Chapter VI: Preface (6)

There came a day when, in her solemn assembly, France voted to
cast off the recognition of Almighty God. She lifted up instead
the Goddess of Reason, and in her delirium the multitude placed
a daughter of pleasure in a chariot, crowned her with flowers,
and determined to worship the body, instead of the Angel of
Duty. But smashing the telescope does not put out the stars.
Voting not to have any sun does not annihilate the summer. The
microscope may show the germs of death in the reservoir, but
breaking the microscope will not cleanse the springs.--N. D.
HILLIS.

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BLOOD, CRY FOR

The Arabs have a belief that over the grave of a murdered man
his spirit hovers in the form of a bird that cries, “Give me
drink! Give me drink!” and only ceases to cry when the murder is
avenged by the death of the murderer. (Text.)

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BLOOD, THE AVENGER OF

A Bedouin horseman riding along a desert track, seeing the sign
of blood on the side of the road, will instantly dismount and
cover it with earth “to lay the _mâred_” (the avenger of
blood). The idea is that the spirit of him who died by an act of
violence, the victim of man’s hate, the _mâred_, calls for
vengeance on him who has taken the life of his fellow man.--“The
Witness of the Wilderness.”

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BLOOD, THE TIE OF

Henry M. Stanley, in his work “Through the Dark Continent,”
describes the warrior chief Mirambo, the Mars of Africa, whose
genius for war Stanley likens to that of Frederick the Great
and Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a formidable adversary, and
Stanley was very anxious to convert him from a foe into an ally.
By skilful management he did accomplish this, and to make the
alliance an unbreakable one, the covenant of brotherhood was
sealed by an interchange of blood between the African hero and
the American hero, an incision being made in the right leg of
each for this purpose. The same blood now flowed in the veins
of both Stanley and Mirambo, and they thereafter vied with
each other in proofs of their unselfish fidelity. Abraham and
Abimelech made such a covenant and the literal translation is
“they cut a covenant.” Jacob and Laban also “cut a covenant.”
An Oriental could as soon commit suicide as slay a covenant
brother, for it would be shedding his own blood.

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=Blotting Out Errors=--See EFFACEMENT OF SINS.

=Blows, Repeated=--See REPETITION, FORCE OF.

=Bluffer, The Human=--See PRETENSE.

BLUNDER, A

This incident is told by Dr. R. F. Horton in the _Christian Endeavor World_:

I had been addressing a large midday congregation in Leeds,
and a deep seriousness pervaded the atmosphere. The closing
hymn appointed began, “Sin-sick and Sorrow-laden”; and by
some inconceivable oddity of my own mind I gave it out, quite
deliberately and distinctly, “Seasick and Sorrow-laden.” I
perceived what I had done in a second. I literally trembled, for
it was impossible to recall the slip without calling attention
to it. I feared that there would be an awful titter, or even an
explosion of laughter. Wonderful to say, it was as if no one but
myself noticed the blunder, and I was awed into gravity, not
only by the occasion, but by my fear of what might happen.

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=Body, Frailty of=--See HOUSE, THE MORTAL.

BODY, MASTERING THE

I think of the delicacy and perfection of much of R. L.
Stevenson’s work--just the kind of writing which a man might
plead could not be done except in moments of inspiration and in
favorable conditions. Then I remember how that delicate style
was attained by years of severe drill, and when the instrument
had been perfected, it was used with conscientious diligence in
face of every conceivable hindrance. When, after hemorrhage, his
right hand is in a sling, he writes some of his “Child’s Garden
of Verses” with his left hand; when the hemorrhage has been so
bad that he may not even speak, he dictates a novel in the deaf
and dumb alphabet. He writes to George Meredith: “For fourteen
years I have not had a day’s real health. I have written in
bed, written in hemorrhages, written in sickness, written torn
by coughing, written when my head swam for weakness; and for
so long, it seems to me, I have won my wager and recovered my
glove. The battle goes on--ill or well is a trifle, so as it
goes. I was made for contest, and the powers have so willed
that my battle-field should be this dingy, inglorious one of
the bed and the physic-bottle.” No wonder that he could say: “I
frankly believe (thanks to my dire industry) I have done more
with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters in the world.”
And yet this man declared that he labored only for art, and
that the end of art was to give pleasure! If such a motive can
command such devotion, what is not possible for us who serve
the Savior, for us whose end is the salvation of men and the
redemption of the world!--W. W. B. EMERY, _Christian
World Pulpit_.

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=Body, The, as a House=--See HOUSE OF THE SOUL.

BODY, THE HUMAN

The human body is a marvelous machine with a storage of power.
It is estimated that if all the beats of the heart in a single
day could be concentrated in one huge throb of vital power, it
would be sufficient to throw a ton of iron 120 feet into the
air. An electrical engineer has affirmed that this expended
heart-energy is equal to a two-candle power of an incandescent
electrical lamp; or, if converted into cold light, this amount
of power would represent forty candles. If a man had some such
organ as a firefly has he could surround himself with light
enough to live by without artificial lighting.

(267)

* * * * *

A scientific writer, speaking of the human body in its
marvelous mechanism, calls it an epitome of all mechanics, of
all hydraulics, of all machinery. It has all the bars, levers,
pulleys, wheels, axles and buffers known to science. All the
more than three hundred movements included in modern mechanics
are simply modifications and variations of those found in the
human body--adaptations of processes and first principles
employed in the human organism.

In a true sense, man, in body, is a law unto himself, and possesses the potential means of fulfilling all the high purposes of physical life.

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=Boldness=--See FAITH.

=Boldness in Asking=--See ASKING, BOLDNESS IN.

=Bondage=--See GREED.

BONDAGE TO SIN

The strength of some of the spiders which build their webs in
trees and other places in Central America is astounding. One of
them had in captivity, not long ago, a wild canary.

The ends of the wings, the tail and feet of the bird were bound
together by some sticky substance, to which were attached the
threads of the spider, which was slowly but surely drawing
up the bird by an ingenious arrangement. The bird hung head
downward, and was so securely bound with little threads that it
could not struggle and would soon have been a prey to its great
ugly captor if it had not been rescued.

All around us are men being bound by the arch enemy of souls,
that he may devour them. At first, he tempts them with little
sins that charm and fascinate, and as they yield, he binds
them with threads of filmy texture. Temptations multiply. The
reward of sin is greater sin. As they become more submissive, he
binds them so fast that finally they are unable to make further
resistance. (Text.)

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BOOK, INFLUENCE OF A

I can still remember plainly the circumstances under which I
finished it. (“Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”) I had got well into the
second volume. It was Thursday. Sunday was looming up before
me, and at the rate at which I was going there would not be
time to finish it before Sunday, and I could never preach till
I had finished it. So I set myself to it and determined to
finish it at once. I had got a considerable way into the second
volume, and I recommended my wife to go to bed. I didn’t want
anybody down there. I soon began to cry. Then I went and shut
all the doors, for I did not want any one to see me. Then I sat
down to it and finished it that night, for I knew that only in
that way should I be able to preach on Sunday.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.

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BOOK-STUDY

It was always with a sigh of relief that Macaulay turned aside
from public duties to the companionship of books, and he said
that he could covet no higher joy than to be shut up in the
seclusion of a great library, and never pass a moment without
a book in his hand. And this confession declares the man. To
acquire information was the real passion of his life. He was
not interested in the study of human nature, and had no love
or aptitude for meditation. A man with genial interest in his
fellows, and in life as a whole, would not have walked the
streets of London with a book in his hand; and a man with any
faculty of meditative thought would scarcely have employed
a long starlit night on the Irish Sea in a recitation of
Milton.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of English Prose.”

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See SURPRIZES IN BOOKS.

=Book, The Most Popular=--See BIBLE, POPULARITY OF.

BOOKS AND WORTH

Browning would never write for a magazine. He wrote: “I can not
bring myself to write for periodicals. If I publish a book, and
people choose to buy it, that proves they want to read my work.
But to have them to turn over the pages of a magazine and find
me--that is to be an uninvited guest.”

(272)

=Books, Influence of=--See REFORMATION.

=Books Less Important than Things=--See THINGS NOT BOOKS.

BOOKS, POISON IN

A gentleman in India went into his library and took down a book
from the shelves. As he did so he felt a slight pain in his
finger like the prick of a pin. He thought that a pin had been
stuck by some careless person in the cover of the book. But soon
his finger began to swell, then his arm, and then his whole
body, and in a few days he died. It was not a pin among the
books, but a small and deadly serpent.

There are many books that contain moral poison more deadly to character than this serpent. (Text.)

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BOOKS, THE SIZE OF

We are capable of believing, not only that we love books which
we do not love, but that we have read books which we have
not read. A lifelong intimacy with their titles, a partial
acquaintance with modern criticism, a lively recollection of
many familiar quotations--these things come in time to be
mistaken for a knowledge of the books themselves. Perhaps in
youth it was our ambitious purpose to storm certain bulwarks of
literature; but we were deterred by their unpardonable length.
It is a melancholy truth, which may as well be acknowledged
at the start, that many of the books best worth reading are
very, very long, and that they can not, without mortal hurt,
be shortened. Nothing less than a shipwreck on a desert island
in company with Froissart’s “Chronicles” would give us leisure
to peruse this glorious narrative, and it is useless to hope
for such a happy combination of chances. We might, indeed, be
wrecked--that is always a possibility--but the volume saved
dripping from the deep would be “Soldiers of Fortune,” or
“Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.”--AGNES REPPLIER,
“Compromises.”

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BOORISHNESS

Boorishness is a product of selfishness far more than a product
of ignorance; or at least a product of that ignorance which is
in itself a product of selfishness. I was once at a wedding
breakfast in a rural community in the West. The groom ate in
silence the food that was set before him, dispatched his meal
before the rest of us were more than half through, pushed
back his plate, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand,
and turning to his bride, said, “Well, Sally, you may as well
get used to my way at the beginning, and I always leave the
table when I have got through with my meal!” With these words
he went out to pick his teeth on the door-steps, leaving his
bride with a flushed face and a pained heart, the object of our
commiseration. The man was a boor, you say. True! What made him
a boor? The fact that he selfishly thought of his own comfort.
It never entered his head to inquire whether his conduct would
be agreeable or painful to his bride.--LYMAN ABBOTT,
_The Chautauquan_.

(275)

=Borrowed Trouble=--See WAIT AND SEE.

BORROWING HABIT ARRESTED

A wag has declared that there is one borrower set down in every
neighborhood; that she either “leavens the whole lump” (being of
the fomenting class) or speedily moves away. But he is mistaken;
sometimes the borrower gets converted. Here is the way one woman
managed it:

“Ma wants to know if you will loan her a cup of sugar?” asks
Mrs. B.’s little girl.

“Why, certainly! But be sure to tell her not to return it,” was
the cheerful response of Mrs. Neighbor.

The next day the child reappeared with the sugar, but she was
promptly sent home with it. Mrs. N. was “glad to let her have
it, and it was too small a matter to be repaid.”

This caused Mrs. Borrower to gasp and to wait a while before
despatching the child for a cup of lard. This was given also,
and when no return was allowed Mrs. B. realized the situation
and was too proud to ask for further loans. She resented
her neighbor’s attitude, but her mouth was shut, especially
as Mrs. N. continued as friendly as ever when they met. The
result was that she was simply forced to exercise a little more
head-work thereafter in her household affairs, ordering supplies
sufficiently in advance of her needs, and soon she had broken
herself of the borrowing habit.--LEE MCCRAE, _Zion’s
Advocate_.

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BOTTOM, BEGINNING AT THE

It was in the pursuit of a mission that Theodore Roosevelt,
Jr., went to Thompsonville. He might have found a more showy
position, for he had name and influence. He might have found
plenty of things to do that would at the start have brought him
more money. For that matter, he had enough of his own so that he
need not bother with work; and had he been like some young men,
he would never have been seen in overalls or any other uniform
of the toiler. But he went to the carpet mill, and he did what
he was told. He began at the bottom. He has worked hard. And
now we may understand what he did it for. Announcement is made
that he is to go West as manager of one of the Hartford Carpet
Company’s Western houses. It is for a purpose that he has been
learning the business in all its details. He could not manage
without that knowledge.

* * * * *

It is an old lesson, but never was there an instance better
showing it than does this of the son of the former President. If
he could afford to begin at the bottom, others can. If he must,
others must. If with his brains and education he needed to do
that, nearly any young man does. If his prospective position is
the reward of that sort of sacrifice, it is a sacrifice that any
young man can afford to make.--New Haven _Register_.

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=Boy, A Chance for the=--See CHANCE FOR THE BOY.

=Boy, a Dutiful=--See PRESERVATION.

BOY AND KING

Mark Twain tells a story of how a bootblack saved a king. The
king was sick; his trouble defied the skill of all his doctors,
and it seemed as if he must die. The little bootblack knew a
peculiar but a sure remedy for the disease; but how to get the
king to take a prescription from a bootblack was a problem. He
might have gone to the palace doors and pleaded till he was
hoarse without any one listening. So he told his remedy to the
ash-boy, who was older than himself, and the ash-boy told it to
the butcher, and the butcher told it to his wife, and she told
it to some one else, and so on it went, a little higher each
time, until it reached the king’s doctors. The king would have
nothing more to do with them, so they told it to the favorite
page, and since the king was very fond of the page he tried the
remedy just to please him. The king was cured by the bootblack’s
remedy.--JAMES M. STIFLER, “The Fighting Saint.”

(278)

=Boy, A Noble=--See LOVE, FILIAL.

=Boy, His Own=--See FATHERHOOD.

BOYS ADJUSTING THEIR TROUBLES

When Edward VII was a boy of ten, he was with his mother, Queen
Victoria, at Balmoral Castle in the Highlands of Scotland. At
that time the Queen was quite a skilful painter in water-colors
and spent many days by the waterfalls and in the glens making
pictures.

One day she was sitting at her easel on a sandy beach of the
river beneath a waterfall. Young Edward was playing around her.
The little Prince suddenly caught sight of a Highland lad in
kilts. The lad was making a sand castle and adorning it with
sprigs of heather and “chucky-stones.”

The Prince advanced to him with royal hauteur and asked for whom
the sand castle was being built.

“For bonnie Prince Charlie,” was the playful reply of the
boy, who stood with his hands on his hips to see the effect
of a thistle on the top story. The lad had no idea that his
interlocutor was any different from any other boy.

The young Prince, however, determined to make it clear that
he--and not Prince Charlie--was to be King some day. He kicked
over the sand castle.

The Highland boy glared at him and said:

“Ye’ll no dae that again!”

It was a challenge. The lad rebuilt his sand castle very
deliberately. The Prince waited until the thistle was stuck on
the top story, then kicked it over as deliberately as it had
been built.

“Ye’ll no dae that a third time!” challenged the little Scot,
beginning to rebuild with even more deliberation.

The Queen had been noticing the affair. She set aside her
brush and palette, but said nothing; only watched with a firm,
studious expression on her maternal face.

A third time Prince Edward kicked over the Highland lad’s sand
castle. No sooner was it done than its kilted builder closed his
fists and lowered his head. In another moment the two boys were
hammering one another.

The Queen sat there and never interfered by word or act.
The little Prince presently returned, weeping, bruised, and
bloody-nosed, while the rebel Gael stood apart, himself
considerably frayed, waiting to see if any further service were
needed in the training of royal children.

To the little Prince’s plea for speedy justice and vengeance,
the motherly Queen merely replied, as she wiped the blood from
the future King’s nose with a pocket handkerchief:

“It served you right!”--New York _Times_.

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BOYS’ CHAMPION

Pages, messenger boys, newsboys and bootblacks have a champion
in a member of Congress who never lets pass an opportunity to
help them along. If a messenger boy should happen to drop into
the office of Representative William J. Cary, of Milwaukee, in
the House office building, he would get as much consideration as
a member of the United States Senate.

Mr. Cary is the friend of the little chaps because he knows from
experience what it means to get out and hustle for a living when
some of your pals are off playing baseball in the back lots, and
whenever he gets a chance to give a youngster a boost he boosts
hard.

Mr. Cary was left an orphan when he was thirteen years old,
together with five younger brothers and sisters who were placed
in an orphan asylum.

In chasing around Milwaukee as a messenger boy he became
acquainted with the political leaders of the city and by the
time he was old enough to vote he was a full-fledged politician.
Machine methods do not appeal to him and he would rather mix up
in a fight with the Cannon organization than to take a cruise to
Europe.--Boston _Journal_.

(280)

=Boys and Saloon=--See CHANCE FOR THE BOY.

=Boy’s Courage, A=--See LOYALTY.

=Boys, Influences Upon=--See YOUTHFUL TENDENCIES.

BOY’S CLUB, VALUE OF THE

I was talking once with an East Side boy, one of the keenest
and quickest fellows I have ever met. He told me the story of
his early years. There was no good reason why he should have
been a newsboy; his father was a fairly prosperous tailor; but
he loved the adventure of it, and used to play hookey from
school and from home to sell papers. Union Square was his
center, and from there down to Washington Square he ranged.
He was the quickest and the most fearless of the newsboys in
the neighborhood, and soon became a leader among them. His
brightness and wit won him entrance into most of the saloons
and restaurants thereabouts, when the other boys were excluded;
and in many of these the waiters or the barkeeper would save
the dregs of drinks for him. He stole when he could, just for
the excitement of the thing; and with great glee he told me how
he once had picked the pocket of Mr. Robert Graham, the general
secretary of the Church Temperance Society, as that gentleman
stood talking at the window of the society’s coffee-van in the
square. At the time he told me this, he and I both belonged to
a company of the Church Temperance Society which claimed Mr.
Graham as its adjutant commander. His story was not all of such
proud recollections, however. For after a pause he said, rather
slowly, “The boys I used to go with around here, my gang, have
all gone to the devil, and mighty fast.” “Well, John,” I asked,
“how is it that you didn’t go to the devil, too, with them?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I belonged to a boy’s club down near my
house. It wasn’t much of a club; we used to steal and have rough
house all we pleased. But I was there every night.” And then he
added, with a momentary seriousness I shall not soon forget:
“Mr. Bartlett, if you want to save the boys, keep them off the
streets at night.” It was expert testimony; he knew whereof he
spoke. And what he said puts in a nutshell the whole philosophy
of the boys’ club, secular or spiritual, on its negative, but
a most important, side. If the club simply keeps the boys off
the streets at night, it does much more than enough to pay for
all it costs.--GEORGE G. BARTLETT, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1904.

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=Boys Contrasted=--See EARLY HABITS TELL.

BOYS’ MISSIONARY EFFORTS

Eight boys in a Sunday-school class in one of our churches,
following the suggestion of their teacher, decided to send
Christmas remembrances to eight boys in a mission church in
the far Northwest. They set aside five cents each week for
seven weeks and purchased knives of much greater value than
thirty-five cents each, through the kindness of the merchant
who was informed of their purpose. Each boy wrote a personal
letter to the boy who was to receive his gift. The eight
knives went on their way before Christmas to the care of the
minister of the mission, who wisely required his eight boys to
write personal letters acknowledging their gifts and telling
something about themselves, before they received the knives. So
eight choir-boys, close up to the Canada line in the Northwest,
received these Christmas gifts. The letters received here were
said to have interfered for a Sunday or two with the regular
lessons. With their accounts of hunting rabbits, etc., they
made Newark boys feel that all the advantages of life are not
found in New Jersey. The plan here described was suggested
incidentally by the work of the Church Periodical Club, which
has done a great deal to brighten the lives of our missionaries
and their people.--The Newark (N. J.) _Churchman_.

(282)

=Boy’s Religion=--See EARLY RELIGION.

=Boy’s Trust in Father=--See CONFIDENCE.

BOYCOTT, ORIGIN OF

Boycotting did originate in America, but it was started long
before the slavery troubles became annoying. The boycott
originated with Thomas Jefferson. It will be remembered that
by the embargo we boycotted every species of English goods;
we neither bought of that country nor sold to her. The ships
of New England were suffered to lie rotting at the wharves,
and American foreign trade was at a complete standstill. The
Hartford Convention was the result of that boycott, and the
lukewarmness of the East in the war of 1812 may be traced to it.
It was not a highly successful boycott, but it occupied a pretty
big place in history.--Detroit _Evening Journal_.

(283)

=Brag=--See PRETENSE.

BRAIN IN MAN

All, if not most animals, have brains. Man, in common with his kingdom, has a brain; but because of its greater weight and perfection, scientists see in it an illustration of man’s vast superiority over all below him.

Note has to be taken among the mammalia themselves, from the
marsupials to man, of the presence or absence of one testing
character, and that the chief--the perfect brain. This is found
in one creature, occupying, as it were, the inner ring and core
of the concentric circles of vitality, and in one alone. In
the lowest variety of man it is present--present in the negro
or the bushman as in the civilized European; and absent in all
below man--absent in the ape or the elephant as truly as in the
kangaroo or the duckmole. To all men the pleno-cerebral type
is common: to man, as such, it is peculiar. And till we hear
of some simian tribe which speculates on its own origin, or
discusses its own place in the scale of being, we shall be safe
in opposing the human brain, with its sign in language, culture,
capacity of progress, as a barrier to Mr. Darwin’s scheme.

(284)

=Bravery=--See LOYALTY.

BRAVERY OF WOMEN

Henry Savage Landor, one of the many passengers on the _Baltic_, added chapter after chapter to the good story of the bravery and coolness displayed by men and women when the _Republic_ was struck, and throughout the hours of waiting and of rescue:

In all my travels through the countries of the two hemispheres,
never have I seen displayed a spirit of womanhood that could
be better in such an extreme than was that of the women of
the _Republic_. When we of the _Baltic_ met them,
it was as they were being brought to our vessel in a tossing
sea in small boats after nearly a score of hours spent on the
crowded Italian emigrant vessel, to which they had been taken
from another wreck. Yet not only was there no whimpering, but
they actually came aboard with smiling faces. They forgot that
all their traveling possessions were doomed, forgot all the
ordeal they had encountered, and showed themselves happy and
contented because they thought, most of them, that in the face
of disaster, all that the hands of willing men could do to help
them had been done.

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BREVITY OF LIFE

The May-fly, of which there are several varieties, lives at the
longest but three or four days; some varieties but a few hours
of one day. Yet they are delicately organized, and possess all
the functions of insect lives.

Man’s few years of mortal existence may seem as brief compared with eternity.

(286)

* * * * *

The life of a perfect butterfly or moth is short. A few days
after emergence from the chrysalis case, the female deposits
her eggs on the leaves or stems of the plant that is to sustain
the larvæ. Her work is now accomplished, and the few days more
allowed her are spent in frolicking among the flowers, and
sucking the sweet juices they provide. They soon show symptoms
of a fast approaching end. Their colors begin to fade, and the
beauty-making scales of the wings gradually disappear through
friction against the petals of hundreds of flowers visited and
the merry dances with scores and scores of playful companions.
At last, one bright afternoon, while the sun is still high in
the heavens, a butterfly, more weary than usual, with heavy and
laborious flight, seeks a place of rest for the approaching
night. Here, on a waving stalk, it is soon lulled to sleep by a
gentle breeze.

Next morning, a few hours before noon, the blazing sun calls
it out for its usual frolics. But its body now seems too heavy
to be supported by the feeble and ragged wings, and, after one
or two weak attempts at play, it settles down in its final
resting-place. On the following morning a dead butterfly is
seen, still clinging by its claws to a swinging stem.--W.
FURNEAUX, “Butterflies and Moths.”

(287)

Life is too short for any vain regretting;
Let dead delight bury its dead, I say,
And let us go upon our way forgetting
The joys and sorrows of each yesterday.
Between the swift sun’s rising and its setting
We have no time for useless tears or fretting.
Life is too short.

Life is too short for any bitter feeling;
Time is the best avenger, if we wait.
The years speed by, and on their wings bear healing--
We have no room for anything like hate.
This solemn truth the low mounds seem revealing
That thick and fast about our feet are stealing.
Life is too short.

Life is too short for aught but high endeavor--
Too short for spite, but long enough for love.
And love lives on forever and forever,
It links the worlds that circle on above;
’Tis God’s first law, the universe’s lever,
In His vast realm the radiant souls sigh never.
Life is too short. (Text.)

(288)

=Bride-racing=--See MARRIAGE-RACING.

BRIGHT SIDE

There’s a bad side, ’tis the sad side--
Never mind it!
There’s a bright side, ’tis the right side--
Try to find it!
Pessimism’s but a screen.
Thrust the light and you between--
But the sun shines bright, I ween,
Just behind it!

--JEAN DWIGHT FRANKLIN, _The Circle_.

(289)

=Broad-mindedness in Civics=--See CIVICS.

BROTHERHOOD

Two men saw a piece of jewelry on the sidewalk, they reached for
it simultaneously, struck their heads violently; each arose to
censure the other, when they found they were brothers and had
not seen each other for a dozen years. It must not be forgotten
that all competitions and rivalries to-day are between
brothers, and some day the vast brotherhood will be permanently
organized.--CHARLES E. LOCKE.

(290)

* * * * *

A man preaching to the inmates of a prison made the remark that
the only difference between himself and them was owing to the
grace of God. Afterward one of the prisoners approached him and
asked: “Did you mean what you said about sympathizing with us,
and that only the help of God made you differ from us?” Being
answered in the affirmative, the prisoner said: “I am here for
life, but I can stay here more contentedly now that I know I
have a brother out in the world.”

How we might lighten the burden of others if we had and showed more feeling for them, if we followed more closely in the footsteps of our blessed Lord.--ST. CLAIR HESTER.

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* * * * *

The story is told, as an instance of Oriental humor, of a little
Chinese girl who was carrying her brother on her back. “Is he
heavy?” she was asked. “No,” she replied, “he is my brother.”

For some reason this seems funny to the Chinese; but it is better than humorous, it is sweet and winning. Love makes all burdens light. When one is carrying his brother, he feels little weight. Here is a good text for social workers. If they consider that they are working for mere aliens and strangers, their toil may seem irksome; but if the idea of brotherhood once enters in, the task becomes light. I am carrying my weaker brother, therefore I feel no weight.

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See WEAKNESS, CONSIDERATION FOR.

BUILDERS, ANCIENT

The old Egyptians were better builders than those of the present
day. There are blocks of stone in the pyramids which weigh three
or four times as much as the obelisk on the London embankment.
There is one stone the weight of which is estimated at eight
hundred and eighty tons. There are stones thirty feet in length
which fit so closely together that a penknife may be run over
the surface without discovering the break between them. They
are not laid with mortar, either. We have no machinery so
perfect that it will make two surfaces thirty feet in length
which will meet together as these stones in the pyramids meet.
It is supposed that they were rubbed backward and forward upon
each other until the surfaces were assimilated, making them the
world’s wonders in mechanical skill.--The London _Budget_.

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See DAILY CHARACTER WORK.

=Building Character=--See IMPERFECTIONS CORRECTED.

=Building, Cheap=--See FIRE, COST OF.

BUILDING THE SOUL’S CITY

Prof. Felix Adler is the author of this poem:

Have you heard the golden city
Mentioned in the legends old?
Everlasting light shines o’er it,
Wondrous tales of it are told.
Only righteous men and women
Dwell within its gleaming wall;
Wrong is banished from its borders,
Justice reigns supreme o’er all.

We are builders of that city;
All our joys and all our groans
Help to rear its shining ramparts,
All our lives are building-stones.
But a few brief years we labor,
Soon our earthly day is o’er,
Other builders take our places,
And our place knows us no more.

But the work which we have builded,
Oft with bleeding hands and tears,
And in error and in anguish,
Will not perish with the years.
It will last, and shine transfigured
In the final reign of Right;
It will merge into the splendors
Of the City of the Light. (Text.)

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=Burdens=--See BROTHERHOOD.

BURDENS, BEARING ONE ANOTHER’S

On a railway train running on a branch road from a great city to
the suburb, a little incident in complete contrast was noted by
eyes quick to see what happened on the road. A woman, evidently
a foreigner and very poor, was encumbered by a baby in her
arms, while two older children tugged at her skirt. In addition
she had several nondescript bundles. When the brakeman announced
her station she was bewildered and greatly impeded in her
efforts to leave the car. She was not quite sure of the place,
and she could not easily manage the babies and the bundles.

A tall young fellow, conspicuously well drest, had been sitting
near, apparently lost in a book which he was studying. He
tossed the book aside, seized the heavy bundles and gave a
hand to one little brown-faced child, assisted the whole party
out of the car, first ascertaining that they were at the right
point of their journey, lifted his hat to the mother as if
she had been his own, and resumed his place and book as if he
had done nothing uncommon. This incident was chronicled in
the memory of one whom it made happier for a whole long day.
(Text.)--_Herald and Presbyter._

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=Burdens for Others=--See HARDSHIP VICARIOUSLY BORNE.

=Burglar Punished=--See UNLOADING THE USELESS.

BURIAL, A NOVEL PLAN OF

Gen. M. C. Meigs, U.S.A., discusses the burial of the dead as follows in _Building_:

I see that the question of disposing of the dead in towers of
masonry, or by cementation, is being discust. It is not new.
Asiatic conquerors have built the living, after capture of
their cities, into towers of masonry, using their bodies as
blocks, and generally the adobe mortars of the desert plains for
cementing them together. One of them built a pyramid or tower
containing thousands of heads.

The city of New York inters in its Potter’s Field about four
thousand bodies annually. Europe rents a grave site for a term
of years--a short term--and then disinters the bones and packs
them in a catacomb or a vault. Would not New York save money and
treat its dead with greater respect if it embedded each body in
a mass of Hudson River cement and sand (Beton Coignet)? I find
that one-half a cubic yard of Beton Coignet will completely
enclose the body of a man of six feet stature, weighing two
hundred pounds. The average human being would require even less
than thirteen cubic feet. At ruling prices such a sarcophagus
would cost only two or three dollars. The name and date, a
perpetual record and memorial of the dead, could be inscribed
with letter-punches or stamps on the head or foot of the block
or sarcophagus. Ranged alongside each other in contact, and in
two rows, _i.e._, two blocks deep, these would build on any
suitable plan a fourteen-foot wall, massive enough and strong
enough to be carried to the height of one hundred and fifty feet.

Thus would be erected, at the rate of nearly two thousand
cubic yards per year, a great temple of silence, a grand and
everlasting monument to those who pass away. The designs for
such a monument seem worthy of the study of our best architects.
It might be a pyramid, a cone, a tower, or a temple, or a long
gallery like those of the Italian city of Bologna, the most
beautiful cemetery in the world.

Many years ago the London _Architect_ published the
proposal of an architect to erect by slow degrees and in
successive courses a solid pyramid in which, in cells, the dead
of London would be enclosed. But this made no provision for
memorial inscriptions or visible records. The fourteen-foot wall
does this.--_Building._

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=Burial too Expensive=--See POVERTY.

=Buried Cities=--See EARTH INCREASING.

BUSINESS A TEST OF CHARACTER

Beethoven, when he had completed one of his grand musical
compositions, was accustomed to test it on an old harpsichord,
lest a more perfect instrument might flatter it or hide its
defects.

The old harpsichord on which to test our religious life, our new song, is the market-place. A man, like muddy water, may be very peaceful when he is quietly “settled”--not shaken up by temptation. That proves nothing about his religious life. But if a man’s patience and peace and principles can stand the test of business, his religion is genuine.

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=Business Absorption=--See ENGROSSMENT IN BUSINESS.

=Business Acumen=--See OVERSIGHT.

=Business Brevity=--See SUCCESS INSPIRES CONFIDENCE.

BUSINESS CHANCES

In 1840 Worcester had thirty leading manufacturers of
whom twenty-eight began as journeymen and two as sons of
manufacturers. Of seventy-five manufacturers in 1850, six
only were sons of manufacturers, only six of the one hundred
and seven in 1860, and of one hundred and seventy-six
manufacturers in 1878, only fifteen. The chance that the head
of a manufacturing business will be reached by the son of an
owner in Worcester for forty years has been pretty steadily
about one in ten of the total chances of going to the head. As
the sons of manufacturers in Worcester in 1840 could not have
been, taking thirty manufacturers as the number, one per cent
of the population, the chances of success for them was above
the average, but not so far above as to discourage young men
without this good fortune. The chance that property will stay
two generations in one family seems also to be about one in ten
in Worcester. Of the thirty manufacturers in 1840, fourteen of
whom died or retired with property, only three in 1888 had left
sons with money; of the seventy-five in 1850, the sons of only
six survive now; and of one hundred and seven in 1860, eight
only were represented by sons in the business world of Worcester
twenty-eight years later. The business field at any given year
is apt to look to young men as if all the leading places were
filled by men whose sons were certain to enjoy the advantages of
wealth and likely to take the places of their fathers. But there
is not over one chance in ten that this will take place, and
scarcely this that wealth will be left by those who inherit it.
While of those in business on any date, one-fourth drop out in
five years, one-half in ten, and two-thirds in fifteen years.

Nine places out of ten thirty years hence are therefore open to
those who to-day have nothing.--Philadelphia _Press_.

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BUSINESS CHEATING

Your prize-fighter has some honor in him yet; and so have the
men in the ring round him: they will judge him to lose the match
by foul hitting. But your prize-merchant gains his match by
foul selling, and no one cries out against that. You drive a
gambler out of the gambling-room who loads dice, but you leave a
tradesman in flourishing business who loads scales! For observe,
all dishonest dealing is loading scales. What difference does
it make whether I get short weight, adulterate substance, or
dishonest fabric?--unless that flaw in the substance or fabric
is the worse evil of the two. Give me short measure of food, and
I only lose by you; but give me adulterate food and I die by
you.--JOHN RUSKIN.

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BUSINESS MEN IN CHURCH

Dr. Crafts asked a prominent business man of Chicago, who has
been active in the very heart of its commercial life for sixteen
years, to make a careful list of its one hundred richest men,
and then tell him how many of them were church-members. His
report was, “Seventy church-members, twenty-four attend church,
and I think are not members; three I consider dissipated, and
three are Jews, who are good citizens.”

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BUSINESS, RELIGION IN

Altho Mrs. J. Alden Gaylord conducts a bond-investment business in Wall Street, she firmly believes that financial success can be gained in that “frenzied” business center by godly spiritual guidance. Mrs. Gaylord has achieved the distinction of taking over the management of the affairs of her late husband and running them on original lines. Says the New York _Herald_:

Seated in a spacious office, this plucky little woman spends
her time discussing with her clients the flotation of security
issues and the financing of railway lines. Religious mottoes are
posted on the walls, and a Testament and prayer-books occupy a
conspicuous place on the desk.

“Yes, every morning after I arrive in this city,” said Mrs.
Gaylord, “I spend a few minutes in Old Trinity to pray. That was
a custom of my husband’s, who was one of the most godly men that
lived. Before we begin business here we have a prayer-meeting
in the office. I have a good many young men here to whom I am
teaching the business. I conduct the services, assisted by my
partner, Mr. Fletcher.

“We carry on our work here according to the teaching of the
Scriptures. Even if I make only one-quarter of one per cent,
that is enough. And business is coming in from every part of the
country. It is perfectly wonderful. Only yesterday two loans
came in--one for $3,000,000 and another for $2,000,000.

“The deals will be closed to-morrow. I believe the Lord has
educated me in all this. I know He is helping me, and the money
I make will all go to the Lord. I only want to provide for my
grandchildren. All the rest will go to charity and missions.”
(Text.)

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BUYING, GOOD

Not very long ago a lawyer accompanied his wife to a Harlem
market in New York, and while she made some purchases, he
watched a woman beside him select meats for an unusually large
order. So extensive were her purchases that he grew interested.
Later he found himself forgetting quantity in admiration for the
judgment and care she was exercising in her buying. After she
left, his curiosity got the better of him. “Do you mind telling
me,” said he to the clerk, “who that woman was? I think I never
saw one who bought so well.”

“Not at all,” was the answer. “She’s Mrs. X, and she keeps a
boarding-house on Y Street,” naming a number almost opposite the
man’s home. “She personally inspects every piece of meat she
serves on her table, and I tell you her boarders get the best.
You can’t fool her.”

“I’ve found a place to take our meals in the next domestic
crisis,” was the thought that flashed into the man’s mind. This
kind of boarding-house keeper was not the sort he had known in
the days of his bachelor wanderings.--_The Evening Post._

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=By-products=--See UTILIZING SEED.

=By-products of Seaweed=--See UTILIZING SEAWEED.

C

=Calf Intelligence=--See DIRECTION, SENSE OF.

CALL, THE, OF GOD

In the summer of 1871, Rev. Robert W. McAll and his wife,
visiting Paris at the close of the war with Germany, and led by
a deep desire to reach workingmen with the gospel, were giving
away tracts in the hotels and on the public streets, when a
workingman said: “If any one will come among us and teach us
not a gospel of priestcraft and superstition, but of truth and
liberty, many of us are ready to hear.”

Mr. McAll returned home, but above the murmur of the waves and
the hum of busy life he heard that voice, “If any one will come
and teach us ... we are ready to hear.” He said to himself,
“Is this God’s call? Shall I go?” Friends said, “No!” But a
voice within said, “Yes.” And he left his English parish and
went back, and in a district worse to work in than St. Giles in
London he began to tell the old story of Jesus. Soon the little
place was crowded, and a larger room became a necessity; and
sixteen years later that one gospel hall has become 112, in
which, in one year, have been held 14,000 religious meetings,
with a million hearers, and 4,000 services for children,
with 200,000 attendants.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of
Missions.”

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CALL TO BETTER LIFE, THE

When summer is ending the wild bird in arctic zones responds to
the call of the tropic winds and perfumes and plumes his flight
for southern feeding-grounds. So the soul of man is drawn and
responds to subtle and haunting attractions in the realm of
holiness and heaven.

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=Call to Duty=--See RESPONDING TO THE CALL.

CALLS AND CONVEYANCES IN THE EAST

A source of offense (in the East) are calls formal in character.
One can ruin his social standing by going to make this call in a
wrong style of conveyance. A friend of mine had bought a Chinese
sedan-chair with shorter handles than those of an ordinary
sedan. It was loaned to a millionaire from New York to bring him
up from the river, and it caused the greatest excitement that
the city had ever known. People were laughing for years over it.
Why? Because those shorter handles made of that sedan a spirit
chair, in which the ghost is carried at funeral processions.
It was just as appropriate as if Dr. Anderson, of the First
Presbyterian Church up here, should receive a visiting clergyman
in a hearse down at the station and bring him uptown in it. It
is safe to say that the sight of his guest looking out through
the glass sides would not be forgotten. You have reached your
place, and you desire to make a good impression; but you are in
such haste that you leap down from your cart, or gharry. Well,
if a lady should do this in China or India, she might just as
well in America if she desired to make a good impression upon
a new friend, approach this friend’s house skipping, or on the
run; or a gentleman might just as appropriately vault a fence to
get over into the yard, instead of entering by the gate where
he was going to make a call.--H. P. BEACH, “Student
Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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=Calmness=--See CONFIDENCE.

CALMNESS IN A CRISIS

Speaking of that “anxious moment” in the decisive battle of Königgrätz before the arrival of the Crown Prince in the rear of the Austrians, Bismarck, according to Mr. Schurz’s autobiography in _McClure’s Magazine_, related the following incident showing von Moltke’s coolness:

It was an anxious moment, a moment on the decision of which the
fate of the empire depended. Squadrons of cavalry, all mixt up,
hussars, dragoons, uhlans, were streaming by the spot where the
King, Moltke, and myself stood, and altho we had calculated that
the Crown Prince might long have appeared behind the Austrian
rear, no sign of the Crown Prince! Things began to look ominous.
I confess I felt not a little nervous. I looked at Moltke, who
sat quietly on his horse and did not seem to be disturbed by
what was going on around us. I thought I would test whether he
was really as calm as he appeared. I rode up to him and asked
him whether I might offer him a cigar, since I noticed he was
not smoking. He replied that he would be glad if I had one to
spare. I presented to him my open case in which there were only
two cigars, one a very good Havana, and the other of rather poor
quality. Moltke looked at them and even handled them with great
attention, in order to ascertain their relative value, and then
with slow deliberation chose the Havana. “Very good,” he said
composedly. This assured me very much. I thought, if Moltke can
bestow so much time and attention upon the choice between two
cigars, things can not be very bad.

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=Calmness of Pupils=--See DISCIPLINE AMONG CHILDREN.

CALVARY, ANTICIPATING

Overbeck, the celebrated German painter, in one of his immortal
canvases, represents the child Jesus at play in Joseph’s
workshop. He is fashioning sticks and blocks into the shape of a
cross, as if anticipating and rehearsing in his tender years the
tragedy of Calvary. Child as he is, even in his play the serious
work of his life looms up before Him.

(307)

=Canadian Resources=--See MONEY POWER IN CANADA.

=Candles, Illustrations from=--See ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CANDLES.

CANT

A professor, addressing an academic audience, warned his hearers
against cant. At the close, questions were invited and one of
the students asked the professor, “What is cant?” “There is a
kind of religion,” was the reply, “which is natural to an old
woman, and there is another which is natural to a young man;
but if the young man professes to have the religion of the old
woman, that is cant.”

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CAPACITY

You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a
large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his
duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable
soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from
the wind, you remove the superfluous branches, you train the
strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become
as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. The difference
between men and other things is only in the largeness and
variety of man’s capacities.--JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

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CAPACITY LIMITING SUPPLY

You can limit the working of almighty power, and can determine
the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots
to the brim, but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman
in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil
will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to think that we have
the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or
diminish, or cut off altogether, the supply of God’s mercy and
Christ’s healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will
get as much of God as you want, and no more. The measure of
your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure
of your capacity is the measure of God’s gift.--ALEXANDER
MCLAREN.

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See RECEPTIVENESS.

CAPACITY, ORIGINAL

During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of
a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough:
“I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s
eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied
the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s
tongue is to you.”

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=Capacity, Restricting=--See ROUTINE.

=Captain and Crew Stedfast=--See LOYALTY.

CAPTAIN, CHRIST OUR

Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of
artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul
was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You
could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all
unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses,
the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the
captain waving his sword, shouting his commands--but shot dead
just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us,
but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of
love for each one of us.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons in
Illustration.”

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