Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (7)

Embury was one of a group of Irish-German emigrants to the
United States in 1764. He settled in New York, but lacked
courage to begin religious work there, and by a natural and
inevitable reaction his own religious life began to die.
Another party of these German-Irish emigrants, from the same
neighborhood, landed in New York the next year. Among them was
Barbara Heck, a peasant woman of courageous character and an
earnest Methodist. Her zeal kindled in womanly vehemence when
she found the first party of emigrants had practically forgotten
their Methodism. A familiar but doubtful story relates how she
went into a room one day where Embury and his companions were
playing cards. She seized the pack, threw it into the fire, and
cried to Embury: “You must preach to us or we shall all go to
hell together; and God will require our blood at your hands.” “I
can not preach,” stammered the rebuked man, “for I have neither
chapel nor congregation.” “Preach in your own house,” answered
Barbara Heck, “and to our own company.” And so the first
Methodist sermon in America was preached under a private roof
and to a congregation of five persons.--W. H. FITCHETT,
“Wesley and His Century.”

(1609)

INFLUENCE, PERVERTING

The Carnegie Institute has built and fitted out the auxiliary
steamer _Carnegie_ to investigate the magnetic phenomena
of the earth. The ship was specially designed so as to contain
less than six hundred pounds of steel or iron, which would tend
to deflect her compasses and interfere with the accuracy of
her magnetic instruments. What is not built of wood is made of
Victor vanadium bronze.

It would aid men in the guidance of their lives if, in a similar way, they could eliminate from the mind and character all those elements that pervert the will and affections toward evil.

(1610)

INFLUENCE, POSTHUMOUS

The good or ill of a man’s life has the habit of following after him, even tho his efforts have ceased in death. The power of influence which visibly abides is illustrated by a writer who describes the tracks of ships at sea being visible by the smooth wakes of oil they leave behind them, long after they have disappeared:

I have frequently seen such tracks as Franklin observed out at
sea, and have climbed to the masthead in order to sight the
ship that produced them without seeing her. Several of such
smooth, shining tracks have been observed at the same time, but
no ship visible, and this in places where no sail has been seen
for days before or after.

(1611)

* * * * *

It is being said by many that the present prohibition condition
in Georgia is due largely to the work of Sam Jones. He died
October, 1906. Thinking that he was out of the way, the liquor
men of Bartow County, in June of the following year, determined
to call a new election under the local option law. It seemed
to them that they could now win with Sam Jones eliminated. The
anti-liquors also went to work and did all they could, but were
not overconfident of victory. The result was astonishing. The
vote, approximately, was eighty-five for the liquor men and
1,686 “for Sam Jones and prohibition.” His name had been mounted
on the ballots, and it had worked like magic. This news gave
courage to other counties and one after another banished liquor,
till the whole State shook off the monster. Is there anywhere a
more striking example of the influence of the good man who keeps
pegging away? A good life can never die. (Text.)

(1612)

=Influence, Unconscious=--See CONSISTENCY.

INFLUENCE, UNNOTICED

Wesley declares that he owed his conversion to the teaching of
Peter Bohler. What, then, exactly was that teaching? Bohler did
unconsciously the supreme work of his life during these few days
in London and at Oxford when he was conversing with Wesley. The
humble-minded Moravian, wise only in spiritual science, touches
Wesley--and then vanishes! But he helped to change the religious
history of England, little as he himself dreamed of it.--W.
H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(1613)

=Influences=--See ENVIRONMENT.

=Information, Misleading=--See HOLDING THEIR OWN.

=Information, The Passion for=--See BOOK-STUDY.

INGENUITY

To enlist rats in the construction of telephone systems may
sound empirical to the electrical engineer, but the familiar
pest has been found a valuable assistant in this work. To
stimulate, however, it is necessary to introduce his traditional
enemy, the ferret. Then the process is simple. The subterranean
tubes for the reception of the cables having been laid, a rat
is let loose at the starting-point. Having run a little way, a
trained ferret, with a string to his leg, is turned in after
him. The tubes run into manholes at intervals, and the rat,
furtively glancing back, sees the glaring eyes of his arch foe
rapidly approaching. By the end of the section of tube the rat
is either overtaken or falls into the manhole, and then another
rat is requisitioned to run the next block. At the end of each
section the string is removed from the ferret’s leg, and a small
rope, which is then attached to the other end of the string, is
hauled through.--_Sound Waves._

(1614)

* * * * *

During some recent investigations of spider life a Washington
scientist gained some interesting knowledge concerning the
ingenuity of a spider.

It had become necessary in the course of the experiment to
employ a basin wherein a stick was fastened upright like a mast.
Enough water was placed in the basin to convert the little stick
into the only point of safety for the spider.

The spider was placed on the mast. As soon as he was fairly
isolated he anxiously commenced to run to find the mainland. He
would scamper down the mast to the water, stick out a foot, get
it wet, shake it, run around the stick to try the other side,
and then run back to the top.

As it very soon became plain to the spider that his position
was an extremely delicate one, he sat down to think it over.
Suddenly he seemed to have an idea. Up he went, like a rocket,
to the top of the mast, where he began a series of gymnastics.
He held one foot in the air, then another, and turned round
many times. By this time he was thoroughly excited, much to the
perplexity of the scientist, who began to wonder what the spider
had discovered. Finally, it was apparent that the clever little
fellow had found that the draft of air caused by an open window
would carry a line ashore whereby he could escape from his
perilous position.

Accordingly he pushed out a thread that went floating in the
air, and lengthened and lengthened until at last it caught
on a near-by table. Then the ingenious spider hauled on his
rope till it was tight, struck it several times to ascertain
whether it was strong enough to hold his weight, and then
walked ashore. The scientist decided that he was entitled to his
liberty.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(1615)

* * * * *

Haydn and Mozart were great friends. When either had composed a masterpiece, the other was invited to the house of the composer to enjoy the first sweetness. The following story is from _The Boy’s World_:

It chanced to be Haydn’s turn, and Mozart came full of
expectation. Contrary to custom, Haydn invited his guest to
give his interpretation of the theme instead of playing it
over himself. Much pleased at the compliment, Mozart played
brilliantly, for the work was beautiful and his musician’s soul
was stirred. Suddenly he halted and looked across the piano at
his friend.

“There’s a mistake here,” he said, “a passage written for three
hands would be impossible for a soloist. Of course, those notes
must come out.

“Oh!” said Haydn, quietly, “I can play it.”

Mozart laughed. “My friend, you have not three hands.”

“Perhaps not,” answered Haydn, with a quiet smile.
“Nevertheless, I contend that I can play the passage, otherwise
I would not have written it.”

“A challenge!” cried Mozart. “Prove your word.”

He yielded his place at the piano.

His excitement rose as Haydn reached the disputed passage, when,
to his amazement, the composer brought his nose to the keyboard,
and the notes rang out clear and true.

(1616)

INGRATITUDE

On the plains and along the broad bottoms of the Missouri
River are the colonies--often a community of many members,
with villages of wide extent--of the American marmots, or
prairie-dogs. Merry, cheery, chipper little fellows these
gregarious villagers sit on the mound above or beside the open
door that leads to their comfortable subterranean dwellings, and
hold converse in short not unmusical barks, each greeting his
neighbor and rejoicing in the sunshine. But into the sanctity
of the home which he and his have constructed with much labor,
the burrowing owl comes, uninvited, and becomes a tenant with a
life lease, without so much as “by your leave”; and one of the
most atrocious results of this swindling arrangement is that the
dog (a strict vegetarian) finds that the owl, whose young shares
the nest with the infant marmots, feeds upon them and rears
its young upon the bodies of the children of its victimized
landlord.--Mrs. M. J. GORTON, _Popular Science
News_.

(1617)

INHERITED PECULIARITIES

No study is more fascinating than the study of the laws of
heredity. When a baby is born almost the first question is,
“Whom does he resemble?” For months and years friends peer into
the child’s face to discover, if possible, the family likeness.
It has its mother’s eyes or its father’s mouth. If no marked
resemblance can be found, the comment is, “How singular that
this child is unlike every one in the family.” Resemblance is
strange, but the absence of it, is more strange. A physical
feature appears and reappears for generations. A delicate ear,
looking like a translucent shell, is exactly reproduced. In some
instances a generation is skipt, and then the likeness comes
out again. A faded portrait or a medallion two hundred years
old is brought to light, and in it you see the young man who
stands by your side looking at it. Appetite for strong drink
is found to exist in a whole family. Many a son inherits from
his father tastes which almost inevitably produce the habit of
intemperance. One of the most fearful woes of drunkenness is
that it is entailed, and may become more terrible in the son
than it was in the father. Strong animal passions predominate
in some families, so that the sins of the fathers are repeated
in the sons and grandsons. The expressions “good blood,” and
“bad blood,” bear testimony to these well-known laws. In view of
these facts, the questions we ask are in substance the questions
of the disciples, “Where does the responsibility rest? Is there
any blame? Is there any release? What does the religion of Jesus
Christ say to these undeniable facts? Can it do anything to
change them?” Upon us, as we are, with our natural and inherited
characteristics, Christ performs His saving work. And it is
matter of common observation, as undeniable as the facts of
which we have been thinking, that those who truly become the
servants of Christ are changed in this very respect, that they
obtain genuine control over their inherited faults.--GEORGE
HARRIS, _Andover Review_.

(1618)

=Inharmony=--See DUALITY.

=Inhumanity=--See ANIMALS, ABSURD FONDNESS FOR; SLAVE TRADE,
ATROCITIES OF.

INITIATIVE

Charlotte Perkins Stetson writes of an experience in the following lines:

It takes great strength to train
To modern service your ancestral brain;
To lift the weight of the unnumbered years
Of dead men’s habits, methods, and ideas;
To hold that back with one hand, and support
With the other the weak steps of the new thought.
It takes great strength to bring your life up square
With your accepted thought and hold it there;
Resisting the inertia that drags back
From new attempts to the old habit’s track.
It is so easy to drift back, to sink;
So hard to live abreast of what you think.

But the best courage man has ever shown
Is daring to cut loose and think alone.
Dark are the unlit chambers of clear space
Where light shines back from no reflecting face.
Our sun’s wide glare, our heaven’s shining blue,
We owe to fog and dust they fumble through;
And our rich wisdom that we treasure so
Shines from the thousand things that we don’t know.
But to think new--it takes a courage grim
As led Columbus over the world’s rim.
To think it cost some courage. And to go--
Try it. It takes every power you know.

(1619)

INITIATIVE, LACK OF

That which is recorded of the telephone girl below is true of great numbers of both sexes in every walk of life. Patients in hospitals soon learn that “trained” nurses will never willingly do anything outside the routine of their directions, which they take mostly from the bulletin-boards. It is said of some physicians that they would prefer that their patients should die regularly rather than get well under an unaccredited practitioner.

A Philadelphia telephone girl refused to make connection with
the Fire Department because the man at the other end of the
line had not the necessary nickel to put in the slot. At the
Earlswood Idiot Asylum, England, we saw several idiots who had
been trained to “self-support under direction,” but they had no
power of self-reliance; indeed, the superintendent informed us
that up to that time there had been quite a number who could
automatically do things after much training, but only three in
the history of the institution (which was then comparatively
young) had been trained to be self-reliant. A reasonable amount
of common sense ought to be required of telephone girls or men.
This girl’s stupid blunder nearly cost a life.

(1620)

INJUDICIOUS KINDNESS

Men ought not only to be kind and friendly, but to be judicious in the way they manifest their regard.

At the camp-fire and dinner of the Eleventh Army Corps in
New York recently, Gen. James Grant Wilson, as reported in
_Tobacco_, told how General Grant became the inveterate smoker
that he was. He said that after the Fort Donelson fight the
newspapers all over the North were filled with the story of how
the silent captain had fought that fight with an unlighted cigar
in his mouth. “Up to that time,” said General Wilson, “General
Grant never smoked more than two cigars a day in his life. When
the people of the North found that their commander evidently
liked cigars, loyal souls from every great Northern city sent
in cigars to Grant’s headquarters until he had piled up in his
tent 20,000 cigars. He felt that it would not be polite to
return them or to give them away, so the only thing to do was to
smoke them. That was the beginning of it, and it ended with the
smoking of something like a bunch of cigars every day.”

(1621)

=Injurious, The, Made Valuable=--See PROFIT FROM PESTS.

INJURY TO SELF

John Chrysostom, from a little town in the Taurus Mountains
named Cucusus, to which he had been banished by Arcadius,
addrest a treatise to Olympias entitled, “None Can Hurt a Man
Who Will Not Hurt Himself.” Later, dying from cruel exposure,
the last moments of this holy man were spent in praising God and
admonishing his companions, and his last words were, “I have
never been hurt, because I have not hurt myself.” (Text.)

(1622)

INJUSTICE

Judge Ben B. Lindsey, in _The Survey_, tells of a visit he made to a refined and lovely home in a large city in the East:

The people in that home were wealthy, and undoubtedly sincere in
their self-righteousness; and in the happiness they found in the
little charities they provided for the children of the workers
in the mills and mines near by. The fathers earned $1.50 a day,
worked long hours, shared all the hazards of their employment.
My ten years’ experience in juvenile court work compelled me to
admit that the powers that made valuable the stocks and bonds
whence the wealth of this home came would be arrayed against any
measure in the Legislature that would do economic justice to
the parents of these children. It seemed strange to me that our
kind-hearted, wealthy family, with morning prayers and regular
church attendance, could not see something in the teaching of
the Master beyond the kind of charity I have mentioned. I could
not help but find a real meaning in some of the platitudes;
“Equal rights to all, special privileges to none”; “Bear ye one
another’s burdens”; “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil”; “Thy kingdom come--on earth.” How much was there of
the real doing of the word? How well was it understood?

(1623)

* * * * *

A California paper recently said:

Eight years in prison for stealing eight copper cents from an
Oakland store was the punishment dealt out to George Gron, who
with a companion entered the store. Gron pleaded guilty. This
sentence is in startling contrast to a year and a half given to
J. Dalzell Brown, who wrecked the California Safe Deposit and
Trust Company and robbed 1,200 depositors of nearly $9,000,000.
Brown was tried only on one count, and he is now in charge
of a deputy, enjoying the holidays because of his promise to
give testimony against others in the bank wreck. All the other
indictments against Brown have been dismist.

(1624)

See WOMEN, INJUSTICE TO.

=Innate Receptivity to Evil=--See DISEASE, CAUSES OF.

INNATE, THE

As in the case of the little girl mentioned below, we have to guard, not alone against the acts of evil men, but against what is in the men themselves:

“Come on! come on!” said a gentleman to a little girl at whom a
dog had been barking furiously. “Come on! he’s quiet now.”

“Ah, but,” said the little girl, “the barks are in him still.”

(1625)

INNER LIFE

I was lately in a grove where a number of large sycamores were
shedding their bark; at least three layers of the bark showed
plainly, the coarse outer bark brown, but this shed in large
spots or blotches, exposing the white inner bark, so well known
in this great tree; but this also was peeling up, and falling
here and there, and showing the clear, green inmost bark of the
tree; the outer layers ripening, drying, dying, and falling off,
but the inmost bark strengthening and renewing itself day by day.

But I was imprest with the fresh, wholesome look of these
sycamores. Many trees of that name seem dying; not so those
where the decaying outer bark was loosening and dropping, while
the fresh young inner bark was coming out to take its place. I
never saw healthier trees. They certainly were not hide-bound.
I believe the quick dropping of the old bark gave the vigorous
inner bark a chance to come out and strengthen, just as we
know trials and afflictions often bring out the inner life in
beauty and strength.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons in
Illustration.”

(1626)

=Inner Strength=--See REPUTATION AND CHARACTER.

INNER VALUES

Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

--LONGFELLOW.

(1627)

=Innocence=--See CIRCUMSTANCES.

INOCULATION

Jesus taught that human lives can be redeemed from sterility to fruitfulness, by an infusion of diverse life. Why should not this principle be even more valuable in morals than in nature?

“To inoculate sterile ground and make it bring forth fruit
in abundance is one of the latest achievements of American
science,” says G. H. Grosvenor in _The National Geographic
Magazine_. “Some of man’s most dread diseases--smallpox,
diphtheria, plague, rabies--have been vanquished by inoculation,
and now inoculation is to cure soil that has been worn out and
make it fertile and productive again. The germs that bring
fertility are mailed by the Department of Agriculture in a
small package like a yeast-cake. The cake contains millions of
dried germs. The farmer who receives the cake drops it into a
barrel of clean water; the germs are revived and soon turns
the water to a milky white. Seeds of clover, peas, alfalfa,
or other leguminous plants that are then soaked in this milky
preparation are endowed with marvelous strength. Land on which,
for instance, the farmer with constant toil had obtained alfalfa
only a few inches high, when planted with these inoculated seeds
will produce alfalfa several feet high and so rich that the
farmer does not recognize his crop.” (Text.)

(1628)

INSANITY

Felix was so crazed by sin as to be incapable of judging of Paul’s sanity. Here is an analogy from nature:

The abominable Mexican plant known as the loco-weed has the
peculiar property of making irrational both men and beasts who
partake of it. Horses and cattle out on the prairies after
grazing upon it go crazy, and a “locoed” pony will perform all
kinds of queer antics. It is said that if a man comes under
its spell he never regains his senses, the insanity produced
by it being incurable. It is said that the loss of mind of the
illfated Carlotta was no doubt due to the fact that some enemy
drugged her with a preparation of loco, altho history has it
that she went insane by reason of her husband’s execution.

(1629)

See CONCERT, LACK OF.

INSANITY CURED

An instance of a family of insane dependents illustrates the
operation of stress and strain to render a psychopathic family
helpless and make it dependent upon the State. This family
consists of an inebriate father who married a normal woman with
two insane brothers. The father has an insane brother. From
this union sprang three children, all of whom have been insane
from time to time, and who alternated in residence at a State
hospital as committed insane patients, joined at intervals by
their uncles, and once by their father. The superintendent of
the hospital retained the father in custody until he could put
him in good condition, mentally, morally and physically, and
discharged him in such form that for the first time in the
recollection of the family he has been sober, industrious and
kind. He has paid off a mortgage on the farm and is putting
money in the bank. The conditions of this family are shown in
above chart.

The two sons are working and there is an atmosphere of peace
and happiness in the home. Two uncles remained under care,
but all the members of one household are out of the hospital.
If a wise hospital superintendent can solve such a difficult
problem, the result can be duplicated in many instances by
field physicians working in consonance with after-care people.
Actual prophylactic work will be impossible under close medical
and lay organization, and definite results be reached. The
discharged patient will return to fewer difficulties. The
improved environment will produce fewer patients.--ALBERT W.
FERRIS.

(1630)

INSANITY, STATISTICS OF

The United States Census gives the following facts about
insanity in the United States:

Total Insane:

1890 In hospitals 74,028. Total 106,485.
1906 In hospitals 150,151. (Total not given).
1903 Males in Hospital 78,523
Females 71,628

Hospitals:
Public, 226; private, 102.

Twenty-two and one-half per cent. of the insane were persons in
some out of door occupation and 16 per cent. in manufacturing or
some indoor occupation, but the proportion in each case to the
whole number respectively so employed is not given.

The percentage proportioned to population of whites is greater
than of blacks. None of the insane reported were under twelve
years of age.

(1631)

=Inscrutability of God=--See GOD’S INSCRUTABILITY.

INSECT, A MODEL

Mark Isambard Brunel, the great engineer, was standing one
day, about three-quarters of a century ago, in a ship-yard
watching the movements of an animal known as the _Teredo
navales_--in English, the naval wood-worm--when a brilliant
thought suddenly occurred to him. He saw that this creature
bored its way into the piece of wood upon which it was operating
by means of a very extraordinary mechanical apparatus. Looking
at the animal attentively through a microscope, he found that it
was covered in front with a pair of valvular shells; that with
its foot as a purchase, it communicated a rotary motion and a
forward impulse to the valves, which, acting upon the wood like
a gimlet, penetrated its substance; and that as the particles of
wood were loosened, they passed through a fissure in the foot
and thence through the body of the borer to its mouth, where
they were expelled. “Here,” said Brunel to himself, “is the
sort of thing I want. Can I reproduce it in artificial form?”
He forthwith set to work, and the final result of his labors,
after many failures, was the famous boring-shield with which
the Thames tunnel was excavated. This story was told by Brunel
himself, and there is no reason to doubt its truth. The keen
observer can draw useful lessons from the humblest of the works
of God.--New York _Ledger_.

(1632)

INSECTS OF REMOTE TIMES

Discoveries in the coal-mines of central France have furnished
by far the greatest advance that has ever been made in our
knowledge of the insects which inhabited the world millions
of years, as geologists believe, before the time when man
made his appearance upon the earth. In that wonderful age
when the carboniferous plants, whose remains constitute the
coal-beds of to-day, were alive and flourishing, the air and
the soil were animated by the presence of flies, grasshoppers,
cockroaches, dragon-flies, spiders, locusts, and scores of
other species which exist but slightly changed at the present
time. But the insects of those remote times attained a gigantic
size, some of the dragon-flies measuring two feet from tip
to tip of their expanded wings. The remains of these insects
have been marvelously preserved in the strata of coal and
rock.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(1633)

=Insecurity=--See HUMAN NATURE, INSECURITY OF.

INSENSITIVENESS TO BEAUTY

I remember walking at night with a good fellow by the side of
a transparent sea; nothing was heard but the eternal murmur of
the restless waters on the pebbles; a full moon was making a
path of heavenly splendor across the waves. It was a night of
supernatural beauty--a night in whose silence all the voices of
the universe were speaking to the soul. His complaint was that
there was no band. (Text.)

(1634)

=Insignificance=--See RESOURCES, GOD’S.

INSINCERITY

There is no place where human nature can be studied to better
advantage, or public opinion be more quickly ascertained, than
in the office of a railroad president. It helps the railway
president if he is also a politician and a man of the world. The
experience tends to cynicism and cultivates the theory which
gives too great prominence to the influence of association
and point of view in fixing creeds, faiths, churchmanship and
partizanship. The visitor always tried to make the president
believe that he came for some other purpose than the real object
of his mission. Why men believe they can succeed better in what
they seek by this sort of fraud, is a mystery. The most curious
exhibit is the man of many millions, who pretends that he wishes
to consult you in regard to investments in the securities of
your company, and ends by asking for a pass.--CHAUNCEY M.
DEPEW.

(1635)

=Inspection, Careful Food=--See BUYING, GOOD.

INSPIRATION

The following lines on “Inspiration” were penned by Bishop Doane, of Albany, N. Y.:

Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy,
With his marble block before him;
And his face lit up with a smile of joy
As an angel dream passed o’er him.
He carved that dream on the yielding stone
With many a sharp incision;
In heaven’s own light the sculptor shone,
He had caught that angel vision.

Sculptors of life are we, as we stand,
With our lives uncarved before us;
Waiting the hour when, at God’s command,
Our life dream passes o’er us.
Let us carve it then on the yielding stone,
With many a sharp incision;
Its heavenly beauty shall be our own--
Our lives, that angel vision.

(1636)

=Inspiration from Things Done=--See ABILITY, GAGE OF.

INSPIRATION OF EVENTS

On the 19th of April, 1861, some of the enthusiastic Southern
sympathizers of Baltimore, driven frantic by the passage of
Northern troops through the city for the invasion of the South,
attacked the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts volunteers with
bricks and stones as they marched along Pratt Street to take the
train at Camden Station for Washington. The soldiers, who were
fully armed with Springfield rifles, fired upon the citizens,
killing several and wounding many others, some of whom had taken
no part in the affray, but were merely distant spectators.

When this news was flashed around the land, it reached a young
Baltimorean, a professor in Poydras College at Pointe Coupée,
one hundred and twenty miles above New Orleans. His heart fired
with patriotic enthusiasm and the great thoughts that surged
through his mind kept him awake all night. At dawn he sat down
at his desk and wrote “Maryland, My Maryland.” It was first
published in the New Orleans _Delta_. In a few weeks it was
copied by all the leading newspapers of the South, and James R.
Randall, like Byron, awoke one morning and found himself famous.

(1637)

INSPIRATION, SOURCE OF

A soul that is sensitive to truth is easily excited to emotion
and incited to effort. Haydn, it is said, had his musical genius
aroused by the brilliancy of a diamond ring he wore, the gift of
Frederick the Great.

We confer a greater blessing on our fellow men when by any act, or even by any look, we draw out what is in them, than when we bestow any gift or favor upon them.

(1638)

* * * * *

The famous operatic composers had different methods of getting
inspiration for their immortal compositions. One could not
write the score unless he had a cat upon his shoulders. There
are in his symphonies suggestions of an orchestra which every
one of us born in the country recognizes as the familiar strain
of a summer’s night; another could stir his genius best at the
billiard-table, and in his refrains is heard the rattling fire
of the ivory balls; while a third, by walks in the woods and
communing with nature, transferred to the orchestra and chorus
the sublime secrets of creation.--CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.

(1639)

INSTABILITY

Society is curst with young men and women who are driven and
tossed by every wind. I would as soon think of anchoring an
ocean-liner to a fog-bank instead of a rock as to anchor a
reform, a useful club, a great movement or church to their lives
and leadership.--N. D. HILLIS.

(1640)

INSTINCT

Man is gifted with the supreme endowment of reason. This marks humanity off from all the rest of the animal creation. But the Creator institutes a law of compensation. There are certain powers and faculties in inferior creatures which have never been evolved in man, and which are plainly evidences of supernatural power applied for the benefit of beings denied the prerogative of reason.

How does it come about that if a salmon is taken when only a
few months old from its native fjord on the coast of Norway,
and marked and then sent into the sea again, it may, after
traversing the ocean for thousands of miles, be found again
the next year in that same fjord? It has returned without fail
to its birthplace. The reason is that God gave it a miraculous
guide-book called instinct. How comes it that when, in a
beehive, the temperature rises so that the wax might melt, every
tenth bee glues its feet down to the board, and fans with its
wings at a tremendous velocity as long as may be necessary? It
is because God gave this little creature the same infallible
guide-book. How is it that the same pairs of swallows return all
the way from Africa to rear a fresh family in the same old nests
under the eaves? It is because that same miraculous instinct led
them unerringly. (Text.)

(1641)

INSTINCT ADAPTED TO EMERGENCY

In guarding against evils should we not be as fertile in expedients to adapt our defense to the kind of weapons we possess as some cattle are:

The plainsmen on Western cattle-ranches have called attention
to an illustration of the adaptability of animal instinct to
emergencies.

The cattle of former days were of the long-horned kind. When the
herd was threatened with an attack by wolves, the calves were
placed in the middle of the bunch and the older animals formed
themselves into a solid phalanx about them, all facing outward.

The cattle of to-day are largely hornless. If, as occasionally
happens still, the herd is attacked by wolves, the calves are
guarded as before, but the herd faces in instead of out. Their
hoofs, not their horns, are now their weapons.

(1642)

=Instinct of Animals=--See FAITH BETTER THAN SIGHT.

=Instinct of Insects=--See SHELTER.

INSTINCT, THE HOMING

A well-known minister of Austin, Texas, retells a story which
was related to him by a friend living in Lawrence, Massachusetts:

“He raised a dog, crossed with hound and pointer, and littered
in Lawrence. When a year old he took the young dog to Boston,
got on board of a sailing-vessel, went by sea and river to
Bangor, Maine, drove forty miles into the woods at Cleveland’s
Camp and hunted there two weeks, the dog proving to be a great
success for quick, fast runs and returns to camp.

“After the hunting was over and while on his back trip to
Bangor, the dog jumped from the wagon into the bushes, having
heard or smelled a deer, and went off on a hot chase. The boats
ran only once in two weeks, so that, much as he valued the
dog, it was necessary to go on. He took the boat at Bangor,
returned by river and sea to Boston and back to Lawrence. About
two weeks afterward the dog crawled into his yard, footsore
and half-starved, but safe at home and glad to get back.”
(Text.)--_Harper’s Weekly._

(1643)

See DIRECTION, SENSE OF.

=Instruction=--See FOOD AND EXERCISE.

INSTRUMENTS

When Saladin looked at the sword of Richard the Lion-Hearted,
he wondered that a blade so ordinary should have wrought such
mighty deeds. The English King bared his arm and said: “It was
not the sword that did these things; it was the arm of Richard.”

(1644)

INSTRUMENTS, IMPORTANCE OF GOOD

Dr. Z. F. Vaughn, well known in medical and scientific circles,
has perfected a process for tempering to the hardness of steel
the ductile metals, gold, silver and copper. Already Dr. Vaughn
is manufacturing a large number of gold-bladed scalpels, probes,
hypodermic and suture needles and other surgical instruments.
These are replacing similar articles of steel.

The sharp edge of a gold blade is almost perfectly smooth; that
of steel, no matter how fine the edge, is rough and saw-like.
Because it is porous, the steel blade has never made a perfect
surgical instrument. In the meshes of that metal may be hidden
the infinitesimal germs of a virulent disease, or there may be a
rust spot so tiny that it could not be discerned by the surgeon,
but which might be sufficient seriously to poison the tissues in
which the knife makes a wound, resulting in blood-poisoning that
would cause death. In gold, being dense, this danger does not
exist, and gold does not rust.

Besides, the gold blade divides evenly the flesh or tissue which
it cuts; the steel blade really saws or tears its way through.
Therefore, even when there is no infection, the wound made with
a steel instrument does not heal nearly so readily as that made
with gold. Another feature of a gold blade is that the wound
which it makes leaves no scar.

(1645)

INSULATION

In 1846 Werner Siemens, of Berlin, discovered the non-conducting
properties of gutta-percha. He coated several miles of copper
wire with gutta-percha, and submerged it in the Rhine from Deutz
to Cologne. Electric communication was thus established beneath
the water from shore to shore. In 1850 a submarine cable was
laid across the English Channel from Dover to Cape Grisnez.
It consisted of a half-inch copper wire covered with nothing
but gutta-percha, and loaded with lead to keep it down. The
communication was perfect for a day, and then the wire refused
to act. The electrical engineers were unable to explain the
facts. At last the mystery was dissipated by a fisherman. A
French fisherman set his trawl off Cape Grisnez. When he hauled
it in, he picked up the submerged cable, from which he cut off
a piece. This piece he carried in triumph to Bologne, where
he exhibited it as a specimen of rare seaweed with its center
filled with gold. The ignorant man had mistaken the copper wire
for gold, but unwittingly he had served the electricians. They
saw from the accident that it was not sufficient perfectly to
insulate the cable, but that it must also be protected. In
1851 there was laid across the Channel a cable twenty-four
miles long, consisting of four copper wires, insulated by
gutta-percha, covered with tarred yarn, and protected by an
outer covering of galvanized iron wires. That submarine cable
proved a success, and ocean telegraphy became possible through
an accident which compelled invention.--_Youth’s Companion._

(1646)

INTEGRITY

Stephen V. White, a New York financier, became involved and
only able to pay thirty-five cents on the dollar. His character
for honesty and integrity was so established that his creditors
gave him an absolute, legal release from an indebtedness of
almost a million. Within about a year he repaid principal and
interest.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”

(1647)

INTEGRITY, EVIDENCE OF

Samuel Appleton, when twenty-eight years old, began the
business of cotton manufacturing. He was incapable of anything
indirect or underhand. He knew but one way of speaking, and
that was to speak the truth. As an evidence of the way in
which he was regarded: when a note purporting to be signed by
him was pronounced by him a forgery, altho no one was able to
distinguish one handwriting from the other, the jury found a
verdict in his favor, because they were quite sure that Mr.
Appleton would not dispute the payment except upon the certainty
of his not making it.--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character
Lessons.”

(1648)

=Intelligence=--See KNOWLEDGE VALUES.

INTELLIGENCE, ANIMAL

One of the many delusions engendered by our human self-conceit
and habit of considering the world as only such as we know
it from our human point of view, is that of supposing human
intelligence to be the only kind of intelligence in existence.
The fact is, that what we call the lower animals have special
intelligence of their own as far transcending our intelligence
as our peculiar reasoning intelligence exceeds theirs. We are
as incapable of following the track of a friend by the smell of
his footsteps as a dog is of writing a metaphysical treatise.
(Text.)--W. MATTIEU WILLIAMS, “Science in Short
Chapters.”

(1649)

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

=Intelligence in Rooks=--See ENEMIES, AVOIDING.

INTELLIGENCE IN SOLDIERS

The American Army is regarded as formidable because “its bayonets think.” That they thought and acted to some purpose was shown in many exigencies of the Civil war, as the following, told by Gen. Carl Schurz:

One of General Butler’s staff-officers told me a little story
which illustrates the character of our volunteer regiments.
When our troops took possession of Annapolis, there was but one
locomotive in the railroad shop, and that locomotive had been
partly taken to pieces by the “rebel sympathizers” of the place,
in order to make it unfit for use. A volunteer regiment was
drawn up in line, and men who thought themselves able to repair
a locomotive were called for. A dozen or more privates stept
forward, and one of them exclaimed: “Why, that locomotive was
built in my shop!” In a short time the locomotive was again in
working order.

(1650)

=Intelligence in Storks=--See FAMILY OFFENSE IN STORKS.

INTELLIGENCE OUTDOING IGNORANCE

In Togoland there is a large tree which is worshiped by all the
inhabitants as a god named Azago. He is the giver of children,
and crops, and all blessings. No one is permitted to eat
fresh yams until the priest of Azago announces that the god
has partaken of them. A dreadful fatality will follow such a
disobedience. One year a pupil in a mission school ate a yam
before the appointed time, and his distracted parents looked for
his death and for all calamities to come--but the boy prospered
and grew fat, and none of his kindred died. The next year all
the children of that mission school ate yams before permission
was given by the priest of Azago, and none perished. The people
wanted also to eat, but the priest warned them that the God
of the mission schools was greater than Azago, so the mission
children could eat yams with impunity, but not so the general
populace. But from that time the power of the superstition
declined, and recently when one of the priests died the elders
decided to forsake Azago and serve the living, true God. (Text.)

(1651)

INTEMPERANCE

Lilla N. Cushman furnished to the Chicago _Sun_ a bit of verse for possible blackboard use on the wine glass:

=There’s danger in the glass! Beware=
lest it enslaves. They who have drained
it find, alas! too often, early graves.
It sparkles to allure, with its rich, ruby
light; there is no antidote or cure,
only its course to fight. It changes
men to brutes; makes women bow
their head; fills homes with anguish,
want, disputes, and takes
from children bread. Then
dash the glass away, and
from the serpent flee;
drink pure, cold water
day
by
day,
and
walk
=God’s footstool free.=

(Text.)

(1652)

* * * * *

“Will alcohol dissolve sugar?”

“It will,” replied Old Soak; “it will dissolve gold and brick
houses, and horses, and happiness, and love and everything else
worth having.” (Text.)--Houston _Post_.

(1653)

See BEER, EFFECT OF; DRINK, DRUNKENNESS; EVIDENCE, LIVING;
INEBRIETY, INCURABLE; SIDE, CHOOSING THE RIGHT.

INTEMPERANCE IN OLD DAYS

When wooden ship-building was the staple trade of the river
Wear, in England, says an English exchange, when an extra-sized
ship was launched all the day-schools in the town got a holiday.
It was on these occasions that the ship-builders provided an
unlimited supply of beer to all comers, and it was a recognized
rule of Wearside that members of the churches or chapel were
privileged to get drunk without losing their membership.

(1654)

* * * * *

In medieval times the farmers brewed good brown ale and took it
to the churchyard in barrels, which were tapped on the spot.
The neighbors then said to one another: “Come hither; there
be a church-ale toward yonder.” They paid for the beer, and
the rector’s churchwarden kept the tale of incoming moneys.
Easter-ales, Whitsun-ales, church-ales, even bride-ales
to help a penniless marriage--all were merry meetings in
churchyard or church which all the inhabitants were bidden to
attend at a charge of one penny. Tho they had grown to unruly
revels, they were not finally supprest till the time of the
Commonwealth.--EDWARD GILLIAT, “Heroes of Modern
Crusades.”

(1655)

INTEMPERANCE IN SONS

Rev. W. F. Crafts says:

Recently, in a New England manufacturing city, we noted a change
that bodes no good for business or politics or religion. We
found that the old men who founded and developed the mills were
all total abstainers and had been from youth, but their sons,
who were succeeding to these great responsibilities, had nearly
all of them come back from college with drinking habits.

(1656)

=Intemperate Living=--See LONGEVITY ACCOUNTED FOR.

INTENSITY

In the concluding chapters of Ellen Terry’s memoirs
(_McClure’s Magazine_), she writes of the last days of
Henry Irving. The doctor had warned Irving not to play “The
Bells” again after an illness that attacked him in the spring of
1905. He saw the “terrible emotional strain ‘The Bells’ put upon
Henry”--how he never could play the part of _Matthias_ “on
his head,” as he could _Louis XI_, for example. Miss Terry
goes on in words almost implying that _Matthias_ killed
him. We read:

“Every time he heard the sound of bells, the throbbing of his
heart must have nearly killed him. He used always to turn quite
white--there was no trick about it. It was imagination acting
physically on the body.

“His death as _Matthias_--the death of a strong, robust
man--was different from all his other stage deaths. He did
really almost die--he imagined his death with such horrible
intensity. His eyes would disappear upward, his face grow gray,
his limbs cold.

“No wonder, then, that the first time that the Wolverhampton
doctor’s warning was disregarded, and Henry played ‘The Bells,’
at Bradford, his heart could not stand the strain. Within
twenty-four hours of his death as _Matthias_, he was dead.”

(1657)

INTENTION

While “we have this treasure in earthen vessels” we can never fully manifest the best that is in us. Benjamin R. Bulkeley tells us in the following verse that God knows how much better we intend than we can do:

There was never a song that was sung by thee,
But a sweeter one was meant to be.
There was never a deed that was grandly done,
But a greater was meant by some earnest one,
For the sweetest voice can never impart
The song that trembles within the heart.

And the brain and the hand can never quite do
The thing that the soul has fondly in view.
And hence are the tears and the burdens of pain,
For the shining goals are never to gain,
But enough that a God can hear and see
The song and the deed that were meant to be.

(1658)

=Interception=--See INTERRUPTION.

=Intercession=--See SACRIFICIAL MEDIATION.

INTERDEPENDENCE

Every great newspaper periodically announces its dependence
upon immature, half-grown boys, whose nimble steps and strident
voices secure its circulation. The brain which forges the
editorial, the skill which administers the counting-room,
however great, imposing, or commanding, must doff its hat
of necessity to the barefooted newsboy and confess its
obligation to him in his obscurity for its chance to reach its
constituency.--NEHEMIAH BOYNTON.

(1659)

See SOLIDARITY; SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

=Interest in Religious Education=--See ADAPTING THE BIBLE.

=Interest, Intense=--See BOOK, INFLUENCE OF A.

INTEREST, SIGNIFICANT

I have often been appealed to by friends, who said: “Can’t you
take this young man and give him employment?” Then I will watch
that young man for a month or so and see what it is that he
takes up in the morning. If he takes up the newspaper and turns
to the political part of the paper, and is interested in that,
why that is a good symptom of his intellectual tendencies; but
if, instead of that, he takes up a magazine and sits down to
read a love story, why you can not make a newspaper man out of
him.--CHARLES A. DANA.

(1660)

=Interests, The Functioning of=--See ATROPHY.

=Internationalism=--See STATESMANSHIP.

=Interpretation and Individuality=--See INDIVIDUALITY
IN INTERPRETATION.

INTERPRETATION BY EXPERIENCE

A little boy who was born blind had an operation performed which
enabled him to see. His mother led him out into the fields, and
uncovered his eyes for the first time, and let him look upon the
sky and trees and grass and flowers. “Oh, mother!” he cried,
“why didn’t you tell me it was so beautiful?” “I tried to tell
you, dear,” was her answer, “but you could not understand me.”

So it is sometimes with great verses in the Bible. When we read them first or commit them to memory, we do not understand, but after, when they fit the heart life and our eyes are opened, we wonder at the beauty of them.--PHEBE PALMER.

(1661)

=Interpretation by Love=--See LOVE, INTERPRETATION BY.

INTERRUPTION

It is to be feared that much of the force of God’s spirit is cut off by the world’s atmosphere before it reaches a soul that is immersed in worldliness:

The greatest difficulty in arriving at a correct conception of
the amount of heat received from the sun lies in the fact that
all such measures must be made at the earth’s surface. Before
reaching the apparatus the sun’s rays pass through many miles
of atmosphere; the heat and light are absorbed and only a small
portion of the original energy of the rays actually reaches
the surface and becomes effective in heating the water of our
apparatus.--CHARLES LANE POOR, “The Solar System.”

(1662)

* * * * *

In “One Word More” Browning tells us that Dante “once prepared
to paint an angel”; but “certain people of importance” broke in
upon him, and so, much to the poet’s and the world’s regret, we
can never see that angel he might have wrought.

Perhaps the very serious power of interruptions, and what we may
call their irreligiousness, has been too little appreciated.
Florence Nightingale recognized the possible harm done to an
invalid by making any abrupt change in his condition. “You may
suffocate him by giving him his food suddenly; but, if you rub
his lips gently with a spoon, and thus attract his attention,
he will swallow the food with perfect safety. Thus it is with
the brain.” Miss Nightingale adds acutely, “I have never
known persons who exposed themselves for years to constant
interruption who did not muddle away their intellects by it at
last.”

(1663)

See HAPPINESS.

INTERVENTION, DIVINE

A large number of Russian criminals were standing in the
courtyard of their prison, chained together, and about starting
for their long journey to Siberia. Among them was one Christian
Stundist, sharing their banishment because he had spoken to his
fellow workmen about the faith in Christ he profest. His fellow
prisoners were jeering him about it, saying: “You are no better
off than we. You are wearing the bracelets (handcuffs) as we
do; if your God is of any use to you, why doesn’t he knock off
your chains and set you free?” The man reverently replied, “If
the Lord will He can set me free even now; and tho my hands are
chained my heart is free.” At that moment his name was called;
a paper had just been received granting him a full pardon. He
was then told to stand aside; his chains were struck off. At
the same time the prison gates were thrown open and all the
rest of the convicts filed out, the Stundist remaining behind
with permission to return to his family and friends. It is
said the prisoners were perfectly awestricken with what they
had witnessed. Unknown to the Stundist, a Christian lady had
obtained his pardon, and God had ordered its arrival at the
critical moment.

(1664)

* * * * *

But for the divine vigilance, an unseen Helper, what youth
but would go down! In every hour when Achilles is about to be
overborne by the number and strength of his enemies, Homer
makes some goddess appear to lift a shield above the hero for
protection. Again and again Thetis stands between her son
and the enemy. Of your youth, how true it is that God hath
interfered in your behalf!--N. D. HILLIS.

(1665)

INTIMACY WITH CHRIST

When the great artist, Sir Alma-Tadema, was painting his
“Heliogabalus,” which made a sensation during its exhibition at
the British Royal Academy, and in which roses are a prominent
feature, he was in the habit of receiving from Italy a fresh box
of roses twice a week, so that he literally and actually had a
new model for every individual blossom.

If the painter must live in close and delicate touch with nature, much more must the messenger of Christ abide in direct communion with the Savior if he would catch the virtue, the color and the aroma of celestial things. (Text.)

(1666)

INTOLERANCE

We should be thankful that such conditions as those described below no longer exist:

No religious meetings outside the ordinary services of the
Church could be held without a license under the Toleration Act;
and those taking part in such meetings, in order to secure the
right to hold them, had to register themselves as Dissenters.
This law extended to America, and so the first Methodist Church
in the United States was adorned with that very unecclesiastical
bit of architecture--a chimney. When a Methodist church was
built it had to disguise itself as a house in order to secure
the right to exist.--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His
Century.”

(1667)

* * * * *

In a dark wood where wild beasts lived there once lay a man’s
boot. How it came there, I can not say, for no man had been
there--at least the wild beasts had not seen one in all their
lives. But there the boot was, and when the beasts saw it they
all came round to find out what it was. Such a thing was quite
new to them; but they were not much at a loss for all that.

“Well, there is no doubt as to what it is, I say,” said the bear.

“Oh, of course not,” said the wolf and the goat and all the
beasts and birds in one breath.