Chapter D: L. Moody told this story of missionary self-sacrifice (7)

As throwing light upon the question of the intelligence of the
animal creation, in the exhibition of memory and reasoning
power, beyond the mere pale of recognized instinct, I wish to
give a brief account of an interesting incident of which I was
the witness. On a very warm day in early summer I happened
to be standing near a chicken-coop in a back yard when I
noticed the head of a very gray and grizzled rat thrust from
a neighboring rat-hole, and concluded to watch the movements
of the veteran. After a careful survey of the surroundings,
our old rodent seemed to be satisfied that all was right, and
made a cautious exit from the home retreat. A fresh pan of
water had been recently placed before the chicken-coop for the
use of Mother “Chick” and her interesting brood. These all
seemed to have satisfied their thirst, and the water looked a
friendly invitation to the thirsty old rat, which immediately
started toward it. The rat had not reached the pan before
five half-grown young ones rushed ahead and tried to be first
at the water. The old rat thereupon immediately made a leap
like a kangaroo, and was at the edge of the dish in advance
of the foremost of her litter. Then ensued a most remarkable
occurrence. The mother rat raised herself on her haunches and
bit and scratched her offspring so severely, whenever they
attempted to reach the water, that they all finally scudded
away, evidently very much astonished and also frightened at
the strange and unaccountable behavior of their mother. I was
as much astonished as they, and waited with renewed interest
the outcome of this remarkable performance. When the little
ones were at a safe distance, the reason for her extraordinary
behavior began to be revealed at once in the intelligent actions
of the old mother rat. She first wet her whiskers in the
water, looked suspiciously about her, then very cautiously and
carefully took a dainty little sip of the liquid. She tasted
it as tentatively and critically as a professional tea-taster,
and when she was satisfied that it contained no poisonous or
other deleterious matter, she gave a couple of squeaks, which
quickly brought her young and thirsty brood to her side, and all
fearlessly drank to their fill. Now, this old mother rat was
experienced, had evidently learned her lesson in that school
thoroughly, and so she would not allow her young and untaught
litter to taste water which might have contained rat-poison, or
what not, until she had satisfied herself that the liquid was
harmless. As I witnessed this little scene in lowly animal life
the thought would keep coming, does not this look very like
reason?--F. CROLL BAUM, _American Naturalist_.

(2621)

=Reasoning Successful=--See TACT.

REASONS

Lord Mansfield, when a friend of his own was appointed governor
of a West India island, and complained that he would have also
to sit as a judge and decide cases, which he dreaded, advised
him to decide according to his notions of common sense, but
never to give his reasons; for, said he, “your judgment will
probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong.”
Many years afterward, Lord Mansfield, while sitting on Privy
Council appeals, had a judgment of this governor brought before
the court, which seemed so absurd in its reasons that there was
a serious clamor for a recall of the governor as incompetent.
It was found, however, that the decision itself was perfectly
right. It appeared that at first the governor acted on Lord
Mansfield’s advice by deciding without giving reasons; and
finding that he acquired great reputation by these decisions,
began to think himself a great lawyer, and then gave his reasons
at length, which had the result above mentioned.

(Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(2622)

=Reasons, Clear=--See GOOD FOR EVIL.

REASONS VERSUS EXCUSES

“What is the difference between a poor excuse for being late at
school and a real reason for being late? Give an example.” Out
come examples of oversleeping or dilly-dallying as contrasted
with the unavoidable fact that the cars were blocked. “An excuse
is hollow; a real reason is stout and whole.” “An excuse is a
method of concealment; a good reason is its own justification.”
So write my girls. One delightful girl of twelve explained,
“This morning I was late but I had a real reason. When I went
up-stairs after breakfast to feed my animals, my favorite
guinea-pig, Christopher Columbus, was so sick that he could
hardly stand up. I had to stay and make him comfortable, and
so I was late to school. But the teacher said it was a good
reason.” Echoes of the difference between poor excuses and good
reasons resound for several weeks. “To-day I have no reason for
being late, only an excuse. I didn’t know what time it was, but
then I ought to have found out.”

With older pupils I take up more complicated cases illustrating
the tendency of any selfish person to deceive himself or
herself. “I am traveling from New Hampshire to Boston with a
large number of bundles and am delighted to secure an extra
seat on which to deposit them. Gradually the car fills up
and all who pass by look wistfully at my seat. If I continue
to keep my parcels on it by what arguments can I pretend that
it is right?” We bring out together all the half-conscious
sophistry that clings like a burr to selfishness. “There may be
seats farther on; if they want the seat they can ask for it;
it would only crowd any one to sit with me; it is really more
comfortable for her to stand.” Every one in the class realizes
that these excuses are weak subterfuges; for as one girl said,
“Such sputtering people deceive themselves.”--ELLA LYMAN
CABOT, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,”
1909.

(2623)

REBUFFS A STIMULANT

I knew a student paying his way through college who was so poor
that the wealthier students made fun of him. They were always
guying him about his short trousers, seedy clothes, and general
out-at-elbow condition. He was so stung by their jibes that he
made a vow not only to redeem himself from ridicule, but to make
himself a power in the world.

This young man has had most remarkable success, and he says that
the rebuffs he met with and the ridicule that was heaped upon
him in his student days have been a perpetual stimulus to his
ambition to get on in the world.

A successful business man tells me that every victory he has
gained in a long career has been the result of hard fighting,
so that now he is actually afraid of an easily won success. He
feels that there must be something wrong when anything worth
while can be obtained without a struggle. Fighting his way
to triumph, overcoming obstacles, gives this man pleasure.
Difficulties are a tonic to him. He likes to do hard things
because it tests his strength, his overcoming ability, his
power. He does not like to do easy things because it does
not give one the exhilaration, the joy that is felt after a
victorious struggle.--_Success._

(2624)

=Rebuke, Appropriate=--See SELFISHNESS REBUKED.

=Rebuke, Results of=--See TESTIMONY, FRUIT OF.

RECALL, THE POWER OF

Many persons are under the impression that a letter once mailed
is no longer the property of the sender, but belongs to the
person to whom it is addrest. This is an error. Under the postal
regulations of the United States and the rulings of the highest
courts in the land, a letter does not belong to the addressee
until it is delivered to him.

The writer has a right to reclaim and regain possession of it
provided he can prove to the satisfaction of the postmaster at
the office from which it was sent that he was the writer of it.

Even after the letter has arrived in the office which is its
destination and before it has been delivered to the addrest it
may be recalled by the writer by telegraph through the mailing
office.

It would be a great boon to all of us who speak in haste and repent at leisure if we could as easily recall our spoken messages.

(2625)

RECEPTIVENESS

The _British Weekly_ gives a good rule in rime to those who need more openness to good influences and blessings:

Open the door, let in the air;
The winds are sweet and the flowers are fair.
Joy is abroad in the world to-day;
If our door is wide, it may come this way.
Open the door!

Open the door, let in the sun;
He hath a smile for every one;
He hath made of the rain-drops gold and gems;
He may change our tears to diadems
Open the door!

Open the door of the soul; let in
Strong, pure thoughts which shall banish sin.
They will grow and bloom with a grace divine,
And their fruit shall be sweeter than that of the vine.
Open the door!

Open the door to the heart; let in
Sympathy sweet for stranger and kin;
It will make the halls of the heart so fair
That angels may enter unaware.
Open the door!

(2626)

* * * * *

Art thou a beggar at God’s door? Be sure thou gettest a great
bowl, for as thy bowl is, so will be thy mess. “According to thy
faith,” saith He, “be it unto thee.”--UNIDENTIFIED.

(2627)

RECLAMATION

“There are no useless American acres,” Secretary Wilson is reported to have said. “The Government is seeking in all parts of the world for crops that have become acclimated to dry conditions, and it has been so successful that many places that were once accounted desert land are to-day supporting productive farms.” Says Guy Elliott Mitchell, secretary of the National Irrigation Association, in an article on “Resources of the American Desert,” contributed to _The Technical World_ (Chicago):

“It has been estimated that in the neighborhood of 100,000,000
acres of the American desert can be reclaimed to most intensive
agriculture through irrigation; yet Frederick V. Coville, the
chief botanist of the Department of Agriculture, does not
hesitate to say that in the strictly arid region are many
millions of acres, now considered worthless for agriculture,
which are as certain to be settled in small farms as were
the lands of Illinois; and this without irrigation. This
applies particularly to the great plateaus in the northern
Rocky Mountain region. ‘I would confidently predict,’ said
Mr. Coville, ‘that the transformation of these barren-looking
lands into farms, through the introduction of desert plants,
will be as extensive a work as the enormous reclamation through
irrigation.’”

Moral wastes should be and can be reclaimed, as surely as the American deserts. There is no such thing as a wholly useless life. (Text.)

(2628)

See IRRIGATION.

* * * * *

Doctor John Clifford, of London, tells this story about Gladstone. It relates to two young men who had got into drinking habits:

Gladstone knew of them, heard of the downward road they were
traveling, and felt necessity laid upon him to try and reclaim
them. He invited them to Hawarden, impressively appealed to them
to mend their ways, and then knelt and fervently asked God to
sustain and strengthen them in their resolve to abstain from
that which had done them so much harm. “Never,” says one of the
men in question, “can I forget the scene, and as long as I have
memory the incidents of the meeting will be indelibly imprest
upon my mind. The Grand Old Man was profoundly moved by the
intensity of his solicitation. Neither of us from that day to
this has touched a drop of intoxicating drink, nor are we ever
likely to violate an undertaking so impressively ratified in Mr.
Gladstone’s library.” (Text.)

(2629)

=Recluse Ignorance=--See MONEY, IGNORANCE OF.

RECOGNITION BY ONE’S WORK

Sir Antony Vandyck, the artist, once visited the studio of
Frans Hals, a fellow craftsman, disguised as a stranger, and
sat for his portrait. Professing surprize at the work, he
said: “Painting is doubtless an easier thing than I thought.
Let us change places and see what I can do.” When his work was
finished, so skilful was it that Hals rushed at his guest, and
clasped him round the neck in a fraternal hug. “The man who
can do that,” he cried, “must be either Vandyck or the devil.”
(Text.)

(2630)

RECOMPENSE

Lizzie L. Baker, in _The Watchman_, voices a common hope that the life to come will make the suffering of this life seem of no moment to us:

As they who cross with only sails
The wave-lashed ocean wide and deep;
Slow journey, baffled by the winds,
At last strike sail, safe harbor reached,
Forget the hardships of the way.

So when we reach yon heavenly shore,
The toil and suffering undergone
Will not find place in memory’s crypt,
So fair the port for which we sailed.

(2631)

RECOMPENSE FOR KINDNESS

Ariosto tells us of a gentle fairy, who, by a mysterious law
of her nature, was at certain periods compelled to assume the
form of a serpent and to crawl upon the ground. Those who in the
days of her disguise spurned her and trod upon her were forever
debarred from a participation in those gifts that it was her
privilege to bestow, but to those who, despite her unsightly
aspect, comforted her and encouraged her and aided her, she
appeared in the beautiful and celestial form of her true nature,
followed them ever after with outstretched arms, lavished upon
them her gifts, and filled their homes with happiness and
wealth.--HORACE PORTER.

(2632)

RECORD, KEEPING THE

In “Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones,” appears the following:

Start an engine from New York to San Francisco, and there is
attached to its side a little piece of mechanism which indicates
the number of miles it has traveled, the stoppages it has made,
and how long it stopt at each station; and if you want to know
the record of the journey you need not ask the engineer a word.
The little piece of mechanism on the side of the engine tells
you its record.

In the same way the thoughts, deeds, and progress of a soul are self-registering. (Text.)

(2633)

RECORD, LIVING

The tympanum of the ear will vibrate no longer when the music
or the clamor that arrested and aroused it has subsided into
silence. But that invisible yet living spirit, which watches
through the eye, and harkens through the ear, and which takes
instant note of whatever surrounds it, has caught the sight and
the sound now vanished, and it will keep them forever. It writes
its records, not as the Roman laws were written, first on wood,
then on brass, and afterward on ivory; but at once on a tablet
more impressible than wood, more vivid than brass, more precious
than ivory, and more imperishable than either.--RICHARD S.
STORRS.

(2634)

* * * * *

We are all writing our lives’ histories here, as if with one of
these “manifold writers,” a black blank page beneath the flimsy
sheet on which we write; but presently the black page will be
taken away, and the writing will stand out plain on the page
behind that we did not see. Life is the filmy unsubstantial
page on which our pen rests; the black page is death; and
the page beneath is that indelible transcript of our earthly
actions, which we shall find waiting for us to read, with
shame and confusion of face, or with humble joy, in another
world--ALEXANDER MCLAREN.

(2635)

=Recovery, Difficulty of=--See MATURITY, SINS OF.

=Recovery, Instant=--See DIABOLICAL POSSESSION.

=Recuperation=--See NATURE’S RECUPERATIVE POWERS.

=Redeemed by Song=--See WANDERER’S RETURN.

REDEMPTION FROM EVIL

Our forefathers sat in despair before yellow fevers, black
deaths, sweating-sicknesses, cholera, and similar pestilences,
but science is now gradually feeling its way to the minute and
obscure causes of epidemic diseases, and year by year we draw
closer to the time when it may probably put into our hands the
means not only of arresting these epidemics, but of stamping
them out altogether. The physician has become familiar with
the bacteria; and with ceaseless patience he tracks down the
mischief to its origin and birth. The scientist anticipates the
time when the whole range of zymotic disease will be conquered.
Will any call this foolish dreaming, and argue that because
these sad scourges have always been they always will be? Such
a pessimist is unworthy of the privilege of living in this
glorious age. It is a delightful and legitimate hope that the
race may yet master all its physical foes.

But if these physical evils are to be subdued, is not that moral
evil, which is the root of all other evils, to be subdued also?
Christ came to assure us of this, and the absolute casting out
of the demon is the sign of the glorious truth.--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(2636)

=Reductio ad Absurdum=--See ART UNAPPRECIATED.

REENFORCEMENT FROM WITHOUT

Many a man who, standing alone, fails in fruitfulness, might reenforce his powers by availing himself of the help of others, much as this pear-tree was reenforced:

An ingenious plan to save a dying pear-tree was adopted in the
gardens of L. M. Chase, of Boston. The mice had girded the tree
so that it seemed bound to die. Mr. Chase planted four small
trees around it, and close to it, cut off the tops, pointed
the ends, and, making incisions in the bark of the pear, bent
the small trees, and grafted them upon the dying trunk. They
all lived, and that tree draws its nourishment from the small
ones. A bushel of handsome pears were taken from it.--_Public
Opinion._

(2637)

REFLECTION, DISTURBED

If the sea does not throw up in beautiful reflection the hills
and foliage that are along its shore, it is not because they are
not mirrored there, it is not because there are not there still
reflective depths, but because the tremulousness of its furrowed
surface has shattered the reflection and made it indiscernible
and unintelligible, and those quiet depths are only waiting for
the opportunity.

That is the only reason why the beauty that is in the world
does not stir in us our sense of beauty and make us beautiful;
why the grandeur of God’s created universe does not move in us
mightily and broaden our thoughts to something of the scope of
the universe; why the mystery of things does not quicken us into
impassioned inquiry and send our thoughts ranging fascinatedly
along the aisles of the unknown.--CHARLES H. PARKHURST.

(2638)

REFLECTION, IMPERFECT

Rector W. B. Salmon gave an apt tho homely illustration of the
harm done by the low level on which some Christians live, by
saying: “I was traveling by night in a London train, trying to
read some small books, and a man opposite leaned across to me.
It is not good for the eyes,’ he said, ‘to read by such a bad
light,’ and to that I assented. But when I looked up the light
was not a bad one at all. There was a good lamp, well trimmed,
giving a good light, only the reflector was wrong--broken and
dull. We were blaming the light when the fault lay with the
reflector.” (Text.)

(2639)

REFLECTION OF GOD

The beauty of character is to reflect God; and just so far as
we color this reflection of God with anything of self, so far
do we fail of that clarification of inward thought and outward
life which makes us like Him. The diamond is the perfect type
of character. Every other precious stone reflects the light
colored by its own texture. Only the diamond reflects light in
its essential purity. This is the secret of its superiority
among gems. Other gems may be beautiful, but the diamond is
transcendently beautiful.--_Zion’s Herald._

(2640)

=Reflex Values=--See PRAYERS.

REFORMATION

John E. Gunckel, a very desirable citizen of Toledo, has
accomplished a good work through the Newsboys’ Association of
Toledo, which he organized. At present (1909) he has 6,267
members on the roll. “Just as you are” is the appeal made to the
boy of the street.

Five years ago a prominent business man called Mr. Gunckel on
the telephone and inquired what he could say for W---- K----, a
young man who had applied for a position. Mr. Gunckel consulted
the book of errors and said, “He stole a package of papers
thrown from a train, and sold them. Stole twenty-five cents that
a man gave him in payment for a paper--”

“That’s enough; this is a position of trust. We must have an
honest young man.”

“Hold on, hold on,” said Gunckel, “that record is ten years
old; let me give you something up-to-date. Last Christmas eve,
just as I was retiring, I was called to the door and there was
W---- K---- with a horse and pung. He had twenty-one baskets of
turkeys, vegetables, fruit, and all conceivable goodies that he
was taking to as many families in the slums of his district.
He had raised the money himself, had investigated each case,
and was distributing the baskets. He has been an officer for
about nine years. Hasn’t stolen, lied, or gambled, used liquor
or tobacco for more than nine years. Has brought in scores of
valuable articles found that he might have stolen--”

“There, hold up, that’ll do; he is just the fellow I want.” He
has made good. (Text.)--_The World To-day._

(2641)

* * * * *

With Bunyan’s marriage to a good woman the real reformation
in his life began. While still in his teens he married a girl
as poor as himself. “We came together,” he says, “as poor as
might be, having not so much household stuff as a dish or spoon
between us both.” The only dowry which the girl brought to
her new home was two old, threadbare books, “The Plain Man’s
Pathway to Heaven,” and “The Practise of Piety.” Bunyan read
these books, which instantly gave fire to his imagination. He
saw new visions and dreamed terrible new dreams of lost souls;
his attendance at church grew exemplary; he began slowly and
painfully to read the Bible for himself, but because of his own
ignorance and the contradictory interpretations of Scripture
which he heard on every side, he was tossed about like a
feather by all the winds of doctrine.--WILLIAM J. LONG,
“English Literature.”

(2642)

REFORMERS, ERRATIC

On the farm there grows a weed called the tumble-weed. When
October comes, the wind breaks the stalk. As round as a
dandelion puff-ball, the tumble-weed is as large as a bushel
basket. When the wind blows from the north the tumble-weeds
start across the field, toward the fence-corners. That evening,
when the wind changes, the tumble-weed starts rolling across
the meadow toward the same fence from which it started in the
morning. With the new day, the tumble-weed takes up fresh
journeys. At night the wind rises, and tho the farmer and his
flocks sleep, not the tumble-weeds. They are still traveling.
We all are familiar, alas, with the career of Mr. Tumble
Weed, the false radical, tumbling into every public meeting,
Sunday-afternoon-gathering reform club. The moment the meeting
opens he unrolls his fad and reform, and away he goes--now
toward this extreme, now toward that, driven every whither by
the new wind, issuing from the puffed-out cheek of any new
faddist in reform. (Text.)--N. D. HILLIS.

(2643)

=Reforms not Sudden=--See IMPATIENCE OF REFORMERS.

REFRESHING SPRINGS

Prof. C. D. Hitchcock writes interestingly about fresh-water springs that rise under the sea, and near the sea-shore in Hawaii:

Powerful streams discharge millions of gallons of water through
the artificial openings very near the sea-shore. If not
intercepted, they must continue a considerable distance out to
sea, and hence must well up to the surface amid saline billows.

Inquiry about these springs during the past summer in the
territory of Hawaii has resulted in the discovery of several
upon Oahu; there is one off Diamond Head, a second off Waialae.
At the east of Maui, in Hana, there was a fortress named
Kaimuke, occupied by soldiers in the ancient times. As it was
almost an island, communication with the mainland was not
feasible in the time of a siege, and for the lack of water it
could not have been held except for the presence of submarine
springs. The natives would dive down to collect water in their
calabashes, which supplied all the wants of the garrison.
(Text.)--_The Popular Science Monthly._

(2644)

=Refreshment=--See OASES.

REFUGE

The old sanctuary of the abbey and palace of Holyrood House was
an interesting institution. The debtor was free from arrest
during the week. On entering the sanctuary he enrolled himself
in a formal manner and obtained a room--that is, if he could pay
for it. There was a public house within the boundaries, and it
was not uncommon to see the debtor in the inn playing dominoes
and his creditors standing looking in at the window with wistful
eyes. The debtor was safe, and he knew it, and the face of the
creditor told the same tale. Sunday being a _dies non_,
the debtor could leave his sanctuary and visit his family, but
he had to be careful to get back to Holyrood on Sunday night.
Sometimes a debtor had the temerity to leave on a week day, but
he did so at his peril.

Once in the ark, God himself having shut in the occupant, the latter could not be safer. A city of refuge, indeed!

(2645)

REFUGES OF SIN

Caves are found along the sides of the banks of the Jordan that
are at first one story high, then two stories and, as the river
increases in depth, three-story caves are found.

At certain periods of the year the river overflows its banks.
The wild animals native to that country seek a refuge in the
one-story caves for a time. As the river swells and grows more
turbid, the wild creatures seek shelter in the two-story caves.
When the river attains to high-water mark, the animals run for
their life to the third-story caves. When these overflow, then
these beasts at bay are caught and killed.

How many men are hiding away from God in the caves and strongholds of their transgressions. But when the high tides of misfortune come, their sin will find them out.

(2646)

=Refused in Need=--See NEED, REFUSED IN THE HOUR OF.

REGENERATION

When the first experiments upon the tulips and wild asters were
undertaken, some said that it was a sin, because if God had
wanted tulips to be double and have different colors, God would
have made them that way. But scientists in Holland, and Burbank
in California, and a thousand others, are standing over the
grains and whispering, “Ye must be born again.” The scientist
has touched the wild aster, and it has become the chrysanthemum.
He has touched the black tulip, and it has become a flower of
many hues and quadruple size. He has whispered to the little
field-daisy, and it has become the Shasta daisy, that waves in
the fields like a bunch of women’s hats. He has touched the wild
sloe, and it has become a luscious plum. He has touched a bitter
orange, and, lo! it has lost its seed, doubled its sweetness and
quadrupled its size. And to-day the whole world is on tiptoe of
expectancy.

There is no new fruit or flower that is not possible, for
the horizons have been pulled down. A great, wide vista of
possibility opens up. The berries, the vegetables, the fruits,
the grains, must all be born again. Now all this is only
a revelation of what is possible for the soul.--N. D.
HILLIS.

(2647)

REGISTER OF LIFE

“An apparatus called a ‘pulse register’ has been devised by a
Viennese physician, Dr. Gartner. It is intended,” says _The
Medical Times_, “to watch and register the action of the
heart and pulse while the patient is under the influence of
chloroform, ether, or cocain. The apparatus consists of a
watch-like box, to be attached to the patient’s forearm. The box
has a graduated dial and hands, working according to pulse and
blood-pressure vibrations, which are registered by an elastic
spring in the most precise manner imaginable. The physician in
attendance, or operator, is all the time kept informed of the
exact degree of the unconscious person’s pulse and heart action.
The controller, furthermore, shows the action of pulses which
the physician’s fingers can not feel nor find.”

(2648)

REGRET

Mrs. Marion M. Hutson writes a lesson as to appreciating the troubles of friends while they live:

Somewhere in the future, soon or late,
My weary feet will reach the outer gate,
Where rest begins, and earth’s long highway ends,
And then, perhaps, through misty eyes my friends
Will see how rough the path has been, and say,
“Would we had tried to smooth the rugged way.”
Oh, friends and loved ones! do not wait, but give
A little help and comfort while I live.

(2649)

See LOST CHORDS.

=Regular Inspection=--See CLEANLINESS.

REGULARITY, ECCLESIASTICAL

Butler, the famous author of Butler’s “Analogy,” himself, with
all his high gifts, supplies, in his own person, an expressive
proof of the spiritual blindness and death which lay on the
churches of Wesley’s day. He forbade Whitefield and the Wesleys
to preach in his diocese, tho all around his cathedral city lay
the most degraded and hopeless class in England--the coal-miners
of Kingswood, as untouched by any of the forces of Christianity
as if they had been savages in Central Africa. That the best,
the wisest, the most powerful, the most earnestly convinced
of the bishops of that day should take this attitude toward
Wesley and his work shows what was the general temper of the
clergy of that time. Butler’s conscience was not disquieted by
the lapse into mere heathenism of a whole class within sound
of the bells of his cathedral; but he grows piously indignant
at the spectacle of an ecclesiastical irregularity.--W. H.
FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2650)

=Regulation, Timepiece=--See SYNCHRONISM.

REJECTION OF CHRIST

George Frederick Watts, the great symbolical artist of “Love
and Death,” “Hope,” “Time, Death, and Judgment,” and other
famous pictures, painted “The Ruler.” Speaking of the picture
afterward he said, “Now I am doing a man’s back--little else but
his back, to explain ‘he went away sorrowful, for he had great
possessions.’ Fancy a man turning his back on Christ rather than
give away his goods! They say his back looks sorry; I don’t
know. It is what I meant his back to express.” (Text.)

(2651)

RELATIVITY

If we were to note that, suddenly and in the same proportions,
the distance between two points on this earth had increased,
that all the planets had moved farther from each other, that
all objects around us had become larger, that we ourselves
had become taller, and that the distance traveled by light in
the duration of a vibration had become greater, we should not
hesitate to think ourselves the victims of an illusion, that
in reality all these distances had remained fixt, and that all
these appearances were due to a shortening of the rule which we
had used as the standard for measuring the lengths.--LUCIAN
POINCARE, “The New Physics and Its Evolution.”

(2652)

=Releasing the Word of Life=--See WORD OF GOD FREED.

RELIC VALUED

Byron’s remains rest in an old leaden coffin, side by side
with those of his mother, and close by lies his daughter, Ada,
Countess of Lovelace, who died in 1852. When the vault was
opened to permit of the interment of Lady Lovelace many persons
visited the church in order to catch a glimpse of the coffin.
Upon one occasion a little girl was prevailed upon to descend by
the stone staircase into the vault and she returned carrying a
narrow strip of faded velvet in her hand, torn from the poet’s
coffin. Among the group around the mouth of the graves was a
tall, dark foreigner, who eagerly questioned the child as to
her possession, and finally, in exchange for a piece of gold,
received the strip of cloth. That man was Kossuth.--_Frank
Leslie’s._

(2653)

=Relief by Crying=--See CRYING BENEFICIAL.

=Religion=--See ALTAR, THE; CHARACTER.

RELIGION A GROWTH

Time goes to the making of the oak, and the man and the Christian. Moral development is slow. We must not be surprized nor disappointed to find it so. As one says:

The sunrise is gradual, as we have seen--there are many
tremulous gleams before the wheels of his chariot are moving
over the sea. And so we should beware in a measure of momentary
impulsive religion: the idea that we can pass in a moment from
deadness, darkness, worldliness, to the full assurance of the
favor of God. There are such cases, but they are rare, and the
religion of sudden emotion is apt with many to prove not lasting.

If religion is a growth, let us be patient in the process.

(2654)

RELIGION, A TEST OF

Addressing a big Methodist camp-meeting, Bishop Quayle informed
his audience how to discern a Christian by street-car manners.
“If you are hanging on a strap in a crowded street-car, and
the conductor calls out ‘Step forward, please,’ and there is
no place in front where you can step forward, the way you act
will be a test of your religion. If you are a woman, and a man
gives you his seat, and you act as if you thought it was your
right and not his kindness that gave you the seat, the way you
act will test you more than answering questions in theology.
It is not how you treat some big body, but how you treat a
little urchin, dirty in tears, that tests your religion. What
you do when you are off duty--that’s what counts. What if the
people who see us at church and at weddings should see us in
the betweens? What we Christians do ofttimes kills faith in the
Church. Anybody can see a rose-garden in the daytime, but we can
also smell it in the dark. What we do when nobody sees us ought
to be as beautiful as what we do in the open.”

(2655)

RELIGION ALLAYING FEAR

Athens had two cities--down in the plain was the city of work,
with shops, ox carts, plows and hoes, on the hillside were
the shops where men bought and sold. But the crags above were
crowned with temples, where beauty and worship had their home.
Oft in the hours of tumult and strife, when the workers feared
the coming of enemies, they turned their thoughts upward toward
the Parthenon, and drank in the beauty of Athena’s face, and
her calm, white hand seemed to fall upon the brow, to allay
the fear, and breathe peace to the frightened working men.
Greek culture and character represented the interplay of the
upper and the lower city. So it is that man’s life of work, and
his invisible life of faith and worship are knitted together.
The inventor, the statesman, not less than the saint and the
martyr, endure, as seeing God. (Text.)--N. D. HILLIS.

(2656)

=Religion Among Immigrants=--See IMMIGRATION.

=Religion and Dying=--See DEATH, THE CHRISTIAN’S.

=Religion and Parents=--See PARENTS AS TEACHERS OF RELIGION.

RELIGION AND POETRY

When will the true prophet, priest, poet, preacher come to us?
For we are continually reminded that it is by the voice of the
poet only that a nation is permitted to survive. Jerusalem
has been permitted to come down to us forever glorified;
she cherished the poets; but where is Babylon, who cast the
prophets in the lion’s den? Nineveh was a city of three days’
journey; Nineveh would not hear; and where is Nineveh now?
But, Jerusalem, city of poetry and song! A little place; you
can cover it with a pin’s head on the maps of the world; and
yet she covers more space in history, sacred and profane, than
all the other cities of the world together. And this is simply
because she had faith and hope; and so had her poets, and did
not despise them, and her poets made her immortal. The cloven
foot of the golden calf is stamping out every page of this
great, neglected book. So great is the wealth of the leading
families of our cities that almost every hearthstone might be
paved with gold. Yet Socrates died for want of money enough
to pay a fine. True or false, the Greeks had gods, even the
unknown God of which Paul spoke, and they believed. They had
faith and hope. And so their poets sang, sang in marble. Song is
music, song is the eternal melody of beauty, and their country
lives.--JOAQUIN MILLER, _Belford’s Magazine_.

(2657)

=Religion Demanded=--See INFLUENCE, PERSONAL.

RELIGION DIFFUSED

Three hundred years ago there was but one Bible in a parish in
England, and that was chained to a column in the church; and
there was but one man to read it--the priest. And the people
did not understand it then, and it was a part of official duty
to go from house to house on the theory that the average parent
did not know enough to teach the children the first principles
of morality and of religion. Go to-day over the same community,
and on the Sabbath morning you shall see the girls and the
young men with Bibles under their arms, themselves teachers,
going down to mission-schools, going down to instruct their
inferiors. The profession has distributed its functions among
the common people. Has it destroyed the profession? It never was
stronger, never was as strong as it is to-day.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.

(2658)

RELIGION, EARLY

The following letter was written by the late Prof. Borden P. Bowne, of Boston University, when he was a boy in Pennington Seminary. It foreshadows his long life of Christian service:

Pennington, October 10.

Dear ----:

His name is still Jesus, for He saves His people from their
sins. By His grace I have kept the faith, and have not denied
His name. On Sunday night we had service in the chapel of the
institution. I told of the power of Jesus’ blood to cleanse
from all sin. There seemed to be none that believed my report;
at least none gave in such a testimony. I felt rather deprest
in spirit; but after service was over, as I was talking to some
other brother, I heard a noise in one of the rooms; proceeding
thither, we found that a young man had just been blest. We
rejoiced with him and we held an impromptu prayer-meeting, and
then God was pleased to make Himself known in power to four or
five more; and together we glorified the God of Israel. Glory to
Jesus! I was comforted and blest. The tempter whispered to me
sweetly that I had best not mention the matter of sanctification
any more. But by God’s grace I shall hold up the standard of
holiness to the Lord. There are one or two who profess it
here, but they don’t seem to say much about it. ----, it is my
ambition to be one of the best of men. I want to be able to look
at the promise alone; and because God has said it I believe it.
I have instituted family worship with my room-mate; morning
and evening I endeavor to call upon God with him. He is not
religious; he is a young boy fifteen or sixteen years old, a
very nice young fellow. May the Lord lead him to Himself. Amen
and amen.

(2659)

RELIGION, FAMILY

In a sermon on “The Debt Parents Owe to their Children,” Newell
Dwight Hillis, D.D., of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, told of a
parent who had said to him: “For twenty years neither myself
nor my family have paid attention to Christianity. And now I
have learned to my sorrow that the Christian Church is the only
place in which to bring up a family. If I had ten sons I would
compel them to marry wives reared in the Christian Church and
the Christian home, who have the Christian method and Christian
spirit of rearing children. (Text.)

(2660)

RELIGION, IMPORTANCE OF

Lecky says that the humble meeting in Aldersgate Street where
John Wesley was converted forms an epoch in English history;
and he adds that the religious revolution begun in England by
the preaching of the Wesleys is of greater historic importance
than all the splendid victories by land and sea won under
Pitt.--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2661)

=Religion in Work=--See WORK PROVING RELIGION.

=Religion of Great Men=--See PRAYER BY GREAT LEADERS.

=Religion, Practical=--See WITNESS OF SERVICE.

RELIGION, SHADES OF

It has been well said that as the prism exhibits the various
colors contained in light, so mankind displays the various forms
and shades of religion.

(2662)

RELIGION, SHALLOW

Religion has not done much for a man if it has not moderated the savage passions of his nature. Prof. Fred. M. Davenport says:

I once spent an evening listening, with a couple of friends,
to an old darky’s account of his conversion. He had reached
the climax of the recital, was in a considerable state of
ecstasy, and was very anxiously seeking to impress us all with
his spiritual experience, when suddenly his dog began barking
furiously just behind him and utterly broke the continuity of
his thought and of his speech. I think no one of us will ever
forget the dash of savagery that came into his face as he turned
with flashing eye and foaming lip upon that canine intruder. It
was a startling transition, revealing the crater of primitive
passion just underneath the crust of religious culture and
nurture.--_The Contemporary Review._

(2663)

RELIGION THAT WEARS

The Persian carpet may be meant for the feet, but few things are
so full of lessons for head and heart and life. When choosing
one the first thing to do is to make sure that the colors are
fast, which is done by moistening a handkerchief and rubbing the
carpet to see if the color comes off. Next, count the stitches.
A good carpet contains 10,000 stitches to the square foot, while
the better ones have as many as 40,000. The weaver does not
see the pattern as he works, as the reverse side of the web is
toward him. When a native buys a new carpet he immediately puts
it down in the bazaars for all the traffic to pass over it; and
the more muddy the shoes of the passers-by the greater will be
the beauty of the carpet afterward, provided the colors are
fast, as it acquires that beautiful silky gloss, so dear to the
heart of the carpet-lover.

A man needs a character that will wear, whose colors are fast, and that will grow more beautiful when exposed for the world’s use.

(2664)

RELIGION TO DIE BY

Wesley always insisted on judging religion by the most severely
practical tests. Life was one test, and he mistrusted profoundly
a religion which did not fill life or its possessor with
gladness and strength. But he knew that death, with its mystery
and loneliness, was the last and sorest test of religion. Did
the religion he preached make that last darkness luminous? Did
it put songs on dying lips and gladness in dying hearts? “The
world,” wrote Wesley, “may not like our Methodists, but the
world can not deny that they die well,” and the religion which
teaches men to die well may surely find in that fact its best
credentials.--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2665)

RELIGION UNCHANGEABLE

Farmers once plowed with a forked stick, and now with the steel
gang-plow. But Julius Cæsar said, nearly twenty centuries ago,
that a soldier should have a pound of wheat per day, and the
German Government allows the same pound of wheat per day to
its soldiers, for their day’s march. Gone Julius Cæsar’s forked
stick for raising the pound of wheat. The Italian plows with a
steel mole-board, but he still wants his pound of flour for his
hunger. Gone also the old offerings in the temples, and the old
creeds, and the old views of the Sabbath. But man still sings,
and prays, and struggles with temptation, and weeps, smiting
upon his breast, and is forgiven, and dies. This religious
nature of man abides unshaken; the credal leaves fall off; but
the tree grows on. That vital growth is called religion--the
life of God in the soul of man.--N. D. HILLIS.

(2666)

RELIGION VERSUS BUSINESS

The improvement of Egypt in the control of inundation by the
great Assouan dam of the Nile has unfortunately drowned and is
destroying the magnificent temple ruins on the island of Philæ.
That only hurts a sentiment of antiquarian reverence and makes
bread for many poor. But if our rush of business drowns out
our family worship, and tires us too much for a second Sabbath
service, it may cost us more than its gains are worth. We need
to remember that our life is sacred, for we are the temple of
God. (Text.)--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons in Illustration.”

(2667)

RELIGIONS CONTRASTED

Seventeen hundred years ago a Christian teacher gave a
description of an Egyptian temple, with its porticoes and
vestibules and groves and sacred fields adjoining, the walls
gleaming with precious stones and artistic paintings, and its
shrines veiled with gold-embroidered hangings. “But,” he says,
“if you enter the penetralia of the enclosure and ask the
officiating priest to unveil the god of this sanctuary, you will
find a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent--a beast--rolling on a
purple couch.” And a modern writer asks us to contrast this with
the temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. Here, too, you would find a
gorgeous building, a priesthood, altars, and a shrine hidden by
a veil. Within the veil stands the Ark of the Covenant, covered
by the mercy seat, sprinkled with the blood of atonement, and
shadowed by the golden cherubim. Let that covering be lifted,
and within that ark, in the very core and center of Israel’s
religion, in its most sacred place, you find, what? The two
tables of the moral law. There, in a word, you have the contrast
of the two religions. The moral law, enforced by the belief
in the one true God--that is the religion of Israel--and that
religion was interpreted, fulfilled, and consummated by the
revelation of the Christ.--THOMAS F. GAILOR, “Student
Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(2668)

RELIGIOUS CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD

This chart indicates the magnitude of the task before the
Christian forces of the world in bringing humanity up to
Christian standards. The significance of Christian missionary
and evangelizing work may be represented as an attempt of
one-third of mankind constituting the Protestant, Roman Catholic
and Greek Christian countries through a small band of picked
workers, to change the religious habits, opinions and faith of
the other two-thirds. But God has provided that this great task
shall be accomplished.

(2669)

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

A friend tells me that one of her earliest childhood memories
is of being awakened by her mother before daybreak on a June
morning. “Come, child,” she said, “come with me over to the
pines, to hear the thrushes sing.” Across the dew-wet meadows
they went, in the early flush of morning, and the child, her
hand clasped in her mother’s, listened with her to the exquisite
music of the thrush in the holy hour and place.

What need of words? It is the spirit that giveth life. The
flame was kindled in the heart of the child because it burned
undimmed in the mother’s heart. Not by preaching, nor even by
much speaking, will our teachers teach religion. But they will
surely teach whose lives abide in the shadow of the Almighty. We
can not but speak the things we have seen and heard. Striving
to do His will in the school-room, we slowly learn of the
doctrine, and the truth we have made our own we are enabled
to share.--SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1905.

(2670)

RELIGIOUS INFRACTIONS OF PROPRIETY

There are religious infractions of propriety, and they are
serious. The Chinese word for propriety is an ideograph made
up of two parts; one means to proclaim, or to reveal; the
other means a sacrificial vessel. That is, propriety in the
group of countries dominated by Chinese etiquette is a matter
of religion and so is not to be lightly regarded. But what
does one witness at the temples? Not infrequently one sees a
missionary stalk boldly into a temple. He may not take off his
shoes in Japan before walking over the polished temple floors.
Very possibly he walks up to the idol and familiarly pats him
with his ever-present cane. It is to the believer in those
faiths like taking hold of the Ark of the Covenant in ancient
Jewish times. We should remember that ridiculing the beliefs
of people is poor missionary policy. They are usually the best
that that country, or people, know. Let us not profane those
things which are held most sacred. We may argue against them
and reason about the unwisdom of holding them, but let us never
laugh at the religious views and practises of the non-Christian
world.--H. P. BEACH, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(2671)

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

“Let the child wait till he has grown and then choose his
own religion,” said an English statesman in the hearing of
Coleridge. Coleridge, leading his friend into the garden, said:
“I have decided not to put out any vegetables this spring, but
to wait till August and let the garden decide for itself whether
it prefers weeds or strawberries.” This is the logic of the
delayed instruction theory.--A. B. BUNN VAN ORMER,
“Studies in Religious Nurture.”

(2672)

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION DENIED

In the psychological confession of a writer (Sentenis), a German
philosopher whom his father had submitted to the experiment
advised by the author of “Émile,” he tells us that, left alone
by the death of a tenderly loved wife, this father, a learned
and thoughtful man, had taken his infant son to a retired place
in the country; and not allowing him communication with any
one, he had cultivated the child’s intelligence through the
sight of natural objects placed near him, and by the beauty of
language, almost without books, and in carefully concealing from
him all idea of God. The child reached his tenth year without
having either read or heard that great name. But then his mind
formed what had been denied it. The sun which he saw rise each
morning seemed the all-powerful benefactor of whom he felt the
need. He soon formed the habit of going at dawn to the garden
to pay homage to that god that he himself had made. His father
surprized him one day, and showed him his error by teaching him
that all fixt stars are so many suns distributed in space. But
such was the keen disappointment and the grief of the child
deprived of his worship, that the father, overcome, acknowledged
to him that there is a God, the Creator of the heavens and the
earth.--A. B. BUNN VAN ORMER, “Studies in Religious
Nurture.”

(2673)

=Religious Narrowness=--See REGULARITY, ECCLESIASTICAL.

RELIGIOUS TRAINING

Suppose a sculptor should take a piece of marble and stand it
in front of his studio on the sidewalk, and should invite every
passer-by to have a stroke at it with mallet and chisel, shaping
it according to the fancy or the caprice of the moment, and
then at the end of the year have it suddenly endowed with life,
and ask it to choose what it would be--the shape of a god or of
a satyr, of beauty or ugliness, pure and white or stained and
soiled--this man would be rational as compared with the one who
believes that you can let a child grow up until he is twenty
unbiased, without absorbing any religious ideas or convictions,
and then freely choose what he will be. If you do not bias the
child, the first that he meets on the street, or in his school,
or among his companions, will begin the work of biasing, of
impression, of education, of training; for this is a continuous
process. Whether you will or not, it is something over which you
have no choice. It is something that will be done either wisely
and well, or unwisely and ill.--MINOT J. SAVAGE.

(2674)

=Remainders Saved=--See CONSERVATION OF REMAINDERS.

=Remains of Insects=--See INSECTS OF REMOTE TIMES.

REMEDIES, STRANGE

There are many remedies, real or reputed for physical ills, but there is but one sovereign remedy for body, soul and spirit, namely, the life of God fully received into the human soul. In an article on “Strange Medicines,” in the _Nineteenth Century_, Miss Cumming quotes a few of the healing spells which to this day are practised by the peasantry of various districts in Great Britain, and which are considered certain remedies: