Chapter XII: Preface (12)

“This convinces me that there is a God,” he said to his friends.
“Hereafter I shall always live as a Christian. These stars could
not be unless there is a God.”

The profound impression created on the man by the spectacle had
not worn off to-day, and he assured his friends he meant to
attend church regularly hereafter and to conduct himself as a
Godfearing man should.

“I had never seen the heavens as I did then,” he declared this
morning. “I did not realize what a wonderful world it is.”

The man’s name is withheld in order to save him from what his
friends say would be embarrassing publicity. His agnostic
beliefs have long been the despair of his well-wishers, who are
elated over his curious conversion.--Brooklyn _Eagle_.
(May, 1910.)

(577)

=Converts in Heathendom=--See NATIVE CONVERTS.

=Convict, A=--See DEAD THO ALIVE.

CONVICT LABOR

Last summer about forty per cent of the Colorado convicts were
put to work outside their prison walls. A thousand were employed
exclusively in road-building. The cost for each prisoner
employed was thirty-six cents a day and the counties where the
roads were built paid this amount, less the amount the State
would have to pay to maintain them in the prison. The day’s
work was eight hours, and for each month’s service there was a
substantial subtraction from the term of imprisonment. No chains
were attached, no stripes were worn and there was no armed guard
to patrol the work camps; yet less than one-half of one per cent
of those thus employed were lost by escapes.

The success of the method may be due largely to the tact and
judgment of the warden. The road work is said to be the desire
of every prisoner, but he must earn the privilege by good
conduct. The warden personally has a talk with each prisoner
before assigning him to this service and receives his pledge
that he will be true and faithful to his trust. “The best effect
of this,” he says, “is that every man who goes from prison to
road work and keeps his word with me, has taken a long step
toward reformation.”

This seems to be one of the best solutions of the two problems,
how to get good roads and employ the inmates of our penal
institutions in healthful labor, under conditions that appeal
to their manliness and better nature. Of course, this method
must be discriminatingly applied, but the proof that it is
workable is a valuable contribution to penology.--Boston
_Transcript_.

(578)

CONVICTION

Alexander McLaren says:

I once heard that if you take a bit of phosphorus and put it
upon a slip of wood and ignite the phosphorus, bright as the
blaze is, there drops from it a white ash that coats the wood,
and makes it almost impossible to kindle the wood. And so, when
the flaming conviction laid upon your heart has burnt itself
out, it has coated the heart, and it will be very difficult to
kindle the light there again.

(579)

=Conviction as a Foundation=--See HUMAN NATURE, INSECURITY OF.

CONVICTION THROUGH A MONKEY

The Boston _Herald_ is the authority for this story from Baton Rouge, La.:

Because their conviction for murder was based almost entirely
on the animosity displayed against them by a trained monkey,
Christopher Starr and his wife, Mamie, circus performers, are
serving life sentences in State prison.

A movement has been started to obtain a new trial for them.
During the circus season, James Ackerman, proprietor of a
one-ring circus, was murdered while his show was playing at
Devall’s Landing, La.

Mr. and Mrs. Starr, who had had a troupe of trained animals with
the show, were arrested soon afterward, but there was little
evidence against them, and they would have been released but
for the actions of Scamp, a pet Himalayan ape, belonging to Mr.
Ackerman.

Ackerman had been feeding the ape when he was slain, and when
the animal, which was the only living witness of the crime, saw
Starr, he flew into a terrible rage.

This action was repeated whenever Starr appeared, despite the
fact that he formerly had been a friend of Scamp, and it was
repeated when Mrs. Starr was seen.

The monkey’s actions caused husband and wife to be indicted, and
when placed on trial the monkey was brought into court, and so
imprest the jury that, altho the evidence was not over-strong,
they were found guilty.

(580)

CONVICTION, UNYIELDING

Lord Lyndhurst told a curious anecdote about a trial of a civil
cause in which the jury would not agree on their verdict.
They retired on the evening of one day, and remained till one
o’clock the next afternoon, when, being still disagreed, a
juror was drawn. There was only one juror who held out against
the rest--Mr. Berkeley (M.P. for Bristol). The case was tried
over again, and the jury were unanimously of Mr. Berkeley’s
opinion, which was, in fact, right--a piece of conscientious
obstinacy which prevented the legal commission of a wrong.
(Text.)--GREVILLE’S “Memoirs.”

(581)

=Convictions, Lack of=--See INCERTITUDE.

CONVICTIONS, STRONG

Many years ago in the city of New York there was an organized
set of dishonest men known as the Tweed Ring. They stole
$51,000,000 from the State and city, and everybody knew it.
When they told Tweed that he was under arrest, he dared to say,
“Well, what are you going to do about it?” There was a merchant
in New York named William Sloane. They put him on the Grand
Jury. Because of his large business interests and the tremendous
demands upon his time, he said, “I can not serve.” But earnest
men said, “Here is the bulwark of sin and here is the need
of righteousness.” Immediately he said, “I will serve.” Now,
certain men on the jury had been bought up by Tweed. One man
in particular stood out. For twenty-three hours that jury sat
in council. They could not come to an agreement; this one man
would not yield. Finally, Mr. Sloane put his hand on this man’s
shoulder and said: “Do you know, sir, that the people whom we
represent know the character of this man on trial? They know
that we have explicit, convincing evidence against him. And do
you know that I will stay here until I die before I will go out
and say that this jury does not agree?” The man yielded, Tweed
was convicted, sentenced and committed to jail.

There has never been a time in the history of our own land or in the history of Christendom when men standing for righteousness and truth have not accomplished something. It may sometimes mean their death. (Text.)

(582)

=Convictions versus Cash=--See RESPONSIBILITY AFFECTS JUDGMENT.

=Cooking, The Art of=--See WASTE, THE PROBLEM OF.

COOLNESS

During the battle of Waterloo the Duke of Wellington appeared frequently among his men. Sergeant Cotton, in his book “A Voice from Waterloo,” says:

Whenever the Duke came, which at this momentous period was
often, there was a low whisper in the ranks “Here’s the Duke!”
and all was steady as on parade. No matter what the havoc and
destruction might be, the Duke was always the coolest man there;
in the words of an eye-witness of this bloody scene, the Duke
was coolness personified.

(583)

COOLNESS IN DANGER

Michael Henry Ryan, able seaman on the liner
_Philadelphia_, would rather drown than be rescued by means
of a rope which had a poorly tied sailor’s knot in it. Ryan
proved this by risking his life in mid-Atlantic waves until he
could retie the knot.

The rescue in itself was one of the most remarkable in the
history of the American line. The captain from the bridge saw
Ryan go over the side. It was too rough to launch a boat and the
liner was stopt almost in its own length and sent astern so that
it drifted down upon the struggling seaman. A line was lowered.

When Ryan caught the rope he examined the knot. The sea was
smashing him against the side of the ship.

“Who tied this knot?” he called out to the men on deck. And
then he calmly untied the knot and retied it in his own way.
All the while he gave his opinion of the lubbers on deck and
their inability to tie a knot. Then he put the loop under his
arms and called out to those above to haul him up.--Chicago
_Tribune_.

(584)

=Cooperation=--See HELP ONE ANOTHER; WORKING TOGETHER; WORLD
IMPROVING.

=Cooperation, Divine=--See FAITH IN GOD; GROWTH, CAUSE OF.

COOPERATION, LACK OF

An old Norse legend tells of a departed spirit meeting his
guardian angel in the other world, and commiserating him upon
his forlorn and haggard looks, only to receive the reproving
reply: “No wonder I am worn out. All your life I have been
fighting in your behalf, and I never got a bit of assistance
from you.” (Text.)

(585)

COOPERATION WITH GOD

The farmer drops a seed into the ground and goes away and leaves
it. It sprouts and grows, and by and by he reaps the harvest
of the sowing, and he says, “I have harvested, I have raised so
many bushels of corn to the acre.” Oh, no, he has not. He has
sown so many seeds, he has cultivated so many acres, he has put
in his sickle or his harvesting machine, and he has gathered
so many stalks. But he could not have done it if some forces
of nature had not been at work perfecting that which he began.
He and nature, as we say--he and God, as I say--have worked
together to raise the harvest. (Text.)--LYMAN ABBOTT.

(586)

See GRATITUDE.

COPYING VAIN

It would never make an arithmetician of a boy at school if
he merely copied the solution of arithmetic problems from
his neighbor’s slate or paper, even tho the solutions thus
copied should be the correct ones. To become an arithmetician
the boy must himself learn to solve problems; and this means
that he must understand thoroughly every step in the process
of solution. The process must go through him, or through his
intelligence, as well as that he must go through the process.
He must know what he is aiming at, and why it is that he adds,
subtracts, multiplies, and divides, every time that he does any
of these. Merely to put down figures on his paper, even should
they be the right figures by chance, unless he understands
the why and the when, would do him no good whatsoever. And it
would not make the matter one whit better if he imagined the
schoolmaster would be pleased with seeing him put down right
figures without understanding what he was doing, or why he was
doing it. The whole would only show that he was far back in
intelligence, and would hardly ever become an arithmetician. We
can not become truly religious either by being mere copiers of
the religion of others, or by fetish worship.--ALEXANDER
MILLER, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

(587)

=Cordiality=--See HOSPITALITY IN CHURCH.

CORN VERSUS GOLD

Drop a grain of California gold into the ground, and there it
will lie unchanged to the end of time, the clods on which it
falls not more cold and lifeless. Drop a grain of our gold, of
our blest gold, into the ground, and lo! a mystery. In a few
days it softens, it swells, it shoots upward, it is a living
thing. It is yellow itself, but it sends up a delicate spire,
which comes peeping, emerald green, through the soil; it expands
to a vigorous stalk; revels in the air and sunshine; arrays
itself, more glorious than Solomon, in its broad, fluttering,
leafy robes, whose sound, as the west wind whispers through
them, falls as pleasantly on the husbandman’s ear as the rustle
of his sweetheart’s garment; still towers aloft, spins its
verdant skeins of vegetable floss, displays its dancing tassels,
surcharged with fertilizing dust, and at last ripens into two
or three magnificent batons like this [an ear of Indian corn],
each of which is studded with hundreds of grains of gold, every
one possessing the same wonderful properties as the parent
grain, every one instinct with the same marvelous reproductive
powers. There are seven hundred and twenty grains on the ear
which I hold in my hand. I presume there were two or three such
ears on the stalk. This would give us one thousand four hundred
and forty, perhaps two thousand one hundred and sixty grains as
the product of one. They would yield next season, if they were
all successfully planted, four thousand two hundred, perhaps
six thousand three hundred ears. Who does not see that, with
this stupendous progression, the produce of one grain in a few
years might feed all mankind? And yet with this visible creation
annually springing and ripening around us, there are men who
doubt, who deny the existence of God. Gold from the Sacramento
River, sir! There is a sacrament in this ear of corn enough to
bring an atheist to his knees.--EDWARD EVERETT.

(588)

CORRUPTION, INNER

Athenian society decayed at last, not at all because its
artists had reached the limit of human invention, or its
philosophers the necessary term of human thought, but because
the moral faculties and tastes which should have presided in
that society were not developed in proportion to the esthetic
and intellectual powers which added to its ornament. It was
outwardly like the statue of Minerva in the Parthenon, of costly
ivory, overlaid with gold; but it was wood within; and the wood
rotted; that is all that can be said of it. Then the cunning of
the ivory, and the splendor of the gold, fell and were broken,
and the nations gathered the shining fragments.--RICHARD S.
STORRS.

(589)

COSMOLOGY, PRIMITIVE

Knowing nothing of the planetary system, early man had to
account in his own way for the apparent fixity of the earth, and
as the Greeks invented the giant Atlas, the Hindus contrived
a huge turtle to bear the world upon its patient back. What
sustained the giant or the monster, the ancient mind inquired
not. To make everything out of anything and believe with
implicit faith in his own creations was the happy faculty of
early man, not entirely fallen from possession in these days
of all-questioning. The first Egyptians knew that the heavens
and the earth were formed by the breaking of the cosmic egg,
an idea suggested by the resemblance of the skies to the half
of an eggshell. That is as poetic and more agreeable than the
Norse idea of a giant dashed to pieces to make earth, water, and
starry firmament. The Mexican legend as to the creation of man
resembles the Hebraic, clay and the breath of life admitted.
But the North American Indians explain the mixt nature of man
by declaring that the daughter of the Great Spirit, living in
the wigwam, Mount Shasta, stole forth one day, was seized by a
patriarchal grizzly, who took her home and wedded her to his
son. Man was the result of this union. As a punishment for
the sacrilege in contaminating the race of the Great Spirit,
grizzlies were deprived the power of speech and made to wander
ever after on all fours.--Chicago _Inter-Ocean_.

(590)

=Cosmopolitanism=--See AMERICANISM, TRUE.

=Cosmopolitanism in Education=--See EDUCATION BY TRAVEL.

=Cost of Disease=--See HEALTH AND SCIENCE.

COST RECKONED

When your child throws away a piece of bread, make him pick it
up again and tell him the history of that piece of bread. Tell
him what has been requisite that that bread might exist. Tell
him of the toils of the plowman and of the sower, under the sky,
inclement and changeful; the obscure bursting of the seed in
the ground, the long sleep under the snow, the awakening in the
spring, when the green life along the furrows makes its orisons
to the sun, source of life. Describe the hope of the farmer when
the corn puts forth its ears, and his anguish when the storm
rises on the horizon. Do not forget the harvester who wields
his scythe in the dog-day heat, and that poor prisoner of the
cities, pledged to nocturnal toil in overheated cellars, the
baker. (Text.)--CHARLES WAGNER, “The Gospel of Life.”

(591)

COST, THE

In the Newark, N. J., public library is a statue of Benjamin
Franklin carved in Carrara marble. It embodies an incident
in his life. When a lad he bought a whistle from a playmate,
giving all the coppers he possest for it. He whistled all over
the house, until his brothers and sisters told him he had paid
too much for the whistle, laughing at him until he cried from
mortification and chagrin.

Franklin was not the first nor the last to pay too much for the whistle. Music is not the only thing that may come at too high a price.

(592)

COUNTENANCE, GRACE IN THE

The face of the veteran missionary, John G. Paton, was itself
an inspiration to the beholder and a revelation to the triumphs
of the grace of God in the man. Once when Principal Story was
introducing him to an audience, he casually remarked that
much of Doctor Paton’s life had been spent among savages and
cannibals, and many a time he had been in danger of being killed
and eaten, but had escaped unscathed. “But,” added Principal
Story, “I do not wonder, for had I been one of those cannibals,
one look at that benignant face would have been enough to make
me a vegetarian for the rest of my days.” (Text.)

(593)

=Counterfeiters=--See CRIMINALS, TRACING.

COUNTRY ADVANTAGES

Only forty-seven per cent of our population of working age
reside in the country districts; they furnish fifty-seven per
cent of our successful men, while the cities, with twenty per
cent of the population, furnish seventeen per cent.

(594)

COUNTRY, A NEW

A Chinese lived in Yokohama some twelve years ago. He was a
house-painter by occupation, and went about wearing a very
much bedaubed suit of clothes, caked here and there with
white and green and yellow. He was a Christian and attended
church regularly. When the leader said, “Let any one pray who
will,” John never failed to take part. The gladness of his
soul spoke itself forth in a kind of Cantonned Japanese, the
full meaning of which was known to himself and God only. When
the _Shinasan_ (Mr. Chinaman) prayed, many a face in
the room became wreathed in smiles, and sometimes a hand was
necessary over the mouth to help hold the hearer steady. John
paid no attention; he cared not who laughed at his prayers,
he was happy, God had forgiven him; and tho a Chinese, he
said good-by to the world, and cut his cue off. One day a
Korean friend met him and said, “Honorable sir from the great
country, where is your cue?” “Cue? Cue belong no good, makee
cut off.” “But you will not dare to go home, you have lost your
country.” “_Maskee_ country,” said John; “my country belong
_Htien-kuoa, Htien-kuoa_” (“heaven, heaven”), pointing
upward.--JAMES S. GALE, “Korea in Transition.”

(595)

=Country Church=--See CHURCH, THE COUNTRY.

COUNTRY, LONGING FOR THE

If out beyond the city’s farthest edge
There were no roads that led through sleepy towns,
No winds to blow through any thorny hedge,
No pathways over hazel-tufted downs,
I might not, when the day begins, be sad
Because I toil among the money-mad.

If out beyond the distant hill there lay
No valley graced by any winding stream,
And if no slim, white steeples far away
Might mark the spots where drowsy hamlets dream,
I could, perhaps, at midday be content
Where striving millions at their tasks are bent.

If far away from noise and strife and care
There were no buds to swell on waiting trees,
No mating birds to spill upon the air
The liquid sweetness of their melodies
I might, at sunset be serene and proud
Because a few had seen me in the crowd.

--The Chicago _Record-Herald_.

(596)

=Country, Love of=--See FIDELITY; HOME WHERE THE HEART IS.

=Country, Serving One’s=--See SEEKING SERVICE.

COURAGE

When a soldier ran crying to Pelopidas, “We are fallen among the
enemies, and are lost!” “How are we fallen among them any more
than they among us?” replied the undaunted spirit. And when the
soldiers of Marius complained of thirst, being encamped where
there was no water, he pointed to a river running close to the
enemy’s trenches, and bade them take the drink which valor could
give them in that direction.--JAMES T. FIELDS.

(597)

* * * * *

“Evils faced are half-conquered.” Such seems to be the purport of this poem by John Finley:

I’d have the driving rain upon my face--
Not pelting its blunt arrows on my back,
Goading with blame along its ruthless track,
But flinging me defiance in the race.

And I would go at such an eager gait
That whatsoe’er may fall from heaven of wo
Shall not pursue me as some coward foe,
But challenge me--that I may face my fate.

(Text.)--_Harper’s Magazine._

(598)

* * * * *

I have walked on the Mount of Gladness, I have wept in the Vale of
Tears,
And my feet have stumbled ofttimes as I trod through the path of
the years;
Yet my heart has ever lifted its song of thankful praise
To the God of all eternity, who has kept me in my ways,
Tho alone I tread the wine-press, or kneel in Gethsemane,
I know He has never forsaken, and that He leadeth me.
Tho I “walk through the Valley of Shadow,” my soul shall not be
dismayed,
For my God is the God of the fathers, the God of the unafraid!

--_Northwestern Christian Advocate._

(599)

* * * * *

It is easy to be courageous when backed by the crowd. It is different when one stands alone against the crowd.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Professor Simson, of
Glasgow, was on trial in the General Assembly for dangerous
heresy. He was convicted, and suspended from preaching and
teaching. There were some who thought the sentence inadequate.
Boston, of Ettrick, was one of them. He was a shy man. But no
one else offering to rise, he rose, overcoming his timidity,
to enter his dissent against the inadequate condemnation of
Simson--to enter his dissent in his own name and in the names of
all who would adhere to him, adding, amid solemn silence on the
part of the assembly, “And for myself if nobody shall adhere.”

(600)

See ACHIEVEMENT; FITNESS.

=Courage, Calm=--See FAITHFULNESS.

COURAGE, CHRISTIAN

During the Boxer rebellion the railroad tracks laid by the Russians in Manchuria were torn up, and the Russian troops were sent on an expedition to punish the Chinese insurgents. The Russians marched from city to city destroying and looting, meeting with practically no resistance. But at one place something unexpected happened, as told by Mr. H. J. Whigham in _V.C._ (London):

The Russians marched up to the gates and were just about to
enter when the Boxers opened fire upon them. The army was
withdrawn, the batteries were got out, and the general was just
going to smash up the city when the Scotch missionary, Doctor
Westwater (acting as interpreter) approached him and asked for a
moment’s truce.

“I undertake,” he said, “to enter the city and to induce it to
surrender without a shot being fired on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“That there shall be no destruction and no looting; none
whatever.”

The general yielded, and mounting his pony, Doctor Westwater
rode forward to the city alone.

Now, when you consider that the city was full of Boxers, you
will realize that it was a pretty considerable act of courage
for a minister, of all men, to ride unarmed through those
seething streets. This was what Westwater did. The city was a
roaring hive of armed Boxers, muskets peeping from roof and
window, and the streets ringing with the noise of arms. At the
missionary quarters Doctor Westwater was fortunate enough to
find a Christian convert, who conducted him to a place where the
merchant gild were holding a sort of cabinet council.

Westwater explained matters, appealed to the citizens to avoid
bloodshed, and pledged his word that neither destruction nor
looting should mark the Russian occupation of their city. The
appeal was successful, and he rode quietly back to the Russian
general.

The general was an awful brute, as bad as he could be, but
Westwater’s action seemed to impress him, and his orders were
very exact. During his occupation of the city there was no
single instance of crime. Westwater’s gallant action, too,
imprest even the Boxers. They named him the savior of the town,
and when, some months later, he took his departure for home, he
was made the honored guest of extraordinary banquets, and was
accompanied to the railway station by all the grateful citizens,
half of them waving flags and half of them banging musical
instruments.

(601)

See TROUBLE BRAVELY MET.

COURAGE CONTAGIOUS

Charles Wagner, in “The Gospel of Life,” says:

You are struggling with difficulties, your look is troubled
and your good will as well. One of those painful moments of
strife and discouragement, when man is no longer anything but
the shadow of himself, is passing over. In these circumstances
a newspaper falls into your hands. In it you read that, on
such and such a day, in the heart of Africa, surprized by
an ambuscade, surrounded by enemies in superior numbers, an
officer, who does not speak your language and who is not
fighting for your cause, has kept calm; that, the better to show
his tranquil resolution, he has, at a moment like that, before
his troops, hemmed in, lost, lighted his cigar, recalled in few
words the memory of the fatherland and the duty of a soldier;
and then marched toward the enemy and to certain death. It is
all told in three lines. And when you have read it, you arise,
you come out of your depression, you organize your resistance;
you look your trouble in the face, you feel high spirits,
virility, a certain generous ardor for the strife. And all this
life, this precious elasticity of courage that animates you, you
owe to those who are unknown to you, to the vanquished, and to
the dead lying out yonder without burial and without name. What
a proof of what we can do for each other?

(602)

COURAGE IN LIFE

This poem has been printed as anonymous and it has also been attributed to Edmund Vance Cook:

Did you tackle the trouble that came your way
With a resolute heart and cheerful
Or hide your face from the light of day
With a craven heart, and fearful?
Oh, a trouble’s a ton or a trouble’s an ounce,
Or a trouble is what you make it;
And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,
But only how did you take it.

You’re beaten to earth. Well, well, what’s that?
Come up with a smiling face.
It’s nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there--that’s disgrace.
The harder you’re thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
Be proud of your blackened eye.
It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts,
It’s how did you fight, and why.

And tho you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why, the critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only how did you die.

(603)

COURAGE, MORAL

Mrs. George E. Pickett, wife of General Pickett, who led the
fatal charge the last day at Gettysburg against the Union
forces, writes of the tender memories she had of Grant. She
called upon him with her husband while he was President. Grant
knew that his old comrade of West Point had been made a poor
man by the war, and he offered him the marshalship of Virginia.
While sorely needing help, he appreciated the heavy draft made
upon the President by office-seekers, and said: “You can’t
afford to do this for me now, and I can’t afford to take it”;
but Grant instantly replied with firmness, “I can afford to do
anything I please that is right.”--Col. NICHOLAS SMITH,
“Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(604)

COURAGE OF HOPE

These lines from an unidentified source point a New Year’s lesson:

As a dead year is clasped in a dead December,
So let your dead sins with your dead days lie.
A new life is yours and a new hope. Remember
We build our own ladders to climb to the sky.

Stand out in the sunlight of promise, forgetting
Whatever the past held of sorrow or wrong.
We waste half our strength in a useless regretting;
We sit by old tombs in the dark too long.

Have you missed in your aim? Well, the mark is still shining.
Did you faint in the race? Well, take breath for the next.
Did the clouds drive you back? But see yonder their lining.
Were you tempted and fell? Let it serve as a text.

It is never too late to begin rebuilding
Tho all into ruins your life has been hurled,
For see how the light of the New Year is gilding
The wan, worn face of the bruised old world. (Text.)

(605)

COURAGE OF UTTERANCE

James Oppenheim, in a poem, “The Cry of Men,” writes this verse inciting to boldness in uttering our truth:

Then put off the coward--live with the Vision!
Let me go to my work in the morning
With fire of God, let me strike in the open, let me cry, cry aloud
the age dawning--
Let my life be real--faith in my heart! My eternity hangs on this day--
God in me dies or leaps godward as I thunder my yea or my nay!

(606)

COURAGE VERSUS ETIQUETTE

Here is a story of Gen. Leonard Wood, told by a Boston physician in the New York _Times_:

One day an infant was brought in suffering from membranous
croup. The case was so far advanced that any delay would almost
certainly result in death for the little one. Dr. Wood did
not hesitate a moment. He began to work at once, carefully,
fearlessly, promptly, and successfully. Five minutes later,
and while both mother and patient were still in the room, the
surgeon who should have had the case according to rule, walked
in. The young doctor (Wood) explained, but would not apologize,
as he was asked to do. He had done right, and he was not going
to tell any man he was sorry for it, he said. The result was
that he was first suspended, and then dismissed. And I call that
courage. (Text.)

(607)

COURTESY

Charles W. Eliot introduced [at Harvard] a system of discipline
based upon personal loyalty to college interests. It is related
that at a faculty meeting shortly after he had been inducted
into office, one of the faculty asked him with considerable
severity the reason for this doing away with time-honored
rules of discipline, when the young president replied, with
great sweetness and courtesy, “The reason is, we have a new
president.”--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(608)

See KINDNESS.

* * * * *

The Brooklyn _Eagle_ has an office boy whose name, let us
say, is Joe. The other day Joe was present when the wife of
a member of the staff called to see her husband. The latter,
having just returned from lunch, deferentially greeted the lady
by raising his hat. Joe contemplated this act of courtesy with
that fine scorn which office boys feel for all obligations that
are not compulsory. “Huh!” he remarked to a companion. “You’d
think them two was strangers!”

(609)

=Courtesy Imitated=--See SYMBOLS, THE VALUE OF.

COURTESY IN TRAVELING

Probably few people know it, but the institution of the
bell-cord, by which the engineman is signaled to stop his train,
was due to the courtesy of a conductor. A general passenger
agent told the story the other day. Back in the fifties, when
wood was still used for fuel in locomotives, the conductor
on a local train rigged up a bell-cord so that he could let
passengers off at will. The stop signal was given too often for
the engineman, who finally became so annoyed that he cut the
rope. At the next stop the conductor went forward to the engine
cab.

“Jim,” he said, “I’m going to treat my passengers right. You tie
up that bell-cord, and if you cut it again I’ll punch your head.”

The engineman cut the cord again, and the conductor, who valued
his reputation for courtesy to passengers, went forward and
delivered the promised thrashing. Conductors nowadays, tho, are
not quite so primitive in their methods, and are not obliged
to administer personal discipline to fellow employés.--Buffalo
_Evening News_.

(610)

COURTS OF JUSTICE AMONG BIRDS

Dr. Edmondson describes regular assemblies of crows of the
hooded species--“crow courts,” they are called--which are held
at certain intervals in the Shetland Isles. A particular hill
or field suitable for the business is selected, but nothing is
done till all are ready, and consequently the earlier comers
have sometimes to wait for a day or two till the others arrive.
When all have come, the court opens in a formal manner and the
presumed criminals are arraigned at the bar. A general croaking
and clamor are raised by the assembly and judgment is delivered,
apparently, by the whole court. As soon as the execution is
over, the court breaks up and all its members disperse quietly.
An Alpine tourist relates that, during an excursion in the Swiss
mountains, he accidently came upon a small secluded glen, which
was surrounded by trees, and became the unexpected witness
of a singular spectacle. About sixty or seventy ravens were
ranged in a ring around one of their fellows, evidently reputed
a culprit, and with much clatter of tongues and wings, were
engaged in discussing his alleged delinquencies. At intervals
they paused in their debate in order to permit the accused to
reply, which he did most vociferously and with intense energy,
but all his expostulations were speedily drowned in a deafening
chorus of dissent. Eventually the court appears to have arrived
at the unanimous conclusion that the felon had utterly failed
to exculpate himself, and they suddenly flew at him from all
sides and tore him to pieces, with their powerful beaks. Having
executed their sentence, they speedily disappeared.--_The
Popular Science Monthly._

(611)

=Covenant=--See BLOOD, THE TIE OF.

COWARDICE

We see by the following account of English sparrows that any coward may seem brave when he is with the majority:

The English sparrow has been called pugnacious. He is nothing
of the kind. He does not love a fight. Bird to bird, there is
nothing too small to whip him. I have seen a chipping sparrow,
which is the least among the pasture sparrows, send the
poltroon scurrying to shelter with all his feathers standing
on end. A cock bluebird, fighting like a gentleman, and like a
gentleman fighting only when he must, will drive a half-dozen
of them. The English sparrow has the true instincts of the
browbeating coward, and loves to fight only when in overwhelming
numbers he may attack a lone pasture bird without danger to
himself.--WINTHROP PACKARD, “Wild Pastures.”

(612)

=Craziness Indicated=--See CONCERT, LACK OF.

=Crazy Spells=--See ABSENT-MINDEDNESS.

CREATION, A WITNESS OF

Ruskin finds God’s witness in creation in contemplating a leaf:

If you ask an ordinary botanist the reason of the form of a
leaf, he will tell you it is a “developed tubercle,” and that
its ultimate form “is owing to the directions of its vascular
threads.” But what directs its vascular threads? “They are
seeking for something they want,” he will probably answer. What
made them want that? What made them seek for it thus? Seek for
it, in five fibers or in three? Seek for it, in serration, or in
sweeping curves? Seek for it in servile tendrils, or impetuous
spray? Seek for it in woolen wrinkles rough with stings, or
in glossy surfaces, green with pure strength and winterless
delight? It is Mr. Ruskin who asks these questions: and it is
Mr. Ruskin who adds, “There is no answer.”

(613)

=Creation, Intelligence in=--See DESIGN IN NATURE.

CREATION, JOY IN

God’s heart must laugh a mighty laugh of joy every spring and
summer time. Oh, man! don’t you think you would laugh if you
could make a leaf--not a great big green oak or maple-leaf,
but just a wee, modest, unpretentious leaf, and yet a real
leaf? Now, wouldn’t you thrill with joy to the ends of your
finger-tips if you could make just one leaf? And well you might,
for never yet was born the man who could make a leaf without God
doing the major part of the work.

And yet every spring God grows a million leaves and flowers out
in the corn-fields, back in the forests, down in the meadows
of earth. Why, truly God is right down here among us watching
things grow, going through the corn-fields and laughing to the
rustling music of the green blades of silken corn.--F. F.
SHANNON.

(614)

=Creatorship=--See LIFE, SOURCE OF MAN’S.

CREATURE, A NEW

The author of that noble hymn, “The God of Abraham praise,” was
Thomas Olivers, the Welsh Methodist evangelist, popularly known
as “the cobbler of Tregonan,” but who became a signal instance
of the power of grace to change the heart and to quicken genius.
Left an orphan early in life, he grew up neglected in learning
and morals, and became known as the worst character in all the
country round. But a sermon by George Whitefield, at Bristol,
entirely changed the character of the young man, and the current
of his life. Of that change he himself said: “When that sermon
began, I was one of the most abandoned and profligate young men
living; before it ended I was a new creature. The world was all
changed for Tom Olivers.”

(615)

=Credentials, Negative=--See REALISM, REFRAINING FROM.

=Credentials of Merit=--See APPRECIATION OF CHARACTER.

=Credit Refused=--See NEED, REFUSED IN THE HOUR OF.

CREEDS, INSECURITY OF

It is natural to desire a few firm and unshakable beliefs. If we
can only formulate the eternal verities and tuck them away in
pigeon-holes ready to our hand when wanted, we feel a certain
sense of security. To run the fundamental principles into
molds and have them forever after in cast-iron rigidity and
indestructibility is surely, we imagine, a consummation devoutly
to be wished.

But soon we encounter unexpected and vexatious and puzzling
difficulties. Truth has a way of losing its trueness by the very
act of being exprest. Exprest, or squeezed out, it does, indeed,
too often become; and nothing but an empty husk, a hollow form,
remains. How often one has the vaguely haunting and curiously
baffling sense that, if one were to say a certain thing, that
thing would immediately cease to be so; and, that if one had
only refrained from a certain other utterance, the thought
intended would not have lost, so unaccountably, its quality of
truth! In other words, how many times does truth show itself
to be of a nature quite too shy to be caught and tamed, too
slippery to be grasped, too elusive to be held fast! To take a
homely illustration, Mrs. Smith says to Mrs. Brown, “I am more
polite than you,” and straightway an assertion that might have
been true, if unuttered, becomes glaringly false. An able lawyer
was once arguing a case in court when the judge interrupted
him by declaring, “That is not the law.” “It was the law, your
Honor, until your Honor spoke,” was the two-edged rejoinder.
Some such ironical retort is constantly being flung back at us
by the inscrutabilities that we attempt to fathom. We know not
well (tho we are learning) the subtle ways they “keep, and pass,
and turn again.”

“Outworn creeds” is a phrase familiar to all. But why have we
so abundant a heritage of these cast-off garments? Is not their
undurability owing to the fact that truth is dynamic rather than
static? We must believe that at every instant of time something
is true; but that the same thing, stated just so and no
otherwise, is true for all time, is not so certain, and he who
depends on a fixt creed, of elaborate pattern, to bear him up
through all the stormy seas, is likely to find himself clinging
to a very poor life-preserver.--_The Christian Register._

(616)

=Crime and Playgrounds=--See PLAY AND MORALS.

CRIME, EPIDEMICS OF

In the days of bank burglaries--now much less frequent, owing to
the protections that science has provided for money vaults--it
was not often that a single robbery was reported; they “came in
battalions.” This was not because the same gangs engaged in many
different enterprises, but because a universal similar impulse
permeated the minds of the criminal class devoted to these
forms of guilt. A curious study might be made of the causes
of epidemics of crime. In superstitious times all evils were
attributed to the influence of adverse stars. This may have been
an approach to scientific truth, or its advanced shadow. The
causes of meteorological change must be the causes lying back of
the pervading disposition at times witnessed to commit peculiar
classes of crime. A suicidal atmosphere must have its origin in
some of the secret springs of nature. Advanced speculation has
recently attributed cyclones, earthquakes, and other terrestrial
disturbances to great changes in the surface of the sun or
in the superheated ether surrounding it. A theory quite as
plausible as this might attribute epidemics of crime to similar
influences, by which weak reasons are overthrown and murderous
intents are kindled in excitable minds with destructive
tendencies. There are causes for all things in life and nature,
and no study of such causes is in vain.--Chicago _Journal_.

(617)

CRIME EXPOSED

Marshall P. Wilder describes a punishment common in China:

The cangue is a large square board that fits about the neck,
and besides being very heavy and uncomfortable, is considered
a great disgrace, for it has the prisoner’s name and crime
pasted on it. In order to make the punishment more severe, the
prisoner is often condemned to be taken to the place where the
crime was committed and made to stand near the store or house
where the nature of his crime, as well as his name, is plainly
to be read by every passer-by. This is a terrible punishment,
for the Chinese are very sensitive about being publicly
shamed.--“Smiling ‘Round the World.”

(618)

See EVIDENCE, PROVIDENTIAL.

CRIME IN FORMER DAYS

Every week a host of young lads were hanged for theft, and the
spectacle of a criminal riding through the streets to Tyburn,
and getting as drunk as he conveniently could upon the way, was
too common to attract attention. London was called the City of
the Gallows, for from whatever joint you entered it, by land or
water, you passed between a lane of gibbets, where the corpses
of felons hung, rotting and bleaching in the light. Nor was
crime supprest by this stringency of the law. Highwaymen rode
into town at nightfall, coolly tying their horses to the palings
of Hyde Park, and executed their plans of robbery in the very
presence of the impotent protectors of the public peace. London
was infested by gangs of youths, whose nightly pastime was to
bludgeon inoffensive watchmen, and to gouge out the eyes of
chance travelers. Dean Swift dared not go out after dark, and
Johnson wrote:

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.

Ludgate Hill swarmed with mock parsons, and thousands of
spurious marriages were celebrated every year.--W. J.
DAWSON, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(619)

=Crime Prevented=--See SCIENCE PREVENTING CRIME.

=Crime Traced=--See MISERY AN EDUCATOR.

CRIME UNPROFITABLE

“I have talked with murderers, train and stage robbers,
burglars, pickpockets, hobos, yeggmen and others guilty of
nearly every crime known,” says Griffith J. Griffith, “yet I
never found a prisoner but could easily be convinced that a
criminal career does not pay. A sane young man so convinced can
be reformed.”

(620)

=Criminal Energy=--See DISHONESTY.

=Criminals Deficient in Conscience=--See CONSCIENCE BENUMBED.

CRIMINALS, GAIT OF

All evil traits probably carry with them some bodily signs. Soul and body are intimately related.

Dr. Parrachia has made a curious study of the differences
between criminals and law-abiding citizens, as exhibited by
their walk. He not only has shown how we may distinguish
criminals in general, but has laid the beginning of the
differential diagnosis between various evil-doers. He found
that in criminals in general (obtained from the study of forty
criminals) the left pace was longer than the right, the lateral
deviation of the right foot was greater than that of the left,
and the angle formed by the axis of the foot with the straight
line was greater on the left side than on the right. It would
thus seem that, in general, the gait of a criminal betrays a
marked preponderance of power of the left foot over the right--a
true sinistrality. This also agrees with the discovery of Marro
that criminals are often left-handed.--_Public Opinion._

(621)

CRIMINALS, TRACING

The tracing of counterfeit bills back to the persons responsible
for their issue is a curious and exciting employment. The
experts assigned by the Government to this work are among the
most skilful members of the Secret Service.

A bank clerk in Cleveland had detected a counterfeit
twenty-dollar bill in the deposit of a small retail grocer. An
expert was sent for and undertook the case.

He found that the grocer had received the bill from a
shoe-dealer, who had it from a dentist, who had it from somebody
else, and so on, until the Secret Service man finally traced
the bad note to an invalid woman who had used it to pay her
physician. When questioned, this woman said that the money had
been sent her by her brother, who lived in New Orleans.

The sleuth looked up the brother’s antecedents, and soon became
convinced that he was the man wanted. The brother, however, soon
proved to the satisfaction of the Secret Service man that his
suspicions were unfounded. Indeed, it appeared that the money
had been received by the New Orleans man in part payment of rent
of a house he owned in Pittsburg. While the sleuth was a bit
discouraged, he couldn’t give over the case when he had gone so
far, so he took the next train for Pittsburg.

The tenant of the house in Pittsburg proved to be a traveling
oculist, who spent most of his time in the Middle West. The
Secret Service man had the good luck, however, to catch him just
as he had returned from a trip; and the man at once recognized
the bad bill as one that had been given him by a patient in
Cleveland, the very point whence the sleuth had started.

The patient was a boss carpenter. The Secret Service man got
his address from the oculist and went right after the new clue.
At this point he had a premonition that something was going to
happen, and he wasn’t disappointed.

The carpenter, an honest old fellow, said that he had received
the bill from a certain Parker. The said Parker was the small
grocer in whose bank deposit the counterfeit had turned up. The
expert flew to the grocer’s as quickly as a cab would take him,
and found it closed. He had left town.

Afterward it was shown beyond question that the grocer was the
agent of an organized band of counterfeiters. His shop was a
mere blind. That the bill which he gave the carpenter should get
back into his own funds after traveling all over the continent
was one of those miracles of chance for which there is no
explanation.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(622)

CRISES, PREPARATION FOR

Let it not be imagined that the great souls who have made history by their heroic action and their momentous decisions in moments of critical exigency were unprepared, or that they played their grand parts at random. The hour of destiny comes, and the man comes with it, but he has always been in training for it. He has had his forty days in the wilderness.

On the ridge of Leuthen, far up above the plain, Frederick the
Great through his glass watched the gathering of the enemy’s
hosts in overwhelming numbers. He only gazed on the terrible
spectacle five minutes, and then he had thought out the
magnificent combinations which arranged his plan of battle. Ruin
fell on the foe and a new era in history was inaugurated; but
this was only because Frederick had trained himself for years
for the crisis.

(623)

CRITIC RIDICULED

A teacher of elocution from New Jersey went to hear Mr. Beecher,
and when the sermon was closed he crowded himself up to the
front and said, “Mr. Beecher, I am an elocution teacher from
the State of New Jersey. I came over to hear the greatest
American preacher, but I am disappointed, disappointed.” “What
is the matter now?” said Beecher. “Well, sir, I counted eighty
grammatical mistakes in your sermon.” Beecher replied, “Is that
all? I would have wagered this old hat there were over eight
hundred if you had not told me.” That is a philosophical way
of looking at it, and treating deservedly a self-inflated and
imposing upstart of a critic. Beecher could at times read human
nature intuitively.

(624)

=Critical Faculty, The=--See ORIGINALITY.

CRITICISM

It is not necessary for a child to know all about the lenses
of the eye in order to see its mother’s face, or to understand
gravity in order to enjoy the summer’s day. We use, enjoy and
are saved by food and drink and sun long years before we know
anything about their laws. It is one thing to pick to pieces
your faith, and another thing to reconstruct it. A thousand
boys can take a watch to pieces, and not one can put the wheels
together again.--N. D. HILLIS.

(625)

See CYNIC REBUKED; JUDGING, CARE IN.

CRITICISM, CARPING

If he is poor, he is a bad manager. If he is rich, he is
dishonest.

If he needs credit, he can’t get it. If he is prosperous, every
one wants to do him a favor.

If he’s in politics, it’s for pie. If he is out of politics, you
can’t place him, and he’s no good for his country.

If he doesn’t give to charity, he’s stingy. If he does, it’s for
show.

If he is actively religious, he is a hypocrite. If he takes no
interest in religion, he’s a hardened sinner.

If he shows affection, he’s a soft specimen. If he seems to care
for no one, he is cold-blooded.

If he dies young, there was a great future ahead of him. If he
lives to an old age, he has missed his calling.--_Christian
Guardian._

(626)

=Criticism, Ignorant=--See MEANING, LOGICAL.

CRITICISM, INCOMPETENT

It is an interesting study of human nature to watch a mixt crowd
as they pass through a gallery of pictures. Some simply express
admiration at everything; sure that they must be good, or they
would not be there, they feel safe in giving indiscriminate
praise. Others spice their approbation with occasional
criticism. Some utter impulsively their first impressions;
others, more timid, look silently upon all. The few who, being
true artists themselves, are best qualified to judge, are
usually the most reticent. Indeed, they seem more occupied in
studying than in judging, and more anxious to understand what
they see than either to criticize or to flatter. Doubtless,
however, the majority of these spectators are secretly conscious
of their real incapacity to pronounce judgment, and the wisest
of them will refrain from doing so, however willingly they may
express whatever pleasure or preference they feel. They know
they are there for their own gratification or improvement, not
to pass sentence upon works which they can only dimly fathom.
Yet as they pass out of the gallery into the world of living men
and women how quickly is this respectful diffidence removed!
He who would not presume to criticize a picture, of which he
knows but little, will not hesitate to criticize a man or woman
of whom he knows far less. Willing to admit his inability to
estimate the work of the painter, he yet feels competent,
without study or experience, to estimate the noblest and most
complex work of infinite wisdom.--Philadelphia _Ledger_.

(627)

See CHRISTIANITY, CRITICISM OF.

=Criticism, Indifference to=--See MODESTY.

=Criticism of Christianity=--See CHRISTIANITY, CRITICISM OF.

CRITICISM, UNHELPFUL