Chapter C: C. Abbot writes in the New York Sun (2)

The grand total of receipts for the great cause is seen to be a
total of nearly $30,000,000, and the number of workers employed
to be more than 114,000. In each case the numbers have about
doubled in the thirteen years, while the number of stations has
increased in a like proportion. The total of actual communicants
in the churches has more than doubled, while that of the
adherents has fallen but little below the same rate of increase.
As the missions grow older and the life of the communities about
them is elevated, the number of church-members will advance in
an increasing ratio over that of adherents. The total number
now in the Christian communities in the foreign field reaches
practically 7,000,000.

(2064)

MISSIONS AND COMMERCE

Commenting on the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Dr. N. D. Hillis says:

What if the American News Company should send a shipload of
books to Borneo? The people can not read. What if they send
a shipload of typewriters to western Africa? The people can
not write. What if you send a cargo of sewing-machines to the
Hottentots? Well, they do not wear clothes. Wealth comes through
selling manufactured goods. But savages do not want these
conveniences. Now, think of what this American Board has done.
Once they sent out a band to civilize a South Sea island. In
the band were six carpenters, two blacksmiths, two bricklayers,
one architect, two tailors, two shoemakers, two weavers,
two farmers, one physician, four preachers. In forty years
after they landed, one ship a week unloaded its cargo at that
port--that tells the whole story. Since then the trade from New
England ports alone has yielded enough profit to merchants in a
single year to pay for the entire missionary enterprise.

(2065)

MISSIONS APPROVED

Jacob A. Riis says that he once “growled against foreign
missions, like many others who know no better.” He writes that
now he has learned that “for every dollar you give away to
convert the heathen abroad, God gives you ten dollars’ worth of
purpose to deal with your heathen at home.”

(2066)

MISSIONS AS SOCIAL SAFEGUARDS

The influence of a Christian mission in safeguarding a community is set forth in the following:

“During the great dock strike September, 1889, which
shook London to its center, the strikers--gaunt, grim and
desperate--were marching _en masse_ past the mission premises,
when a socialistic leader, who stood watching, turned to Mr.
George Holland (a notable promoter of London missionary work),
and said, ‘Do you know what keeps these men from sacking
London?’ ‘What do you mean?’ was the reply. ‘Only this, it
is the influence of such missions of mercy as yours.’ All
thoughtful, observant men know that this witness is true.”

(2067)

=Missions, Medical=--See RENEWAL.

MISSIONS, REASONS FOR

In the Peninsular war, for every Frenchman killed there was sent
out by England the weight of a man in lead and eight times his
weight in iron, not to speak of the cost in blood and treasure.
In the Indian wars in this country it has sometimes cost on the
average a million dollars to kill an Indian, while an average
expenditure of $200 was spent in converting them. There is
no lack of money nor means to compass the evangelization of
the world within the present century if there were but the
spirit of enterprise to dare and undertake for our Redeemer.
Talleyrand boasted that he “kept his watch ten minutes ahead
of the rest of mankind.” The Christian Church should surpass
rather than be surpast by others in her enterprise. The time
will come when disciples will look back to this age of missions
with as much surprize as we now look back to those days when
a learned prelate in the House of Lords, and a defender of
orthodoxy too, could calmly argue against sending missionaries
to the Orient! or as we contemplate with amazement speeches
against the suppression of the slave-trade that have no interest
to us except as fossils and petrifactions of an antediluvian
era!--A. T. PIERSON, _Missionary Review of the
World_.

(2068)

MISSIONS, SUCCESSFUL

In the course of his cruising in the South Seas, Lord Byron (a
cousin of the poet), landed on an island of which he thought
he was the discoverer. Suddenly a canoe appeared. Instead of
containing armed savages, its occupants were two noble-looking
men, clothed in cotton shirts and very fine mats. They boarded
the ship and presented a document from a missionary stating that
they were native teachers employed in preaching the gospel to
the people of the island. Lord Byron then went ashore. In the
center of a wide lawn stood a spacious chapel, and neat native
cottages peeped through the foliage of banana trees. On entering
a cottage, he found on a table a portion of the New Testament in
the native language.

This story of Lord Byron’s surprize visit was told at an
overflow meeting in Exeter Hall at the anniversary of the Bible
Society in 1836. When the speaker had concluded, a stranger
arose and introduced himself to the audience as the missionary
who had discovered the island, had made Christianity known to
its people, and had translated the very portion of the Scripture
which Lord Byron had found. It was John Williams, the heroic
missionary of the London Missionary Society, whose noble work
had drawn those savages from cannibalism and idolatry to the
worship of the true God.

(2069)

MISSIONS, TESTIMONY TO

Edgar Wallace, the war correspondent of the London _Daily Mail_, writes in the highest terms of what he saw of the Kongo Balolo missions. He said in part:

“No battle I have ever witnessed, no prowess of arms, no
exhibition of splendid courage in the face of overwhelming
odds, has inspired me as has the work of these outposts of
Christianity. People who talk glibly of work in the mission
field are apt to associate that work merely with house-to-house
visitations and devotional services and the distribution of
charity. In reality it means all these things plus the building
of the houses one visits, building of the church for the
devotional services, and the inculcation in the native of a
spirit of manliness which renders charity superfluous.

Somebody told me there was difficulty in getting men and women
for the missionary work in Kongoland. Speaking frankly as a man
of the world, I do not wonder. I would not be a missionary in
the Kongo for five thousand pounds a year. That is a worldly
point of view, and it is not a high standpoint. It is a simple
confession that I prefer the “flesh-pots of Egypt” to the
self-sacrifice that the missionary life claims. Yet were I a
good Christian, and were I a missionary hesitating in my choice
of a field, I would say, with _Desdemona_, “I do perceive
here a divine duty.”

(2070)

* * * * *

A singular tribute to missions was that exprest to me by the
editor of a North China newspaper: “Broadly speaking, it is a
fact that the only white man who is in China for China’s good
is the missionary. It never occurs to the average business man
here that he has any obligation to the Chinese. Yet only on that
ground can he justify his presence.”--WILLIAM T. ELLIS,
_Men and Missions_.

(2071)

=Mistaken Spiritual Judgment=--See ILLUSION, SPIRITUAL.

MISTAKEN VIEW OF CAUSE

In winter, when millions of city dwellers breathe the air
of ill-ventilated dwelling-houses, lung infections are more
frequent than in midsummer, when ventilation is enforced by the
horrors of stagnant heat. But the coincidence of frosts and
catarrhs has decided the bias of the popular hypothesis, and in
sixteen different European languages the word cold has become a
synonym of an infection which the absolutely conclusive evidence
of physiological facts proves to be a result of vitiated warm
indoor air, and to be curable by cold outdoor air. In other
words, the best remedy has been mistaken for the cause, and as a
consequence catarrhs are considerably more frequent than all the
other disorders of the human organism taken together.--FELIX
OSWALD, _North American Review_.

(2072)

* * * * *

In October, when the first night-frosts expurgate the atmosphere
of our Southern swamps, ague and yellow fever subside with a
suddenness which would certainly have suggested the idea of
curing climatic diseases by artificial refrigeration, if cold
had not somehow become the hygienic bugbear of the Caucasian
race. Gout, rheumatism, indigestion, toothaches and all
sorts of pulmonary disorders are ascribed to the influence
of a low temperature, with persistent disregard of the fact
that the outdoor laborers of the highest latitudes are the
halest representatives of our species. “Catching cold” is the
stereotyped explanation for the consequences of our manifold
sins against the health laws of nature; but the secret of the
delusion can be traced to the curious mistakes which logicians
used to sum up under the head of “_post hoc ergo propter
hoc_” fallacy--the tendency of the human mind to mistake an
incidental concomitance for a causal connection. Woodpeckers
pick insects from the trunks of dead trees, and the logic of
concomitance infers that the decay of the tree has been caused
by the visits of the birds, which in our Southern States
are known as “sap-suckers.” Young frogs emerge from their
hiding-places when a long drought is broken by a brisk rain, and
the coincidence of the two phenomena has not failed to evolve
the theory of a frog-shower.--FELIX OSWALD, _North
American Review_.

(2073)

=Mistakes of Missionaries=--See MISSIONARIES’ MISTAKES.

MISUSE OF TALENT

The life of Swift is a living tragedy. He had the power of
gaining wealth, like the hero of the Jew of Malta; yet he used
it scornfully, and in sad irony left what remained to him of a
large property to found a hospital for lunatics. By hard work
he won enormous literary power, and used it to satirize our
common humanity. He wrested political power from the hands of
the Tories, and used it to insult the very men who had helped
him, and who held his fate in their hands. By his dominant
personality he exercised a curious power over women, and used
it brutally to make them feel their inferiority. Being loved
supremely by two good women, he brought sorrow and death to
both, and endless misery to himself. So his power brought
always tragedy in its wake.--WILLIAM J. LONG, “English
Literature.”

(2074)

=Mnemonics, An Exercise in=--See MEMORY.

=Mobility=--See MOVEMENT UNCEASING.

=Model, The Mouth as a=--See NATURE AS A MODEL.

MODELS

At the University of Glasgow stands a statue of James Watt;
and by his side is the original model of a steam-engine, the
identical engine, indeed, on which Watt exercised his inventive
genius and the pattern substantially of every steam-engine in
the world.

There is just as truly a model for every man in the world. (Text.)

(2075)

=Models in Nature=--See INSECT, A MODEL.

=Moderation in Diet=--See DIET AND ENDURANCE.

MODERN LIFE

Except his own immortal poem and a few suggestions of the
art and architecture of his time, there is nothing on this
continent that Homer, resurrected and transported here, would
recognize as belonging to the world in which he lived. The
steamships, railways, telegraphs, telephones, electric motors,
printing-machines, factories, and, indeed, all that we use, all
that we enjoy, on land or sea, in peace or war, in our homes, in
our places of business, on our farms, in our mines, or wherever
we toil or rest--all, all is new, all belongs to the new world.
The inventions of recent years have so changed the world that
the man of thirty is older than Methuselah--older in that he
has seen more, experienced more than the oldest of all the
ancients.--_Inventive Age._

(2076)

MODERNITY

Many a moral failure has resulted from not keeping up with God’s moral progress, just as this mechanic failed through not keeping up with the new inventions:

The very great changes that have been wrought in machine-shop
equipment during the past few years have hit many of the older
mechanics pretty hard. A good deal of significance is contained
in the remark of one such man: “I have had to learn over my
trade three times and I’m too old to learn it again.” He had
been given a difficult job to do on a modern engine-lathe
containing the latest useful mechanisms for saving labor and
procuring accurate work, and because he did not understand the
tool he failed in his efforts until a younger machinist came to
his assistance. (Text.)

(2077)

MODESTY

Colonel Nicholas Smith, in “Grant, the Man of Mystery,” gives us the following side-light upon Grant’s character:

During a strenuous campaign, the opposition resorted to every
means to discredit him and made the most virulent attacks upon
his personal character. Grant remained silent and took no part
in the campaign. He retired to his little home in Galena,
received his friends, drove and walked about the streets, took
tea and chatted in the most familiar way with his neighbors, and
seemed totally unconscious of the fact that he was the central
figure in one of the great political struggles of the century.

(2078)

* * * * *

Of Grant’s demeanor after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, Colonel Smith says:

The little man, in the dress of a private soldier, who commanded
the armies which brought about this glorious consummation,
was not among those who joined in the demonstration of joy.
When he reached his camp that night he was none other than the
real Grant--modest, quiet, regardless of the greatness of the
occasion. General Horace Porter, who was with him at the time,
says Grant had little to say about the surrender.

(2079)

* * * * *

A group of church-members, on a tour, were delayed at a railway
station. One of them, after looking at a locomotive engine,
asked his friends what part of the engine they would choose to
be if it represented the Church. One replied, “I would be the
brake, for that is often needed for safety.” Another said, “I
would prefer to be the whistle, calling people’s attention to
the fact that ‘the King’s business requireth haste.’” “And I
would like to be the boiler, for that is an essential part of
the engine.” “What would you like to be, brother?” said one to a
quiet man who had not replied. “Oh,” said he, “I think I am only
fit to be the coal, ready to be consumed so long as the engine
moves.”

(2080)

* * * * *

A story is told among the friends of Gen. Samuel S. Sumner, U.S.A., retired, who was until recently the commanding officer of the Pacific Division.

General Sumner, after the San Francisco earthquake, went to San
Rafael. There he was informed by one of the guiding spirits of
the village that he must aid in patrolling and guarding against
fire and unruly refugees. Something in General Sumner’s bearing
evidently imprest the man, for after a moment’s thought he
said: “I think I’ll make you a second lieutenant.” “Thank you,”
answered General Sumner. “I don’t think any rank ever conferred
upon me ever pleased me more unless it was when I was made a
major-general in the regular army.” (Text.)

(2081)

* * * * *

The grace of modesty seems sometimes rare and its exhibition is always pleasing. An instance of modest reticence is given in this concerning a well-known author:

They had met in Brooklyn at a little evening party--the young
man and an older one--and were coming back to Manhattan
together. The young man inquired the elder’s vocation in life,
and the elder replied that he had practised law for eighteen
years.

“And, later,” he added, “I have done a little writing.”

“Ever get anything published?” asked the young man.

“Yes, a few things,” replied the elder.

“Write under your own name?”

“Yes.”

“By the way, I don’t believe I quite caught your name.”

“Thomas Nelson Page,” replied the other quietly.

(2082)

See HUMILITY OF A SCIENTIST.

=Mohammedans and the Bible=--See BIBLE, GRIP OF THE.

=Molding Children=--See RELIGIOUS TRAINING; TRAINING CHILDREN.

=Molding Men=--See TENDERNESS OF GOD.

MOMENTUM

The obstacles in a man’s way are determined by the gait he is
going. An old negro driving a mule down the street three miles
an hour has to get out of the way for everything, but when the
chief of the fire department comes down the street a mile a
minute everything roosts on the sidewalk and gives him the right
of way.--_Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones._

(2083)

* * * * *

Many men fail to overcome sharp temptation because they have not by long previous habits acquired the momentum of right thought and right action. We can not fly unless we have learned to walk and to run.

“Any one who has ever watched a heavy bird rise from the
ground,” says the _American Inventor_, “has doubtless
noticed that it runs along the ground for a few feet before it
rises; the bird must acquire some momentum before its wings can
lift its heavy body into the air. The natives in certain parts
of the Andes understand this fact very well and by means of it
catch the great Andean vultures, the condors. A small space
is shut in with a high fence and left open at the top. Then
a lamb or a piece of carrion is placed on the ground inside.
Presently a vulture sees the bait and swoops down upon it; but
when once he finds he has alighted on the ground inside he can
not get out, for he has no running space in which to acquire the
momentum that is necessary before his wings can lift him.”

(2084)

=Money and Precedence=--See MEDICAL MISSIONS.

=Money, Discreditable Use of=--See VULGARITY IN THE RICH.

MONEY, EARNING

Mr. Lincoln earned his first dollar by taking two men and
their trunks to a Mississippi steamer which waited for them in
midstream.

“I was about eighteen years of age,” he said, “and belonged, as
you know, to what they call down South the ‘scrubs.’ I was very
glad to have the chance of earning something, and supposed each
of the men would give me a couple of bits. I sculled them out to
the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted the trunks and put
them on the deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again,
when I called out, ‘You have forgotten to pay me.’ Each of them
took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on the
bottom of my boat.

“You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it
seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident
in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had
earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work I had
earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from
that time.”--JAMES MORGAN, “Abraham Lincoln, The Boy
and the Man.”

(2085)

=Money-getting, a Game=---See GAME OF GREED.

MONEY, GREED FOR

The individual man thinks in the beginning, “If I could only
make myself worth a hundred thousand dollars, I should be
willing to retire from business.” Not a bit of it. A hundred
thousand dollars is only an index of five hundred thousand; and
when he has come to five hundred thousand he is like Moses--and
very unlike him--standing on the top of the mountain and looking
over the promised land, and he says to himself, “A million! a
million!” and a million draws another million, until at last he
has more than he can use, more than is useful to him, and he
won’t give it away--not till after his death.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.

(2086)

MONEY, IGNORANCE OF.

A sick-nurse in a Vienna hospital administered by nuns was
observed burning up a bunch of paper money which she had found
in the bed of a deceased patient.

She thought the bank-notes were rubbish, and it took the
authority of the mother superior to convince her that the
rubbish represented a small fortune.

Subsequently it turned out that the sister, who had lived in
the nunnery since her third year, never went outside, and had
nothing to do with the administration or with worldly things
whatsoever, had never heard of the existence or use of money in
any shape or form.--Boston _Post_.

(2088)

MONEY, HOW WE SPEND OUR

The diagram below is designed to show how much the people of the United States spend every year for the drink traffic as contrasted with church work, education and the leading standard articles of food, clothing and shelter.

Foreign Missions $10,000,000
=
Brick 100,000,000
==
Churches 175,000,000
===
Potatoes 210,000,000
====
Silk Goods 240,000,000
====
Furniture 245,000,000
=====
Sugar and Molasses 310,000,000
=======
Public Education 325,000,000
========
Boots and Shoes 450,000,000
==========
Flour 455,000,000
===========
Woolen and Worsted Goods 475,000,000
============
Cotton Goods 675,000,000
=================
Lumber 700,000,000
==================
Printing and Publishing 750,000,000
====================
Tobacco 825,000,000
========================
Iron and Steel 1,035,000,000
===========================
Meat 1,550,000,000
===================================
Intoxicating Liquors 1,675,000,000
=======================================

The cost of liquors and tobacco is based upon the Internal
Revenue reports for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1908. The
other expenses are estimated for the year 1909 from the reports
of the Secretary of Agriculture, the census of manufacturers
for 1905, the report of the Commissioner of Education and other
Government and census figures.--“American Prohibition Yearbook.”

(2087)

MONEY NO TEMPTATION

A certain Parson Scott was sent to Goldsmith to induce him to
write in favor of the administration. “I found him,” says Scott,
“in a miserable set of chambers in the temple. I told him of my
authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally
for his exertions, and, would you believe it, he was so absurd
as to say, ‘I can earn as much as will supply my wants without
writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore
unnecessary to me.’ And so,” said the reverend plenipotentiary,
with unstinted contempt, “I left him in his garret.” What
Goldsmith’s exact earnings were at this time, it would be
interesting to know: what sum it was that he found sufficient
for his wants; but we know that this offer came at the close of
twelve years’ desperate struggle for bread, during which his
first work had brought him little profit, and “The Vicar of
Wakefield” had been sold for £60 to pay his landlady.--W. J.
DAWSON, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(2089)

MONEY POWER IN CANADA

I wrote to a friend of mine in Toronto for some figures. I shall
leave out the hundred thousands.

In 1881 the population of Canada was between 4,000,000 and
5,000,000; in 1901 it was 5,372,000; in 1908 it was 6,940,000;
and in 1909, between 7,000,000 and 7,500,000. Now, then, what
are their bank deposits? In 1880, thirty years ago, they were
$96,000,000; in 1884, $131,000,000; in 1890, 176,000,000;
in 1900, $358,000,000; in 1908, $593,000,000; in 1909,
$917,000,000; showing an increase of almost 63 per cent. in one
year.

What was the value of the farm products of the Dominion last
year? $532,000,000, an increase of one hundred million in one
year. They have the largest continuous wheat-field in the
world. One field nine hundred miles by three hundred miles.
I am talking about money, and this is Canadian money, with a
population of between seven and seven and a half millions; and
they have deposits of $917,000,000 in the bank.

We all know the phenomenal growth that Canada has had and is
destined to have. When I asked, “What are the resources of
Canada?” my friend replied, “I don’t know, Marling, but they are
beyond the dreams of avarice.” Then I got this telegram from him
to back it up:

“According to the census of 1901, the capital invested in
Canada was $2,356,000,000 and the value of the products
$992,200,000.”--ALFRED E. MARLING, “Student Volunteer
Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.

(2090)

MONEY POWER IN THE UNITED STATES

Do you know how many people there were in the country in 1880,
thirty years ago? There were fifty millions. Do you know what
the wealth was then estimated to be? $43,000,000,000. Ten years
afterward, in 1890, there were 62,000,000 persons living in this
country; that is a growth of 24 per cent. in ten years. But the
growth of the wealth in those ten years was from $43,000,000,000
to $65,000,000,000, which is a growth of 51 per cent. in that
decade. Population grows 21 per cent.; wealth grows 51 per cent.
In 1900 there were 76,000,000 people; a growth of 22 per cent.
in ten years. The growth in wealth was $88,000,000,000, or 35
per cent. in those same ten years. In 1904, the year of our last
census, the population was 82,000,000, showing an increase of 8
per cent.; and the growth in wealth was $107,000,000,000. That
is 21 per cent. in wealth in four years, while the population
was growing only 8 per cent.

The estimated average daily savings in the United States between
1900 and 1904 over and above all consumption, was thirteen
millions of dollars.

In 1900, the savings-bank deposits in the United States were
$2,300,000,000; and in 1908, eight years later, they were
$3,400,000,000, an increase of 47 per cent.

I have it on the authority of the secretary of the Chamber of
Commerce of New York that the banking power of the United States
is practically 40 per cent. of the banking power of the world.
And this I read in a commercial review a few days ago: “The bank
deposits of the United States amount to more than double the
whole world’s known supply of gold. They are about equal to the
whole volume of money in the world, counting gold, legal tender,
currency, etc. They are greater in value than the world’s total
amount of gold and silver since the discovery of America, and
they would be sufficient to pay more than one-third of the
entire debt of fifty leading nations of the world.”--ALFRED
E. MARLING.--“Student Volunteer Movement,” 1910.

(2091)

=Money Safe With Men of Principle=--See PRINCIPLE.

MONEY, TAINTED

Dr. Watkinson tells us that some years ago two scientists of
Vienna made a series of bacteriological experiments on a number
of bank-notes which had been in circulation for some time. The
result of their researches was sufficiently startling. On each
bank-note they discovered the presence of 19,000 microbes of
disease--some of tuberculosis, some of diphtheria, and some of
erysipelas. More than that, they found one bacillus peculiar to
the bank-note--the bank-note microbe, so to speak, because it
is found nowhere else. It thrives and fattens and multiplies on
the peculiar paper of which a bank-note is made. Is there not a
parable here?

If every evil use that is made of money were to leave its mark on the coin or bill, how great would be the moral infection thus recorded.

(2092)

=Money Transmitting Disease=--See CONTAMINATION.

MONOTONY

Before each of a row of machines in a certain Pittsburg shop, as
described in _Charities_, sits a girl. Each girl picks up a
bolt with her left hand, takes it from the left with her right
hand, feeds it point downward into the machine. When she has
done this 16,000 times, she will have earned ninety-six cents.
Unless she or the machine breaks down, such is her ten-hour day.

In these machine-made days, it is not the monotony of such a
task which is most impressive. The girl of the 16,000 motions
attracts and holds the attention.

With motions fewer in number but infinitely greater in variety,
the day’s work of a family is done. The house-worker is not tied
to a machine. She stands up to her tasks one moment and sits
down the next. She may think of other things, and to-morrow will
be in its duties and performances a little different from to-day.

The house-worker gets tired. Is it really the same grinding,
breaking weariness as that of the girl who sits before the
machine and makes 16,000 identical motions in a ten-hour day?

(2093)

=Monstrous Treatment=--See CRUEL GREED.

=Monument=--See LOVE, FILIAL.

=Monument of Christ=--See PEACE.

MONUMENTS, MEANING OF

A great monument is erected not because the man to whom it is
dedicated needs it, nor because it will alleviate the bodily
ailments of other human beings. It is erected in honor of
the great ideas which the man represented. It is built for
the future as much as for the past; even more for the future.
It is raised above the earth as a lofty sign which will teach
coming generations a great lesson in a way that books never
can. The American sculptor, Greenough, who designed the Bunker
Hill monument, wrote: “The obelisk has a singular aptitude in
its form and character to call attention to a spot memorable
in history. It says but one word, but it speaks loud. It says,
‘Here!’ That is enough. It claims the notice of every one. No
matter how careless, how skeptical or illiterate the passer-by
may be, he can not escape the appeal of a monument.”--New York
_Star_.

(2094)

=Moods and Apparel=--See DRESS AFFECTING MOODS.

MOODS DETERMINING DESIRES

An unidentified writer points out how different moods affect our minds:

When I am tired and weary,
And nothing goes my way.
I thank the heavenly Father
For two nights to every day.

But when, once more, I’m rested,
And all the world looks bright,
I thank Him that He sends me
Two days to every night!

There’s the pause before the battle,
There’s the respite from the fray;
And that is how I reckon
Two nights to every day.

When the sunset glow has faded,
In a little while ’tis light!
And that is how I reckon
Two days to every night.

And so ’tis due, believe me,
To the way we look at things,
Whether we sigh and falter
Or whether we soar on wings!

(2095)

MOODS OF THE SPIRIT

Pantheism, atheism, agnosticism, materialism, pessimism--how
many ugly, dangerous words there are in the dictionary, and
how many young men imagine that they have all these spiritual
diseases when, as a matter of fact, they are only in the way
of normal spiritual development. A man comes to say of certain
things that are mysterious, of which he thought he knew, “I
don’t know.” Then he labels himself or allows himself to be
labeled an “Agnostic.” No religious life for him. Another man
sees that the great God can not stand apart from His universe,
but must be working in it and through it all. He labels himself
“Pantheist,” or is so labeled. Another man suddenly discovers
the abyss of actual wo in the world, the evil that, for the
present at least, is without remedy. He is called a “Pessimist.”
Another man looks to the right hand and to the left hand,
and for the time he sees not God. The final word for him is
“Atheist.” Now, we can not have a free expression of what people
from time to time are actually believing until we get over our
fear of all such names. We must have a faith that is wholesome
enough and large enough to keep us from being afraid of our
own thought. The fact is, that we are continually mistaking
the passing moods of the spirit for the finalities of thought.
These moods through which we pass have been familiar to the most
profoundly religious minds.--SAMUEL M. CROTHERS.

(2096)

MOORINGS, SAFE

Before the era of steam, men used to tow their boats wearily up
the lower Ohio, or the Mississippi, with a long line. At night
it was not always safe for them to fasten their boats on the
bank while they slept, because there was danger from the wash
of the underflowing current that they would find themselves
drifting and pulling a tree after them. Therefore, they sought
out well-planted, solid, enduring trees, and tied to them, and
the phrase became popular, “That man will do to tie to.”

(2097)

=Moral Contagion=--See RETORT, PERSONAL.

=Moral Decay=--See CORRUPTION, INNER.

=Moral Meaning of the World=--See FAITH IN A MORAL UNIVERSE.

=Moral Pervasiveness=--See CHARACTER IMPARTED.

MORAL SATISFACTION

Mr. Robert E. Speer says:

When I was in the city of Tokyo, I went to the house of a
missionary to meet half a dozen of the leading native Christian
men of Japan. They were thoughtful, well-read, thoroughly
educated, keen students. There was scarcely a school of
Christian thought with which they were not familiar. I asked
them what it was in Christianity that had most appealed to them.
I supposed, of course, they would answer that they were glad of
their faith because it had thrown light on the dark, perplexing
problems of life which Buddhism and Shintoism were unable to
solve. Instead, every one said that what they valued most in
Christianity was the moral rest that they had found there. The
intellectual satisfaction was little compared with the sweet
voice that was now sounding in their hearts, “Come unto me all
ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

(2098)

=Morality, Sum Total of=--See LOVE AND LAW.

=Morally Weak, Financially Strong=--See DRINK, PERIL OF.

=Morning=--See DAWN OF CHRISTIAN LIGHT.

=Mortal Pomp=--See GLORY FADED.

MORTALITY RESISTED

The Christian would naturally call the attention of persons like those mentioned in the extract to Jesus’ words, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”:

A fantastic organization is described in _The British Medical
Journal_. It is a league against illness and death, which has
been formed, so we are assured, in the State of Iowa. Says the
paper named above:

“Already several hundreds of persons have joined. A condition
of membership is that every one on admission must sign a pledge
that he or she will continually assert that it is nothing but
custom and habit of thought that causes people to be sick, grow
old, or die. Any member who is reported sick from any disease
and is confined to his bed for a continuous period of three
days is to be fined for the first offense; for a second offense
he is to be suspended from membership; a third offense entails
expulsion from the society.” (Text.)

(2099)

MOSAIC OF THE KINGDOM

Bishop Simpson gives this illustration of the composition of Christ’s completed kingdom:

In some of the great halls of Europe may be seen pictures not
painted with the brush, but mosaics, which are made up of small
pieces of stone, glass, or other material. The artist takes
these little pieces, and, polishing and arranging them, he forms
them into the grand and beautiful picture. Each individual
part of the picture may be a little worthless piece of glass
or marble or shell; but with each in its place, the whole
constitutes the masterpiece of art. So I think it will be with
humanity in the hands of the great artist. God is picking up
the little worthless pieces of stone and brass, that might be
trodden under foot unnoticed, and is making of them His great
masterpiece.

(2100)

=Moslem Life=--See PERSIA, THE MOSLEM SITUATION IN.

MOTHER

So long as young men and maidens honor and love their parents there is hope and success awaiting them. We do not know the author of these lines:

Of all the names to memory dear,
One name to me alone is dearest;
Tho many names to me are near
Yet this shall ever be the nearest.
For on my heart’s most sacred place
’Tis deeper graved than any other;
Nor naught from thence shall e’er erase
The lovely, honored name of mother.

(2101)

* * * * *

Hester I. Radford, in _The Atlantic Monthly_, writes the following:

You struggled blindly for my soul
And wept for me such bitter tears
That through your faith my faith grew whole
And fearless of the coming years.

For in the path of doubt and dread
You would not let me walk alone,
But prayed the prayers I left unsaid
And sought the God I did disown.

You gave to me no word of blame
But wrapt me in your love’s belief,
Dear love, that burnt my sin like flame,
And left me worthy of your grief.

(2102)

MOTHER, A BRAVE

From his mother Ben Jonson received certain strong
characteristics, and by a single short reference in Jonson’s
works we are led to see the kind of woman she was. It is while
Jonson is telling Drummond (who wrote the records of his life)
of the occasion when he was thrown into prison, because some
passages in the comedy of “Eastward Ho!” gave offense to King
James, and he was in danger of a horrible death, after having
his ears and nose cut off. He tells us how, after his pardon,
he was banqueting with his friends, when his “old mother” came
in and showed a paper full of “lusty strong poison,” which she
intended to mix with his drink just before the execution. And
to show that she “was no churl,” she intended first to drink
of the poison herself. The incident is all the more suggestive
from the fact that Chapman and Marston, one his friend and the
other his enemy, were first cast into prison as the authors of
“Eastward Ho!” and rough Ben Jonson at once declared that he too
had had a small hand in the writing and went to join them in
prison.--WILLIAM J. LONG, _English Literature_.

(2103)

=Mother, A Heart Broken=--See JUVENILE COURT EXPERIENCE.

=Mother, A Reminder of=--See REMINDERS.

=Mother Caution=--See REASONING POWER IN ANIMALS.

MOTHER INSTINCT

A cow’s melancholy over the loss of her calf led to a strange
incident at the home of Josiah Brown, near Mount Carmel.

Brown owned a cow with a spotted calf which was so peculiarly
marked that some time ago, when it was killed for veal, the skin
was made into a rug. The mother cow was downcast and bellowed
continually.

Mrs. Brown went into her front parlor, and there on the floor
lay the cow, placidly licking the calfskin rug. It is supposed
the cow approached the house and by chance saw the calfskin
through the window, then quietly pushed the doors open and
walked in. One barred door had been forced open by the cow’s
horns.--Boston _Journal_.

(2104)

MOTHER LOVE

Not long ago a woman fifty years old went to a teacher in School
No. 2, and with tears in her eyes, begged permission to sit down
with the little ones five to six years old, that she might learn
to read and write. She explained that she had two boys in the
West, and desired to learn her letters that she might be able to
communicate with them. Her daughter had done this for her, but
three years ago the daughter died, and now the hungry-hearted
mother was willing to make any sacrifice to keep in touch with
her sons. So she entered school without telling any one, even
her husband. Four weeks from the day she entered she was able to
read through the primer, first reader, and almost through the
second. Now she can write so any one can easily read every word.
She learns ten new words at home every day, and always knows her
lesson perfectly. She has learned to begin and end a letter,
and it will not be long before she can write a love-letter--a
genuine mother love-letter--to her boys. Through the goodness
of my friend, I have in my possession a yellow sheet of paper
containing one of her writing exercises. Reading between the
lines, there is something inexpressibly touching about it.
The words are such as may be found in the copy-book of any
schoolboy, but the mother, with her hard hands and tender heart,
as she copied the words imagined herself writing a letter to
one of her sons. After writing her address and the date, this
imaginary epistle, brimming with a real love, reads: “My dear
son Hugh:

Be the matter what it may,
Always speak the truth.
If at work or if at play,
Always speak the truth.”

Surely there is no ordinary clay in this vessel! She may not
be able to understand the plan of her soul’s divine Potter,
but a brave trust and a high hope reside at the center of her
being.--F. F. SHANNON.

(2105)

* * * * *

One calm, bright, sweet, sunshiny day an angel stole out of
heaven and came down to this old world, and roamed field and
forest, city and hamlet; and just as the sun went down he
plumed his wings and said: “Now my visit is out, and I must go
back to the world of light, but before I go I must gather some
mementos of my visit here”; and he looked over into a beautiful
flower-garden and said, “How lovely and fragrant these flowers
are,” and he plucked the rarest roses, and made a bouquet, and
said, “I see nothing more beautiful and fragrant than these;
I will take them with me.” But he looked a little farther and
there saw a little bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked babe, smiling
into its mother’s face, and he said, “Oh, that baby’s smile is
prettier than this bouquet; I will take that, too.” Then he
looked just beyond the cradle, and there was a mother’s love
pouring out like the gush of a river, toward the cradle and
the baby, and he said, “Oh, that mother’s love is the prettiest
thing I have seen on earth; I will carry that, too!” With the
three treasures he winged his way to the pearly gates, and lit
just on the outside, and said, “Before I go in I will examine my
mementos,” and he looked at the flowers and they had withered;
he looked at the baby’s smile and it had faded away; he looked
at the mother’s love and there it was in all its pristine beauty
and fragrance. He threw aside the withered flowers and the faded
smile and winged his way through the gates and led all the hosts
of heaven together and said, “Here is the only thing I found on
earth that would keep its fragrance all the way to heaven--a
mother’s love.”--“Popular Lectures of Sam P. Jones.”

(2106)

See ARTIFICE; PRODIGAL, THE; WAYWARD, SEEKING THE.

MOTHER LOVE IN BIRDS

The loon, or great northern diver, is reported to have displayed
her mother love and anxiety to a sportsman fishing in Sebago
Lake in Maine: He surprized the mother with one young one
near his canoe. She was employing every artifice to call the
little one away, but the infant swam so near the boat that the
fisherman took him aboard in his landing-net, and, holding him
on his knee, gently stroked his downy coat, to the evident
satisfaction of the youngster. Meanwhile the mother was in an
agony of distress. At first, forgetting her native wildness and
timidity in her mother love, she boldly approached the canoe,
and, rising in the water till she appeared to stand upon it,
furiously flapped her wings, uttering menacing cries. Finding
this of no avail, she pretended that she was wounded, rolling
over in the water and finally lying still as if dead, evidently
to attract attention to herself and away from the young one. The
fisherman, touched by these displays of motherly affection, put
the young loon into the water, upon which the mother instantly
came to life and again tried to entice her little one to go
with her. (Text.)--OLIVE THORNE MILLER, “The Bird Our
Brother.”

(2107)

MOTHER, MEMORY OF

Lamar Fontaine, looking back after a long life of adventure, writes thus of a parting with his mother:

Those long-ago days now rise before me in all their vividness.
As I pen these lines, nearing the seventy-seventh milestone in
life’s rugged pathway, I feel the loving kiss yet burning on my
lips where she prest it as she bade me “good-by.” There are some
things in our life that time does not efface, and this is one
of them. They are like the brand of red-hot iron that sears the
tender hide of the bleating calf; once burned in, it lasts as
long as life. I can see the last wave of her hand as she watched
us move off across the prairie, and the picture is branded in my
brain.--“My Life and My Lectures.”

(2108)

MOTHER, PRAYER OF A

John Wesley might well be expected to become, as he did, the great religious leader of his day with such a mother behind him.

“His mother, with the finer prescience that love gives to a
mother, saw in her second son the hint of some great, unguessed
future, and she writes in her diary under the head of ‘Evening,
May 17, 1717, Son John:

“‘What shall I render to the Lord for all His mercies? I would
offer myself and all that Thou hast given me; and I would
resolve--oh, give me grace to do it!--that the residue of my
life shall be all devoted to Thy service. And I do intend to
be more particularly careful with the soul of this child,
that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever I have
been; that I may instil into his mind the principles of true
religion and virtue. Lord give me grace to do it sincerely and
prudently.’”--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2109)

=Mothers as Protectors=--See FATHER ANIMALS UNPARENTAL.

MOTHER’S INFLUENCE, A

Grant’s love for his family was one of the strongest and
most attractive traits of his character. He never failed to
appreciate the worth of his mother’s love, patience and wisdom
during his early years at Georgetown. When she died in 1883,
at Jersey City Heights, New Jersey, the General, when at the
funeral, said to Dr. Howard Henderson, her pastor: “In the
remarks which you make, speak of her only as a pure-minded,
simple-hearted, earnest, Methodist Christian. Make no reference
to me; she gained nothing by any position I have filled or
honors that may have been paid me. I owe all this and all I
am to her earnest, modest and sincere piety.”--NICHOLAS
SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(2110)

* * * * *

In a letter written by Grover Cleveland on the eve of his election to the governorship of New York State, he stated to his brother:

“I have just voted, and I sit here in the office alone. If
mother were alive I should be writing to her, and I feel as if
it were time for me to write to some one who will believe what
I write.... I shall have no idea of reelection or of any high
political preferment in my head, but be very thankful and happy
if I serve one term as the people’s governor. Do you know that
if mother were alive I should feel so much safer. I have always
thought her prayers had much to do with my successes. I shall
expect you to help me in that way.”

(2111)

See TRUTHFULNESS REWARDED.

MOTHERS NOT IN FICTION

A sick youth was lying in bed, watching with quiet eyes his
mother’s form moving gently about the room where for weeks she
had been ministering to him with tenderest heart and hands.
There had been stillness there for a little while, when the boy
spoke: “I wonder why there are no mothers in fiction.” “Why,
there are, dear; there must be,” the mother answered quickly,
but when she tried to name one, she found that none came at the
call. When she related me the little incident, I too immediately
said that our memory must be strangely at fault that it did not
furnish us with examples in plenty. Maternal love! Why, art was
filled with illustrations of it, and so was literature. And
yet, on making search, I too have failed to find the typical
mother where it seems she would so easily be found.--_Atlantic
Monthly._

(2112)

=Mother, The, and the Lambs=--See FATHER’S VOICE.

=Mother Wisdom=--See WEALTH AND WORK.

MOTHERHOOD

We can understand how Tennyson was preserved from the fatality
of recklessness, how it is he wore the white flower of a
blameless life, and ruled himself with chivalrous regard for
womanhood, when we study his mother’s face. What such a woman
must have been in the home, and what sort of home it must have
been where she moved like a ministering spirit, we can readily
imagine.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of English Poetry.”

(2113)

* * * * *

Alexander the Great never wore any garments save those made
by his mother. These beautiful robes he showed to the Persian
princes who came to visit his court as marks of the skill of
Olympia, who was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a
sovereign and the mother of a conqueror.

Every child does not have mother-made garments; but is it not true that every child is mother-made? And does he not more than continue the succession of her royal soul?

(2114)

MOTHERHOOD, DIVINE

I remember going one day into a great church in Paris and
seeing, round back of the altar, in a little chapel sacred to
the Virgin Mary and above a little altar in the little chapel,
a bas relief. It represented the figure of a woman with a babe
in her arms standing on the world; and under her feet, crusht
and bleeding, was a serpent. It is only a woman with a babe in
her arms that is going to crush the serpent after all.--HUGH
BIRKHEAD.

(2115)

MOTHERHOOD IN ANIMALS

Louis Albert Banks tells of a man who killed a she bear and brought her young cubs home to train up as pets:

When they got to camp the motherless pets were put in a box and
given something to eat; but eat they would not and yelp they
would, making a distressing noise. He took a switch and whipt
them, but they only cried the louder. At first every one was
sorry for them; but by and by, as the crying was continued,
everybody began to scold on account of the noise. He thought
that on account of the noise they made he would have to kill
them. At length, however, he brought the mother-bearskin, and
covering this over something, he put it in a corner of the box.
The men stept back so that they could see without being seen,
and pretty soon each little cub had smelled the motherskin and
had nestled up close to it as contented as could be, and soon
they were sound asleep. (Text.)

(2116)

MOTION, CHANGE BY

The effect of rotation in changing the shape of plastic bodies
can readily be shown in simple experiments. A light metal ring
is mounted on a vertical axis about which it can be rotated
with great rapidity. When the ring is at rest it is circular
in shape, but when it is rotated it becomes flattened along
the axis, bulging out at what we may call the equator. The
faster the ring is rotated the greater and greater becomes its
departure from circular shape.--CHARLES LANE POOR, “The
Solar System.”

(2117)

=Motion Desired=--See HOME, CHOICE OF A.

MOTION WITHOUT PROGRESS

There’s one kind of an engine that’s always a nuisance to me,
and that’s these little switching-engines down by the station.
They run up and down side-tracks, shoving cars; and that’s all
they do from week to week and from month to month. They’re
always getting in the way of wagons and scaring horses. But when
I see a grand locomotive start to the seacoast cities, there
is music in her whistle. There is something which says she’s
determined to land her passengers at their destination on time.
There are a great many of us Christians just switching backward
and forward on side-tracks.--“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”

(2118)

=Motive, A Pure=--See PRIDE IN ONE’S TASK.

MOTIVE, MERCENARY

Portrait-painting was the deliberate choice of Sir Godfrey
Kneller because it was profitable. It was said of him: “Where he
offered one picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre.” He
said of himself: “Painters of history make the dead live, and
do not begin to live themselves till they are dead; I paint the
living and they enable me to live.” And in this he succeeded,
for he painted ten sovereigns, and among other celebrities,
Marlborough, Newton and Dryden. He was rewarded, too, by poems
written in his honor by Pope, Addison, Steele and others. King
William got him to paint the beauties of Hampton Court. (Text.)

(2119)

=Mountain, The=--See VIEWPOINT, THE.

=Mourning=--See BIBLE CUSTOMS TO-DAY.

=Movement=--See SLOWNESS.

MOVEMENT UNCEASING

There is nothing absolutely stable in the universe. From the
ultimate eon to the largest world in space everything is moving.
If we believe in progress we shall say that everything is moving
on. If anything should actually stop it would be instantly
destroyed. If a man could go to the top of a high tower, or a
mountain, and there could come to absolute rest, the atmosphere
of our earth, light as it seems, but traveling about nineteen
miles in a second, would by its friction probably reduce him in
a second to a patch of flame and dissipate him as a fiery gas in
every direction.

So, if in our life progress we should try to stop and live in a dead past, or turn back to old conditions, the world’s rush of progress would leave us behind, or its frictions would wear our spirits out.

(2120)

=Moving Pictures in Churches=--See CHURCHES AND THE CROWD.