestic animals are _naturally_ sociable. The ox, goat,
pig, dog, rabbit, etc., live, by nature, in society; that is, in herds
or flocks.

The cat is not really a domesticated animal—it is not subdued, only
tamed; in the same way the bear, lion, and tiger even might be tamed,
but not domesticated. Man’s influence will make a sociable animal
domesticated, but a solitary animal he can only tame.

       *       *       *       *       *

When a thought is too weak to be simply expressed, it is a proof that
it should be rejected.—_Vauvenargues._




WASHINGTON IRVING.[L]

By PROF. WALLACE BRUCE.


The record of Washington Irving rests like a ray of sunlight upon the
pages of our early history. Born in 1783, at the close of the great
struggle for independence, his life of seventy-six years circles
a period of growth and material progress, the pages of which this
centennial generation has just been turning. And perhaps it is not
unfitting to consider at this time the life and services of our
sweetest writer, the best representative of our earliest culture. On
the other hand, I am well aware that the great mass of mankind are
absorbed in business, and like the Athenian of old continually asking
for something new; that the initials of our nation were long ago
condensed into a plain monogram of dollars, and this our nineteenth
century represented and symbolized by a large interrogation point. We
question the stars, the rocks and our Darwinian ancestors; and we are
thoroughly occupied in looking after our own personal interest and
the prosperity of the republic; yet I may hope that this lecture will
call up some pleasure in the hearts of those who read and re-read the
writings of Washington Irving, and will help to renew your acquaintance
with the incidents of his life, and perhaps awaken the attention of
some who are asking what to read—the one question which more than any
other decides their individual happiness and the education of the
rising generation. It is my purpose this afternoon to consider his
writings, his associations and his life; and I take up his works in the
order in which they were written, as in this way we trace the natural
development of the writer and the man.

“Knickerbocker,” his earliest work, written at the age of twenty-six,
bears the same relation to his later work as “Pickwick,” the first
heir of Dickens’ invention, to his novels that followed; and there
is another point of similarity in the fact that “Knickerbocker” and
“Pickwick” both outgrew the original design of the authors. Neither
Dickens nor Irving had any idea of the character of the work he
was proposing. The philosophical and benevolent Pickwick, you will
remember, was barely rescued from being the head of a holiday hunting
club; and the idea of “Knickerbocker,” at least at first, was simply to
parody a small hand-book which had recently appeared under the title of
“A Picture of New York.” Following this plan, a humorous description
of the early governors of New York was intended merely as a preface to
the customs and institutions of the city; but, like Buckle’s “History
of Civilization,” the introduction became the body of the book, and all
idea of a parody was early and happily abandoned. The “Rise and Fall of
the Dutch Nation along the Hudson,” presented a subject of unity, and
gave Irving an opportunity to depict the representative of a race whose
customs were fast passing away. The serio-comic nature of the work is
intensified by notices in the New York _Post_ calling attention to
the mysterious disappearance of Diedrich Knickerbocker. Never was any
volume more happily introduced. Before we turn a single page we have an
idea of the veritable writer. The description of Knickerbocker makes
him rise before us; we become interested in the mystery that surrounds
him. In fact, the charm of the book is in the simple reality or assumed
personality of Diedrich Knickerbocker. The portrait of Don Quixote
starting out to redress the wrongs of the world is not more clearly
drawn than that of the historian of New Amsterdam, with his silver shoe
buckles and cocked hat and quaint costume. But there is this difference
in the mind of the reader: in the great satire of Cervantes there is
an element of sadness. We see a crazed old man wandering out in quest
of adventure, exciting our pity, almost excusing the paradox of Lord
Byron: the saddest of all tales, and more sad still because it makes
us laugh. Here there is only a mild sort of insanity about the old
gentleman, with his books and papers and various employments, which
touches our humor, without exciting our sympathy. By the way, the books
of humor which we have here associated with each other belong to the
same form, are second cousins of one another, and ought to stand upon
the same shelf of our libraries.

Some of the Holland families are reported to have taken the work in
high dudgeon, as a rash innovation of the domain of history; and I
believe one of the gentler sex, who perhaps had no lover to fight
a duel or no brother to take her part, proposed herself with her
own hands to horsewhip the offensive writer for his bold attempt at
spelling and printing for the first time some of the old family names.
From to-day’s standpoint these things seem ludicrous and uncalled
for in reference to a work abounding in kindly humor everywhere,
accepted as the finest blending of the classic and the comic in all
literature; and were it not that these early enemies soon became his
warmest friends, I should pass it over in silence. The transition
was so sudden and severe that it is one of the pleasantest in his
history. In later years Irving thus refers to “Knickerbocker”: “When
I find, after the lapse of forty years this haphazard production of
my youth cherished among the descendants of the Dutch worthies; when
I find its very name become a household word, and used to give the
home stamp to everything recommended for popular acceptance; when I
see rising around me Knickerbocker societies, Knickerbocker insurance
companies, omnibuses, steamboats, bread, ice, wagons; and when I find
New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding themselves upon being genuine
Knickerbocker stock, I please myself with the persuasion that I have
struck the right chord, that my dealings with the good old Dutch times
and customs derived from them are right in harmony with the beliefs
and humors of our townsmen, that I have opened up a vein of pleasing
associations equally characteristic and peculiar to my native place,
and which its inhabitants will not willingly suffer to pass away; and
that although other histories of New York may appear of higher claim to
learned acceptance, and may take their appropriate and dignified rank
in the family library, Knickerbocker’s history will still be received
with good-humored intelligence.” It was, indeed, wide from the sober
aim of history; but no volume ever gave such rose-tinted colors to the
early annals of any country, and New York instead of being covered with
ridicule, is to-day the only city of this Union whose early history
is associated with the golden age of poetry, with antiquity extending
back into the regions of doubt and fable; and it is safe to say that
the streams of Scotland are no more indebted to the genius of Robert
Burns and Walter Scott than the Hudson and the Catskills to the pen of
Washington Irving. [Applause.]

[At this point the lecturer gave some illustrations of Irving’s style;
his rendering of them being, as usual, all that could be desired.]

In this his first volume we would naturally look for his
characteristics as a writer, and we find a rich fund of humor and
invention; but here and there are gentle touches and the promise of
other qualities, to which Walter Scott refers in a letter to one of his
friends. He says: “I have never read anything so closely resembling the
style of Dean Swift, as the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. I think,
too, there are some passages which indicate that the author possesses
powers of a different kind, and he has some touches which remind me of
Sterne.”

The prophecy of Scott waited ten years for its fulfillment, but it
came at last in the most charming collection of essays in our language,
the “Sketch-Book,” which I divide into essays of character and
sentiment, English pictures and American legends. The “Broken Heart”
is perhaps the greatest favorite of his character sketches, and at the
same time a transcript of his early experience. In the short space of
six pages he portrays the qualities of woman’s nature, and illustrates
it with the touching story of Curran’s daughter, whose heart was buried
in the coffin of Robert Emmet. This essay was suggested by a friend
who had met the heroine at a masquerade. The name and the time of its
writing were closely associated with Moore’s familiar poem:

    “She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
     She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains,
       Every note which he loved awaking;
     Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
       How the heart of the minstrel is breaking.”

In the whole range of English literature I know of no pen except
Irving’s which could have written an essay like this in plain and
simple prose. We find the same tender sentiment in Burns’ “Highland
Mary,” and Poe’s “Annabel Lee;” but poetry is the natural language of
passion and sorrow. Irving has often been likened to Addison, but in
this particular they have nothing in common. Edward Everett has well
said: One chord in the human heart, the pathetic, for whose weird
music Addison had no ear, Irving touched with the hand of a master.
He learned that in the school of early disappointment; and in the
following passages we seem to hear its sad but sweet vibration, still
responding through years of sorrow to the memory of her whose hopes
were entwined with his: “There are some strokes of calamity, which
scathe and scorch the soul, which penetrate to the vital seat of
happiness, and blast it never to put forth bud and blossom; and let
those tell her agony who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly
closed between them and the being they most loved on earth, who have
sat at its threshold as one shut out in the cold and lonely world,
whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed.”

It is said that when Lord Byron was dying at Missolonghi, he required
an attendant to read to him the “Broken Heart,” and while the attendant
was reading one of the most tender portions the poet’s eyes moistened,
and he said: “Irving never wrote that story without weeping, and I can
not hear it without tears.” He added: “I have not wept much in this
world, for trouble never brings tears to my eyes; but I always had
tears for the ‘Broken Heart.’”

Kindred to this, I select “The Wife” as a true picture of woman’s
power in adversity. As the story goes, his friend Leslie had married a
beautiful and accomplished girl, and having an ample fortune, it was
his ambition that her life should be a fairy tale. Having embarked in
speculation, his riches took to themselves wings and flew away, leaving
him in bankruptcy. For a time he kept his situation to himself, but
every look revealed his story; and at last he told all to his wife. We
see her rising from a state of childish dependence, and becoming the
support and comfort of her husband in his misfortune. Following them
from a mansion to a cottage, we feel that the last state of that man is
better than the first; in the knowledge and possession of such a heart
he had truer riches than diamonds can symbolize. [Applause.] To the
credit of our better nature, the words of Irving are true: “There is in
every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant
in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and blazes
in the dark hour of adversity. No man knows what the wife of his bosom
is, what a ministering angel she is, until he has gone with her through
the fiery trials of this world.” Outside the dramas of Shakspere and
the pages of Walter Scott, I know of no such pictures of graceful
womanhood as we find in these sketches.

Another quality no less marked than his humor and pathos we see in his
reverence and love for antiquity, which forms a marked feature in the
English pictures. In his “Rural Life” and “Christmas Sketches” we see
his love for the old English writers, and that Chaucer and Spenser were
his favorite authors. “To my mind these early poets are something more
than wells of English undefiled. They are rather like the lakes of the
Adirondacks, separated from each other and from us by events which loom
up like mountains in the world’s history; clear and cool in far off
solitudes, reflecting in their bright mirrors the serenity of earth and
the broad expanse of heaven, responding to the gentle glow of summer
sunset, holding quiet communion with the evening stars and awakening
rosy life at the first touch of morn.... The old English ballads have
all the energy, the rhythm and sparkle of our mountain streams, but
Chaucer and Spenser and Shakspere and Bunyan are the fountains from
which flows a river, ay, the Hudson of our English language.” With
this deep love for the masters of English literature, we are not
surprised that Westminster Abbey, with its poets’ corner, should be the
subject of one of his earliest essays; and the principal feature of
this essay, that which makes it the enduring one of all that have been
written upon this venerable pile, is its truth and sincerity. It is,
indeed, pleasant, in these days of irreverence; when flippant writing
is received for wit and mis-spelled slang accepted for originality;
when popular literature is running into low levels of life and luxury
and the vices and follies of mankind; when modern poets take their cue
from the heathen Chinee and find rhyme and rhythm in subdued oaths
and significant dashes; when even home ballads are infected with the
speech, if not the morality of Jim Bludsoe; in these days of scoffing
at all things temporal and spiritual; when it seems as if belief had
gone out of man: we turn with satisfaction to these essays, in which
we see the nobility of a loyal heart, and feel that truth and goodness
and beauty, the offspring of God, are not subject to the changes which
upset the invention of man. [Applause.] I make no quotation from this
familiar essay; it possesses too much unity to detach a paragraph or a
sentence. I can only say I read it over and over again with the same
interest to-day as years ago in the deep shade of that melancholy aisle
at the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots.

There is one other place in England where I took my pocket edition
of the “Sketch-Book”—to Stratford-on-Avon, for, more than any other
man, Irving is associated with the world’s greatest poet. Writers
without number, and many of them well known to fame, have given their
impressions of Stratford-on-Avon, but Irving’s description supersedes
them all. In this companionship of Shakspere and Irving we see the
enduring qualities of the human heart. In the deep sympathy of Irving
for the olden time, we feel that he has added another charm to
Stratford, and that we as a nation have a better claim to the great
poet.

In Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle,” and “Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” which I
take as illustrations of his “American Legends,” we see that he is
one of the few writers who recognize the fact that comedy is quite as
natural as tragedy. At the time this essay was written we understand
that Irving had never visited the Catskill Mountains; but there is this
feature about all his essays or stories: wherever he locates them, they
seem at once to take root and flourish. This story is too well known,
through the genius of Jefferson on the stage, and Rogers in the studio,
to need delineation. The old Dutch village, with its philosophers and
sages, the sorely-tried Gretchen, the shiftless, good-natured Van
Winkle, the adventure on the mountains, the return—it all passes before
our minds like a series of pictures; and we come to the closing scene,
which the play-writer and dramatist would have done well to follow, for
there is more dramatic unity in the story which Irving left us than in
the drama.

I must pass over to-night “Bracebridge Hall,” the “History of
Columbus,” the “History of Washington,” the “Alhambra,” and many more,
which, as we think of them, rise up before us like a new vision of the
“Arabian Nights” in our literature; and in order to read them and get
the full beauty of Irving’s works, we must read them in connection with
his “Life and Letters,” published by his nephew, Peor Irving, in which
we see the whole history of the man pass before us, from the time when
the boy of twenty went through the northern wilderness of New York,
until the time when, a man of seventy, he again stood on the banks of
the St. Lawrence, and in a letter to his niece called up the changes of
fifty years.

[After referring to the changes Irving had lived to see take place, the
speaker made the following allusion to Chautauqua:]

Think of Mr. Miller when he ten years ago laid out the site of the
first humble cottage in this grove; and if he had slept from that time
until now, he would be more than Rip Van Winkle, could he look in
to-night upon this Auditorium. [Applause.]




HOURS OF REST.

By ANNA H. DRURY.

    “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest
    awhile.”—MARK vi: 31.


    Come ye apart, and rest awhile
      From all your hope, from all your fear:
    The sunny fields where harvests smile,
      The thankless soil, the blighted ear—
    Leave all behind, and rest with Me
    One hour in still Gethsemane!

    Come ye apart, and find repose
      In this the garden of My pain;
    Drink of the cup I share with those
      Who lose for Me, and find it gain.
    I from an angel comfort drew,
    But I myself will comfort _you_!

    Come ye apart, and taste the calm
      My love can shed beneath the rod.
    Rest on the everlasting Arm—
      Be still, and know that I am God!
    Accept your Heavenly Father’s Will,
    As I accepted—and was still.

    Come ye, as Moses came of old,
      While humbled Israel mourned below,
    And wrestled for his guilty fold,
      With pangs that only shepherds know;
    And won them back the forfeit grace!
      Sealed with My glory on his face!

    Come ye, as erst Elijah came,
      Through forty days of mystic fast;
    And through the earthquake, storm, and flame,
      Thrilled to the still small voice at last;
    And learned, when every hope looked dim,
    That unknown thousands prayed with him!

    Come, rest with Me on that stern bed
      Whose tortures were endured for you;
    Till faith and patience perfected,
      There, where I triumphed, triumph too.
    Who share the Paschal nail and thorn,
    Shall know the joy of Easter morn!




THE RESOURCES OF THE UNITED STATES.


In a book written by J. Harris Patton, M. D., and published by D.
Appleton & Co., entitled “The Natural Resources of the United States,”
we find so much information that commends itself to every citizen of
the country, that we have noted a few of the general facts, hoping
thereby to give some light on the great wealth of our country. From
this little book we learn first the general position and description
of the country, together with the mountain ranges, rivers, lakes,
valleys, etc.; then the amount of available coast line. This is, on
both oceans, nearly 18,000 miles, while the shore line of the lakes and
navigable rivers is 11,000 miles in length, making 29,000 miles in all.
The vast importance of this need only be suggested to bring up a host
of advantages that we derive from such means of traffic. In comparing
the coal fields of Europe with those of the United States it is found
that the latter country has twenty square miles of coal for one of
the former, with a surplus of territory in the Rocky Mountain region
amounting to 100,000 square miles. The ease with which the coal of the
United States is mined is of great importance in the industry of the
country. This facility of mining is due to the thickness of the veins
and the dip of the seams.

Anthracite coal is most abundant in Pennsylvania. There are over
four hundred and seventy square miles of this coal with an average
thickness of sixty feet. Anthracite is also found in Virginia, Rhode
Island, and New Mexico. Of bituminous coal there seems to be such a
general distribution that almost every part of the country is supplied
with fields of its own. The bituminous coal fields of the Allegheny
lie on the western slope of the mountains and extend through Western
Pennsylvania across the upper course of the Ohio river; and in like
manner southwest along the slope nearly to the Gulf.

In many of these localities the beds of iron ore and limestone are
all in the same mountain with the coal, and as they are all above the
water-level, the coal is dry and well adapted to blast furnace purposes.

Block and cannel coals are found in great quantities throughout Ohio
and Indiana. Block coal is also abundant in Iowa and Illinois.

Lignite is found in vast fields in the Rocky Mountain district. The
veins of this partly formed coal are often nearly thirty feet thick.
It is useful where great heat is not required. The extent of these
fields on the east of the Rockies, and between them and the Sierras, is
estimated to be fifty thousand square miles.

On the Pacific slope there are many localities where seams of coal are
now worked, some of which are over one hundred feet in thickness. These
fields extend far up into Alaska.

Iron-ore is found in inexhaustible quantities. The Creator seems
to have placed the most useful of minerals within the reach of all
mankind. New York State produces ore that yields iron of the best
quality. Rich ores are found in New Jersey, while Pennsylvania
surpasses all other states in her minerals. Ore is found in this state
in all conditions, and of almost every variety. The ore is often
associated with limestone and coal. Virginia has some valuable deposits
of iron that are practically free from sulphur and phosphorus. North
Carolina is rich in singular beds of ore which, when mined, looks like
black sand. This ore is the “black oxide.” Kentucky, Tennessee and
Alabama all have important beds of ore. In Missouri there are two large
mountains containing one-tenth of their weight in iron. Lake Superior
regions are so valuable that ore is mined in this country and shipped
to Pittsburgh to be smelted. Even the Rocky Mountains are well supplied
with iron-ore in many places.

Gold and silver. These constitute the precious metals of the United
States, and though the world could dispense with them, they are sought
after and prized by all classes. The opening up of the great West is
due to these metals. They are produced in limited quantities in the
Allegheny range, but the methods of working the ore in these mines are
not well enough adapted to make it paying property. The Rocky Mountains
and the Sierras contain ore bearing both gold and silver in large
quantities. The gold and silver fields of the United States occupy
nearly one hundred and fifty thousand square miles. Of the metals iron,
zinc, platinum, nickel, etc., we have limited quantities in the United
States.

Massachusetts has tin. Zinc is found in New Hampshire and New York,
while New Jersey is the only State that has this metal in paying
quantities. Nickel has been found in Connecticut and Maryland. Platinum
is found in Idaho.

Petroleum producing territory covers an area of two hundred thousand
square miles, and from this vast amount it would seem that the world
could be supplied from the United States alone for an indefinite number
of years.

Lead is found in abundance in some of the Eastern and many of the
Western States. At Galena, in Illinois, there is a lead deposit that
will supply this metal for centuries.

Vast fields of copper are found in the State of Michigan and Isle
Royale, yet it is quite abundant in many of the other States of the
Union.

Mercury is produced from cinnabar, an ore found in California, and is
useful in extracting gold and silver.

Graphite comes from New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and
North Carolina. That of New York is especially fine, and fit for making
the best quality of pencils.

Slate, granite, sandstone and marble are found in such vast quantities
in the Northeastern States that the supply may be deemed inexhaustible.
The country contains immense beds of gypsum, clay, whetstone, slate for
pencils and glass-sand.

The salt industries of the Middle States are very great, the quantity
seems to be without limit, and the pumping of brine for a series of
years does not seem to weaken its strength.

Fertilizers in the shape of phosphates, limestone and marl abound
everywhere; while health-giving mineral springs are distributed
throughout the breadth of the land.

The resources of the United States are not confined to minerals, but
enormous wealth is in the natural fertility of the soil. Supplied with
copious rain fall over a vast territory, the soil yields throughout the
different latitudes such variety of products that nothing seems left
to be desired in this line. Even where the rain fall is very little
the land will give abundant return if the farmer will only irrigate
the soil. Grains, fruits, grasses, etc., are produced in wonderful
quantities.

Our forests are enormous in extent, though they have suffered from
wanton destruction, and with proper care, may be made to supply timber
for hundreds of years.

The review of the fishing industries by the author gives astonishing
figures to show us how much we are indebted to the lakes and seas for
our food.

Fur bearing animals are abundant, as also wild game of all kinds.

By carefully constructed, though liberal laws, the government has made
it possible to get homes in the great West, to obtain mining lands and
in all has done the best for the working man and citizen.

       *       *       *       *       *

We are less annoyed when fools despise us, than when we are slightly
esteemed by men of understanding.—_Vauvenargues._




MONTANA.

By SHELDON JACKSON, D.D.


“Her empire the cradle of the two mightiest rivers of North America;
a scepter of gold in her right hand, and a shield of silver in her
left; her cornucopia full and overflowing from the abundance of her own
bosom; and with the dawning star of statehood flashing independence
from her youthful forehead, she will soon fall into line and ‘march
to the music of the Union.’ Seated on her throne of forest-decked
mountains, her enchanting landscapes of

    ‘Mountain, forest, and rock,
     Of deep blue lake and mighty river,’

stretching in picturesque grandeur toward either main—the Missouri
her natural carrier to the east, and the Columbia to the west; the
trade, traffic, and travel of two worlds rattling over her mountains
and through her valleys by the great Northern Pacific or Northern Utah
railways; her power centered on Nature’s wall of division between the
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, with an equal interest in the
commerce of both; valleys teeming with bountiful harvests and mines of
boundless wealth in the precious metals; with such natural attractions
and advantages, is it possible to draw an over-colored picture of her
future?”

The country of which the above is a glowing description, is, with the
exception of Alaska, the youngest of our territorial dependencies.
It was cut off from Idaho and formed into a Territory May 26, 1864.
Stretching for 275 miles from north to south, and 460 to 540 miles from
east to west, it embraces a territorial area of 143,776 square miles;
an area equal to three States like New York, the Empire State of the
East.

Its surface is beautifully diversified with mountains, valleys,
foot-hills, rivers, and creeks. The mountains supply the minerals
and the timber; the foot-hills and uplands unlimited grazing for all
kinds of stock; the creeks and rivers a water-power a hundred-fold
greater than all New England. It is estimated that this great inland
empire contains 10,000,000 acres of farming land, 21,000,000 acres of
mountains, 5,000,000 acres of mines, 12,000,000 acres of timber, and
38,000,000 acres of grazing land.

Like Minnesota, it is a great water-shed. The Yellowstone, Madison,
Jefferson, Muscleshell, Milk, Big Horn, Tongue, Powder, Sun and
Gallatin rivers drawing their supplies from unnumbered springs and
crystal rivulets descending from numberless mountain gorges, form
the Missouri River; while the Big Blackfoot, Missoula, Hell Gate and
Flathead rivers through the Columbia find their way to the Pacific. The
hills and mountains bordering these rivers are spurs putting out from
the main range of the Rocky Mountains, and sometimes excel in height
and grandeur the main range itself.

As its name signifies, Montana is a mountainous country. The western
portion is traversed by the main, the Cœur d’Alene and Bitter Root
ranges. In the northern portion are the Bear Paw, and Little Rocky
ranges; in the central the Snow, Judith and Bull ranges; and in the
southeast the Big Horn, Powder River and Wolf ranges. These have a
varying height of from 7,000 to 11,000 feet, and by their arrangement
form a series of depressions or basins, of which there are four large
ones east and one west of the Rocky Mountains proper.

Though far to the north the mean temperature of some of the valleys is
that of Philadelphia.

Like Minnesota it is a dry, invigorating climate and remarkable for its
salubrity and freedom from malaria. On an average there are 250 days of
sunshine during the year.

With the present development of the country there are about 300,000
head of cattle, 60,000 horses and 300,000 sheep; the annual product of
wheat, 450,000 bushels; oats, 650,000 bushels; barley, 60,000 bushels;
vegetables, 500,000 bushels, and 70,000 tons of hay. Montana is also
rich in timber, coal, and the precious metals. In the past sixteen
years more than $120,000,000 worth of gold-dust has been washed from
her placers.

The first authentic information of Montana was given to the country
by the famous expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804. In 1834 Capt.
Bonneville, and in 1853 Gov. I. I. Stevens, threw additional light upon
the character of the country.

The permanent settlement of the country commenced with the rush of gold
miners. As early as 1852 the existence of gold was discovered, but this
knowledge was not made available until 1862, when the rush commenced,
culminating in 1865-66.

The first mining settlement was at Bannock. Discovered in the summer of
1862 by some miners from Colorado, that winter found clustered there
a population of 2,000; desperados from Idaho, bankrupt speculators
from Nevada, guerrilla refugees from Missouri, miners from Colorado,
gamblers and saloon-keepers, with a small leaven of good and true men.
It was to that point that the Presbyterian Committee of Home Missions
sent their first missionary.

The following year gold was discovered in Alder Gulch, and Bannock was
deserted for the new diggings. With the population went Rev. Messrs.
Smith and Price, Presbyterian ministers, and the first Protestant
clergymen to preach in the Territory.

In 1864 Rev. A. M. Hough, the first regularly appointed Methodist
missionary, reached the new diggings and commenced preaching.

Virginia City, the outgrowth of the Alder Gulch mines, is the county
seat of Madison County. Like all mining towns, it was not laid out, but
grew. The miner only wanted a temporary shelter, and every newcomer
located his log cabin to suit himself, usually adjoining the last one
built. When common convenience required a street, a street appeared.
There were no yards or gardens, for beyond the narrow ravine filled
with straggling cabins, only grew sage-brush. The miners thrived and
the city grew. For sleeping accommodations a limited space was allotted
upon the floor, the occupant furnishing his own blankets; and it was
a long time before the regular diet of bacon, bread, and dried apples
was varied by a potato. But gradually things changed; a better class of
buildings appeared; the number of gambling and tippling places steadily
decreased; the vigilantes gained the upper hand of the roughs; old
residents brought in their wives and children, and the whole face of
things became more like the “States.”

From the huge piles of dirt and stone that mar the beauty of the gulch,
has been taken out $30,000,000 worth of gold dust. Of the ten thousand
men that once worried and toiled and fought for gold, only about one
thousand remain; yet the city is improving, and has a good future in
store.

The next discovery of rich mines was on the Prickly Pear Creek. The
Fisk Brothers with a colony from Minnesota had crossed the plains to
this point and worked on quietly until the fame of the “Last Chance
Mines” went abroad throughout the land, and a city arose like an
exhalation, taking the name of Helena from the resemblance of the
surrounding hills to those in the isle of St. Helena. Helena is not
only the political capital, but the commercial, literary, social and
religious center of the territory. It has many handsome buildings and
is growing rapidly.

In the meantime discoveries were made in many directions and small
camps of miners flourished until their gravel beds were worked over, or
a new excitement enticed away the miners. The latest developed and most
flourishing of the mining centers is at Butte, which has become the
largest city in the Territory.

Among the beautiful villages with a promising future may be mentioned
Deer Lodge, situated in a beautiful grazing valley. The first white
settler was Johnny Grant, who had among his wives a squaw from every
tribe that roamed that section. When the Flatheads passed by his ranch,
no woman was to be seen but a Flathead, and when the Blackfeet came the
sole wife of his bosom was a Blackfoot. And thus he lived at peace with
the natives, a sharer in their spoils and an arbiter in their quarrels.

Down the Hell Gate River to the northwest of Deer Lodge is the
broad, rich valley of the Bitter Root, with Missoula as its thriving
county-seat. For many years the great Hudson Bay Fur Company had a
station in that valley and monopolized the fur trade. From thence
westward the natives speak the famous Chinook jargon, invented by the
company to facilitate trade with the natives. Words were borrowed from
the English, French, and various Indian tongues and worked into an
incongruous combination which the all powerful influence of the company
introduced everywhere. The Flathead and Pend d’Oreilles Indians that
now inhabit that region are under papal influence. Among them is the
Jesuit mission of St. Ignatius.

To the northeast of Helena is Fort Benton, which was originally built
in 1846 as a trading post of the American Fur Company, and afterwards
sold to the Northwestern Fur Company. Situated at the head of steam
navigation on the Missouri River, it is growing rapidly and promises to
be an important place. From thence, in days past, the citizens of the
Territory would take a steamer for Sioux City, Iowa, two thousand miles
distant by the windings of the river—a thousand miles of which was then
through a wild Indian country. Steamers were frequently fired into by
hostile Indians, whose camps and graves were met at frequent intervals.
This route also passed through wild, and among the Citadel Rocks, weird
scenery. These curious rocks are of soft white sandstone, worn into a
thousand grotesque shapes by the waters which have come down from the
table-lands during the unknown ages of the past.

To the southeast of Helena is Bozeman, a picturesque village with grand
natural surroundings and a grand future as a city on the main line
of the Northern Pacific Railway. From it the eye can range over four
hundred miles, and a little way to the south of it, over the range,
is the great Yellowstone Park—the enchanted wonderland—where trappers
declare “they have seen trees, game and even Indians petrified, and yet
looking as natural as life; where they have seen a mountain of quartz
so transparent that they could see the mules feeding on the other
side;”—a combination of many of the freaks of nature, which are usually
looked for and found over many and widely separated lands. Already an
increasing throng of tourists each summer are visiting its falls and
cañons, its geysers and springs.

To the eastward down the Yellowstone Valley is Miles City, named after
General Miles of the United States Army.

The rising cities of Glendive, Billings and Miles are examples of the
great transformation that is passing over Montana with the advent of
railways.

Only six years ago the savage Indians destroyed Custer and his troops
of the 7th United States Cavalry, and held full sway of the entire
valley of the Yellowstone. Now railway trains pass up and down through
its scores of villages and hundreds of farms.

The census of 1880 gives the following statistics: Population 39,157;
Roman Catholics, 10 churches and 13 priests; Disciples of Christ,
6 churches and 4 ministers; Methodist Episcopal, 8 churches and 6
ministers; Methodist Episcopal (South), 9 ministers; Protestant
Episcopal, 8 churches and 6 ministers; Presbyterian, 6 churches and 7
ministers.

There are in the territory 19,791 Indians, of whose children only 287
are in school. Among the American population are 5,885 children of
school age, of whom 2,804 are in school.




TALES FROM SHAKSPERE.

By CHARLES LAMB.


MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

There lived in the palace at Messina two ladies, whose names were
Hero and Beatrice. Hero was the daughter, and Beatrice the niece, of
Leonato, the governor of Messina. Beatrice was of a lively temper, and
loved to divert her cousin Hero, who was of a more serious disposition,
with her sprightly sallies. Whatever was going forward was sure to make
matter of mirth for the light-hearted Beatrice.

At the time the history of these ladies commences, some young men of
high rank in the army, as they were passing through Messina on their
return from a war that was just ended, in which they had distinguished
themselves by their great bravery, came to visit Leonato. Among these
were Don Pedro, the prince of Arragon, and his friend Claudio, who was
a lord of Florence; and with them came the wild and witty Benedick, and
he was a lord of Padua.

These strangers had been at Messina before, and the hospitable governor
introduced them to his daughter and his niece as their old friends
and acquaintance. Benedick, the moment he entered the room, began a
lively conversation with Leonato and the prince. Beatrice, who liked
not to be left out of any discourse, interrupted Benedick with saying,
“I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick; nobody
marks you.” Benedick was just such another rattlebrain as Beatrice,
yet he was not pleased at this free salutation; he thought it did not
become a well-bred lady to be so flippant with her tongue; and he
remembered, when he was last at Messina, that Beatrice used to select
him to make her merry jests upon. And as there is no one who so little
likes to be made a jest of as those who are apt to take the same
liberty themselves, so it was with Benedick and Beatrice; these two
sharp wits never met in former times but a perfect war of raillery was
kept up between them, and they always parted mutually displeased with
each other. Therefore when Beatrice stopped him in the middle of his
discourse with telling him nobody marked what he was saying, Benedick,
affecting not to have observed before that she was present, said,
“What, my dear lady Disdain, are you yet living?” And now war broke out
afresh between them, and a long jangling argument ensued, during which
Beatrice, although she knew he had so well approved his valor in the
late war, said she would eat all he had killed there: and observing the
prince take delight in Benedick’s conversation, she called him “the
prince’s jester.” This sarcasm sank deeper into the mind of Benedick
than all Beatrice had said before. The hint she gave him that he was a
coward, by saying she would eat all he had killed, he did not regard,
knowing himself to be a brave man; but there is nothing that great wits
so much dread as the imputation of buffoonery, because the charge comes
sometimes a little too near the truth; therefore Benedick perfectly
hated Beatrice, when she called him “the prince’s jester.”

The modest lady Hero was silent before the noble guests; and while
Claudio was attentively observing the improvement which time had
made in her beauty, and was contemplating the exquisite graces of
her fine figure (for she was an admirable young lady), the prince
was highly amused with listening to the humorous dialogue between
Benedick and Beatrice; and he said in a whisper to Leonato, “This is a
pleasant-spirited young lady. She were an excellent wife for Benedick.”
Leonato replied to this suggestion, “O my lord, my lord, if they were
but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.” But though Leonato
thought they would make a discordant pair, the prince did not give up
the idea of watching these two keen wits together.

When the prince returned with Claudio from the palace, he found that
the marriage he had devised between Benedick and Beatrice was not the
only one projected in that good company, for Claudio spoke in such
terms of Hero, as made the prince guess at what was passing in his
heart; and he liked it well, and he said to Claudio, “Do you affect
Hero?” To this question Claudio replied, “Oh, my lord, when I was
last at Messina, I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye, that liked,
but had no leisure for loving; but now, in this happy time of peace,
thoughts of war have left their places vacant in my mind, and in their
room come thronging soft and delicate thoughts, all prompting me how
fair young Hero is, reminding me that I liked her before I went to the
wars.” Claudio’s confession of his love for Hero so wrought upon the
prince that he lost no time in soliciting the consent of Leonato to
accept of Claudio for a son-in-law. Leonato agreed to this proposal,
and the prince found no great difficulty in persuading the gentle Hero
herself to listen to the suit of the noble Claudio, who was a lord of
rare endowments and highly accomplished; and Claudio, assisted by his
kind prince, soon prevailed upon Leonato to fix an early day for the
celebration of his marriage with Hero.

Claudio was to wait but a few days before he was to be married to
his fair lady; yet he complained of the interval being tedious, as
indeed most young men are impatient, when they are waiting for the
accomplishment of any event they have set their hearts upon. The
prince, therefore, to make the time short to him, proposed as a kind
of merry pastime, that they should invent some artful scheme to make
Benedick and Beatrice fall in love with each other. Claudio entered
with great satisfaction into this whim of the prince, and Leonato
promised them his assistance, and even Hero said she would do any
modest office to help her cousin to a good husband.

The device the prince invented was, that the gentlemen should make
Benedick believe that Beatrice was in love with him, and that Hero
should make Beatrice believe that Benedick was in love with her. The
prince, Leonato, and Claudio began their operations first, and watching
an opportunity when Benedick was quietly seated reading in an arbor,
the prince and his assistants took their station among the trees behind
the arbor, so near that Benedick could not choose but hear all they
said; and after some careless talk the prince said, “Come hither,
Leonato. What was it you told me the other day—that your niece Beatrice
was in love with Signor Benedick? I did never think that lady would
have loved any man.” “No, nor I neither, my lord,” answered Leonato.
“It is most wonderful that she should so doat on Benedick, whom she
in all outward behavior seemed ever to dislike.” Claudio confirmed
all this, with saying that Hero had told him Beatrice was so in love
with Benedick, that she would certainly die of grief, if he could not
be brought to love her; which Leonato and Claudio seemed to agree
was impossible, he having always been such a railer against all fair
ladies, and in particular against Beatrice.

The prince affected to hearken to all this with great compassion for
Beatrice, and said, “It were good that Benedick were told of this.” “To
what end?” said Claudio; “he would but make sport of it, and torture
the poor lady worse.” “And if he should,” said the prince, “it were a
good deed to hang him; for Beatrice is an excellent sweet lady, and
exceeding wise in everything but in loving Benedick.” Then the prince
motioned to his companions that they should walk on, and leave Benedick
to meditate upon what he had overheard.

Benedick had been listening with great eagerness to this conversation;
and he said to himself, when he heard Beatrice loved him, “Is it
possible? Sits the wind in that corner?” And when they were gone, he
began to reason in this manner with himself: “This can be no trick!
they were very serious, and they have the truth from Hero, and seem
to pity the lady. Love me! Why, it must be requited. I did never think
to marry. But when I said I should die a bachelor, I did not think I
should live to be married. They say the lady is virtuous and fair. So
she is. And wise in everything but in loving me. Why, that is no great
argument of her folly. But here comes Beatrice. By this day, she is a
fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.” Beatrice now approached
him, and said with her usual tartness, “Against my will, I am sent to
bid you come in to dinner.” Benedick, who never felt himself disposed
to speak so politely to her before, replied, “Fair Beatrice, I thank
you for your pains;” and when Beatrice, after two or three more rude
speeches, left him, Benedick thought he observed a concealed meaning of
kindness under the uncivil words she uttered, and he said aloud, “If I
do not take pity on her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am a
Jew. I will go get her picture.”

The gentleman being thus caught in the net they had spread for him,
it was now Hero’s turn to play her part with Beatrice; and for this
purpose she sent for Ursula and Margaret, two gentlewomen who attended
upon her, and she said to Margaret, “Good Margaret, run to the parlor;
there you will find my cousin Beatrice talking with the prince and
Claudio. Whisper in her ear, that I and Ursula are walking in the
orchard, and that our discourse is all of her. Bid her steal into that
pleasant arbor, where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, like ungrateful
minions, forbid the sun to enter.” This arbor, into which Hero desired
Margaret to entice Beatrice, was the very same pleasant arbor where
Benedick had so lately been an attentive listener. “I will make her
come, I warrant, presently,” said Margaret.

Hero, then taking Ursula with her into the orchard, said to her, “Now,
Ursula, when Beatrice comes, we will walk up and down this alley, and
our talk must be only of Benedick, and when I name him, let it be
your part to praise him more than ever man did merit. My talk to you
must be how Benedick is in love with Beatrice. Now begin; for look
where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs close by the ground, to hear our
conference.” They then began; Hero saying, as if in answer to something
which Ursula had said, “No truly, Ursula. She is too disdainful; her
spirits are as coy as wild birds of the rock.” “But are you sure,” said
Ursula, “that Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?” Hero replied, “So
says the prince, and my lord Claudio, and they entreated me to acquaint
her with it; but I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick, never to let
Beatrice know of it.” “Certainly,” replied Ursula, “it were not good
she knew his love, lest she made sport of it.” “Why, to say truth,”
said Hero, “I never yet saw a man, how wise soever, or noble, young
or rarely featured, but she would dispraise him.” “Sure, sure, such
carping is not commendable,” said Ursula. “No,” replied Hero, “but who
dare tell her so? If I should speak she would mock me into air.” “O
you wrong your cousin,” said Ursula: “she can not be so much without
true judgment, as to refuse so rare a gentleman as Signor Benedick.”
“He hath an excellent good name,” said Hero: “indeed he is the first
man in Italy, always excepting my dear Claudio.” And now, Hero giving
her attendant a hint that it was time to change the discourse, Ursula
said, “And when are you to be married, madam?” Hero then told her, that
she was to be married to Claudio the next day, and desired she would
go in with her, and look at some new attire, as she wished to consult
with her on what she should wear on the morrow. Beatrice, who had been
listening with breathless eagerness to this dialogue, when they went
away, exclaimed, “What fire is in my ears? Can this be true? Farewell
contempt, and scorn and maiden pride, adieu! Benedick, love on! I will
requite you, taming my wild heart to your loving hand.” It must have
been a pleasant sight to see these old enemies converted into new and
loving friends; and to behold their first meeting after being cheated
into mutual liking by the merry artifice of the good-humored prince.
But a sad reverse in the fortunes of Hero must now be thought of. The
morrow which was to have been her wedding-day, brought sorrow in the
heart of Hero, and her good father Leonato.

The prince had a half-brother, who came from the wars along with him
to Messina. This brother (his name was Don John) was a melancholy,
discontented man, whose spirits seemed to labour in the contriving
of villanies. He hated the prince his brother, and he hated Claudio,
because he was the prince’s friend, and determined to prevent Claudio’s
marriage with Hero, only for the malicious pleasure of making Claudio
and the prince unhappy; for he knew the prince had set his heart upon
this marriage, almost as much as Claudio himself: and to effect this
wicked purpose, he employed one Borachio, a man as bad as himself, whom
he encouraged with the offer of a great reward. This Borachio paid
his court to Margaret, Hero’s attendant; and Don John, knowing this,
prevailed upon him to make Margaret promise to talk with him from her
lady’s chamber window that night, after Hero was asleep, and also to
dress herself in Hero’s clothes, the better to deceive Claudio into the
belief that it was Hero; for that was the end he meant to compass by
this wicked plot.

Don John then went to the prince and Claudio, and told them that Hero
was an imprudent lady, and that she talked with men from her chamber
window at midnight. Now this was the evening before the wedding, and he
offered to take them that night, where they should themselves hear Hero
discoursing with a man from her window; and they consented to go along
with him, and Claudio said, “If I see anything to-night why I should
not marry her, to-morrow in the congregation, where I intended to wed
her, there I will shame her.” The prince also said, “And as I assisted
you to obtain her, I will join with you to disgrace her.”

When Don John brought them near Hero’s chamber that night, they saw
Borachio standing under the window, and they saw Margaret looking out
of Hero’s window, and heard her talking with Borachio; and Margaret
being dressed in the same clothes they had seen Hero wear, the prince
and Claudio believed it was the lady Hero herself. Nothing could equal
the anger of Claudio, when he had made (as he thought) this discovery.
All his love for the innocent Hero was at once converted into hatred,
and he resolved to expose her in the church, as he had said he would,
the next day; and the prince agreed to this, thinking no punishment
could be too severe for the naughty lady, who talked with a man from
her window the very night before she was going to be married to the
noble Claudio.

The next day, when they were all met to celebrate the marriage,
and Claudio and Hero were standing before the priest, and the
priest or friar, as he was called, was proceeding to pronounce the
marriage-ceremony, Claudio, in the most passionate language, proclaimed
the guilt of the blameless Hero, who, amazed at the strange words he
uttered, said meekly, “Is my lord well, that he does speak so wide?”
Leonato, in the utmost horror, said to the prince, “My lord, why speak
not you?” “What should I speak?” said the prince: “I stand dishonored,
that have gone about to link my dear friend with an unworthy woman.
Leonato! upon my honor, myself, my brother, and this grieved Claudio,
did see and hear her last night at midnight talk with a man at her
chamber-window.” Benedick, in astonishment at what he heard, said,
“This looks not like a nuptial.”

“True, O God!” replied the heart-struck Hero; and then this hapless
lady sank down in a fainting fit, to all appearance dead. The prince
and Claudio left the church, without staying to see if Hero would
recover, or at all regarding the distress into which they had thrown
Leonato, so hard-hearted had anger made them. Benedick remained, and
assisted Beatrice to recover Hero from her swoon, saying, “How does the
lady?” “Dead, I think,” replied Beatrice in great agony, for she loved
her cousin; and, knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing
of what she had heard spoken against her. Not so the poor old father;
he believed the story of his child’s shame, and it was piteous to hear
him lamenting over her, as she lay like one dead before him, wishing
she might never more open her eyes.

But the ancient friar was a wise man, and full of observation on human
nature, and he had attentively marked the lady’s countenance when she
heard herself accused, and noted a thousand blushing shames to start
into her face, and then he saw an angel-like whiteness bear away those
blushes, and in her eye he saw a fire that did belie the error that the
prince did speak against her maiden truth, and he said to the sorrowing
father, “Call me a fool; trust not my reading, nor my observation;
trust not my age, my reverence, nor my calling, if this sweet lady lie
not guiltless here under some biting error.”

When Hero recovered from the swoon into which she had fallen, the
friar said to her, “Lady, what man is he you are accused of?” Hero
replied, “They know that do accuse me; I know of none.” Then turning to
Leonato, she said, “O my father, if you can prove that any man has ever
conversed with me at hours unmeet, or that I yesternight changed words
with any creature, refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.” “There
is,” said the friar, “some strange misunderstanding in the prince and
Claudio;” and then he counseled Leonato, that he should report that
Hero was dead; and he said that the death-like swoon in which they
had left Hero would make this easy of belief; and he also advised him
that he should put on mourning, and erect a monument for her, and do
all rites that appertain to a burial. “What shall become of this?”
said Leonato; “What will this do?” The friar replied, “This report of
her death shall change slander into pity; that is some good, but that
is not all the good I hope for. When Claudio shall hear she died upon
hearing his words, the idea of her life shall sweetly creep into his
imagination. Then shall he mourn, if ever love had interest in his
heart, and wish he had not so accused her; yea, though he thought his
accusation true.” Benedick now said, “Leonato, let the friar advise
you; and though you know well I love the prince and Claudio, yet, on my
honor, I will not reveal this secret to them.”

Leonato, thus persuaded, yielded; and he said sorrowfully, “I am so
grieved, that the smallest twine may lead me.” The kind friar then led
Leonato and Hero away to comfort and console them, and Beatrice and
Benedick remained alone; and this was the meeting from which their
friends, who had contrived the merry plot against them, expected so
much diversion; these friends who were now overwhelmed with affliction,
and from whose minds all thought of merriment seemed forever banished.

Benedick was the first who spoke, and he said, “Lady Beatrice, have
you wept all this while?” “Yes, and I will weep a while longer,” said
Beatrice. “Surely,” said Benedick, “I do believe your fair cousin is
wronged.” “Ah!” said Beatrice, “how much might that man deserve of me
who would right her!” Benedick then said, “Is there any way to show
such friendship? I do love nothing in the world so well as you; is not
that strange?” “It were as possible,” said Beatrice, “for me to say
I loved nothing in the world so well as you; but believe me not, and
yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for
my cousin.” “By my sword,” said Benedick, “you love me, and I protest
I love you. Come, bid me do anything for you.” “Kill Claudio,” said
Beatrice. “Ha! not for the wide world,” said Benedick; for he loved
his friend Claudio, and he believed he had been imposed upon. “Is not
Claudio a villain, that has slandered, scorned, and dishonored my
cousin?” said Beatrice; “O that I were a man!” “Hear me, Beatrice!”
said Benedick. But Beatrice would hear nothing in Claudio’s defense;
and she continued to urge on Benedick to revenge her cousin’s wrongs;
and she said, “Talk with a man out of the window; a proper saying!
Sweet Hero! she is wronged; she is slandered; she is undone. O that I
were a man for Claudio’s sake; or that I had any friend who would be a
man for my sake; but valor is melted into courtesies and compliments.
I can not be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with
grieving.” “Tarry, good Beatrice,” said Benedick; “by this hand I love
you.” “Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it,” said
Beatrice. “Think you on your soul that Claudio has wronged Hero?” asked
Benedick. “Yea,” answered Beatrice, “as sure as I have a thought, or a
soul.” “Enough,” said Benedick, “I am engaged; I will challenge him.
I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall
render me a dear account. As you hear from me, so think of me. Go,
comfort your cousin.”

While Beatrice was thus powerfully pleading with Benedick, and working
his gallant temper by the spirit of her angry words, to engage in the
cause of Hero, and fight even with his dear friend Claudio, Leonato
was challenging the prince and Claudio to answer with their swords the
injury they had done his child, who, he affirmed, had died for grief.
But they respected his age and his sorrow, and they said, “Nay, do not
quarrel with us, good old man.” And now came Benedick, and he also
challenged Claudio to answer with his sword the injury he had done to
Hero; and Claudio and the prince said to each other, “Beatrice has
set him on to do this.” Claudio nevertheless must have accepted this
challenge of Benedick, had not the justice of Heaven at the moment
brought to pass a better proof of the innocence of Hero than the
uncertain fortune of a duel.

While the prince and Claudio were yet talking of the challenge of
Benedick, a magistrate brought Borachio as a prisoner before the
prince. Borachio had been overheard talking with one of his companions
of the mischief he had been employed by Don John to do. Borachio made
a full confession to the prince in Claudio’s hearing, that it was
Margaret dressed in her lady’s clothes that he had talked with from the
window, whom they had mistaken for the lady Hero herself; and no doubt
continued on the minds of Claudio and the prince of the innocence of
Hero. If a suspicion remained it must have been removed by the flight
of Don John, who finding his villanies were detected, fled from Messina
to avoid the just anger of his brother.

The heart of Claudio was sorely grieved, when he found he had falsely
accused Hero, who, he thought, had died upon hearing his cruel words;
and the memory of his beloved Hero’s image came over him, in the rare
semblance that he loved it first; and the prince asking him if what
he heard did not run like iron through his soul, he answered, that
he felt as if he had taken poison while Borachio was speaking. And
the repentant Claudio implored forgiveness of the old man Leonato
for the injury he had done his child; and promised, that whatever
penance Leonato would lay upon him for his fault in believing the
false accusation against his betrothed wife, for her dear sake he
would endure it. The penance Leonato enjoined him was, to marry the
next morning a cousin of Hero’s, who, he said, was now his heir, and
in person very like Hero. Claudio, regarding the solemn promise he had
made to Leonato, said he would marry this unknown lady, even though she
was an Ethiop: but his heart was very sorrowful, and he passed that
night in tears, and in remorseful grief, at the tomb which Leonato had
erected for Hero.

When the morning came, the prince accompanied Claudio to the church,
where the good friar, and Leonato and his niece, were already
assembled, to celebrate a second nuptial; and Leonato presented to
Claudio his promised bride; and she wore a mask, that Claudio might not
discover her face. And Claudio said to the lady in the mask, “Give me
your hand, before this holy friar; I am your husband, if you will marry
me.” “And when I lived, I was your other wife,” said this unknown lady;
and taking off her mask, she proved to be no niece (as was pretended),
but Leonato’s very daughter, the lady Hero herself. We may be sure that
this proved a most agreeable surprise to Claudio, who thought her dead,
so that he could scarcely for joy believe his eyes: and the prince,
who was equally amazed at what he saw, exclaimed, “Is not this Hero,
Hero that was dead?” Leonato replied, “She died, my lord, but while her
slander lived.” The friar promised them an explanation of this seeming
miracle, after the ceremony was ended; and was proceeding to marry them
when he was interrupted by Benedick, who desired to be married at the
same time to Beatrice. Beatrice making some demur to this match, and
Benedick challenging her with her love for him, which he had learned
from Hero, a pleasant explanation took place; and they found they had
been both tricked into a belief of love, which had never existed,
and had become lovers in truth by the power of a false jest: but the
affection, which a merry invention had cheated them into, was grown
too powerful to be shaken by a serious explanation; and since Benedick
proposed to marry, he was resolved to think nothing to the purpose
that the world could say against it; and he merrily kept up the jest,
and swore to Beatrice, that he took her but for pity, and because he
heard she was dying of love for him; and Beatrice protested, that she
yielded but upon great persuasion, and partly to save his life, for she
heard he was in a consumption. So these two mad wits were reconciled,
and made a match of it, after Claudio and Hero were married; and to
complete the history, Don John, the contriver of the villany, was taken
in his flight, and brought back to Messina; and a brave punishment it
was to this gloomy, discontented man, to see the joy and feastings
which, by the disappointment of his plots, took place at the palace in
Messina.




THE HEAD AND THE HEART.

By JOHN G. SAXE.


    The head is stately, calm and wise,
      And bears a princely part;
    And down below in secret lies
      The warm, impulsive heart.

    The lordly head that sits above,
      The heart that beats below,
    Their several office plainly prove,
      Their true relation show.

    The head erect, serene, and cool,
      Endowed with Reason’s art,
    Was set aloft to guide and rule
      The throbbing, wayward heart.

    And from the head, as from the higher,
      Comes every glorious thought;
    And in the heart’s transforming fire
      All noble deeds are wrought.

    Yet each is best when both unite
      To make the man complete;
    What were the heat without the light?
      The light, without the heat?




DEFECTS IN OUR AMERICAN HOMES.[M]


DR. VINCENT: The subject for conference this evening at this hour
is “Defects in Our American Homes.” This is not a lecture; it is a
conversation. You are to give your thoughts, I am to record them, and
we shall then discuss them.

Every organization has a spirit in it, and out of the spirit come
influence and action. Out of wrong ideas come mistakes. Out of
impotency—where one has an ideal, and not moral force enough to carry
it out—comes failure. In the Syrian homes there are defects that belong
to their civilization, their doctrines, their modes of life, their
limitations. In Italian homes there are defects; so in German and in
English homes. The defects of the Italian home differ from those of the
English. There are defects in our American homes. What are they? There
are defects which characterize us as well as other nations, in this
nineteenth century; and defects which are the products or the results
of our peculiar doctrines of society and of government. As we go about
in our neighborhoods; as we travel to and fro in the land, read the
papers and listen to lectures and sermons on the subject, we find
peculiar evils that exist to-day in American families. It is to look at
the dark side of the American home that we are met to-night. I want you
to think and I want you to speak. If any of you has a thought to give,
and don’t like to speak it out, write it and I shall be glad to read it
for the instruction of all. We take the American home, and I ask you
for a list of the defects which belong to the average American home.
First—What?

[The various defects mentioned by different speakers are given without
the names of the speakers; the comments usually are by Dr. Vincent.]

Selfishness.

REV. B. ADAMS: I should group the defects of the homes, as I know them,
in the region where I live, under the following letters: I, irreligion;
second I, indulgence; third I, ignorance; P, pride; C, covetousness;
four L’s, laziness, lying, levity and lust.

DR. VINCENT: Where do you live? [Laughter.]

MR. ADAMS: In the State of Connecticut, where there is one divorce in
every nine marriages. I propose to try to reform my part of it.

Want of parental control.

The separation of the young from the old, and the separation of the
sexes in the family.

DR. VINCENT: What do you mean?

I mean that the young people try to get off by themselves, when they
would better mix with the older people; and the result is a tendency to
disintegration of the elements of the family.

Want of helpfulness.

Failure to provide proper literature for the home.

Lack of true parental example.

Failure to supply proper amusements.

Irreverence among young people for older persons.

Too much unnecessary labor; working for fashion, etc. Ladies spend too
much time dressing, and men spend too much time in smoking: too much
tobacco in the family. [Laughter.]

Too much responsibility in the matter of education devolved upon the
wife.

The fallacy that the son is influenced more by the mother than by the
father.

Men spend too much time away from home.

Too much time is spent at home by mothers.

They ought to come to Chautauqua. [Laughter.]

Worldly conversation too abundant and prominent at home.

Too much indifference to the family altar.

Children are allowed to visit the theater, when parents should hold up
something better for them.

Enough attention is not paid to the associations of the children.

Want of care in the formation of the habits of the children.

Gossip in the family.

Want of promptness on all sides: in getting up, in coming to meals, in
going to bed, and in attending to duty generally.

Unfair dependence of the wife and mother upon the husband and father in
regard to money matters at home. [Laughter.]

DR. VINCENT: I could talk on that subject. I have no doubt that there
might be stories told here founded on fact, relative to the consummate
and ineffable meanness of some men, who dole out a pittance to their
wives, pocketing and otherwise managing to control their funds, leaving
the woman, who does the most of the work and bears the heaviest burden,
to feel like a beggar most of the time. [Applause.] And the contempt
with which that man should be regarded I have no words, in the English
or any other language, to describe. [Amen.]

The growing habit of beer drinking in the family, and hard cider, too.

The evil habit of criticising sermons, preachers and other Christian
people before children, and thus making sceptics and infidels of them.

Dressing children for pleasure and not for health.

The mother saying to the disobedient boy, “I will tell your father of
you:” transfer of authority from father to mother, and _vice versa_.

Repression of natural child-life in the home.

Want of the manifestation of affection which ought to be manifested in
the home. Husbands and wives don’t kiss each other as often as they
ought to.

Too much fun made of old maids; making girls marry through fear of
becoming unlovely and unlovable old maids.

Want of politeness in the family.

The husband, when he carves for the family, carving out the top pieces
for the wife and family, and keeping the tenderloin for himself.
[Laughter.]

Want of attention to the laws of health.

Assuming the inferiority of the woman’s intellect.

Failure to train the children to sit with the parents in church.

Late hours.

Want of early consecration of the children to God.

Allowing children to run at large in the street, and to select their
own playmates.

Encouraging forwardness in young children.

Trusting children to Roman Catholic servants, and sending our girls to
nunneries and those institutions that are organized for the purpose
of propagandism and proselytism. [Applause.] Americans can not be too
careful in this respect.

Failure to properly regard the Sabbath in the home.

Sending children to Sabbath-school, instead of taking them.

Allowing children to go to three or four Sabbath-schools.

The use of slang in the home.

Too little familiarity in the conversation between parents and children
on religious matters.

Lack of artistic attractions in the home.

What are people going to do, who cannot afford to buy costly oil
paintings, and fill up their houses with splendid furniture, etc.?

Keep clean; have chromos, flowers, engravings, smiles, clay modeling,
whitewash.

Good bread. There is no subject on which America needs more light than
on that of good bread and good coffee. [Laughter.]

Upholding the children as against the public school teacher.

DR. VINCENT: We are in a regular fault-finding mood to-night. Keep at
it; it is wholesome.

Mother or father allowing the child to speak disrespectfully of the
other parent, without reproof.

Too much frying-pan. [Amen, and laughter.]

Want of harmony between the father and mother in the government of the
children; so that the child appeals from the decision of the one to the
other.

Preventing young children from attending temperance meetings on the
Lord’s day.

DR. VINCENT: Well, there are certain types of temperance meeting
that I would not allow my child to attend on the Lord’s day. Some
temperance meetings are conducted in so irreverent a way that I would
not blame parents who are careful where they send their children on
the Lord’s day, if they do prevent them from attending such meetings.
Nevertheless, it is a great mistake not to commit our children to total
abstinence.

Not knowing where the children are after dark.

Not knowing the needs of the children, and the neglect to provide for
them in the matter of literature, taste, associations, and all that.

Parents deceiving their children. They begin this very early; sometimes
telling the children horrible stories about horrible things, if the
child goes “out of that door;” and the child finds that his mother told
a downright lie, though she punished him the other day for telling a
lie.

Not enough real work for the children, in which the whole family can
take an interest.

Children sitting up too late nights.

Children allowed to go away from home at too early an age, without
permission from parents.

Young girls graduating from school and college, and spending their time
in reading novels.

Parents loading the plates of their children with a variety of dishes,
and then doctoring them for some trouble of the stomach.

Laughing at children’s big stories, thus teaching them to be untruthful
as they grow older. We should not punish a child for having told a big
story of something he saw, without the most careful examination of the
case. The child lives in the domain of the imagination; and many a time
a child has been flogged and cruelly treated for telling a thing while
he honestly believed that which he told was true.

Fretting. There is an immense amount of misery caused in the household
by fretting; and children brought up in a fretting atmosphere grow up
to make other people miserable by fretting themselves.

Failure to train the daughters in the art of cookery. [Applause.]

Infidelity on the subject of children’s conversion. This is partly
because of some soft, silly and irrational processes which are
sometimes resorted to for what is called “Getting the children
converted.” [That is true.]

The idea of usefulness in the world is not sufficiently appreciated. In
families there is too much selfishness in “living for ourselves,” for
our furniture, our table, our comforts and our society; and not enough
thinking about how we may live as a center of influence for the good of
others.

Too little restriction in the matter of association between boys and
girls at that period of life when they are called the “after boy” and
the “after girl.” When they are neither boys nor girls, neither men nor
women. We put away dolls too early from the arms of our girls as they
grow up.

Saying “don’t” forty times a day.

Giving sympathy to the girls, and neglecting the boys in the home.
There should be not less sympathy to the girls, but more sympathy to
the boys.

DR. VINCENT: Taking for granted that boys ought always to be rough,
and girls always to be gentle—and so girls should, and boys too; but
at the same time there is a roughness which is fitting to a boy that
you can not endure in a girl. I love to see a boy grow up, full of
manhood, and yet never ashamed to kiss his mother or his father when
they meet. I take great pride in any boy, who growing up to be a man,
gives expression as a man to that tender feeling of love with which he
regards mother and father.

Parents forget that the little child’s troubles are just as serious
things to it, as the greater troubles of grown people are to them. The
little waves of the bay are as hard on the little boats as the big
waves of the sea are on the big ships; and many a child at four or five
years of age—younger or older—suffers acutely from sorrows that come,
in which it finds no sympathy. We should remember this; and blessed
is the minister and blessed is the teacher who has it in his heart to
sympathize with and comfort the little people in their sorrows.

The foolish emphasis placed by parents upon the intellectual
attainments of their children, while the moral qualities are regarded
as of no consequence. It is frightful to contemplate the standards
which prevail in our public schools and generally in our educational
institutions of to-day, by which memory is taxed, and knowledge of
science, knowledge of literature and of mathematics emphasized, and
scarcely any attention whatever paid to the moral foundations. We can
not regard this with too great solicitude, nor labor as parents too
carefully for governing the development of the moral element.

Father and mother should read to and with their children, while the
children are small. Then they will be likely to form habits of reading
in later years.

Homes lack well-considered purpose and systematic effort. People plan
for their business; they plan for their summer tours; they plan in
every line, except that of the home training, the home spirit, and the
home life.

Too little frankness and too little genuine simplicity encouraged among
young girls. It is a bad thing if, through shame or fear of being
laughed at, a girl fails to tell the sweetest and deepest and richest
things of her heart’s life to her own mother. Blessed is the home where
the girl is trained never to keep anything from her mother, and where
the boy is trained always to confide in father. Boys and girls who are
brought up with that confidence never go to ruin.

Illiteracy in the home:—Resulting from so many people not joining the
C. L. S. C.

DR. VINCENT: I honestly believe that the C. L. S. C. will fulfill a
useful ministry in this respect in American homes. I have had some
beautiful letters to that effect: one from a lady the other day, out of
which I shall read on commencement day, relates to the service of the
Circle in increasing the sympathy between the husband and wife in lines
of reading and study. I never talk about home, but I have pleasant
memories of one of the best homes that mortal ever enjoyed; a father
who lived for his children, and a mother who set a constant example
of the faith and sweetness and patience of the true woman and mother.
May God grant his blessing upon the thoughts that have swept through
our minds to-night, and make our homes all the better because of this
conference.

       *       *       *       *       *

We had better appear what we are, than affect to appear what we are
not.—_La Rochefoucauld._




C. L. S. C. WORK.

By REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION, C. L. S. C.


The Memorial Day for April is Shakspere’s Day, Monday, April 23.

       *       *       *       *       *

All local circles, especially new ones, should report to Miss K. F.
Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

       *       *       *       *       *

Why would it not be well for members to order at once volume two of
Timayenis’s Greek History for next summer? If this is done early, the
publishers will know how many copies to print. There will, therefore,
be less delay next season.

       *       *       *       *       *

When a member of the C. L. S. C. gives his name and postoffice address
to Miss Kimball, or to the Superintendent of Instruction, let him
remember that no postoffice address is complete without the name of the
State. The members would be surprised to learn how many omit the State.

       *       *       *       *       *

Prof. Timayenis says that Athene was called the “Stern-Eyed” because,
among her other attributes, she was also the goddess of war. “As she
went along the ranks of the armor-clad Greeks, her eye shone like fire
flashing in sternness.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A member of the C. L. S. C. writes: “I beg to inform you that I can not
take up that geology at all, as it is something that does not at all
interest me, and I can not possibly make time on it, as I do not seem
to profit by it.” To meet this very class of people we require but a
very small amount of reading in geology. The book by Prof. Packard is a
very short one, may be read in the course of two or three hours, and I
shall be compelled to require the reading of it in order to cover the
ground contemplated by our course.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the February number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the address of Henry Hart,
manufacturer of the C. L. S. C. badge, was given as Lockport, instead
of Brockport, N. Y., as it should be.

       *       *       *       *       *

A correspondent writes: “Then, according to Mr. Worman, ‘Goethe’ is
pronounced ‘Gearte.’ Is it?” We sent the above question to Prof.
Worman and asked him whether or not the _r_ sound enters into the
pronunciation of Goethe. Prof. Worman replies: “Of course the _r_ is
not sounded, but allowed to affect the sound of _ea_, so that we do say
Göé-thê. Webster, last edition, page 1684 (explanation of abbreviation
of signs) says: ‘ö has a sound similar to _e_ in her.’ Compare page
1682 (14). Of course the _r_ is not sounded. Compare Worman’s Complete
German Grammar, page 16.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A correspondent makes inquiry concerning Prof. Packard’s statement
on page 52 of his “First Lessons in Geology:” “During the process of
upheaval, as soon as the great plateau appears above the ocean, rain
storms produce rills and brooks, the ocean leaves Mediterranean seas
and land-locked lakes, whose waters gradually evaporate, their salts
becoming fresh.”

Our correspondent says: “Our philosophies distinctly teach that bodies
of water grow salt rather than fresh by evaporation, as only pure water
is evaporated, while all salts and impurities remain. Will you be so
kind as to explain the discrepancy. I read it with all care, and can
not reconcile it with previous study and reading.”

To this criticism Prof. Packard makes reply: “Whatever be the fact
stated in chemical works, the fact I stated is true, that land-locked
bodies of the ocean become fresh,—more or less. This is owing,
probably, to the supply of fresh water by rivers. If the Baltic Sea
should be land-locked, it would make an inland lake. The great Salt
Lake was formerly a fresh water lake,—shrinking in size, and losing
its outlet into Snake River it became salt. Lake Superior was once an
arm of the sea. So Lake Titicaca, in Peru. So with some of the Swedish
lakes. Perhaps my statement that they evaporate their salts is inexact,
but the original salt water dries up, and what is left is greatly
diluted,—whatever be the process,—the geological facts above stated are
true.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“May I read books instead of THE CHAUTAUQUAN?” Better read THE
CHAUTAUQUAN. You thus get a wide range of reading; a knowledge of the
work of the C. L. S. C.; sympathy with its leaders and members; many
practical courses for reading and study. It will be difficult to be an
advanced and intense member of the C. L. S. C. without THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

What shall I say when people ask, “What are the benefits of belonging
to the C. L. S. C.? Why not take the same studies in the local circle,
without such membership?” Answer: Persons who belong to the local
circles and avail themselves of the benefits of the suggestions, the
courses of study, etc., which come from the central Circle, do so
without making any contribution whatever toward the C. L. S. C. as a
general movement in society. They get what costs them nothing. People
who belong to the general Circle have the satisfaction of knowing
that they are, by their annual fee of fifty cents, helping on a great
movement that reaches over the whole world; and while no one of the
officers of the C. L. S. C. makes any money out of the work, except the
meager salary paid to our secretary, a great deal of time is given,
a great deal of printing done, a great deal of postage paid, a great
deal of advertising circulated, for the sake of acquainting the public
with this educational movement. Members of local circles who do not
belong to the general Circle know that they are making no contribution
whatever to the general work, while they are, without paying a penny,
reaping the benefits of it. To this, however, we do not object. We are
always glad to have members of local circles. Those who belong to the
regular C. L. S. C. have the benefits of the communications which come
from the central office, the memoranda, the systematic ways of work,
identification with a great fraternity like a college, the privilege
of membership in the several societies within the circle, such as “The
Hall in the Grove,” “The League of the Round-Table,” etc., etc. They
also receive diplomas, and additional incentives to add seals to them
during the years. There are many benefits accruing to those who belong
to the C. L. S. C.

       *       *       *       *       *

Who is the son of Capaneus, mentioned by Wilkinson (Prep. Greek in
English), page 165? Answer: Sthenelus. He was one of the Epigoni by
whom Thebes was taken; he commanded the Argives under Diomedes in the
Trojan war. He was one of the Greeks concealed in the wooden horse.

       *       *       *       *       *

How is _Euxine_ pronounced? Answer: Yṳx´in.

       *       *       *       *       *

Is there any firm that makes a reduction in price of Webster’s
Unabridged Dictionary to members of the Circle? Answer: H. L. Hastings,
47 Cornhill, Boston, Mass., reduces the price from $12.00 to $9.00.

       *       *       *       *       *

A young lady in Wisconsin writes: I am denied the privilege of school.
My parents are poor, and they work hard to secure a living. I have done
housework for some time at seventy-five cents per week, buying my own
clothes; so I said to myself I will save enough of my wages to purchase
the books in the C. L. S. C. course, and I have succeeded. I have
enjoyed the study of geology, though I could not afford to have the
maps and charts. A map of Ancient Greece was sent me by Dr. Vincent. I
hope to soon begin a course in literature and music in an academy.




C. L. S. C. TESTIMONY.


How can such deeply-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word,
a sound, awakes them?—_Lessing._

       *       *       *       *       *

_Ohio._—Much of my reading has been done in the sickroom. I wish I
could tell you how thoroughly I have enjoyed my reading so far. I know
I have acquired a much more eager desire for “solid reading” than I
ever had before.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Indiana._—My own illness, and other afflictions in my home, have
delayed my work for ’82, but I hope my paper is not too late to be
accepted for last year’s work. I have commenced the C. L. S. C.
work with the intention of completing it some time, in spite of all
hinderances.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Maine._—I have noticed several times your school mentioned in
different papers, and have thought I might, perhaps, be able to take
the course. My time is pretty well taken up, but I have a boy, nine
years of age, who takes _The Wide Awake_, and is interested in the
articles contained in the supplement, and I think I might be better
able to answer his questions if I were reading what would help me to do
so. I have quite a good selection of books, but perhaps can obtain what
you use.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Connecticut._—I can not tell you how well I like the C. L. S. C.
course. It is just what I want, and what I need. There is no way I
could so well fill up the vacant moments as to read from some of the
books of the Chautauqua course. It contains so much good solid reading.
I am _determined_ to keep on, doing the best I can, and think I can
about catch up before commencing on the next year’s study.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Pennsylvania._—I believe that I have made some improvement by my
studies, for I have not read so much for six years. I have made but a
feeble effort in answering questions, but I hope to do better in the
future. I really had not the time to read the special course. Next year
I hope to have help for myself from some new books. I am truly thankful
for the privilege of membership in the C. L. S. C., and I hope I can
catch up with the class in 1885.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Massachusetts._—I have pursued the C. L. S. C. course entirely alone,
and at times I have felt a little discouraged, but never have wanted to
give it up, and now that I have graduated I want to keep right on, but
hardly know which of the special courses to take up. I will continue to
have THE CHAUTAUQUAN because I enjoy it very much. I can not express to
you how much good this course has done me, although I can not repeat
much of it yet. The world and life seem very different to me now from
what they did four years ago.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Vermont._—I want to tell you how much I thank you for the C. L. S. C.
course. I was obliged to leave school before I graduated, on account
of my father’s death, to take care of my mother, who is an invalid.
The Chautauqua course was just what I wanted, and it has cheered many
lonely hours. I have studied alone this year but am hoping that some
of my friends will take the course next year. I think it is a grand and
noble work and just fitted to meet the wants of a large class of people
who are denied the privilege of a course of study at school.

       *       *       *       *       *




C. L. S. C. SONG.

JOIN, O FRIENDS, IN A MEMORY SONG.

    MARY A. LATHBURY.      (ALUMNI SONG.)      WM. F. SHERWIN, 1877.


[Illustration: Music]

    1 Join, O friends, in a mem’ry song,
      A song of service, of faith, of praise;
    Of love that gathers its fiber strong
      From forest soil and Chautauquan days.

    CHORUS.

    Sing, O sing! for the Word shall spring
    From seed to scion, from bud to bloom,
    Since life immortal the Lord did bring
    From the Seed that fell in an open tomb!

    2 Join in a hymn of hope, O friends,
      The Lord is coming his own to bless,
    And tried and true is the band he sends
      To open a way in the wilderness.

    _Chorus._

    3 After the brier, the thorn, the weed,
      Shall spring a plant of a wondrous birth;
    And Love—the flow’r of a heavenly seed—
      With bloom and beauty shall fill the earth.

    _Chorus._

Copyright, 1877, by J. H. Vincent.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Wisconsin._—While at the Monona Lake Assembly, at Madison, Wisconsin,
I was induced through Rev. A. H. Gillet to enter the C. L. S. C. for
1883. I have commenced and followed the readings so far with much
interest. Owing to increasing business complications as clerk of
circuit court, added to my law studies, I am not certain that I shall
be able to keep up with the readings near enough to pass creditably.
I shall endeavor, however, to go through with the course in the time
required. I am the only C. L. S. C. student I know of in this part of
the State (southern). I would be glad to know of others, and would be
glad if I could establish a circle in Monroe, where I shall be after
January 1, 1883. The Chautauqua course fills a long felt want among
those who have never had the advantage of a collegiate education, as
well as among overworked professional men, who have only a limited
time in which to keep up a course of reading in science or literature.
I shall endeavor in all possible ways to extend the knowledge of the
benefits of this course. I have heard some objections to the Circle
from those who held aloof, owing to the fact that it was conducted
wholly by a religious denomination. In fact, I held this idea at
first, and a further one, that the course was one wholly religious. I
am convinced to the contrary, and shall convince others. I should be
glad to hear by letter from some others who are engaged in this course
alone. We might be a mutual help to one another.




LOCAL CIRCLES.

    [We request the president or secretary of every local
    circle to send us reports of your work, or ask the
    circle to elect a member to write up your method
    of conducting the circle, together with reports of
    lectures, concerts, entertainments, etc.—Editor THE
    CHAUTAUQUAN, Meadville, Pa.]


=Vermont (Bennington).=—Our circle is doing much better work this
year than it did last year. Some of the members did not complete the
readings last year, but they are going on with this year’s course.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Brocton).=—We have twenty-five members, sixteen of whom
are regular members of the C. L. S. C. We meet monthly and our method
of work thus far has been the preparation and reading of essays on the
subjects of the required reading, followed by discussions. The most of
us are enthusiastic Chautauquans and we look for large results from our
winter’s work. Although there have been members of the C. L. S. C. here
since its organization in 1878, this is the first effort that has ever
been made to form a local circle.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Hopkinton).=—We have a circle of thirty members who do
whatever is assigned to them, and a committee of five who arrange for
the meetings which occur in two weeks.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Massachusetts (Walpole).=—Our circle numbers nineteen members. Mr. S.
E. Baily, principal of the High School is president. The meetings are
held every alternate week at the secretary’s house. At each meeting the
president drills us on our work for the past fortnight.

       *       *       *       *       *

=New York (Albany).=—Our Albany circle was organized in 1880, with a
membership of five. Since then we have been steadily growing, and our
list of regular members now numbers fifty. During the first year we met
at the homes of the members, but since then we have met in the Assembly
room of the old Capitol. We vary in the method of conducting our
meetings, which are held monthly. Two or three subjects are generally
assigned, and essays are prepared and read, followed by a general
discussion. Then, again, the evening will be devoted to one subject.
Century arches and our question-box are interesting features. We have
had several fine lectures from our own and neighboring clergymen
and scientific men. Dr. Vincent gave a new impetus to the work by a
lecture, delivered in one of our churches a year ago.

       *       *       *       *       *

=New York (Spencerport).=—The first meeting of the Spencerport circle
for the year 1882-3, was held September 12. The meeting was more
especially for the purpose of showing to the public the aim of the
C. L. S. C., the work which had been accomplished by the Spencerport
circle during the past year, and the work which was laid out for them
to do during the coming year; and as the public were invited to attend
the meeting, the purpose was not in vain. There were nearly one hundred
present, exclusive of the members of the circle, and the program was
excellent and entertaining; a very pleasant feature of which was a
description of the Chautauqua Assembly, and graduating exercises of
the Class of ’82, by Mrs. James Hickcok, she being a member of that
class. Subsequently another meeting was held, at which the officers
for the ensuing year were elected, and arrangements made for the work
of the year. Quite a number of new members have been admitted, and the
number has increased from a membership of nine regular and nine local
members of last year, to sixteen regular and sixteen local members for
this year. The meetings are held every alternate Saturday afternoon,
at three o’clock. The program consists of essays on the lives and
works of various authors, and reading selections from their writings,
taking one author at each meeting; after which the questions in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN are asked and answered, with the privilege of discussing
points in the subjects treated. The authors already treated upon have
been Tennyson, O. W. Holmes, Irving, and Bryant. At the first regular
meeting after the election of officers, the ex-president of the circle,
Mrs. H. H. Hartwell, was presented with a very fine cabinet photograph
album, by the members of the circle, as a token of their esteem, and
the well wishes of the entire circle go with her to her new home in
Albion, Michigan. The meetings are very well attended, and the interest
is increasing.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh).=—The following remarks were made in
response to a toast, “The Chautauqua Idea the unchained Prometheus,”
proposed at the banquet of the C. L. S. C. alumni of Pittsburgh, Pa.,
January 25, by Dr. J. J. Covert: “It is written in ancient story that
one ambitious Prometheus once ridiculed the gods, and deceived even
Jupiter himself. As a punishment to himself and the rest of mankind,
Jupiter took fire away from the earth. But the stealthy and ambitious
Prometheus, by the aid of the beautiful Minerva (you see no great thing
could be done without woman), climbed the heavens and stole fire from
the chariot of the sun, which he brought down to earth again. This
so enraged the Olympian god that he ordered Prometheus chained to a
Caucasian rock for thirty thousand years, while every day a vulture
was to come and dine upon his liver. The mighty Hercules slew the
hateful vulture, rent the granite rock, broke the galling chains that
bound his limbs, and the unchained hero rises from his granite bed of
ages, the pride of all the earth and the envy of the gods. Prometheus
chained was ignorance and superstition enthroned; with limbs unfettered
he is literature and knowledge sown broadcast in all the land. How
fitting a figure then, the language of the toast, ‘The Chautauqua
Idea the unchained Prometheus.’ The selfish gods of fortune doomed
the Promethean masses to cruel and hopeless bonds of ignorance and
illiteracy forever. From age to age the hateful vulture of fate fed
upon the imperishable and irrepressible liver of aspiration, until
the mighty hero Vincent Hercules arose, and heard the crying want,
and armed with giant weapons forged by the Vulcan Miller, smote the
granite rock, severed the galling chains, slew the greedy vulture,
and set the prisoner free, opening wide the golden gates that guard
the perennial groves and Pierian springs of Academia, where ambitious
thousands have entered—are entering still; giving to renewed thought
the wings of the morning, freighted with literature, art and science,
that it may ‘circle’ the earth with the gilded, jeweled, mystic C.
L. S. C. opportunities. See that beautiful, shadowy, Academian grove
yonder, nestling in the fond embracing arms of that silvery lake! What
a fitting home and dwelling place for our unchained hero, and all the
muses of the ages! Chapels, temples, palaces, amphitheaters, obelisks,
and pyramids spring up as by Herculean power. Here Phidias, and Homer,
and Plato, and Demosthenes, and Xenophon, and Raphael, and Angelo,
have their dwelling-place. Surely this is where our unchained hero
and his attendant muses dwell, and hither his disciples love to make
their pilgrimage. Look out upon the shimmering lake in the brightness
of the early dewy morn, and listen to the music of the rippling waves
as they break upon the pebbly shore, surpassing far the mystic notes
of Memnon’s shaft at early dawn of day. But now ’tis night, and stars
are looking down and sparkling like jewels on the bosom of the placid
lake. Sloops, and yachts, and steamers large, and smaller craft of
every name and form, fly swiftly round with colors high and blazing
lights; music of bands and ringing bells commingle with ten thousand
happy voices in the glad acclaim, and highest heaven hears the song.
And now I know that this is where Prometheus dwells, whence all the
muses come to celebrate the breaking of his chains, and the setting of
him free; and whence again they fly abroad through all the land, the
message-bearers of the beautiful and true. It is the apocalyptic angel
flying through the midst of heaven with the everlasting truth that
shall fill the world with light and joy. I see the mystic band with
robes of light and arms of love, from every walk of life, while joy and
peace sit undisturbed upon their brows. Oh, what a mighty host! They
are forty thousand strong. A mystic circle binds them round, and every
link within the golden chain is set with pearls. O, for some mystic
tongue of fire, that I might the better speak the glories of our chosen
muse! The world-renowned ‘Chautauqua’ may not sparkle o’er our heads
as a constellation in the skies, but if true Chautauquans we prove
ourselves to be, we shall far outshine the stars in the kingdom of his
love forever and forevermore.”

       *       *       *       *       *

=Pennsylvania (Sunbury).=—The circle has been in existence since
October, 1880, and at present has a membership of twenty, all ladies.
Our method of conducting meetings this year is very simple. We meet
once a week, on Saturday afternoons. Questions on the lesson assigned
are previously written out by the president and numbered. They are then
distributed among the members and answered as they are called off.
There is a great deal of free and easy discussion of the topic on hand.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).=—West Philadelphia has a thriving local
circle of fifteen ladies. We are officered with a president and
secretary, and meet weekly at the homes of the members. A teacher
is appointed for each subject under consideration; for instance,
next week we have a teacher to hear the astronomy, and another to
hear the Russian history. These teachers are very thorough in their
questionings; we are obliged to study our lessons well, or be mortified
by a failure. Last year, while studying chemistry, we had a lecture
(with experiments) by Prof. English. This year we gave a Christmas
entertainment and invited our friends. The exercises consisted of a
little drama, readings, music and an essay on Chautauqua, read by one
of our members who visited Chautauqua last summer. At every meeting,
in addition to the regular work, we have quotations from different
authors, or else readings of an amusing as well as instructive
character, and often we close our meetings with what we call Chautauqua
games. Thus we combine solid work with entertainment and mirth, and
consider ourselves hard-working enthusiastic Chautauquans.

       *       *       *       *       *

=District of Columbia (Georgetown).=—The first circle of the Chautauqua
Literary Society in this city was organized in the fall of 1880, by
eight colored young ladies who are employed as teachers in the public
schools. This circle now numbers more than thirty members. The meetings
of this circle are held on Saturday evenings at the residence of each
member alternately. The Chautauqua Literary Course is becoming quite
popular among the colored people throughout the country, and especially
in this city. A circle has been organized at the Nineteenth Street
Baptist Church.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Louisiana (New Orleans).=—We, the “Longfellow” circle, are still
alive, though probably we are about the only circle in the country that
has progressed backward in point of numbers. A year ago we had sixteen
members, now we have only half that number, owing to departures from
the city. Those who remain are still faithful and true. We understand
that there are several other parties in New Orleans who are pursuing
the course outside of any local circle. We meet every Thursday evening
at the residence of Mr. D. L. Mitchel. The meetings are generally
well attended and very enjoyable. We have essays on various subjects
connected with the reading, and take the questions and answers as
published in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, with a general conversation on the
reading for the week. Milton’s day was celebrated in an appropriate
manner, there being a good essay on the life and works of Milton by
the secretary, with selected readings from his writings by other
members of the circle. Byron’s memorial day (an innovation of our
own) we celebrated with appropriate exercises on the 25th of January.
The president read a splendid essay entitled, “Byron, the Man and the
Poet.” Selections from the writings of Byron were also read.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Ohio (Wooster).=—Our class meets bi-monthly; the lesson assigned at
a previous meeting is recited topically and catechetically, under
the direction of an instructor selected from the class at a previous
meeting. The assignment of the lesson is made with a view to accepting
the suggestions and appointments of the subject as formulated in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN. We have had no lectures, concerts, or public social
entertainments, but we observe now and then memorial days. Our members
are very much interested in the Chautauqua Idea. Kind fellowship
distinguishes all our meetings. We have twenty-three members, of whom
two are graduates of 1882, three are enrolled in the class of 1883,
and eighteen are pursuing the course as local members, each of whom we
think will ultimately enter the lists and capture the prize of a full
course.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Ohio (Norwalk).=—October 21, Prof. Sherwin, of Chautauqua fame, spent
an hour in conversation with the circle. Up to date, no one has been
on the program more than once, and the list is little more than half
exhausted; Dr. Vincent would say “divide the class,” but this has its
objections in the choice of leaders, and he is personally responsible
for inventing a circle that will not break, and which needs only that
the leaders say “write,” and they write. Among other things we have
the universal favor of the press. Among our members we have one judge
and five other lawyers, one doctor, the mayor and three insurance
agents, and so feel reasonably provided against the worst that may
come. It would be unsatisfactory to us to close this report without
sending our compliments and congratulations to the authors whose works
we have read. Timayenis’s History has character and originality, and
is read with interest. If there is in store for us a romance, let it
be another volume of “Preparatory Greek Course,” never in any case
omitting the Wilkinson. While he is a most companionable writer his
pages are everywhere abundant in practical common sense. There is but
one expression from this and other circles that we meet, and that is,
that we have found a most pleasing author and an interesting book.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Ohio (Van Wert).=—The local circle of Van Wert, Ohio, was organized
in September last and soon included fifty members, which we think very
creditable for a town of four thousand people. It was started through
the influence of a “reading circle” that was organized on the first
of April, including about seventy members, which has continued with
unabated interest, not receiving any check, as some anticipated, from
the work of the Chautauqua course. The reading circle is maintained
by one of our pastors, who found there was a large number of educated
young people in the community who evidently needed active mental
employment, after their course of study in high school, college and
university. They were invited to meet on a certain evening at a private
residence to consider the subject of forming a reading circle. A
program of exercises had been arranged consisting of select readings
and music, the selections not to occupy more than about ten minutes
each. The names of all persons present who desired to take part
in these exercises were then enrolled and arranged in order by the
manager, who appoints six or seven readers at each meeting. Something
more was desired, that would demand some continuous study. The C. L.
S. C. was chosen. We meet every other week, at private residences,
which we believe necessary to preserve that profitable informality
which would be lost in a public hall or church. The president asks such
questions as his judgment indicates to be most profitable, the object
being to make the meetings as much as possible of a conversational
character. We spent one evening exhibiting and studying the geological
plates. We also obtained a small cabinet of geological specimens. As
some of our members were unable to obtain the “Greek History” and
“Geology” in October we expect to resume those studies in the spring.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Indiana (Rushville).=—This circle numbers fifteen regular members.
Three are reading in private, and six are local members of the C. L. S.
C. We use the question system in conducting our semi-monthly meetings.
Three memorial days have been celebrated during the current year, with
appropriate exercises.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Indiana (La Fayette).=—The “Vincent” local circle, consisting of fifty
members, has entered upon its second year. We have a committee on
program, who arrange the work one month in advance; also a committee
on music. We meet the first and third Monday evenings of each month.
The meeting is opened with Scripture reading and prayer. The minutes
of the previous meeting are read, after which the program is followed
out, consisting usually of a number of short essays on the subjects
we are studying, interspersed with excellent music. Our meetings are
well attended, and considerable enthusiasm is exhibited on the part of
most of our members. Bryant’s and Milton’s Days have been appropriately
observed, and we have arranged for the observance of Longfellow’s Day.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Illinois (Arcola).=—This is the first year of the local circle in
Arcola. It is composed of four married ladies—mothers—all graduates of
the “Bryant Class” of ’82. Notwithstanding our limited number we are
very devoted and enthusiastic. We have a president and secretary and
meet every Friday afternoon. We take our turns in acting as teacher.
After the questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN are disposed of, each member is
expected to ask not less than two questions on difficult or important
points in some portion of our readings, then we review and discuss,
informally, all the exercises of the day. We have decided to make
“Greek History” a specialty. After we organized we secured a “local
habitation” and adopted for a name “The Periclesian Class” in honor of
our favorite Greek hero. We are all highly pleased with the C. L. S. C.
and we intend as a class and as individuals to use every effort to help
make it a still greater success.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Illinois (Peoria).=—The circle in this place was organized the latter
part of December, 1882, and now numbers fifty-seven regular and seven
local members, with accessions at every meeting. We have an average
attendance of about fifty-two. The meetings are held in the parlor of
the Young Men’s Christian Association. The committee on program sends
each member of the class a day or two before each meeting a postal
card containing a written question on the required reading, which
the recipient is expected to be prepared to answer in a few words
not occupying more than a minute or two. The social intermission is
generally occupied in discussing the books read by members of the C. L.
S. C. The rest of the evening’s exercises is under the control of the
committee on program, and is varied from evening to evening. We had at
the last meeting, and will have at the next, what we call a sentiment
roll. The roll of the circle is called and each person, as his or her
name is called, responds with a short sentiment selected to suit the
taste of the person selecting. This seems as if it would prove a very
interesting exercise. Commencing, as we did, late in the season, we
postponed our “Geology” until the pleasant weather of next summer.
Our committee have secured the services of one of the best geologists
in the State for instructing us in that study. He expects to begin by
taking as many of the circle as can go with him to visit mines and
quarries in the neighborhood and select specimens. We will then, under
his guidance, study first the specimens and the places where they were
found, and then the books and charts. We find the sending out of the
postal cards with questions a good plan. It notifies the members of the
meeting, and makes them feel that something in particular is expected
of them. It is the effort of the committee to divide the labor as
evenly as possible among all the members of the circle, and the postal
card questions being sent, one to each member, compels each to say
something during the evening and enables the most backward to do so by
being prepared. The cards not being sent out until the day before the
meeting, the required reading is all done before the card is received,
so that every article is read with the thought that the question may
be on that particular subject. By each one being prepared in this way
to speak as concisely as possible, a great deal can be said in a short
time, and the evening’s exercises close promptly at the time appointed,
notwithstanding the large attendance. The members of the circle seem
to be very much pleased indeed with the C. L. S. C. In our list of
members we have preachers, 4; lawyers, 3; merchants, 3; insurance,
3; stenographers, 2; clerks, 5; druggists, 1; grain commission, 2;
printers, 1; physicians, 1; general secretary Y. M. C. A. etc., of
men, 29; ladies, 15; of Presbyterians, 12; Congregationalists, 16;
Christians, 1; Reformed Episcopal, 1; Methodists, 3; Baptists, 3; not
professing religion, 8.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Michigan (Quincy).=—The local circle in Quincy ushered in its second
year with a “boom.” We feel as though we had jumped from babyhood
into long dresses. Our ten enthusiastic members of last year have
been reinforced by twenty more—among the best talent of the town—of
different denominations. While our circle of last year was composed
only of ladies, this year we are fortified by three gentlemen. The
lesson is announced each week by the president appointing teachers for
the different branches and those to prepare essays, etc. The minister
and his wife are faithful workers, teaching history, Grecian and
Russian; taking the text-book and going through the lesson thoroughly
by topic; treating the philosophy of history; applying it to our time,
Government and people; discussing questions with the class and having
them recite in concert important points. Another leads in “Geology.” At
the last meeting we were highly entertained and profited by the review
of Packard; each chapter was given to different members, who were
“strictly forbidden to bring in any hard names.” All were surprised
and delighted to find how much beauty and desirable information each
essay contained without them. We are having a series of valuable papers
on “Art and Architecture,” by our able president, beginning with the
earliest records and continuing through the golden period of Greece
down to the present time. Also interesting papers on the “History of
Literature,” by Miss Paton, preceptress of the High School, giving a
vivid picture of the beginning and progress of thought, introducing to
us characters and their works whose influence has been stamped on each
successive age—lights that never go out. We have a series of lessons on
mineralogy, with blackboard chart, prepared by Miss Paton. Specimens
of rocks, brought in by members, add to the interest. A critic is
appointed to correct the pronunciation of words. We have added a new
feature—which meets the cordial approval of all croakers who say
“What’s the use of so much ado over the ancients?”—a paper on current
events of the week, not omitting wit and humor. Truly the mental
horizon of each member is being widened, and slowly yet surely there is
a revolution in the kind of reading matter used by the people of this
town. The public librarian said to one of our members, “We attribute to
the C. L. S. C. the silent influence at work, resulting in better books
being called for so often and novels less frequently than formerly.”
God speed the Chautauqua Idea!

       *       *       *       *       *

=Michigan (Muskegon).=—I thought while reading the “Round-Table” in
THE CHAUTAUQUAN for February, that our circle must be such an one as
would meet Dr. Vincent’s ideas of what one ought to be. I am sure we
do not care for what each other may think, or, rather, we do not stop
to think about that. We just speak right out, “grammar or no grammar.”
There are at present six members in our circle, all married ladies with
home cares, our ages ranging from twenty-five to forty-five. Three of
us expect to receive diplomas this year. Two of the others started with
us, but were unable to keep up. We are making a specialty of English
history, and at each meeting the three members of the graduating class
are expected to bring in short papers on that subject. We each take
the reign of a certain king or queen and write something of their
characters, and also note the most remarkable events connected with
their reigns. Muskegon has another circle, composed of five ladies,
which was organized last fall. Every month we join with them in
reviewing the month’s work. Some member is appointed from one or the
other circle to act as teacher and prepare questions for the review.
Our meetings are very informal. We have no rules or regulations, laws
or by-laws. Each one is a law unto herself.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Wisconsin (Sheboygan).=—We have twelve regular and ten local members.
We hold our meetings every Monday evening, and find them both
entertaining and profitable. Each member is requested to bring not less
than three and not more than six questions upon the week’s reading,
questions either for information or for examination. These questions
are then put into a hat and each member draws his question; of course
there is more or less discussion upon most of the questions and once in
a while the president finds it necessary to call the meeting to order.
In addition we are sometimes entertained by essays upon different
subjects. One evening one of the ladies gave a delightful paper on “The
Domestic Life of the Greeks;” another paper was upon “Coal;” and still
another upon “Scandinavian Mythology.” Occasionally we have singing and
recitations, making the evenings so helpful and enjoyable that all look
forward to them with much pleasure.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Wisconsin (Berlin).=—Our society was organized in 1872, and named
“Friends in Council, No. 3.” We are one of nine societies now bearing
that name. In 1879, by a vote of the members, we adopted the C. L. S.
C. course of study, fifteen of our number becoming regular members.
We have received an addition of eight local members. We take sixteen
copies of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, which we consider of almost inestimable
value in the prosecution of our work. We aim to make our meetings,
which are held semi-monthly, as interesting as possible to local
members, and therefore we select such subjects from the regular course
as are most pleasing to all. There is quite surprising unanimity
of taste among us, and history, literature, and art have had the
preference for regular society work. We agree with the author of the
“Preparatory Greek Course in English” in thinking that “man is a
part of nature, and language the noblest outward attribute of man.”
So we delight to “study man in the monuments he has left behind him
from the distant ages, of his life and activity on the earth.” The
other branches are by no means neglected, but are studied at home or
in smaller neighborhood gatherings. As a part of society work, the
Text-Books—some of them perfect gems—are carefully studied, and then
as carefully reviewed. The questions and answers in THE CHAUTAUQUAN
are always used in meetings, and an additional list of questions
is prepared by our committee of instruction, for our use. We are
sufficiently informal in our proceedings to admit of considerable
conversation. As we belong to the Class of 1883, we were not quite
satisfied with the amount of “Timayenis” required of us, and at our
first meeting in September, 1882 (this society never takes a vacation),
we commenced at the beginning of the “History of Greece,” taking
“Grecian Literature”—from the “Ancient Literature” which we studied
last year—along with it. We have two or more carefully prepared
papers at each meeting. Some of the topics were “Grecian Mythology,”
“The Temple Gods of the Greeks,” “The Trojan War,” “The Eleusinian
Mysteries,” “The Greek Drama and Dramatists,” “Greek Leaders in the
Persian Wars,” etc. We have just completed the history and literature
of ancient Greece, and that fascinating book, “The Preparatory Greek
Course,” and though we would gladly go on with the modern history of
that famous land, we bid a reluctant farewell to its classic shores
and turn our attention for a while to the “Middle Kingdom.” For
several years previous to our adoption of the C. L. S. C. course,
we had a series of lectures during the winter, by some of the best
talent that could be procured in the West. Since then, partly because
we have been such diligent students that we could not afford the time
for the necessary arrangements, and partly because the subjects of
such speakers as we could obtain were not in the line of our work, we
have had no entertainments of any kind. The success, financially and
otherwise, of lectures, etc., depends somewhat upon local conditions,
which have not appeared favorable. This society, like all the others
bearing our name, consists entirely of ladies, but we rejoice in the
sympathy and approval of all the gentlemen who are connected with us by
family ties, some of them participating in the required reading in the
home.

       *       *       *       *       *

=Nevada (Carlin).=—We have six members. Our president is the
instructor. A motion prevailed at a recent meeting, “That the members
should form themselves into a committee to go out and solicit new
members.”

       *       *       *       *       *

=Montana Territory (Clancy).=—Seeing in THE CHAUTAUQUAN letters from
nearly every State in the Union, and from some of the Territories, and
not wishing to have Montana behind, I thought I would write a few lines
as a representative of the C. L. S. C. in this Territory. I only know
of one circle here though there may be many more. That is in a mining
camp of about four hundred and fifty inhabitants. The circle has about
ten members. My husband and I, living on a ranch some distance from a
town, form a circle, if two can form one, of our own. This is our first
year of work and I can assure you we derive a great deal of pleasure as
well as profit from the readings. We commenced reading the day after
we were married, and have read almost daily ever since, until we are
now ahead of the C. L. S. C., though we did not begin until the last of
October. Our interest in the books has taken us over the work faster
than required; possibly it would be better for memory if we did not
go so fast. I read all THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and think there is no part in
which I am more interested than that of the correspondents.

        *       *       *       *       *

=Oregon (Portland).=—We have organized out here in the far West, in
this beautiful and prosperous city, a local club of ten enthusiastic
Chautauquans. We have the honor, as well as the pleasure, of being the
first organization of the kind in the State. Already the influence
of those few is beginning to be felt in different circles of society
throughout the city, so that ere another Chautauqua year commences
we expect not only to see our own numbers greatly increased but also
several new clubs. We are reading the full C. L. S. C. course. We meet
every Monday evening at the residence of some one of the members. Our
plan of program adopted is as follows: After disposing of minutes of
previous meeting and all miscellaneous business, attention is turned
to the lesson, which is taken up in turn by each member, topics having
been assigned by the president one week previous, on which they are all
expected to be specially prepared on their several parts with questions
to bring out the leading and most important points, so that each in
turn becomes teacher. We are highly delighted with this systematic
course of instruction, and our interest increases with each meeting.

       *       *       *       *       *

=California (Moro).=—Six of the eight regular members and four local
members are working away at the C. L. S. C. course. We are very much
interested in the studies. Some who thought the “Greek History”
and “Preparatory Greek Course” would be unprofitable, have found
them otherwise. The questions in THE CHAUTAUQUAN are used with free
conversation upon “Astronomy” and all other works in the course.




ROBIN AND I.

By C. B.


    Once, upon a winter day,
      As I sat, forlorn and sad,
    Thinking, in a fretful way,
      Of the time when I was glad—
    Hopping lightly o’er the snow,
    Came a robin that I know.

    On the window ledge he stood,
      With a bright inquiring eye;
    ’Twas a compact that he should
      Always call in passing by,
    Just to show we might pretend
    Each to entertain a friend.

    When I saw my tiny guest
      Waiting for his daily crumb,
    Dainty, trim, and self-possessed,
      Never doubting it would come,
    I could almost hear him say,
    “Mistress, food is scarce to-day.”

    And my heart made sad reply,
      As the little dole I threw,
    “Strange that one so poor as I
      Should have store enough for two!
    Robin, if the thing could be,
    Would you throw a crumb to me?”

    Not a sound disturbed the hush,
      Save my own impatient sigh—
    Robin to a neighboring bush
      Darted off without good bye.
    How! you leave me, faithless bird,
    As I waited for a word.

    Ah! I wronged that heart of flame:
      Through the silence, sweet and clear,
    Forth his cheery carol came,
      And I held my breath to hear,
    For that dear familiar strain
    Woke my better self again.

    Suddenly the music ceased,
      Yet the silence breathed of balm;
    Art thou flown, then, small hedge priest,
      Somewhere else to raise the psalm?
    “Man,” the Master finely said,
    “Doth not live alone by bread.”




    [_Not Required._]




QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

    FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON HAMPTON TRACTS, NO.
    5, “A HAUNTED HOUSE,” AND NO. 9. “CLEANLINESS AND
    DISINFECTION.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.


1. Q. What is the subject of Hampton Tract, No. 5? A. “A Haunted House.”

2. Q. Where does the writer locate the haunted house? A. In one of the
Middle States, in a little town built on the gently-sloping hillside of
an inland lake.

3. Q. How long had the haunted house been built? A. About twenty-five
years.

4. Q. How long had it been unoccupied at the time of the commencement
of the story? A. More than six years.

5. Q. What occurred to persons who attempted to live in the house? A.
They either got sick and had to leave or died.

6. Q. What was the current story as to those who died there? A. That
those who died there staid there, and those who came after would see
them.

7. Q. What does the narrator state is one of his hobbies? A. That
a great deal of the sickness, and consequently a great deal of the
sorrow, from which we suffer in this world, comes from ignorance of,
or, worse still, disobedience to God’s laws.

8. Q. From what source had the entire supply of drinking water for the
haunted house been procured? A. From a well in the garden some distance
from the house.

9. Q. What did microscopic examination of the water reveal? A. That in
its then present condition it was so impure as to be actually a slow
poison to any who might drink it.

10. Q. What did digging in the vicinity of the well show? A. That a
cesspool leaked directly into the spring, which formed the main supply
of the well.

11. Q. What change was now made in regard to the supply of water? A. An
artesian well was driven in the rear of the garden entirely out of the
way of any drainage from the slope above.

12. Q. What followed from this change? A. The “ghosts” entirely
disappeared, and the house was soon found to be as healthy as any in
the village.

13. Q. What are the first directions given as to keeping a house clean?
A. There must be no decaying vegetables or fruit, no rubbish of any
kind kept in the cellar, and the air must be kept perfectly fresh and
sweet.

14. Q. What direction is given as to the sink? A. Be sure that your
sink is clean, don’t let the drain get stopped up, and once a day, at
least, wipe it out thoroughly clean and dry.

15. Q. What precaution is given in reference to the collection of
rubbish? A. Don’t let rubbish of any kind collect in the house, keep
all your pantries and cupboards clean, and don’t get into the habit of
pushing things away into holes and corners.

16. Q. What is said about the care of beds? A. Be sure that your beds
are well aired, and that the bedsteads are occasionally wiped off with
hot water and soap.

17. Q. What is the subject of Hampton Tract, No. 9? A. “Cleanliness and
Disinfection.”

18. Q. What is the name given to the most offensive things? A. Filth.

19. Q. What class of diseases kill about one-half of all who die in
England, and are diseases most common in our American towns and homes?
A. Filth diseases.

20. Q. For what purpose is this tract written? A. To show why and how
to make continual warfare against uncleanliness for the protection of
the health and comfort of the people.

21. Q. How may the water of a well or spring be poisoned so that the
use of it will destroy life? A. By permitting the drainage into it
through the soil of defiling matter.

22. Q. In what substances will some kinds of contagion long remain? A.
Porous substances, like the clothing or bedding used by the sick, or
in the carpets and cloths, and even in the floors and wall-paper, or
unwashed walls of the sick-room.

23. Q. Of what are the contagious disorders of the skin, the eyes and
mouth the results? A. Of neglect of cleanliness.

24. Q. What is doubtful in regard to persons who become filthy in their
habits, and neglect to provide for the purification of their bodies,
clothing and premises? A. It is doubtful if they will ever be found
pure and sweet in their thoughts, language and influence.

25. Q. Mention some of the things that in their respective ways and
times require the faithful application of sanitary rules. A. The air,
the water, the streets and grounds, the clothing and dwellings of
individuals, and waste and decaying matters.

26. Q. What should be prevented from defiling the air in any region
where it is to be breathed? A. Foul vapors and gases, and smoke and
sickening odors.

27. Q. What is said as to the water used for drinking and in
households? A. The wells, springs, cisterns, and reservoirs of water
used for drinking and in households must always be protected against
defilement.

28. Q. Name some articles of food that quickly become unwholesome if
in the presence of decaying matter and putrid gases. A. Meats, and
especially fish, milk and butter.

29. Q. When are the pathways and grounds about dwellings, and all
roadways, best kept clean and free from nuisance? A. When so graded and
sloped as to give easy surface drainage for the water.

30. Q. How are the freshness and healthfulness of paths and grounds
improved? A. By an occasional layer of fine gravel; but never by
sawdust, chips, or planks.

31. Q. What is the best of sanitary rules for all undergarments? A. The
modern practice of boiling as well as washing.

32. Q. What are some of the essential means of cleanliness of
habitations? A. Through-and-through ventilation, sunlight, the hot
scrubbing of wood floors, and the wiping and dusting of walls.

33. Q. What is said of the putrescence of refuse materials used for
food? A. It is not only excessively offensive, but may be the cause of
sudden and even fatal sickness.

34. Q. How has many a valuable life been lost and many a family
prostrated by sudden sickness? A. By the putrid emanations of a few
bushels of rotting potatoes or cabbages, or by putrid animal matters
and melons, in cellars or store-rooms.

35. Q. What should be done in regard to sewerage matter if it is not
completely washed away by flowing water? A. It should be led, in tubes,
to porous grounds at least two hundred yards away from the house.

36. Q. What are essential for every person and every dwelling in order
to secure purity and health? A. Pure water and fresh air, and means for
applying these elements for cleansing.

37. Q. What allowance of water is needed by every individual who is
to be kept perfectly clean in person, clothing and premises? A. From
twenty to thirty gallons daily.

38. Q. How much fresh air should every person have supplied every
minute? A. From twenty-five to one hundred cubic feet.

39. Q. What is necessary as well as ventilation for preserving the
cleanliness and purity of a dwelling or any apartment? A. Sunlight.

40. Q. What habit and duty should be established by all? A. The habit
and duty of revolting against foul or stagnant air.

41. Q. What study should be established by all? A. The study of
available means for supplying fresh air.

42. Q. For what are disinfectants not a substitute? A. They are not a
substitute for cleanliness, and the use of water and fresh air, which
are the great purifiers.

43. Q. What is the most important use of disinfectants? A. It is that
which destroys the infections and invisible virus of the contagious or
infectious diseases.

44. Q. What are the principal disinfecting agents employed? A. Heat and
chemical substances.

45. Q. What is it found that boiling heat will destroy? A. Infectious
or contagious virus in clothing and infected apartments.

46. Q. What are some of the chemical substances used as disinfectants?
A. Sulphate of zinc, carbonate of soda, chloride of lime, and carbolic
acid.

47. Q. How is the special drying of a damp apartment best secured?
A. By the continual and strong currents of air, blowing through and
through.

48. Q. What proportion of the volume is air contained in the grounds
upon which we walk, or that are under and about our houses? A. It is
found to be nearly one-fifth of the entire volume or quantity of every
solid foot or yard of earth.

49. Q. How is this air clean and fresh, or impure and sickening? A.
According to the condition of the grounds and the places out of which
it comes.

50. Q. Like habits of personal virtue and the right use of our time
and thoughts, what will these habits of cleanliness and the sanitary
regulation of houses become? A. Sources of personal and domestic
happiness and health.




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


APRIL.

For the month of April the required C. L. S. C. reading comprises two
of the Hampton Tracts—No. 5, A Haunted House, and No. 9, Cleanliness
and Disinfection—and the designated reading in THE CHAUTAUQUAN. The
following is the division of the work for the month according to weeks:

FIRST WEEK—1. Hampton Tract, No. 5, A Haunted House.

2. Russian History, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 1, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

SECOND WEEK—1. Hampton Tract, No. 9, Cleanliness and Disinfection.

2. Scandinavian History and Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 8, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

THIRD WEEK—1. Readings in Physiology, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

2. Pictures from English History, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

3. Sunday Reading, selection for April 15, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

FOURTH WEEK—1. Selections from English Literature, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
[See page 423.]

2. Sunday Readings, selections for April 22 and 29, in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

Poesy is a beauteous young lady, chaste, honorable, discreet, witty,
retired, and who keeps herself within the limits of the strictest
discretion; she is the friend of solitude, fountains entertain her,
meadows console her, woods free her from ennui, flowers delight her;
and, in short, she gives pleasure and instruction to all with whom she
communicates.—_Cervantes._




THOMAS HOOD.[N]


I have a delightful rather than a difficult, or even a delicate duty
to perform in speaking of those remains of Hood which are not in
the keeping of the graveyard’s silent warders, but in the custody
of ever-living generations of men and women. I have at this day no
intelligent opinions of Thomas Hood’s ability and achievements to
oppose; no detractions from his just and symmetrical fame to rebuke;
no reluctant acknowledgments of his mastership to stimulate. The most
that can be done now for the dear, dead poet, is to waft his fame, on
the breath of honest applause, to circles of men outside of the serried
ranks which have already closed in upon his shrine.

It appears from the researches of his children that he was born May 23,
1799.

It rarely happens in the history of genius that the verdict of
posterity becomes unanimous within its own generation. Yet, this is
true of Thomas Hood. He was, indeed, broadly and lovingly appreciated
in life, and he had not been long dead when every murmur of doubt,
every dissonance of judgment concerning his kingship among the humorous
poets of the nineteenth century, died away. Where now he is not admired
and extolled and loved for what he did for letters and humanities, let
us charitably suppose he is only _not known_. Of him it is preëminently
true,

    “None know him but to love him;
     None name him but to praise.”

I have no hesitation in making my discourse this afternoon his eulogy.
If I could not have praised him as a matchless humorist, as a great
poet, and as a noble example of manhood, I would have kept silence
concerning him.

No name in the literary annals of our century better deserves to be
inscribed upon the hearts of the people than does his. He was the
friend of the people, and of all the motley he chose to wear, no garb
better fitted him, or was more commonly worn, than that of brotherly
kindness. This, indeed, he always wore, like a close-fitting tunic, and
even when the gay tissues and tinsel of Momus or Harlequin glittered
upon the outside, the cerement of charity was between them and his
bosom.

The chief reputation Hood achieved in his lifetime was not that which
now cleaves to his name. He was known and admired for what is, however
admirable in itself, the lesser of his two great gifts. These were wit
and poetry, and he shone most to the public eye in the former. I have
pronounced him a matchless humorist and a great poet. The proof of my
words must be sought in his works.

       *       *       *       *       *

He was as peculiar in his humor as he was in his character. His passion
for punning was never exceeded, perhaps. It would have aroused all the
dogmatism of Dr. Johnson’s elephantine nature to explosive indignation
against him. Looked at superficially, very much of what Hood wrote
appears to be the veriest wantoning of verbal merriment. There are
whole volumes of prose and verse, in which he seems to riot in fun, and
to ransack the English language for sounds and synonyms of nonsense;
but, even in his wildest abandonment to the mood of mirth, there is
discoverable a method in his madness, a meaning in his mummery, which
is the token of a great brain, throbbing under the jester’s plume, and
of a noble heart beating right humanly beneath the mummer’s spangled
vest.

The world at first mistook him, no doubt, for a literary harlequin, a
poetical pranker, at whose antics they were called upon to laugh only.
The admirable humorist lived to see their great mistake rectified, and
to behold

    “Laughter, holding both his sides,”

not infrequently lift his restraining hands to eyes all suddenly dashed
with great blinding tears, or to a bosom growing tempestuous with sighs
and throes of human sympathy.

Yet there were not, I think, two distinct sides to Hood’s nature, as
some of the earlier critics said, to account for the mysterious pathos
welling up from the founts of his wit, but rather a unique single,
capable of many manifestations seemingly distinct and diverse, and
even antagonistic, but all alike, whether grave or gay, imaginative or
practical, comic or tragic—phases only of a homogeneous soul.

It was truly said of him that he introduced comedy and tragedy to each
other, and taught them to live together in a cordial union. When his
most whimsical poems are scanned, for the discovery, not of their feet,
but of their feeling, they reveal his heart beneath the rattling ribs
of verbiage.

In that extraordinary poem, “Miss Killmansegg and her Precious Leg,”
which to the hasty or over-serious reader seems only a foolish though
glittering pageant of rhetorical figures and fancies, a motley troop
of “whims and oddities,” there is nevertheless a deep vein of wisdom,
which, if visible nowhere else, leads plainly enough to the surface in
the terribly grotesque catastrophe. The heroine having lost a member by
a casualty, wore instead of it a leg of gold, which she laid under her
pillow at night, to keep it from the clutches of her spendthrift lord,
who had hinted to her—

                      —In language low,
    That her precious leg was precious slow,
    A good ’un to look at, but bad to go,
      And kept quite a sum lying idle.
    That instead of playing musical airs,
    Like Colin’s foot in going up-stairs,
    As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares—
      It made an infernal stumping;
    Whereas a member of cork, or wood,
    Would be lighter and cheaper, and quite as good,
      Without the unbearable thumping.

Dissensions ripened into quarrels. The countess, in her anger,
destroyed her will, which act hastened the dreadful end. That night her
sleep was broken;—

        ’Twas a stir at her pillow she felt,
      And some object before her glittered.
    ’Twas the golden leg!—she knew its gleam,
    And up she started, and tried to scream;
      But e’en in the moment she started—
    Down came the limb with a frightful smash,
    And, lost in the universal flash,
    That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash,
      The spark, called vital departed!

           *       *       *       *       *

    Gold, still gold! hard, yellow and cold,
    For gold she had lived, and she died for gold,
      By a golden weapon—not oaken.
    In the morning they found her all alone,
    Stiff and bloody, and cold as a stone—
    But her leg, the golden leg, was gone,
      And the “golden bowl” was broken!
    Gold—still gold! it haunted her yet—
    At the “Golden Lion” the inquest met,
      Its foreman and carver and gilder—
    And the jury debated, from twelve till three,
    What their verdict ought to be,
    And they brought it in a _felo-de-se_,
      Because her own leg had killed her!

And here follows what the poet designates “Her Moral:”—

    Gold! gold! gold! gold!
    Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
    Molten, graven, hammered and rolled,
    Heavy to get, and light to hold,
    Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,
    Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled:
    Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old,
    E’en to the verge of the church-yard’s mould;
    Price of many a crime untold:
    Gold! gold! gold! gold!
    Good or bad a thousand-fold—
      How widely its agencies vary,
    To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless;—
    As even its minted coins express,
    Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
      And now of a Bloody Mary.

The bulk of his production is expressed with the same levity which
strikes the ear, as in the verses just quoted. He was unquestionably
the greatest trafficker in words of double meaning the world had ever
known. His stock was exhaustless, and whether home-made or far-fetched,
his _mots_ and _jeux_ were sure of currency.

The secret of the perpetual playfulness of his pen is to be found in
the eagerness of the public mind to be moved to mirth, and in his
need to minister to the mood of the public mind. In a word, he was
dependent upon his brain for his bread. Labor was his law, and so, as
it befel, humor and mirth became his profits. His puns (so easily spun
from himself,) were transmuted into pence and pounds. His quips looked
quaintly ahead to quarter-day. His grotesque metaphors were sold in the
street, like plaster images, for a livelihood. Had he been less under
constraint to please the public ear, he would have wrought, perchance,
one dull epic, instead of a thousand delicious epigrams.

       *       *       *       *       *

His writings are indeed light, but in a double sense. They are light
with the buoyancy of the zephyr or of the gossamer wafted in its bosom.
They are light also with the luminousness of the sun-beam, kindling
beauty and light and warmth as it flashes along its track. The writings
of Hood are to be laughed at, but they who only laugh at them have
no true appreciation of their subtle power. They disparage them for
their mirthfulness, because they can not discover the depths below the
dimpling surface of their rolling humor.

       *       *       *       *       *

His description of a November fog, in London, must be familiar to many
of you, but I will venture to quote it in illustration of his facility
in rhyming, and also of his skill in supplying the details of a picture
which is all painted only in shadows. It is entitled,


“NOVEMBER.”

          No sun—no moon—
          No morn—no noon,—
    No dawn—no dark—no proper time of day,—
          No sky—no earthly view,—
          No distance looking blue,—
    No road—no street—no “’t other side the way,”—
          No end to any row,—
          No indications where the crescents go,—
    No top to any steeple,—
    No recognitions of familiar people,—
          No courtesies for showing ’em,—
          No knowing ’em.
    No traveling at all—no locomotion,—
    No inkling of the way—no motion,—
    “No go”—by land or ocean,—
          No mail—no post,—
          No news from any foreign coast,—
    No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility,—
    No company—no nobility,—
    No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,—
          No comfortable feel in any member,—
    No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,—
    No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,—
          November.

Transitions from gay to grave are so much in the manner of Hood that
you will not wonder if I sandwich between the playful production of
his muse just quoted, and another still more grotesque to follow, an
example of his verse, in which the bizarre yields entirely to the
beautiful, the tricksy to the true, leaving “a gem of purest ray
serene” for the coronal of pastoral poetry. It is the charming idyl,


“RUTH.”

     She stood breast-high amid the corn,
     Clasped by the golden light of morn,
     Like the sweetheart of the sun,
     Who many a glowing kiss had won.

     On her cheek an autumn flush,
     Deeply ripened,—such a blush
     In the midst of brown was born,
     Like red poppies grown with corn.

     Round her eyes her tresses fell,
     Which were blackest none could tell,
     But long lashes veiled a light
     That had else been all too bright.

     And her hat, with shady brim,
     Made her tressy forehead dim;—
     Thus she stood amid the stooks,
     Praising God with sweetest looks:—

    “Sure,” I said, “heaven did not mean
     Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
     Lay thy sheaf down, and come,
     Share my harvest and my home.”

I hoped to find time for quoting one of his numerous ballads, in
which he not only displays his facility in punning, and satirizes the
lachrymose style of ballad verse prevalent at that period, but I must
content myself with reciting the oft-repeated stanza with which one
of his best ballads closes, burdened with the fate of Ben, the jilted
sailor-boy:—

    His death, which happened in his berth,
      At forty-odd befell:
    They went and told the sexton,
      And the sexton tolled the bell.

If I were required to indicate that one of all Hood’s poems in which
the humor is the maddest and merriest, I think I should, in spite of
embarrassment, choose “the tale of a trumpet,” which, like the story
of Miss Kilmansegg, rides double, and carries a moral behind it. Dame
Eleanor Spearing, who was too excessively deaf to hear the scandals
narrated in her presence, was beset by a peddler, who, with many arts
and pleas, prevailed upon her to buy of him a marvelous ear-trumpet.
From that time the dame heard sad and shocking tales at the village
fire-sides, and, of course, repeated them, until the place was filled
with “confusion worse confounded,” and in Hood’s own words:—

    In short, to describe what came to pass
      In a true, though somewhat theatrical way,
    Instead of “Love in a Village”—alas!
      The piece they performed was “The Devil to Pay.”

The discovery is soon made that the dame’s diabolical trumpet has blown
all this mischief, and a condign fate overtakes the unhappy old woman.
She is seized by the populace and dragged to the pond just as the
peddler who sold her the horn makes his appearance, but—

    “Before she can utter the name of the d—
     Her head is under the water level!”

The moral of the story points itself, but you can afford to listen to
the humorist’s quaint phrasing of it:

    “There are folks about town—to name no names—
     Who greatly resemble this deafest of dames;
       And over their tea, and muffins and crumpets,
     Circulate many a scandalous word,
     And whisper tales they could only have heard
       Through some such diabolical trumpet.”

I did not interrupt the outlines of the story to illustrate its
wonderful plethora of puns and pranks, but you will not be averse to a
moment’s delay here for a taste of its quaint quality. It is altogether
a piece of poetical pyrotechny, in which there are verbal rockets, and
serpents, and stars and blue-lights, and double-headers; but, as in
many of his poems, the humor seems to go off chiefly with the giddy
sparkling whirl and whiz of metrical Catherine wheels. The peddler
commends his marvelous trumpet to the dame so marvelously deaf:—

    “It’s not the thing for me—I know it—
     To crack my own trumpet up, and blow it;
     But it is the best, and time will show it.
           There was Mrs. F.,
           So very deaf,
     That she might have worn a percussion cap,
     And been knocked on the head without hearing it snap.
     Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day
     She heard—from her husband at Botany Bay!
     Come—eighteen shillings—that’s very low,
     You’ll save the money as shillings go,—
     And I never knew so bad a lot,—
     By hearing whether they ring or not!
     Eighteen shillings! it’s worth the price,
     Supposing you’re delicate-minded and nice,
     To have the medical man of your choice,
     Instead of the one with the strongest voice—
     Who comes and asks you how’s your liver,
     And where you ache, and whether you shiver,
     And as to your nerves, so apt to quiver,
     As if he was hailing a boat on a river!
     And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot,
     Tells you to ‘Keep yourself perfectly quiet!’”

       *       *       *       *       *

In Hood’s remarkable poems of passion and imagination are to be found,
perhaps, his patent of nobility in the realm of poetry. But, if it was
made out there, it has had renewal in his later poems of humanity. It
was in the last period of his great and restless toil that he flung
off, like light fancies, some of his poems, whose stanzas will be
echoed in the anthem of his undying fame. Of these are “The Lay of the
Laborer,” “The Pauper’s Christmas Carol,” “The Song of the Shirt,”
and “The Bridge of Sighs.” It was coincidently with the epoch of that
comical and potential journal, _Punch_, (which has never failed to
poke the heavy ribs of oppression, and to prick the great fat paunch
of selfishness, in a very lively manner), that this new inspiration
of brotherly kindness came to Hood. His troubled heart began to beat
itself against the bars of its intellectual prison-house, and to
wail out its resistless pleas for the poor, the friendless, and the
desolate. “The Song of the Shirt” is one of the most extraordinary
lyrics ever struck from the harp of poesy. Little thought he, however,
that the lines—which, as they were written by his trembling fingers,
were almost as spasmodic as if they had been literally convulsed out
of his suffering frame,—little thought he that they would peal out on
London’s ear, on England’s ear, and strike deep down into the national
heart with a warrant for his immortality, more imperative and universal
than any which his wit had framed, or his genius had wrought, from the
beginning of his career down to the day on which he sang “The Song of
the Shirt.”

“Now, mind, Hood, mark my words, this will tell wonderfully: it is the
best thing you ever did,” said his wife, as she folded the manuscript
for the pocket of _Punch_. And “tell” it did, for not only did England
make it a household ballad, but France and Germany and Italy, even,
engrafted it upon their popular anthology, while here, in the New
World, we bear its odd burden,—

    Seam, and gusset, and band,
    Band, and gusset, and seam,
    Stitch, stitch, stitch, and
    Work, work, work,

not more in our memories than in our hearts. Let us not forget,
moreover, that women,

    With fingers weary and worn,
    With eyelids heavy and red,

sent their _shillings_ from their scanty earnings all over England to
help sculpture the pale marble that covers poor Hood on Kensall Green.

Quite as remarkable as the song I have just dismissed is “The Bridge
of Sighs.” It withstood the ponderous assaults of dull-headed and
cold-hearted critics when it was builded, and now its somber arches
will span the deep river of the popular feeling forever and ever. It
is a marvelously tender ode, a rare carol of charity, warbled out
fearlessly, where prudish philanthropy would have drawn down its hood
and held its breath, lest, perchance, it should seem at the side of a
fallen woman. Now may the world lift up its head and exult that sorrow,
shame, and despair have found a champion, whose voice over the

    One more unfortunate,
      Weary of breath,
    Rashly importunate,
      Gone to her death,

echoes the divine verdict of Jesus of Nazareth over the sinful woman
brought to him for the stern judgment of Moses, “_Let him that is
without sin among you cast the first stone._”

       *       *       *       *       *

Much remains unsaid that I would fain say. But it is time for me to
close. And what words shall I choose for last words concerning my
subject, who, if he were indeed my _subject_, would make me doubly
royal, for was not he the crowned king of kindly wits?

He did not live to laugh, albeit he often laughed to live. There is,
indeed, a marvel to us in his exterior mirthfulness, for he had a deep
fount of sadness in his soul. The last lines of his magnificent “Ode to
Melancholy” afford us the key to his inner nature:

    There is no music in the life
      That sounds with idle laughter solely;
    There’s not a string attuned to mirth,
      But has its chord in melancholy.

Yet had he wept where he has laughed, had he poured forth bile instead
of humor, had he exhaled dull vapors instead of fancies, he might have
made a few miserable, but the many he has made glad would have missed
the blessed sunshine of his song and spirit.

So, for his “Lays,” that yet lift us up; for his “Whims,” that we are
but too happy to indulge; for his oddities that we even admire; for his
“Own,” which is yet far more ours than his; for his “Designs,” which
were never against any one’s piece but his own; for his “Pleas,” which
pleased all classes of his clients; for his “Puns,” with which folly
alone was punished; for his spirit, which was always of highest “proof”
on trial; for his wit, which, witnessed of another’s, as Shakspere
says, “it ambles, it goes easily;” for his worth, that had a morning
and a noon tide, though it was never (k)nighted; for his heart, which
in the chase of charity, was never be-_hind_; for his name, which is
a covering of honor and a crown of bays;—for all these things, be
blessings on the name and memory of Thomas Hood. [Great applause.]

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Vincent said: I am surprised and delighted to learn that about
seventy members of the C. L. S. C. went out after fossils with Colonel
Daniels before breakfast this morning. I am very glad to learn that so
many of our circle are interested in this department of study.

The members of the C. L. S. C. are most of them women, or a very large
part of them women, and they hear on this ground a good many things
said affecting woman’s sphere and work, and they hear in the course of
the conversation a great many things said which may not be altogether
true, in reference to the sentiments prevailing at Chautauqua
concerning this question of woman’s work and woman’s sphere. I was very
glad to know that opportunity was taken the other day to discuss one
side of that question, and I am very glad that opportunity was given
to discuss the other side this afternoon. We must remember in all
this discussion, that the largest liberty is granted to all members
of the C. L. S. C., that those who believe in woman’s suffrage, and
those who are opposed to woman’s suffrage, may be equally loyal to the
great objects of the Circle. One thing, however, must be said, that
if woman is depreciated as to her relative social power, influence,
or value by the managers of the Circle, they are not worthy of your
confidence. For the Circle which proposes to exalt the home, and
increase the intellectual power of woman as mother, and as a member of
society, should certainly recognize as a fundamental doctrine woman’s
equality in every legitimate respect with man. [Great applause.] And,
if opportunity affords for the further discussion of this question, I
hope we shall be able to avail ourselves of the opportunity, and have
a thorough understanding among all members of the C. L. S. C. as to
where those of us who are most devoted to its interests stand on these
questions. I make these remarks, in as indefinite a way as I can, that
through the mists you may catch the spirit of the hour, and not mistake
the true sentiment of the Chautauqua Circle. [Applause.]

Adjourned.

       *       *       *       *       *

DR. GODWIN’S “MAN IN THE MOON.”—This amusing little work was published
in 1638, and written by Dr. Godwin, Bishop of Llandaff in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, and collated to the see of Hereford by her successor,
King James I. It was composed when the author was a young student
at Christ Church College, Oxford, under the assumed name of Domingo
Gonzales. One of the prints represents a man drawn up from the summit
of a mountain, with an engine set in motion by birds, which was the
mode in which the said Gonzales was supposed to have reached the moon.
This curious and now scarce production [there is a copy of it in the
British Museum] excited wonder and censure on its appearance, and is
thought to have supplied hints to Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, in
compiling his work called “A Discovery of a New World in the Moon.” Dr.
Godwin is familiar to most clerical readers as author of “_Præsules
Anglicani_,” a useful referential work, and his “_Nuntius Inanimatus_”
is said to have contained the first hints of a telegraph, which useful
invention was, however, not discovered till the end of the last
century.




AN UNNOTED EVIDENCE

OF THE NECESSITY OF A REVEALED RELIGION.

By REV. R. H. HOWARD, A. M.


Do not the remarks of Timayenis, the author of our excellent history
of Greece, relative to the effect upon the popular faith of Greece, of
the progress of philosophic thought, or of intellectual inquiry, (see
page 396), suggest a striking and forcible, not to say new, argument in
favor of the necessity of a revealed religion—of a divinely inspired
and attested, and hence absolutely _authentic_, revelation of God’s
will? His language is as follows: “But perhaps the principal reason
(for the persecution of Socrates) was, that his dialectic and searching
system, though limited by him to human questions only, was finally
_applied by his hearers_ to the _higher_ questions concerning the
_creation of the universe_, and _tended to undermine the foundations of
the prevailing religion_. The misfortune of ancient society was, that
the popular religion was _never to be the subject of any philosophical
debate_; either philosophy must _be left to destroy the religion, or
society_, striving for the conservation of the latter, _must limit,
as much as possible, free philosophical research_. Hence we see the
most intelligent and most liberal of the Hellenic tribes continually
persecuting, for religious reasons, the most prominent philosophers.”

Our author might have better said, it seems to me, that it was the
misfortune of the popular religion in ancient Hellas to be of such
a sort as not manifestly to be able successfully to abide searching
scrutiny—the white light of scientific, or philosophic, investigation.
Had theirs been a religion founded on _fact_, instead of the grossest
absurdities, and embracing in their judgment only the highest,
sublimest truth, instead of manifold and manifest errors, there would,
clearly, have never been any occasion, on their part, to dread its
becoming the theme of philosophical debate. Nay, the more severely it
was subjected to this ordeal of intellectual inquiry the more clearly
would its truth, evidently, be made to appear. Hence, to stand, as
some people appear to, even in our day, in such mortal dread of
rationalistic, or destructive, criticism, really evinces anything but a
robust,—in fact, a very slender and tottering faith, or confidence in
the divine, and hence immovable, foundations of their religion.

The line of argument suggested by the foregoing quotation may be
stated somewhat as follows: Early in the historical development of
a race certain religious beliefs at once spring up. These are born
of instinct. Strangely, whatever their manifest absurdity, this
feature seems at first to constitute no serious bar to their popular
acceptance. Meanwhile, palpably erroneous and absurd as many of
these beliefs may really be, they yet, in process of time, not only
become deeply rooted, but come to serve certain important practical
purposes. Meager and poor as they may be comparatively, they are yet,
in point of fact, very much better than none. Without them, indeed, or
deprived of the restraining, salutary influences of the same, society
itself, perhaps, would be found to be quite impossible. Hence, as also
doubtless from feelings of reverence therefor, a national faith, even
if it is not all that could be desired, is always jealously guarded.
The man who has the temerity to introduce any religious novelties,
whatever the extent to which the latter may be really an improvement on
the prevailing doctrines, will be likely to be looked upon, not only
with suspicion, but as a public enemy, and hence, as one deserving
of many stripes. “Strange gods” anciently received a no more hearty
welcome or kindly hospitality than do “isms” and “heresies” generally
at the present day.

Meantime, however bitter or determined may be the opposition
thus developed against it, this antagonism is by no means going
effectually to bar out the light of truth from men’s minds. Nay, this
very persistent and determined effort to keep it out can naturally
tend only to pique curiosity, awaken suspicion and scepticism,
develop opposition, and stimulate inquiry. The light must come.
Meanwhile, clearly, with this gradually progressive development of
the intellectual life of a people, and the prevalence, hence, of
a thoughtful, inquiring habit, on their part, of what, in modern
times, is known as the “scientific spirit,” religion plainly, as
well as everything else, must come in for its share of criticism and
investigation. And woe to it if, in this its day of judgment, it be
found wanting—if, in connection with this truly crucial ordeal, its
foundations be found to consist only of “hay, wood, and stubble.” Nay,
nor does it scarcely matter what interests besides may be involved, and
must hence be sacrificed with it; it must all the same at once “step
down and out.” The idea is that the development of brains is, in the
long run, absolutely fatal to a religion founded in error—to all the
fabrics of ignorance and superstition. True, these brains can never
produce a religion specially worthy of being substituted for the one
they have destroyed. But they can, and, in the very nature of the case,
inevitably will, sooner or later, demolish and sweep utterly away any
faith found to be fundamentally irrational and absurd.

Hence, now, in order to the stability of society, and a permanent and
healthy national life,—in fact in order to all kinds of progress and
of civilization, an absolutely perfect religion is necessary—one, to
say the least, that can effectually, triumphantly, abide even the
keenest search of man’s scientific ken. But, plainly, man’s unassisted
genius—no merely finite understanding—is equal to the task of producing
any such religion: this “one thing” thus so supremely “needful,” yet
remains; therefore, if we are to have it at all, this faith must come
from on high.

Divine interposition thus, by way of a revealed religion, is evidently
absolutely indispensable to prevent nations, by virtue of their very
intellectual activities, from undermining and subverting their own
foundations, and ultimately destroying the very institutions that might
otherwise be their pride and prove as enduring as time.




LOSS AND GAIN.

By MRS. EMILY J. BUGBEE.


        All’s lost, do we say?
    When the stars of earthly hope go down,
      When the light fades out in shadows gray,
    When thorns grow sharp on the rugged ground,
      And the birds of the summer flee away?

        What’s lost?
    Why, only our little throne of pride,
      Only the outward trappings of life,
    Only the friends that could not abide,
      When sunshine faded and storms were rife.

        What’s left?
    Why God! and _His_ true Heaven above,
      The glory of earth, and sea and air,
    The deathless pulse in His heart of love,
      And we to His grand estate are heir.

        Infinite gain:
    The riches that never more take wing,
      The gold wrought out in the furnace fire,
    The strength that is born of suffering,
      And the upward lift of the soul’s desire.




CHAUTAUQUA EMERGING FROM WINTER.

A LETTER FROM CHAUTAUQUA.

By the REV. VICTOR CORNELLE.


We enjoy this forest life; not only through the Assembly, but through
the delightful autumn, when we scatter the pretty leaves in every
path; through the cold, long winter and its deep and lasting snows;
and through the sunny opening spring. To those who come and go, the
Assembly is only a summer gathering for rest and instruction; but to
us, who live here, it is like a large and stirring city passing through
our woods, and bringing with it the world’s best attainments in every
department of learning, the press, the telegraph, etc., and leaving
behind saloons and their train of vices. In April our quiet is usually
broken by a few scattered families who come before to prepare the
way for the thousands who are soon to follow. These increase through
June and July and reach the climax in August. Before September closes
we can only hear the distant footsteps of a departing city; and when
winter comes you can find but sixty small families sprinkled through
the cottages. We had a long and pleasant fall, and work went on briskly
while pleasant weather lasted. The Superintendent said the improvements
this year would exceed any two previous years. The work was distributed
over the grounds, but the most marked appears before the hotel, where
the ground is worked into an easy undulating grade down to the lake.
More cottages were built than usual, many enlarged and others repaired.
The lake has been frozen over more than two months with ice from
fourteen to sixteen inches thick, carrying sleighs all winter. The
fishing-coops appeared in ordinary numbers, and the fishermen gazed
long through the holes cut in the ice for the fish that would not come.
A few were caught.

The fierceness of the winter is broken by the woods. The wind which
sweeps the snow into immense drifts outside is heard here flowing over
and among the tree-tops with a deep and constant roar; but is little
felt. The memorial bell rings with a regularity and punctuality truly
gratifying to those who are expected to hear it at a distance. We can
inform all Chautauquans that it rings, and the imagination alone is
required to convey its sound to every ear, and its inspiration to every
heart. The Sabbath dawns upon us with such a peaceful quiet that it
fills our hearts with reverence. Instead of being shocked by the vices
of the city, we are charmed by the innocent beauties God has thrown
around us in the works of his hands. The services held in the chapel
are well attended, and the little society is gradually increasing. The
five o’clock meetings for prayer and song in the grand and silent hall
have continued without a single break. The attendance declined through
the hardest of the winter, but is now increasing. Our C. L. S. C. has
sustained a happy existence through the quiet winter. We number twenty,
meet weekly to read essays, ask questions, and exchange opinions.

       *       *       *       *       *

    We find this noble precept often repeated in Plato:
    “Do thine own work, and know thyself.” Each member
    of this sentence comprehends the whole duty of man,
    and each includes the other. He who would do his own
    work aright will discover that his first lesson is to
    know himself and what is his duty; and he who rightly
    understands himself will never mistake another man’s
    work for his own, but will attend to himself, and
    above all improve the faculties of his mind, will
    refuse to engage in useless employments, and will get
    rid of all unprofitable thoughts and schemes. And as
    folly, even if it should succeed in obtaining all
    that it can possibly desire, will never be satisfied,
    so also wisdom, ever acquiescing in the present, is
    never dissatisfied with its existing state. Epicurus
    exempts the wise man from forethought and care for the
    future.—_Montaigne._




CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES.


ANGLO-SAXON PRIZES.

Last spring it was announced that during the session of the School
of Languages in ’82 two prizes would be awarded for proficiency in
Anglo-Saxon acquired during the session. Accordingly, after due
announcements, the examination was held during the last days of the
session. The papers were submitted to Dr. Cook, Professor of English in
the University of California, well-known to old students at Chautauqua.
He has lately decided upon the papers with the following result: The
first prize was awarded _Miss Mary Parker_, Ogdensburg, N. Y.; the
second to _Miss Mary A. Bryant_, Columbia, Tennessee. It is expected
that similar prizes will be offered during the session of ’83.


HINTS TO BEGINNERS IN THE STUDY OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.

By REV. ALFRED A. WRIGHT, A.M.[O]


THE PURPOSES OF THIS COURSE OF STUDY.

It is one purpose of the study of New Testament Greek as conducted
by the Dean of the Department of Greek and the New Testament in the
Chautauqua School of Theology, to acquaint students with the best
methods for obtaining an elementary knowledge of grammatical and
philological principles lying at the basis of Bible Greek.

It is another purpose to acquaint students with the best methods of
using the tools needed to mine the treasures of Greek ideas which are
not always near the surface of things.

The supreme purpose of this course of study is to enable students
to read for themselves the very _words_ which the blessed Master
and his Apostles uttered, and to so enter into the mysteries of the
language-forms and idioms as to behold the very _ideas_ which Christ
and his Apostles had before their mental eyes.

He who attempts this is fascinated from the start with the
anticipations of discovery and with the comforts of expected reward
for every toil of endeavor. And, as he advances, whatever difficulties
present themselves, appear only as the stepping-stones upon which he
may plant his ascending footsteps, and from whose loftier elevations he
may scan a wider scope of beauty.

Surely—if there are hidden secrets of divine truth phrased in the
metaphor or in the thought tone of the Bible Greek, the student can
afford to tightly gird his loins for the journey;—it shall prove to him
indeed the “Quest of the Holy Grail.”


DIFFICULTIES—IN THE LANGUAGE.

1. “_It is all Greek to me_,” is often said with a quality of
facetiousness in tone and manner which is evidently intended as a
compliment to the exceeding difficulty of learning the language. Or,
it may be a _quasi_ tribute to the very picturesqueness of the Greek
letters and word-forms as they appear in the sentence. Or, it may
be said by one who is overwhelmed at the erudition of some academic
“Greek” flourishing a Greek Testament, and suggesting in manner a
certain layman of Lynn, who once took from the parlor table a book
printed in French, and asked his astonished hostess, “Is this Latin or
French? For if it’s Latin I can read it.” Or it may be possible the
superstition that the mysteries of religion are themselves in some
manner connected with the very forms of Greek words, has its influence
in producing the expression; however, it is a fact that the phrase is
found on the lips of even cultured persons, “_It’s all Greek to me_.”

2. _Misapprehension._—The fact is, many people misapprehend the nature
of the language and of the real difficulties in the way of mastering
its secrets. For the new scholar will invariably assert that Greek,
especially New Testament Greek, is _not_ a difficult study, because of
the language forms or idioms. The _real_ difficulties are to be found
in other places, than in the gardens of the text.


THE REAL DIFFICULTIES.

1. _Lack of Early School Training._—Here is a real difficulty which
many Sunday-school teachers and others _feel_. Unquestionably, however,
they too much magnify it. An undertaking may be difficult and yet
possible. Its difficulty may be over-estimated. A lack of early or the
best school training, seriously affects one’s future success in letters
or in art. But if there be will and energy and perseverance in a man,
these will go far toward insuring his success, while he who has them
not will surely fail though blessed with every advantage of school and
teacher.

Elihu Burritt, blacksmith, learned eighteen languages and twenty-two
dialects, because he _would_ learn them, not because he had early
scholastic advantages.

Shakspere says,

              “It is not in our stars
    But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

2. _Lack of Time._—With busy pastors, superintendents and teachers,
this difficulty is a _real_ one. Nevertheless we may hint to _some_
pastors that their busy-ness is largely misdirected. It is certain
there is time enough to do all that God wants you or needs you to
do. But to elaborate the sixth topic of a thirty minute discourse
upon the anvil of three weeks’ time, and to do nothing else must be
pronounced at least doubtfully wise or valuable. Or, to “run in and
see” the mince-pie making Martha or the floor-scrubbing Patience or
the boudoir-adorning Evelyn and her æsthetic sister Elsie, and to do
nothing else, may please the dear creatures and make one the most
popular pastor for the village ages, but is _this_ wise or valuable?

[Hint. _They who “run in” may “run out.”_] A New York _Sun_ reporter
in describing the proceedings of the last Democratic State Convention,
coined a new word,—not elegant indeed, but extremely expressive. “The
Hon. —— arose and proceeded to _peppersauce himself_ all over the
convention.” Certainly this is a most emphatic use of the middle form
of a noun-verb, and is indefinitely suggestive of the very action
and _distributive energy_ of the Hon. ——’s speech as well as of the
speecher. The _number_ of parish calls made per year is not the only
measure of a pastor’s value to his church. We must have the _qualis_ as
well as _quantus_ of his work if we would make a fair test of values.
But the quantity of this work is the very consumption of time. Probably
you could both learn Greek and make better pastoral calls if you should
refrain from distributing yourself so continuously over the parish.
Wesley’s rule, “Be diligent. Never be unemployed. Never be _triflingly_
employed. Neither spend more time at any place than is strictly
necessary,” is one of universal wisdom. Kirke White learned Greek while
walking to and from a lawyer’s office.

A nail cutter was at work cutting nails at his machine in the mill;
the long stick that held his pincers was grasped in his right hand and
the other end of it, running between his side and elbow, was slung in
a cord pendent from the floor above. The red-hot nail plates glowed in
the fire, ready to be seized one by one in the pincers, as the workman
finished feeding the last one into the closing jaws of the machine.
Only a minute’s time and a single nail plate—turned for every nail
by the deft hand of the skilled artisan, and fed accurately, became
nails. The workman was so adjusted in mental tether to his work that
the jaws never closed upon the iron pincers. With a single motion the
refuse bit within the pincers fell amongst its fellow scraps, and a new
plate began its course. And all the while _the workman was reading a
book_. The babel of two hundred crunching jaws around availed nothing
to disturb him. He’d planned to save time. He didn’t mean to become
machinery or a machine. _That man could learn Greek._

    [To be continued.]




EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.


The C. L. S. C. as a Substitute for the College.

The C. L. S. C. has been called the “People’s College.” That it is
indeed a school for the thousands who pursue its course of study no
one has questioned. Some, however, of the more exact of speech might
doubt the propriety of applying the dignified name of college to an
institution of its character. We do not set up any claims on the ground
of derivation from the Latin verb _colligere_, to collect or bring
together, for then would the C. L. S. C. outrank all other colleges
in the world. Nor do we plead the right to use such a name because of
the scores of institutions chartered under the name of college, which
scarcely bear comparison for character and grade of instruction with
our academies and best high schools. Let us be content to speak of
plain, unpretentious C. L. S. C. as a substitute for the respectable
college.

The warmest enthusiast for the C. L. S. C. has never recommended it
to young men and women with means and opportunity to pursue a regular
college course. On the contrary it has been a claim from the beginning
that it tends to arouse in many a home the ambition to have son and
daughter enjoy the advantages of the college training. But to the
thousands of C. L. S. C. students to whom opportunity is past, or to
whom it never came for want of time and money, to those and other
thousands of well wishers it will be of interest to consider how and to
what extent the C. L. S. C. may be deemed a substitute.

It should be borne in mind that the college proper is entirely distinct
from the professional school. The former aims to give that general
and accurate knowledge and training which prepares for the work and
duties of life. The latter is wholly technical in its character. Now,
keeping this definition in view and comparing the C. L. S. C. with the
college, we shall see that each possesses its points of superiority
and inferiority. The college has facilities for taking the student of
physics and chemistry into apparatus-room and laboratory where he may
witness experiment and illustration of great practical value. The C.
L. S. C. student reaches the same facts and conclusions through the
cuts and explanations of text-books, supplemented in many cases by
experiments of his own, which, though rude, are often the most valuable
of all. All that acquaintance with the operations and formulæ of higher
mathematics which the college student with taste and talent for such
things may possess, the C. L. S. C. student does not have. But the
result wrought out through these higher mathematical processes with
all their various practical applications are brought to his knowledge.
The C. L. S. C. student does not have the benefit of a critical study
of Latin and Greek, but he gets through history and the literatures
of these languages as large an acquaintance with Greece and Rome.
Horace Greeley, when reminded of the impossibility of his obtaining a
good knowledge of the old classic authors because of his ignorance of
the languages in which they wrote, replied that he did not think it
necessary to eat a few feet of “lead pipe every day in order to get
a pint of Croton water.” Whatever may be the strength or weakness of
such reasoning it must be admitted that acquaintance with the thought
and feeling of mankind is the highest fruit of language study. This,
through faithful and scholarly translations, the C. L. S. C. student
receives.

In the departments of general history and English literature the C. L.
S. C. has a wider range and requires more than the college. It has its
special courses which correspond with the idea of elective studies in
the more advanced colleges of the times. The C. L. S. C. possesses,
too, the advantages of all the improved methods of instruction, so far
as circumstances will permit of their application: the lecture, the
text-book, the question and answer. The student may lose something by
reason of the long distance in miles between himself and the author
or lecturer who is his teacher, but he is somewhat compensated by the
better facilities which he possesses for the development of habits of
personal investigation and self-reliance. The C. L. S. C. is not the
college but in many features it is like the college. It is the best
substitute for it known.


Wagner.

The recent death of Richard Wagner removes from the world of art one,
the greatness of whose work it would be difficult to exaggerate. His
musical devotees, who are in every land, and who pay him the most
enthusiastic homage, regard his loss as irreparable. The art of music
has perhaps had no follower who in all respects was his equal. His
impression upon his age was deep, and his work will not soon pass away.
He died February 13, in Venice, where he was spending the winter. For
some years he had been accustomed, as the season of cold came on, to
seek the milder Italian climate.

May 22, 1813, in Leipsic, Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born, the youngest
of seven children. His father was an actuary of police, and died a few
months after the son’s birth. A step-father, Ludwig Geyer, a portrait
painter, who had once been an actor and a writer of plays, probably
helped in giving his mind a dramatic bent, but he also died when
Richard was but seven years old. Wagner, in his autobiography, tells
us that, though he early discovered a strong taste for music, he could
never learn to play well on the piano. His teacher in boyhood declared
that his making a player was quite out of the question, and the teacher
was right. His playing was never good. He was sent to school to prepare
for the regular university course; but here his time was largely spent
in verse-making, in studying the Greek and other tragedies, and writing
plays. He passed among his school fellows for one of bright mind, and
he excelled in literary work. Before he had reached his twelfth year
verses of his appeared in print. It was a memorable time with the
boy when a translation of Shakspere’s works fell into his hands. His
admiration for the great genius of English literature knew no bounds;
he studied English that he might read the plays in the original. He
became an earnest student of this master, and it was his delight to sit
at his feet. One of his biographers, speaking of this boyhood period,
says that “He projected an immense tragedy, which was a concoction
of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear,’ on an absurdly grand scale. Forty-two
men died in the earlier part of the play, and he was obliged to make
a number of them return as ghosts, in order to keep the last acts
sufficiently supplied with _dramatis personæ_.” Another event in his
life was his first hearing at a concert one of Beethoven’s symphonies.
The lad of fifteen was deeply moved, and a purpose to be a musician was
awakened in his soul. His friends had no faith in his musical gifts,
but finally allowed him to follow his inclination. He set to studying
music at a furious rate, and to composing music. He studied for a time
at the Thomas-schule at Leipsic, but in a desultory fashion at first,
from which he derived little good. At length, however, he put himself
under the instruction of Theodore Weinlig, cantor of this seminary,—a
thoroughly competent teacher,—and laid an excellent foundation for his
musical future. He became an adorer of Beethoven, as he had been—and
continued ever to be—of Shakspere. “I doubt,” wrote one musical critic,
“whether there ever was a young musician who knew Beethoven’s works
more thoroughly than Wagner at his eighteenth year. The master’s
overtures and larger instrumental compositions he had copied for
himself in score. He went to sleep with the sonatas and rose with the
quartettes; he sang the songs and whistled the concertos.”

The success of Wagner did not come speedily. He was forced to wait
a long time for the world’s appreciation. There were years in which
failure followed failure with him as a musical director and composer.
He struggled long with poverty. He received his share of ridicule. But
the time of his triumph came. His music has gone everywhere, and in
these last years people from all quarters of the globe have flocked
to the little Bavarian city where he had his home to listen to the
productions of his genius as rendered by the world’s first artists.
The coming of King Ludwig to the throne of Bavaria meant for Wagner
his needed opportunity. The young king believed in him and took him
under his protection. He could show the world at length the power
that was in him. And the world has acknowledged it, and crowned him
king in the realm of music. He founded a school; his theories were
new and revolutionary. And his school has triumphed; his theories, as
one has said, have “leavened the whole lump of European music.” His
great name was sought to add to the glory of our American Centennial
in 1876, and a portion of the music sung at the opening of the great
exhibition in Philadelphia was from his pen. He was more than a musical
composer. He was a matchless orchestral organizer and director. He
was possessed of exquisite dramatic insight. He was a poet of genuine
poetic gifts. He was a profound writer upon political and philosophical
subjects. And his writings upon music and the drama have had a great
influence. His literary works have been collected and published in an
edition of nine volumes, and show in their author a strangely versatile
genius. Some of his best known musical compositions are “Rienzi,”
“Tannhäuser,” “Lohengrin,” “Tristan und Isolde,” “Die Meistersinger,”
the four operas of the “Nibelungenring,” whose presentation enraptured
thousands attended at Baireuth—among whom were different crowned heads
of Europe—and “Parsifal” given last July at the same place with equal
or greater success. Wagner lived in his last years at Baireuth in royal
style. If fame, wealth, the homage of men could give man content, his
lot should have been one of satisfaction. Personally, he was a man of
strong will, of self-assertion, and of stubbornness—a man who could say
of others things harsh and severe. Among his friends, however, he was
amiable and often jolly. He was twice married. His first wife was not a
congenial partner, and was divorced. His second was the daughter of the
illustrious Liszt, and she survives him.


The Study of Art.

Within the last decade there has been in this country a marked increase
in the interest manifested in all matters pertaining to the fine arts.
Not only have amateur artists been multiplied all over the land, but
many persons who make no pretensions to the use of brush or chisel,
have applied themselves assiduously to the study of the history and
principles of art. Each succeeding year adds to the number.

Of late years, also, the facilities for such studies have been greatly
increased. In many of our universities and colleges departments of art
have been instituted and capable instructors secured to train such
students as desire to acquire thorough knowledge. In addition to this,
societies are to be found in most of our leading cities, which are
designed to encourage the study of art and afford great facilities to
those desiring to perfect themselves in its different departments. At
least one school of design has been established in this country, which
has already attracted many students. Instructions in oil and water
colors can be obtained in almost every town and hamlet in the land.
Opportunities are numerous and afford delightful and profitable pastime
for those who have leisure and capacity for such employments.

The study of art has been given suitable prominence in the course of
the C. L. S. C. Text-books, well written and beautifully illustrated,
have been prepared by persons in every way qualified for the task
they have undertaken. Numerous lectures on this subject, full of
entertainment and instruction, have been delivered on the Chautauqua
platform, while the Chautauqua Schools of Drawing and Modeling are each
year increasing in interest and attendance. A number of articles on
various departments of art have appeared in THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and its
future numbers will be enriched by many more.

The study of art in all its departments is worthy of the highest
commendation and encouragement, and is always productive of beneficial
results. It is ennobling and elevating in its tendencies. It is the
herald of a broader culture, of a greater refinement of taste and
manners, and a higher degree of civilization. Its practical results
will be made manifest in more beautifully built and more tastefully
adorned homes, in a truer æstheticism, and in a keener appreciation of
the beautiful in nature, life, and morals.

Increased study and admiration of a subject is always productive of
desire to possess and enjoy its works. The great acquisition of wealth
in recent years by the people of this country affords ample means to
gratify this noble desire awakened by this study. Hence the demand for
works of art has greatly increased, so that the artist who is able to
produce well-executed pictures or statues is sure of a profitable and
even lucrative employment. Genius in this realm, as well as elsewhere,
is rare; but patient and persistent effort on the part of any one
possessed of even moderate ability, will enable its possessor to attain
to sufficient excellence to insure a fair degree of success in an
artistic career.

It is true that works of art will always be, as regards the cost of
production, beyond the means of those in ordinary circumstances, but
not on this account should persons in the humble walks of life be
deterred from the study of art. The benefits received from such a
course of study are as sure to be obtained by the poorest as by the
richest. But while paintings and statuary may be too costly for the
many, photographs and engravings of the masters, both in painting and
sculpture, can be obtained for comparatively small sums. The humblest
and poorest need not be without the inspiration derived from the
marvelous designs of the great artists who, from age to age, have
delighted the world with their wonderful works.

Art galleries, which constitute one of the chief attractions of
European cities to cultured tourists, do not abound in our country,
but art exhibitions are occasionally within the reach of all, and
should be attended whenever possible by every one who desires to attain
proficiency in the study and knowledge of art.


Washington Irving.

A hundred years have gone since the birth of this genial writer, to
whom we owe so great a debt. The Irving centenary will occur on April
3, and this number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN affords a most fitting place for
Prof. Bruce’s eloquent lecture upon his writings. We would also make
room here for a résumé of his life and work.

The life of this favorite author is comprised between the dates April
3, 1783, and November 28, 1859. He lived reasonably long, and his
years were eminently fruitful. His birth-place was New York city,
and he died at his “Sunnyside” place, famous and beloved, on the
Hudson. His parents were English, which may partly account for the
warm side he ever had for the English people. He was the youngest of
several children. His early educational advantages were good, and
well improved. At the age of sixteen he entered upon the study of
law. The bent of his mind, however, was toward literature. As early
as 1802 he wrote for the press, and among other effusions a series
of articles in the _Morning Chronicle_, signed “Jonathan Oldstyle,”
came from his pen. In 1804 he was threatened with consumption, and
visited Europe in pursuit of health. At Rome he made the acquaintance
of the great painter, Washington Allston, with whom he set out to study
for an artist. The new passion, however, was short-lived. A trial of
three days satisfied him that he was not born to wield the brush. On
his return from his European trip he was admitted to the bar, but
instead of seeking law-practice he devoted his time to literary work.
The first of his published works which was important was the serial
“Salmagundi”—the joint production of his brother William, James K.
Paulding, and himself—the first number of which was issued in January,
1807. This humorous work, abounding in clever hits at persons and
things, was very successful, and was received with favor on the other
side of the Atlantic as well as at home. The exquisite “Knickerbocker’s
History of New York” soon followed, a burlesque which was taken for
veritable history by some rather dull readers, and gave offense to
certain descendants of the old Dutch families. Irving’s brother Peter
had some hand, though quite a subordinate part, in the construction of
this work. After the publication of “Knickerbocker,” nothing of much
importance came from his pen for a number of years. After his father’s
death, two of Irving’s brothers succeeded to his important mercantile
business, and he himself became a sleeping partner in the firm. In
1815 he again visited Europe. He became a resident of London. There he
found himself favorably known by his works, and became intimate with
many of the literary men of the day. The time came when his firm became
bankrupt, and he was obliged to take hold of literary work in earnest
for a livelihood. In 1820 “Geoffrey Crayon’s Sketch-Book” was published
in London, at the time it was also appearing in America. “Bracebridge
Hall” and “Tales of a Traveler” afterward appeared at intervals of two
years. In 1824 he was prepared to gratify a desire for travel, and he
proceeded to make a protracted tour of the continent. This finished,
he took up his residence in Spain, where he collected materials for
his “Life of Columbus,” “The Conquest of Granada,” and “The Alhambra,”
which works were published in the order named. In 1829 he returned to
London, and the second year following he received from the University
of Oxford the degree of LL.D. After an absence of seventeen years,
he returned to his native land in 1832. In this time he had become
a bright star in the world’s literary firmament. His countrymen,
proud of his great fame, extended to him a royal welcome. He built
“Sunnyside,” near Tarrytown, N. Y., where he loved to entertain his
literary and other friends, and here he passed the remaining years of
his life. His pen continued busy. The other works he gave to the world
are “Astoria,” “Captain Bonneville,” “Life of Goldsmith,” “Mahomet and
his Successors,” and “The Life of Washington.” The last work he had
just time to finish before sudden death commanded his pen to perpetual
silence.

Irving was the first American author to be known and admired in
Europe. He has remained in England the favorite among our writers. His
extended fame is well merited, and now that nearly a quarter-century
has gone since his death, it does not seem to wane. His writings
are to be admired for their classic English, their beauty of style,
their sweet and genial spirit, their sparkling humor, their pure and
noble thoughts. While he lived six hundred thousand volumes of his
works were sold in our land alone, and since his death their sale has
averaged more than thirty thousand volumes yearly. And such a token
of appreciation is no more than his due. In his personal character he
was one of the most estimable of men. His life was without reproach.
He lived and died in the Christian faith. He was a man of large
hospitality, and the most winning courtesy. His affections were strong
and his nature generous. He never married. A young lady, to whom in his
youth he was attached, was removed by death, and his heart was never
given to another. Well does the “Easy Chair” of _Harper_ call for the
erection of an Irving statue in Central Park. And it is most fitting
for the lovers of his writings, who are uncounted thousands, to pay
some observance to the centenary of this author, through whom it first
became known to the trans-Atlantic world that in America was the power
to produce a literature.




EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.


It will be good news to readers of THE CHAUTAUQUAN that Mrs. G. H.
Cook, of Boston, Mass., has kindly consented to come to our rescue
by taking up the story of the “Tour Round the World,” where sickness
obliged Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson to give it up. Mrs. Cook traveled
leisurely with her husband, the Rev. Joseph Cook, on his recent tour
round the world, and she made voluminous notes on points of interest
in every land they visited. Her articles, which will appear in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN for May, June, and July of the current volume, will be
of special interest. She will start from Italy and go to Greece and
Palestine, thence to Egypt and India, then through China and Japan. She
will give us the latest and best things that can be gathered on this
line of travel.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Quincy, Michigan, local circle, a new feature has been
introduced into the program for a regular meeting, viz., _a paper on
“current events of the week.”_ This will educate the members to observe
passing events, and to study their bearings on our civilization. It
will awaken a new interest in reading the daily and weekly papers,
and excite members to _learn_ to read the papers. It will remove the
objection that is sometimes made that so much ancient history in the C.
L. S. C. course is dry and uninteresting, by giving present history.
It is, however, a _departure_ that should be indulged in with care,
because we may let a taste for current events destroy a taste for the
more substantial history of the past, which has been prepared by the
masters, and is set all around with the _results_ grown out of the
events. Yet a paper on _current events of the week_ is a good kind of
paper for a local circle.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Star Route trial, No. 2, at Washington, goes on and on. Rerdell,
who was ex-Senator Dorsey’s book-keeper, has turned against his
employer and confessed under oath that he had perjured himself on
the witness stand in the first trial. There is no doubt but there is
crime under the indictments in this case, if it can be located, and
that is what the government is now trying to do. It is humiliating
that a powerful organization like the United States government should
be obliged to consume so much time and be at such enormous expense to
prove the guilt or innocence of the few men involved in this case.
Attorney General Brewster has endured a severe storm of criticism from
sympathizers with the accused; while Mr. Ingersoll, who has been using
his wits to point out the mistakes of Moses, has now, as Mr. Dorsey’s
counsel, assumed the task of showing up the mistakes of the United
States government. The embarrassment seems to be that while an increase
in the mailing facilities of the West was needed, more of an increase
was made than was economical or just. To fasten the injustice where it
belongs is the task of the trial.

       *       *       *       *       *

A certain class of Presbyterian ministers in this country perpetuate
the old custom of wearing a gown in the pulpit. The Rev. Dr. Paxton,
and the Rev. Dr. John Hall, of New York, are among the number.

The Rev. Dr. W. H. DePuy, for many years associate editor of the New
York _Christian Advocate_, has resigned his position, to devote his
time to the “People’s Cyclopædia.” Dr. DePuy has made a fine reputation
as a wise and enterprising editor, a clear and strong writer. He will
be greatly missed in the columns of the _Advocate_. Dr. Buckley,
the editor-in-chief, is to have Mr. Dougherty, a layman, and former
critical proof reader, for his associate in Dr. DePuy’s place.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. B. C. Herrick, of Akron, graduated in the C. L. S. C. clans of
1882, but, by some mistake, his name did not appear in the published
list.

       *       *       *       *       *

We are prepared to supply back numbers of the present volume of THE
CHAUTAUQUAN. We can also fill orders for the CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY DAILY
HERALD of 1882. Persons writing for the ASSEMBLY HERALD should be
careful to say which volume, 1882 or 1883.

       *       *       *       *       *

The _Scientific American_ says: “The reappearance of the variable star
poetically known as the Star of Bethlehem is among the possibilities of
the present year; for unless astronomical calculations are in fault,
this long-looked for star must flash forth from the sky-depths before
the year 1885 has completed its course, and it may appear at any time,
as its period, if it have one, is very near completion.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The poem by Charlotte E. Leavitt on the “Comet” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for
March, reads “The first faint _flashes_ of the coming morn.” It should
read “_flushes_.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“The circle has been a factor in making ‘_two hearts beat as one_.’”
The above message is frequently received at the office of THE
CHAUTAUQUAN; this time, the address of Miss Maggie Barclay became Mrs.
Fred. S. White, Minneapolis. Her name was changed, while her husband
his name retained, February 20. “What don’t the C. L. S. C. help people
to do?”

       *       *       *       *       *

While eminent men in political life are occasionally seen going to
ruin, through their own weakness, or by the treachery of their former
associates, it brightens the picture to see a man like ex-Governor
Edwin D. Morgan, of New York, finish his course and come to his death
like a Christian, patriot, and philanthropist. He called the Chicago
convention together that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency;
as the war Governor of New York he sent 273,000 of her sons as soldiers
into the Union army, and twice did he refuse to become Secretary of the
Treasury of the United States. He left an estate estimated to be worth
$6,000,000, of which he gave $795,000 to various benevolent objects.

       *       *       *       *       *

The interest taken in the “Wiggins storm” was about as phenomenal as
the storm itself. Less than a year ago Barnum, an American, awakened
and excited the people of two great nations over Jumbo. This time it
was an Englishman who prophesied, ostensibly basing his predictions
on scientific calculations, that a _tremendous_ storm would sweep
over certain portions of the earth on the 10th and 11th of March. A
storm came, but it was the old kind of a March storm. The people of
Kansas, Dakota, and other portions of the West see greater storms once
a month. We are a foolish people—ready to believe many foolish things,
if they come in the name of science. The correct philosophy of storms
has not been formulated. Scientists are unable to tell us much about
their origin or end; herein they are in accord with the greatest of
teachers—who has said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh or
whither it goeth.”

Congress has adjourned. In the Senate, Senator Davis resigned his
presidency in season for the Republicans to elect Senator Edmunds
to his place, thus preparing against an emergency. In the case of
President Arthur’s death Mr. Edmunds would succeed to the Presidency
of the United States. The tariff absorbed the most attention and
consumed the most time of both houses near the close of the session.
On this question the great political parties are choosing their ground
preparatory to the next presidential campaign.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Buffalo, Pittsburg & Western Railroad Company has purchased the
“Transit Line of Steamers” on Chautauqua Lake. The Chautauqua traveling
public are to be congratulated on this change, for this corporation
has already shown much enterprise in the extension of their line of
railroad to the Chautauqua grounds. Under the management of this
corporation we may reasonably expect that profanity and intemperance,
which vices have been too common on Chautauqua steamers, will be
suppressed. We shall now hope for a better administration.

       *       *       *       *       *

No author of the C. L. S. C. has been more of a friend to us all than
John Richard Green, the author of “Green’s Short History of the English
People.” It is with sorrow that we chronicle his death. In the first
year of the course we read his work. Mr. Green had the rare faculty
of viewing history with a philosophical eye, and of describing its
events and results in a lively, entertaining style. We have seen page
after page of his writings read before a class of young people without
their interest flagging for a moment. The man who can so write for the
people, does more for his race than many investigators and critics.
Though a popular writer, Mr. Green’s position as examiner in the School
of Modern History, Oxford, proves his exact and critical knowledge. No
historian who has recently died will be mourned by a greater number of
people, and the C. L. S. C. will especially feel his loss.

       *       *       *       *       *

Miss Helen Winsor, of Jamestown, N. Y., is a young lady who has been
afflicted in body for many years, but not to an extent to prevent the
cultivation of her taste for works of art. We remember some beautiful
crayon sketches she wrought on the blackboard for a Sunday-school when
she was a mere girl. She is now with friends in Philadelphia pursuing
the study of art, and doing some excellent work with her own brush. We
learn that she proposes to open a studio there for work, and for the
sale of her paintings.

       *       *       *       *       *

In this number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN our readers will find a new
department under an old name. Turn to the “Editor’s Table” and you will
see that we anticipate the questions of the questioners. The suggestion
was made by a local circle in California—we have mislaid the letter—and
emphasized by Dr. Vincent. We have therefore decided to try to throw
a stronger light on the dark parts of the required readings in the C.
L. S. C. course of study. This is not to be understood as a reflection
on the authors who write for the C. L. S. C., but rather a necessity
which grows out of the fact that our writers put much in little, as
Plutarch says, “give the sense of things;” hence it is important that
we supplement their articles with the pronunciation of hard words,
explanatory notes, etc. It is the old “Editor’s Table” with this
difference: we do not wait for our readers to send in their questions
for answers; we anticipate them by a critical reading and re-reading
of the articles, and then make the notes as you will find them in this
number.

       *       *       *       *       *

_The Watchman_ is a neatly printed and ably edited little paper issued
monthly by the Rev. E. K. Creed, for the benefit of his church at
Silver Creek, N. Y. This is a better method than the “tract,” so
called, in a congregation. It is fresh every month, and useful as the
organ of every society in the church. It affords a splendid opportunity
for the pastor to emphasize ideas and plans for church work. We are
acquainted with four large churches where a little paper of this
character has been made the medium for a vesper and praise service on a
Sunday evening once a month. The Scriptures are selected and arranged
for responsive readings by pastor and congregation, and two or three
verses from about six hymns, set to tunes that the people know, are
interspersed through the readings. It makes a delightful half-hour
service, which may be followed by a fifteen or twenty minute address by
the pastor. It breaks up monotony, introduces a pleasing variety into
church services, and educates the people to read the Scriptures and
sing the songs of the Church.

       *       *       *       *       *

No argument strikes harder than one of figures, and such the Rev.
Joseph Cook has recently given us in his powerful preludes to his
Boston Monday lectures. He shows us that one-third of our children are
growing up in ignorance; that the liquor traffic for a day equals the
missionary collections for a year. He proves our needs, and tells us
what must be done. Trite and tiresome as the topics appear to many,
upon the success or failure of them depend all national and Christian
health. For many years these questions must be discussed, but the
longer indifference is manifested, the harder it will be to uproot the
evil results growing with such fearful rapidity in our nation.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. J. B. Rogers, of Dundee, N. Y., writes the following: In company
with a few ladies and gentlemen of the geology class, I visited Panama
Rocks last summer. The questions were asked, how were they formed?
To what system do they belong? and a number of other questions of
similar import. Undoubtedly a great many persons have asked the same
questions before. From the few observations which my limited visit
afforded me, I came to the conclusion that the conglomerate was an
outlier of the lowest conglomerate of the carboniferous system and that
the adjacent portions had been removed by denudation. After reaching
home I found that Prof. James Hall, in his report on the geology of
the fourth district of the State of New York, held the same view. The
rock at Panama is about 60 feet thick. The stratum in Pennsylvania, a
few miles south of the State line, is 150 feet thick. In the states
of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, the same rock is about 100 feet thick.
It “thins out” toward the west, showing that the locality from which
the materials of the conglomerate were obtained, was situated to the
east. In fact, the rocks of New York and Pennsylvania, in the majority
of cases, thin out toward the west; showing that while they were being
deposited, there existed a large region of land surface to the east,
from which the material of the rocks was derived. On the summits of
the two highest hills over which the road passes from Chautauqua to
Panama, the same conglomerate is found, affording an excellent example
of erosion, for the intervening rock has been removed. The rock at
Panama has evidently dropped down. Imagine an over-hanging cliff of
conglomerate, the soft greenshale being worn away by water, undermining
the conglomerate. It falls, and is broken in great blocks. The
adjoining portions are worn down and carried away, as the rock is now
being worn. The portions between Panama and Chautauqua are evidently
_in situ_. I have been informed that on the north side of the lake a
detached mass of conglomerate caps the hill.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our country has been terribly visited during the last month by floods
of enormous extent. In all the suffering and loss there has been
marked sympathy and aid. While the waters were devastating the banks
of the Rhine, Ohio sent contributions to the suffering people. Hardly
were these evidences of friendliness received before Cincinnati was
submerged and over the ocean came help from the Rhine. Certainly
international brotherhood is fast increasing, and we are on the highway
to unity.

       *       *       *       *       *

A member of the C. L. S. C. complains of discrepancies between the
measurements given in the text-book on astronomy and those in THE
CHAUTAUQUAN. Our friend must not forget that when doctors disagree it
is hard to be exact. In regard to the velocity of light various results
have been reached. Foucault gives it 185,000 miles, and Newcomb says
this is probably within 1,000 miles of the truth. Again, 185,200 is
given; 186,250; 191,000. The _exact_ diameter of the sun and its volume
as compared with the earth is not known. The figures are approximate.
As to the number of comets, the text-book refers to all the comets
visible to naked eye and observed by telescope, and the discrepancy
will disappear when it is noticed that THE CHAUTAUQUAN makes a
division; the total being 700, which agrees with the text-book.




EDITOR’S TABLE.


The following notes on the Required Readings for April make a new
feature of “THE CHAUTAUQUAN” which we expect will be a regular
department for the use of readers and circles that have neither time
nor books to look up the classic allusions, definitions, or dark points
of articles. They are intended to contain what would be required of
students in a recitation, and should be used by leaders of circles as
subjects for questions. It is earnestly desired by the Counselors of
the C. L. S. C. that the course shall be pursued thoroughly, hence the
object of this department is to help all members, but especially those
that are doing thorough work.

The notes will stand in the order of the articles as found in the
Required Readings for the month, the page and column being given. “P.”
will stand for page; “c.” for column.


“HISTORY OF RUSSIA.”

P. 365, c. 1.—“Tatar.” Also written Tata; the correct, though unusual
forms of the word Tartar, supposed to be of Chinese origin.

P. 365, c. 1.—“1224-1264.” Contemporaneous with these invasions we have
Henry III. in England, holding the first regular parliament, and fixing
weights and measures for his kingdom. Frederick I., of Germany, carries
on the sixth crusade, and Louis IX., of France, the seventh. Roger
Bacon invents spectacles, and the Bible is first divided into chapters.
The papal chair is filled successively by Innocent III., Honorius III.,
Gregory IX.; while in 1258 Bagdad suffers its first overthrow.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Federation.” To unite in a league.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Ban-dog” is a corruption of band-dog—one which is kept
chained because of its fierceness.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Marke.” Notice the use of the capital. Among the
ancients and during the Middle Ages there was no distinction between
the use of capitals and small letters. The Germans begin all
substantives with capitals. A practice continued for some time in old
English.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Matthew Arnold.” The son of Dr. Arnold, the famous Rugby
teacher. His principal works are his poems and “Essays in Criticism.”
The _Edinburgh Review_ says of him: “For combined culture and fine
natural feeling in versification, Dr. Arnold has no superior.”

P. 365, c. 1.—“Oxus.” A classic name for the Amoor Darya or Jihoon
River. It flows into the Aral Sea, though geologists affirm that it
once flowed into the Caspian.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Kal´mucks;” “Kuz´zacks.” Tribes living north of what is
now Eastern Russia.

P. 365, c. 1.—“Kirghizes,” ke´ri-gheez. One of the six divisions into
which the Tatar race is divided, occupying the region around the Aral
Sea.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Bo-kha´ra.” A khanate (kân´ate, or kăn´ate) of
Turkestan; its most famous city bears the same name.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Khiva,” kî´va. A khanate of Turkestan; supposed by
geologists to have been the bed of an ancient sea, of which the Aral
and Caspian now remain. Many interesting facts of the customs and
character of the Khivians may be gathered from Burnaby’s book, “A Ride
to Khiva,” published by Harper Brothers.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Toor´kums,” tu´kas. Tribes of Tatars that lived in
Southern Turkestan.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Salore.” A province in Central Asia.

P. 365, c. 2.—“At´truck.” A river flowing into the Caspian Sea.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Ferghana,” fer´gä-na.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Jaxartes,” jax-ar´tes. The ancient name for the Sur
Daria River.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Kipschak,” kips-chak; also written kiptchak. A vast
territory north of the Caspian Sea, stretching from the Don to the
Turkestan.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Genghis Khan,” jen´ghis kan. An Asiatic conqueror, born
in 1160, died in 1227. At fourteen he succeeded his father as chief of
a Tatar horde. He soon succeeded in vanquishing all the surrounding
tribes, and was proclaimed their khan, or prince. Having established a
new form of government, and laid down a code of laws, which is still
known in Asia, he began an unparalleled line of conquests. He annexed
Tartary, overran China, capturing Pekin, conquered Bokhara, Samarcand,
Southern Russia, Corea, and the countries northwest of India. Having
destroyed the Tangut dynasty, he was contemplating new conquests, when
death ended his career.

“Tchep,” chep.

“Subudaï-bagadur,” su-bu´dā bag´a-dür.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Bruited,” bru-ted. Rumored.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Polovtsui.” See map.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Petchenegs.” See map. Wandering tribes which inhabited
the western and southern borders of Russia, and during the tenth and
eleventh centuries kept the people of the borderland in incessant war
and turmoil.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Drevliané.” See map. A tribe whose condition was
little above that of the beasts. They were first subdued by Olga, who
partially civilized them.

P. 365, c. 2.—“Boyar,” boy´ar. A Russian nobleman.

P. 366, c. 1.—“Avant courier.” Forerunner.

P. 366, c. 1.—“Feodor,” fē-o´dor.

P. 366, c. 1.—“Andrei Bogoliubski,” an-drë´ï bō-gō-li-ub´ski.

P. 366, c. 2.—“Metrophanes,” me-tro-pha´nes.

P. 366, c. 2.—“Tver.” Tv pronounced quickly, as in _ver_.

P. 366, c. 2.—“Kozelsk,” kô´zelsk.

P. 367, c. 1.—“Russian St. Anthony.” Saint Anthony lived in Egypt
during the first half of the fourth century. He is honored as the
founder of monastic life. The catacombs spoken of are hewn from the
rock.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Louis IX.” is the Saint Louis of the Catholic Church.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Leignitz,” līg´nits.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Olmutz,” ol´muts.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Karinthia,” usually spelt Carinthia. It is a crown-land
of Austria. Its capital is Klagenfurt.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Laraï,” lara´ï. The city was destroyed by a Tatar khan
about 1502.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Nogais,” no´gā.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Bashkirs.” See map. Uncivilized tribes west of the Ural
Mountains. Not subdued until the middle of the last century.

P. 368, c. 1.—“As-tra-kan´,” a country north of the Caspian Sea, and
divided by the Ural River into two desolate steppes.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Khubulai,” khu-bu-la´i.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Khan Uzbeck,” kan uz´bek.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Islam,” iz-lam. A word signifying obedience to God,
used by Mohammedans to designate their religion and the whole body of
believers.

P. 368, c. 1.—“Propagandist,” prop´a-gan-dist. One who devotes himself
to the spread of any creed or principle.

P. 368, c. 2.—“Orientalism.” A system of doctrines or customs peculiar
to the inhabitants of the East.

P. 368, c. 2.—“Innoculate.” To communicate.


“HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF SCANDINAVIA.”

P. 369, c. 1.—“Wain of Charles.” A common name for the constellation of
Ursa Major; also called the “Big Dipper,” “Great Bear.” Tennyson uses
this name in his “New Year’s Eve”:

    “And we danced about the May-pole, and in the hazel copse,
     Until Charles’s Wain came out from behind the chimney tops.”

P. 369, c. 1.—“Mā´-lar’s Palace.” A large lake in Sweden upon whose
shores Stockholm and other cities are built. Many large palaces are
built upon its shores.

P. 369, c. 1.—“Casque,” käsk. A helmet.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Klinias,” klin´i-as. Father of the Grecian commander
Alcibiades, celebrated for his beauty.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Czar Peter’s City.” St. Petersburg. Peter the Great laid
the foundation of the city after having seized the river Neva from the
Swedes. In 1712 it became the capital of Russia, superseding Moscow.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Saint Nicholas.” A patron saint of the Catholics, held
in particular honor by the Russian Church. Precisely when he lived
and what he did is not known, but he is said to have performed many
miracles. Children and schools are his especial care.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Sota’s reef,” sō´ta. A cliff of the Sodermanland range,
in the district of Sothland.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Hjalmar,” yálmar. A celebrated Norse champion, slain in
combat with Angantyr.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Odin,” ō´din. That God of Norse mythology who is said to
have created heaven and earth. He was as great among the Scandinavians
as Jupiter among the Greeks. Not until after the reformation did the
belief in Odin and his court die out, and even now among the ignorant
it survives. The origin of the myth is disputed. Some attribute it
to the worship of a warrior, who is said to have come from Saxony,
conquered the country, and established a glorious rule; others to
nature worship.

P. 369, c. 2.—“Valhalla,” val-hal´la. The heaven of Scandinavian
mythology, where the god Odin reigns, and where all warriors go to
enjoy the pleasure to which they were most attached on earth.

P. 370, c. 1.—“Gustavus’s hosts.” Referring to the war carried on by
Gustavus II. against Germany in the early part of the seventeenth
century.

P. 370, c. 1.—“Halberd,” hăl´berd. An ancient weapon used for thrusting
and cutting.

P. 370, c. 1.—“Denmark.” Gustavus I. of Sweden, went to war with
Denmark for the crown in 1520-1523.

P. 370, c. 1.—“Thor.” The god of thunder in the Norse mythology, son
of Odin. In his attribute of thunder he is associated with Jupiter, or
Zeus. Thursday is named from him.

P. 371, c. 1.—“Saga,” sā´ga. Strictly, a Scandinavian tale, but used in
reference to the legends of all Northern Europe.

P. 371, c. 1.—“King Heimer.” Foster-father of Aslög in Hlymdaler.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Skalds.” Poets.


“PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.”

P. 371, c. 2.—“Macaulay.” An eminent English scholar, writer and
historian; born in 1800. When twenty-five years of age he published his
essay on Milton. A work which became at once as popular as a novel and
placed its author in the front ranks of literature. For several years
Macaulay was in Parliament but retired to engage in literary pursuits.
His most famous work is his history of England, but the “Essays” and
“Lays of Ancient Rome,” are perfect of their kind. Macaulay died in
1859.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Richard II.” The last of the Plantagenets. His reign
was made glorious by Wickliffe, Chaucer and Piers Ploughman, though
politically agitated. Charles VI. was contemporaneous with him in
France and for his amusement the playing of cards was then invented.

The Swiss Cantons fought with the Austrians for their liberty, and
Arnold of Winkelried showed his devotion to his country. Genoa ceased
to be independent while the Ottoman Turks defeated the combined forces
of Central Europe.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Richard of Bordeaux.” Richard II. was so-called from his
birth-place. A city of France on the Garonne River.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Unrequited.” An unusual word meaning unpaid.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Remanding.” Sending back.

P. 371, c. 2.—“Manorial court.” Under the feudal system each baron
held, at intervals, a court at which all troubles arising within his
boundaries or among his vassals, were settled. This court extending
only over his manor, as his land was called, was named the “manorial
court.”

P. 372, c. 1.—“John Wickliffe.” The forerunner of the Reformation.
He first gave the English people a complete copy of the Bible in the
English tongue. The most active reformer both of politics and religion
of his time.

P. 371, c. 1.—“Lollards.” A name given to the followers of Wickliffe.
It is of doubtful etymology, but probably comes from a German word
signifying to hum or sing psalms, and was first applied in 1300 to a
religious sect. They being accused of heresy their name was afterward
given to all suspected persons.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Villeins.” One who, under the feudal system, held land
from a baron or lord.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Serfage.” An old word of the same meaning as serfdom.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Ep-i-gram´ma-tist.” A writer of epigrams—as short poems
and couplets, enforcing some truth or idea, are called.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Piers Ploughman.” Read the chapter on Richard II. in
Green’s history for a good account of William Longland, the author of
“Piers Ploughman.” Two volumes of great popularity were written by
Longland or Langlande. “The Vision of Piers Ploughman” and “The Plaint”
were both particularly pleasing to the common people on account of
their satire against the abuses of the church and despotism of the
government.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Enemies.” England was literally exposed on all sides.
She was carrying on the hundred years’ war with France. The latter
had formed an alliance with Scotland, thus laying bare England’s only
safe border. Flanders had joined the French, while John of Gaunt was
squandering her revenues in a useless war with Spain.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Domiciliary,” dom i-sil´ya-ry. A law term—the visiting
of a private house in order to search it.

P. 372, c. 1.—“Segregation,” seg-re-gā´tion. Separating one family from
another.

P. 372, c. 2.—“Campaigner,” kam-pāin´er. A veteran.

P. 372, c. 2.—“Canterbury.” A city of England, southeast of London.
It is of historical and ecclesiastical interest. The archbishop of
Canterbury is primate of England.

P. 372, c. 2.—“Gutted.” To destroy the contents and interior.

P 373, c. 1.—“Duress.” Hardship, constraint.

P. 373, c. 1.—“King’s Bench Temple.” The offices of the hated lawyers
are now in the four “Inns of Court,”—the Inner Temple, Middle Temple,
Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn.

P. 373, c. 1.—“Tower Hill.” It is northwest of the famous tower, and
upon it stands the scaffold. The tower itself is the most famous
citadel of Europe. It is said to have held all royal prisoners since
the time of Julius Cæsar, and is the only fortress of London; a thing
to be thought of in case of invasion.

P. 373, c. 1.—“Magna Charta.” See THE CHAUTAUQUAN for January. Also,
Green’s History, chap. 3.

P. 373, c. 1.—“Plantagenets.” That house ushered in by Henry II., the
son of Geoffrey, of Anjou. Plantagenet means broom-plant, a name given
to the family because one of their ancestors is said to have done
penance by scourging himself with that plant.

P. 373, c. 2.—“Toussaint l’Ouverteur,” tos-sang´ lou-vĕrtür´. A negro
and native of Hayti, born in 1743. When he was forty-eight years of
age, war broke out in the island between the negroes and mulattoes,
in which Toussaint was made general of the former. An invasion of
the English occurring, the blacks joined the Spanish against them,
Toussaint being the leader; but in the midst of hostilities, France
offered to free the slaves with the understanding that the island be
under her control. Toussaint, favoring this, brought all parties so
speedily to his opinion, that the French leader exclaimed: “This man
makes an opening (l’ouverteur) everywhere:” whence this surname of
“l’Ouverteur.” Afterward he became the ruler of the island. Having sent
a constitution to Bonaparte, the latter was incensed, and sent an army
against him. Toussaint defeated them; but having made peace, he was
seized in an interview with the French leader, and carried to France,
where he died of hunger and cold in the dungeon of Joux.

P. 374, c. 1.—“Manumission.” To enfranchise or free, as a slave.


“PHYSIOLOGY.”

P. 374, c. 2.—The article on physiology is intended not simply to be
read but to be studied. Few or no notes of definition or explanation
are needed, for the article is very clear. There is, however, a
possibility of making the subject of much more value by a few simple
observations and experiments, such as are in the reach of every
local circle and student. We give a few hints which may be extended
indefinitely.

P. 375, c. 1.—“Tissues.” To study the tissues a microscope should be
used. A circle might, with little expense, buy a small microscope,
it would be of infinite value in their future studies. If this is
out of the question, borrow one of a physician or, at least, furnish
yourselves with lenses, also a set of scalpels. Specimens can easily
be obtained to illustrate the structure of the tissues. By a skillful
use of the microscope and knives the subject will cease to be hard and
uninteresting. A fowl carefully dissected illustrates the tendons,
ligaments of the fibrous tissue. Muscular tissue is well seen in a
piece of beef. The structure of nervous tissue and course of the nerves
may be studied in any small animal. Adipose tissue, or fat, is easily
obtained.

P. 375, c. 1.—“Skeleton.” To thoroughly understand the human skeleton,
one should, if possible, be obtained for study; if this be impossible,
there are excellent charts printed which are good substitutes. Both
failing, we would advise a visit to the butcher, who can easily obtain
for you the spinal column and other bones of a vertebrate animal.
Thus can be seen the strength, elasticity, and general motion of the
back-bone, also the shape of the vertebræ, how they fit together and
the distribution of nerves. The femur, leg bones, etc., will also be
found, it is true, in a modified form, but yet so that they can be
easily recognized from the descriptions. It is well in studying the
joints to obtain fresh specimens, for then the ligaments and tendons
are also well illustrated.

P. 375, c. 1.—“Muscular action.” A frog is a convenient subject for
observing the motion of muscles. If a small battery is used, the
results are interesting.

P. 376, c. 1.—“Sebaceous,” se-bā´shus.

P. 376, c. 1.—“Æsophagus,” æ-soph´a-gus.

P. 376, c. 1.—“Pepsin,” pĕp-sin. It is prepared artificially from
rennet.

P. 376, c. 2.—“Emŭlsion.” A soft liquid resembling milk.

P. 376, c. 2.—“Stomach;” “intestine.” In all mammals the alimentary
canal has the same general structure and arrangement as in man. If it
is possible to obtain a large specimen it will illustrate very clearly.
The structure of heart and lungs must be studied in the same way.

P. 377, c. 1.—“Cerebrum.” If the upper part of the brain is removed
from a pigeon, it at once sinks into a dull, stupid state, showing that
its faculties are taken from it.

P. 377, c. 1.—“Cerebellum.” The lower part of the brain. If removed
from a pigeon, it loses all control of the nerves, sprawling and
fluttering as if crazy. These experiments and observations may be
extended indefinitely. The more the better, for original work is of
more value in science than much reading.


“SUNDAY READINGS.”

P. 377, c. 2.—The article on “History of Education” in the November
CHAUTAUQUAN will be interesting to read in connection with “Law of
the Household.” It explains how the family idea was the basis of the
Chinese system of government and education.

P. 377, c. 2.—“E. A. Washburn.” The rector of Calvary Church, New York,
and the author of “The Social Law of God,” from which this article is
taken.

P. 377, c. 2.—“Anthropoid ape.” A man-like ape. The animal standing
next to man in classification.

P. 378, c. 1.—“Parsee.” An adherent of the ancient Persian religion.
The Parsees are descendants of the Persian emigrants to India, and are
now settled there.

P. 378, c. 2.—“Coleridge” (1772-1834). An English poet, critic, and
conversationalist. He was a man of wonderful powers, but his works are
only fragments. The best known poems are probably “Christabel” and
“Ancient Mariner.” He was one of the Lake school poets.

P. 378, c. 2.—“Rousseau.” A French author of the eighteenth century,
celebrated both for his peculiar character and the morbid, sentimental
enthusiasm of his writings. Among his works is one entitled “The Savage
State,” to which the writer here refers.

P. 378, c. 2.—“Jerome.” The most learned and eloquent of the Latin
fathers. He was a contemporary of St. Augustine, living in the fourth
century. Much of his time was spent in solitary study and thought. His
commentaries on the Bible are especially valuable for their learning.
His opinions and argument are, however, marked by much violence.

P. 379, c. 1.—“Epicurism.” A term, as now used, equivalent to
voluptuousness. The term signifies the doctrines of Epicurus, which
doctrines were very different from the common opinion. Epicurus held
that happiness is the highest good; not present happiness, but that of
the whole life; that no true pleasure was possible without virtue. He
makes temperance the foundation of joy; not wealth, but few wants being
the basis of earthly good.

P. 379, c. 1.—“De Tocqueville,” deh-tok´vil. A French politician and
writer of the present century. In 1831 he visited the United States to
study her institutions, publishing after his return, “Democracy in
America,” a work of great value. In 1861 the _Edinburgh Review_ says
of this work: “Far from having suffered by the lapse of a quarter of a
century, it has gained in authority and interest.” De Tocqueville died
in 1859.

P. 379, c. 1.—“Wordsworth” (1770-1850). An English poet, the founder of
the Lake school of poets. The value of his poems lies principally in
his fine sensibility to nature. He was the advocate of peculiar methods
for writing poetry. One was that the language of the poem should be
that of the peasant; another, that poetic diction should be the same as
prose. All the valuable work that he did, however, was in opposition to
these principles.

P. 379, c. 1.—“William M. Taylor.” Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle,
New York City; author of “David, King of Israel,” “Elijah the Prophet,”
and “Peter the Apostle.” From the latter volume this article is taken.

P. 380, c. 1.—“Trench.” An eminent English ecclesiast and philologist,
born in 1807.

P. 380, c. 1.—“Archimedes.” The most celebrated of ancient
mathematicians. He contributed much to geometry, physics and mechanics.
It was at the time of his discovery of specific gravity that he rushed
home exclaiming, “Eureka! Eureka!”

P. 380, c. 1.—“Matthew Henry.” An eminent English divine, born in
1662. His most important work is his commentary on the “Old and New
Testaments,” thought by many to be the best work of the kind ever
published.

P. 380, c. 2.—“Thomas Scott.” An English calvanistic divine, living in
the latter part of the eighteenth century.

P. 381, c. 2.—“Thomas Chalmers,” chaw´mers. The most eminent Scottish
theologian of the present century.

P. 381, c. 2.—“Robert Pollok.” Was a Scotchman, born in 1798. His fame
is founded on the didactic poem, “The Course of Time,” a long and
somewhat tedious poem, though filled with learning, theology and some
brilliant passages.

P. 381, c. 2.—“William T. Shedd.” A clergyman, born in 1822. He has
filled various positions in institutions of learning; also, has
published several volumes of essays and translations. This extract is
taken from “Sermon on the Natural Man,” published in 1871.


“ENGLISH LITERATURE.”

Readings from English Literature begin on page 423.

P. 423, c. 2.—“Samuel Johnson” (1709-1784). A writer of the eighteenth
century. His father was a poor book-seller, who aided him very
little in his schooling. He was soon obliged to leave the university
and begin teaching. Failing here he became a literary drudge for a
book-seller. After many years of severe poverty and toil Johnson, at
the age of fifty-three, received a pension. After this his life was
more congenial, friends increased, and his work prospered. His first
important book was the life of the poet Savage. For eight years he
worked on his dictionary, which long held a high rank in the country.
In 1759 he wrote “Rasselas,” from which the selection in the present
number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN is taken. It is said to have been written
in a week, to pay the expenses of his mother’s funeral. It is a
work without plot, being a series of dialogues and reflections upon
literary, moral, and social questions. Afterward his “Lives of the
Poets” was written. Johnson is best studied through “Boswell’s Life of
Johnson.” Though marked by conspicuous faults, few men have received
more admiration than Johnson.

P. 424, c. 1.—“Addison” (1672-1719). An English writer. In his boyhood
he showed marked literary ability. After leaving college he traveled
in Italy and France. His fame was made by his poem, “Campaign.”
After this various political offices were given him. About 1708, in
connection with Swift, he edited the gossipy sheets known successively
as _The Tatler_, _The Spectator_, _The Guardian_. These were designed
to educate the moral and social ideas of the English people, who
then were both immoral and illiterate. Addison’s articles are models
of literature, and have given him permanent fame. His character was
harmonious and lovable.

P. 424, c. 2.—“Absalon and Achitophel.” A political satire, by Dryden,
published in 1681. Under the disguise of scriptural names he satirizes
the policy of the Count of Shaftesbury toward Charles II., and his
intrigues to put the Duke of York on the throne.

P. 424, c. 2.—“Sultan Mahmoud” (967-1030). The first ruler who assumed
the title of “sultan.” He was ruler of a portion of Afghanistan, and
extended his conquests to become ruler of Persia and India.

P. 424, c. 2.—“Vizier,” vĭz´yer. A councilor in the Orient.

P. 424, c. 2.—“Democritus,” (460-361 B. C.) A philosopher; the founder
of the ancient atomistic philosophy. He was called the “Laughing
Philosopher,” because he taught that the follies of life should be
regarded with equanimity.

P. 425, c. 1.—“Dervise,” also written dervish, or dervis. In Oriental
countries this name is given to monks who profess poverty and live
austere lives.

P. 425, c. 1.—“Aristotle” (384-322 B. C.) A Greek philosopher, a pupil
of Plato. In philosophy, logic, and psychology he has exerted more
influence upon succeeding thought than any other ancient, his methods
still being used. Aristotle also made vast contributions to the natural
history of ancient times.

P. 425, c. 2.—“Phidias” (490-432 B. C.) An Athenian sculptor belonging
to the time of Athens’ great prosperity. He was made director of the
famous works that Pericles planned for Athens. The greatest was the
Parthenon. For this temple he wrought the famous gold and ivory statue
of Athene; also many marble statues. His masterpiece was his Jupiter
Olympus, a monster statue nearly sixty feet in height, wrought in gold
and ivory. This was carried to Constantinople by Theodosius the Great,
and there destroyed.

P. 425, c. 2.—“Praxiteles,” prax-it´e-leez. A Greek sculptor of the
fourth century B. C. Little is known of his personal history. His most
famous work is his Venus of Cnidus.


THE HAMPTON TRACTS.

Nothing in the way of explanation is needed on these admirable
“Hampton Tracts.” All that the notes will try to do is to enforce
their importance. They certainly contain the foundation principles of
health, and C. L. S. C. members have a work of reform laid upon them
by their knowledge, which should be carried on at home, in schools
and churches. Homes can not be happy if vitiated by uncleanliness and
impure air; schools will fail in their work, and no spiritual good will
come to the man who willingly disobeys the laws of health. Howard, the
philanthropist, was once asked what precautions he took in visiting
sick-rooms. He replied, “After the goodness of God, temperance and
cleanliness are my preservations.” These preservations are within the
reach of everyone. Fresh air, fresh water and sunlight are worth all
the physicians and drugs of the times. Perhaps the hardest difficulty
to contend with is a damp or marshy location, and it may not be amiss
to note that, in France and Holland, sunflowers planted on an extensive
scale have done much to disinfect the marshy tracts. It is quite
possible that a permanent good may be done where C. L. S. C. circles
are instituted, by the circles turning themselves into health clubs.
Ten or fifteen minutes of every session devoted to health would keep up
an active interest in the subject, would spread much needed knowledge,
and work reform in the community.




[_Required Reading for April._]

ENGLISH LITERATURE.


THE POET DESCRIBED.

By S. JOHNSON.

“Wherever I went, I found that poetry was considered as the highest
learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat approaching to
that which man would pay to the angelic nature. And it yet fills me
with wonder, that in almost all countries the most ancient poets
are considered as the best; whether it be that every other kind of
knowledge is an acquisition gradually attained, and poetry is a gift
conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised
them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received
by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to
describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first
writers took possession of the most striking objects for description,
and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing for
those that followed them but transcriptions of the same events, and new
combinations of the same images. Whatever be the reason, it is commonly
observed, that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their
followers, of art; that the first excel in strength and invention, and
the latter in elegance and refinement.

“I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fraternity. I read
all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and was able to repeat by memory
the volumes that are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon
found that no man was ever great by imitation. My desire of excellence
impelled me to transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was
to be my subject, and men to be my auditors; I could never describe
what I had not seen; I could not hope to move those with delight or
terror whose interests and opinions I did not understand.

“Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new purpose:
my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified; no kind of knowledge
was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and
resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and
flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock
and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes
of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds.
To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever
is dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination; he must be conversant
with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the
garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, the meteors
of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible
variety; for every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of
moral or religious truth; and he who knows most will have most power
of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote
allusions and unexpected instruction.

“All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and
every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my
poetical powers.”

“In so wide a survey,” said the prince, “you must surely have left
much unobserved. I have lived till now, within the circuit of these
mountains, and yet can not walk abroad without the sight of something
which I never beheld before, or never heeded.”

“The business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine, not the
individual, but the species; to remark general properties and
large appearances; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or
describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is
to exhibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and striking
features as recall the original to every mind; and must neglect the
minuter discriminations, which one may have remarked and another
have neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to
vigilance and carelessness.

“But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet; he must
be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character
requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition,
observe the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and
trace the changes of the human mind as they are modified by various
institutions, and accidental influences of climate or custom, from
the sprightliness of infancy to the despondency of decrepitude. He
must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must
consider right and wrong in their abstract and invariable state;
he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general
and transcendental truths, which will always be the same; he must
therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name; contemn
the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice
of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the
legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the
thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time
and place.

“His labor is not yet at an end: he must know many languages, and many
sciences; and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts, must, by
incessant practice, familiarize to himself every delicacy of speech and
grace of harmony.”


ON GIVING ADVICE.

By JOSEPH ADDISON.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.
We look upon the man who gives it us as offering an affront to our
understanding, and treating us like children or idiots. We consider
the instruction as an implicit censure, and the zeal which any one
shows for our good on such an occasion, as a piece of presumption or
impertinence. The truth of it is, the person who pretends to advise,
does, in that particular, exercise a superiority over us, and can
have no other reason for it but that, in comparing us with himself,
he thinks us defective either in our conduct or our understanding.
For these reasons there is nothing so difficult as the art of making
advice agreeable; and, indeed, all the writers, both ancient and
modern, have distinguished themselves among one another, according to
the perfection at which they have arrived in this art. How devices have
been made use of to render this bitter potion palatable! some convey
their instructions to us in the best chosen words, others in the most
harmonious numbers; some in points of wit, and others in short proverbs.

But among all the different ways of giving counsel, I think the finest,
and that which pleases the most universally, is fable, in whatsoever
shape it appears. If we consider this way of instructing or giving
advice, it excels all others, because it is the least shocking, and the
least subject to those exceptions which I have before mentioned.

This will appear to us, if we reflect, in the first place, that upon
reading of a fable we are made to believe we advise ourselves.[P]
We peruse the author for the sake of the story, and consider the
precepts rather as our own conclusions, than his instructions. The
moral insinuates itself imperceptibly, we are taught by surprise, and
become wiser and better unawares. In short, by this method a man is
so far over-reached as to think he is directing himself, whilst he is
following the dictates of another, and consequently is not sensible of
that which is the most unpleasing circumstance in advice.

In the next place, if we look into human nature, we shall find that the
mind is never so much pleased as when she exerts herself in any action
that gives her an idea of her own perfections and abilities. This
natural pride and ambition of the soul is very much gratified in the
reading of a fable: for in writings of this kind, the reader comes in
for half of the performance; everything appears to him like a discovery
of his own; he is busied all the while in applying characters and
circumstances, and is in this respect both a reader and a composer. It
is no wonder, therefore, that on such occasions, when the mind is thus
pleased with itself, and amused with its own discoveries, it is highly
delighted with the writing which is the occasion of it. For this reason
the Absalon and Achitophel was one of the most popular poems that ever
appeared in English. The poetry is indeed very fine, but had it been
much finer it would not have so much pleased, without a plan which gave
the reader an opportunity of exerting his own talents.

This oblique manner of giving advice is so inoffensive, that if we look
into ancient histories, we find the wise men of old very often chose[Q]
to give counsel to their kings in fables. To omit many which will occur
to every one’s memory, there is a pretty instance of this nature in a
Turkish tale, which I do[R] not like the worse for that little Oriental
extravagance which is mixed with it.

We are told that the Sultan Mahmoud, by his perpetual wars abroad, and
his tyranny at home, had filled his dominions with ruin and desolation,
and half unpeopled the Persian empire. The vizier to this great sultan
(whether an humorist or an enthusiast we are not informed) pretended to
have learned of a certain dervise to understand the language of birds,
so that there was not a bird that could open his mouth but the vizier
knew what it was he said. As he was one evening with the emperor,
on their return from hunting, they saw a couple of owls upon a tree
that grew near an old wall, out of an heap of rubbish. “I would fain
know,” says the sultan, “what those two owls are saying to one another;
listen to their discourse, and give me an account of it.” The vizier
approached the tree, pretending to be very attentive to the two owls.
Upon his return to the sultan, “Sir,” says he, “I have heard part of
their conversation, but dare not tell you what it is.” The sultan would
not be satisfied with such an answer, but forced him to repeat word for
word everything that the owls had said. “You must know then,” said the
vizier, “that one of these owls has a son, and the other a daughter,
between whom they are now upon a treaty of marriage. The father of the
son said to the father of the daughter, in my hearing, ‘Brother, I
consent to this marriage, provided you will settle upon your daughter
fifty ruined villages for her portion.’ To which the father of the
daughter replied, ‘Instead of fifty, I will give her five hundred, if
you please. God grant a long life to Sultan Mahmoud; whilst he reigns
over us, we shall never want ruined villages.’”

The story says, the sultan was so touched with the fable, that he
rebuilt the towns and villages which had been destroyed, and from that
time forward consulted the good of his people.

To fill up my paper I shall add a most ridiculous piece of natural
magic, which was taught by no less a philosopher than Democritus,
namely, that[S] if the blood of certain birds, which he mentioned,
were mixed together, it would produce a serpent of such wonderful
virtue, that whoever did eat it should be skilled in the language of
birds, and understand everything they said to one another. Whether the
dervise above-mentioned might not have eaten such a serpent, I shall
leave to the determinations of the learned.


EDUCATION COMPARED TO SCULPTURE.

By JOSEPH ADDISON.

I consider an human soul without education, like marble in the quarry,
which shows none of its inherent beauties, till the skill of the
polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers
every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of
it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind,
draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which without
such helps are never able to make their appearance.

If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion so soon upon
him, I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force
of education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine
of substantial forms, when he tells us that a statue lies hid in a
block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away
the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the
stone, the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of
marble, education is to an human soul. The philosopher, the saint,
or the hero, the wise, the good, or the great man, very often lie
hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a proper education might have
disinterred, and have brought to light. I am, therefore, much delighted
with reading the accounts of savage nations, and with contemplating
those virtues which are wild and uncultivated; to see courage exerting
itself in fierceness, resolution in obstinacy, wisdom in cunning,
patience in sullenness and despair.

I can not forbear mentioning a story which I have lately heard, and
which is so well attested, that I have no manner of reason to suspect
the truth of it: I may call it a kind of wild tragedy that passed about
twelve years ago at St. Christopher’s, one of our British Leeward
Islands. The negroes who were concerned in it were all of them slaves
of a gentleman who is now in England.

This gentleman, among his negroes, had a young woman, who was looked
upon as a most extraordinary beauty by those of her own complexion. He
had at the same time two young fellows, who were likewise negroes and
slaves, remarkable for the comeliness of their persons, and for the
friendship which they bore to one another. It unfortunately happened
that both of them fell in love with the female negro above-mentioned,
who would have been very glad to have taken either of them for her
husband, provided they could agree between themselves which should be
the man. But they were both so passionately in love with her, that
neither of them could think of giving her up to his rival; and at the
same time were so true to one another, that neither of them would think
of gaining her without his friend’s consent. The torments of these
two lovers were the discourse of the family to which they belonged,
who could not forbear observing the strange complication of passions
which perplexed the hearts of the poor negroes, that often dropped
expressions of the uneasiness they underwent, and how impossible it was
for either of them ever to be happy.

After a long struggle between love and friendship, truth and jealousy,
they one day took a walk together into a wood, carrying their mistress
along with them; where, after abundance of lamentation, they stabbed
her to the heart, of which she immediately died. A slave, who was at
his work not far from the place where this astonishing piece of cruelty
was committed, hearing the shrieks of the dying person, ran to see what
was the occasion of them. He there discovered the woman lying dead
upon the ground, with the two negroes on each side of her kissing the
dead corpse, weeping over it, and beating their breasts in the utmost
agonies of grief and despair. He immediately ran to the English family
with the news of what he had seen; who, upon coming to the place, saw
the woman dead, and the two negroes expiring by her with wounds they
had given themselves.

We see in this amazing instance of barbarity, what strange disorders
are bred in the minds of those men whose passions are not regulated
by virtue, and disciplined by reason. Though the action which I have
recited is in itself full of guilt and horror, it proceeded from a
temper of mind which might have produced very noble fruits, had it been
formed and guided by a suitable education.

It is, therefore, an unspeakable blessing to be born in those parts
of the world where wisdom and knowledge flourish; though it must be
confessed, there are, even in these parts, several poor uninstructed
persons, who are but little above the inhabitants of those nations of
which I have been here speaking; as those who have had the advantage of
a more liberal education, rise above one another by several different
degrees of perfection. For to return to our statue in the block of
marble, we see it sometimes only begun to be chipped, sometimes
rough-hewn, and but just sketched in an human figure; sometimes we see
the man appearing distinctly in all his limbs and features, sometimes
we find the figure wrought up to a great elegancy, but seldom meet
with any to which the hand of a Phidias or a Praxiteles could not give
several nice touches and finishings.




BEST BAKING POWDER.

INTERESTING TESTS MADE BY THE GOVERNMENT CHEMIST.


Dr. Edward G. Love, the present Analytical Chemist for the Government,
has recently made some interesting experiments as to the comparative
value of baking powders. Dr. Love’s tests were made to determine what
brands are the most economical to use, and as their capacity lies in
their leavening power, tests were directed solely to ascertain the
available gas of each powder. Dr. Love’s report gives the following:

      Name of the                      Strength Cubic Inches
    Baking Powders.                    Gas per each ounce of Powder.

    “Royal” (cream tartar powder)                  127.4
    “Patapsco” (alum powder)                       125.2[1]
    “Rumford’s” (phosphate) fresh                  122.5[1]
    “Rumford’s” (phosphate) old                     32.7[1]
    “Hanford’s None Such,” fresh                   121.6
    “Hanford’s None Such,” old                      84.35
    “Redhead’s”                                    117.0
    “Charm” (alum powder)                          116.9[1]
    “Amazon” (alum powder)                         111.9[1]
    “Cleveland’s” (short weight ¾ oz.)             110.8
    “Sea Foam”                                     107.9
    “Czar”                                         106.8
    “Dr. Price’s”                                  102.6
    “Snow Flake” (Groff’s, St. Paul)               101.88
    “Lewis’s” Condensed                             98.2
    “Congress” yeast                                97.5
    “C. E. Andrews & Co.’s” (contains alum)         78.17[1]
    “Hecker’s”                                      92.5
    “Gillets”                                       84.2
    “Bulk”                                          80.5

[1] In his report the Government Chemist says:

“I regard all alum powders as very unwholesome. Phosphates and Tartaric
Acid powders liberate their gas too freely in process of baking, or
under varying climatic changes suffer deterioration.”

Dr. H. A. Mott, the former Government Chemist, after a careful and
elaborate examination of the various baking powders of commerce,
reported to the Government in favor of the Royal brand.




THE CHAUTAUQUAN.

THE THIRD VOLUME BEGINS WITH OCTOBER, 1882.

It is a monthly magazine, ten numbers in the volume, beginning with
October and closing with July of each year.


THE CHAUTAUQUAN

is the official organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,
adopted by the Rev. J. H. Vincent, D. D., Lewis Miller, Esq., and Lyman
Abbott, D. D., Bishop H. W. Warren, D. D., Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.
D., and Rev. J. M. Gibson, D. D., Counselors of the C. L. S. C.


THE CURRENT VOLUME WILL CONTAIN MORE THAN HALF THE REQUIRED READINGS
FOR THE C. L. S. C.

That brilliant writer, Mrs. May Lowe Dickinson, will take the C. L. S.
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Recollections of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley,

  Late Dean of Westminster. Three lectures delivered
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       *       *       *       *       *

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In the “Editor’s Table,” pages 419-423, will be found the
pronunciation of hard words, and explanatory and suggestive notes on
the Required Readings for April. _The Readings in “English Literature”
commence on page 423._

[B] A table land of Central Asia, called by those who dwell upon it
“the roof of the world.” It touches the Hindoo-Koosh Mountains, and
Lake Siri-Kol, the source of the Oxus, on the south. The plateau
is 16,000 feet above the sea level, and is the water-shed of the
continent. The climate is severe, and the population sparse.

[C] See THE CHAUTAUQUAN for January, 1883, page 181, col. 2.

[D] A vassal nation of the Kazarui; _vid._ THE CHAUTAUQUAN for October,
1882, p. 13, cols. 1 and 2. They had several large cities besides their
capital.

[E] Pilgrims to the number of 50,000 and more, some of them from the
wastes of Kamschatka, visit this monastery annually. The passage of
entrance is six feet high, but wide enough for only one person to walk
in, and thick with soot from the torches of pilgrims. Eighty bodies of
the saints are preserved, exposed to view, enveloped in wrappers of
silk, ornamented with silver and gold. A paper on each breast bears
the name, and in some instances, a brief record of the deeds of the
deceased. Their hands are turned outward to receive the kisses of
the devout. Near by are the cells, into which the saints had built
themselves, leaving no aperture, save a small square for the handing in
of food.

[F] Svea is a poetical name of Sweden.

[G] Pronounced Hyalmar, Ing´-eborg.

[H] Aslög [Ahslerg] was a princess whom her father essayed to put to
death. She was taken under the protection of King Heimer, who roamed
about with her in the guise of a Northern minstrel. By the aid of magic
King Heimer was enabled to reduce her size, so that she could hide
within his harp in time of danger. When this had passed, at his word
she came forth restored to her full stature.

[I] “Studies in the Gospels,” p. 67.

[J] A Rabbinical story relates that Abraham, on approaching Egypt,
locked Sarah in a chest, that none might behold her beauty. On arriving
at the place of paying custom, he was asked for the dues, which he said
he would pay. “Thou carriest clothes?” and Abraham offered for those,
and gold and other things as they were asked, the required value. At
length the collectors said, “Surely, it must be pearls that thou takest
with thee?” and he only answered, “I will pay for pearls.” Seeing
that they could name nothing of value for which the patriarch was not
willing to pay custom, they said, “It can not be but thou open the
box, and let us see what is therein.” So they opened the box, and the
whole land of Egypt was illuminated by the luster of Sarah’s beauty—far
exceeding even that of pearls.

Gautama (Buddha), five hundred years B. C., on the birth of his child,
received an ovation from his countrymen. Among the songs of triumph
which greeted his ear, one especially, by his cousin, attracted him. He
took off his necklace of pearls, and sent it to the minstrel.

[K] The _Echidna_, or Australian hedgehog, and the _Ornithorhynchus_,
or water-mole of New South Wales, belong to the _Monotremes_.

[L] A lecture delivered in the Amphitheater, at Chautauqua, July 28,
1882.

[M] A conference held in the Amphitheater at Chautauqua, August 3,
1882. The Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., presiding.

[N] A lecture by Prof. W. C. Richards at the Round Table held in the
Amphitheater, at Chautauqua, August 8, 1882.

[O] General Secretary of the Chautauqua School of Theology, and Dean of
the Department of Greek and the New Testament.

[P] Two small inaccuracies in this sentence. (1) Instead of “_reading
of a fable_,” it should have been, “_upon the reading of_,” or “_upon
reading a fable_.” (2) The sentence is involved and complicated; “we
reflect _that_ we are made to believe _that_ we advise ourselves.” To
conceal or palliate the last defect, the second _that_ is left out, but
must be supplied by the reader.

[Q] _Chose._ To avoid the fault just now taken notice of, we might say,
“_choosing_ to give,” etc.

[R] _Which I do—which is._ The same fault again.

[S] “_That_—it would produce—of such virtue _that_—.” Still the same
fault of a too complicated construction; whence we may conclude that
this paper was written carelessly, and in haste.


       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber’s Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Anomalies in spelling where
a definitive correction could not be ascertained were retained as
printed, for example: Khubulaï and Khubulai.

Page 365, footnote A, “page” changed to “pages” (pages 419-423, will be)

Page 388, corner of bottom of left side of page was uninked so
searching another resource provided the words “of” and “are” for the
start of those lines.

    of your frame being exhausted by use, undergo decay and
    are turned into vapor, and that vapor, being _bred_ of

Page 389, word “the” added to text (to the sloth)

Page 395, “canons” changed to “cañons” (its falls and cañons)

Page 401, “indentification” changed to “identification” (identification
with a great)

Page 410, “off” changed to “oft” (oft-repeated stanza with)

Page 418, “nearc ompletion” changed to “near completion” (very near
completion)

Page 419, “devasting” changed to “devastating” (waters were devastating
the banks)

Page 420, “overrun” changed to “overran” (Tartary, overran China)

Page 423, “pyschology” changed to “psychology” (logic, and psychology)

Page 425, “Rumsford’s” changed “Rumford’s” (“Rumford’s” (phosphate) old)

Page 426, “Lew s” changed to “Lewis” (D. D., Lewis Miller)

Page 426, under title “Criteria of Diverse Kinds of Truth” the format
of the author’s name was changed from “By James McCosh, D.D.” to “By
JAMES MCCOSH, D.D.” to match the rest of the titles.