Chapter M: B. Banks writes a missionary lesson after the style of “Mother (11)

The traveler to the heavenly country will often set in contrast to the conditions described below, the time and scene in which “they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light” and “the Lamb is the light thereof.”

In any large city the small hours of the night, while most
people are asleep, is the time when the bread is made and baked,
the great newspapers printed, the food products, such as milk
and vegetables, prepared and brought into the city. If we were
obliged to dispense with our modern systems of illumination the
world would be set back in its civilization beyond our power to
imagine.

(1830)

* * * * *

Jesus stated long ago the philosophy of the paragraph below when He said “Neither cometh to the light lest their evil deeds should be reproved” and “men love darkness ... because their deeds are evil.”

The municipality had better take the cue, less light, more
crime, more light, less crime. There are still dark spots to
be found at night within the city limits where a few powerful
arcs would wield an immediate influence. It is easy to see that
arc-lights are cheaper than police officers and a brightly lit
city the greatest imaginable offset to criminality in any stage
or form. (Text.)--_Electricity._

(1831)

* * * * *

An English writer has this to say about the phosphorescent light cast by the sea-fish called the smelt:

Anybody desirous of seeing the sort of light which it emits
may do so very easily by purchasing an unwashed smelt from
the fishmonger, and allowing it to dry with its natural slime
upon it, then looking at it in the dark. A sole or almost any
other fish will answer the purpose, but I name the smelt from
having found it the most reliable in the course of my own
experiments. It emits a dull, ghostly light, with very little
penetrating power, which shows the shape of the fish, but casts
no perceptible light on objects around.

Here the light is so dim that it gives no illumination beyond outlining the fish. Many men are like that. They have a little light, but it never shines beyond themselves. It merely outlines their own lives and sometimes scarcely that. (Text.)

(1832)

* * * * *

It has been a long stride forward from producing light and
heat by means of flint to producing it by matches. What would
civilization do without matches? Few realize the immense labor,
capital and material used to produce this tiny article of
commerce. As a matter of fact, thousands of men are employed,
millions of dollars invested and vast forests cut down to meet
the demand in America of 700,000,000,000 a year. One plant alone
on the Pacific coast covers 240 acres and uses 200,000 feet of
sugar-pine and yellow-pine logs in a day. The odds and ends will
not do. A constant search is in progress for large forests of
perfect trees to meet the future need.

If such labor and pains are necessary to keep at hand the means
of lighting that which at best is only a temporary flame,
what should measure our diligence to keep our spiritual light
burning? (Text.)

(1833)

See SHINING AS LAMPS.

LIGHT AFTER NIGHT

Mary Elliot interprets the moral cheer of recurring dawn in these musical lines:

Dawn of the red, red sun in a bleak, abandoned sky
That the moon has lately left and the stars are fast forsaking--
The day is drawing the cloudy lids from his bloodshot eye,
And the world impatient stirs--a tired old sleeper, waking.

O most unwearying prophet, ever-returning morn!
Thou giv’st new life to a world grown old, and marred in making;
With ever an old faith lost, and ever a pang new-born,
But ever a new, new hope to hearts that were well-nigh breaking.
(Text.)

--_The Metropolitan._

(1834)

LIGHT AND ACTIVITY

Those who would glow with the brightness of a blest life can not so shine unless they are luminous with activity.

We are passing along a country road on a dark evening and are
arrested by seeing luminous points in the herbage at the foot of
a hedgerow or side of a lane. We find on investigation that the
beautiful little lights are emitted by glowworms. At first sight
these appear to be stationary, but we find by patient waiting
and watching that the little creatures are slowly moving as they
shine and that each glowworm ceases to emit its lovely gleam
directly it stops moving. And in human life are not the bright
lights of society, of the family, of the Church, those persons
who are incessantly in action? The sluggard is too dull to
shine; the energetic souls go sparkling on their way and charm
as well as help. (Text.)

(1835)

=Light and Darkness=--See BLIND GUIDES.

LIGHT AS A CURE

Dr. Hasselbach, of Copenhagen, has become convinced that the
light treatment is effective in heart disease and affections of
the nervous system. Dr. Hasselbach, after experimenting on his
own perfectly normal organs, next experimented on two doctors.
Both of these were complete invalids, one suffering from angina
pectoris and the other from a nervous affection of the heart.
This treatment, which lasted in one case for a month and in
the others for six weeks, resulted in enabling both doctors to
resume their practise. (Text.)

(1836)

=Light, Attraction of=--See SUICIDE PREVENTED.

LIGHT-BEARERS

Natural science has shown that the transmission of light to our
globe is dependent on the luminous atmosphere surrounding the
sun; and that light existed originally independent of the sun,
and consisted of the undulations of a luminiferous ether. The
latest theory maintains that the body of the sun is simply an
irritant, having the property of setting the undulations of this
ether into motion, but wholly devoid of light in itself.

Such a luminous atmosphere is the environment of one’s life, and capable of being made the means of constituting each man a luminary to the world.

(1837)

* * * * *

Annie Winsor Allen is the author of this cheering verse:

Bringers of hope to men,
Bearers of light.
Eager and radiant,
Glad in the right,
’Tis from these souls aglow
Man learns his path to know.
They as they onward go
Bear on the light.

What tho they fight to lose,
Facing the night!
Morning will find them still
Seeking the height.
What tho this stress and strain
Makes all their hopes seem vain!
They through the bitter pain
Bear on the light.

Brothers of all that live,
They aid us all.
May our hearts, touched with fire,
Leap to their call!
Their voices, clear and strong,
Ring like a rallying song,
“Upward against the wrong!
Bear on the light!”

(1838)

LIGHT, BENEFITS OF

If we company with Him who said, “I am the light of the world,” our moral natures will experience something corresponding to the physical benefits of light when it is applied in moderation.

Light acts as a stimulant to the bodies of men as well as of
animals. The ability of the blood to carry through the system
oxygen that is taken from the atmosphere during breathing is
increased by exposure to light. The blood is assisted also, by
the action of light on it, in giving off the carbonic-acid gas
that the body has accumulated, and thus frees the system from
the impurities out of the blood.

(1839)

LIGHT, CHRISTIAN

A lighthouse called the Pharos was built at Alexandria, Egypt.
It ascended 550 feet in the air and sent its light over the sea
for a distance of 100 miles. Its purpose was as a memorial to
King Ptolemy.

An upright character is a lighthouse to this storm-tossed world.
(Text.)

(1840)

LIGHT DEVELOPING BEAUTY

The human soul can only develop its full capacities when illumined. Light from without must call out the latent powers of the mind.

The sea-anemone is attractive only when light reaches them. In
gloom or shadow they fold themselves up on their peduncles and
look withered and repellent. In the sunshine that plays on the
waters in their pools these strange creatures open out like
blossoms expanding their petals. (Text.)

(1841)

LIGHT, DIVINE

In the oxy-hydrogen lantern the operator first lights the
hydrogen burner, and it burns like any other gas-light. Then
he turns slowly upon it a little jet of oxygen, under which
at first the flame seems dying down. But presently the lime
candle kindles, and its flame, concentrated by the condensers
to a small jet, begins to glow with a brilliancy that darkens
everything else and can not be endured to look on. So in the
movement of the world--in the “coming age”--there is high
character and grand heroism, and as one studies it he sees
that it is not Stephen’s face that shone like an angel, or
Moses’ which had to be veiled, but the ineffable Spirit that
shone out in them both. The power of the coming age is not the
power of any man, but the power of the God who made all things,
and whose glory here glows and burns brighter than the sun,
bringing out the littlest worthiness of human character in the
concentrated light of love.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons
in Illustration.”

(1842)

=Light, Excess of=--See ADVICE DISREGARDED.

LIGHT FOR RESCUE

The recently improved buoy is a remarkable device now in use in
the life-saving service of the United States. By means of the
signal lights, its position will always be known to those on
shore and on the wreck. The green light moving toward the vessel
mutely tells the shipwrecked passengers that help is at hand and
encourages them to hold on until the buoy reaches them.

How many imperiled mariners on the sea of life are lost in the
darkness because they see not the helping hand stretched out to
save them.

(1843)

LIGHT-GIVING

One of the first lessons that Jesus inculcated in the minds of His disciples who were to become His messengers, was that they should be lights in the midst of the moral and spiritual gloom.

A preacher one dark night lost his way in a corner of a strange
neighborhood. Meeting a farm laborer and asking his way, he
received for answer, “Follow that light and you will not have
gone far before you hear the bells of the next village.”

(1844)

LIGHT, IMMORTAL

Richard Watson Gilder, who died in 1909, and whose dream is now reality, wrote this beautiful prayer:

O Thou the Lord and Maker of life and light!
Full heavy are the burdens that do weigh
Our spirits earthward, as through twilight gray
We journey to the end and rest of night;
Tho well we know to the deep inward sight,
Darkness is but Thy shadow, and the day
Where Thou art never dies, but sends its rays
Through the wide universe with restless might.

O Lord of Light, steep Thou our souls in Thee!
That when the daylight trembles into shade,
And falls the silence of mortality,
And all is done, we shall not be afraid,
But pass from light to light; from earth’s dull gleam
Into the very heart and heaven of our dream.

(1845)

=Light in Christ=--See CHRIST THE LIGHT.

LIGHT IN HUMILIATION

In the neighborhood of Nice the hills are cut and seamed with
remarkable gorges, among which are found deep holes known as
“star wells.” They are so called because of the belief that from
their bottoms stars can be seen even in daylight. These abysses
have been formed by the action of water. It is, often, only when
looking up out of the deeps of our own humiliation that we can
see the stars of hope shining in the sky.

(1846)

LIGHT, INCREASING

The light to which you come at length in the railway tunnel,
and before you reach the end of the tunnel, is the very same
light exactly, as far as its nature is concerned, as the light
into which you come at the end of the tunnel; and the light
which shines from the end into the tunnel increases more and
more from its first shining until you reach the full light at
the end. So the wise man says that the path of the just is as
the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect
day. The light of the perfect day is the same as the light that
shines in the path all along, and that began to shine even ere
the sun was up. The lights are in nowise different except in
degree.--ALEXANDER MILLER, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

(1847)

LIGHT, INJURY FROM

In a moral sense it is better to face the light than to have it shine on us indirectly.

Do not make the mistake of supposing that brilliant lights are
harmless except when looked at directly. As a matter of fact
they are even more dangerous when so placed as to shine into the
eyes sidewise or from above, since the eye is less accustomed
to receive bright light from such directions. In other words,
light from such direction falls upon the outer parts of the
surface of the retina, which, being less accustomed to receive
bright light, are the more quickly injured by it. Cases are on
record where persons working in the vicinity of bare lamps so
placed have entirely lost the sight of one or both eyes.--_The
Illuminating Engineer._

(1848)

LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Among the Tsimshean Indians of Alaska the following legend is
current: “At first it was entirely dark. There was no light in
the world. The people could see nothing, but were groping around
in a continual night. Then the son of the heavenly chief came
down to earth, and the people complained to him that it was so
dark. He said he would help them, and then light came.”

A faint reflection, all this, of the story of Him who is indeed the Light of the world. (Text.)

(1849)

LIGHT PREVENTING CRIME

Many banks, stores, and warehouses turn on their lights at
night, and leave their window-shutters wide open so that the
entire interior may be seen by the policemen or watchman on the
beat. This makes it possible to detect any change inside, or the
presence of any one who might be bent on robbing. (Text.)

(1850)

LIGHT, SAFETY IN

“Let your light shine.” Do not go to places where your light
will not shine. Sam P. Jones says: “Some years ago my father had
two Irishmen digging a well for him. They went off on a drinking
spree, after they had gotten the well about three-fourths done.
They returned to finish up, but long experience and observation
had taught them that what is known as ‘fire-damp’ or poisonous
gases, sometimes accumulates in the bottom of a well. They came
to the house and asked my mother for a bucket and a candle. They
set the candle in the bottom of the bucket and lowered it slowly
into the well, and the candle went out. Pat said, ‘Ah, Jamie,
there is death in that hole.’ They got some pine brush, tied
a rope to them and swished the well out with them. They again
lowered the candle and it burned brightly clear to the bottom.
And the Irishman said, ‘The candle burns bright; she’s safe
now.’”--“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”

(1851)

LIGHT, SOURCE OF

Light can not be seen. At great heights reached by aeronauts the
heavens seem black, and the stars come out and twinkle against
a background of jet. Yet this unfathomed deep of darkness is
light and nothing but light. Whatever object the light falls
upon shines; every object that produces it shines; but the light
itself is not seen.

God is light. No man hath seen him at any time, but there is no glory that does not come from Him. No light shines on earth that did not come from heaven. Yet a man may sit by his little lamp and forget the sun and stars. (Text.)

(1852)

LIGHT THAT CHEERS

The Rev. C. A. S. Dwight says:

“During a damp, foggy evening along the New England shore, a
summer resident who had been skirting the beach in a row-boat,
was struggling at the oars, trying to drive his little craft
through the waters despite the drag upon it of a heavy object
towing on behind. It was a dismal evening, and he was tired and
weary of his attempted task. But just when his depression was
greatest he heard the voice of his little boy hailing him from
the beach. Looking through the gloom he could discern the faint
glow on the shore, while his boy called encouragingly, ‘Papa,
I’ll cheer you with this lantern!’ The heart of the father was
gladdened, and his work after that seemed light, for so great is
the power of loving sympathy that it illumines all shadows and
lightens all tasks.

“I’ll cheer you with this lantern!” We all of us hold in our
hands some instrument of blessing, whether it be a lantern or
not, by the use of which, if we are alert to note the changing
necessities of those about us, we can every now and then cast a
gladdening or directing ray over life’s dark waters, or extend
some other “help in time of need” to a troubled brother.” (Text.)

(1853)

LIKENESS OF GOD

King Edward of England was driving along a country road in
Scotland one day when he overtook an old market-woman struggling
under a load which was more than she could well manage. “You
might take part of this in your carriage,” she cried to the
King whom she did not recognize. “Alas! my good woman,” replied
his Majesty with royal courtesy, “I’m very sorry, but I’m not
going the same way. However, let me give you the portrait of
my mother.” “A lot of good that will do me,” said the woman
testily. “Take it all the same,” said the King, smiling, and he
put a sovereign, bearing Queen Victoria’s effigy, in the palm of
the astonished old peasant.

That is exactly what every kind deed or generous gift is, a likeness of our Father. It is just like Him.

(1854)

=Likeness to Christ=--See FUTURE LIFE.

LIMITATION OF THE SENSES

Reasoning from the analogy of stretched strings and membranes,
and of air vibrating in tubes, etc., we are justified in
concluding that the smaller the drum or the tube the higher
will be the note it produces when agitated, and the smaller and
the more rapid the aerial wave to which it will respond. The
drums of insect ears, and the tubes, etc., connected with them,
are so minute that their world of sounds probably begins where
ours ceases; that the sound which appears to us as continuous
is to them a series of separated blows, just as vibrations of
ten or twelve per second appear to us. We begin to hear such
vibrations as continuous sounds when they amount to about thirty
per second. The insect’s continuous sound probably begins beyond
three thousand. The bluebottle fly may thus enjoy a whole world
of exquisite music of which we know nothing. (Text.)--W. MATTIEU
WILLIAMS, “Science in Short Chapters.”

(1855)

LIMITATIONS GLORIFIED

We are apt to chafe at restrictions of all kinds, but these may
be disguised blessings. Oftener the narrower the outward sphere,
the more valuable the outcome. The lenses of a telescope are
narrow, but through them we read the story of the stars. Darwin
in the earthworm saw wonders which he spent several years in
investigating. The wise botanist does not gather all the flowers
in the garden at once; he confines himself to single specimens.
One of Murillo’s finest pictures is in the Louvre at Paris. It
shows us the interior of a convent kitchen; but doing the work
there are not mortals in old dresses, but angels, white-winged
and beautiful. One serenely puts the kettle on the fire to boil,
and one is lifting up a pail of water with heavenly grace, and
one is at the kitchen dresser reaching up for plates. As the
painter puts it, all on the canvas are so busy, and working
with such a will, and so refining the work as they do it, that
somehow you forget that pans are pans and pots are pots, and
only think of the angels, and how very natural and beautiful
kitchen work is--just what the angels would do.

(1856)

=Lincoln and Children=--See CHILDREN, LINCOLN’S REGARD FOR.

=Lincoln Story=--See GOOD FOR EVIL.

=Lincoln’s First Dollar=--See MONEY, EARNING.

=Liquor=--See MONEY, HOW WE SPEND OUR.

LIQUOR-TRAFFIC

The following chart shows the cost of intoxicating liquors consumed in the United States for twenty years, and the relative yearly increase. The chart is from the _American Prohibition Yearbook_:

1888 $ 818,087,725
==================
1889 840,880,849
====================
1890 902,645,867
======================
1891 979,582,803
========================
1892 1,014,894,364
=========================
1893 1,079,483,172
===========================
1894 1,024,621,491
=========================
1895 970,947,333
======================
1896 962,094,975
======================
1897 993,203,557
========================
1898 1,041,562,868
=========================
1899 1,070,689,978
===========================
1900 1,172,226,614
=============================
1901 1,219,997,990
===============================
1902 1,347,783,644
=================================
1903 1,410,610,218
==================================
1904 1,463,678,530
====================================
1905 1,465,901,664
====================================
1906 1,608,021,917
=====================================
1907 1,757,307,854
========================================
1908 1,675,838,197
=======================================

(1858)

LIQUOR REVENUE REFUSED

What a rebuke to this nation receiving millions of dollars
annually from its revenue on liquors, is conveyed by the Queen
of Madagascar when she says, “I can not consent, as your queen,
to take a single penny of revenue from that which destroys the
souls and bodies of my subjects.”--_Congregationalist._

(1857)

LISTENING FOR SIGNALS

A news item, referring to the wreck of the _Republic_, and the hearing of the first wireless news of the disaster by the operator at the station on Nantucket Island, says:

Imagine a lonely island in the middle of winter, thereon a
lonely Marconi station, therein a lonely Marconi operator,
with his telephones glued to his head watching the break of
day, thinking of his past and future, listening for any sign
of life in his telephones. Imagine that man suddenly startled
with a faint, very faint, call from a ship using the recognized
distress signal, giving her position and calling for help.
Slowly, all too slowly, came the cry for urgent aid, each call
seemingly taking an hour’s valuable time, yet in truth but a
fraction of a second. Will he never sign? Who can it be? At last
came the recognized code letters of the White Star _Republic_,
and again the call for aid. With this information Operator
Irwin, of the Marconi force at the station here, who was on duty
at the time, immediately got the wires hot, knowing the revenue
cutter _Acushnet_ to be lying at Wood’s Hole, and within one
minute the captain was informed that his calls had been heard
and aid was being rushed to him.

The soul attent to hear the world’s signals that call for help should be ready to serve and save the lost and needy.

(1859)

LITERALISM

“One of the stories of the ‘road’ that Mr. Joseph Jefferson
delighted to tell grew out of an experience in an Indiana town,
where he was presenting ‘Rip Van Winkle,’ many years ago.

“In the hotel where he stopt was an Irishman who was employed as
a porter, but from the serious interest he took in the house he
might have been clerk and proprietor rolled into one.

“At six in the morning Mr. Jefferson was startled by a violent
thumping at his door. With slowly returning consciousness,
he remembered that he had left no call on the night before,
and naturally became indignant. His sleep was spoiled for the
morning, so he arose and appeared before the clerk.

“‘See here,’ he demanded, ‘why have I been called at this
unearthly hour?’

“‘I don’t know,” replied the clerk. ‘I’ll ask Mike.’

“The porter was summoned. ‘Mike, there was no call for Mr.
Jefferson. Why did you disturb him?’ he was asked.

“Taking the clerk by his coat-sleeve, the Irishman led him to
one side. ‘He was shnoring loike a horse, sir,’ he explained,
‘and I’d heered by the b’yes how onct he were after slapin’ for
twinty years, so, says I to myself, it’s a coomin’ on to him
agin, an’ it’s yer juty to git the crayther out o’ the house
instantly!’”

(1860)

See KNOWLEDGE BY INDIRECTION; JUDGMENT, LACK OF.

=Literary Workman=--See ACQUISITION.

LITERATURE AND MIND EXPANSION

When Coleridge was a boy of eight, his father on a starry night
explained to him the size and number of the heavenly bodies
with their vast movements. He looked for surprize and wonder
in the boy. But the poet tells us that he felt no special
wonder, because his mind, through long, happy days of reading
fairy-stories, had grown accustomed to feelings of the vast, and
to having criteria for belief other than those of his senses.
Literature accustoms the mind to feelings of sublimity, wonder,
intricacy, and the constant workings of higher laws. These are
noble contributions to the religious consciousness.--WILLIAM
D. MACCLINTOCK, “Proceedings of the Religious Education
Association,” 1904.

(1861)

LITERATURE AS AN INSPIRATION

Literature is but one of the forms of art through which man’s
aspiration, his ideals, are revealed. The soul of man takes the
hues of that which environs it. It is literature which inspires;
not linguistics, rhetoric, and grammar, valuable as these may
be for other purposes. Witness the tributes of Darwin and Mill
to the power of imaginative literature; these men mourned the
fact that other things deprived them of that great power of
culture of the feelings which the love of literature brought.
Barrie has said that a young man may be better employed than
in going to college; but when there, he is unfortunate if he
does not meet some one who sends his life off at a new angle.
“One such professor,” says he, “is the most any university may
hope for in a single generation.” He says, “When you looked
into my mother’s eyes, you knew why it was that God sent her
into the world; it was to open the eyes of all who looked
to beautiful thoughts, and that is the beginning and end of
literature.” After having opened the eyes of people to beautiful
thoughts, we must be willing to wait, for moral results do not
come immediately.--A. J. GEORGE, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association.”

(1862)

LITERATURE, CURRENT

Current literature is like a garden I once saw. Its proud owner
led me through a maze of smooth-trodden paths, and pointed
out a vast number of horticultural achievements. There were
sixty-seven varieties of dahlias, there were more than a hundred
kinds of roses, there were untold wonders which at last my
weary brain refused to record. Finally I escaped, exhausted,
and sought refuge on a hillside I knew, from which I could look
across the billowing green of a great rye-field, and there,
given up to the beauty of its manifold simplicity, I invited my
soul.

It is even so with our reading. When I go into one of our public
reading-rooms, and survey the serried ranks of magazines and
the long shelves full of “Recent fiction, not to be taken out
for more than five days”--nay, even when I look at the library
tables of some of my friends--my brain grows sick and I long for
my rye-field.--_The Outlook._

(1863)

=Literature in Advertising=--See ADVERTISING.

=Literature in Prisons=--See PRISON LITERATURE.

=Literature, Short-lived=--See EVANESCENT LITERATURE.

=Little Deeds of Kindness=--See CHEER, SIGNALS OF.

=Little Evils=--See DESTRUCTIVENESS.

LITTLE GIFTS

An Australian missionary was addressing a band of children on
the needs of the people among whom he was working. A little one
slipt a sixpence shyly into his hand with the request that he
use it for something special. He bought with it a prayer-book,
and gave it to a poor workhouse girl who had been sent from
England to go into service on an Australian farm. She promised
to read it faithfully. Several weeks later a rough-looking man
came and asked him if he were the person who had given his
servant a prayer-book. His wife was very ill and wanted to see
him. Altho it was twenty miles inland, the clergyman went and
ministered to the poor woman. A little while later the man came
once more to the minister and said that he and his neighbors had
built a little church and paid for it and wanted him to come
and conduct services among them. Thus an entirely new work was
opened as a result of the little child’s sixpence.

(1864)

See CHILD’S GIFT.

LITTLE SINS

And I am afraid of little sins because they grow so great. No
one can tell whereunto sin will lead. The beginnings of sin are
like the leakings of water from a mighty reservoir; first an
innocent ooze, then a drip, then a tiny stream, then a larger
vein, then a flood, and the rampart gives way and the town
is swept to ruin. The habits of sin are like the habits of
burglars, who sometimes take a little fellow and put him through
a window too small for a man to enter, and the child must open
the door for the burglar gang to pass. So with little sins; they
creep in and open the door for larger to enter. A little sin is
the thin edge of the wedge, and when once inserted it can be
driven home till it splits and ruins the life.--A. H. C.
MORSE.

(1865)

* * * * *

I remember, when a lad, the so-called army-worms first swept
across the fields. They went straight ahead, and moved like
a mighty host with captains. They were little things, but
when they were gone the fields looked as tho they had been
swept by a fire. So a thousand little wrongs in the life can
rob it of beauty as really as one great, blazing, public
transgression.--A. H. C. MORSE.

(1866)

* * * * *

I am afraid of little sins because they involve a great
principle. You go into a bank with a check for $1,000, and in
his hurry the clerk passes out $1,100, and you walk out of the
bank with that sum. You agree with me, I suppose, that you do a
dishonest thing--that you have stolen $100. Would it not be the
same if your check called for $5, and he gave you $6 by mistake?
You ride on a train to Boston, and by some oversight your ticket
is not collected, and you ride back on that very same ticket.
You agree with me that the thing is wrong. Is it not the same
when you ride on a trolley car and elude the conductor, or slip
past the gateman and enter the train? In either case the man is
a thief.--A. H. C. MORSE.

(1867)

LITTLE THINGS

We belong to a scheme of nature in which the chief factor is the infinitesimal. The composition of the elements depends on the multitudinous accretions of particles. We are most in danger when we overlook the power of mere atoms to affect us, and when we despise trivial causes of mischief.

A cathedral clock with its musical chimes suddenly stopt
intoning its sacred and beautiful melodies. The cause was for a
time a perplexity, as nothing could be discovered to have gone
wrong with the machinery of the chimes. But at length it was
found that a frail brown butterfly had become entangled in the
wheelworks, and had brought to a complete standstill the clock
and its chimes. (Text.)

(1868)

* * * * *

Dr. S. P. Henson says:

What a multitude of threads make up a fringe; and yet how
beautiful and costly when completed! And here is found a beauty
of the real Christian life. There are not a few who may be
willing upon rare and notable occasions to do or suffer some
great thing, but the ten thousand little things of life are
entirely beneath their notice, as they also suppose them to be
beneath the notice of the Lord. (Text.)

(1869)

See FAITH IN GOD.

=Lives Corresponding to the Bible=--See NATIVE CONVERTS.

LIVES THAT SHINE

Don’t waste your time in longing
For bright, impossible things;
Don’t sit supinely yearning
For the swiftness of angel wings;
Don’t spurn to be a rushlight
Because you are not a star;
But brighten some bit of darkness
By shining just where you are.

There is need of the tiniest candle
As well as the garish sun;
The humblest deed is ennobled
When it is worthily done.
You may never be called to brighten
The darkened regions afar;
So fill, for the day, your mission
By shining just where you are.

Just where you are, my brother,
Just where God bids you stand,
Tho down in the deepest shadow,
Instead of the sunlit land;
You may carry a brightness with you
That no gloom or darkness can mar,
For the light of a Christlike spirit
Will be shining wherever you are.(Text.)

(1870)

=Living in the Faith of Jesus=--See CHRIST, FAITH IN.

LIVING IN THE SHADOW

The second Duke of Wellington inherited a great talent for
reticence from his father, and did not succeed to his title
until he was forty-five. He had served in the army and in the
House of Commons without making his mark in either save by
conscientious attention to duty. In the House of Lords, however,
shortly after taking his seat, he delivered a speech revealing
such an intimate knowledge of public business, and of such
luminous good sense, as to occasion surprize. Among those who
congratulated him was “the candid friend” always present on
such occasions. This “candid friend” explained to the duke that
the latter had been generally regarded as a “colorless” man,
and congratulated him on disproving the charge. The duke made a
reply, applicable to many, saying, “If you had sat in the shade
of a great tree for almost fifty years very likely people would
have regarded you as colorless, too.”

George V, like the second Duke of Wellington, has for almost
half a century lived in the shadow of a great tree. From infancy
up to his twenty-seventh year he was in the second rank of
public interest. Not a negligible quantity, he yet could not
be, while the Duke of Clarence lived, conspicuous. Moreover,
he was wise to sink his royal personality in the discharge of
his duty as a naval officer. The British have peculiar tastes
and standards, and they do not altogether like to see a younger
member of the royal family very conspicuous in public affairs. A
“pushful” prince would be almost obnoxious to their traditions.
A royal general or a royal admiral must not lead too much, or
the old jealousy of militarism might crop out in the nation,
which licenses the existence of its standing army only from
year to year. Consequently George V, when Duke of York and
subsequently when Prince of Wales, may have been called upon to
dissemble, and he may yet demonstrate that his reputation as a
colorless man is due to the public inability to understand what
constitutes the spectrum of character.--Boston _Transcript_.

(1871)

LIVING, STRENGTH FOR

There was a time when low on bended knee,
With outstretched hand and wet uplifted eye
I cried: O Father, teach me how to die,
And give me strength Death’s awful face to see
And not to fear. Henceforth my prayer shall be;
Help me to live. Stern life stalks by
Relentless and inexorable, no cry
For help or pity moveth her as she
Gives to each one the burden of the day.
Therefore, let us pray:
Give us the strength we need to live, O Lord.

--JULIA C. R. DORR.

(1872)

=Living, The, as an Asset=--See MOTIVE, MERCENARY.

LIVING THE GOSPEL

An American teacher was employed in Japan in a government
school, on the understanding that during school hours he should
not utter a word on the subject of Christianity. The engagement
was faithfully kept, and he lived before his students the Christ
life, but never spoke of it to them. Not a word was said to
influence the young men committed to his care, but so beautiful
was his character, and so blameless his example, that forty of
the students without his knowledge, met in a grove and signed a
secret covenant to abandon idolatry. Twenty-five of them entered
the Kyoto Christian Training School and some of them are now
preaching the gospel which their teacher unconsciously commended.

(1873)

=Loads=--See OVERLOADING.

LOADS, BALKING UNDER

This morning I saw a pair of horses which had evidently become
discouraged by being hitched to loads that were too heavy for
them. At the start they did their best to go forward; when the
driver struck them with his whip they made an effort to pull;
but one could see that their spirit had been broken; the long
struggle with unequal burdens had caused them to lose their
confidence and their grip, and after a while they ceased to make
any effort to move.

I have often seen other horses loaded beyond their strength; but
no matter how heavy their load, they would pull again and again
with all their might, stretching to the utmost every muscle,
nerve, and fiber in them; and, altho they could not start the
load, they would never give up trying.

Everywhere in life we find people like those horses. Some have
become discouraged by trying to carry too heavy a load, and
finally give up the struggle. They spurt a little now and again,
but there is no heart, no spirit in their effort. The buoyancy
and cheer and enthusiasm have gone out of their lives. They have
been tugging away over heavy loads so long that they have become
disheartened. There is no more fight in them.

There are others who, no matter how heavy their load, will
never cease in their efforts to go forward. They will try
a thousand times with all their might and main; they will
tug away until completely exhausted; they will gather their
strength and try again and again without losing heart or
courage. Nothing will daunt them, or induce them to give up
the struggle. When everybody else lets go, they stick because
they are made of winning material, the mettle which never gives
up.--_Success._

(1874)

LOCAL PRIDE

Augustine Burrell tells the following incident which goes to prove that things are great or small to men, according to very local points of view:

Bonnor, the Australian cricketer, told us that until that
evening he had never heard of Dr. Johnson. Thereupon somebody
was thoughtless enough to titter audibly. “Yes,” added Bonnor,
in heightened tones, and drawing himself proudly up, “and what
is more, I come from a great country, where you might ride a
horse sixty miles a day for three months, and never meet anybody
who had.”

(1875)

=Location=--See SENTIMENT MIXED.

=Location in Animals=--See DIRECTION, SENSE OF.

LOCUSTS AS FOOD

In the East, as elsewhere, since the Biblical days of John’s
“locusts and honey,” locusts have been deemed more or less
edible. In Palestine to this day they are considered a luxury.
The Jews fry them in sesame oil, sesame being the grain of
which mention is made in the story of “Ali Baba and the
Forty Thieves,” a favorite tale in the _Arabian Nights_
entertainments.

In Arabia Petrea locusts are dried in the sun and then ground
into a sort of flour for baking; and in Central Africa certain
tribes employ locusts for making a thick brown soup.

In Madagascar they are baked in huge jars, fried in grease, and
then mixed with rice, forming a dainty much affected by the
dusky inhabitants of that big island.

The Algerians have a simpler method. They merely boil the
locusts in water and salt them to the taste. The Arabians grind
and bake the locusts as cakes, roast them in butter, or else
crush them in a mixture of camel’s cheese and dates.

Locusts are also eaten, in times of famine, in southern Russia,
generally by the poorest of the poor, among whom the insects are
smoked like fish. In the preparation of locusts for food the
legs and wings are invariably detached.

It is said that, while the flavor of locusts is strangely
disagreeable in the raw state, this flavor is readily disguised
and even becomes agreeable when the insect is cooked. Some of
the locust soups are, we are told, scarcely to be distinguished
from beef broth; and when the little insects are fried in their
own oil and slightly salted they take on a pleasing nutty
flavor. (Text.)--_Harper’s Weekly._

(1876)

LONELINESS, PERILS OF

Recently a London pastor preached a sermon on the after-business
occupations of young people, in which he said that from 6 to
11 P.M. was the danger zone for young folks who are
employed during the day. Speaking of the mesmeric glitter of
London, and the fascination of its so-called amusements, he
made the assertion that he believed that the theaters and
music-halls should be controlled by the churches.

The Sunday-school _Chronicle_ sent an interviewer to ask
him why he made this statement. His answer follows:

“First of all,” said the pastor, “I have been so deeply imprest
by the sense of awful loneliness which is experienced by young
people coming to central London from the provinces. I know
for a fact that scores of young men and women go to the bad
because of the absolute friendlessness of their lives. Six
months ago I spent two days at the Old Bailey Sessions House
trying to snatch a girl of nineteen from prison. She came to
London motherless and friendless, and was spoken to kindly by
a young man in Oxford street. She appreciated the apparent
sympathy which this stranger extended to her--well, the rest
of the story of her downfall may be imagined. Many of these
young people have nowhere to go after business hours but the
music-hall or the public-house, and the things they take away
from these places and retail in their houses of business are the
questionable jokes which they have heard. So for these young
people I plead for churches that are homes and amusements that
are healthy.”--_The Advance._

(1877)

=Lonesomeness Abated=--See REMINDERS.

LONGEVITY ACCOUNTED FOR

Senator Chauncey M. Depew, entertained at a dinner on the occasion of his seventy-sixth birthday, said:

Fifty-four years in public and semipublic life and upon the
platform all over this country and in Europe for all sorts of
objects in every department of human interest have given me
a larger acquaintance than almost anybody living. The sum of
observation and experience growing out of this opportunity is
that granted normal conditions, no hereditary troubles, and
barring accidents and plagues, the man who dies before seventy
commits suicide. Mourning the loss of friends has led me to
study the causes of their earlier departure. It could invariably
be traced to intemperance in the broadest sense of that word;
intemperance in eating, in drinking, in the gratification of
desires, in work, and in irregularity of hours, crowning it all
with unnecessary worry.--New York _Times_.

(1878)

=Longevity and Work=--See INDUSTRY AND LONGEVITY.

LONGEVITY, EXAMPLE OF

One of the most extraordinary incidents in the whole record of
longevity is reported from Pesth, in Hungary, where a beggar,
aged eighty-four, tried to commit suicide by throwing himself
into the Danube because he was no longer able to support his
father and mother, who are one hundred and fifteen and one
hundred and ten years old, respectively. When he told this
story, after his rescue, it was laughed at, but a police inquiry
showed it to be true. The family are Magyars from the extreme
south of Hungary.--_Public Opinion._

(1879)

LONGEVITY INCREASING

“It is estimated,” said Dr. Felton, the learned Georgia
statesman, divine, and M.D., in an address before the graduating
class of Atlanta Medical College, “that human life has increased
twenty-five per cent in the past fifty years.” The average human
life in Rome under Cæsar was eighteen years; now it is forty.
The average in France fifty years ago was twenty-eight; the mean
duration in 1887 was forty-five and one-half years. In Geneva
during the thirteenth century a generation played its part upon
the stage and disappeared in fourteen years; now the drama
requires forty years before the curtain falls. During the golden
reign of good Queen Bess, in London and all the large cities of
merry old England, fifty out of every 1,000 paid the last debt
to nature early, which means instead of threescore-and-ten, they
averaged but one score. Now, in the city of London, the average
is forty-seven years.--DR. TODD.

(1880)

See IMPROVED CONDITIONS.

LONGEVITY, RECIPES FOR

A complete list of infallible prescriptions for the prolongation
of human life would fill a voluminous book, and would include
some decidedly curious specifics. “To what do you ascribe your
hale old age?” the Emperor Augustus asked a centenarian whom
he found wrestling in the palestra and bandying jokes with the
young athletes. “_Intus mulso, foris oleo_,” said the old
fellow. “Oil for the skin and mead (water and honey) for the
inner man.” Cardanus suggests that old age might be indefinitely
postponed by a semifluid diet warmed (like mother’s milk) to
the exact temperature of the human system; and Voltaire accuses
his rival Maupertuis of having hoped to attain a similar
result by varnishing his hide with a sort of resinous paint
(_un poix resineux_) that would prevent the vital strength
from evaporating by exhalation. Robert Burton recommends “oil
of unaphar and dormouse fat”; Paracelsus rectified spirits
of alcohol; Horace, olives and marshmallows. Dr. Zimmerman,
the medical adviser of Frederick the Great, sums up the “Art
of Longevity” in the following words: “Temperate habits,
outdoor exercise, and steady industry, sweetened by occasional
festivals.”(Text.)--FELIX OSWALD, _Bedford’s
Magazine_.

(1881)

LONGING

The thing we long for, that we are
For one transcendent moment,
Before the present, poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment.

* * * * *

Longing is God’s fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that it may be still--
Content with merely living;
But, would we learn that heart’s full scope,
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope,
And realize the longing.

--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

(1882)

=Look, The Kind=--See FACE, AN INVITING.

LOOKING BOTH UP AND DOWN

“Your way is dark,” the angel said,
“Because you downward gaze,
Look up; the sun is overhead,
Look up and learn to praise.”
I looked; I learned. Who looks above
Will find in heaven both light and love.

“Why upward gaze?” the angel said;
“Have you not learned to know
The light of God shines overhead
That men may work below?”
I learned. Who only looks above
May miss below the work of love,

And thus I learned the lessons twain:
The heart whose treasure is above
Will gladly turn to earth again
Because the heaven is love.
Yea, love that framed the starry height
Came down to earth and gave it light.

--BISHOP OF RIPON.

(1883)

LOOKING DOWN

It is usually the small-souled and narrow-minded man who can
decry faults and failings with an eagle eye, but upon whom
all the finer and grander qualities of humanity are lost. To
him who ever walks with head bent and eyes on the ground the
whole universe appears to be made of dust; but he who goes with
head erect and eyes uplifted breathes the pure air and greets
the rising sun, and forgets the dust that may be under his
feet.--Philadelphia _Ledger_.

(1884)

LOOKING UP

In the early days of Britain, when the Christian Cuthbert and
his companions were driven from the bitter land to sea, and then
were cast upon a dreary shore by a terrible storm, they cried,
“No path is open for us; let us perish: we are driven from land
to sea and from sea to land.” And Cuthbert answered, “Have ye so
little faith, my comrades?” and then lifting his eyes to heaven
he prayed, “I thank Thee, Lord, that the way to heaven is still
open.”

When there is no other way to look for help, we may look up. (Text.)

(1885)

=Loquacity=--See VERBIAGE.

LORD’S PRAYER INTERPRETED

A friend tells us an anecdote of Booth, the tragedian:

Booth and several friends had been invited to dine with an old
gentleman in Baltimore, of distinguished kindness, urbanity,
and piety. The host, altho disapproving of theaters and
theater-going, had heard so much of Booth’s remarkable powers
that curiosity to see the man had, in this instance, overcome
all scruples and prejudices. After the entertainment was over,
lamps lighted, and the company reseated in the drawing-room,
some one requested Booth as a particular favor, and one which
all present would doubtless appreciate, to read aloud the Lord’s
Prayer. Booth exprest his willingness to do this, and all
eyes were turned expectantly upon him. Booth rose slowly and
reverently from his chair. It was wonderful to watch the play
of emotions that convulsed his countenance. He became deathly
pale, and his eyes, turned tremblingly upward, were wet with
tears. And yet he had not spoken. The silence could be felt. It
became absolutely painful, till at last the spell was broken as
if by an electric shock, as his rich-toned voice, from white
lips syllabled forth, “Our Father who art in heaven,” etc., with
a pathos and solemnity that thrilled all hearers. He finished.
The silence continued. Not a voice was heard or a muscle moved
in his rapt audience, till from a remote corner of the room a
subdued sob was heard, and the old gentleman, their host, stept
forward, with streaming eyes and tottering frame, and seized
Booth by the hand. “Sir,” said he, in broken accents, “you have
afforded me a pleasure for which my whole future life will feel
grateful. I am an old man, and every day from my boyhood to
the present time I thought I had repeated the Lord’s prayer;
but I have never heard it--never.” “You are right,” replied
Booth; “to read that prayer as it should be read has caused
me the severest study and labor for thirty years; and I am
far from being satisfied with my rendering of that wonderful
production.”--_The Millenarian._

(1886)

=Losing and Saving=--See MESSAGE, A TIMELY.

=Loss and Gain=--See COMPENSATION; DEPORTMENT; FAST LIVING.

LOSS AND PROFIT

It is said that the bursting of a pin in the driving-wheel of
an engine in the Illinois Steel Company will cost the company
$369,000, since the accident stopt the operation of the whole
plant about six days and a half, and the loss involved by the
stop was reckoned at about $40 a minute. This fable teaches that
great business operations work both ways: where big profits are
made big losses stand ready to overwhelm when something goes
wrong.

(1887)

=Loss Creating Wealth=--See DISCOVERY, ACCIDENTAL.

LOSS, GAIN IN

When Mahamoud, the conqueror of India, took the city of Gujarat, he proceeded, as his custom was, to destroy the idols. One of these, standing fifteen feet high, the attendant priests and devotees begged him to spare. But, deaf to their entreaties, he seized a hammer and smote the idol, when to his amazement from the shattered image there rained a shower of gems--pearls and diamonds--treasures of fabulous value hidden within it. (Text.)

(1888)

=Loss Through Disuse=--See TALENTS, BURIED.

=Lost and Won=--See SUCCESS.

LOST CHORDS

How few of us have kept the early joy, and have continued in
blest peace? Of course, you know the story of the lost chord?
A woman, in the shadows of the twilight, when her heart was
sad, gently touched the keys of a glorious organ. She did not
know nor care what she was playing; her fingers lingered idly
but caressingly upon the keys. Suddenly she struck a chord, and
its wondrous melody as it filled the room was uplifting and
transforming and heavenly.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel’s psalm,
And it lay on her fevered spirit
With the touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away in silence,
As if it were loath to cease.

Something disturbed this woman and called her from the organ. As
soon as possible she hurried back and began to play, but this
divine chord was gone, and tho she kept on playing she could not
bring it back again. (Text.)--CURTIS LEE LAWS.

(1889)

LOST, CRY OF THE

A drover in Dakota promised to bring home from his cattle sale
a doll for his little girl. He was caught in a blizzard, and
night found him still miles from home. In the darkness he heard
a cry, possibly of a child lost in the storm. He was thankful
for the warm house that sheltered his own child, but he could
not leave that cry off in the dark, tho he knew he was risking
his life lingering. It was hard tracing the feeble cry, and
when at last he found it it was not crying. He gathered it up
under his big overcoat and struggled homeward, stumbling, nearly
perishing, but at last fell in over his own threshold, with his
own child saved in his arms.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons
in Illustration.”

(1890)

LOST, FINDING THE