Chapter D: W. Whittle tells of a soldier who was posted in a forest to (7)

Even the horses in our stables can not long live without
exercise. Fill their cribs ever so full of the best feed, they
must yet do something to keep healthy. This is a natural law,
which is imperative in the spiritual world. There are a great
many dyspeptic Christians in all our churches. They are bilious
and disappointed and hopeless and useless, except as they become
by their continual growling and fault-finding a means of grace
to the pastor and other workers. In fact, they have all the
symptoms of spiritual dyspepsia. Now, the only remedy for this
disease is spiritual activity. “Go to work,” said the famous
English doctor to his rich, dyspeptic patient; “go to work. Live
on sixpence a day, and earn it.”--FRANCIS E. CLARK,
“Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1903.

(1119)

=Food and Work=--See DIET AND ENDURANCE.

=Food and World’s Progress=--See FOOD AND CULTURE.

=Food Economy=--See HEALTH, ECONOMIES OF.

=Food in Prehistoric Times=--See PREHISTORIC WOMAN.

FOOLISH CONFIDENCE

The King of Persia once ordered his visier to make out a list of
all the fools in his dominions. He did so, and put his majesty’s
name at the head of them. The king asked him why, and he
immediately answered: “Because you entrusted a lac of rupees to
men you don’t know to buy horses for you a thousand miles off,
and who’ll never come back.” “Ay, but suppose they come back?”
“Then I shall erase your name and insert theirs.”--_Public
Opinion._

(1120)

=Foolishness Prevented=--See PREVENTION.

FOOLISHNESS SOMETIMES IS WISDOM

The wisdom or unwisdom of things is not always apparent on their face. Paul speaks of “the foolishness of preaching.” Most of the great inventors and discoverers were not considered wise in the initial stages of their great careers. Columbus was misunderstood and ridiculed, Watt was regarded as a dreamer, Morse found few supporters, Ericsson could not get Government support for building the _Monitor_, yet all these men were great and wise men. A curious instance of wise foolishness is that related of an important advertiser, who said:

We once hit upon a novel expedient for ascertaining over what
area our advertisements were read. We published a couple of
half-column “ads” in which we purposely misstated half a dozen
historical facts. In less than a week we received between 300
and 400 letters from all parts of the country from people
wishing to know why on earth we kept such a consummate fool who
knew so little about American history. The letters kept pouring
in for three or four weeks. It was one of the best-paying “ads”
we ever printed. But we did not repeat our experiment because
the one I refer to served its purpose. Our letters came from
schoolboys, girls, professors, clergymen, school-teachers and in
two instances from eminent men who have a world-wide reputation.

(1121)

=Foot-gear=--See BIBLE CUSTOMS TO-DAY.

FORBEARANCE

These lines by Harry Larkin, in the _Scrap Book_, seem to breathe a spirit of self-distrust and forbearance for faults in others eminently worthy of perpetuation:

Dare we condemn the ills that others do?
Dare we condemn?
Their strength is small, their trials are not few,
The tide of wrong is difficult to stem,
And if, to us more clearly than to them
Is given knowledge of the good and true
More do they need our help and pity, too!
Dare we condemn?
God help us all and lead us day by day!
God help us all!
We can not walk alone the perfect way,
Evil allures us, tempts us and we fall!
We are but human and our power is small:
Not one of us may boast, and not a day
Rolls o’er our heads, but each hath need to pray,
God help us all! (Text.)

(1122)

The speaker in the following account was Shang, a converted Manchurian missionary:

Over at the “Heavenly Lord Hall” (French mission) I was
looking at the new building which is being erected. The boys’
school-teacher was with me. A Roman Catholic objected to our
presence and struck us both. One of their principal members,
seeing us insulted, blushed very red, and spoke to the offender.
But we just came away.

“What would you like me to do?” I asked. “Shall I write to the
French priest and complain?”

“Do nothing at all,” he replied. “Not to requite an insult is a
blessing.” (Text.)

(1123)

FORCE APPLAUDED

Robert Barr, the author, has a part in an anecdote which throws light upon England’s present craze for the sinews of war:

When Mr. Barr was teaching school in Canada, an old college
friend of his came along with a stereopticon, giving talks
on Europe. The lecturer always finished with the thrilling
recital of an anecdote about Queen Victoria. The Alake of
Abeokuta visited her and asked, “What is the cause of England’s
greatness?” The good queen handed him a Bible, which was in
readiness to present him, saying, “This is the reason of
England’s greatness.” The dramatic device was always exceedingly
effective.

When the lecturer came around to Barr’s district, the
lantern-operator was ill, and Barr was implored to take his
place, which he consented to do. All went well until the grand
finale arrived, when Barr maliciously substituted another
picture for that of the Bible. “This,” cried the fervid orator,
“is the secret of England’s greatness!” and was horrified on
glancing up at the screen to see before him a picture of the
gigantic battleship _Consternation_. The audience, which
did not know the story of the Bible, cheered vociferously, rose
to its feet, and sang “Rule Britannia” in a most warlike voice.

(1124)

FORCE, LIVING

Look at a full-sized oak, the rooted Leviathan of the fields.
Judging by your senses and by the scales, you would say that the
substance of the noble tree was its bulk of bark and bough and
branch and leaves and sap, the cords of woody and moist matter
that compose it and make it heavy. But really its substance
is that which makes it an oak, that which weaves its bark and
glues it to the stem, and wraps its rings of fresh wood around
the trunk every year, and pushes out its boughs and clothes its
twigs with digestive leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil
continually, and makes the roots clench the ground with their
fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm wind, and at
last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and
wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean arms in triumph
over the globe and in defiance of the gale. Were it not for this
energetic essence that crouches in the acorn and stretches its
limbs every year, there would be no oak; the matter that clothes
it would enjoy its stupid slumber; and when the forest monarch
stands up in his sinewy lordliest pride, let the pervading
life-power, and its vassal forces that weigh nothing at all, be
annihilated, and the whole structure would wither in a second to
inorganic dust. So every gigantic fact in nature is the index
and vesture of a gigantic force.--THOMAS STARR KING.

(1125)

=Force Unavailable=--See LOYALTY.

FORCES, LATENT

Mighty forces often lie latent in nature until peculiar
conditions elicit them. The trembling dew-drop is an electric
accumulator, and within its silvery cells is stored a vast
energy; the rain-drop and the snowflake are the sport of the
wind, but, converted into steam, we are astonished at their
potentiality; the tiny seed seems weakness itself, yet,
beginning to germinate, it rends the rock like a thunderbolt.

Thus is it, only in a far more eminent degree, with human nature strengthened by the indwelling Spirit of God. In the first hours of trial we may be bewildered, stunned, staggered, but the latent forces of our nature, stimulated into action, render us equal to the most trying situation and the most trying moment.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1126)

FORESIGHT

It would hasten the world’s progress if each generation would consider the welfare of those to follow as carefully as did the church mentioned here:

Anticipating that airships will be in common use in a few years,
the officials of Wesley Memorial Methodist Church, of Atlanta,
Georgia, when it was in process of building, instructed the
building committee to so arrange the roof that there will be no
difficulty in adapting it to airship landings.

The officials declared that in future years the communicants of
the church would sail to and from the services in airships, just
as they now speed their automobiles. They say that as they are
erecting a structure that will stand for 100 years it should be
modern in every respect.

(1127)

See PREVISION.

FORESIGHT IN BIRDS

Some red-headed woodpeckers in South Dakota, preferring their
meat fresh, evolved a way to keep it so which compares favorably
with the “cold storage” of man. One bird stored nearly one
hundred grasshoppers in a long crack in a post. All were living
when discovered, but so tightly wedged that they could not
escape, and during the long winter of that region it is to be
presumed the prudent bird had his provision. The observer found
other places of storage full of grasshoppers, and discovered
that the red-heads lived upon them nearly all winter.--OLIVE
THORNE MILLER, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(1128)

=Foresight, Lack of=--See PREDICTION, FALSE.

FORGERY, LITERARY

At the end of the eighteenth century the literary forgers were
especially active. The Ossianic poems, the work of a Highland
schoolmaster, James McPherson, who pretended to have translated
them from the Gaelic, raised a controversy that stirred up
much ill-feeling among the rulers of the literary world of
England. Then Chatterton, “the sleepless soul that perished in
its pride,” as Wordsworth sings, with his remarkable forgeries,
deceived many of the antiquarians, among them Horace Walpole,
and even Dr. Johnson “wondered how the young whelp could have
done it.” Another young forger was Ireland, a most remarkable
impostor, who, at the age of 18, not only forged papers and
legal documents purporting to be under Shakespeare’s own hand
and seal, and so deceived some of the most learned Shakespearian
scholars, but also produced a play “Vortigern,” which he claimed
was by that great bard, and which was actually performed at
Sheridan’s theater. Whether or not Payne Collier tried his hand
at correcting Shakespeare is still a matter of question; if
guilty, his so-called “corrections” of the poet’s text appear
but slight deceptions compared to the forgery of a whole play,
altho these notes proved far more deceptive than the spurious
drama. Mention must be made of George Paslmanazar, who called
himself a native of Formosa, invented a Formosan language, and
wrote a history of the island; of the forgeries of ballads by
Surtees, who deceived Sir Walter Scott himself, and of the
forged letters of Shelley, to which Browning, who supposed
them genuine, wrote an introduction. Instances of this kind of
forgery have been so frequent of late years that editors and
publishers are at last beginning to realize that there is often
less in a name than they suppose.--Boston _Globe_.

(1129)

FORGETFULNESS IN PREACHERS

Sudden forgetfulness is not an unusual thing in the pulpit.
Aubrey, the antiquary, says that when he was a freshman at
college he heard Dr. Sanderson, bishop of Lincoln, well known
for his work, “Nine Cases of Conscience,” break down in the
middle of the Lord’s Prayer. Even the great French preacher
Massillon once stopt in the middle of a sermon from a defect
of memory, and Massillon himself recorded that the same thing
happened through an excess of apprehension to two other
preachers whom he went to hear in different parts of the same
day. Another French preacher stopt in the middle of his sermon
and was unable to proceed. The pause was, however, got over
ingeniously. “Friends,” said he, “I had forgot that a person
much afflicted is recommended to your immediate prayers.” He
meant himself. He fell on his knees, and before he rose he
had recovered the thread of his discourse, which he concluded
without his want of memory being perceived. _Chambers’s
Journal._

(1130)

FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING

Forget each kindness that you do
As soon as you have done it;
Forget the praise that falls to you
The moment you have won it;
Forget the slander that you hear
Before you can repeat it;
Forget each slight, each spite, each sneer,
Wherever you may meet it.

Remember every kindness done
To you, whate’er its measure;
Remember praise by others won
And pass it on with pleasure;
Remember every promise made,
And keep it to the letter;
Remember those who lend you aid
And be a grateful debtor.

Remember all the happiness
That comes your way in living;
Forget each worry and distress,
Be hopeful and forgiving;
Remember good, remember truth,
Remember heaven’s above you,
And you will find, through age and youth,
True joys, and hearts to love you.

--_Youth’s Companion._

(1131)

=Forgetting the Past=--See OLD-YEAR MEMORIES.

FORGIVENESS

Alfred Austin, Poet Laureate of England, writes this verse on forgiveness:

Now bury with the dead years conflicts dead,
And with fresh days let all begin anew.
Why longer amid shriveled leaf-drifts tread,
When buds are swelling, flower-sheaths peeping through?
Seen through the vista of the vanished years,
How trivial seem the struggle and the crown,
How vain past feuds, when reconciling tears
Course down the channel worn by vanished frown.
How few mean half the bitterness they speak!
Words more than feelings keep us still apart,
And, in the heat of passion and of pique,
The tongue is far more cruel than the heart,
Since love alone makes it worth while to live,
Let all be now forgiven and forgive. (Text.)

--_The Independent._

(1132)

* * * * *

In childhood you were guilty of your first deceit. At nightfall,
with grieved face, your mother asked if you had disobeyed, and
your lips uttered their first lie. Your father was a just man
and stern, and he would have lifted the hand in indignation,
and as a child you would have hardened your heart. But your
mother, with all-comprehending and healing love, was wiser. She
met the denial with silence. That night she was, if possible,
more tender than ever. She lingered a little longer in the room
of her little child. She smoothed the cool sheets with more
delicate care, and stooping for the last kiss, she asked,
“Is there anything more you want to tell me?” Then she went
out and left you, with that lie, your first lie, to be your
companion. Do you remember how that lie stood like a ghostly
fear at the foot of your little trundle-bed? How terror arched
black and sable wings above your pillow? How you tossed to and
fro, until at last, broken by your mother’s love, you sprang
up, felt your way through the dark hall, opened the door, flung
yourself into your mother’s arms, sobbed out your confession,
and was forgiven, utterly and squarely and forever forgiven?
Don’t analyze your mother’s forgiveness--accept it and be healed
thereby. Redemption is a passion flower, crimsoned with the
blood of God’s heart. Don’t pick this passion flower to pieces,
lest you lose it. The roots of God’s tree of life are fed with
red rain, but the leaves of that tree, and the blossoms, heal
the wounds of sinners.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1133)

* * * * *

Mr. H. J. Whigam, a war correspondent during the Boxer troubles, tells the following incident:

A Christian Chinaman was shot by a Cossack, and, as he lay on
his dying bed, a squad of Cossacks was marched up before him
that he might identify the murderer. “I am dying,” he said.
“What does it matter?” “But,” said the officer, “we are not
going to kill your assailant. We are only going to punish him,
so that he shall not kill any more of your people.” The dying
Chinaman opened his weary eyes and made answer: “When he knows
that I have forgiven him, he will not kill again.”

(1134)

* * * * *

John H. De Forest, in his book, “Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom,” says that the relation of lord and retainer is the main controlling principle that has shaped the destiny of Japan. It is natural that ideal lords should have ideal retainers whose lives were devoted to their masters. He says occasionally this devotion took the form of rebuking the lord for some unworthy act, even when the advice would bring death to the faithful servant.

For example, an aged retainer of a young Shogun saw with deep
anxiety his youthful lord’s frivolous life, his love of games
and dances and flowers, and determined to arouse him to his
duties as a ruler. So going to the palace, he noticed a most
exquisite dwarfed cherry-tree in full blossom in a splendid
flowerpot. He rather bluntly asked his lord to give him the
cherry-tree. On being refused he seized the pot and dashed it,
flowers and all, on the stone steps, saying: “You care more
for things than for men.” He expected death, but his lord saw
the earnest purpose of his servant and repenting of his own
frivolous life, forgave him.

(1135)

FORGIVENESS, CONDITIONS OF

Lorenzo de Medici made confession to Savonarola, on his
death-bed, of three special sins, involving plunder done by
him to Florence and its citizens. While he confest, Savonarola
consoled him by repeating, “God is merciful.” When Lorenzo had
finished, he demanded three things of him before absolution
could be given. First, that he should have a living faith in
God’s mercy. Lorenzo replied that he had such a faith. Second,
that he should restore what he had unjustly acquired. Lorenzo,
after hesitating, consented. Then Savonarola drew himself up and
said, “Give Florence back her liberties.” Lorenzo turned his
face to the wall and uttered not a word, and Savonarola left the
room without granting the absolution desired. (Text.)

(1136)

=Forgiveness of Sin=--See SIN CONSCIOUSNESS.

FORGIVENESS, TIMELY

That we should forgive the faults of friends while they are in the flesh and can appreciate it is the lesson taught by Mrs. Marion Hutson in this verse:

Somewhere in the future, my lone grave
Will lie where flowers bloom and mosses wave,
And friends will stand beside it, speaking low
Of things I said and did so long ago.
My faults and follies all forgotten--dead--
And buried with me in my lowly bed.
Oh, loved ones! why not bury them to-day,
And let me feel forgiven while I may.

(1137)

FORM VERSUS REALITY

During the Civil War the late Colonel Bouck organized a
regiment, says _Everybody’s Magazine_, which he controlled
as a dictator. It was while the army was resting after the
colonel’s first campaign that an itinerant evangelist wandered
into camp and, approaching the colonel, asked if he was the
commanding officer.

“Ugh!” snorted “Old Gabe,” as he was affectionately called,
“what do you want?”

“I am a humble servant of the Lord endeavoring to save the
souls of the unfortunate. I have just left the camp of the --th
Massachusetts, where I was instrumental in leading eight men
into paths of righteousness.”

“Adjutant,” thundered Colonel Bouck, after a moment’s pause,
“detail ten men for baptism. No Massachusetts regiment shall
beat mine for piety.” (Text.)

(1138)

=Formation Versus Reformation=--See ECONOMY IN
WORK.

=Former Days=--See CRIME IN FORMER DAYS.

FORMER LIFE, CONSCIOUSNESS OF

Our brains are inherited from our ancestors. Why, then, may it
not be that the human brain is a palimpsest, containing more or
less faded, yet recoverable records, not only of our entire past
life, but of the lives of our ancestors to the remotest periods?
Pythagoras profest a distinct recollection of his former lives;
the writer of this knows two educated men who have lived before
in the persons of rather more famous individuals than their
present representatives; Lumen, in Flammarion’s “Stories,” finds
that his soul had passed through many previous conditions.
Indeed, the idea of transmigration, which is a poetic forecast
of the more scientific doctrine here enunciated, is a very
familiar one. Coleridge, in his boyhood one day was proceeding
through the Strand, stretching out his arms as if swimming,
when a passer-by, feeling a hand at his coat-tail, turned
rudely round and seized him as a pickpocket. Coleridge denied
the charge, and confest that he had forgotten his whereabouts
in the impression that he was Leander swimming across the
Hellespont--a wretched streetlamp being transformed by his
imagination into the signal-light of the beautiful priestess of
Sestos.--_American Notes and Queries._

(1139)

=Forms=--See SPIRIT AND FORM.

=Forms, Value of=--See EXPERIENCE A HARD TEACHER.

=Fortitude=--See ENDURANCE OF PAIN.

FORWARD

At dawn it called, “Go forward without fear!
All paths are open; choose ye, glad and free.”
Through morning’s toilsome climb it urged the plea,
“Nay, halt not, tho the path ye chose grow dear.”
At noon it spake aloud, “Make smooth the way
For other feet. Bend to thy task, tho weight
Of sorrow press thee. Others dower, tho fate
Deny thy secret wish.” Through later day
It warns, “Climb on! Heights woo! The waning light
Bids haste! Yet scorn not those who lag behind,
Confused by lengthening rays that clear thy sight,
These, too, have striv’n all day their way to find.”
At eve, when flaming sunset fades, O hear
Dawn’s echoing call, “Go forward without fear.”

--ANNA GARLIN SPENCER.

(1140)

=Forward Look, A=--See PREVISION.

FORWARD, PRESSING

In a poem, “The Second Mile,” by Dr. Oakley E. Van Slyke, occurs the following verse:

Be mine, dear Lord, to think not what I must,
But of the power bequeathed to me in trust.
Be mine, I pray, to go the second mile,
Do better than I need to all the while.

(1141)

FOUNDATIONS

All northern Italy from Genoa to Venice was shaken not long
ago by a great earthquake shock. The seismic disturbances
continued at intervals during several days. The people were
terror-stricken, fearing the worst. It was significant that
while the shock was severely felt on both sides of the Adriatic,
it was scarcely perceptible in Venice, due probably to the fact
that much care, forethought and skill had been exercised in
laying the city’s foundations. Every building of importance is
supported by piles driven from sixty to one hundred feet into
the mud of the lagoons.

In character building our only safety lies in sure foundation.
(Text.)

(1142)

FOUNDATIONS, FAULTY

The stone archway spanning a culvert under a railway at a
certain point gave way and tumbled in, permitting the tracks to
settle and sending trains away around by another line. Workmen
came to study the cause of the trouble. One thought that the
cement with which the stones had been laid was not properly
mixed. Another was of the opinion that the mortar had been
chilled, as the wall was laid up in cold weather. Still another
examined the keystone and found fault with its shape. “The
form of that stone was enough to bring the archway down!” he
declared. “Just look at it! The man who made it never knew what
a keystone is for!”

So the criticism went on. At last a quiet man who had been
digging away at the foundation of things made the statement:
“It was not the keystone; that is all right. The foundation
gave way, and the wall could not help falling! It was the
foundation!” And that was the verdict which stood. The very
first stones had been laid on soft earth.

(1143)

FOUNDATIONS, SECURE

One stands before some of the palaces of the old world that
have endured for more than one thousand years without a crack
or seam, in perfect admiration. The Pantheon at Rome stands
just as it did more than two thousand years ago. This would be
impossible had not its foundations been right. The Rialto Bridge
that spans the Grand Canal in Venice was erected in 1588. It
has stood as it now stands for 320 years, but that bridge rests
on 12,000 piles driven deeply into the soil. What is true of
buildings is true also of life.--GEORGE B. VOSBURGH.

(1144)

FOUNTAINS, EVER FLOWING

“To-day’s wealth may be to-morrow’s poverty; to-day’s health,
to-morrow’s sickness; to-day’s happy companionship of love,
to-morrow’s aching solitude of heart; but to-day’s God will be
to-morrow’s God, to-day’s Christ will be to-morrow’s Christ.
Other fountains may dry up in heat or freeze in winter, but
this knows no change; ‘in summer and winter it shall be.’ Other
fountains may sink low in their basins after much drawing, but
this is ever full, and after a thousand generations have drawn
from its stream is broad and deep as ever. Other fountains may
be left behind on the march, and the wells and palm-trees of
each Elim on our road be succeeded by a dry and thirsty land
where no water is, but this spring follows us all through the
wilderness, and makes music and spreads freshness ever by our
path.”--ALEXANDER MCLAREN.

(1145)

=Fragility=--See OSSIFICATION; PRESERVATION.

=Fragments Reconstituted=--See BEAUTY FROM FRAGMENTS.

=Fragrance=--See CHARACTER IMPARTED.

=Fragrance from Storm=--See AFFLICTION PRODUCING VIRTUE.

=Frankness=--See RETORT, A.

FRATERNITY

When you describe to a blind man what strikes you on the
very instant, you really give him the illusion of light. He
sees through your eyes. There is in his soul both light and
color. The green swell of the forest, the yellow waves of the
harvests, that stream that unrolls yonder, across the fields,
like a ribbon of silver; that river whose waters are transmuted
into liquid gold in the brazier of the setting sun, all this
shines before his inward eye. And yet it is not this that most
delights the blind man. What moves him, transports him, not
only if he is your father, your son, your friend, but even a
simple traveling companion, is that he sees through you; that,
for an hour, you realize the holy law that man owes himself to
man, and that he lives, above all, by your bounty and fraternal
exchange.--CHARLES WAGNER, “The Gospel of Life.”

(1146)

FRAUD BY ELECTRICITY

It was noticed some years ago that a large number of light gold
coins were in circulation, and the discovery was made that the
“sweating” was accomplished by electrolysis. The scientific
swindler constructed an electro-deposition plant, using a
ten-dollar gold piece as an anode and a small metal plate as a
cathode. The battery was “set in motion” and presto! in a few
minutes fifty cents’ worth of gold was deposited on the metal
plate, and the gold coin was worth so much less than before. As
the gold was removed equally from all parts of the surface of
the coin, its appearance was scarcely altered by the process,
only an expert being able to detect the slight blurring of the
design and lettering.--_Electrical Review._

(1147)

FREEDOM CHOSEN

After our Civil War a white man suggested to a negro that he
had been better off as a slave. He had had more to eat and been
more certain of it, a better cabin and less concern about it,
better clothes and more of them. The negro agreed, and added,
“The place is still open if you want it, sir. As for me, I had
rather starve and go cold and naked, and be free.” It is quite
impossible for some men to understand that. For that is the
heart of liberty. Eating and clothing and dwelling have become
all important to some men, and compared with them liberty is not
worth having. But there are hearts which have tasted slavery and
so know the zest of freedom. (Text.)--C. B. MCAFEE.

(1148)

FREEDOM, GOD RESPECTS OUR

God, having made man a free moral agent, is a wooer, not a
coercionist. If the knowledge of the sacrifice made for man’s
redemption will not win man’s love, God will not apply physical
force to compel acceptance, love, and obedience. A military
chieftain, tho holding the lives of his soldiers in his hands,
exhibits his greatest power by refusing to exercise compulsion,
and realizes that the best service rendered is that which is
prompted by love of the commander. Thus God shows His almighty
power.

(1149)

FREEDOM, GRATITUDE FOR

On the 30th of August, 1833, the Emancipation Act passed the
House of Lords. It was declared that all children under six
years old should be free on the 1st of August, 1834; that all
other slaves should be registered as apprenticed laborers and be
compelled to labor for their owners for a few years--the time
was shortened soon after. Antigua alone has the honor of having
said, “We will have no apprentices; all shall be free.”

Meanwhile in all the islands dismal prophecies were made by
the planters of rapine and ruin and negro risings; but the
missionaries were busy teaching the poor blacks how to receive
the coming boon of freedom. The eve of that momentous day, the
1st of August, was kept by the slave population of Antigua as
a watch-night in church and chapel. They had been advised to
await the midnight hour on their knees with prayers and hymns of
gratitude. So, at the first stroke of midnight in the island of
Antigua, all fell upon their knees, and nothing was heard but
the slow booming of the cathedral bell, save here and there an
hysteric sob from some overwrought slave-girl. The final stroke
sounded through the clear air, and still the immense crowd kept
silence, as tho they could not realize that they had become
free. Then a strange thing happened: One awful peal of thunder
rattled and crashed from pole to pole, and flash upon flash of
lightning seemed to put out the feeble lights of cathedral,
church and chapel.

God had spoken! The kneeling crowds sprang to their feet with a
shout of joy; they laughed, they cried, they tossed brown arms
abroad, and embraced one another in wild and passionate emotion;
then they remembered God once more and prayed aloud.--EDWARD
GILLIATT, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

(1150)

FREEDOM OF SOUL

What a remarkable invention is the airship! In it are wrapt
almost boundless possibilities for good or evil. The Christian
bound on his sacred mission may yet be able to use the viewless
air for his highway, transport himself through its soundless
solitudes, hundreds of miles before the dawning. He may
transport himself with ease from place to place and behold
all the marvels of creation on earth, having cut loose from
gravitation and being free in the infinite ocean of starlight
and sunlight.

The ideal of man is perfect freedom of the soul. (Text.)

(1151)

FREEDOM OR SLAVERY

I was in conversation with a man a few days ago, and we were
talking with reference to evil propensities and signing pledges
and forming firm resolutions to quit bad habits. He said, “I
won’t sign a pledge because I won’t sign away my liberty.” I
asked him what liberty he meant, and he said: “Liberty to do as
I please.” I said to him, “That is not liberty. Any man that
does as he pleases, independent of physical, moral and divine
law, is a miserable slave.”--U. S. SHRIMP, _Church
Advocate_.

(1152)

=Freedom, Religious=--See LIBERTY, INDIVIDUAL.

=Freedom, The Appeal of=--See EARNESTNESS.

FREEDOM THROUGH DRILL

R. H. Haweis gives an experience that would be good for all learners:

He (Oury) taught me Rode’s Air in G--that beautiful melody
which has been, with its well-known variations, the _pièce de
résistance_ of so many generations of violinists and soprani. I
was drilled in every note, the bowing was rigidly fixt for me,
the whole piece was marked, bar by bar, with slur, _p_ and _f_,
_rall._ and _crescendo_. I was not allowed to depart a hair’s
breadth from rule. When I could do this easily and accurately,
Oury surprized me one day by saying:

“Now you can play it as you like; you need not attend to a
single mark!”

“How so?” I said.

“Don’t you see,” he said, “the marks don’t signify: that is
only one way of playing it. If you have any music in you, you
can play it in a dozen other ways. Now, I will make it equally
good,” and he took the violin and played it through, reversing
as nearly as possible all the _p’s_ and _f’s_, “bowing” the slur
and slurring the “bow,” and it sounded just as well. I never
forgot that lesson.

(1153)

=Free Will=--See WILL, THE.

FRICTION DISSIPATING FORCE

An English writer says:

Three or four years ago an attempt was made to supersede the
water-carts of London by laying down on each side of the road a
horizontal pipe, perforated with a row of holes opening toward
the horse-way. The water was to be turned on, and from these
holes it was to jet out to the middle of the road from each
side, and thus water it all. I watched the experiment made near
the Bank of England.

Instead of spouting across the road from all these holes, as
it should have done from any one of them, it merely dribbled;
the reason being that, in order to supply them all, the water
must run through the whole of the long pipe with considerable
velocity, and the viscosity and friction to be overcome in doing
this nearly exhausted the whole force of water-head pressure.
Many other similar blunders have been made by those who have
sought to convey water-power to a distance by means of a pipe of
such diameter as should demand a rapid flow through a long pipe.

This is a clear illustration of friction dissipating force. How much life force needed for constructive works of righteousness is wasted by mere friction.

(1154)

FRIEND, A TRUE

At a “home” in the country which the children of the slums are allowed to visit for a short time in the summer, the following incident occurred. A party of about one hundred youngsters was returning to the city. The attendant noticed that one of the girls, Rosie, was walking rather clumsily. This is the way the New York _Tribune_ tells the story:

When the attendant heard a chorus of gibes all aimed at little
Rosie, she saw that the girl was wearing a pair of shoes of
large size. Then the attendant remembered that Rosie had had a
new pair of shoes, and the little girl was asked about it.

“Well,” said Rosie, “you see, the shoes ain’t mine. They’re
Katie’s. I know they’re awful big, but her mama ain’t had any
work lately, so she couldn’t buy her a new pair. She just gave
her own shoes to Katie.

“Katie felt awful bad about it, and cried all the way to the
station. The girls all laughed at her. I just lent her my new
ones and took hers.

“You see, teacher,” said Rosie, raising her eyes to the
attendant’s face, “Katie’s my friend.”

(1155)

=Friend, The, of Animals=--See KINDNESS, THE POWER OF.

FRIEND, THE ORPHAN’S

Margaret Gaffney was given the name of the “Orphans’ Friend.”
She was an orphan left to the care of Welsh people who were
very poor. Charity was the very spring of her being. Having
lost her husband, her childless heart caused her to enter the
Paydros Orphan Asylum, for which she solicited stores, wheeling
them herself in a wheelbarrow when she had no other means of
conveyance. She built another orphan asylum, and started a dairy
to help its support. Later she established a bakery. She would
not indulge herself in anything unnecessary because there “was
so much suffering in the world.” New Orleans owes to this poor,
ignorant woman her three largest homes for children, which are
for orphans, black or white, irrespective of denomination.
When the Fourth Louisiana Regiment was taken captive to New
Orleans, Margaret went to the fort with a load of bread, and
when ordered to halt, she replied, “What for?” When challenged,
she jumped out of the wagon, grabbed the sentinel in her arms,
and forcibly set him out of her path, and amid the cheers of the
men, entered the fort with her baskets of bread. Whenever the
Mississippi overflowed, her boat, loaded with bread, went daily
to the submerged districts, feeding the needy. This poor woman
was followed to her grave by the entire municipal government,
merchants, professional men, and the children of eleven orphan
asylums, who uncovered their heads to Margaret, the first woman
in this country to be honored by the erection of a marble statue
to her memory.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(1156)

FRIEND, THE SYMPATHETIC

Angels are good companions for a crisis, but for every-day use
the warm, touchable, sympathetic friend is as necessary as
oxygen to the blood.--CAMDEN M. COBERN.

(1157)

FRIEND, VALUE OF A

“What is the secret of your life?” asked Mrs. Browning of
Charles Kingsley; “tell me, that I may make mine beautiful,
too.” He replied, “I had a friend.” Somewhere in her
“Middlemarch,” George Eliot puts it well: “There are natures in
which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of
baptism and consecration; they bind us over to rectitude and
purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become the
worst kind of sacrilege, which tears down the invisible altar of
trust.”--WILLIAM C. GANNETT.

(1158)

FRIENDLINESS

It is related of Alexander the Great, that he won the hearts
of his soldiers by calling them “his fellow footmen.” And of
Aristotle, the better to instruct his hearers, that he read not
to them--as other philosophers used to do--from a lofty seat,
but walking and talking with them familiarly, as with friends,
in Apollo’s porch; so he made them great philosophers. (Text.)

(1159)

=Friends and Foes Meet=--See AMITY AFTER WAR.

=Friends Cancelling Debt=--See KINDNESS.

FRIENDS, CHOICE OF

The following poem was written by His Majesty Mutsuhito, the Emperor of Japan, for the students at the Peeresses’ School of Tokyo. It is translated by Arthur Lloyd:

The water placed in goblet, bowl or cup
Changes its form to its receptacle;
And so our plastic souls take various shapes
And characters of good or ill, to fit
The good or evil in the friends we choose.
Therefore, be ever careful in your choice of friends,
And let your special love be given to those
Whose strength of character may prove the whip,
That drives you ever to fair wisdom’s goal.
(Text.)--_The Independent._

(1160)

=Friends in Heaven=--See HEAVEN, FRIENDS IN.

FRIENDS, KEEPING

Somebody once asked the famous Roman Atticus how he managed to keep his friends up to the end of his life. His simple reply was, “I never expected anything from them.”

It is difficult, no doubt to maintain during outbursts of
passion the serene indulgence peculiar to friendship, but
without attaining to the state of Atticus, who expected nothing,
where the desire to give much dominates a soul, the sting of
wounded vanity would not be felt in the flesh, for wounded
vanity would change its object, making it a matter of pride
to give, and not receive.--DORA MELEGARI, “Makers of
Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1161)

FRIENDSHIP

John Macy says in _The Atlantic Monthly_:

Poe lived, worked, and died in such intellectual solitude that
Griswold could write immediately after his death that he left
few friends. Tho at the height of his career in New York,
“between the appearance of ‘The Raven’ and the time when poverty
and illness claimed him irrevocably, he appears as a lion in
gatherings of the literati, yet it is asserted that among them
his only affectionate friends were two or three women.”

No brilliant fame can atone for the lack of true friendships.

(1162)

* * * * *

A young man who had left home to enter business, and who had
only a single acquaintance in the town where he was newly
employed, was arrested upon the charge of stealing a pocketbook
containing $1,000 from the desk of a man whom he had called
upon in a business way the previous day. He was in a desperate
plight, for circumstances were strongly against him. The man
stated that he had the pocketbook just a few minutes before
the young man came in, and upon looking for it immediately
afterward, it was gone, and nobody else had been in the room.
The young man’s only hope was in the establishment of a
previous good character, and he had no one to whom he could
at the moment apply. Not knowing what to do he sent for his
single acquaintance, and told him of his predicament and the
circumstances of the whole affair, and said, “Of course, you
have only my word that I did not take the pocketbook, but it
is the truth.” His acquaintance looked at him critically for a
few minutes, and then said, “No, I don’t believe you did take
it, and I am going to stand by you in this, and see that you
are cleared.” The new acquaintance immediately gave bail, and
told him to go back to work, and say nothing. Then he sent to
the home of the boy, and arranged to have some influential
men of the place come on at his own expense to testify to the
character of his friend, and upon the day of trial, secured his
honorable discharge. When asked why he did all this he replied,
“Why, I am your friend.” This was his idea of the meaning of a
friend.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(1163)

See KINDNESS.

=Friendship and Peace=--See PEACE PACT.

FRIENDSHIP, CONCEPTIONS OF

The Greek idea of friendship is represented by the figure of
a girl, with uncovered head; one hand on her heart, the other
resting on an elm struck by a thunderbolt, and about which a
vine, heavy with grapes, is entwined. Her dress was high and
close fitting, her attitude chaste. The Roman conception of
friendship was more complicated and modern. The girl’s dress
was cut _á la vierge_, her head crowned with myrtle and
pomegranate flowers; she held in her hand two hearts enchained.
On the fringe of her tunic was written, “Life and death”; on her
forehead were the words, “Summer and winter.” With her right
hand she pointed to her left side; exposed over heart and on
it was written, “From far and near.”--DORA MELEGARI,
“Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1164)

FRIENDSHIP, PERFECT

William Anderson tells us what true friendship is in this poem:

True friendship is a perfect, priceless gem.
Its greatest glory is its flawlessness.
My friends must give to me, as I to them,
Their best or nothing--I’ll accept no less.

I want the perfect music, or no song;
I want the perfect love, or none at all;
Right is not right when coupled with a wrong;
Sweet is not sweet when touched with taint of gall.

(1165)

FRIENDSHIP, SELFISH

The motives of some men in cultivating friendships may be compared to that of the foxes mentioned below:

To see a fox get round the farmer’s dogs, in order to make
friends with them, is one of the most astonishing revelations of
character. Usually the dogs seem hardly to know at first what to
make of his advances, but the fox is pretty certain to succeed
in bringing him to his side in the end, and after that they may
be seen playing together day after day.--WITMER STONE
and WILLIAM EVERETT CRAM, “American Animals.”

(1166)

FRIGHT

One of the numerous incidents connected with the Sicilian
earthquake was the escape of an artilleryman named Gashane
Valente at Messina which was remarkable. A tidal-wave swept
him from inside the barracks out to sea, where a fishing boat
rescued him. He was landed near Messina, and ran without
stopping eleven hours, reaching Acireale, fifty-five miles away.
Terror gave him the necessary endurance.

(1167)

=Frowns=--See SMILES AND FROWNS.

=Fructification, Spiritual=--See LIFE, NEW, FROM GOD.

FRUIT AND SOIL

A choice variety of plum was purchased and set out in a
certain garden. When the tree came to maturity, to the keen
disappointment of the owner, there was no fruit on its branches.
Investigation showed that the fault was not in the tree. The
land in which it was planted proved to be barren and lacking in
proper nourishment.

A tree growing in poor soil can not bear, because it requires
all the strength it can extract from the soil to barely sustain
its life. It takes all the virtue there is in the soil to
support the head and foliage so that the fruit is literally
starved out.

There are church-members who branch into Christian profession but who are rooted in the world. Such will bring forth nothing but leaves. (Text.)

(1168)

FRUIT-BEARING

Suppose the tree should say: “My roots are strong, my boughs
elastic and tough, firm against the stroke of wind and storm.
Look at my bark, how smooth and fresh; and where is there a
tree whose tides of sap are fuller or richer? What leaves,
too, are these that I have woven out of the threads of sun and
soil! Little wonder that the birds build nests in my branches,
while the cattle find shade beneath my boughs.” Well, this
is a good argument--for an apple-tree--but a poor one for a
man. The hungry farmer-boy does not leap the fence on his way
to the apple-tree looking for apple-sap or apple-boughs or
apple-leaves--he is looking for apples. And God has built this
world, not for the root moralities that support man. Industry
is good--it is good not to lie and not to steal, and not to
kill and not to perjure, but these beginnings are fundamental
only, the man must go on from the leaf to the fruit. The
fruit is truth in the inner parts, justice, measured by God’s
standard, and mercy that tempers justice, love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith that trusts, and
will not be confounded. (Text.)--N. D. HILLIS.

(1169)

FRUIT LIKE THE TREE

Tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and tho I give my
body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
In so giving and so doing, I would be acting merely in a way
analogous to the jackdaw that would expect to be turned into
a peacock by sticking a few peacock’s feathers into its black
coat. This maneuver would not convert the jackdaw into a
peacock; it would be still a jackdaw even after it had covered
itself all over with peacock’s feathers. Let it first turn,
if possible, into a peacock, and then peacock’s feathers
will grow naturally upon it; its black coat will then soon
be radically changed. To adopt the simile of our Lord, first
make the tree good, and then its fruit will be good; you can
not produce heaven’s fruit until the tree be first planted in
heaven.--ALEXANDER MILLER, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

(1170)

FRUITFULNESS

The chayote is in many particulars the most remarkable plant in
the vegetable kingdom. It is entirely immune from fungi, and
is the only plant known which insects do not attack. Altho it
bears fruit, it is a vine. Its growth is surprizingly rapid. It
is a perennial and clambers about, clings to and covers fence,
barn, tallest tree--anything. It will often bear as many as five
hundred fruits, some of them weighing no less than three pounds.
It blossoms and ripens fruit every month in the year. It is
palatable and nutritious. Its flowers are rich in nectar and a
prolific source of honey. (Text.)

(1171)

=Fruits, First=--See FIRST FRUITS.

FULFILMENT DISAPPOINTING

It is the way with all ambitions not to satisfy when they are achieved. Here is a poem by Grantland Rice teaching this truth:

The little boy smiled in his sleep that night,
As he wandered to Twilight Town;
And his face lit up with a heavenly light
Through the shadows that drifted down;
But he woke next morning with tear-stained eye
In the light of the gray dawn’s gleam,
And out from the stillness we heard him cry,
“I’ve lost my dream--my dream!”

And he told us then, in his childish way,
Of the wonderful dream he’d known,
He had wandered away from the land of play
To the distant Land of the Grown;
He had won his share of the fame and fight
In the struggle and toil of men;
And he sobbed and sighed in the breaking light,
“I want my dream again!”

As the years passed by the little boy grew
Till he came to the Land of the Grown;
And the dream of his early youth came true--
The dream that he thought had flown;
Yet once again he smiled in his sleep--
Smiled on till the gray dawn’s gleam
When those near by might have heard him weep:
“I want my dream--my dream!”

For he dreamed of the yesterdays of youth,
And the smile on a mother’s face;
A hearth of old-time faith and truth
In the light of an old home place;
He had won his share of the fame and fight
In the struggle and toil of men--
Yet he sobbed and sighed, in the breaking light:
“I want my dream again!”

--_The Tennesseean._

(1172)

FULNESS, CHRIST’S

The late Charles Cuthbert Hall said:

I recall the wonder and delight with which I saw the ocean
tide come up the Bay of Fundy and fill the empty river-bed.
Through the hours of the ebb, the Nova Scotian rivers dwindled
and shrank within their banks. Broad and barren reaches of
sand exposed themselves; ships listed heavily on their sides,
deserted by the feeble stream trickling in mid-channel. Then
came the tide up the Bay of Fundy, up from the abundance of
the unfathomable sea. You could hear it coming with a distant
sound of motion and life and unmeasured power. You could see
it coming, with a pure white girdle of foam, that looked in
sunlight like a zone of fire. It entered the river-bed; it
filled the empty channel as one fills a pitcher at the fountain;
it covered the barren sands with motion and sparkling life;
it lifted the heavy ships, gave back to them their rights of
buoyancy, set them free upon the broad water-way of world-wide
opportunity; it changed the very face of the land from sadness
and apathy and dulness to animation and color and glittering
activity. So Christ comes into empty human lives, and fills
them with His fulness, which is the very fulness of God. The
difference between a life without Christ and a life with Christ
is the difference between ebb and flood: the one is growing
emptier, the other is growing fuller.

(1173)

FUNCTIONS AND GIFTS IN THE EAST

The function in the non-Christian world must be regarded,
because there etiquette and propriety are on dress parade.
Presents are another difficulty. Be sure to look into this
matter, and do not think that you are doing all that is required
when you send a present. You have to be very particular about
the number of presents, about the manner in which they are
wrapt, about their proper delivering, etc. Receiving gifts is
quite as serious a problem to the person who desires to rank as
polite, as is the making of presents.--H. P. BEACH,
“Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1174)

FUNDAMENTALS

Every life is dominated by a fundamental note, good or bad. All its overtones will ultimately correspond.

The wires strung from pole to pole are set into oscillation
by the wind, somewhat as the strings of a violin are set into
vibration by the bow. In skilful hands the violin bow can be
made to bring forth from the string one powerful fundamental
note and several overtones of higher pitch, but in perfect
harmony with the fundamental. But the wind is a very skilful
performer, and brings forth at the same time not only the
deepest fundamental bass note of the wire, but a great variety
of overtones, both harmonious and discordant. In fact, the many
wires strung overhead, from pole to pole, constitute splendid
Eolian harps.--_Telephony._

(1175)

See VITAL FAITHS.

FURY INCREASING STRENGTH