Chapter C: G. D. Roberts tells of the capture of a great eagle at the (6)

Some years ago an American gentleman was driving past one of the
beautiful old homes in rural England, standing in its stately
park. He asked the driver who lived there. “Oh,” said the man,
“we used to have lots of aristocratic company there. They had
plenty of money and they spent it freely. We poor folks were
well off then. But now the place belongs to a woman, and she is
a Methodist, and everything is going to the bad.” So spoke the
countryman, and from his little view this loss of luxury and
extravagance was all wrong, even for the poor man. But meanwhile
there was another side to the picture. That estate also
included a large tenement district in one of the worst portions
of London. In wretched hovels, surrounded by saloons and low
resorts, the miserable people paid their rents, exorbitant for
such quarters, and these rents supplied the funds for the luxury
and extravagance of the former owner. But now what has happened?
The lady who owns the estate to-day is using her revenues, not
for her own luxuries, but in bettering these homes, in driving
out these saloons, and in creating a new spirit of love between
her and her tenants. A few country yokels get less to spend
for drink, but a great city population has more joy in living,
and the bitter class distinction between riches and poverty
is lessened.--DONALD SAGE MACKAY, “The Threshold of
Religion.”

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=Wealth Statistics=--See MONEY-POWER IN CANADA; MONEY-POWER IN THE
UNITED STATES.

=Weapons Displaced=--See WARFARE, ANTIQUATED.

=Weather Forecast=--See PROGNOSTICATION OF WEATHER.

=Weather Influencing Crime=--See CRIME, EPIDEMICS OF.

=Weather, The, and the Spider=--See INDICATOR, AN INSECT.

=Weaving=--See WEB OF LIFE.

WEB OF LIFE

Sit down by the side of an Old World lace-maker for a few
moments. Fifty or a hundred bobbins, or spools, hang around a
cushion in which there is a forest of upright pins. Every bobbin
hangs by a thread that runs toward and among the pins. The
onlooker sees the worker throw one bobbin over another, as tho
she were playing with them. But how she knows which bobbin to
pick up, and where to toss it, is a mystery. Out of the great
complex of pins and threads comes a beautiful lace pattern,
regular and beautiful. So the divine Weaver takes one and
another of us, ordering us here and there, but keeping us always
attached, like the lace-maker’s thread, to a definite purpose.
As we look back over the past, we can see the wonderful pattern
and perfect work of the weaver. Just what he is working out,
for us and with us, now, we can not discern. But the lesson of
the past is that the future will be good, and we can trust the
Weaver of the indefinite to do all things well.

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WEALTH, INCREASE OF

The great increase of wealth in the United States through a period of eight years (1900–1908) is shown in the tables below. Does it not mean a corresponding increase of national responsibility?

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=Wedding Incident=--See RENUNCIATION.

=Wedge, The Entering=--See SABBATH DESECRATION GRADUAL.

WEED DESTROYER

Man’s enemies are not by any means confined to those he meets in his daily work. He has soul enemies which he has to reckon with constantly. Just as sure as the farmer can depend on a certain preparation to kill weeds, so can man depend upon a higher power to keep down and destroy our open and secret sins.

There is no dispute that we must meet the weed question with a
certainty of success and at the same time it must be done in a
very economical manner. In addition to what we may do with our
cultivators and weeders and the growing of such crops as rye
and winter wheat, by which we can destroy a certain class of
weeds before they mature seed, we can also add that there is a
system of weed destruction which is found in spraying. This is
a matter which has come to the knowledge of men during the past
few years. I learn from my reading that the first step in this
direction was taken by a party in France. From that beginning
it was taken up by men here in America, and it has now assumed
a very practical form. The first spray was copper sulfate, or
blue-stone, but this would be somewhat difficult to obtain. The
present material which is largely used is a by-product turned
out by the steel-mills. This is called sulfate of iron. This by
product has been thrown away, but now it can be used for the
destruction of weeds by making a solution of it and spraying
fields that are infested with a certain class of weeds.--O.
C. GREGG, _The Northwestern Agriculturist_.

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WEEDS, WARFARE AGAINST

Charles H. Spurgeon once said:

An old wall is so interpenetrated--every nook, crack and
crevice--by the notorious ivy that, tho you may cut the vine at
the roots, you can never thoroughly destroy it, till the wall
itself is leveled.

Most weeds spread chiefly from their seeds, hence care should be
taken to prevent the formation of weed-seeds. The more thorough
we are in keeping out weeds, the easier our work. While we may
not hope to get rid of all weeds, we may greatly lessen their
numbers by keeping up a continual warfare against them.

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=Weighing Effects=--See PROBATION.

WEIGHT DIMINISHED BY ASCENT

A writer, speaking of variation to be seen in the column of mercury in a barometer, says:

If you prop up the tube, and watch it carefully from day to day,
you will find that the height of the column of mercury will
continually vary. If you live at the sea-level, or thereabouts,
it will sometimes rise more than thirty inches above the level
of the mercury in the cup, and frequently fall below that
height. If you live on the top of a high mountain, or on any
high ground, it will never reach thirty inches, will still be
variable, its average height less than if you lived on lower
ground; and the higher you get the less will be this average
height of the mercury.

The reason of this is easily understood. When we ascend a
mountain we leave some portion of the atmosphere below us,
and of course less remains above; this smaller quantity must
have less weight and press the mercury less forcibly. If the
barometer tells the truth, it must show this difference; and
it does so with such accuracy that by means of a barometer, or
rather of two barometers--one at the foot of the mountain and
one on its summit--we may, by their difference, measure the
height of the mountain provided we know the rules for making the
requisite calculations.

The higher one ascends, the less weight oppresses the climber. This is a truth also of the moral life. The higher one ascends, the less obstacles and weights he encounters. In the valley the demoniac writhes; on the mountain top Christ appears in His glory.

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=Weight Yielding to Persistency=--See PERSEVERANCE.

=Welcome Home=--See SONG AS A WELCOME HOME.

=Well-digging=--See MIRACLES, EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF.

=Well Done=--See EARLY RELIGION.

=Well Known, The, Unknown=--See LOCAL PRIDE.

=White Plague=--See TUBERCULOSIS.

=White Robes=--See BIBLE CUSTOMS TO-DAY.

“=White Slaves=”--See GIRLS, TRAFFIC IN.

WHOLE, SEEING THINGS

Our lives should be so organized and ordered as to move on at God’s pace so that they will produce a whole effect, a unitary total. Some men live by jerks, showing no conviction between to-day and yesterday.

If a spark or point of flame be rapidly swung around in a
circular path it is no longer seen as a spark or point, but as
a continuous circle. Drops of falling rain appear to the eye as
continuous slanted lines or streams. This is due to the fact
that the motion is too rapid to enable the eye to compass the
diameter of the rain-drop, or the spark, before it has moved the
distance of its diameter to a new position.

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WHOLENESS

A Chicago tailor displays a sign which announces that he makes
trousers at “$1.75 per leg.” Inquiry reveals the fact that altho
he uses a goose he is not foolish enough to furnish trousers
with only one leg. One can not get trousers at his shop except
their two legs be properly sewed together and one pays $3.50 for
them. But the tailor compels editors to read his sign.

This fable teaches that two things even apparently complete when separate ought to be brought together if they are to be made practical.

(3468)

WHOLENESS OF CHARACTER

Foster, the distinguished essayist, said to a friend one day,
“There is a want of continuity in your social character. You
seem broken into fragments.” To this plain dealing the gentleman
replied good-naturedly, “Well, I sparkle in fragments.” “But,”
rejoined Foster, “how much better to shine whole, like a mirror.”

As the glory of gems is realized best when shown in a splendid necklace, so virtues impress most when many are combined in unity in the one character.

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WILFULNESS

Young America in feathers is almost as bumptious and
self-assertive and needs almost as much guidance as Young
America in flannels and lawns. Tho the parents may be as wise as
Solomon, the youngster will be foolish and headstrong; he will
call and shout when enemies are near; he will leave the nest
before his wings are ready for service, and so place himself at
the mercy of cats and other prowlers. As soon as he has even
partial use of his wings he will wander into a thousand dangers
and draw his devoted parents after him, for they can not desert
him, and he will not heed their coaxing. In such cases the
distracted parents have been known to attack and beat off their
great enemy, the cat, and even to fly at man himself, sometimes
with success.--OLIVE THORNE MILLER, “The Bird Our
Brother.”

(3470)

=Will, Doing God’s=--See TEMPERATURE.

WILL OF GOD

The following verses are by John Hay:

Not in dumb resignation, we lift our hands on high;
Not like the nerveless fatalist, content to do and die.
Our faith springs like the eagle’s, who soars to meet the sun,
And cries exulting unto thee, “O Lord, Thy will be done.”

When tyrant feet are trampling upon the common weal,
Thou dost not bid us bend and writhe beneath the iron heel.
In thy name we assert our right by sword or tongue or pen,
And even the headsman’s ax may flash thy message unto men.

Thy will! It bids the weak be strong; it bids the strong be just;
No lips to fawn, no hand to beg, no brow to seek the dust.
Whenever man oppresses men beneath the liberal sun
O Lord, be there! Thine arm made bare, thy righteous will be done.
(Text.)

(3471)

=Will, Our, and God’s=--See TEMPERATURE.

WILL POWER

In “Louis Lambert” Balzac describes certain forces, when they
take possession of strong personalities, as “rivers of will.”
There is an impetus in these potential men which sweeps away
all obstacles and rolls on with the momentum of a great stream.
In men of genius the same tireless activity, the same forceful
habit, are often found; nothing daunts them; nothing subdues
them.--_Christian Union._

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* * * * *

The late Lord Beaconsfield, in an address before the Literary
and Scientific Institute of London, in 1844, on his early life,
gave utterance to these impressive words:

“Man can be what he pleases. Every one of you can be exactly
what he designs to be. I have resolved to hold a certain
position, and if I live, I will.”

We do not know what that position was that Disraeli refers to,
but we do know that he attained to the highest position possible
to any man in England. He had much to contend with. He was of
a Jewish family, but by the remarkable power of his will he
ejected the Jew blood from his veins and pumped the blue blood
of England in. He climbed into the seat next to the throne of
the queen herself.

In contrast what a small conception some men have of their opportunities and privileges.

(3473)

* * * * *

People will insist on living, sometimes, tho manifestly
moribund. In Dr. Elder’s life of Kane, you will find a case of
this sort, told by Dr. Kane himself. The captain of a ship was
dying of scurvy, but the crew mutinied, and he gave up dying for
the present to take care of them. An old lady in this city, near
her end, got a little vexed about a proposed change in her will;
made up her mind not to die just then; ordered a coach; was
driven twenty miles to the house of a relative, and lived four
years longer.--OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

(3474)

See GREATNESS; MIND, THE HUMAN.

WILL, THE

God will not force the door of the human heart. The faculty of volition is a divinely-given prerogative, and our free will is not violated by any forcible means.

While the painting by William Holman-Hunt, known as “The Light
of the World,” was yet in the studio of the painter a visitor
stood admiring it. Suddenly he asked the artist, “Where is the
key? I do not see one in the door.” Said Mr. Holman-Hunt, “Ah,
no; the key is inside, and the door is locked not from without
but from within. It can only be opened to admit the Savior who
stands there and knocks if the tenant within chooses to turn the
key.” The visitor understood the parable. (Text.)

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See MASTERY.

=Winds as Benefactors=--See NATURE’S RECUPERATIVE POWERS.

WINNING

Young man,
What is your plan
Of progress? Are you
Going to pull through?
Or will you lie down in the road
And let your load
Sink you out of sight in the mud?
Have you white blood and pale,
That curdles at the hard word “Fail,”
And dares not face
The chances of the race?
Or, have you red, clear red,
The good strong color
All the great have shed
In deed or thought,
For every triumph wrought
Out of what seemed full
Of the impossible?
Have you the nerve
To serve
Until you can master? To wait
And work outside the gate
Until you win
The strength to open it and enter in?
Have you the heart to meet
Defeat
Day after day,
And yet hold to the way
That upward leads,
And must needs
Be hard and rough
To make man tough
Of sinew and of soul,
Before he sees the goal?
Young man,
Think on these things,
What each one brings
Is as you choose it;
You make take
The stake,
Or you may lose it.
Start in
To win
And keep straight in the way
Unflagging to the end;
Whatever it may be
Is victory.

--WILLIAM J. LAMPTON, _Success_.

(3476)

WISDOM OF THE IGNORANT

It is related of the celebrated astronomer, Tycho Brahe, that
one night, on leaving his observatory, he suddenly found himself
surrounded by a tumultuous crowd which filled the public square.
Upon inquiring the cause of so great a concourse, they pointed
out to him, in the constellation of Cygnus, a brilliant star,
which he, aided by the best telescopes, had never perceived.
(Text.)

(3477)

=Wisdom Rejected=--See INTOLERANCE.

=Wish, A Boy’s=--See RETRIEVED SITUATION, A.

=Wishes=--See RETRIEVED SITUATION, A.

=Wishes Fulfilled=--See EARLY RELIGION.

=Wit and Business=--See ABBREVIATION.

=Wit, Ready=--See ECCENTRICITY.

WITCHCRAFT

In two hundred years thirty thousand witches are said to have
been destroyed in England; and as recently as 1716, when the
town was enjoying the wit and satire of the “Queen Anne men,” a
woman and her child nine years of age were hanged at Huntingdon.
Addison, with a mind that wavered between superstition and good
sense, said he could not forbear believing “in such a commerce
with evil spirits as that which we express by the name of
witchcraft,” while, at the same time, he could “give no credit
to any particular modern instance of it.” Scotland, which is
regarded as an enlightened part of the empire, held with the
utmost tenacity its faith in witchcraft. The Scotch, a vigorous
people, put their hands to the work heartily. It was easy to
find victims, since, as we have said already, they tortured
until they confest. It is calculated that two thousand persons
were burned in Scotland in the last forty years of the sixteenth
century. A century later a witch epidemic broke out in the
village of Mohra, in Sweden. A number of children were said to
be bewitched, and familiar with the devil, who was described as
wearing a gray coat, red and blue stockings, a red beard, and a
high-crowned hat. The witches kept this exacting person supplied
with children, and if they did not procure him a good many,
“they had no peace or quiet for him.” The poor wretches were
doomed to have no more peace or quiet in this world. Seventy
were condemned to death, and twenty-three were burnt in a single
fire at Mohra. It is noteworthy that a belief in this frightful
superstition which destroyed more innocent persons than the
so-called holy office was held by men of great intellectual
power--by Erasmus, Bacon, and the judicious Hooker; by Sir
Edward Coke, Sir Thomas Browne, Baxter, and Sir Matthew Hale.
And the old belief is not yet extinct in country districts. Only
recently a man at Totnes accused his father of bewitching, or,
as a “white witch” called it, “overlooking” his daughter, so
that she suffered for months from a disease in the arms; and the
people who live in remote villages may often hear of similar
cases.--London _Illustrated News_.

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WITCHES, BELIEF IN

Dr. James B. McCord writes in _Medical Missions_:

The Zulu baby is born into the fear of witchcraft; in the fear
of witchcraft he grows up, and when he sickens and is about to
die, his one thought is that a spell has been cast upon him
for which the charm can not be discovered. All his life long
he dreads in lonely places to meet the _inswelabova_--an
inhuman man, lacking only hair or fur to make him altogether a
beast--a sort of beast in human form who rides backward on a
baboon, ready to pounce upon and make medicine of the unwary
traveler. In mature manhood he suspects his neighbor, his
friend, his brother, and even his wife of having dealings with
makers of charms and poisons. He walks with an uneasy feeling
that an enemy may have put medicine in his path to harm him.
From every possible source, from earth and from sky, from river
and from forest, from friend and from foe, he is continually
apprehensive of evil influence coming upon him and searching for
a talisman to wear against it.

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WITNESS OF SERVICE

On one of the battle-fields of South Africa a young chaplain
found a Highlander sorely wounded and with life ebbing quickly
away. He asked him to allow him to pray, but the soldier said
gruffly, “No, I don’t want prayers. I want water.” The chaplain
secured, with great difficulty, some water, and then asked the
refreshed man if he might read a psalm. “No,” said the soldier
again. “I am too cold to listen to a psalm.” The chaplain
instantly stript off his coat and wrapt it tenderly round the
wounded soldier. And then, touched by the chaplain’s sympathy,
the man turned and said, “Chaplain, if religion makes men like
you, let’s have that psalm.” When Christians prove themselves
loving and considerate for the sick and suffering, even the
hardest heart melts.

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WIVES OF GREAT MEN

It is an oft-quoted saying of Dr. Johnson that “a man in general
is better pleased when he has a good dinner on the table than
when his wife talks Greek.” Racine had an illiterate wife and
was accustomed to boastfully declare that she could not read any
of his tragedies. Dufresny married his washerwoman. Goethe’s
wife was a woman of mediocre capacity. Heine said of the woman
he loved, “She has never read a line of my writings and does not
even know what a poet is.” Therese Lavasseur, the last flame
of Rousseau, could not tell the time of day. “How many of the
wise and learned,” says Thackeray, “have married their cooks!
Did not Lord Eldon, himself the most prudent of men, make a
runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both in love with
their servant-maids?” Seven hundred people sat up all night to
see the beautiful Duchess of Hamilton get in her carriage, but
would one in a thousand lose a wink of sleep to get a glimpse of
the learned wife of the pundit Yainavalka, who discoursed with
the Indian in Sanskrit on the vexed problems of life?--_The
Interior._

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=Woman Suffrage=--See RETORT, A.

WOMANLY WIT

Foster, the State news paragrapher of the Cleveland _Press_,
published a paragraph to this effect: “A Marion girl started
her graduating essay as follows: ‘I am fairly worried out with
the incessant pratings of the lords of creation on the duties
and sphere of woman.’” The paragraph closed with the somewhat
dangerous assertion that the editor would bet a new spring hat
that the author of that discourse on woman’s sphere could not
bake a loaf of bread. Two days later Mr. Foster received from
Marion a large box. It contained sundry light loaves of bread
and cake marvelously toothsome. An accompanying affidavit bore
the solemn oath of the sweet girl graduate (who possesses the
pretty name of May Williams) that she had, unaided, made the
wheat-bread marked “Exhibit A,” the two specimens of cornbread
marked “Exhibit B,” and the chocolate, “Exhibit C.” The notary’s
seal of office was affixt to the affidavit, and it was settled
beyond a doubt in Mr. Foster’s mind that his wager had been
accepted. He therefore went out and lavished his week’s salary
on a new spring hat.

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WOMAN’S SPHERE

She’s a woman with a mission; ’tis her heaven-born ambition to
reform the world’s condition, you will please to understand.
She’s a model of propriety, a leader in society, and has a great
variety of remedies at hand.
Each a sovereign specific, with a title scientific, for the cure
of things morbific that vex the people sore;
For the swift alleviation of the evils of the nation is her
foreordained vocation on this sublunary shore.
And while thus she’s up and coming, always hurrying and humming,
and occasionally slumming, this reformer of renown,
Her neglected little Dicky, ragged, dirty, tough, and tricky, with
his fingers soiled and sticky, is the terror of the town.

(Text.)--_Tit-Bits._

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WOMAN’S STRENGTH

There is no physical reason why a woman should be more feeble
or diseased than a man. Stanley was furnished with two hundred
negro women to carry his stuff into the interior of Africa,
and he found them the best porters he had employed, altho
he felt very doubtful about accepting their services when
first proposed. The Mexican Indian woman is able to carry her
household goods on her back with two or three babies on top
when a change of location is desirable. Meanwhile her husband
trudges bravely along carrying his gun. On the continent of
Europe most of the heavy work is done by women. In Vienna women
and dogs are frequently hitched together, and sometimes a woman
is yoked with a cow to draw a load of produce to the city. Many
of these peasant women will carry upon their heads a load of
vegetables that few American men could easily lift. These women
have the muscles of the waist and trunk thoroughly developed.
Despite their hardships, they do not suffer from the backache
or displacements, or other ailments which the women who dress
fashionably are constantly afflicted with.--_Phrenological
Journal._

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=Women, Courage of=--See BRAVERY OF WOMEN.

=Women Fighting Disease=--See TUBERCULOSIS.

=Women Graduates=--See ALUMNÆ OCCUPATIONS.

WOMEN IN BONDAGE

In Korea woman is a useful member of society, for material
interests hang on her hand. Once, on a walk by the city wall, we
saw a man sitting on a stone weeping. His was a full-mouthed,
heart-broken cry, as tho the world had given way under him.
“Why,” we asked--“why all this fuss?” He looked vacantly at us
for a moment, and then resumed where he had left off. We found
that the trouble was about a woman, his wife; she had left him.
“How he must have loved her to cry like that,” remarked a lady
in the party. It was translated, but he resented it. “Loved her?
I never loved her, but she made my clothes and cooked my food;
what shall I do? boo-hoo-oo,” louder and more impressively than
ever.--JAMES S. GALE, “Korea in Transition.”

(3485)

=Women in Finance=--See BUSINESS, RELIGION IN.

=Women in Persia=--See PERSIA, MOSLEM SITUATION IN.

WOMEN, INJUSTICE TO

She was a woman, worn and thin, whom the world condemned for a
single sin; they cast her out of the king’s highway and passed
her by as they went to pray. He was a man, and more to blame,
but the world spared him a breath of shame; beneath his feet he
saw her lie, but he raised his head and passed her by. They were
the people who went to pray at the temple of God on the holy
day. They scorned the woman, forgave the man. It was ever thus
since the world began. Time passed on, and the woman died, on
the cross of shame was crucified; but the world was stern and
would not yield, and they buried her in the potter’s field. The
man died, too; and they buried him in a casket of cloth with a
silver rim, and said, as they turned from his grave away: “We’ve
buried an honest man to-day.” Two mortals knocked at heaven’s
gate and stood face to face to inquire their fate. He carried a
passport with earthly sign, and she a pardon from Love divine.
O, we who judge ’twixt virtue and vice, which think ye entered
paradise? Not he whom the world had said would win, for the
woman alone was ushered in.

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WOMEN JUDGING WOMEN

At a large dinner party in Washington, a lady sitting next to
William M. Evarts, then Secretary of State, said to him: “Mr.
Evarts, don’t you think that a woman is the best judge of other
women?” “Ah, madam,” said Mr. Evarts, “she is not only the best
judge, but the best executioner.”

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WOMEN, WARLIKE

In warlike times, when battle was the business of life and
victory over a foe the highest honor that could be had, when
home in the true sense there was none, and when castles were
less houses for pleasant living than strongholds to shelter
raiders and resist assault, women were as heroic as their age.
If they were not so accurate in their aim as the archers, of
whom it was said every English bowman “bore under his girdle
twenty-four Scots,” they knew how to man the ramparts and defend
the bridges as well as their lords themselves. Womanliness in
the bower, dignity in the hall, courage in the castle--that was
the whole duty of these noble women of a rude but manly age,
and to their example, their influence and their shaping power
as mothers England owes much of her greatness and half of her
strength. Letting Boadicea pass as an example of the feminine
fighting blood, we find in Dame Nicola de Camville an early
specimen of the warlike political woman. She took the royal
side in the famous war with the barons, and held Lincoln Castle
against Gilbert de Gaunt, first for King John and afterward
for Henry III, till the battle called Lincoln Fair broke her
power. The beautiful Countess of Salisbury, she who was so
ardently beloved by the third Edward, was another instance of
feminine daring, in her case coupled with the loveliest and
most graceful sweetness. Black Agnes was again a heroine of
the virago type, and Queen Philippa, Queen Margaret, and others
of the same kind honored their adopted nationality by their
courage and devotion. Meaner women were as brave. In a skirmish
at Naworth (1570) Leonard Dacres had in his army “many desperate
women, who there gave the adventure of their lives and fought
right stoutly.”--_The Fortnightly Review._

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WOMEN’S FRIVOLITY

What most women want to-day is a donkey-load of Paris dresses
for their bodies, an automobile to pull them around, an army of
servants to hook them up and then to unhook them. The mammonism
of men to-day is the outer and physical embodiment of the inner
and essential vulgarity of the whole pleasure-loving mob of
women on the avenues, with their sipping of cocktails at the
beginning of the meal in great restaurants, their flashing of
jewels, their parade of gowns, their killing of time through
bridge and games of chance. Killing time! When these golden
hours are more precious than the purple drops of paradise
itself. Oh, these superficial, frivolous, vapid women, who have
turned their beautiful bodies into something scarcely better
than the wire stands that exhibit gowns in merchants’ windows.
And they use their very beauty as exemption from duty!--N.
D. HILLIS.

(3489)

=Wonders of Nature=--See INSECTS OF REMOTE TIMES.

WONDERS UNSEEN BY MAN

The insect must see a whole world of wonders of which we know
little or nothing. True, we have microscopes, with which we can
see one thing at a time if carefully laid upon the stage; but
what is the finest instrument that can be produced compared
to that with twenty-five thousand object-glasses, all of them
probably achromatic, and each one a living instrument, with its
own nerve-branch supplying a separate sensation. To creatures
thus endowed with microscopic vision, a cloud of sandy dust
must appear like an avalanche of massive rock fragments, and
everything else proportionally monstrous.--W. MATTIEU
WILLIAMS, “Science in Short Chapters.”

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=Word, Effect of a Tender=--See HEART-HUNGER, SATISFYING.

WORD IN SEASON

Buckingham, the war governor of Connecticut, one day met a young
man named Simmons as both were walking along the street, and
putting both hands on the young man’s shoulders, the governor
said solemnly: “Simmons, we are none of us living as well as
we ought to,” and passed on. Simmons, as an old man, declared
that that act had a most powerful and permanent influence on his
life. (Text.)

(3491)

WORD JUGGLING

There are three hundred and sixty-five prohibitions in the
law, said the Rabbins, just as many as there are days in the
year, and two hundred and forty-eight positive commands,
corresponding to the number of members of the body, according
to their anatomy; the whole number making six hundred and
thirteen precepts. “There can be no more precepts or any less,”
reasoned the wise Pharisees, “because there are just six hundred
and thirteen letters in the decalog.” Or if one had not liked
this interpretation, they would have given him another equally
satisfactory reason why there should be just six hundred and
thirteen precepts. In Numbers 15:38, the Jews are commanded to
wear fringes, called in the Hebrew tsitsith, upon the border
of their garments. Now, as there are eight threads and five
knots in each fringe, making the number thirteen, and as the
letters of the word tsitsith stand in Hebrew for the number six
hundred, therefore, as was proved before, there must be just
six hundred and thirteen precepts in the Mosaic law. To such
silly word jugglery had the Pharisees recourse in placing upon
men’s shoulders burdens too grievous to be borne.--_The Golden
Rule._

(3492)

WORD OF GOD FREED

When Elizabeth of England succeeded to the throne she was
petitioned to release, according to custom, four or five
principal prisoners. “Who shall they be?” she asked. The reply
was: “The four evangelists and the apostle Paul.” (Text.)

(3493)

WORD OF GOD UNIVERSAL

The following is by Frank Dempster Sherman:

Not only in the Book
Is found God’s word,
But in the song of every brook
And every bird.

In sun and moon and star
His message shines!
The flowers that fleck the green fields are
His fragrant lines.

His whisper in the breeze,
And His the voice
That bids the leaves upon the trees
Sing and rejoice.

Go forth, O soul! nor fear
Nor doubt, for He
Shall make the ears of faith to hear--
The eyes to see.

(3494)

WORD, THE, A HAMMER

Thor was the god of thunder. The most prized of all his
possessions was his magic hammer. This was red hot, and always
returned to his hand ready to be thrown again. He used it to
drive boundary stakes, and also to punish his enemies. The
ancient Northern peoples made the sign of the hammer, as later
Christians did the cross, to ward off evils and to secure
blessings.

What an allegory, all this, of the Word of God! (Text.)

(3495)

=Words=--See GLITTER VERSUS DEPTH.

WORK

It was while Moses was at his common task that the call came
to him. This wilderness training was simply a third school
which he entered to fit him for the great work of his life.
When God wants a man he usually calls one who is busy among
the commonplace things of life. Commonplace duties are always
glorified in God’s sight. When God wanted a prophet he selected
Amos from among the farmer-shepherds. When He wanted a poet
He called a lad from keeping sheep. When He wanted an apostle
He called a swearing tar from mending his net on the beach of
Galilee. When He wanted a missionary He selected a Paul from
among the tent-makers. When He wanted a deliverer of Israel He
called a man from the commonplace duties of the desert. When God
wanted to show man how much He loved him and honored toil, He
chose to incarnate Himself in the carpenter of Nazareth.

“This is the gospel of labor,
Ring it ye bells of the kirk;
The Lord of Love, came down from above,
To live with the men who work;
This is the rose He planted,
Here is the thorn-curst soil,
Heaven is blest, with perfect rest,
But the blessing of earth is toil.”
(Text.)

(3496)

* * * * *

Paul was not ashamed to work with his hands, altho he had been
brought up at the feet of Gamaliel and taught according to the
perfect manner of the law. He had not forgotten the custom of
the Jews, who always taught their sons in early youth to work at
some trade or handicraft. A true saying is that “an idle brain
is the devil’s workshop.” Miss Dryer, a Chicago missionary, in
addressing the ministers’ meeting of that city in behalf of
girls’ sewing-schools, made the significant statement that in
all her experience of many years she had never known of a fallen
woman who knew how to sew. (Text.)

(3497)

* * * * *

Man’s work is to labor and leaven
As best he may--earth here with heaven,
’Tis work for work’s sake that he’s needing;
Let him work on and on as speeding
Work’s end, but not dream of succeeding!
Because if success were intended,
Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended.

--BROWNING.

(3498)

See GENIUS AND WORK.

=Work a Necessity=--See INDUSTRY AND LONGEVITY.

WORK AND ART

Between digging a ditch to drain a meadow and composing a
sonnet, what is there in common? Nevertheless, if we look
closely into the matter, the ditch and the sonnet are much the
same thing. We might even fairly challenge that category of
“useful” and “fine.” The useful are surely fine, for nothing is
finer than use; and the fine, if they be not in a high sense
useful, are not fine after all. The ditch is dug to increase
the serviceableness to man of nature; the sonnet is composed to
enable man to discern in nature a beauty (or serviceableness)
to which he had heretofore been blind. From a broad standpoint,
there is little to choose between them. The ditch is nothing in
itself, but neither, strictly speaking, is the sonnet. They are
both means to ends. The ditch is, perhaps, more distant from
its end than the sonnet, but it is a link in the same chain.
Moreover, the ditch will always be an honest ditch, but the
sonnet may be false or artificial, and in that case counts for
nothing, or less. The real difference resides in the person
doing much more than in the thing done. A workman, building
a wall, may have a perception of the value of the use he is
performing, or he may not; only in the former case, of course,
does he deserve the name of artist. The seamstress who plies
her needle in our attic, or the poor man’s wife who must needs
wash and scrub and darn and work all day long, and from year’s
end to year’s end, if she realize the universal bearings of her
industry, is an artist, and a nobler and more adorable one than
she who sings for $5,000 a night.--_America._

(3499)

=Work and Long Life=--See INDUSTRY AND LONGEVITY.

=Work as Witness=--See TESTIMONY OF WORK.

WORK ATTITUDE, THE

What is work--work not as mere external performance, but as
attitude of mind? It signifies that the person is not content
longer to accept and to act upon the meanings that things
suggest, but demands congruity of meaning with the things
themselves. In the natural course of growth, children come to
find irresponsible make-believe plays inadequate. A fiction
is too easy a way out to afford content. There is not enough
stimulus to call forth satisfactory mental response. When
this point is reached, the ideas that things suggest must be
applied to the things with some regard to fitness. A small cart,
resembling a “real” cart, with “real” wheels, tongue and body,
meets the mental demand better than merely making believe that
anything which comes to hand is a cart. Occasionally to take
part in setting a “real” table with “real” dishes brings more
reward than forever to make believe a flat stone is a table and
that leaves are dishes. The interest may still center in the
meanings, the things may be of importance only as amplifying a
certain meaning. So far the attitude is one of play. But the
meaning is now of such a character that it must find appropriate
embodiment in actual things.

The dictionary does not permit us to call such activities work.
Nevertheless, they represent a genuine passage of play into
work. For work (as a mental attitude, not as mere external
performance) means interest in the adequate embodiment of a
meaning (a suggestion, purpose, aim) in objective form through
the use of appropriate materials and appliances. Such an
attitude takes advantage of the meanings aroused and built up
in free play, but controls their development by seeing to it
that they are applied to things in ways consistent with the
observable structure of the things themselves.

The point of this distinction between play and work may be
cleared up by comparing it with a more usual way of stating the
difference. In play activity, it is said, the interest is in
the activity for its own sake; in work, it is in the product
or result in which the activity terminates. Hence the former
is purely free, while the latter is tied down by the end to be
achieved.--JOHN DEWEY, “How We Think.”

(3500)

WORK, CHRISTIAN

The verses below are true of every soul who really desires to do God’s work.

If we can not be the watchman
Standing high on Zion’s wall,
Pointing out the path to heaven,
Offering life and peace to all;
With our prayers, and with our bounties
We can do what heaven demands;
We can be, like helpful Aaron,
Holding up the prophet’s hands.

Do not, then, stand idly waiting,
For some greater work to do,
For time is a lazy goddess--
She will never come to you.
Go and toil in any vineyard,
Do not fear to do or dare;
If you want a field of labor
You can find it anywhere.

(3501)

=Work, Daily=--See MELODY FROM DRUDGERY.

WORK DESPISED

A king desired a fine mosaic picture. The master-artist divided
the stones from which it was to be constructed among his
workmen, giving to each his own design. One artist considered
his fragment too small to notice, and threw away the stone
intrusted to him, saying, “It is of no worth.” When all the
work was brought together, his stone was found to be the most
important of all, the very centerpiece. He lost his place, and
was branded upon the forehead with the words, “Of no worth,” as
a penalty for his neglect.

(3502)

WORK DIVINELY INTENDED

As the clear and sensitive organ of the eye, which holds upon
its tiny lens the masses of far stars and the mazes of their
movement, was evidently made for this marvelous function; as
the nerve of the ear, which takes eloquence, poetry, wit,
applause, the tone of affection, the crash of the thunder-burst,
the lively laugh of childish glee, and communicates each with
instant fidelity to the spirit behind, was manifestly formed for
exactly this office; so, just as clearly, the personal soul,
with its judgment and its will, with its deep-seated instincts
and its eager desires, with its unrest in indolence, and its
thought that outruns attainment every instant, was made to
realize its good by working. The date-tree in the desert is
not more precisely preadjusted to its office!--RICHARD S.
STORRS.

(3503)

=Work in Miniature=--See MINIATURE WORK.

WORK PROVING RELIGION

There is a story of a young minister who had just come to be pastor in a town, and he called on Hiram Golf, the shoemaker.

“Well, Hiram,” said the minister, “I have come to talk with you
about the things of God, and I am very glad a man can be in a
humble occupation and yet be a godly man.” The shoemaker said,
“Don’t call this occupation humble.” The minister thought he
had made a mistake, and he said, “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to
reflect on what you do for a living.” The man replied, “You
didn’t hurt me, but I was afraid you might have hurt the Lord
Jesus Christ. I believe the making of that shoe is just as holy
a thing as your making a sermon. I believe that when I come to
stand before the throne of God, He is going to say, ‘What kind
of shoes did you make down on earth?’ And He might pick out
this very pair, in order to let me look at them in the blazing
light of the great white throne; and He is going to say to you,
‘What kind of sermons did you make?’ and you will have to show
Him one of your sermons. Now, if I made better shoes than you
made sermons, I will have a better place in the kingdom of God.”
(Text.)

(3504)

=Work, Quiet, Successful=--See VALUE OF ONE MAN.

WORK, THE TRUE WISDOM

When Frederick Temple, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, was a
poor boy, wearing patched clothes and patched shoes, he had the
good fortune to have a wise mother who stimulated and encouraged
the right kind of ambition, and directed his zeal. One day the
boy waxed critical over the inconsistency of English spelling,
when his mother chided him gently: “Freddie, don’t argue;
do your work.” The lesson was not lost on his open mind. He
followed the sage advice. And long years after, when as primate
of all England he had arisen to a position scarcely second
to any in dignity and influence in the land, he acted on his
mother’s counsel: “Don’t argue, do your work.”

(3505)

WORK TRANSFORMED

As the water drops of the storm-clouds are transfigured by the
sunlight into rainbows, so the lowliest work is transfigured
by thoughts of God shining through it. So it was with the old
negro washerwoman who sang, as she climbed the stairs wearily at
night after her hardest day, “One more day’s work for Jesus.” So
it was with the Christian child in the mission Sunday-school,
who was asked, “What are you doing for Jesus?” and replied, “I
scrubs.”

(3506)

WORK VERSUS WORKER

James Buckham is the author of this poem:

“What hast thou wrought?” is the world’s demand.
Where is thy product of brain or hand?
That presented, the wise world says,
“Take this place!” and the man obeys.

Somewhat otherwise measures God,
Searches the soul with love’s testing-rod;
Gets its innermost depth and plan;
Ignores the product, exalts the man!

Whittier, in a similar vein, wrote:

Not by the page word-painted,
My life is banned or sainted.
Deeper than written scroll,
The colors of the soul,
Nobler than any fact,
My wish that failed of act. (Text.)

(3507)

=Work, Unrecompensed=--See ILL-PAID WORK.

=Working Hard=--See ENCOURAGEMENT.

=Working Men and Church=--See CHRIST APPROVED.

WORKING TOGETHER

Faraday, the distinguished chemist, says:

The change produced by respiration so injurious to us (for we
can not breathe the air twice over) is the very life and support
of plants and vegetables growing on the surface of the ground.
These latter absorb carbon--the leaves taking up the carbon of
the air to which we have given it in the form of carbonic acid,
and grow and prosper. Give them a fine air like ours, and they
could not live in it, but carbon and other matters make them
grow. All trees and plants get their carbon from the air, which
carries off what is bad for us and at the same time good for
them--disease to the one is health to the other. So we are made
dependents not only on our fellow creatures but on our fellow
existers as well, all nature being tied together by the law that
makes one part conduce to the good of another. (Text.)

(3508)

WORKING WITH GOD

It may not be our lot to wield
The sickle in the ripened field;
Nor ours to hear, on summer eves,
The reaper’s song among the sheaves.

Yet where our duty’s task is wrought
In unison with God’s great thought,
The near and future blend in one,
And whatso’er is willed is done. (Text.)

--JOHN G. WHITTIER.

(3509)

=Workmanship=--See BEAUTY FROM FRAGMENTS.

WORKS DESTROYED

When Thomas Carlyle was writing his famous history of the French
Revolution, and when he had the first volume ready for the
printer’s hands, he one day loaned the manuscript to John Stuart
Mill, his intimate and admiring friend. This friend’s servant
girl, seeing the pile on the library floor one day, and wanting
some kindling, unceremoniously put the whole of it into the
stove and kindled the fire with it. Thus the priceless labor of
many years was in a few moments swept away.

Mill came himself, pale and trembling, to break the news to the
author. When he heard it, his spirit fairly broke down under the
terrible disaster.

If the loss of a book is such a calamity, how unspeakably terrible will it be to have the works of one’s lifetime burned? There are men of whom the divine word says, “They shall be saved, but their works shall be burned.”

(3510)

=Works, Immortality in One’s=--See IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE.

WORLD IMPROVING

In the old days the bee-master to reach the honey killed the
bees, but now he contrives to spare the bees, who continue to
live on and share their own sweetness. A similar transformation
is being effected in the hives of human industry. There is an
attempt to get more justice, fairness, and even mercy, into
commercial rivalries; to substitute some plan of cooperation for
the existing competition, if that is possible. That glove-fights
are being substituted for prize-fights is indeed a slow approach
to civilization, yet the thinnest gloves are a concession to the
rising sentiment of humanity; so in business, modern society
is getting rid of certain naked brutalities of antagonism, and
giving to reason and compassion a larger place. With aching
head and aching heart, thousands to-day feel that the struggle
for gold and bread is bitter enough; yet a better spirit slowly
emerges, tempering the fiery law.--W. L. WATKINSON,
“The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(3511)

=World, Need of the=--See YOU.

WORLD NOT INDISPENSABLE

During the latter portion of his life, declares a writer in _Everybody’s Magazine_, Emerson seemed to live much in the world of souls, and came back with difficulty to take cognizance of physical affairs.

At the time of the Millerite excitement, he was walking one day
down Bromfield Street, Boston, when he met one of his friends,
who remarked: “This is the day when the world is to come to an
end, according to the Millerities.” The Sage of Concord looked
reflectively at his friend for a moment, and replied: “Ah, well,
we can do without it.”

(3512)

WORLD, THE, IN THE CHRISTIAN

A ship in the water is good, but water in the ship is bad. A
transatlantic liner, years ago, owing to some defect in one
of its pumps, began to pump water into the ship instead of
pumping it out. As they thought the ship had sprung a leak,
they pumped all the harder, with the result that the ship only
filled the faster. Presently the water rose so that their fires
were extinguished. Then, thinking that they were going to the
bottom, they abandoned the ship. Later on, some Englishmen found
her tossing in mid-ocean, water-logged. Going on board, they
ascertained the trouble, pumped her out, brought her in and
secured $300,000 salvage money.

Just so the Christian in the world is good, but the world in the Christian is bad. The believer who allows the evil practises of the sinful world to dominate his heart can not possibly succeed; and yet there are men who, like those in the ship above mentioned, seem to pump the world into themselves as fast as they can.--A. F. SCHAUFFLER, _The Christian Herald_.

(3513)

=Worldliness=--See AMUSEMENTS.

=Worldliness, Vanity of=--See CHURCH INDISPENSABLE.

=Worldly Life=--See PLEASURE, MOCKERY OF.

=Worry=--See THINGS.

WORRY, DON’T

Do not hurry,
Do not worry,
As this world you travel through,
No regretting,
Fuming, fretting,
Ever can advantage you.
Be content with what you’ve won,
What on earth you leave undone,
There are plenty left to do.

(3514)

WORSHIP, ENFORCED

Some ministers would welcome the method described below for our churches at home:

Some interesting new methods and agencies are noticed in the
_Baptist Missionary Magazine_ as having been introduced
into the missionary church at Sinwaugan, Philippine Islands.
A band of policemen has been instituted to see that all the
members of the church attend the services on time. These
policemen hunt up delinquents, and if they can not give good
reasons for their absence, bring them to church. In the church
they keep order among the throngs of children who attend.

(3515)

WORSHIPER, A MOTHER

One of the first Christian novels of Japan tells of a widow,
whose only son was a careless, aimless boy. His mother tried
to inspire him with the lofty purpose of reestablishing their
house, then in danger of becoming extinct. Her efforts were all
in vain, until one day she took him to his father’s grave and
kneeling there with him, sternly rebuked him in the face of the
dead for his thoughtless life. Then drawing a dirk she handed it
to him with this startling order: “Die, coward! Die with this
dirk here and now! Then I will follow you!” In this way this
Spartan-like mother aroused her boy so that he became a great
and successful man. He never could cease to love and reverence
her. He said: “The fire of my mother’s face burned into my soul
and gave me the supreme decision of my life. Therefore, I am
a worshiper of my mother.” This represents some of the best
traditions of Japanese family life, and with such a basis, it
is easy to see how welcome with many is the Christian truth,
which emphasizes the duties of parents and recognizes the rights
even of children.--JOHN H. DE FOREST, “Sunrise in the
Sunrise Kingdom.”

(3516)

=Worshiping Idols=--See FETISHISM.

WORTH, ESTIMATING

The difference between a good job and a bad one is nothing--unless the man with a good one is a good man.

A certain office in Chicago had this fact demonstrated. There
were two men on the pay-roll who had an equal opportunity for a
new place, a place much in advance of that held by either. One
of the men had a good job, the place of assistant to the head of
a department. The other was only a clerk. The first man got $30
a week, the second was paid only $18. When the time came for the
head to look around and select the man for the new position his
eyes fell on the two under consideration, and he began to sum up
their merits.

“My idea of a man for this new place,” he said, “is one who
has proved by his steadiness, industry, and economy that he
is ambitious, that he wants to and means to do well, and who,
generally speaking, has shown that he’s a strong character. Now,
while Johnson, at $30 a week, is obviously first choice for
the place, I won’t give it to him until I’ve compared him with
Nagle, who’s only getting $18. I’m going to look them over first
and find out who really is the bigger man of the two.”

A week later the office was surprized and shocked to see Nagle,
the clerk, get the coveted place.