Chapter X: Preface (10)

When the late Earl Cairns was a little boy he heard three words
which made a memorable impression upon him, “God claims you.”
Then came the question, “What am I going to do with the claim?”
He answered, “I will own it, and give myself to God.” He went
home and told his mother, “God claims me.” At school and college
his motto was, “God claims me.” As a member of Parliament, and
ultimately as lord chancellor, it was still, “God claims me.”
When he was appointed lord chancellor he was teacher of a large
Bible class, and his minister, thinking that now he would not
have time to devote to that purpose, said to him, “I suppose you
will now require to give up your class?” “No,” was the reply, “I
will not; God claims me.” (Text.)

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=Clamor versus Balance=--See CONFIDENCE.

CLASSICS, STUDY OF

If I could have my way, every young man who is going to be a
newspaper man, and who is not absolutely rebellious against it,
should learn Greek and Latin after the good old fashion. I had
rather take a young fellow who knows the Ajax of Sophocles, and
who has read Tacitus, and can scan every ode of Horace; I would
rather take him to report a prize-fight or a spelling-match,
for instance, than to take one who has never had those
advantages.--CHARLES A. DANA.

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CLEANLINESS

At Minot’s Ledge lighthouse all “bright work” must be cleaned
every morning--lens, lamps, etc. So also all inside copper
pots and tin-pans. The inspector comes every three months
unannounced, and is handed by the keeper a white linen towel or
napkin, and he goes over these bright things. Then he enters the
item in his diary: “Service napkin not soiled.”

A man should live such a cleanly moral life that nothing around him can suffer pollution as he uses it. (Text.)

(467)

=Cleansing=--See PURITY OF ASSOCIATIONS.

=Cleansing a Necessity=--See DISCIPLINE FROM CHANGE.

=Cleansing by Agitation=--See DISCIPLINE FROM CHANGE.

CLEANSING, DIFFICULTY OF

It is impossible for the guilty soul to emancipate itself from the consciousness of sin. Dr. Seedham-Green, in his work on “The Sterilization of the Hands,” proves the absolute impossibility of cleansing the hands from bacteria:

Simple washing with soap and hot water, with use of sand or
marble dust, however energetically done, does not materially
diminish the number of microbes; the mechanical purification is
practically useless. Turpentine, benzoline, xylol, alcoholic
disinfection, and various antiseptics equally fail to render the
hands surgically clean. (Text.)

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CLEANSING THE FOUNTAIN

Sam P. Jones used to tell of a man down in the spring branch
trying to clear the water, so that he could get a clear drink.
This man was doing all he could to filter the water, when some
friend called out to him: “Stranger, come up a little higher and
run that hog out of that spring, and it will clear itself.”

Unless life’s sources are clean, it is of little use to labor with external conduct.

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=Climates, Different=--See ENVIRONMENT, CREATING OUR OWN.

=Climbing=--See ASPIRATION; STEPS UPWARD.

CLINGING BY FAITH

There is a little limpet that is found clinging to the rocks
along the coast; if you crawl up stealthily and hit one a heavy
blow, you may detach it; but after you have struck the rock it
is almost impossible to loosen the grasp of another limpet.
These little limpets are good for nothing but to cling; but
they do that with an awful tenacity. That’s what limpets are
for--simply to cling. Oh, that we just knew how to cling to
God by faith--nothing more, nothing less.--BRADFORD V.
BAUDER.

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CLUB WISDOM

Recently a traveler in Scotland, standing upon a mountain cliff
overlooking the sea, found himself in great danger. It seems
that the gardener desired to beautify even the steep cliffs and
precipices. Loading his double-barreled shot-gun with seeds of
flowers and vines, he fired the seeds up into the crevices of
the rocks.

Not otherwise, for men and women who have a few moments for
rest between hour, has life become dangerous. To-day, one
can scarcely turn round the street corner without running
into the president of some new culture club, who straightway
empties into the victim two volleys of talk about some wisdom,
old or new. The old shot-gun is less dangerous than the new
club.--NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS.

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CLUES

Life would be simplified and made safe if men, like spiders, would always allow their life plans to be dominated by the clue that comes from above.

A great principle never forgotten by the spider is that she
must always spin behind her a thread that will enable her to
find again the points that she has left; this serves at once
as her guiding thread for return, and as the road on which she
travels. A consequence of this rule is that the starting-point,
the center of the first operations, must be at the top of the
web, and often higher still, so as to dominate the whole. From
this point the explorer lets herself down, suspended from her
inseparable thread, balances herself, and if she does not find
the sought-for point, climbs back along the thread which she
absorbs in ascending. (Text.)--MAURICE KOECHLIN, _La
Nature_.

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COCAINE RESTRICTIONS

One of the best laws ever enacted in New York State is the bill
just signed by Governor Hughes which declares any person having
cocaine upon his person, unless secured upon the prescription
of a physician, and having a certificate from the druggist
from whom he purchased the drug, guilty of a felony. This new
law, which is directed against men who financially profit by
the diseased appetites of victims of cocaine, will, according
to health and police officials, sound the death-knell of the
promiscuous sale of the most deadly of drugs. Chief Inspector
Fuller, of the New York Health Department, says: “With this
law on the statute-books I can promise that with the staff of
inspectors I have at my disposal I will wipe out this most
vicious evil. The jails are yawning for these criminals who are
making fiends out of the New York boys and girls. This law will
make possible the placing of those criminals behind the prison
bars. Many a mother and sister will to-day rejoice, upon reading
of this new law. It will perhaps mean the saving of their boy
or girl from death itself. No one is more pleased with this law
than myself and my inspectors, who have been fighting night and
day to suppress the evil.”--_Christian Work._

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=Cocksureness=--See SELF-CENTERED.

COINCIDENCE

From Czenstochowa, the Mecca of Polish pilgrims, comes a story
of coincidences. A pilgrim went to one of the priests and
complained that some thief had stolen his purse while he was
in church, and asked for money. The priest replied that he had
no money and that the best thing for the pilgrim to do was to
try to find the thief. “I shall go into the church and steal
money from somebody else,” said the pilgrim, “for I have nothing
to go home with.” He went into the church and seeing a man in
the crowd with a wallet on his back slipt his hand into it and
pulled out his own stolen purse, with the exact sum he had left
in it. He was so glad to find his money that he hurried off to
tell the priest and the thief got away.

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See CRIMINALS, TRACING.

COINCIDENCE AND SUPERSTITION

The German Emperor recently made an interesting presentation to the Hohenzollern Museum. It consists of the “death-dice,” by the help of which one of the Emperor’s ancestors decided a difficult case in the seventeenth century. How they came to be known as the “death-dice” is thus related by the London _Tatler_:

A beautiful young girl had been murdered, and suspicion fell on
two soldiers, Ralph and Alfred, who were rival suitors for her
hand. As both prisoners denied their guilt, and even torture
failed to exact a confession from either, Prince Frederick
William, the Kaiser’s ancestor, decided to cut the Gordian knot
with the dice-box. The two soldiers should throw for their
lives, the loser to be executed as the murderer. The event was
celebrated with great pomp and solemnity, and the Prince himself
assisted at this appeal to divine intervention, as it was
considered by everybody, including the accused themselves.

Ralph was given the first throw, and he threw sixes, the highest
number, and no doubt felt jubilant. The dice-box was then given
to Alfred, who fell on his knees and prayed aloud: “Almighty
God, thou knowest I am innocent. Protect me, I beseech thee!”
Rising to his feet, he threw the dice with such force that one
of them broke in two. The unbroken one showed six, the broken
one also showed six on the larger portion, and the bit that had
been split off showed one, giving a total of thirteen, or one
more than the throw of Ralph. The whole audience thrilled with
astonishment, while the Prince exclaimed, “God has spoken!”
Ralph, regarding the miracle as a sign from heaven, confest his
guilt, and was sentenced to death. (Text.)

(475)

COINCIDENCE, REMARKABLE

Shortly after Robert Louis Stevenson published his curious
psychological story of transformation, a friend of mine, called
Mr. Hyde, was in the north of London, and being anxious to
get to a railway station, he took what he thought was a short
cut, lost his way and found himself in a network of mean,
evil-looking streets. Feeling rather nervous he was walking
extremely fast, when suddenly out of an archway ran a child
right between his legs. The child fell on the pavement, he
tript over it, and trampled upon it. Being, of course, very
much frightened and not a little hurt, it began to scream, and
in a few seconds the whole street was full of rough people who
kept pouring out of the houses like ants. They surrounded him
and asked him his name. He was just about to give it, when he
suddenly remembered the opening incident of Mr. Stevenson’s
story. He was so filled with horror at having realized in his
own person that terrible scene, and at having done accidentally
what the Mr. Hyde of fiction had done with deliberate intent,
that he ran away as fast as he could go. He was, however, very
closely followed, and he finally took refuge in a surgery, the
door of which happened to be open, where he explained to a
young man, apparently an assistant, who happened to be there,
exactly what had occurred. The crowd was induced to go away
on his giving them a small sum of money, and as soon as the
coast was clear he left. As he passed out, the name on the
brass door-plate of the surgery caught his eye. It was “Mr.
Jekyll.”--_Nineteenth Century._

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=Colds=--See VITALITY, LOW.

=Collection, Missionary=--See CROWNING CHRIST.

=Collection, The=--See GENEROSITY, THOROUGHGOING.

COLLECTIVE LABOR

A certain King of Scythia, wishing to make an enumeration of the
inhabitants of his realm, required every man in his dominions
to send him an arrow-head. The vast collection was officially
counted, and then laid together in a sort of monumental pile.
This primitive mode of census-taking suggested to Darius the
idea of his cairn in his march through Thrace. Fixing upon a
suitable spot near his camp, he commanded every soldier to bring
a stone and place it on the pile. Of course, a vast mound arose
commemorating the march and denoting, also, the countless number
of soldiers that formed the expedition.

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=College Men in Positions of Trust=--See TRAINING.

COLLEGE OR EXPERIENCE

The following dispatch from Washington recently appeared in the New York _Sun_:

Uncle Joe Cannon was in fine form to-day when he received
twenty-five young men, representing the Intercollegiate League,
now in session here. Uncle Joe complimented his callers on their
advantages, but he told them that knowledge gained in college
was of little value unless it was crossed by experience and
courage.

Years ago, the Speaker said that he received a degree in a law
college in Indiana. He started to Chicago to make his fortune,
accompanied by his diploma and $6. He was put off the train in
central Illinois when his money gave out and that was why he
wound up at Danville, instead of Chicago.

Uncle Joe said that he hung up his diploma in his little law
office and waited for clients. For six months he had little to
do aside from looking at the diploma and twirling his thumbs.
Finally, one day, in a fit of rage, he pulled down the diploma
and destroyed it.

“The diploma in itself was of no use to me,” said Uncle Joe. “I
kept my courage, however, and by and by began to make my way in
the world.”

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COLLEGE TRAINING, VALUE OF

Rev. W. F. Crafts says:

I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost
men in American politics--cabinet officers, senators,
congressmen, and governors of national reputation--and I find
that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more
had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while
only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more
than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this
one five-hundredth of the young men furnish four-sevenths of
our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian
has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an
eminent governor or congressman as other young men.

(479)

See TRAINING.

=Collegiate Ambition=--See MARGINS OF LIFE.

COLLISION DUE TO LIFE

Men who never move, never run against anything; and when a man
is thoroughly dead and utterly buried nothing ever runs against
him. To be run against is a proof of existence and position;
to run against something is a proof of motion.--_Christian
Standard._

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=Collision, Ways of Avoiding=--See PATHS, KEEPING ONE’S OWN.

COLOR-BLINDNESS

The great cause of error is imperfect vision. One says, “It
looks so to me,” and therefore he concludes that it is so. He
acts as if it were so. And, if he is mistaken, it may be a
fatal mistake. The color-blind engineer saw the red light, but
it looked green to him. He thought it was a safety signal when
it was a danger signal. He went on and wrecked the train. Was
he to blame? Yes, for if he could not distinguish between red
and green he had no business to run a locomotive. Like him is
the man who, with his prismatic eye, sees certain dogmas in the
Book which God has written. He has persuaded himself that this
danger signal is not red, but green. He insists that it looks so
to him. Is it so, therefore, and is he safe? When we hear men
talk, as we often do, about how it looks to them, and what seems
reasonable to them, we can not help thinking of that color-blind
engineer who wrecked his train.

But what can we do with these “evil” prismatic eyes of ours? We
can not change them into clear and perfect lenses by a wish, or
by one earnest effort. It takes an optician a long time to shape
and polish a lens. And we must be willing to work patiently and
hard to undo the wrong we have done. If there is any suspicion
in our hearts that our eyes are “evil,” we must not rest a
moment. We must test the matter at once by a close and prayerful
study of the truth.--_The Interior._

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=Color, Protective, in Animals=--See CONFORMITY.

COLORS AS EMBLEMS

Colors are emblematic; and in the middle ages were always used
by the illuminators and church artists with regard to their
significance. Red, blue and yellow, or gold, the primary colors;
red, signifying divine love; blue, truth and constancy; gold,
divine glory; when united, are supposed to be good emblems of
the Holy Trinity. White, signifying light, purity, perfect
righteousness, is to be used by the Church from Christmas
eve to the octave of the Epiphany, symbolizing the purity of
the Infant Savior; but it is not to be used on St. Stephen’s
day, Holy Innocents, or Conversion of St. Paul. White, in an
illuminated text, may be represented by silver. It is also the
color for Maundy Thursday, Trinity Sunday, baptism, confirmation
and marriage. Violet is the ecclesiastical color for mourning;
it signifies passion, suffering and humility; therefore,
martyrs are sometimes clothed in it. It belongs to advent, Holy
Innocents (unless that feast falls on Sunday), Septuagesima to
Easter eve, Rogation days, and Ember weeks. Red, the symbol of
divine love and illumination (as flame) belongs to Pentecost;
and as the emblem of blood shed for the Feast of the Martyrs on
Whitsuntide. Blue signifies truth and constancy; when sprinkled
with gold stars it signifies heaven. It is not an ecclesiastical
color, but (as symbolical of heaven or truth) forms a beautiful
and significant ground for a text. Green, the emblem of eternal
spring, hope, immortality and conquest, is used on all Sundays.
Gold or yellow signifies glory, the goodness of God, faith;
it should be used on texts only for the divine name. Dingy
yellow signifies deceit. Black is used only on Good Friday.
It is symbolical of death and extreme grief. It is used also
at funerals, frequently combined with white. Purple signifies
royalty, love, passion and suffering. It is the color often worn
by martyrs as well as by kings. After His resurrection Christ
is sometimes represented in a purple mantle, as the symbol of
His kingly power. Violet and blue are the colors of penitence,
signifying sorrow and constancy. Gray signifies mourning,
humility, and innocence unjustly accused.--_The Decorator and
Furnisher._

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See EMBLEMS.

COLORS, SYMBOLIC

Havelock Ellis, writing in _Popular Science Monthly_, says:

The classic world had clearly begun, as savages have begun
everywhere, with an almost exclusive delight in red, even an
almost exclusive attention to it, and for Homer, as for the
Arabs, the rainbow was predominantly red; yellow had next been
added to the attractive colors; very slowly the other colors of
the spectrum began to win attention. Thus Democritus substituted
green for yellow in the list of primary colors previously given
by Empedocles. It was at a comparatively late period that blue
and violet became interesting or even acquired definite names.
The invasion of Christianity happened in time to join in this
movement along the spectrum.

Yellow became the color of jealousy, of envy, of treachery.
Judas was painted in yellow garments, and in some countries
Jews were compelled to be so drest. In France, in the sixteenth
century, the doors of traitors and felons were daubed with
yellow. In Spain, heretics who recanted were enjoined to wear a
yellow cross as a penance, and the Inquisition required them to
appear at public _autos da fé_ in penitential garments and
carrying a yellow candle.

(483)

=Combination=--See UNION.

=Comfort from Faith=--See KOREA, WORK AMONG WOMEN IN.

=Commander, The, and His Men=--See DIFFICULTIES, OVERCOMING.

=Commandment, The Greatest=--See LOVE AND LAW.

=Commandments, The Ten=--See GUARDS OF THE SOUL.

=Commerce and Missions=--See MISSIONS AND COMMERCE.

COMMON PROBLEM, THE

The common problem, yours, mine, every one’s,
Is--not to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be--but, finding first
What may be; then find how to make it fair
Up to our means; a very different thing!

--BROWNING.

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COMMON SENSE

When drowning men for aid implore,
Some people run along the shore,
And weep and pray and hope.
Till others with some common sense,
Come like a blest providence,
And throw a saving rope.

--_Public Opinion._

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Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the
bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his
periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point,
added, “That’s the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds.”
Upon which Lord Eldon replied: “You mean in plain Scotch, Mr.
Clerk.” The advocate readily retorted, “Nae maitter! in plain
common sense, ma lords, and that’s the same in a’ languages, we
ken weel eneuch.” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities
of Law and Lawyers.”

(486)

COMMON THINGS

Common things have their use which often surpasses the intrinsic value of precious, costly things.

A rich nobleman was once showing a friend a great collection
of precious stones whose value was almost beyond counting.
There were diamonds and pearls and rubies, and gems from almost
every country, and had been gathered by their possessor at the
greatest labor and expense. “And yet,” he remarked, “they yield
me no income.” His friend replied that he had two stones which
had only cost him five pounds each, but which yielded him a very
considerable annual income, and he led him down to the mill and
pointed to two toiling gray millstones.

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=Communication, Easy=--See SOCIAL PROGRESS.

COMMUNICATION IN FORMER DAYS

The progress of the world can be inferred from facts like the following:

In 1798 the entire business of the Post-office Department was
conducted by the Postmaster-General, one assistant, and one
clerk. In 1833 it required forty-eight hours to convey news from
Washington to Philadelphia. In 1834 New York Saturday papers
were not received in Washington until the following Tuesday
afternoon. In 1835 the mails were carried between Philadelphia
and Pittsburg daily in four-horse coaches, two lines daily, one
to go through in a little more than two days, the other in three
and a half days. In 1833 a contractor named Reeside carried
the mail between Philadelphia and New York, ninety miles, in
six hours, making fifteen miles an hour. The railroad, as a
factor in the mail service, did not have a beginning before
1835. August 25 of this year the formal opening of the road
between Washington and Baltimore took place. Amos Kendall,
then Postmaster-General, at first objected to having the mails
carried by rail over this road, since it would, as he feared,
disarrange connections with existing lines of stages. In
October, 1834, a writer in the Boston _Atlas_ says: “We
left Philadelphia on the morning of the sixth in a railroad car,
and reached Columbia, on the Susquehanna, at dusk--a distance
of eighty-two miles.”--JOHN M. BISHOP, _Magazine of
American History_.

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=Communication of Disease=--See CONTAMINATION.

COMMUNICATION, PRIMITIVE

Many explorers have commented on the speed with which news
travels among savage tribes, says _Amateur Work_. A
curious observation as to a possible solution of the problem
of their methods has been made by the Rev. A. Rideout, who,
as a missionary among the Basutos, has noticed their method
of sending messages from village to village by means of a
signal-drum or gourd. This gourd, covered with the dried and
stretched skin of a kid, gives out a sound which travels and can
be heard at distances from five to eight miles. The transmission
and reception of messages on these drums is entrusted to special
corps of signalers, some one of whom is always on duty, and who
beat on the message in what is practically a Morse alphabet. On
hearing the message, says Mr. Rideout, the signaler can always
tell whether it is for his chief or for some distant village,
and delivers it verbally or sends it on accordingly, and it is
thus carried on with surprizing rapidity from one village to
another, till it reaches its destination. All that took place in
the Boer War, victories and reverses in the Transvaal and Orange
Free State, were known to us by gourd-line message hours before
the news ever reached us by field telegraph. The natives guarded
the secret of their code carefully. To my knowledge, messages
have been sent a thousand miles by means of it. This is probably
one of the earliest forms of wireless telegraphy.

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COMMUNICATION, PSYCHICAL

Having discovered that we are immersed in the ether, and that
it responds instantly, and to untold distances to electric
vibrations, the daring inventor said, if I can set the ether
ajar with a certain kind of vibration by shooting up into
it strong electric impulses, then I can plant yonder in the
distance another instrument keyed to that particular kind
of vibration, and it will pick out its own from the ether,
quivering, as it is, with an infinite number of vibrations. Just
as when you run the scale of the piano in a room, each object
responds to its own note. When you touch D a certain lampshade
will shiver in answer. That is its note. It knows its own
vibration, and is silent to all others.

This, then, is what is transpiring now among men. A code of
signals being arranged, one here sends up his request or prayer
into the heavens, speaks into space. The whole hemisphere
of ether is set quivering. Another yonder, a thousand miles
distant, picks out of space the syllables of that prayer, one
by one, and then throws back through space the answer. Nothing
so marvelous as this, so near spiritual conditions, has ever
before entered the heart of man. It is not surprizing that the
air is full of prophecies, dreams and visions. One says we
will yet be able to carry in a pocket, like watches, little
vibrators, so that we can communicate with our distant friends
without wires or towers, or skilled operators, as readily as
we take out our watch and tell the hour of the day. Others, in
this prophetic madness, say we may yet learn the vibration of
the planets, and fling off into space our “All hail” to Mars and
Venus.--JAMES H. ECOB.

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=Communion Between Man and Beast=--See KINDNESS TO ANIMALS.

COMMUNION NOT BARRED

A board knocked from a dividing fence sometimes leads to
pleasant associations, but they are possible with the boards
all on. We can look over or through. And souls can thus,
even without effort, live together while the bodies are kept
apart. Fences, high and barbed, can not separate kindred
spirits.--_United Presbyterian._

(491)

=Communion with God=--See GOD SURROUNDING THE SOUL.

=Community’s Interests Before Personal Interests=--See
CONVICTIONS, STRONG.

COMPANIONS, EVIL

A farmer’s corn was destroyed by the cranes that fed in his
field. Greatly annoyed, he declared that he would find a way
out of the trouble. A net was set in which the cranes were
snared. There was also a beautiful stork among them who had
been visiting with the cranes, and had come to them from a
neighboring roof.

“Spare me,” plead the stork. “I am innocent; indeed I am. I
never touched any of your belongings.”

“That may be true,” answered the farmer; “but I find you among
them and I judge you accordingly.”

The only safe way is to keep out of bad company.

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=Comparative Religion=--See CHRISTIANITY SUPERIOR.

COMPARATIVE, THE

Vernon L. Kellogg writes about an ant dragon that he once observed, thus:

He was an ugly little brute, squat and humpbacked, with sand
sticking to his thinly haired body. But he was fierce-looking
for all his diminutiveness. Remember again that whether a
thing is big or little to you depends on whether you are big
or little. This dragon of the sand-pit was little to us. He is
terribly big to the ants.--“Insect Stories.”

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COMPARISONS, APT

The Chinese call overdoing a thing, a hunchback making a bow.
When a man values himself overmuch, they compare him to a
rat falling into a scale and weighing itself.--_Chambers’s
Journal._

(494)

=Compass=--See BIBLE.

COMPENSATION

Judge Noah Davis, when asked by a company of American brother
lawyers as to the comparative advantages of different periods
of life, replied, with his usual calm simplicity of manner, as
follows:

“In the warm season of the year it is my delight to be in the
country; and every pleasant evening while I am there I love to
sit at the window and look upon some beautiful trees which grow
near my house. The murmuring of the wind through the branches,
the gentle play of the leaves, and the flickering of light
upon them when the moon is up, fill me with an indescribable
pleasure. As the autumn comes on, I feel very sad to see these
leaves falling one by one; but when they are all gone, I find
that they were only a screen before my eyes; for I experience a
new and higher satisfaction as I gaze through the naked branches
at the glorious stars beyond.” (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES,
“Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(495)

* * * * *

Mongolian wolves are not so dangerous as Siberian ones. The
reason is that, unlike the Russians, the Mongols keep such poor
sheepfolds that a wolf can help itself to a sheep whenever
it likes, and so is seldom driven by hunger to attack a
man.--JOHN C. LAMBERT, “Missionary Heroes in Asia.”

(496)

* * * * *

A pioneer farmer found after a storm that the lightning had
cracked the wall of his cistern and his water-supply had leaked
away, but a gurgling sound showed that the same stroke had split
a rock and opened a hidden spring of living water.--FRANKLIN
NOBLE, “Sermons in Illustration.”

(497)

* * * * *

The one man who escaped the terrible eruption of Mt. Pelée was
a prisoner who was in the jail at the time of the volcanic
disturbance. He never imagined anything had happened until he
missed receiving his meals and the visit of his guard. Then,
escaping from the prison, he found himself in a city where
thousands lay dead. God shelters his children behind many a
strange rock. A prisoner--and yet saved! (Text.)

(498)

COMPENSATION IN TRIALS

The difficulties which beset personal and family life are rich
in compensation. We often speak of “keeping the wolf from the
door,” and the majority find this a hard fight. What trouble the
threatening animal gives us! If in the morning we are disposed
for a little extra slumber, the ominous howl startles us from
the pillow; if we are tempted to linger at the table, its fierce
breathings at the threshold summon us straightway to duty; if we
doze in the armchair, the gleaming eyes, the white teeth, the
red throat at the window-pane, bring us to our feet. And yet how
much the best of men, the most truly aristocratic families, owe
to the wolf! Solicitude, fatigue, difficulty, danger, hunger,
these are the true king-makers; and the misfortune with many
rich families to-day is, that they are being gradually let down
because they are losing sight of the wolf. The wolf not merely
suckled Romulus; it suckles all kings of men. The wolf is not a
wolf at all; it is an angel in wolves’ clothing, saving us from
rust, sloth, effeminacy, cowardice, baseness, from a miserable
superficiality of thought, life, and character.--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(499)

COMPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE

I met old, lean St. Francis in a dream
Wading knee-deep through the ashes of his town,
The souls that he was helping up to heaven
Were burnt or wrung out of the writhing flesh.
Said I, “When near a thousand are engulfed
In sudden indiscriminate destruction,
And half a million homeless are, I know,
This rotten world most blackly is accurst.”

“When heroes are as countless as the flames;
When sympathy,” said he, “has opened wide
A hundred million generous human hearts,
I know this world is infinitely blest.”

--RODMAN GILDER, _The Outlook_.

(500)

COMPETITION

Much of the joy of life would vanish if we had no races to run, no contests to engage in. The true spirit of competition is exprest in the following rime:

On Saturday, next Saturday, may I be there to greet
Those sixteen jolly Englishmen a-tugging for the lead.
And eight shall have the victory and eight must bear defeat;
But what’s the odds since all have pluck--and that’s the thing we
need.
Oh, it’s rowing in a stern chase that makes you feel you’re dying.
But it’s spurting, gaining, spurting that makes you think you’re
flying;
And it’s smiting the beginning, and it’s sweeping of it through
Just for honor, not for pelf,
And without a thought of self,
For the glory of your color and the credit of your crew.
And it’s “Easy all, you’ve passed the post,” and lo, you loose
your grip,
But not until the falling flag proclaims you’re at the “ship.” (Text.)

--_London Punch._

(501)

=Competition, Self=--See ANXIETY, COST OF.

COMPLEXITY IN ORGANS

The tufts of feathers which distinguish the short-eared and
long-eared owls, and are developed still more imposingly in
the great eagle owl of northern Europe, are, of course, no
more ears than they are horns; but the true ears of the owls
are most remarkable organs. The facial disk of feathers, which
gives them their most characteristic appearance, serves as
a kind of sounding-board or ear-trumpet to concentrate the
slightest sounds and transmit them to the orifice of the true
ear, which is concealed in the small feathers behind the eye.
Even in the barn-owl, which possesses the least complicated
arrangement of this kind, the orifice of the ear is covered by
a remarkable flap of skin; while in the other species there are
striking differences in the size and shape of this orifice and
its covering flap on the two sides of the head. The exact way
in which owls utilize this elaborately specialized apparatus
has still to be discovered; but it is a natural inference that
two ears of widely different structure must give the owls
which possess them a power of localizing sound which is of the
greatest use to them when hunting small creatures in the dark.
It is, therefore, all the more surprizing that the barn-owl’s
ears have not this difference of structure, altho the power
of instantly locating the rustle of the running mouse must be
almost indispensable. For catching small birds, which are the
especial prey of the wood-owl, keenness of sight rather than of
hearing must be necessary, since they are chiefly caught when
at roost; and the large nocturnal eye is developed in most of
the owls almost as remarkably as the ear. In the short-eared
owl, which is a day-flying species, the eye is correspondingly
reduced. It has also a far less conspicuous facial disk; and
this might also seem to be naturally explained as a result of
its diurnal habits, with the consequent reduction of the need
for acute hearing, if it were not for the marked difference in
the structure of its two ears, which is even greater than in the
case of the wood-owl. In the study of such complex problems,
we are soon forced to realize how inadequate is even the most
helpful and fascinating of single clues. The equilibrium of
nature is no simple thing, like the balance of a pair of scales;
it more resembles the complicated equipoise of an aeroplane
among air-currents playing in three dimensions.--London
_Times_.

(502)

COMPLIMENT

Few have equalled Sir Joshua Reynolds in skill and graciousness
of compliment. When he painted the portrait of Mrs. Siddons as
the “Tragic Muse,” he wrought his name on the border of her
robe, with the remark, “I can not lose this opportunity of
sending my name to posterity on the hem of your garment.”

(503)

* * * * *

During a visit once with Queen Victoria, who had sent for him to
her palace, the poet Longfellow was seating himself in a waiting
coach at the close of the royal interview, when a working man,
hat in hand, approached, and asked:

“Please, sir, yer honor, an’ are you Mr. Longfellow?” Said the
poet, “I am Mr. Longfellow.” “An’ did you write ‘The Psalm of
Life?’” continued the questioner. “I wrote the ‘Psalm of Life,’”
was the answer. “An’ yer honor, would you be willing to take a
working man by the hand?”

Instantly Mr. Longfellow responded with a warm hand grip. In
telling the story later the poet said, “I never in my life
received a compliment that gave me greater satisfaction.”

(504)

* * * * *

I recollect once standing in front of a bit of marble carved by
Powers, a Vermonter, who had a matchless, instinctive love of
art and perception of beauty. I said to an Italian standing with
me, “Well, now, that seems to me to be perfection.” The answer
was, “To be perfection”--shrugging his shoulders--“why, sir,
that reminds you of Phidias!” as if to remind you of that Greek
was a greater compliment than to be perfection.--WENDELL
PHILLIPS.

(505)

COMPLIMENTS, SPARING OF

The first time I ever stood in the pulpit to preach was in
the meeting-house of the ancient Connecticut town where I was
brought up. That was a great day for our folks and all my old
neighbors, you may depend. After benediction, when I passed
out into the vestibule, I was the recipient there of many
congratulatory expressions. Among my friends in the crowd was
an aged deacon, a man in whom survived, to a rather remarkable
degree, the original New England Puritan type, who had known
me from the cradle, and to whom the elevation I had reached
was as gratifying as it could possibly be to anybody. But
when he saw the smile of favor focused on me there, and me, I
dare say, appearing to bask somewhat in it, the dear old man
took alarm. He was apprehensive of the consequences to that
youngster. And so, taking me by the hand and wrestling down his
natural feelings--he was ready to cry for joy--he said: “Well,
Joseph, I hope you’ll live to preach a great deal better than
that!”--JOSEPH H. TWITCHELL.

(506)

=Compositions Compared=--See EDUCATION NOT VICARIOUS.

COMPREHENSIVENESS IN EDUCATION

“What are these boys studying Latin for?” said an English
visitor at a manual-training school as he looked in upon a class
reading Cæsar.

“What did you study Latin for?” was my illogical but American
response. “Why, I am a bachelor of arts?” was his prompt
reply, with the air of one who had given a conclusive answer.
“Perhaps these boys will be bachelors of arts by and by,”
I added cheerfully. “Then, what in the world are they in a
manual-training school for?” he exclaimed, with almost a
sneer at my evident lack of acquaintance with the etiquette
of educational values. I tried to explain my theory of an
all-round education--and my practise of “putting the whole
boy to school”--but he would not be convinced. He could not
see the propriety of mixing utility and tool dexterity with
culture--CALVIN M. WOODWARD, _Science_.

(507)

COMPROMISES IN GRAVITIES

All orbits, including the orbits of comets, are the result of
compromises in gravities. Now you have got to get over the idea
that because one body attracts another strongly it is likely to
draw it smack into it. It doesn’t. I made an apparatus in my
laboratory the other day to show my students about that.

I fixt up a little gun capable of shooting a steel ball quite a
distance up an inclined plate of glass. The ball shot upward and
then rolled directly back into the muzzle of the gun time after
time. That was to show what a comet would do if just merely shot
out into space to be uninfluenced by any other heavenly bodies
after it got a start.

Then I put a powerful electric magnet under the plate of glass,
quite a little distance away from the track of my steel ball.
This time when it was shot upward instead of keeping on its
straight path or swerving directly into the magnet, as some of
my students expected it to do, it shot on past, curving its
course toward the magnet, and then finally it swung around
the magnet in very much the way the comet is swinging around
the sun. On its return course it swung off in a new direction
altogether. My students were quite delighted with the oval
course taken by the steel ball. It was just such a course
as they had seen mapped out for Halley’s visitor.--H.
JACOBY, New York _Times_.

(508)

=Compulsion in Religion=--See MILITANT EVANGELISM.

CONCEIT

There are too many men who make the sentiment of this verse their creed:

This is the burden of my song,
I sing it day and night:
Why are so many always wrong
When I am always right?

(509)

See COMPARISONS, APT; SELF-FLATTERY.

CONCEIT OF OPINION

When Lord Hardwicke’s marriage bill was in the House of
Commons, Fox, afterward Lord Holland, saying that one clause
gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors,
proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers,
and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture
of the Chancellor under the application of the story of a
gentlewoman at Salisbury, who, having a sore leg, sent for a
country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut off. The
gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for
another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without
the least operation. The surgeons conferred. The ignorant one
said: “I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion; my
character depends upon it, and we must carry it through.” The
leg was cut off. (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of
Law and Lawyers.”

(510)

CONCENTRATION

It has been told of a modern astronomer that one summer night,
when he was withdrawing to his chamber, the brightness showed
a phenomenon. He passed the whole night in observing it, and
when they came to him early in the morning and found him in the
same attitude, he said, like one who has been collecting his
thoughts for a few moments:

“It must be thus; but I will go to bed before it is too late.”
He had gazed the entire night and was not aware of it.

(511)

See ABSORPTION, MENTAL.

CONCERT, LACK OF

Crazy people never act together, says the superintendent
of a large asylum for the insane, quoted in _The Medical
Times_. “If one inmate attacks an attendant, as sometimes
happens, the others would look upon it as no affair of theirs
and simply watch it out. The moment we discovered two or more
inmates working together we would know they were on the road to
recovery.” It is on this account that there are so few concerted
mutinies in insane asylums; so that the number of attendants
does not have to be large.

(512)

=Conclusion, A Reasonable=--See ETHICAL PRINCIPLE.

CONDEMNED, THE

“Vessels fitted unto destruction”--how many may be unconsciously
so marked by their Maker! A vessel is condemned as unseaworthy;
her sails are sold, her spars and rigging, and when all that can
be moved is gone, the dismantled hulk is moored in some coaling
station. There, black from stem to stern, with a great white
number painted on her side, she floats until her timbers rot to
pieces--

Anchored forever--sea-lord once, and free--
Fouled by the creeping weeds that work unseen,
Lashed by the mocking winds that erst we braved,
Dread we the coming of the Southern night.
Stars that we tamed to guide our prows of old
Laugh in their sky of purple tapestry--
Ay, laugh: we are condemned of man to die! (Text.)

--MARGARET GARDINER, _Century_.

(513)

CONDESCENSION

A learned counsel (Mr. Brougham, as some say), when the judges
had retired for a few minutes in the midst of his argument,
in which, from their interruptions and objections, he did not
seem likely to be successful, went out of court, too, and on
his return stated he had been drinking a pot of porter. Being
asked whether he was not afraid that this beverage might dull
his intellect, he replied: “That is just what I want it to do,
to bring me down, if possible, to the level of their lordships’
understanding. (Text.)--JAMES CROAKE, “Curiosities of
Law and Lawyers.”

(514)

See GREATNESS; PERSONALITY, INFLUENCE OF.

=Conditions Before the Advent of Missionaries=--See MISSIONARY WORK,
VALUE OF.

=Conditions Modify Rules=--See DEVOTION TO THE HELPLESS.

CONDITIONS SUGGEST COURSES

During the last years of his life a brain disease, of which he
had shown frequent symptoms, fastened its terrible hold upon
Swift, and he became by turns an idiot and a madman. He died in
1745, and when his will was opened it was found that he had left
all his property to found St. Patrick’s asylum for lunatics and
incurables. It stands to-day as the most suggestive monument
of his peculiar genius.--WILLIAM J. LONG, “English
Literature.”

(515)

CONDUCT, CANONS OF

Coleridge lays down three canons of criticism in literature, which hold equally in conduct and endeavor:

First, What has the author attempted to do? Second, Is it worth
doing? And, third, Has he done it well?

(516)

CONDUCT, PAST, UNCONSIDERED

Paul’s doctrine, that he who offends in one point is guilty of the whole law, is illustrated in this anecdote:

A notary public was convicted of forgery and sentenced to be
hanged; and being asked if he had anything to say why sentence
of death should not be passed, remarked that it was very hard
that he should be hanged just for one line, considering the
thousands of harmless sheets he had written in the course of his
life. (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and
Lawyers.”

(517)

CONFESSION

One of the duties of the writer during the first days of his
clerkship was to “lock up.” One morning in the very first week
of his employment he found the door unlocked and a policeman
standing guard. Had he forgotten to lock that door? A hasty
survey revealed that nothing had been taken away, and the
policeman was dismissed. Should he confess the delinquency?
It was almost sure dismissal. But he resolved to make a clean
breast of it, and when his employer came in later he told all
the circumstances, and bravely admitted that he must have failed
to lock the door. While making this confession, the policeman
walked in, to report finding the door unlocked. But his report
had been forestalled, and, with an injunction to be more careful
in future, the matter was dismissed. The confession forestalling
that report was all that saved dismissal. But that confession
won the confidence of his employer, and won a higher trust and
esteem than existed before. This is one of the first lessons to
learn. Confess instantly a fault, a loss, a mistake, and it is
half retrieved.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(518)

See FALSEHOOD.

* * * * *

Among the hard-working Labrador fishermen was a rich man who
had opprest them, but whom they believed to be strong enough to
defy them. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the medical missionary, who is
also a magistrate, went to the offender and told him that he
must confess his sin and pay back to the fishermen a thousand
dollars. He curst the missionary. At the next church service,
the doctor announced that a sinful man would confess his sin
that night. They couldn’t believe that the rich sinner would
yield. At the evening service, Dr. Grenfell asked them to keep
their seats while he went after the sinner. He found the man at
a brother’s house on his knees in prayer, with all the family.

“Prayer,” said the doctor, “is a good thing in its place, but it
doesn’t ‘go’ here. Come with me.”

He meekly went, and was led up the aisle, where all could see
him, and, after the doctor had described the great sin of which
he was guilty, he asked, “Did you do this thing?” “I did.” “You
are an evil man of whom the people should beware?” “I am.” “You
deserve the punishment of man and God?” “I do.”

At the end of it all the doctor told the man that the good God
would forgive him if he should ask in true faith and repentance,
but that the people, being human, could not. For a whole year,
he charged the people, they must not speak to that man; but if,
at the end of that time, he had shown an honest disposition to
mend his ways, they might take him to their hearts.

The man finally paid the money and fled the place.

(519)

CONFESSION NOT CONCLUSIVE

Two men named Boven were convicted in a Vermont court, mainly
upon their own confession, of the murder of a half-witted
dependent brother-in-law. They even said that certain bones
found were those of the supposed victim. But the brother-in-law
was found alive and well in New Jersey, and returned in time to
prevent the execution. He had fled for fear they would kill him.
The bones were those of some animal. They (the Bovens) had been
advised by some misjudging friends that, as they would certainly
be convicted upon the circumstances proved, their only chance
for life was by commutation of punishment, and this depended
upon their making a penitential confession. These and many
similar cases have satisfied English and American lawyers that
confessions alone are unreliable as evidences of guilt. When it
is known that one accused, especially one charged with a capital
offense, intends to make a confession, it is the practise in
our courts to delay the trial in order to give him ample time
to decide whether or no he will pursue that course.--Boston
_Globe_.

(520)

CONFESSION, UNREPENTANT

A sergeant was accused, once upon a time, by his brethren of the
court, of having degraded their order by taking from a client a
fee in copper, and on being solemnly arraigned for this offense
in their common hall, it appears from the unwritten reports
of the Court of Common Pleas, that he defended himself by the
following plea of confession and avoidance: “I fully admit that
I took a fee from the man in copper, and not one, but several,
and not only in copper, but fees in silver; but I pledge my
honor as a sergeant, that I never took a single fee from him in
silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a
fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver, and you
don’t call that a degradation of our order!” (Text.)--CROAKE
JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(521)

CONFESSIONS

The Rev. Jonathan Goforth gives some striking instances of the confessions of Korean converts during a revival:

A prominent Christian who had bought some property for the
mission confest that he had only paid eighty yen for the
property, but had charged the mission five hundred yen. He sold
his land so as to make restitution.

Another confest that he was proud and censorious, but this did
not relieve him. A few days later he confest that he had stolen
three dollars and a lamp. Still he failed to get peace. After a
few more days of agony, he confest that during the war while he
acted as manager of transport he had cheated the Japanese and
Koreans out of two hundred yen. He made restitution and received
blessing.

The leader of a robber band with some of his followers was
converted in the great spiritual movement. He confest his sin,
then went to the magistrate and delivered himself up. The
official was so astounded that he said: “We have no such law
that we can condemn a man without an accuser. You may have your
liberty.” Here the Spirit of God was more effective than police
and detective force. They needed not either to spend a term in
the reformatory, for they were made new men in Christ Jesus.

(522)

CONFIDENCE

Confidence is well placed when it rests upon a proved experience.

A traveler, following his guide amid the Alpine heights, reached
a place where the path was narrowed by a jutting rock on one
side and a terrible precipice on the other. The guide passed
over, and holding on to the rock with one hand, extended the
other over the precipice for the traveler to step upon it and
so pass around the jutting rock. He hesitated, but the guide
said, “That hand has never lost a man.” He stept on the hand and
passed over safely.

(523)

* * * * *

The medical missionary among the Afghans, Dr. T. L. Pennell, on
one of his journeys came to a village across the border late at
night. Many outlaws infested the village, but the chief to whose
care he had entrusted himself took the precaution of putting his
bed in the center of six of his men, fully armed, each of whom
was to keep guard in turn. Dr. Pennell being very tired after
a hard day’s work, soon fell sound asleep. This proved to be
his safety. Some of the fanatical spirits wanted to kill him in
sheer wantonness, but the others said, pointing to his prostrate
form peacefully sleeping, “See, he has trusted himself entirely
to our protection, and because he trusts us he is sleeping so
soundly; therefore no harm must be done to him in our village.”
His confidence disarmed their deadly impulse. (Text.)

(524)

* * * * *