Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (5)

A splendid, clean-looking young man was under examination
and Mr. Fitzhugh, of Memphis, of the prosecution, got to the
point of asking him which newspapers he had read at the time
of the Carmack killing. The talesman had testified that he
was thirty-one years old, a farmer, and the father of three
children. His answers had been bright and his face sparkled with
intelligence. But he hesitated when the interrogation concerning
the newspapers was put to him.

“I haven’t read any about it in the newspapers. We don’t take
any newspapers in our house. I--I kain’t read and I kain’t
write, but I can farm. I never got the show to go to school but
two or three days in all my life.”

A blush mantled his cheeks and for an instant there was a
glistening in his eyes, then, throwing back his head, he left
the witness-stand and marched out of the court-room, his
expression of defiance silencing the laughter of the unthinking
ones in the crowd. And this was only one of more than a score
of examples of illiteracy.

How many a life is thus handicapped. It is not a commendation of parenthood that the child should thus be distinguished against in this age of widespread learning. On the other hand, all honor is to be given to the man who through diligent application in after life is able to surmount the difficulty of scanty knowledge.

(1498)

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

It is sometimes best not to alarm persons in peril by revealing the danger, as is illustrated by the Rev. Asa Bullard in the following incident:

On our way down the Ohio River one day, in a thunder-shower, my
brother requested me to remind him on reaching Cincinnati to
reveal a secret to me. That secret was, as I learned on reaching
the city, that we were then sitting directly over several
casks, not of whisky, but of gunpowder! He was acquainted with
some of the officials of the steamer, and tho it was unlawful
to carry that article on the boat, they had told him of the
fact. When asked why he had seated himself in such a dangerous
place, his reply was that “if the boat should be struck by
lightning, or if for any cause the powder should be exploded, we
were probably as safe there as we should be in any part of the
steamer.”--“Incidents in a Busy Life.”

(1499)

=Ignorance Mystified=--See ENLIGHTENMENT.

=Ignorance of Money=--See MONEY, IGNORANCE OF.

IGNORANCE OF ORIGIN AND DESTINY

We know no more of our beginning and end, of what preceded
the one and will round off the other, than King Alfred did.
“Our life,” said he to his nobles one evening, as they were
sitting beside the great fireplace, “is something that is
bounded by impenetrable obscurity. A little bird flies from
the darkness of the outside night into the brightness of this
room, flutters a minute or two in the warmth and light, and then
flies through the opposite window into the night once more.”
Nearly two thousand years have gone by since Alfred delivered
himself of this fable, but the centuries have brought us no new
wisdom.--San Francisco _Chronicle_.

(1500)

See UNKNOWN REALITIES.

IGNORANCE, PALLIATIONS OF

In “Gloria Christi,” we read the following:

The change in methods inaugurated by modern medicine in Syria
is shown by an anecdote. It is said that once when Dr. Jesup
was visiting Beirut, a native doctor asked him for an American
newspaper. He secured it, and some days after came back for
another. “What do you do with them?” asked Mr. Jesup. “Oh,” he
said, “I tear them in pieces, soak them in water, and feed them
in oil to my patients. It cures them all right!”

The palliatives of ignorance everywhere abound. As they are in medicine, so they are in morals.

(1501)

IGNORANCE, THE COST OF

The tree-butcher ruined many valuable shade-trees last fall
(1909) and it is hoped that he will find steady employment at
some other kind of work before spring arrives. Shade-trees
are usually pruned by some one temporarily out of employment.
His only qualification is the possession of an ax and saw. He
needs work, so he finds some property owner who has some nice
shade-trees and importunes him to have them cut back. The owner
consents. The axman is to receive so much for the job and the
wood the limbs make. The workingman at once sees that it is to
his advantage to cut the limbs off close to the trunk of the
tree, because he can complete the job quicker with no dangerous
climbing, and by so doing he gets more wood. Consequently, the
tree is ruined. Shade-trees should be trimmed up when young, so
the top will be at least twelve feet above the walk. After this
all that is necessary is to cut out the dead and superfluous
branches.--CHARLES C. DEAM, Secretary Board of Forestry.

(1502)

ILLITERACY

While a policeman was covering his beat near Delaware Avenue and
Dickinson Street, says the Philadelphia _Times_, he came
across a dead dog.

Taking out his book and pencil, he wrote the following:

“Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Dick----” and stopt.

Picking up the dog by its tail, the policeman carried it to
Tasker Street, where he dropt it. Here he took his pencil and
book out again and wrote:

“Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Tasker Street.”

A passer-by asked the policeman what made him carry the dog to
Tasker Street, to which he replied:

“Well, I couldn’t spell Dickinson, so I took the cur a square
down to an easier street.”

(1503)

ILL-FORTUNE BECOMING GOOD-FORTUNE

An Australian miner had reached the very last of his resources
without finding a speck of gold, and there was nothing for
him to do but to turn back on the morrow, while a mouthful of
food was left, and retrace his steps as best he might do to
the nearest port. He flung down his tools in despair that last
night, and staggered over the two or three miles of desert to
the camp-fire. Next morning, early, after a great deal of sleep
and very little food, he braced himself up to go back for his
tools, knowing that they might bring the price of a meal or two
when it came to the last. As he stumbled back that hot morning
the way seemed very long, for his heart was too heavy to carry.
At last he saw his wheelbarrow and pick standing upon the flat
plain a little way off, and was wearily dragging on toward them,
when he caught his toe against a stone deeply embedded in the
sand, and fell down. This was the last straw that broke the
camel’s back. He lay there and curst his luck bitterly, to think
that he should nearly break his toe against the only stone in
the whole district after all his failure to find gold. He felt
like a passionate child who kicks and breaks the thing which has
hurt him, and he had to beat that stone before he could feel
quiet. It was too firm in the sand for his hands to get it up;
so in his rage he dug it up with his pick, intending to smash
it; but it would not smash, for it was solid gold, and nearly as
big as a baby’s head. (Text.)--LOUIS ALBERT BANKS.

(1504)

ILL LUCK

There was a man during the reign of Kaiser Otho, who wore puffed breeches. Puffed breeches then were filled with flour, and when the wearer of the breeches sat down on a seat he sat down on a nail, and the nail tore the breeches and the rent emitted three pecks of flour. Why he should have sat down at that particular time, and in that particular place, is a mystery; and why there should have been a nail there, is to me an inscrutable mystery; but there is the fact, and the sufferer I consider an ill-used man.--GEORGE DAWSON.

(1505)

ILL-PAID WORK

Generally, good, useful work, whether of the hand or head, is
either ill-paid, or not paid at all. I don’t say it should be
so, but it always is so. People, as a rule, only pay for being
amused or being cheated, not for being served. Five thousand
a year to your talker, and a shilling a day to your fighter,
digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the best head work in
art, literature, or science is ever paid for. How much do you
think Homer got for his “Iliad?” or Dante for his “Paradise?”
Only bitter bread and salt, and going up and down other people’s
stairs. In science, the man who discovered the telescope, and
first saw heaven, was paid with a dungeon; the man who invented
the microscope, and first saw earth, died of starvation, driven
from his home. Baruch, the scribe, did not get a penny a line
for writing Jeremiah’s second roll for him, I fancy; and St.
Stephen did not get bishop’s pay for that long sermon of his
to the Pharisees; nothing but stones. For, indeed, that is the
world-father’s proper payment.--JOHN RUSKIN.

(1506)

ILLUMINATION

The _Railway and Locomotive Engineering_ says:

Some of the principal requirements of a locomotive headlight are
that the light from it shall be powerful enough to illuminate
the track far enough ahead to permit of an emergency stop;
that the light shall not be so brilliant as to cause temporary
blindness or bewilderment in those upon whom it falls; that in
the matter of signal observance it must not alter or modify the
colors of the lesser lights which come into its field, and that
it shall be as effective a form of light as can be devised for
foggy or snowy weather.

(1507)

When Moses returned from communion with God his face shone so brightly that a veil was needed. There was another transfiguration which is the result not of glory reflected but of grace transfused. “Be ye transformed (lit. transfigured) by the renewing of your mind,” says the apostle.

The visitor to the beautiful church of St. Paul without the
walls at Rome is sure to be asked by the sacristans to notice
the wonderful columns of pure alabaster which are among the
splendors of that edifice. The guide brings a lighted taper
which he places behind one of these massive pillars. The
translucent alabaster immediately glows with the light that
seems to play all through it with lambent effulgence. The solid
mass glorifies the flame, as the flame illumines the solid
substance. (Text.)

(1508)

See LIGHT.

ILLUSION, SPIRITUAL

Worldly men on first coming into the spiritual life often misjudge the values and dimensions of Christian realities. Only long Christian experience enables men to get the right perspective of Christian realities.

If you have always lived in valleys or near the sea level, then
you have always been viewing distant objects through a dusty or
vaporous atmosphere. If you should go to a mountainous region
or an elevated plateau, you would suffer great illusion as to
distances. As you would still have the mental standards of the
lowlands, very distant objects would seem to be quite near.
You would travel all day to reach a mountain that seems but an
hour’s walk away.

(1509)

ILLUSIONS, MORAL

A celebrated naturalist tells us that one day he saw a bird
drowning in a lake, and he felt sure that the bird had mistaken
the water for the sky; it was a bright, transparent day, the
clear, calm lake reflected the sky and the whole landscape in
its depths, and the bird, not discerning that the world below
it was a world of shadows, was betrayed to its doom. So all
the glories of the upper world appear inverted in the world
of evil. The lofty, the pure, the beautiful, the bright, are
all seductively reflected in the depths of Satan; they are
exaggerated there, they are seen in surpassing magnitude and
splendor; error seems some nobler truth, disobedience some
larger liberty, forbidden things seem the sweetest flowers and
mellowest fruits of paradise.--W. L. WATKINSON, “The
Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1510)

ILLUSIONS, OPTICAL

On the chalk downs of Wiltshire, in sight of the town of
Westbury, there appears a great white horse, which presumably
marks the sight of one of the battles between Alfred the Great
and the Danes. As you look at that white horse upon the hill
from the road approaching it it is perfectly drawn--it is so
accurate that I doubt if any painter of a horse could improve
upon it; but some time ago when I was in that neighborhood, I
went up to the white horse to see it on the spot. There I found
that this cutting in the green turf which revealed the chalk
below was so extensive that if I walked round the outline, I
could cover about a mile, and the shape as it lay along the
slope of the hill had no resemblance to a horse whatever. Like
the long shadows cast by the setting sun, its sprawling limbs
went down the hill, and were so much greater than the width of
the body that you could not have told in walking over it that
the artist--for an artist he was--who designed it could possibly
intend to be drawing a horse; that perfect horse upon the
hillside, to the traveler approaching from Westbury, appeared
to have no existence at all--it was a great perspective drawing
upon the hill, which, when seen close at hand, did not even
suggest a horse’s form. Taking that as an illustration, does it
not often strike you how the whole pageant of earth and sky,
which delights our eye, is just as unreal as the scenery of the
stage? Those clouds that drape the setting sun, and form lofty
mountains and shimmering seas, making a landscape in the sky so
beautiful that no painter on earth could reproduce it; those
clouds that charm us with their beauty, if we were in the midst
of them, would be merely like the drenching rain of an April
day, without beauty, without charm. And those starry heavens
which are to us all of the earth a subject of endless delight
because of their beauty and their incomparable grandeur, are
not in the least what they appear.--ROBERT F. HORTON,
_Christian World Pulpit_.

(1511)

* * * * *

The other day I came across the letter which Galileo wrote to
Kepler, when he was afraid to publish the discoveries which had
been made by the first telescope, and he uses this extraordinary
language: “Fearing the fate of our master Copernicus, who, altho
he has earned immortal fame among a few, yet, by an infinite
number, so only can the number of fools be measured, is hissed
and derided.” It was a peril in the seventeenth century even
to say what those starry heavens are. They have no relation
at all to the objects that we see. That little group of the
Pleiades, which look like fireflies hung in a net in the sky,
in which a very keen eye can perceive seven distinct stars, is
really a group of between 400 and 500 suns, many of them larger
than our own. And that genial sun himself, whose light we love,
which gives to our planet its life, its warmth and its joy--if
we could approach it would terrify us the more we approached
it--a mighty mass of incandescent matter so awful that the
imagination dare hardly entertain the reality of what it is. It
may be said, however, that while these distant objects of the
universe possibly mislead us, our eyes at any rate can trust the
things which are close at hand. But that is quite a delusion,
too. The matter which is close at hand, and which our fathers
thirty years ago treated as the one certainty in the world, is
a complete illusion. I took up in my hand some time ago a few
grains of dried mud from a river-bed. To all appearance they
were like grains of gunpowder, but they were put under the
microscope, and there to my amazement every one of these tiny
grains was a shell, as beautiful and as perfect in form as a
nautilus sailing upon the sea. Not only does the matter we see
delude us, but the delusion is greater from the fact of what we
do not see. Now, the physicist seriously tells us he is using
the strict language of science, and not the language of a fairy
tale, when he says that all the matter we touch, including our
own bodies, is made up of molecules, and the molecule is made
up of atoms, an atom far too minute for the eye to see; and yet
that atom, of which all matter is built up, is itself composed
of electrons, so minute that they dart with inconceivable
velocity from end to end of that tiny atom like a mouse in a
great cathedral--such is the proportion of the electron to
the atom.--ROBERT F. HORTON, _The Christian World
Pulpit_.

(1512)

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CANDLES

Mr. Spurgeon had occasion, some time ago, says the Hartford _Courant_, to speak to a company of theological students on the importance of using illustrations in preaching.

A student observed that they found it difficult to get
illustrations, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon remarked that
illustrations enough might be found in a tallow candle. This
was regarded as an extravagance of speech, whereupon the great
preacher prepared a lecture to show what might be illustrated by
candles. In delivering his lecture he used candles of various
sizes and colors, together with lanterns and other suitable
apparatus. A nicely japanned but shut-up box filled with fine
unused candles illustrated an idle and spiritless church.
Several colossal and highly-colored but unlit candles were
shown, and with them a tiny rushlight shining as best it could.
The big, handsome, unlit candles might be archbishops or doctors
of divinity, or other persons of culture without piety, and the
bright rushlight might be some poor boy in a workshop whose
life is beautiful. Mr. Spurgeon showed an unlighted candle in
a splendid silver candlestick, and then a brightly burning one
stuck in a ginger-beer bottle. He showed what a few people might
do by combining their good efforts, by exhibiting the combined
light of twelve candles. The folly of trying to light a candle
with the extinguisher still on was shown, and the dark-lantern
illustrated the care of people who make no effort to let their
light shine before men. The lecturer then placed a candle under
a bushel, and afterward placed the bushel-measure under the
candle--the point of which was obvious. In snuffing a candle he
extinguished it, and remarked that Christians often did a like
mischief by unwise rebukes and criticisms. The folly of burning
the candle at both ends was illustrated. The last illustration
was a number of lighted candles of various hues placed together
on one stand, representing the Church’s true diversity in unity,
all the different branches burning from one stem, and for one
purpose. Some one in the audience asked if the “dips” did not
give the best light, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon said he was not sure
of that, and thought many of the “dips” would be the better for
another dipping.

The man of genius can find illustrations in common things--sermons in stones or in candles. Every preacher should work these mines of natural analogies.

(1513)

ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING

A good illustration is the most powerful “motor” ever invented;
it will drag a whole congregation which has drifted into
infinite space back again to earth in a twinkling. It comes
like a sweet sea-breeze blowing in through the church windows
on a hot Sunday, and relaxing the feverish tension of crowded
worship.--MACKAY SMITH, _Harper’s Magazine_.

(1514)

ILLUSTRATIONS, STRIKING

Colonel Zell, at the time when Grant was up for the Presidency,
and when the Democratic watchword was, “Anything to beat Grant,”
was addressing an enthusiastic meeting of Republicans, when
a Democrat sang out, “It’s easy talkin’, colonel; but we’ll
show you something next fall.” The colonel was a great admirer
of Grant. He at once wheeled about and with uplifted hands,
hair bristling, and eyes flashing fire, cried out: “Build a
worm-fence ’round a winter supply of summer weather; catch a
thunderbolt in a bladder; break a hurricane to harness; hang
out the ocean on a grapevine to dry; but never, sir, never
for a moment delude yourself with the idea that you can beat
Grant.”--_Chambers’s Journal._

(1515)

=Image in the Soul=--See RESTORING GOD’S IMAGE.

IMAGE OF GOD REPRODUCED

Star photography is one of the most refined and delicate of the
arts of modern science. Two factors enter into the production
of the photo. It is the star which makes the picture, but the
artist-astronomer is essential also. He has to expose the
sensitive plate and to direct the telescope to the star, and the
star by its light does the rest.

So when the gaze of the soul is set on God, He reproduces His own likeness by His own light. It is ours to point the telescope; His to paint the picture. (Text.)

(1516)

=Imagery=--See EVANGELIZATION.

IMAGERY OF THE MIND

Thought is an artist painting its pictures on the mind, so
producing its imagery on the walls of one’s immortal nature.
If evil, the mind becomes a mystic shrine painted with such
figures as were found in some of the chambers of Pompeii, where
excavators had to cover up the pictures because they were so
foul. If good, the mind is like the cells in the convent of San
Marco, at Florence, where Fra Angelico’s holy genius had painted
on the bare walls angel imaginings and celestial faces. (Text.)

(1517)

IMAGINATION

Pure and noble imaginings become a power for good. A healthy
imagination is a well-spring of pure pleasure, and by reading
and keeping our eyes open to the world we store our minds with
pictures which will in after life bring great satisfaction.
George William Curtis says: “One man goes 4,000 miles to see
Italy, and does not see it, he is so short-sighted. Another is
so far-sighted that he stays in his room, and sees more than
Italy.” We should train our observing faculties to see all of
the beauty that lies about us, even to those finer tints, which
it is said only the artist’s eye discerns--“the light that
never was on sea or land.”--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character
Lessons.”

(1518)

See DREAMS; PANIC THROUGH FEAR.

IMAGINATION CAUSING DEATH

The _British and Colonial Druggist_ discust the death of a
young woman at Hackney under circumstances in which a certain
insect powder largely figured. As the powder appeared by Dr.
Tidy’s experiment to be perfectly harmless, the suggestion
was not unnaturally made that the deceased, who was possibly
of a hysterical, highly imaginative turn of mind, took the
powder in the full belief that by its means her death might
be accomplished. The writer of the article, we think wrongly,
brings forward two remarkable instances of what may be regarded
as practical jokes with melancholy terminations. In the case of
the convict delivered up to the scientist for the purpose of a
psychological experiment (the man was strapped to a table and
blindfolded, ostensibly to be bled to death; a siphon containing
water was placed near his head and the fluid was allowed to
trickle audibly into a vessel below it, at the same time that a
trifling scratch with a needle was inflicted on the culprit’s
neck; it is said that death occurred at the end of six minutes),
fear must have played no inconsiderable share in the fatal
result, and we do not know whether all the vital organs were in
a sound condition, tho they were presumably so. The old story of
the case of a college porter is also one in point. The students
entrapt him into a room at night, a mock inquiry was held, and
the punishment of death by decapitation decreed for his want
of consideration to the students. It is small wonder that,
under the dominion of fear and belief in the earnestness of his
tormentors, the sight of an ax and a block, with subsequent
blindfolding and necessary genuflexion, a smart rap with a wet
towel on the back of his neck should have been followed by the
picking up of a corpse.--_Lancet._

(1519)

* * * * *

A Sioux Indian, who had lost a relative by death, vowed to
kill the first living thing he met. This was once not an
uncommon practise among our Indians. Issuing from his lodge,
he chanced to meet a missionary--a man much beloved by all,
from whom this Indian had received many favors. Unwilling, but
bound by his vow, he shot his benefactor as he passed. Indian
usage did not sanction a bloody retribution on the murderer,
since the obligation of his vow was recognized by all. The
shaman, however, upbraided him for his act, and pronounced his
doom, saying: “You will die within the year.” The Indian, tho
apparently a well man at the time, was seized by a wasting
disease, and actually did die within the specified time,
a victim to his own superstitious imagination.--H. W.
HENSHAW, _The Youth’s Companion_.

(1520)

IMAGINATION, LURE OF

A certain legend relates that one of the Piscayan mountains is
accurst, and that Satan dwells there. The grass is withered, a
sinister hue rests upon everything, the sounds are mournful, the
mountain stands a dark fantom in the midst of bedecked nature.
But this is not the method of evil. The mountain up which the
devil took our Master, and up which he takes us, is bathed in
purple; in its rocks gleam jewels, its dust is the dust of gold,
in its clefts spring flowers, and from its crest is seen the
vision of kingdoms and the glory of them. Things, principles,
maxims, amusements, relationships, creeds, ideals, utterly base
and vile, are through the power of imagination purged into the
lily’s whiteness, perfumed with the violet, steeped in the color
of the rose. We are never invited to sin; the things which
have ruined generations are prest upon us as nature, freedom,
spirit, knowledge, gallantry, beauty, love, and we are deceived
through the legerdemain of passion and fancy. (Text.)--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1521)

IMITATION

Some men try to imitate good character as precious stones are imitated, according to this description:

The trade in artificial precious stones has become quite
important, and the manufacture of them has reached a
considerable degree of perfection. The products of some of the
shops would almost deceive an expert, but the test of hardness
is still infallible. The beautiful “French paste,” from which
imitation diamonds are made, is a kind of glass with a mixture
of oxide of lead. The more of the latter the brighter the stone,
but also the softer, and this is a serious defect. The imitation
stones are now so perfectly made and are so satisfactory to
those who are not very particular, that their influence begins
to be felt in the market for real stones. By careful selection
of the ingredients and skill and attention in manipulation,
the luster, color, fire and water of the choicest stones are,
to the eyes of laymen, fully reproduced.--_Popular Science
Monthly._

(1522)

* * * * *

Imitation, as we see it in man, seems to extend over a wider
range of action and production than in any other animal. It
is not confined, as in the monkeys, to the production of like
attitudes or bodily acts; it is not confined, as in the birds,
to the imitation of sounds; it includes all alike, and is
characterized, furthermore, by conscious pleasure in the doing.
Every one who has observed children knows the keen delight with
which they first perceive the likeness between two things; that
to recognize in a picture a thing which they have actually seen
is a distinct enjoyment; that in the same way the second telling
of a story, or the second playing of a game, seems to give an
additional and independent pleasure to the child. And so with
ignorant people when they look at pictures, the great, if not
the only source of pleasure seems to be the detecting of the
likeness to something they know. After the artists of Greece
and Rome had reached their highest levels and done their best
work, the critic of art found in the exactness of the likeness
one of the highest, perhaps the highest element of excellence.
The birds that flew to the grapes of Zeuxis, the horse that
neighed to the painted horse of Apelles, the painted curtain of
Parasius that deceived Zeuxis himself--these seemed to Pliny,
and, I suppose, to the ancient world generally, to be the
highest tributes to the excellence of the artists.--Lord Justice
FRY, _Contemporary Review_.

(1523)

Our evil deeds as well as our good ones will be imitated, often to our own undoing as in the following incident:

The _Green Bag_ tells of an experience which Nathaniel
Whitmore, a prominent Maine lawyer, had with a student who was
graduated from his office. When Mr. Whitmore was past sixty this
young man started practise in a neighboring town; and the older
lawyer gave him charge, as agent, of certain property situated
in the town where his former clerk was practising. Everything
was drawn up in legal form, and the young man fulfilled his
duties most satisfactorily. The rents came regularly, together
with full accounts of repairs, which were much less than
formerly; tenants were satisfied; the property never paid so
well before, and Mr. Whitmore was well pleased. Then came a
brief letter stating that the property had been sold for taxes.
Dumfounded, Mr. Whitmore hastened to his agent to demand what
this meant. “How does this happen that I am sold out for taxes?”
he asked. “There was nothing in the agreement about taxes,”
explained the young man, handing to his former client the signed
agreement. “Had taxes been mentioned, I should have paid them.”
“Who bought the houses?” the elder man asked, with a shade of
amusement in his tone, as a light began to dawn on his mind.
“I did,” replied the young man, modestly. “The devil you did!
Where did you learn that trick?” asked Mr. Whitmore, now fully
comprehending the situation. “In your office,” came the answer,
in the same modest voice. “I look out for a poor client, but a
rich lawyer can look out for himself.” The two men shook hands
and changed the subject.

(1524)

* * * * *

A beautiful statue once stood in the market-place of an Italian
city. It was the statue of a Greek slave-girl. It represented
the slave as tidy and well drest. A ragged, uncombed little
street child, coming across the statue in her play, stopt and
gazed at it in admiration. She was captivated by it. She gazed
long and lovingly. Moved by a sudden impulse, she went home and
washed her face and combed her hair. Another day she stopt again
before the statue and admired it, and she got a new idea. Next
day her tattered clothes were washed and mended. Each time she
looked at the statue she found something in its beauties until
she was a transformed child.

The history of the Christian religion has been a continuous record of men transformed by contemplation of the great Example. (Text.)

(1525)

See CHRIST INVITING MEN; EXAMPLE, POWER OF.

IMITATION DISAPPROVED

It is no use to try to get another man’s style, or to imitate
the wit or the mannerisms of another writer. The late Mr.
Carlyle, for example, did, in my judgment, a considerable
mischief in his day because he led everybody to write after the
style of his “French Revolution,” and it became pretty tedious.
They got over it after a time, however. But it was not a good
thing. Let every man write in his own style, taking care only
not to be led into any affectation, but to be perfectly clear,
perfectly simple.--CHARLES A. DANA.

(1526)

IMITATION OF GOD

For the Father of all sends sun and rain
On the good and ill and shows that we,
If we would his perfect children be,
Must love not only the good and kind,
Must teach not only the true and wise,
But patience must open the eyes of the blind
And love must conquer her enemies.
(Text.)--CHARLES WILLIAM PEARSON,
“A Threefold Cord.”

(1527)

IMITATION OF NATURE

How far the manual and technical arts of human life owe their
suggestion and origin to imitation is a point which, so far as
I know, has not been fully considered. That the first canoe
was made in imitation of a rotten tree which had served as
a ferry-boat; that the first pillar was constructed in the
likeness of an erect tree; that the Gothic arch was made to
represent the overreaching boughs in some forest glade; that
the triglyph in the Doric frieze represents the ends of the
cross-beams which rested on the architrave--all this seems very
probable, and suggests that further investigation might show
that to a great degree imitation of the objects of nature, or of
earlier structures, underlies all the various arts and products
of human labor.--Lord Justice FRY, _Contemporary
Review_.

(1528)

See NATURE A MODEL.

IMMANENCE OF GOD

But where shall we look for the highest, the most complete and
perfect revelation of God that the human mind is capable of
grasping? Grant the truth there is in all the symbols which the
imagination of men has produced. The earth is like the little
ball you can hold in your hand. The solar system is like the
revolving electric lights in the Museum of Natural History. The
infinite and eternal energy is like the sun radiating light
and heat and life upon the earth. He is like the flaming fire
which consumes the evil and purifies the good. He is like the
wind and like the ocean and like the most beautiful statue that
art can produce. More than that. God is not only like all these
symbols; He is in the symbols. God is in the solar system, the
very life and soul of the universe. God is in the fire that
consumes and purifies. God is in the flower and the bird and the
beast.--FRANK O. HALL.

(1529)

* * * * *

The immanence of God is illustrated in these lines from an unidentified source:

“Oh, where is the sea?” the fishes cried,
As they swam the crystal clearness through.
“We’ve heard from of old of the ocean’s tide,
And we long to look on the waters blue.
The wise ones speak of an infinite sea,
Oh, who can tell us if such there be?”
The lark flew up in the morning bright,
And sung and balanced on sunny wings;
And this was its song: “I see the light,
I look on a world of beautiful things;
But flying and singing everywhere,
In vain I have searched to find the air.”

(1530)

=Immensity of Space Reveals God=--See CONVERTED BY THE COMET.

=Immigrant Savings=--See PROSPERITY AS AN ADVERTISEMENT.

IMMIGRATION

There is an ominous side to immigration, but there are alleviating facts. One of these was thus referred to by Bishop Warren of the Methodist Episcopal Church:

A while ago I was in a small country village in New England. For
the first time in my life I looked upon a Methodist Episcopal
church, once filled with happy worshipers, but now closed and
abandoned. The population of the entire township was declining,
and tho a few of the last remaining Methodists had added their
help to the older and stronger Congregational church, even this
was looking into the future with fear and trembling. Many of
the native stock had died or moved away, and “foreigners were
creeping in.” I got a boy to guide me to where one of these
foreigners--a Finlander--lived. It was a neatly painted home,
with a fine garden and an acre of land, all paid for, and
occupied by the Finn and his son. All the foreigners in the
village were Finns and there were of them just six men and four
women. Of the latter, two were wives of two of the men and two
were young women serving in American families. And what sort
of people were they? One of the six men, I was told, was a lay
preacher and, as Sunday services were a long way off and quite
irregular, this little homeless community of ten dreaded and
shunned immigrants were maintaining a weekly prayer-meeting!
(Text.)

(1531)

* * * * *

The total immigration to the United States for 1909 was 751,786.
The net gain in foreign population was 718,433. The comparative
immigration from the leading countries of the world for three
years is shown in the following table:

-----------------------+---------+---------+--------
RACE OR PEOPLE | 1909 | 1908 | 1907
-----------------------+---------+---------+--------
Italians, North-South | 190,398 | 135,247 | 294,061
Polish | 77,565 | 68,105 | 138,033
German | 58,534 | 73,038 | 92,936
Hebrew | 57,551 | 103,387 | 149,182
English | 39,021 | 49,056 | 51,126
Scandinavian | 34,996 | 32,789 | 53,425
Irish | 31,185 | 36,427 | 38,706
Magyar | 28,704 | 24,378 | 60,071
Slovak | 22,586 | 16,170 | 42,041
Greek | 20,262 | 28,808 | 46,283
Croatian and Slovanian | 20,181 | 20,472 | 47,826
French | 19,423 | 12,881 | 9,392
Scotch | 16,446 | 17,014 | 20,516
Ruthenian | 15,808 | 12,361 | 24,081
Mexican | 15,591 | 5,682 | 91
Lithuanian | 15,254 | 13,720 | 25,884
Finnish | 11,687 | 6,746 | 14,860
Russian | 10,038 | 17,111 | 16,807
Japanese | 3,275 | 16,418 | 30,824
-----------------------+---------+---------+--------

The reader sees at once that more immigrants came from Italy
than from any other country. In fact, the immigrants from
Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Scandinavia
numbered altogether 198,630, while those from Italy alone were
190,398. Of these Italian immigrants 25,150 (in 1908, 24,700 and
in 1907, 51,564) came from northern Italy and 165,248 (in 1908,
110,547 and in 1907, 242,497) from southern Italy.

Of the total 751,786 immigrants, 220,865 or 29.4 per cent.,
declared that the State of New York was their intended place
of residence (of Hebrews 60.2 per cent., of Italians 39.9 per
cent., of Poles 23.8 per cent.).

(1532)

IMMORTALITY

The heart of man hears the call and feels the attraction of life
beyond, as the woodland brook hears the call of the distant sea
and hastens on to meet it.

(1533)

* * * * *

The fadeless hope of everlasting life is thus exprest by St. John Adcock:

I, that had life ere I was born
Into this world of dark and light,
Waking as one who wakes at morn
From dreams of night.

I am as old as heaven and earth;
But sleep is death without decay,
And since each morn renews my birth
I am no older than the day.

Old tho my outward form appears,
Tho it at last outworn shall lie,
This that is servile to the years,
This is not I.

I, who outwear the form I take,
When I put off this garb of flesh,
Still in immortal youth shall wake
And somewhere clothe my life afresh.
(Text.)--_The Monthly Review._

(1534)

* * * * *

When the late Dr. Reese, of Swansea, preached the last time in
North Wales, a friend said to him--one of those who are always
reminding people that they are getting old: “You are whitening
fast, Dr. Reese.” The old gentleman did not say anything then,
but when he got to the pulpit he referred to it and said:
“There is a wee white flower that comes up through the earth
at this season of the year. Sometimes it comes up through the
snow and frost; but we are glad to see the snow-drop, because
it proclaims that the winter is over and that the summer is at
hand. A friend reminded me last night that I was whitening fast.
But heed not that, brother; it is to me proof that my winter
will soon be over; that I shall have done presently with the
cold east winds and the frosts of earth, and that my summer, my
eternal summer, is at hand.” (Text.)--VYRNWY MORGAN,
“The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(1535)

* * * * *

James T. White is the author of the following lines, entitled “A Sea Shell.” They appeared in the New York _Tribune_:

Imprisoned in the shell
Are echoes of the far-off ocean’s roar.
May not our hopes of immortality,
That deep within us dwell--
Instinctive to the soul, and more and more
Insistent to the heart--may not they be
Soul-echoes of the swell
That ceaseless beats on an eternal shore?

(1536)

IMMORTALITY, A SYMBOL OF

This apostrophe to a butterfly was written by Alice Freeman Palmer:

I hold you at last in my hand,
Exquisite child of the air;
Can I ever understand
How you grew to be so fair?

You came to this linden-tree
To taste its delicious sweet,
I sitting here in the shadow and shine
Playing around its feet.

Now I hold you fast in my hand,
You marvelous butterfly,
Till you help me to understand
The eternal mystery.

From that creeping thing in the dust
To this shining bliss in the blue!
God, give me courage to trust
I can break my chrysalis, too!

(1537)

IMMORTALITY, EVIDENCE OF

Man, who builds bridges, sails ships, fights battles for
liberty, erects cathedrals, writes hymns and prayers, founds
homes, is given a little handful of thirty or forty years. Nor
can the bulk of the elephant above man’s size ever explain the
two hundred years given to some Jumbo munching hay, or the
three thousand years given to some tree that is dead, inert and
voiceless. The architect builds a marble palace for centuries,
stores it with art treasures, that all the generations may
throng in and out, feeding the eye and feasting the hunger for
beauty, in form and color. But God spent millions of years upon
this body, fearfully and wonderfully made, storing the soul’s
temple with intellect, memory and judgment, with conscience,
affections and moral sentiments. And did He build this soul
that goes laughing, weeping, inventing, praying, through life,
for that goal named a black hole in the ground?--N. D.
HILLIS.

(1538)

IMMORTALITY, FEELING OF

Living on the surface of the earth sense impressions constrain
us to regard the earth as flat and still, and the sun and other
heavenly bodies as moving across the heavens above our heads.
But astronomers know that by long watching of the heavenly
bodies an observer comes often to feel the motion and sense the
rotundity of the earth.

So of the man who will live in the spiritual altitudes. He reasonably believed before in the future life, but all his impressions have been earthly, materialistic. But on the higher level he actually “lays hold on the powers of an endless life.”

(1539)

IMMORTALITY, INTIMATIONS OF

Eugene Field is the author of this:

Upon the mountain height, far from the sea,
I found a shell;
And to my listening ear the lonely thing
Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing,
Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell.

How came the shell upon that mountain height?
Ah, who can say?
Whether there dropt by some too careless hand,
Or whether there cast when ocean swept the land,
Ere the eternal had ordained the day.

Strange, was it not! Far from its native deep,
One song it sang--
Sang of the awful mysteries of the tide,
Sang of the misty sea, profound and wide,
Ever with echoes of the ocean rang.

And as the shell upon the mountain height
Sings of the sea,
So do I ever, leagues and leagues away--
So do I ever, wandering where I may,
Sing, O my home! sing, O my home! of thee. (Text.)

(1540)

* * * * *

A solemn murmur in its soul
Tells of the world to be,
As travelers hear the billows roll,
Before they reach the sea.

(1541)

IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE

Richard Watson Gilder writes this verse about a dead poet:

I read that, in his sleep, the poet died
Ere the day broke;
In a new dawn, as rose earth’s crimson tide,
His spirit woke.

Yet still with us his golden spirit stayed,
On the same page
That told his end, his living verse I read--
His lyric rage.

Behold! I thought, they call him cold in death;
But hither turn,
See where his soul, a glorious, flaming breath,
Doth pulse and burn.

This is the poet’s triumph, his high doom!
After life’s stress--
For him the silent, dark, o’ershadowing tomb
Is shadowless.

And this the miracle and mystery--
In that he gives
His soul away, magnificently free,
By this he lives. (Text.)

--_The Outlook._

(1542)

IMMORTALITY, PROOF OF

“Proof,” asks the Soul, “that that which is shall be?
That which was not, persist eternally?
Faith fails before the mortal mystery.”

Yet more miraculous miracle were this:
The mortal, dreaming immortality;
The finite, framing forth infinity;
The shallow, lightly plumbing the abyss;
Ephemeral lips, creating with a kiss;
The transient eye, fixt on eternity! (Text.)

--GRACE ELLERY CHANNING, _The Century_.

(1543)

=Immunity from Colds=--See VITALITY LOW.

IMMUNITY FROM DISEASE

The island of Barbados, in the West Indies, is remarkably free
from malaria, and this immunity from a disease which is so
common in the tropics has been attributed to a species of fish
that inhabits the waters of that island, and whose chief food is
the larvæ of the mosquito. These fish are tiny minnows, never
exceeding an inch and a half in length, and are generally known
as “millions,” altho they bear a most impressive scientific
name. They belong to the family of “top minnows,” feeding on the
surface of the water, and their diminutive size enables them to
swim over lily-pads and similar vegetation, which is covered
only by a thin film of water, and there feast upon mosquito
larvæ and other insects.

These fish thrive in stagnant or running water, and whether it
is fresh or brackish appears to have no effect upon them. The
minnows will swim up stream against a strong current and then
enter the smaller rivulets, thus distributing themselves over
an entire water system. The young of these fish are not hatched
from eggs, but are born alive.

The Panama Canal Commission has decided to employ these minnows
in the fight to rid the Isthmus of the malarial mosquito, and
has imported a great quantity of the little fish. There are
mosquito-eating fish in the Panama waters, but they are not
sufficiently numerous to be of much value. However, a systematic
stocking of the lakes and streams in the Canal Zone with the
“millions” from Barbados should act as a severe check on the
mosquito population of Panama, and indirectly aid in stamping
out malaria.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(1544)

See DISEASE, EXEMPTION FROM.

=Immutability=--See INDIVIDUALITY OF GERMS.

IMPARTIALITY

Lieut. Edmund Blaney, of the Atlantic Avenue police station,
Brooklyn, who locked up his son brought in on the charge of
fighting, is to be commended for his determination that his
own shall be treated no better than others. It is a gratifying
instance of the absence of “pull” and a delightful example of
paternal willingness to see that punishment is meted out when
it should be. Lieutenant Blaney could have let his fighting
son, a man of twenty-three, and the other prisoner go upon
their promise to appear in court, and no one would have taken
exception to such a display of fatherly interest, but he
preferred the Spartan attitude. The public need not expect
this rule to be generally followed, for not many parents have
the firmness to deal out the same degree of severe treatment
to their own offspring as to those of others. A not to be
overlooked feature of the case is the evident reduction of the
young man’s opinion of his ability to violate the law and escape
the consequences. He thought, or said, that he could not be
arrested because he was an officer’s son. That was yesterday.
To-day he is wiser and it is hoped a slightly better citizen
from a forced realization that ordinances are intended for all
alike.--Brooklyn _Standard Union_.

(1545)

=Impartiality of God=--See PRIVILEGE.

IMPATIENCE

Victor Hugo pictures a man who is so maddened by failure and
misfortune that he resolves on suicide. He is at the end of
his resources, and he capitulates to death. No sooner has he
committed suicide than the postman drops a letter in at his door
which contains the information that a distant relative has left
him a large fortune. If he had waited but one hour longer! For
want of patience he lost all!

(1546)

* * * * *

Sergeant Cotton in his book “A Voice from Waterloo,” tells us what Wellington thought Napoleon ought to have done:

Napoleon never had so fine an army as at Waterloo. He was
certainly wrong in attacking at all. He might have played again
the same defensive game in the French territory which he had
played so admirably the year before; that campaign of 1814 I
consider the very finest he ever made. He might have given us
great trouble and had many chances in his favor. But the fact is
he never in his life had patience for a defensive war.

(1547)

IMPATIENCE OF REFORMERS

The besetting sin of the reformer is his impatience. The world
must be redeemed at once. “The trouble seems to be,” said
Theodore Parker of the anti-slavery cause, “that God is not in
a hurry, and I am.” “If my scheme is not sufficient to redeem
society,” said a labor leader not long ago, “what is yours?” as
tho every self-respecting man must have some panacea of social
salvation. The fact is, however, that a time like ours, whose
symptoms are so complex and serious, is no time for social
panaceas. As one of the most observant of American students
of society has remarked: “When I hear a man bring forward a
solution of the social question, I move to adjourn.” Jesus
proposes no surgical operation which at one stroke can save the
world. He offers no assurance that the tares of the world shall
be exterminated by one sweep of the scythe. He adds faith to
patience.--FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY, “Proceedings of
the Religious Education Association,” 1904.

(1548)

IMPERFECTION IN NATURE

It is constantly felt by thoughtful minds that nothing is complete in this universe. We wait for perfection and can not know it in this life or in this world.

In the world of flowers there are three primary colors, of which
many broken shades form a countless number of secondary tints.
But the scientific botanist points out a remarkable fact: many
flowers are of compound colors. Some are red and blue; some
are red and yellow; some are blue and yellow; but there never
has been such a thing as a plant whose flowers burst into all
three of the primary tints. Roses are red in various shades, and
yellow also in many shades. But that is all; no florist has ever
been able to produce a really blue rose. The same fact applies
to the chrysanthemum; it may be red in some shade or other, or
it may be yellow in a whole range of alternative tints; but
the vain dream of the Japanese is to find the fabled “blue
chrysanthemum.” A great fortune would await any one who could
produce by his art a blue rose or a blue chrysanthemum. Nature
denies to flowers the ability to range through the whole gamut
of the colors of the rainbow.

(1549)

IMPERFECTION, MAN’S

Upon all man’s works we write one word--imperfect. Full as our
world is of the beautiful and the useful, it also holds much
of immaturity, wreckage and failure. The scientist insists
that there is not one perfect leaf in the forest, not a red
rose but holds some blemish, not a cluster or bunch but has
suffered some injury. The winters chill the roots, untimely
frosts bite the seed, rude storms strain the boughs. What Nature
offers man is not perfection, but enough of use and beauty to
satisfy to-day’s hunger, and to allure man to something better.
Dwelling, therefore, under skies that oft are unfriendly, we
perceive that even man’s best work shares in imperfection. His
trains jump the track, his bridges break, his ships sink, rust
destroys his tools, fire smites his factories, epidemics shorten
his life. His fine arts are elective, representing the selection
of the best elements carried up to the ideal conditions, and
yet even man’s arts represent many forms of injury. All the
treasure-houses of the world fail to show one statue that is
perfect. The Winged Victory is without a head, the Venus di Milo
is without arms, the Minerva has a black stain on the forehead,
while only the torso of Jupiter remains, all else having
gone.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1550)

=Imperfection, Value of=--See _Diverse Influences_.

IMPERFECTIONS CORRECTED