Chapter C: G. D. Roberts tells of the capture of a great eagle at the (1)

head waters of the St. John River in the Northwest. The eagle
occasionally found its food at the edge of a lake where the
fish came into the shallow water. One morning he found on the
spot a great stone which aroused its suspicions, and perched
on the stump of an old tree to watch matters. Nothing further
happening, it went down and hopped on the stone and breakfasted
as before. It did this for several days, when one morning he
found a stick laid across the stone in a slanting position with
something hanging loosely from the upper end. Further suspicion
led to a closer examination, but, satisfied again, he ate as
before. This he did for several days, becoming more careless and
confident, until one day while enjoying his morning meal on that
stone and hopping about, an Indian hidden in the reeds pulled
two strings, dropping the stick and unloosing the meshes of a
net around the eagle and caught it.

(3189)

* * * * *

A little Jewish newsboy was selling evening papers among the
clerks in a large office in one of our great cities. Unawares,
as he approached the cashier, he found himself right next to
an open cash-drawer overflowing with coin. The little fellow’s
eyes shone at the sight. But, quicker than a wink, he stept
back beyond reach, and nothing would induce him to approach any
nearer, even to sell a paper, until the drawer had been shut.

I happen to know that this little fellow comes from a home
of poverty, where there are many children and little time or
strength is left for parental training of the children, and that
the poor boy often goes hungry, finding it too far to go home
for a bite, and not daring to spend a copper of his hard-earned
treasures for any self-indulgence.

But how many native boys of ten years of age, think you, would
have had the moral perception, the strength of character, and
the quickness to act that was exhibited by this little son of
a poor immigrant family? (Text.)--GEORGE W. COLEMAN,
“Search-lights.”

(3190)

* * * * *

There were two ways in which the ancients kept from yielding to
the music and final destruction of the Sirens. Ulysses fortified
himself with bonds that held him fast to the mast while his
boat carried him, listening, by the seductive strains. The
Argonauts carried Orpheus with them in their boat, and were so
engrossed in listening to his music that they never even heard
the tempting sounds from the shore. (Text.)

(3191)

=Temptation, a Boy’s=--See SLOWNESS.

=Temptation and Desire=--See DESIRES, INORDINATE.

TEMPTATION, PLAUSIBILITY OF

During the Boxer troubles in China, the greatest stress was brought upon the native Christians to have them recant their faith. Dr. Li, a Christian physician of Peking, was not only in imminent peril of his life, but, to add to his anxiety, kind but mistaken friends were urging him to pursue a questionable course of action in order that his life might be saved. One of his friends of the nobility came to him and said:

Things are getting worse and worse. Allow me to put a few idols
in your room, and if the Boxers come they will think you are
not Christians. Now, I knew that this was Satan’s plan. I was
in a difficulty. Could I refuse my protector’s request, and so
endanger him? But God gave me wisdom and words so that I was
able to keep clean, and yet not to offend my friend, who was so
genuinely anxious for my safety.

On another occasion, as he was trying to escape from the city, he says:

Just as I was about to start, some one urged me to carry some
strings of paper money in my hand, “for,” said he, “then people
will imagine you are going to burn it at a grave.” This seemed
a very simple and safe expedient; but I would not agree to it,
because I felt it would, after all, be nothing short of a denial
of Christ. (Text.)

(3192)

TEMPTATION RESISTED

Ever since that bait was offered to the Redeemer and rejected, the tempter has been constantly setting the perilous alternative before the souls of men. The glittering bait is specially dangled before the greatest and noblest souls, and these prove their greatness and nobility by exchanging it for a cross.

Both John Knox and Richard Baxter were offered by carnal state
powers a bishopric in the Erastian Church. How unspeakably
poorer would have been the religious history of both Scotland
and England had these men found their popular success in
ecclesiastical preferment! To-day Spinoza is honored for
declining the fortune that was offered to him, and it is
refreshing to read how Diderot instantly said “No” to the bribe
of a hundred thousand francs a year from Catharine the Great
to become a member of her court. It is the glory of the memory
of Faraday that he declared “He could not afford to be rich.”
Cobden stood for the poor, and therefore he stood out against
Palmerston’s offer of a baronetcy and a seat in his Cabinet.
Gold weighed heavy then, as now, but it did not outweigh the
souls of these heroes. (Text.)

(3193)

TEMPTATION TWO-SIDED

A lad of seventeen was telling an older friend, recently, of
an experience he had had that day. As the apprentice of a
carpenter, he had been sent to a saloon to take the measures for
a new counter. It was very cold weather, and he arrived with his
teeth fairly chattering in his head, for his coat was thin. The
saloon-keeper immediately mixt a hot drink and pushed it over
the counter to him. “It’ll cost you nothing,” he said; “drink it
down, and you’ll soon stop shivering, my boy.”

“He meant it kindly, too, and didn’t think any harm,” said the
apprentice, as he told the story. “That’s what made it harder to
push it back, and I didn’t want it.”

“It must have been a big temptation,” said the friend. “That
saloon-keeper might have started you on the road to ruin.”

“Well,” replied the lad frankly, “I’d rather have had it than
some other kinds. You see, it takes two to make a temptation.
There’s no saloon-keeper and no cold weather can make me drink
when I don’t want to. The temptation I’m afraid of is the one
that I’m ready for before it comes, by hankering after it. I
don’t take much credit to myself for refusing that drink; and,
if I had taken it, why, I wouldn’t have put all the blame on the
saloon-keeper, as some folks do. It takes two, every time, to
make a successful temptation.”

It was an honest way to look at the question. Temptation is
not all a matter of outward happening, but also of inner
readiness. No outsider can be responsible for our sins as we
are responsible. “He tempted me” only explains one side of the
temptation. The other side--the personal side--we must answer
for, and no excuse will save us. “It takes two,” and one of the
two is always our own responsible self.--_Michigan Christian
Advocate._

(3194)

=Temptations=--See CURVES OF TEMPTATION.

TENACITY

After Grant got fairly well started in his studies, the best
he could say for himself is in this characteristic sentence
to his father: “I don’t expect to make very fast progress,
but I will try to hold on to what I get.” Here was somewhat a
foreshadowing of the bulldog tenacity which afterward made him
so famous.--NICHOLAS SMITH, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

(3195)

See CLINGING BY FAITH.

=Tenacity of Birth and Training=--See ARISTOCRACY, INGRAINED.

TENDENCIES, INHERITED

From earliest childhood, says his mother, Charles Hamilton (the
aviator), has given unmistakable evidence of his desire to leave
the earth and invade the skies. The mother--who, with perfect
confidence in his ability, saw her son go aloft in an aeroplane
for the first time and immediately wanted to take a trip on it
with him--dates her first realization of this fact to the day
when Charles, but eight years old, surreptitiously borrowed her
best parasol, climbed with it tightly clutched in his hands
to the eaves of the barn, and then jumped off, employing the
parasol parachute-wise to break his fall.

He not only broke his fall, but he completely smashed the
parasol in that little escapade. But his mother did not have the
heart to punish the child for his act because, as she put it, “I
realized that, after all, it was only the budding desire to fly
that I myself have felt since early girlhood. How could I punish
my boy for doing what I always had wanted to do?”

The interim between that barn-and-parasol episode of Hamilton’s
achievement of his insatiable ambition--to fly--was the matter
of only a few years. He managed to get a balloon man, who was
giving exhibitions in a spherical gas bag just outside of New
Britain, to take him up. From that moment his fever to invade
the sky knew no bounds, and, as he himself put it only a few
days ago, never is he happier than when up in his aeroplane
doing the now-famous Hamilton dip.

After a lapse of several years, during which he left his beloved
machinery and aerial paraphernalia long enough to get in some
schooling, Hamilton turned his attention to ballooning on his
own account. Then kites of all fashions, shapes and sizes took
up his attention. The dirigible balloon coming in, he turned
to that, and for four years gave exhibitions that startled the
world by their daring and success. Then he returned to the kite
end of the game, working with Israel Ludlow along those lines
of aviation. Finally he made his first aeroplane ascension, and
since then he has done almost everything possible to do with a
heavier-than-air machine of the present-day type.

(3196)

TENDENCY

One ship drives east and another west
With the self-same winds that blow.
’Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tell us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the waves of fate,
As we voyage along through life.
’Tis the set of the soul which decides the goal,
And not the calm, nor the strife.

(3197)

TENDERNESS

“The tenderest are the bravest; the loving are the daring.” This finds its illustration in an incident related by the wife of Gen. George E. Pickett, of the Confederate army, just after his famous Gettysburg charge:

One Sunday, just after the battle, when he was in Richmond
recruiting his division, we were walking to church together,
when we saw a little Hebrew child, standing first on one foot
and then on the other, rubbing his eyes with very dirty hands,
and crying as if his heart would break.

“What is the matter, little man?” my Soldier asked.

“My shoes is hurtin’ my feet so, I can’t walk! I can’t get
anywhere!” the boy sobbed. General Pickett knelt down, unlaced
the shoes, took them off, tied them together, wiped away the
muddy tears with his own clean handkerchief, and, taking the
child in his arms, carried him to his home. (Text.)

(3198)

=Tenderness, Contrasted=--See DESTINY.

TENDERNESS OF GOD

I have seen bullets made out of cold lead, crusht into shape
in the steel grip of a machine; and I have heard that gold and
silver, tho cold, are stamped into money by a powerful steel
die; but when God would mold a man to His will He warms the wax
before He presses His seal upon it.--FRANKLIN NOBLE,
“Sermons in Illustration.”

(3199)

TENSION, MORAL

The German marshal, von Manteuffel, in a speech made in Alsace-Lorraine, said:

War! Yes, gentlemen, I am a soldier. War is the element of the
soldier, and I should like to taste it. That elevated sentiment
of commanding in battle, of knowing that the bullet of the enemy
may call you any moment before God’s tribunal, of knowing that
the fate of the battle, and consequently the destiny of your
country, may depend on the orders which you give--this tension
of mind and of feelings is divinely great. (Text.)

(3200)

=Terminology, Christian=--See GOD FIRST.

=Terminology, Fear of=--See MOODS OF THE SPIRIT.

=Terror=--See FRIGHT.

=Test of Character=--See BUSINESS A TEST OF CHARACTER.

TESTIMONY, A SHEEP’S

One of the occupations in Australia is sheep-raising. There are
large ranches upon which many sheep and lambs find food, and the
shepherds guard their own.

One day a man was arrested for stealing a sheep. The man claimed
that the sheep was his own, that it had been missing from his
flock for some days, but as soon as he saw the animal he knew
him.

The other man claimed the sheep, and said he had owned him since
he was a lamb, and that he had never been away from the flock.

The judge was puzzled how to decide the matter. At last he sent
for the sheep. He first took the man in whose possession the
sheep was found to the courtyard, and told him to call the sheep.

The animal made no response, only to raise his head and look
frightened, as if in a strange place and among strangers.

Bidding the officers take the man back to the court-room, he
told them to bring down the defendant. The accused man did not
wait until he entered the yard, but at the gate, and where the
sheep could not see him, he began a peculiar call. At once the
sheep bounded toward the gate, and by his actions showed that a
familiar voice was calling.

“His own knows him,” said the judge. (Text.)

(3201)

TESTIMONY, FRUIT OF

James Henry Potts, D.D., in his book, “The Upward Leading,” relates this incident:

An obscure Highland boy, whose parents had taught him to revere
God, became a marine on board a British man-of-war. When a
battle raged and the deck was swept by a tremendous broadside
from the enemy, the captain, James Haldane, a profane man,
ordered another company on deck to take the place of the dead.
At sight of the mangled remains of their comrades, the marines
became panic-stricken and ungovernable. The captain raved at
them, condemning them all to the tortures of hell.

Up stept the Highlander, and touching his hat, says, “Captain, I
believe God hears prayer; if He hears yours, what will become of
us?” When the battle was over, Captain Haldane reflected on the
words of the brave marine, became interested in the claims of
religion, surrendered his heart to God, became a preacher of the
gospel and pastor of a church in Edinburgh.

Through his instrumentality his brother, Robert Haldane, was
brought to reflection, became a decided Christian, settled in
Geneva, stirred up Protestantism there, and became the means of
leading a large number of theological students in the light,
among the number being J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, author of the
immortal “History of the Reformation,” and the father of the
Rev. Dr. D’Aubigne, whose visit to the United States served to
create new interest in the evangelical religion of France.

Dr. Potts might have added that out of that Bible class of Haldane, at Geneva came every conspicuous evangelical leader of France in the latter part of the century.

(3202)

TESTIMONY INDISPUTABLE

Elder Chang, a Christian from the Scotch Presbyterian Mission in Manchuria, recently visited Pyeng Yang, Korea, and gives the following report of what he learned:

Being strangers, we naturally looked up some Chinese merchants,
who, however, were not Christians. “Who are you?” they asked
us. “Christians from Manchuria.” “Are there, then, Christians
in Manchuria also?” asked the Chinese. “Oh, yes, many of them.”
“Are they the same sort as the Christians here?” “We don’t
know. What are the Christians here like?” “Good men. Good men.”
“Why do you think so?” asked the Korean elder. “Oh, a man owed
us an account five years ago of twenty dollars. He refused to
acknowledge more than ten, and we had no redress. A few months
ago he became a Christian and came and asked us to turn up that
old account, and insisted on paying it up with interest for
all these years.” Instances like this are happening all over
Korea.--_Missionary Review of the World._

(3203)

TESTIMONY OF NATURE

It is by carefully noting small and apparently insignificant
things and facts that men of science are enabled to reach
some of their most surprizing and interesting conclusions. In
many places the surface of rocks, which millions of years ago
must have formed sandy or muddy sea beaches, is found to be
pitted with the impressions of rain-drops. In England it has
been noticed that in many cases the eastern sides of these
depressions are the more deeply pitted, indicating that the
rain-drops which formed them were driven before a west wind.
From this the conclusion is drawn that in the remote epoch when
the pits were formed the majority of the storms in England came
from the west, just as they do to-day.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(3204)

=Testimony of Service=--See WITNESS OF SERVICE.

TESTIMONY OF WORK

A story is told of a poor woman who, by reason of her poverty,
was kept from many a service for her Lord which she feared He
might require at her hands--and she was dying. She was saying to
her young daughter, who stood near the bed, that she regretted
her fruitless life, and was wishing that she might have more to
show the Master when she met Him face to face. “Mother,” sobbed
the daughter, “show Him your fingers.” Her hands were calloused
with work she had done unselfishly for others in her Master’s
name. (Text.)

(3205)

=Testing=--See PERMANENT, THE; TRIAL A MEANS OF GRACE.

TESTS

An English writer says:

About fifty years ago two eminent French chemists visited
London, and rather “astonished the natives” by a curious feature
of their dress. They wore on their hats large patches of colored
paper. It was litmus paper, and their object in attaching it to
their hats was to test the impurities of the London atmosphere.
Blue litmus paper, as everybody knows nowadays, turns red when
exposed to an acid. The French chemists found that their hat
decorations changed color, and indicated the presence of acid
in the air of London; but when they left the metropolis and
wandered in the open fields their blue litmus paper retained
its original color. By using alkaline paper they contrived to
collect enough of the acid to test its composition. They found
it to be the acid which is formed by the burning of sulfur, and
attributed its existence to the sulfur of our coal.

It would be well if we all had some kind of moral “litmus paper” with which to test our moral atmosphere. Is not God’s spirit in us such a testing instrument? (Text.)

(3206)

* * * * *

Oriental cloth merchants call in the sun as an expert witness
in determining the quality of the finer products of the loom.
Servants of the seller pass the web slowly between the purchaser
and the sun. If no blemish is revealed by the flood of light
which this incorruptible witness pours through warp and woof,
the piece is passed and paid for as perfect. Every language
used by these dealers has its word meaning, “judged by the sun.”
Greek merchants, in New Testament times, advertised “sun-judged”
cloth in all the market-places. (Text.)

Paul uses this practise as a figure of speech in Phil. 1:10. To be “sincere and without offense,” means to be able to pass severe tests like the sun test.

(3207)

* * * * *

_The Chautauquan_ gives an account of Greek coins from which is taken the following extract:

In spite of the guarantee that might be afforded by the mark
of a state or a prince, we find the Greeks applying certain
tests to determine the genuineness of the currency offered to
them. Plating was easily detected by jabbing the suspected coin
with some sharp instrument. At other times the touch-stone was
used. One which was known as the “Lydian stone” was supposed
to reveal a proportion of foreign metal as small as a barley
corn in a stater. Another test, in the case of silver, was to
polish the coin, and then breathe on it. If the moisture quickly
disappeared the metal was pure. Yet another way to detect alloy
was to heat the coin, or coins, on red-hot iron. If the metal
was unalloyed it remained bright; if mixt with other substances,
it turned black or red according as it was more or less impure.
(Text.)

(3208)

See IDEAS, POWER OF.

TESTS OF FITNESS

When the Rodah Bridge at Cairo was practically finished as far
as the structural work itself was concerned, it was put to an
official test. The testing was minute, complex and severe in
character. Dead weights of sand and steel rails were piled up
on each pier in succession, exerting a pressure of 1,000 tons.
Subsequently live weights of steam-rollers, tramcars, loaded
with sand and water-carts filled with water were run on the
bridge while an immense pressure was brought to bear on the
bridge. If no fault or strain was visible in the material, then
it was ready for use.

Happy is the man who will cheerfully bear every burden he is called upon to bear, knowing that he is being made ready for usefulness.

(3209)

TESTS, PERSONAL

General Nelson A. Miles, when head of the army, used to be
continually besieged by cranks with pneumatic rapid-firing guns,
dirigible war balloons, and other martial inventions. But the
general would weed these cranks out with admirable speed. An
inventor, quoted in the New York _Independent_, says:

“I sat in his office with him one day when a servant brought in
a card. ‘Oh, send him in,’ said General Miles. ‘His business
won’t take more than a minute or two.’ So in came a wild-eyed,
long-haired man, twisting his soft hat nervously in both hands.
‘General,’ he said, ‘I have here’--and he took out a small
parcel--‘a bullet-proof army coat. If the Government would adopt
this--’ ‘Put it on. Put it on,’ said General Miles, and he rang
the bell. The servant appeared as the inventor was getting
into the coat. ‘Jones,’ said the general, ‘tell the captain of
the guard to order one of his men to load his rifle with ball
and cartridge and--’ ‘Excuse me, general, I forgot something,’
interrupted the inventor, and with a hunted look he disappeared.”

(3210)

=Text Finding=--See EARLY RELIGION.

TEXT, POWER OF A

The effect which the Word of God sometimes has is illustrated in the following incident related of Robert Moffat, missionary in Africa:

In the large kitchen, where the service was to be held, stood
a long table, at the head of which sat the Boer, with his wife
and six grown children. A large Bible lay on the table, and
underneath it half a dozen dogs. The Boer pointed to the Bible
as the signal for Mr. Moffat to begin. But, after vainly waiting
for others to come in, he asked how soon the working people were
to be called. “Work-people?” impatiently cried the farmer; “you
don’t mean the Hottentots--the blacks! You are not waiting for
them, surely, or expecting to preach to them; you might as well
preach to those dogs under that table!” A second time, and more
angrily, he spoke, repeating the offensive comparison.

Young as Mr. Moffat was, he was disconcerted only for a moment.
Lifting his heart to God for guidance, the thought came into
his mind to take a text suggested by the rude remarks of the
Boer. So he opened the Bible to the fifteenth of Matthew and
twenty-seventh verse: “Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the
crumbs which fall from their master’s table.” Pausing a moment,
he slowly repeated these words with his eyes steadily fixt on
the face of the Boer; and again pausing, a third time recited
the appropriate words. Angrily the Boer cried out, “Well,
well, bring them in.” A crowd of blacks then thronged the
kitchen, and Moffat preached to them all the blessed Word of
God.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(3211)

* * * * *

The following incident shows how an apparently chance occurrence may bring conviction through the word of Scripture:

While in the St. Louis jail, Burke had obtained a copy of a city
paper which published a sermon by Mr. Moody, then preaching
in St. Louis. This paper announced the topic of Mr. Moody’s
sermon in a sensational headline, “How the Jailer at Philippi
was Caught.” Burke thought the reference was to the town of
Philippi in Illinois, a place of which he knew; and he began
to read what he supposed to be jail news. He became interested
as he read on. Nine times in the sermon he came upon the text,
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” It
imprest him so deeply that in the cell that night for the first
time Burke prayed. Soon after he believed, and was assured of
salvation. The jailer thought Burke was playing the “pious
dodge,” and only suspected him the more. When the case came to
trial, however, he escaped conviction, and was released. For
some months the ex-convict could find no one so to trust him as
to give him steady work. He finally was given a position under
the sheriff of the county, made the collector of the office, and
until he died some time afterward, Burke never disappointed the
confidence reposed in him.--H. C. MABIE, “Methods in
Evangelism.”

(3212)

=Texts=--See FITNESS.

=Thankfulness=--See UNSELFISHNESS.

THANKS

A little scene of child-life has often seemed to me to contain
the most touching lesson for men. A child knows when it receives
a service from any one that it should say thank you. But, often,
when a child renders us a service, we forget to thank it.
After having waited in vain for the little word which should
be pronounced, it then itself says, “Thank you,” and goes its
way. The child has a feeling that something ought to happen
and does not; then he takes charge of it himself.--CHARLES
WAGNER, “The Gospel of Life.”

(3213)

THANKS, THE SOLACE OF

Even “hello girls” are tired sometimes, tho we think of them as
part of the electrical apparatus. To-day Central was tired, her
head ached, she had just succeeded, after repeated calls, in
getting the number wanted by 349-M, and here they were, calling
her up again! “Can’t that woman be quiet a minute?” soliloquized
Central while she reiterated, “Number, please?” trying not to
speak crossly. “Central,” said a pleasant voice, “I want to
thank you for taking so much trouble to get me that last number.
You are always very kind and obliging, and I do appreciate it.”
The surprize was so great, so overwhelming, that Central could
only murmur confusedly, “I--oh--yes, ma’am.” Nothing like this
had ever happened before. Suddenly her headache was better,
suddenly the day was brighter, suddenly, too, there came a lump
in her throat, and she reached for her handkerchief. It was so
good to be thanked. (Text.)

(3214)

THANKSGIVING

I thank Thee that I learn
Not toil to spurn;
With all beneath the sun
It makes me one;
For tears, whereby I gain
Kinship with human pain;
For Love, my comrade by the dusty ways,
I give Thee praise.

--EMILY READ JONES.

(3215)

THANKSGIVING DAY

Robert Bridges is the author of these verses:

We give Thee thanks, O Lord!
Not for armed legions, marching in their might,
Not for the glory of the well-earned fight
Where brave men slay their brothers also brave;
But for the millions of Thy sons who work--
And do Thy task with joy--and never shirk,
And deem the idle man a burdened slave;
For these, O Lord, our thanks!

We give Thee thanks, O Lord!
Not for the palaces that wealth has grown,
Where ease is worshiped--duty dimly known,
And Pleasure leads her dance the flowery way;
But for the quiet homes where love is queen
And life is more than baubles, touched and seen,
And old folks bless us, and dear children play;
For these, O Lord, our thanks!

(3216)

THEFT, A CHECK ON

Persons who have been laying in their supply of coal for the
winter months may have noticed that many of the lumps were
coated with whitewash, and they doubtless wondered what was the
reason for the unique decoration. Altho the white color may be
considered to have improved the appearance of the ordinary black
coal, that was not the object in view.

For many years the railroads have been annoyed by coal thieves
and thousands of tons of fuel were stolen annually. As the great
carloads, containing forty tons each, are being carried from the
mines, it is very easy for unscrupulous persons to remove a ton
or two from a car without causing any noticeable change in the
appearance of the load. Only when the car is again put on the
scales is the loss detected, and then it is too late to trace
the guilty parties.

To check these depredations the railroad men have adopted the
whitewash method of safeguarding their freight. After a car has
been loaded a solution of lime and water is sprayed over the
coal, and when the water has evaporated a white coating of lime
remains on the top layer of lumps. Then, if any of the coal is
removed, a black patch will be left upon the white surface to
attract the attention of inspectors and station agents before
the train has gone many miles from the scene of the theft, and
thus the offender is easily traced.--_Harper’s Weekly._

(3217)

THEFTS ALL EQUAL

I saw some men playing “banker and broker.” They had some
filthy-looking cards, and some paltry pennies. They were a
good-natured lot of fellows, and the game looked very simple.
But I tell you that the great gamblers against whom the laws are
made began their wrong-doing in just that way. And the playing
for little stakes is worse. If a man takes from me a large sum
of money and gives me nothing in return, I can make some excuse
for him, because the temptation was great. But if a man takes
from me a paltry dime, that is wanton. And the man who stole a
million and the clerk who stole a quarter, and the shoe-shiner
who stole a nickel and the man who stole a ride, and the woman
who used a postage-stamp the second time are all thieves
alike.--A. H. C. MORSE.

(3218)

=Theism=--See RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION DENIED.

THEOLOGY AS A DISCIPLINE

Men that work by doctrines are men that think they have found
out the universe; they have not only got it, but they have
formulated it; they know all about the Infinite, they have
sailed around eternity, they know all about the Eternal and
the Everlasting God, and you will hear them discuss questions
of theology: “No, God could not, consistent with consistency,
do so-and-so.” They know all His difficulties; they know how
He got round them. One might easily come to think that God was
their next-door neighbor. Well, after all, whether it is true
or false--their systematic views, their dogmas--the pedagogic
views are very important to teach young and middle-aged and
old to attempt, by philosophic reasoning, to reach into these
unfathomable depths. They produce a power upon the brain of most
transcendent importance; they, in their way, may not increase
the sum of human knowledge, but they increase the capacity
of the human brain for profound thought and investigation.
(Text.)--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

(3219)

THEOLOGY, SCHEMES OF

When Kossuth visited America in 1851, he worked out here, with
American statesmen, a constitution for Hungary, and had plates
engraved for the printing of treasury notes, and a system of
money. When Kossuth went down to the steamer to sail home,
he had an ideal and new republic of Hungary, and oh, wonder
of wonders! he carried it in a handbag! Just as I have seen
theological professors carry what they thought was a whole
church, in a book of notes under the arm. Unfortunately, Kossuth
never produced the written constitution in the character of
twenty millions. And unfortunately, many teachers, wise in their
polity, and sound in their theology, think like God and act like
the devil.--N. D. HILLIS.

(3220)

THEOLOGY SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE

The influence on John Wesley’s theology of an escape as a child from a burning dwelling is thus described by Rev. W. H. Fitchett:

His theology translated itself into the terms of that night
scene. The burning house was the symbol of a perishing world.
Each human soul, in Wesley’s thought, was represented by that
fire-girt child, with the flames of sin, and of that divine
and eternal anger which unrepenting sin kindles, closing round
it. He who had been plucked from the burning house at midnight
must pluck men from the flames of a more dreadful fire. That
remembered peril colored Wesley’s imagination to his dying
day.--“Wesley and His Century.”

(3221)

=Theory, Erroneous=--See VITALITY LOW.

THEORY VERSUS PRACTISE

A fellow has the cramp-colic and is tied up in a double
bow-knot. By and by an old, dignified doctor comes in with a can
of mustard in one hand, and a dissertation on mustard in the
other. He walks up to the bed, and says, “My friend, be quiet
about an hour and a half, and let me read you a dissertation on
mustard; this mustard grew in the State of Connecticut; it was
planted about the first of June and cultivated like potatoes,
and vegetables of a like character.”

About that time another paroxysm hit the fellow, and he said,
“Good Lord, doctor; I don’t care how it grew or where; spread
some on a rag and put it on me.”--“Popular Lectures of Sam P.
Jones.”

(3222)

See KNOWING AND DOING.

THINGS

Among the causes of worry let us mention an over-emphasis of
things, an undue estimate of wealth, equipage and luxury.
When men are once bitten with the desire for abundance, worry
inevitably follows. It is a truism that the most beautiful
things are the simplest things. Witness a Doric column. One
substance, marble, and a fluted line, giving form--no more. But,
oh, how beautiful! The lily has two colors, white with a tiny
stamen of gold, and then for contrast a black mud-puddle in
which it grows. The two lovers have their happiest days in the
little cottage, with a tiny vine over the front window, three
or four great authors, one big chair before the open fire, two
or three old familiar songs, a few friends--heaven lies round
about this little house. Twenty years pass by. The man and woman
are bitten now with the love of many things. Forgetting the few
books that once he digested, the man buys 5,000 volumes--many
people are under the delusion that they have read a book because
they have bought it. Now also the man and woman buy twenty or
thirty chairs, and one sits in one chair in one room, and the
other in another chair in another room. There used to be one
chair. They begin to collect things for things’ sake; curios and
clothes and rare editions, until the house becomes a museum, and
the palace is as cold as a storage-plant, where love chilled
to death twenty years ago. And the man and woman are mere
care-takers of the things they have collected, mere drudges,
hirelings; in fact, this man and his wife are the only servants
in the house that work for nothing.--N. D. HILLIS.

(3223)

THINGS, NOT BOOKS

The tragedy of the race was when men, who had lived next to
things, began to fancy that if all that men knew could be
gathered into contrivances called books, and the children shut
in a building with these books, they could learn all about the
world on which gravity chains us, without the trouble of ever
looking at the things themselves.

When I was a little boy I was once studying in geography the
animals of the Rocky Mountains. Just then a boy rushed in
breathless, and said that there were “four men outside with
three big bears.” The teacher shut the door and cracked me
on the head for looking out over the high window-sill. And
yet these men had brought to our door the very real things
concerning which we were studying. But school was about book
bears, not real bears.

Once in the University of Cincinnati I saw a young woman
assiduously studying an oyster. Perplexed, she looked up and
asked the professor a question about the thing which she was
studying. The professor walked to her table, looked carefully
at the oyster, and answered her. Why didn’t she ask the oyster?
Even the professor had to do so. The oyster was the court of
last resort, and it was in session before her; but the old
view-point had so walled in her vision that she could not even
see the decision before her eyes.

To read things out of books requires a former experience of
things. Let us go back to things.--WILLIAM I. CRANE,
“Journal of the National Education Association,” 1905.

(3224)

=Things versus Men=--See FORGIVENESS.

=Thinkers=--See CHARACTER.

THINKING DEFINED

Thinking is specific, not a machine-like, ready-made apparatus
to be turned indifferently and at will upon all subjects, as a
lantern may throw its light as it happens upon horses, streets,
gardens, trees or river. Thinking is specific in that different
things suggest their own appropriate meanings, tell their own
unique stories and in that they do this in very different ways
with different persons. As the growth of the body is through
the assimilation of food, so the growth of mind is through the
logical organization of subject-matter. Thinking is not like a
sausage machine which reduces all materials indifferently to
one marketable commodity, but is a power of following up and
linking together the specific suggestions that specific things
arouse. Accordingly, any subject, from Greek to cooking, and
from drawing to mathematics, is intellectual, if intellectual at
all, not in its fixt inner structure, but in its function--in
its power to start and direct significant inquiry and
reflection.--JOHN DEWEY, “How we Think.”

(3225)

THINKING EMPIRICAL OR SCIENTIFIC

Apart from the development of scientific method, inferences
depend upon habits that have been built up under the influence
of a number of particular experiences not themselves arranged
for logical purposes. A says, “It will probably rain to-morrow.”
B asks, “Why do you think so?” and A replies, “Because the sky
was lowering at sunset.” When B asks, “What has that to do
with it?” A responds, “I do not know, but it generally does
rain after such a sunset.” He does not perceive any connection
between the appearance of the sky and coming rain; he is not
aware of any continuity in the facts themselves--any law or
principle, as we usually say. He simply, from frequently
recurring conjunctions of the events, has associated them so
that when he sees one he thinks of the other. One suggests the
other, or is associated with it. A man may believe it will rain
to-morrow because he has consulted the barometer; but if he
has no conception how the height of the mercury column (or the
position of an index moved by its rise and fall) is connected
with variations of atmospheric pressure, and how these in turn
are connected with the amount of moisture in the air, his belief
in the likelihood of rain is purely empirical. When men lived in
the open and got their living by hunting, fishing, or pasturing
flocks, the detection of the signs and indications of weather
changes was a matter of great importance. A body of proverbs and
maxims, forming an extensive section of traditionary folklore,
was developed. But as long as there was no understanding why or
how certain events were signs, as long as foresight and weather
shrewdness rested simply upon repeated conjunction among facts,
beliefs about the weather were thoroughly empirical.--JOHN
DEWEY, “How we Think.”

(3226)

* * * * *

While many empirical conclusions are, roughly speaking, correct;
while they are exact enough to be of great help in practical
life; while the presages of a weatherwise sailor or hunter may
be more accurate, within a certain restricted range, than those
of a scientist who relies wholly upon scientific observations
and tests; while, indeed, empirical observations and records
furnish the raw or crude material of scientific knowledge, yet
the empirical method affords no way of discriminating between
right and wrong conclusions. Hence it is responsible for a
multitude of false beliefs. The technical designation for
one of the commonest fallacies is _post hoc, ergo propter
hoc_; the belief that because one thing comes after another,
it comes because of the other. Now this fallacy of method is
the animating principle of empirical conclusions, even when
correct--the correctness being almost as much a matter of
good luck as of method. That potatoes should be planted only
during the crescent moon, that near the sea people are born
at high-tide and die at low-tide, that a comet is an omen of
danger, that bad luck follows the cracking of a mirror, that
a patent medicine cures a disease--these and a thousand like
notions are asseverated on the basis of empirical coincidence
and conjunction. Moreover, habits of expectation and belief
are formed otherwise than by a number of repeated similar
cases.--JOHN DEWEY, “How We Think.”

(3227)

THINKING, HOW COORDINATED

The sight of a baby often calls out the question: “What do you
suppose he is thinking about?” By the nature of the case, the
question is unanswerable in detail; but, also by the nature of
the case, we may be sure about a baby’s chief interest. His
primary problem is mastery of his body as a tool of securing
comfortable and effective adjustments to his surroundings,
physical and social. The child has to learn to do almost
everything: to see, to hear, to reach, to handle, to balance
the body, to creep, to walk and so on. Even if it be true that
human beings have even more instinctive reactions than lower
animals, it is also true that instinctive tendencies are much
less perfect in men, and that most of them are of little use
till they are intelligently combined and directed. A little
chick just out of the shell will after a few trials peck and
grasp grains of food with its beak as well as at any later
time. This involves a complicated coordination of the eye and
the head. An infant does not even begin to reach definitely for
things that the eye sees till he is several months old, and even
then several weeks’ practise is required before he learns the
adjustment so as neither to overreach nor to underreach.

It may not be literally true that the child will grasp for the
moon, but it is true that he needs much practise before he can
tell whether an object is within reach or not. The arm is thrust
out instinctively in response to a stimulus from the eye and
this tendency is the origin of the ability to reach and grasp
exactly and quickly; but nevertheless final mastery requires
observing and selecting the successful movements and arranging
them in view of an end. These operations of conscious selection
and arrangement constitute thinking, tho of a rudimentary
type.--JOHN DEWEY, “How to Think.”

(3228)

THIRTEEN SUPERSTITION, THE

“Have a thirteenth floor in this building?” queries a part owner
of one of the famous office buildings in New York. “Never! The
thirteenth floor is sometimes difficult to rent; tenants would
prefer to go higher or lower.

“The thirteen hoodoo affects more otherwise sane men than is
acknowledged. Many of the most famous business buildings in the
country have no thirteenth floor--the fourteenth story follows
the twelfth. By following this plan, we take the least risk.
As the names of tenants are arranged alphabetically on the
directory, the omission is seldom noticed.”--_System._

(3229)

=Thorn, Value of the=--See CROSS, GLORIOUS.

THOROUGHNESS

A prosperous Brooklyn manufacturer tells how a single watchword
made him wealthy, besides helping him in his character. When
a young man he started for Australia in a sailing vessel,
intending to go into business there; but he became very weary
of the slow and stormy voyage and half determined to leave the
ship at a South American port and return home. He asked advice
from an old man, who was one of his fellow passengers. The
counsel he got was, “If you undertake to do a thing, do it.”
He took the advice, and the motto also. In Australia he soon
acquired twenty-five thousand dollars, which he brought back
to this country and greatly increased by fidelity to the same
ever-present watchword.

(3230)

* * * * *

If ever a literary success was earned by hard work, General
Wallace earned it with “Ben Hur.” He first started the book
as a novelette, which he intended to offer to _Harper’s
Magazine_; but the story expanded until it far outgrew the
original design, and occupied its author for seven years. Full
as it is with the most graphic pictures of Palestine, it is
difficult to realize that General Wallace had never been in
that country when he wrote the novel. The general was recently
asked how he accomplished such wonderful results, and replied as
follows:

“I doubt if any novel has ever had more careful studies for
its background and life than those made for ‘Ben Hur.’ I knew
that the novel would be criticized by men who had devoted their
lives to Biblical lore, and I studied Palestine through maps
and books. I read everything in the way of travel, scientific
investigation, and geography. I had scores of maps and worked
with them about me. My best guide was a relief map of Palestine
made in Germany. This was hung on my wall, and by means of it I
took my characters through the passes of the mountains and up
and down the hills, measuring their daily travel by the scale of
miles. I also made studies of the bird and animal life of the
time and place.” (Text.)

(3231)

THOROUGHNESS IMPOSSIBLE

Thoroughness is all right to talk about, but there is nothing
that has been thoroughly done in this world, and it will be a
good many years before anything will be thoroughly done. Talk
about absolute thoroughness! It is nonsense! We may attain unto
it as we attain unto perfection, but we might as well attempt to
shoot the moon as to reach thoroughness or perfection in this
world. Is there a single college graduate who knows thoroughly
anything that he had studied in his college course? Take Latin,
which the average college student studies seven solid years.
What does he know when he gets through? Can he talk it? Can he
even read an author which he has never before seen, with any
degree of fluency and acceptability? Then take mathematics.
How many students are thorough in it? We venture that the
roll-call of college graduates who could be counted thorough in
mathematics would be called in an extremely short space of time.
Our ideals should be high. This is all right. We should aim at
never doing anything in a half-way manner. But the tasks half
done, the studies half learned, the books half read, and the
work half accomplished constitute by far the largest portion of
our lives.--_School Journal._

(3232)

THOROUGHNESS IN PREPARATION

One of the remarkable characteristics displayed by Charles E. Hughes in the conduct of his important lawsuits conducted against great corporations on behalf of the people was his complete mastery of the facts entering into the cases. In regard to this characteristic, the following is illuminating as showing his painstaking preparation for his cases:

His habit of thorough preparation made him one of the most
formidable trial lawyers in New York. When he went into court,
he could usually defeat his adversary not only on the point
directly at issue, but upon dozens of others that might come
up correlatively. In his search for information he never
limited his investigations to law-books. He was once called
upon to defend a patent held by a company manufacturing a
mechanical piano-player. He mastered all the law points
involved, and then began to work on the mechanism itself.
He had an instrument moved up to his house, and spent many
hours playing upon it, taking it apart, and becoming entirely
familiar with its mechanical details. When Mr. Hughes appeared
in court, he confounded the experts by his familiarity with the
technicalities involved and easily won his case.

(3233)

THOROUGHNESS, LACK OF

There are jumping men who always hit the top bar with their
heels and never quite clear it. There are women whose stitches
always come out, and the buttons they sew on fly off on the
mildest provocation. And there are other women who will use
the same needle and thread, and you may tug away at their work
on your coat or your waistcoat, and you can’t start a button
in a generation! There are poets who never get beyond the
first verse; orators who forget the next sentence, and sit
down; gold-diggers who buy a pickax and stop there. There are
painters whose studios are full of unpainted pictures. And
if sluggards ever took good advice, what long processions we
should constantly meet, slowly traveling on their way to the
ant.--JAMES T. FIELDS.

(3234)

=Thought Before Thing=--See UTILITY AS THEISTIC EVIDENCE.

=Thought, Progress of=--See PROGRESS UNFINISHED.

=Thoughts, Beautiful=--See LITERATURE AS AN INSPIRATION.

=Thoughts from the Garden=--See UPWARD LOOK.

=Thrashing, the Effect of a Sound=--See SHAKING-UP.

=Threat Ignored=--See LOYALTY.

=Thrift=--See WORTH, ESTIMATING.

=Tides, Spiritual=--See FLOOD TIDE, SPIRITUAL.

=Ties=--See CHRISTIAN UNITY.

TIME

In a recent address at Princeton University Gen. Horace Porter,
ex-Ambassador to France, told of a chaplain at West Point who,
on one occasion, facing his audience and about to begin his
sermon, took out his watch and laying it down deliberately
before him as a monitor, said: “In contemplating the things of
eternity, we must ever be mindful of time”; then proceeded with
his discourse.

There is a worldliness that tones and balances an other-worldliness.

(3235)

See LOVE AND TIME; MAN, SLOW DEVELOPMENT OF.

TIME A MONITOR

Mary Lowe Dickinson tells what we would do if we had only a day to live.

We should fill the hours with the sweetest things,
If we had but a day;
We should drink alone at the purest springs
In our upward way;
We should love with a lifetime’s love in an hour,
If our hours were few;
We should rest, not for dreams, but for fresher power
To be and to do.

We should waste no moments in weak regret
If the day were but one;
If what we remember and what we forget
Went out with the sun,
We should from our clamorous selves set free
To work or to pray,
And to be what our Father would have us be,
If we had but a day.

(3236)

TIME BRINGS FORTUNE

Ten years ago Henry Brink, of Melrose, purchased a few thousand
shares of stock in an Arizona gold-mine. In return for several
hundred dollars he received a great bundle of beautiful green
certificates handsomely engraved.

After waiting in vain for the mine to become productive, and
finally deciding that as an investor he was as green as his
certificates, Brink smiled over his loss and papered his room
with the souvenirs of his folly. As a mural decoration the stock
was worth par.

Now he has been informed that porcelain clay of rare quality has
been discovered on the mine site and that his certificates in
consequence were worth a fortune.--Boston _Journal_.

(3237)

TIME, CHANGES OF

The way in which the passage of time alters our views and feelings is exprest in the following verses by Theodosia Garrison:

When I think sometimes of old griefs I had,
Of sorrows that once seemed too harsh to bear,
And youth’s resolve to never more be glad,
I laugh--and do not care.

When I think sometimes of the joy I knew,
The gay, glad laughter ere my heart was wise,
The trivial happiness that seemed so true,
The tears are in my eyes.

Time--Time the cynic--how he mocks us all!
And yet to-day I can but think him right.
Ah, heart, the old joy is so tragical
And the old grief so light.

--_The Reader Magazine._

(3238)

See MUTATION.

TIME ENOUGH

Joaquin Miller, “The Poet of the Sierras,” recently visited a
friend in Boston whose literary taste runs largely to Emerson,
Browning and Maeterlinck. This friend, says _Lippincott’s
Magazine_, found the venerable poet in the library one
afternoon deeply absorbed in a book.

“What are you reading?” asked the Bostonian.

“A novel by Bret Harte,” replied the poet.

The Hubbite sniffed. “I can not see,” said he, “how an immortal
being can waste his time with such stuff.”

“Are you quite sure,” asked Miller, “that I am an immortal
being?”

“Why, of course you are,” was the unwary reply.

“In that case,” responded the Californian grimly, “I don’t see
why I should be so very economical of my time.”

(3239)

TIME, IMPROVING