Chapter D: L. Moody told this story of missionary self-sacrifice (5)

What intelligence and vitality is enclosed in the walls of
prisons! But it is, at least, something of a comfort to realize
that men’s lives no longer drag out in the silence and neglect
that once attended punishment. Now the influences of the outside
world reach them, conveying still some sense of fellowship, for
many, of coming opportunity. (Text.)--_The Reader Magazine._

(2513)

=Prisoner, A, and His Liberty=--See DEAD THO ALIVE.

PRISONERS, EMPLOYMENT FOR

The Maryland Prisoners’ Aid Association have established a
woodyard and novelty manufacturing shop at No. 311 North Street,
Baltimore, where steady employment is furnished those desiring
to start anew after liberation from penal institutions. Like all
work of this kind, the new plant is conducted with the idea of
defraying its own expense, and not to realize profits.

All the machinery in the woodyard, which, in full operation,
employs twenty men, is driven by electricity. The principal
product is kindling, manufactured from cordwood shipped from
Anne Arundel County. The wood is unloaded from cars alongside
the sawmill, where it is cut, split and loaded on wagons ready
for delivery.

An important feature of the plant is the shop on the second
floor, where light cabinet articles of all descriptions are
manufactured. Many of the men going to the Aid Society for
help in obtaining employment are of a mechanical turn, and
these are given positions in the shop. In charge of a skilled
cabinet-maker and woodworker, John McVauley, tables, chairs,
magazine racks, umbrella-stands, settees, stools, upholstered
furniture and miscellaneous household articles are turned out
for which the men are paid wages about equal to the rates paid
by manufacturing plants.--Baltimore _Sun_.

(2514)

PRIVACY, LACK OF

Korean homes are in a sense open to all the world. Any one
who pleases may try the door, push it open, and come in. He
needs no first acquaintance, and no introduction. An ordinary
Korean guest-room is free to all the world. On the other hand,
the inner quarters are separate, and for a male traveler to
venture there would be a breach of the most sacred law of
society. Into this outer room come gentlemen of leisure, tramps,
fortune-tellers, Buddhist priests, all mankind, in fact. Here
is located the high seat of the master. As you live in this
guest-room, you feel the fearful lack of privacy. You are as
tho encamped on the open highway, under the gaze of all men. If
you write a letter, the question is, to whom are you writing
it. “Why do you write thus and thus? What reference is here?
Who? When?” These are the questions that are asked by those who
look over your shoulder, without any breach of proper form or
infraction of the eternal law that governs things.--JAMES S.
GALE, “Korea in Transition.”

(2515)

PRIVATION, COMPARATIVE

While her husband was still lying in prison for debt, the
Archbishop of York asked Susannah Wesley:

“Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you were ever really in want of
bread?”

“My lord,” she answered, “strictly speaking, I never did want
bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it was
eaten, and to pay for it after, as has often made it very
unpleasant to me; and I think to have bread under such terms is
the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all.”--W.
H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2516)

PRIVILEGE

In “The Gospel of Life,” Charles Wagner writes this sound wisdom:

Never is knowledge more touching or art more radiant than when
they illumine the brow of the obscure. I am quite familiar with
the fact that there are certain privileged ones of the earth
who believe that this kind of good is reserved for them, that
these are meats too delicate to be set before common folk.
Scandalized at seeing the people walking about in the Louvre
or in the halls of the Hotel de Ville, some one said to me one
day, “Do you think that it was for these people that Puvis de
Chavannes painted his ceilings?” “I don’t know as a matter of
fact,” I said, “whether it was for them that he painted them.
But I know another ceiling more beautiful than are these of
earth; that which at night the myriads of stars cover with
their constellations, that on which according to the magnificent
image of the poet:

“‘God paints the dawn, like a fresco, on the dark wall of night.’”
(Text.)

(2517)

PRIVILEGE INVOLVES RESPONSIBILITY

When T. H. Benton was in the House he was of the opinion that
the third day of March, and consequently the congressional
term, ended at midnight of that day, instead of at noon on the
fourth, as unbroken usage had fixt it. So on the last morning
he sat with his hat on, talked loudly, loafed about the floor,
and finally refused to vote or answer to his name when the roll
was called. At last the speaker, the Hon. James L. Orr, of South
Carolina, picked him up and put an end to these legislative
larks.

“No, sir; no, sir; NO, sir!” shouted the venerable Missourian;
“I will not vote. I have no right to vote. This is no House, and
I am not a member of it.”

“Then, sir,” said Speaker Orr like a flash, with his sweetest
manner, “if the gentleman is not a member of this House, the
sergeant-at-arms will please put him out.”

And so this vast constitutional question settled itself.

(2518)

PRIVILEGES SLIGHTED

Mrs. Mary A. Wright, a veteran Sunday-school teacher of New Jersey, relates an odd story of human interest taken from personal observation.

I went to see a beautiful new farmhouse near Fort Wayne, Iowa. A
friend who accompanied me explained that the owner, a prosperous
ranchman, had been forty years building it. He had started life
in a small home of logs--but in his early days had dreamed of
a larger and better home for himself and family. Every tree he
saw that struck his fancy he cut down and hewed into lumber
so that when he was finally ready to erect his mansion he had
all the seasoned material at hand. The new home was at last
completed and beautifully finished upon the interior in polished
natural woods. There were soft carpets for the floors, and
rich furnishings; a bath-room, steam heat, and other modern
conveniences.

That was several years before my visit, but I learned that,
altho surrounded by all of this luxury, the farmer and his
family lived in the basement. He had spent the best years of his
life striving to build such a beautiful home, but, after getting
it, he thought it too good to use and the family kept it to look
at. The farmer and his family washed at the old pump in the
yard while the costly tiled bath-room, with hot and cold water
equipment, stood idle. They drank out of tin cups and ate off of
cracked earthenware in their humble abode in the basement, while
fine cut-glass and delicate china pieces reposed undisturbed in
china-closets in the elegantly furnished dining-room up-stairs.

All the members of the family entered into the spirit of
“keeping the house looking nice,” and they kept it so nice
that the wife and mother who had worn out her life in helping
to secure the luxuries that she afterward thought too good to
enjoy, begged to be allowed to die on a straw mattress in the
cellar rather than muss the clean linen in the bed-chambers
above.

How much that is like some people. They are living in life’s basement, carefully cherishing the higher and nobler things to look at and show their friends, when they might experience life’s fullest joys and privileges for the choosing.

(2519)

=Prize=--See DISCOVERY, FORTUNATE.

PROBATION

Judge Mulqueen, of General Sessions, New York City, explained
why he had sentenced two prisoners to “go home and serve time
with their families.” This “punishment” was imposed when both
men pleaded drunkenness as their excuse for trivial offenses.

In the case of the first man, said the judge, the offense had
been assault. The prisoner, an employee of the Street Cleaning
Department, had a wife and five children to support, and had
already spent more than a month in the Tombs, waiting for his
trial.

“Now, to send such a man to jail,” continued Judge Mulqueen,
“would do decidedly more harm than good. He wasn’t a criminal. I
think he was penitent, and he promised to do as I said, to cut
out drink and attend to business.

“Still, his offense was a misdemeanor in the eyes of the law,
and I might have given him a year in the penitentiary and $500
fine, which usually means another year, since the men pay their
fines by working for the State. Instead of that, I placed him
on probation for a year.

“He must report once a week to the probation officer. Also,
he is watched, not suspiciously, but merely as a matter of
precaution. If he is caught entering a saloon--I warned him of
this--he will be punished. It’s simply giving him a chance to
make good.”

(2520)

See EXCLUSION FROM HEAVEN.

=Problems, Gaging=--See =Distance=.

PROCRASTINATION

He meant to insure his house, but it burned before he got around
to it.

He was just going to pay a note when it went to protest.

He was just going to help his neighbor when he died.

He was just going to send flowers to a sick friend when it
proved too late.

He was just going to reduce his debt when his creditors “shut
down” on him.

He was just going to stop drinking and dissipating when his
health became wrecked.

He was just going to provide his wife with more help when
she took her bed and required a nurse, a doctor and a
maid.--_Success Magazine._

(2521)

PRODIGAL, THE

Theodosia Garrison shows in these verses the melting power of love:

When I came to you banned, dishonored,
Brother of yours no more,
And raised my hands where your roof-tree stands,
Why did you open the door?

When I came to you starving--thirsting,
Beggared of aught but sin,
Why did you rise with welcoming eyes
And lift me and bid me in?

You have set me the first at the feast
And robed me in tenderness,
Yet, brothers of mine, these tears for sign
That I would your grace were less.

For I had not been crusht by your hate
Who courted the pain thereof,
But you stab me through when you give anew,
O brothers, your love--your love!
(Text.)

(2522)

* * * * *

This pathetic incident is told by Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman:

Mr. Moody told me that he was once invited to luncheon in one
of the great homes in the city of New York. He noticed that
his hostess was continually rising and leaving the room. He
said to himself, “She must be in trouble. If she goes again I
will follow her.” She did go out again and our great evangelist
rose from the table and went out into the next room. When the
mother saw him she was plunged into confusion. Her face flushed
a fiery red. Seated upon the couch in the room was a boy with
dishevelled hair, with bloodshot eyes, with clothing in rags.
The mother recovered herself in a moment, walked across the
room as if she had been a queen, threw her arms around her boy.
Then, walking over to our great preacher, she said: “Mr. Moody,
I do not think you have ever met my son. This is my boy, Mr.
Moody; he is a prodigal, but I love him.” Mr. Moody said she put
her lips up against the boy’s cheek and he suddenly burst into
a flood of tears, dropt on his knees and, after Mr. Moody had
spoken to him, he came to Christ. (Text.)

(2523)

PRODIGY, A

Professor Boris Sidis has given, in response to requests,
an authentic account of the scope and aims of his son’s
intellectual career. “I do not believe in the prevailing system
of education for children,” writes Professor Sidis. “I have
educated my son upon a system of my own, based to some extent
upon principles laid down by Professor William James.” This
system, Professor Sidis insists, has justified itself by its
results in the case of the boy prodigy of Harvard. He knows
as much at eleven, the father says, “as a gifted professor
of mature years,” and when he grows up “he will amaze the
world.” Nor is the result due to heredity or to abnormality of
the child’s brain. The results achieved in the case of this
eleven-year-old lad are due wholly to the methods of training
pursued. To quote the father’s words as given the New York
_American_:

“As the baby grows more rapidly after birth than at any other
time, so his brain develops most rapidly then and becomes less
sensitive to impressions as he grows older. The process of
education can not begin too soon.

“I began to train my boy in the use of his faculties immediately
after his birth. He was bound to use them anyway, and therefore
I took care that he used them properly. I taught the child to
observe accurately, to analyze and synthesize and make sound
deductions. Neither his mother nor myself confused him with baby
talk, meaningless sounds or foolish gestures, and thus, altho he
learned to reason so early, his mind was no more burdened than
that of the ordinary child.

“I knew that as soon as he began to speak his first interest
would be in the sounds he was uttering, and so I trained him to
identify the elements of sound. Taking a box of large alphabet
blocks I named each to him day after day.

“In this way he learned to read and spell correctly before he
was two years old. What was still more important, he learned to
reason correctly.”

(2524)

=Productions, Interchange of=--See CHRISTIANITY, SOCIAL.

=Profanity=--See AMBASSADOR, THE MINISTER AS AN; SWEARING.

PROFANITY AND PRAYER

Is not much of our praying of as little significance as the profanity mentioned below:

Mr. Pierson was a man of no religious principles. Without
exception he was the most profane man I ever knew. He would
hardly utter a word without an oath. His habit of profanity had
become so inveterate that it seemed almost as involuntary as his
breathing. The wife of a clergyman, for whom he was working at
one time, reproved him, when he pleasantly replied:

“Why, madam, I don’t mean anything when I swear, any more than
you do when you pray.”--ASA BULLARD, “Incidents in a
Busy Life.”

(2525)

PROFANITY IN FORMER TIMES

Swearing in the drawing-room and in the “best society” was no uncommon thing ninety years ago. Even the ladies themselves not rarely indulged in it. Dean Ramsey tells an anecdote that well illustrates how it was regarded. A sister was speaking of her brother as much addicted to the habit, and she said, “Our John swears awfu’, and we try to correct him for it; but,” she added, apologetically, “nae doubt it is a great set-off to conversation.”--MINOT J. SAVAGE, _The Arena_.

(2526)

PROFESSION

The lives of some who are estimated as men of holiness are like
the bodies in certain ancient tombs, that retain the form and
features they had when living, but which crumble at a touch.
They are surrounded with all the ornaments of the living, and
have the shape of men, but they are only dust. So a touch of
temptation or any test of life applied to some men causes their
apparent saintliness to crumble.

(2627)

=Profession, Empty=--See CHURCH, DEADNESS OF THE.

PROFESSION VERSUS CHARACTER

In a former pastorate there was a man in my congregation who
could talk like Demosthenes or Cicero. He used excellent
grammar, and seemed to know the Bible pretty well from Genesis
to Revelation. He could quote Longfellow, and Tennyson, and
Whittier, and a stranger would be charmed by his eloquent
utterances. And yet when he rose to talk in a prayer-meeting,
the crowd began to wither, and when his talk was over the
prayer-meeting was like a sweet-potato patch on a frosty
morning, flat and blue. The people knew that in his life there
was something unsavory, that he would drink before the bar with
worldly friends, and that he was not as honest as he might be.
His good grammar and fluent utterances did not make amends for
the unsavoriness of his character. There was another man in that
congregation who would sometimes come to prayer-meeting with a
circle of coal-dust around his hair. He was a coal-cart driver,
and he was now and then so hurried to get to the prayer-meeting
that he did not make his toilet with as much care as he ought.
But the people leaned over to listen when he talked. And why?
Because they knew that he lived every day for God. He would pick
up a tramp on the road, and give him a mile ride on his cart,
that he might talk with him about Jesus. His religion tasted
good. Bad religion in good grammar does not taste good. I would
rather have good religion in bad grammar, than good grammar in
bad religion. (Text.)--C. A. DIXON.

(2528)

PROFESSIONALISM

The subtle casuistry of Johnson’s reply in this dialog from Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” would excuse any amount of lying, if it were only in the interest of one’s profession.

Boswell--“But, sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have
no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion, when you
are, in reality, of another opinion--does not such dissimulation
impair one’s honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may
put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with
his friends?” Johnson--“Why, no, sir. Everybody knows you are
paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore,
properly no dissimulation; the moment you come from the bar you
resume your usual behavior. Sir, a man will no more carry the
artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society than
a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue
to tumble upon his hands when he should walk upon his feet.”
(Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(2529)

PROFIT

S. E. Kiser expresses in the verse below the thought that our kind words and deeds are helpful to ourselves, no matter how small their objective effect:

You may not profit by my word of cheer,
The cares you have may weigh upon you still;
My word of kindness may not dry your tear,
Nor smooth your path upon the storm-swept hill.

The word of hope I speak may not impart
To you the courage that I wish it might;
But, speaking it, I win new strength of heart
And make the burden I am bearing light.

(2530)

PROFIT FROM PESTS

Some points in muskrat-farming are related by a Vermont man
in the _New England Homestead_ as his own experience. Some
years ago he dammed a small brook on his farm for the purpose
of making a trout-pond. The muskrats, however, speedily took
possession of it and made it their home, from which they
organized forays into the farmer’s corn-field. This suggested a
way of getting even. The next year he enlarged his dam, making
a shallow pond covering four acres of marsh-land of no use for
crops. The rats appreciated the enlarged accommodations and also
the marginal corn crop which he planted for their sustenance,
and did not suspect the wire traps set for them when the water
should be drawn off.

After a couple of seasons he considered the quarry sufficiently
mature to test results. The water was drawn off and the game
was caught in the netting. A hundred of the largest and
darkest of the captives were returned to the pond for breeding
purposes, while more than four hundred were put under tribute
of their pelts. The result was more than enough to pay for the
construction and labor, and he expects a much larger return
of better fur next year. Hundreds of New England farms have
brook-fed marshes that could be utilized to equal advantage.

The fur market is a rising one; more in proportion, perhaps,
for cheap furs than for the more expensive. The trolley and
automobile have increased the demand enormously. The people who
buy rich furs are constantly becoming more numerous, and they
have their imitators among the many who can afford only the
lower grades.--Boston _Transcript_.

(2531)

=Prognosis, Cure in=--See WOUNDS, CURIOUS.

PROGNOSTICATION OF WEATHER

Character has its signs, often accurately read by the simple-hearted man, as easily as farmers foretell the weather.

“I reckon we’ll have to stop hay-carting to-morrow,” said a
laborer to me one splendid cloudless July day.

“Why?”

“’Cause I heerd one o’ them old woodpeckers hallerin’ fit to
bust hisself while I was a-gettin’ my dinner.”

Next morning the daily paper spoke of settled fine weather, but
the rustic was right--it rained heavily. He was a man utterly
uneducated, who, without reference to any scientific instrument,
could forecast the morrow’s weather with accuracy, when the
meteorological office, with all its appliances, was at fault.
“Hinery” was only a specimen of hundreds of his fellows who can
predict to-morrow’s (and often longer) weather with unerring
accuracy, merely from noticing common details of natural
phenomena open to every one.--_Cassell’s Magazine._

(2532)

PROGRESS

Faith in divine progress is exprest in these verses by John Philo Trowbridge:

The eternal truth of God moves on
In undisputed sway,
While all the narrow creeds of men
Decline and pass away.

The eternal light of God shines on
Beneath an eternal sky,
Tho human luminations cease,
And human watch-fires die.

But faith still mounts the endless years,
And truth grows lovelier still,
And light shines in upon the soul
From some immortal hill.

(2533)

* * * * *

Professor Guyot, of Princeton, says that progress in the world
is like the development of plant life. It has three periods
of growth. The first is that in the soil--growth by the root.
The second is more accelerated--growth by the stem. The third
is the most rapid of all--growth by the blossom and fruit. The
world has been growing by the root, obscurely, lingeringly,
slowly. It is growing by the stem now, very much faster. It is
beginning to break into the blossom and fruit, when progress
will be wonderful compared with our past experience in all other
periods.--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

(2534)

* * * * *

Modern ministers, while they should not be stagnantly
conservative, are sometimes apt to make too little allowance for
the inveterate habits in old saints of clinging to the past.
These old saints in many cases can not easily get into line with
the word “go.” They are not prepared for new eras of thought or
the inauguration of new epochs. Hume destroyed the faith of his
mother and made it a wreck. Arterial sclerosis is a hardening
of the walls of the arteries, so that they become unable to
bear the pressure of the blood when impelled by the heart under
excitement. A similar process of hardening of the avenues of
mental operations characterizes many excellent folk in old age.

(2535)

See IMPROVEMENT.

=Progress, a Sign of=--See SURGERY, IMPROVEMENT IN.

PROGRESS BY DISPLACEMENT

It is estimated that more than 20,000 families, aggregating
100,000 persons, have been driven from their homes by the steady
transformation of New York City which is now near completion.
The destruction of homes has not been confined to one locality,
nor has it come as the result of one event. Every large
undertaking has contributed its quota of persons whose homes
literally have been pulled down about their heads.

This transformation is most conspicuous at the approaches to
the new bridges across the East River, in the erection of new
and stupendous railroad terminals, the encroachment of modern
business buildings upon residence property, and the widening of
streets.

It is the law of progress that the old shall be displaced by the new and better.

(2536)

=Progress by Ideals=--See IDEALS AND PROGRESS.

=Progress by Necessity=--See NECESSITY AND PROGRESS.

=Progress by Struggle=--See STRUGGLE.

=Progress, Keeping Pace with=--See MODERNITY.

=Progress, Lack of=--See MOTION WITHOUT PROGRESS.

PROGRESS, MODERN

The late Professor Dolbear, of Tuft’s College, summed up the progress of the nineteenth century as follows:

The nineteenth century received from its predecessor the horse;
we bequeath the locomotive, the bicycle, and the automotor.
We received the scythe; we bequeathed the mowing-machine. We
received the painter’s brush; we bequeathed lithography, the
camera, and color photography. We received twenty-three chemical
elements; we bequeathed eighty. We received the sailing ship;
we bequeathed the magnificent steamships which are the glory
of Belfast and of Ireland. We received the beacon signal-fire;
we bequeathed the telephone and wireless telegraphy. Best of
all, we received unalleviable pain, and we bequeathed aseptics,
chloroform, ether, and cocaine. We received an average duration
of life for thirty years; we bequeathed forty years. (Text.)

(2537)

=Progress of Indians=--See INDIANS, AMERICAN.

=Progress Resisted=--See DROUGHT, RESPONSIBILITY FOR.

PROGRESS, TRUE

Surely we should judge of a man’s progress by inquiring what he has been rather than by his present stage alone:

Men march toward civilization in column formation, and by
the time the van has learned to admire the masters the rear
is drawing reluctantly away from the totem-pole. Anywhere in
the middle you may find a veneration for china pugdogs or an
enthusiasm for Marie Corelli--still an advance. Literary people
seem to think that every time a volume of Hall Caine is sold,
Shakespeare is to that extent neglected. It merely means that
some semisavage has reached the Hall Caine stage, and we should
wish him godspeed on his way to Shakespeare. It is only when a
pretended Shakespeare man lapses into Hall Cainery that one need
be excited.--FRANK MOORE COLBY, “Imaginary Obligations.”

(2538)

PROGRESS UNFINISHED

To the end of his life, the student whose frame remains
unshaken, writes on morals and history, on science and on fine
art, and his inquiries in all the departments of nature are
marked by as keen and strenuous an enthusiasm as when in his
youth he traversed the hills and the valleys on foot. Each
process becomes but a basis for higher ones; and each successful
and wide research but opens the path to new discoveries. As
the skiff which the boy builds grows at last to the steamship,
and the hut of the pioneer to the palace which the citizen
rears and adorns--while yet neither of these is felt to be
final with him, or adequate to the highest conception he can
form--so the thought of the child expands and accumulates to
the science of manhood, and still is admitted insufficient and
transient.--RICHARD S. STORRS.

(2539)

PROHIBITION

Of course, the experienced drinker can buy liquor in a
prohibition State like Maine. Let me say to any old toper
present, going to Portland for his summer vacation, that he
can find a drink by going into a side street, slipping down
a dark alley, rapping three times at a door, wriggling up a
back stairway, and by much twisting, convolution and squirming
like a serpent, find what he desires. But boys and girls will
grow up without the temptation of the open saloon. Of course,
prohibition is not ideal. Making man temperate by law is a
makeshift. There are men who have not been drunk for ten
years--they are in Sing Sing.

Perhaps, however, if you can not keep some men from committing
crime in any other way, it is best to build a stone wall
around them. The ideal thing is law enthroned in the heart, an
automatic commandment in the brain and will. But the necessary
thing for poorly born people may be legal restraints.--N. D.
HILLIS.

(2540)

* * * * *

An English writer refers thus to some impressions of a brother Englishman, traveling through the United States:

When traveling through the United States some years ago, he was
much struck with the difference in appearance of the houses in
districts where the Maine liquor law was in force, and soon
learned to distinguish where it was adopted, by the clean,
cheerful look of the workmen’s dwellings, the neatness of the
gardens, and the presence of trees and flowers which, in other
districts, were wanting. He was not a teetotaler himself,
and was not advocating such restrictions; but he could not
help noticing the contrast; and he felt sure that in all our
large towns great progress in civilization and morals would
be effected if such an attraction were offered to the working
classes.

It is another of the long line of illustrations showing the intimate connection between moral and material weal.

(2541)

PROHIBITION ARGUED AGAINST

At the fiftieth annual convention of the United States Brewers’ Association, the following absurdity was submitted as part of a report:

The whole vegetable world is in a conspiracy against the
prohibitionist. The bees become intoxicated with the
distillation of the honeysuckle; the wasps grow dizzy in the
drowsy clover-patch, and even the ants wobble in their walk
after they have feasted upon the overripe fruit fallen from
the tree, which has started a natural fermentation.--New York
_Evening Post_.

(2542)

PROHIBITION AS A BENEFACTOR

“A Swedish teacher going abroad for study,” writes the
Karlstadt _Tidning_, “gave a patriotic lecture in the cabin of
a North Sea steamer to Swedish emigrants. After it was over a
nice-looking young fellow came up to him and said: ‘Greet the
dear old land for me when you return. I should never leave it
if the prohibition rescript continued in force. You see, I am a
drinking man, tho I have a wife and children to care for. I have
a good employment always open to me in Stockholm, but I don’t
dare take it. For a whole month under prohibition I have been a
free and happy man. If it had continued I should have stayed in
Sweden, but now I am making for some American prohibition State
where I can’t get drink.’ And he was not the only one. Other
passengers said the same thing. The five weeks had brought hope
into their life and they were going where the law helped them
rather than crusht them.”--_The Christian Statesman._

(2543)

PROMISE, AN INDIAN’S

“Sonny” Smith, charged with the murder of Frank Miller, sat in
the sheriff’s office at Tulsa, Okla. His two sons were fugitives
from justice on the same charge.

“Let me go,” pleaded the half-breed Creek Indian to the sheriff
of the county, “and I will go and bring in the two boys you are
looking for. If you do not let me go you will never catch those
boys.”

Sheriff Newblock smiled grimly.

“What guarantee have I if I let you go after the boys that you
will come back? You know you are charged with a capital offense.”

“You have the word of an Indian that he will come back,” replied
the half-breed. And the sheriff, with a knowledge of Indian
character, let “Sonny” go as a special commissioner to hunt his
own boys in the swamps and hills and bring them in.

As time passed there was much grumbling in the community that
the sheriff had let a cold-blooded murderer loose among the
people. The victim was a young man, popular in the town and
connected with the best families in the country. But on the
fifth day “Sonny” appeared with his two sons and their wives and
all the rest of the kin of the tribe of Smith.

“Here I am,” he announced proudly, “and here are my two boys,
whom I arrested in the swamps of the Arkansas, close to
Muskogee. I would have written to let you know I was on the
trail, but the most of the time I was away from the railroad
lines and could not quit the trail long enough to mail you a
postal. And if there is anything against me I am going to stay
here and fight it out.”

(2544)

=Promise, Failing=--See EARLY PROMISE.

PROMISE, INVIOLABLE

The following is one of Dwight L. Moody’s illustrations, with the exhortation that followed it:

It is recorded in history that some years ago a man was
condemned to be put to death. When he came to lay his head on
the block, the prince who had charge of the execution asked him
if there was any one petition that he could grant him. All that
the condemned man asked for was a glass of water. They went and
got him a tumbler of water, but his hand trembled so that he
could not get it to his mouth. The prince said to him, “Your
life is safe until you drink that water.” He took the prince
at his word, and dashed the water to the ground. They could
not gather it up, and so he saved his life. My friend, you can
be saved now by taking God at His word. The water of life is
offered to “whosoever will.” Take it now, and live. May God give
you grace to do so this moment! Let feelings go! Say in your
heart, “I do believe, I will believe, I now believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ with all my heart,” and life everlasting is yours!

(2545)

PROMISED LAND, THE

These verses are part of a longer poem by Michael Lynch:

So we sailed and sailed over stormy seas, till we came to a
pleasant land,
Where forever were peace and happiness, and plenty was on each
hand;
And no man wronged his brother there, for no man counted it gain
To live by the sweat of another’s brow, or to joy at another’s
pain,

* * * * *

And the strong man there was a kindly man and aided the one who was
weak,
And for those who were simple and trusting men their wiser brothers
would speak;
And creed, or color, or land, or birth, caused no man to hate
another,
For the same red blood filled each man’s veins, and every man was a
brother.

* * * * *

And the old man there was a blessed man, for toilless he wanted
nought,
And vice and toil on the little ones no longer their ruin wrought;
And the feeble in body and mind had there no longer a care for
bread;
For out of the plenty that was for all, ’twas theirs the first to
be fed.

* * * * *

And peace was forever in that fair land, for no man envied his
mate,
And no man’s treasures, where all were rich, woke his brother’s
sleeping hate,
And the kingdom that Christ had promised was now for all men to
see,
And the name of that happy kingdom was, “The land of the soon be
be.”
(Text.)

(2546)

PROMISES

“Oh, grandpa,” said Charlie, “see how white the apple-trees are
with blossoms.”

“Yes,” replied grandpa; “if the tree keeps its promises, there
will be plenty of apples; but if it is like some boys I know
there may not be any.”

“What do you mean by keeping its promises?” Charley inquired.

“Why,” returned grandpa, “blossoms are only the tree’s promises,
just as the promises little boys make sometimes are blossoms.
Sometimes the frost nips these blossoms, both on the tree and in
the boy.”

“I see,” Charlie remarked; “then you think when I promise to be
a better boy, I am only in blossom. But I’ll show you that the
frost can’t nip my blossoms.”--_The Young Evangelist._

(2547)

* * * * *

Dr. Alexander MacLaren writes as follows about following the promises:

In the crooked alleys of Venice there is a thin thread of red
stone inlaid in the pavement or wall which guides through all
the devious turnings to the plaza, in the center where the great
church stands. As long as we have the red line of promise on the
path faith may follow it, and it will lead to God. (Text.)

(2548)

PROMISES, BROKEN

I remember when I lived in Brooklyn there used to be a fence
around the City Hall. A man used to stand there, grasping the
iron railing in his hand, and looking up at the clock, every
day at noon; and when it struck 12, he would count each stroke
and look about him, his face full of joy and hope. But after
two or three minutes the light would fade out of his eyes, and
he would be turned into an old man, and would drag his feet
slowly away. For nine years he did this, until death took him.
I was told that at some great business crisis of his life a
man had promised to bring him some hundreds of dollars at a
particular time, to rescue him from failure. The man did not
come, and he found out he never intended to come; and the
great disappointment shattered his brain, and day after day he
was at the City Hall, looking for the man who never came. The
guilt of human hearts has made men give promises to get rid
of importunate persons. Some of us have become cynics because
we have found men so ready to promise falsely.--D. A.
GOODSELL.

(2549)

PROMISES, IMPLIED

A promise may sometimes be binding on the conscience even when not made in specific terms:

M. Fallieres was presiding at a banquet at Agen, when a piece
of money dropt from his waistcoat pocket to the floor. His
neighbor said: “I think you have let fall a 2f. piece.” But
he replied, “Let it be; that will be a lucky find for the
waiter,” and he called the latter, whispering to him to look
out for a 2f. piece, which he would find somewhere under his
seat on the floor. Toward the end of dinner M. Fallieres was
seen by his neighbor to be feeling with a preoccupied air in
his waistcoat pockets. As he rose he looked round, fancied he
was not observed, and gently let a 2f. piece slide down to the
floor. His neighbor, who had noticed the strange proceeding,
asked M. Fallieres afterward if he would tell him what it meant.
“The fact is,” Mr. Fallieres answered, “that I remembered that
I keep only coppers in my left-hand pocket, from which the
piece dropt that you supposed was 2f., whereas it must have
been only 2 sous. So I took out of my right pocket, in which I
keep my silver, another coin, which that time really was a 2f.
piece, and dropt it for the waiter to find. I did not want to
disappoint the man after telling him, you see.” (Text.)

(2550)

PROMOTION, HINDRANCES TO

He watched the clock.

He was always grumbling.

He was always behindhand.

He asked too many questions.

His stock excuse was “I forgot.”

He wasn’t ready for the next step.

He did not put his heart into his work.

He learned nothing from his blunders.

He was content to be a second-rate man.

He chose his friends among his inferiors.

He ruined his ability by half-doing things.

He never dared to act on his own judgment.

He did not think it worth while to learn how.

He thought it clever to use coarse and profane language.

He imitated the habits of men who could stand more than he could.

He did not learn that the best part of his salary was not in his
pay envelop.--_Success._

(2551)

PROOF

A Christian Korean who had his hair cut like a Japanese was met
by a company of his fellow countrymen who were out looking for
Japanese sympathizers. They accused him of being a traitor, but
he insisted that he was not--that he was a Christian. “Have
you a Bible and a hymn-book?” they demanded. He produced them.
“Repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” He did so. “The Ten Commandments and
the Apostles Creed; sing the Doxology.” The Christian was ready
with all these, and his captors were satisfied and released him.
(Text.)

(2552)

* * * * *

Dr. Ogden, professor of geology at Cambridge, had taken a fancy
to a lad, who had been in his service for some years, and used
to manage the garden with great cleverness and skill, much to
the admiration of his employer. The doctor, however, came, after
a few years, to notice that his favorite cherry-tree never
seemed to yield any presentable fruit in due season. At last,
one year, some twelve cherries seemed to be approaching the long
coveted fruition; but as the doctor was returning from a ride
one day, what should he behold but these pet cherries gone! He
accused the boy rather abruptly and warmly, but the latter with
equal warmth replied, “I have not touched them, as true as God’s
in heaven.” The doctor at once went to his closet, told the boy
to wait, and gave him a strong dose of antimonial wine as a sort
of treat. The boy, who was kept in some conversation, soon began
to be uneasy, and wanted to go, saying he felt unwell. “No, no,
my lad,” said the doctor; “sit thee still, I’ll soon make thee
better of that,” and gave him a glass of warm water from a basin
also at his elbow. Very soon nature was irresistible. The boy
hiccuped, looked pale, and up came all the cherries.--CROAKE
JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(2553)

PROOF BY EXPERIENCE

In a military journal is related this incident of the ill-starred voyage of the Russian fleet to Eastern waters:

One day, during some gunnery practise, Admiral Rozhestvensky was
greatly angered by the poor display made by a certain vessel,
which he boarded in a towering rage. “Who is in command here?”
he asked excitedly. “I am, sir,” replied an officer, stepping
forward. “Consider yourself under arrest,” said Rozhestvensky;
“your men are trained disgracefully.” “It is not my fault,”
answered the officer. “Our shells won’t explode.” “I’ll soon see
whether you are right,” thundered the admiral, and, taking up a
small shell, he lit the fuse and held it out at arm’s length. If
that shell had burst, both men would have been blown to atoms.
But the fuse spluttered out, and the admiral remarked simply,
“You are right. The fault is not yours. I will see to it that
you have proper shells in future.”

The expedient of the admiral was exceedingly dangerous, but it was highly effective. This proof admits of no gainsaying. (Text.)

(2554)

=Proof, Sufficient=--See EVIDENCE, CHRISTIAN.

=Propagation=--See IMPROVEMENT.

=Propagation of Life=--See LIFE, SELF-PROPAGATING.

PROPAGATION OF THE GOOD

Great minds that are full of light; great hearts that are full of love--their light will go out into the ends of the earth, and their shining unto the ends of the world.

A recent history of the steam engine says Stephenson knew “that
if he could get his engine perfected, the rest would take care
of itself.” Certainly! That man who discovered the lucifer match
did not have to force it upon poor men, shivering in the cold
and frost of winter. When James Watt has an engine that will
lift coal out of a mine, he does not have to insist that it
be accepted by laborers bowed to the very ground by sacks of
mineral. Let Gutenberg get his printing-press, and all these
copyists, weary of writing, and the millions of men hungry for
knowledge, will greet his printed page with shouts and cheers.
Get your seedless orange, and it will take feet unto itself
and travel over the world. Get the new palm, the new peach or
pear, and millions will stretch out their hands pleading for
it. Get Luther--the new Germany will follow. Get Livingstone,
and the Dark Continent will soon be full of light. Get your
Pilgrim Fathers--the republic will tread closely upon their
heels. Get your twelve apostles, and you will soon have a New
Jerusalem, a new Antioch, a new Ephesus, a new Rome. Get your
new Pentecost for the American churches, and you will have a
new era and a golden age of industrial peace and commercial
prosperity.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2555)

PROPAGATION, PROLIFIC

The May-flies, in their flying stage, make up for their
frailness and feebleness, their inability to feed--they have
really no mouth-parts and do not eat at all in their few hours
or days of flying life--by existing in enormous numbers, and
millions may be killed, or may die from very feebleness,
and yet there are enough left to lay the eggs necessary for
a new generation, and that is success in life for them.
Nothing else is necessary. Their whole aim and achievement in
life seems to be to lay eggs and start a new generation of
May-flies.--VERNON L. KELLOGG, “Insect Stories.”

(2556)

=Property, Church=--See CHURCH STATISTICS.

=Property, Unvalued=--See APPRECIATION, LACK OF.

PROPHECY

There have been many uninspired prophets, but Joan of Arc was
the only one who ever ventured the daring detail of naming,
along with a foretold event, the event’s precise nature,
the special time-limit within which it would occur, and the
place--and scored fulfilment. At Vauchouleurs she said she must
go to the king and be made his general, and break the English
power, and crown her sovereign--at “Reims.” It all happened.
It was all to happen “next year”--and it did. She foretold her
first wound and its character and date a month in advance, and
the prophecy was recorded in a public record book three weeks
in advance. She repeated it the morning of the date named, and
it was fulfilled before night. At Tours she foretold the limit
of her military career--saying it would end in one year from
the time of its utterance--and she was right. She foretold her
martyrdom--using that word, and naming a time three months
away--and again she was right. At a time when France was
hopelessly and permanently in the hands of the English she twice
asserted in her prison before her judges that within seven years
the English would meet with a mightier disaster than had been
the fall of Orleans. It happened within five--the fall of Paris.
Other prophecies of hers came true, both as to the event named
and the time limit prescribed. (Text.)--MARK TWAIN,
_Harper’s Magazine_.

(2557)

* * * * *

In the “Autobiography” of Albert Pell, that fine old English gentleman whose whole life was devoted to the reform of the English poor-laws and to the general uplifting and improvement of the condition, moral, social and political, of the English agricultural laborer, it is related that one of the first well-known men whom he met as a small boy was Wilberforce, who used to stay with his father, Sir Albert Pell, in the country.

When one of Pell’s friends was an infant in arms, his nurse was
swept by an election mob to the very foot of the York hustings
at a famous contest for the county in which Wilberforce was
one of the principal actors. With all the earnestness and vigor
which distinguished him he was pressing his beneficent views on
the abolition of slavery.

Carried away by the depths of his convictions and enthusiastic
inspiration, he reached over the balcony, and snatching the baby
from the arms of its astonished nurse, held it up over his head
in the face of the people, exclaiming:

“See this and hear my prophecy! Before this child dies there
will not be a white man in the world owning a slave.”

My friend, adds Mr. Pell, survived the Civil War in the
United States, and virtually Wilberforce’s prophecy was
fulfilled.--_The Youth’s Companion._

(2558)

=Propitiation, Evil=--See SACRIFICE, PAGAN.

PROPORTION

“I thought it was a pretty fair sort of telescope for one that
wasn’t very big,” said Uncle Silas. “I rigged it up in the attic
by the high north window and had it fixt so it would swing
around easy. I took a deal of satisfaction in looking through
it, the sky seemed so wide and full of wonders; so when Hester
was here I thought I’d give her the pleasure, too.

“She stayed a long time up-stairs and seemed to be enjoying it.
When she came down I asked her if she’d discovered anything new.

“‘Yes,’ she says; ‘why, it made everybody’s house seem so near
that I seemed to be right beside ’em, and I found out what John
Pritchard’s folks are doin’ in their out-kitchens. I’ve wondered
what they had a light there for night after night, and I just
turned the glass on their windows. They are cuttin’ apples to
dry--folks as rich as them cuttin’ apples!’

“And actually that was all the woman had seen! With the whole
heavens before her to study, she had spent her time prying
into the affairs of her neighbors! And there are lots more
like her--with and without telescopes.”--_Christian Endeavor
World._

(2559)

* * * * *

The necessity of having right proportion between the place and the occasion is illustrated by the following:

The only musical sounds which really master vast spaces like the
Albert Hall are those of a mighty organ or an immense chorus.

The Handel Festival choruses are fairly proportioned to
the Crystal Palace, but on one occasion, when a terrific
thunder-storm burst over Sydenham in the middle of “Israel
in Egypt,” every one beneath that crystal dome felt that,
acoustically, the peal of thunder was very superior to the whole
power of the chorus, because the relation between the space to
be filled and the volume of sound required to fill it was in
better proportion.--H. R. HAWEIS, “My Musical Memories.”

(2560)

=Proportion Distorted by Fatigue=--See FATIGUE.

=Proportion, Sense of=--See FATIGUE.

PROPRIETY

During the battle of Waterloo a British artillery officer rode
up to the Duke of Wellington and said, “Your Grace, I have a
distinct view of Napoleon, attended by his staff; my guns are
well pointed in that direction; shall I open fire?” The duke
replied, “Certainly not; I will not allow it; it is not the
business of commanders to fire upon each other.”--EDWARD
COTTON, “A Voice from Waterloo.”

(2561)

* * * * *

The home is where the missionary spends most of the time during
the first year. A native of the country to which you go comes
in to call, and the first thing noticed may be pictures upon
your walls. They may or may not violate the sense of propriety
of your caller, but in general one may say that statues, or
any pictures approaching the nude, are decidedly out of taste.
I recall coming in one Sunday and finding Mrs. Beach hard
at work. She was painting, and as we had been brought up as
Presbyterians, I was surprized to see her working on Sunday.
“Well,” she said, “I must go out to my Sunday-school, and the
last time I went they struck. I have been teaching the story
of Joseph, and these cartoons of the Religious Tract Society
of London represent him with bare calves, and the women simply
will not endure them. I have nothing but water-color paints,
and I have painted Chinese trousers five times on these legs,
and they are bare yet.” We used to have picture-cards sent out
by Sunday-school children to help us on in our work. We had to
censor those picture-cards, there is no question about that.
You can not use every kind of picture-card and preach a pure
gospel.--H. P. BEACH, “Volunteer Student Movement,”
1906.

(2562)

See RELIGIOUS INFRACTIONS OF PROPRIETY.

=Propriety a Matter of Religion=--See RELIGIOUS INFRACTIONS OF
PROPRIETY.

=Propriety and Taste Violated=--See MISSIONARIES’ MISTAKES.

=Propriety, Lack of=--See ACCOMMODATION.

PROPRIETY, OBSERVING RULES OF

Leaving the home (in China), you go out into the street, and
what is there that first offends your friends--those whom you
have come to help? Very possibly it is your dress. You do not
have enough of it oftentimes. One function of garments is to
conceal the form, and many modes of dress do not conceal but
simply reveal it. While we are to remember this, going to the
other extreme and walking the streets in bathrobe coats is also
questionable. Anything approaching decolleté would weaken a
woman’s influence, even if she appeared thus only on a state
occasion.

Over against this lack of dress is too much dress, which is
quite as offensive. I saw the other day a photograph of Governor
Tuan, one of the two commissioners who have just been visiting
the United States. He sat in his yamen surrounded by some
missionaries and other foreigners living in the governor’s
province. It was a very beautiful picture, but one of the
missionaries in the group, who was stylishly drest, had a
cane--a dapper little pipe-stem cane in China! To Governor Tuan
there could be no rational explanation of that sort of thing.
If it had been a staff and the missionary had been lame, it
would have been appropriate. But he was not lame, no beggars
were allowed in the governor’s yamen, there were no dogs to
bite him, and why in the world should this man bring a cane?
It was just as if native Australians were being received by
President Roosevelt and had brought with them boomerangs.
Boomerangs have their place, but not in the White House; and to
swing a cane causes trouble for China missionaries. Glasses are
a necessity, but the missionary to the Chinese unconsciously
offends high officials by his glasses, especially if he does
not remove them when greeting the official. Many, even of the
older missionaries, do not know such a fact as that.--H. P.
BEACH, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(2563)