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THE PACTS PROVED. HOW RELIGION IIAS PUT SCIENCE TO SHAME. Rev. T. De Witt Talmage's Sermon on Skepticism—Learned Men Have Laughed at All the Improvements of the World Faith the Weapon of the Christian. TriE Hamptons , August 21. —"The Facts Proved" is the subject of discours» by the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D. D., to-day. His text is from the 15th verse of Acts iii : "We are witnesses." Fol lowing is his sermon in full: In the days of George Stephenson, the perfector oL the locomothe engine, the scientists proved conclusively that a rail way train could never be driven by steam power successfully and without peril; but the rushing express trains from Liv erpool to Edinburgh, and from Edin burgh to London, have made all the na tion witnesses of the splendid achieve ment. Machinists and nav igators proved conclusively that a steamer could never cross the Atlantic ocean ; but no sooner had they successfully proved the impossi bility of such an undertaking than the work was done, and the passengers on the Cunard, and the Inman, and the National and the White Star lines are witnesses. There went up a guffaw of wise laughter at Professor Morse's proposition to make the lightning of Heaven his errand boy, and it was proved conclusively that the thing could never be done ; but now all the news of the wide world, by Asso ciated Press, put in your hands every morning and night, has made all na tions witnesses. So in the time of Christ it was proved conclusively that it was impossible for Him to rise from the dead. It was shown logically that when a man was dead,he was dead, and the heart and the liver and the lungs having ceased to perform their offices, the limbs would be rigid beyond all power of friction or arousal. They showed it to be an absolute absurdity that the dead Christ should ever get up alive; but no sooner had they proved this than the dead Christ arose, and the disciples beheld Him, heard His voice, and talked with Him, and they took the witness stand to prove that to be true which the wiseacres of the day had proved to be impossible ; the record of the experiment and of the testimony is in the text: "Him hath God raised from t*he dead, whereof we are witnesses." Now, let me play the skeptic for a mo ment. "There is no God," says the 8keptic,"for I have never seen Him with my physical eyesight. ^>ur Bible is a pack of contradictions^ There never was a miracle. Lazarus was not raised from the dead, and the water was never turned into wine. Your religion is an imposition on the credulity of the ages." There is an aged man moving in that pew as though he would like to respond. Here are hundreds of people with faces a little flushed at these announcements, and all through this house there is a suppressed feeling which would like to speak out in behalf of the truth of our glorious Christianity, as in the days of the text, crying out, "We are witnesses !" The fact is, that if this world is ever brought to God, it will not be through argument, but through testimony. You might cover the whole earth with apolo gies for Christianity and learned treatises in defense of religion—you would not convert a soul. Lectures on the harmony between science and religion are beauti ful mental discipline, but have never saved a soul, and never will save a soul Put a man of the world and a man of the church against each other, and the man of the world will in all probability get the triumph. There are a thousand things in our religion that seem illogical to the world, and always will seem illogi Our weapon in this conflict is faith, not logic ; faith, not metaphysics ; faith, not profundity ; faith, not scholastic ex ploration. Cut then, in order to have faith, we must have testimony, and if five hundred men, or one thousand men, or five hundred thousand men, or five million men get up and tell me that they have felt the religion of Jesus Christ a joy, a comfort, a help, an inspiration, I am bound as a fair-minded man to ac cept their testimony. 1 want just now to put before you three propositions, the truth of which I think this audience will attest with overwhelming unanimity The first proposition is: We are wit nesses that the religion of Christ is able to convert a soul. The Gospel may have a hard time to conquer us, we may have fought it back, but we were vanquished. You. say con version is only an imaginary thing. We know better. "We are witnesses." There never was so great a change in our heart and life on any other subject as on this. People laughed at the missionaries in Madagascar because they preached ten years without one convert; but there are thirty thiee thousand converts in Mada gascar to day People laughed at Dr. Judson, the Baptist missionary, because he kept on preaching in Burmah five years without a single convert; but there are twenty thousand Baptists in Bunnah to day People laughed at Doctor Mor rison, in China, for preaching there seven years without a single conversion; but there are fifteen thousand Chiistians in China to day. Peopie laughed at the missionaries for preaching at Tahiti foi fifteen years without a single conversion, and at the missionaries for preaching in Bengal seventeen years without a single conversion; yet in all those lands there are multitudes of Christians to day. But why go so far to find evidence of the Gospel's power to save a soul if ""We are witnesses." We were so proud that no man could have humbled us; we were so hard that no earthly power could have melted us; angels of God were all around about us, they could not overcome us; but one day, perhaps at a Methodist anxious seat, or at a Presby teiian catechetical lecture, or at a burial, or on horseback, a power seized us, and made us get down, and made us tremble, and made us kneel, and made us cry for mercy, and we tried to wrench ourselves away from the grasp, but we could not. It Hung us flat, and when we arose we were as much changed as Gour gis, the heathen, who went into a prayer meeting witW a dagger and a gun, to disturb the meeting and de stroy it, but the next day was found crying: "Oh! my great sins! Oh! my great. Saviour!" and for eleven years preached the Gospel of Christ to his fellow-mountaineers, the last words on his dying lips being: "Free ttrace !" Oh, it was free grace ! There is a man who was for ten years a hard drinker. The dreadful appetite had sent down its roots around the palate and the tongue, and on down until they were interlinked with the vitals of body, mind and soul ; but he has not taken any stimulants for two years. What did that? Not temperance societies. !Not prohibition laws. Not moral suasion. Conversion did it. "Why," said one upon whom the great change had come, "sir, I feel just as though I were some body else." There is a sea captain who swore all the way from New York to Havana, and from Havana to San Francisco, and when he was in port he was worse than when he was on the sea. What power was it that washed his tongue clean of profani ties, and made him a psalm-singer ? Con version by the Holy Spirit. There are thousands of people in this house to night who are no more what they once were than a water-lily is nightshade, or morning lark is a vulture, or day is night. Now, if I should demand that all those people in this house who have felt the converting power of religion should rise, so far from being ashamed, they would spring to their feet with more alacrity than ihey ever sprang to the dance, the tears mingling with their exhilaration as they cried: "We are witnesses !" And if they tjied to sing the old ^Gospel hymn, they would break down with emotion by the time they got to the second line : Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend On whom my hopes of Heaven depend 1 No ! When 1 blush, be this my shame : That ] na more revere His name. Again, I remark "we are witnesses" of the Gospel's power to comfort. When a man has trouble the world comes in and says: "Now get your mind off this; go out and breathe the fresh air; plunge deeper into business." What poor advice ! Get your mind off of it! When everything is upturned with the bereavement, and everything reminds you of whatvou have lost. Get your mind off of it. They might as w T ell advise you to stop thinking. You can not stop thinking, and you cannot stop thinking in that direction. Take a walk in the fresh air. Why, along that very street, or that very road, she once ac companied you. Out of that grass-plot she plucked flowers, or into that show window she looked, fascinated, saying: "Come see the pictures." Go deeper into business! Why, she was associated with all your business ambition, and since she has gone you have no ambition left. Oh, this is a clumsy world when it tries to comfort a broken heart ! I can build a Corliss engine, I can paint a Raphael's "Madonna," I can play a Beethoven's "Symphony" as easily as this world can comfort a broken heart. And yet you have been com forted. How was it done? Did Christ come to ycu and say : "Get your mind off this; go out and breathe the fresh air; plunge deeper into business?" No. There was a minute when Ile came to you—perhaps in the watches of the night, perhaps in your place of business, perhaps along the street—and He breathed something into your soul that gave peace, rest, infinite quiet, so that you could take out the photograph of the departed one and look into the eyes and the face of the dear one, and say, "It is all right ; she is better off ; I would not call her back. Lord, I thank Thee that Thou hast comforted my poor heart." There are Christian parents here who are willing to testify to the power of this Gospel to comfort. Your son had just graduated from school or college and was going into busîness, and the Lord took him. Or yoiir daughter had just grad uated from the young ladies' _ seminary, and you thought she was going to be a useful woman and of long life; but the Lord took her, and you were tempted to say: "All this culture of twenty years for nothing!" Or the little child came home from school with the hot fever that stopped not for the agonized prayer or for the skillful physician, and the little child was taken. Or the babe was lifted out of your arms by some quick epidemic, and you stood wondering why God evCr gave you that child at all, if so soon He was to take it away. And yet you are not repining, you are not fretful, you are not fighting against God. What has enabled you to stand all the trial ? "Oh," you say, "I took the medi cine that God gave my sick soul. In my distress I threw myself at the feet of a sympathizing God; and when I was too weak to pray, or to look up, He breathed into me a peace that I think must be the foretaste of that Heaven where there is neither a tear, nor a farewell, nor a grave." Come, all ye who have been out to the grave to weep there—come, all ye comforted souls, get up off your knees. Is there no power in this Gospel to soothe the heart? Is there no power in this religion to quiet the worst par oxysm of grief? There comes up an answer from comforted widowhood, and orphanage, and childlessness, saying: "Aye, aye, we are witnesses !" Again, I remark that we are witnesses of the fact that religion has power to give composure in the last moment. I shall never forget the first time I con fronted death We went across the corn fields in the country. I was led by my father's hand and we came to the farm house where the bereavement had come, and we saw the crowd of wagons and carriages ; but there was one carriage that especially attracted my boyish at tention, and it had black plumes. I said: "What's that? what's that? Why those black tassels at the top ?" and after it was explained to me, I was lifted up to look upon the bright face of an aged Christian woman, who three days before had de parted in triumph The whole scene made an impression I never forgot. In our sermons and in our lay exhorta tions we are very apt, when we want to bring illustrations of dying triumph, to go back to some distinguished personage —to a John Knox or a Harriet Newell. But I want you for witnesses. I want to know if you have ever seen anything to make you believe that the religion of Christ can give composure in the final hour. Now, in the courts, at torney, jury and judge will never admit mere hearsay. They demand that the witness must have seen with his own eyes, or heard with his own ears, and so I am critical in my examination of you now; and I want to know whether you hav% seen or heard anything that makes you believe that the religion of Christ gives composure in the final hour. "Oh, yes," you say, "I saw my father and mother depart. There was a great difference in their death-beds. Standing by the one we felt more veneration. By the other, there was more tenderness. Before the one, you bowed perhaps in awe. In the other case, you felt as if you would like to go along with her How did they feel in that last hour? How did they seem to act? Were they very much frightened? Did they take hold of this world with both hands as though they did not want to give it up ! "Oh, no," you say ; "no, I remember as though it were yesterday; she had a kind word for us" all, and there were a few mementoes distributed among the children, and then she told us how kind we must be to our father in his loneli ness, and then she kissed us good-bye and went asleep as a child in a cradle.^ What made her so composed? Natural courage? "No," you say ; "mother was very nervous; when the carriage in clined to the side of the road she would cry out ; she was always rather weakly." What, then, gave her composure ? AVas it because she did not care much for you, and the pang of parting was not great? "Oli," you say, "she showered upon us a wealth of affection; no mother ever loved her children more than mother loved us; she showed it by the way she nursed us when we were sick, and she toiled for us until her strength gave out." What, then, was it that gave her com posure in the last hour? Do not hide it. Be frank and let me know. "Oh," you say, "it was because she was so good ; she made the Lord her portion, and she had faith that she would go straight to glory, and that we should all meet her at last at the foot of the throne." Here are people who say: "I saw a Christian brother die, and lie triumphed." And some one else : "1 saw a Christian sister die, and she triumphed." Some one else will say: "I saw a Christian daughter die and she triumphed." Come, all ye who have seen the last moments of a Christian, and give testimony in this cause on trial. Uncover your heads, put your hand on the old family Bible from which they used to read the promises, and promise in the presence of high Heaven that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With what you have seen with your own eyes, and from what you have heard with your own ears, is there power in this Gospel to give calmness and triumph in the last exigency ? The response comes from all sides, from young and old, and middle-aged* We are witnesses!" You see, my friends, I have not put before you an abstraction, or a chimera, or anything like guess work. 1 present you affidavits of the best men and women, living and dead. Two witnesses in court will establish a fact. Here are not two witnesses but thousands of witnesses— on earth millions of witnesses, and in Heaven a great multitude of witnesses that no man can number, testifying that there is power in this religion to convert the soul, to give comfort in trouble, and to afford composure in the last hour. If ten men should come to you when you are sick with appalling sickness, and say they had the same sickness, and took a certain medicine, and it cured them, you would probably take it. Now, sup pose ten other men should come up and say, "We don't believe there is anything in that medicine." "Well," I say, "have you ever tried it?" "No. 1 never tried it, but I don't be lieve there is anything in it." Of course you discredit their testimony. The skeptic may come and say : "There is no power in your religion." "Have you ever tried it?" "No, no." "Then, avaunt!" Let me take the testimony of the millions of souls that have been con verted to God, and comforted in trial and solaced in the last hour. We will take their testimony as they cry: "We are witnesses !" Some time ago Professor Henry, of Washington, discovered a new star, and the tidings sped by submarine telegraph, and all the observatories of Europe were watching for that new star. Oh, hearer, looking out through the darkness of thy soul, canst thou see a bright light beaming on thee ? "Where ?" you say, "where ?" How can I find it?" Look along by the line of the cross of the Son of God. Do you not see it trembling with all tender ness and beaming with all hope? It is the Star of Bethlehem. Deep horror then my vitals froze, Death-struck 1 ceased the tide to stem, When suddenly a star arose— It was the Star of Bethlehem. Oh, hearer, gel your eye on it. It is easier for you now to become Christians than it is to stay away from Christ and Heaven. When Madame Sontag began her musical career she was hissed off the stage at Vienna by the friends of her rival, Amelia Steininger, who had already begun to decline through her dissipation. Years passed on, and one day Madame Sontag, in her glory, was riding through the streets of Berlin, when she saw a little child leading a blind woman, and she said : "Come here, my little child, come here. Who is that you are leading by the hand?" And the little child ro plied: "That's my mother ; that's Amelia Steininger. She used to be a great singer, but she lost her voice, and she cried so much about it that she lost her eyesight." "Give my love to her," said Madame Son tag, and tell her an old acquaintance will call on her this afternoon." The next week in Berlin a vast assem blage gathered at a benefit for that poor blind woman, and it was said that Mad ame Sontag sang that night as she had never sung before. And she took a skilled oculist, who in vain tried to give eyesight to the poor blind woman. Until the day of Amelia Steininger's death, Madame Sontag took care of her, and her daughter after her. That was what the queen of song did for her enemy. But, oh, hear a more thrilling story still Blind, immortal, poor and lost, thou who, when the world and Christ were rivals foi thy heart, didst hiss thy Lotd away—Christ comes now to give thee sight, to give thee a home, to give thee Heaven. With more than a Son tag's generosity He comes now to meet you I need. With more than a Sontag's music He comes to plead for thy deliver ance. A GHASTLY I'LASTER CAST. Horrible Memento of the Martyrdom of a Moorish Christian. There is a curious object of interest in the Algiers museum— a ghastly plaster cast of the Christian martyr Ger'onimo, writhing in the agony of death. Tradition has for 300 years told the story of the Moorish lad" wno, coming under the influence of Spanish missionary monks, became a Christian and a saint. He abjured the faith, it was said, for a brief moment under the pressure of bitter persecution and slavery, but returned to it with new zeal, and proved it in the end by a heroic and horrible death—that of being thrown alive, with his hands tied behind him, into a block of liquid concrete, which was afterward built into the wall of one of the outlying forts near the city. Such is the tradition, singularly and literally true in the minutest details, as was proved in 1853, when part of a fort was demolished, and a block of concrete found containing the accurate impression of the writhing body, face downward, and the hands tied with cords behind the back. The block itself was deposited with great honor in what used to be a Mohammedan mosque, lint is now the Roman Catholic cathedral of the town.—-Dublin Freeman. a of of of of in FISCAL FIGURES. VASTS ESS ANI) SIGNIFICANCE OF GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS. Easy Illustrations Which Explain the Enormous Dimensions of the Treasury of the Country—Weight of the Surplus in Vulgar Pounds— Interest-bearing Debt. Few persons perhaps who read the fre quently published reports of the fiscal operations of the government give any consideration to the vastness and signifi cance of the operations. People read of the hundreds of millions of gold and silver in the treasury, but how few per sons have any intelligent idea of what is embraced in the ten figures required to describe the liabilities and assets of the government! It is only when the auiif erous contents of the treasury vaults aie weighed and measured and placed by the side of articles and commodities that are daily handled by the masses that an in telligent comprehension can be obtained by the people of the financial strength of the treasury, the great extent of the government's fiscal operations. By ref erence to the latest published state ment of treasury assets and liabili ties, it appears that among the assets were $281,21)6,417 in gold, and nearly $251,000,000 in silver, including 34,000,000 of trade dollars and fractional coins. Taking up these $281,000,000 of gold and placing them on the scales, it is found that the gold held by the treasury weighs 519 tons, and, if packed into ordinary carts, one ton to each cart, it would make a procession two miles long, allow ing twenty feet of space for the move ment of each cart. The weighing of the silver produces much more interesting results. Its weight is 7,300 tons. Meas uring it in carts, as in the ease of the gold, the silver now held by the treasury would require the services of 7,396 horses and carts to transport it, and would make a procession over twenty-one miles in length. The "surplus," about which so much is said in the dwily newspapers, amounts to nearly $47,000,00(1, an increase of $5,000 000 since July 1. Counted as gold the surplus would weigh eighty-six and one half tons; counted as silver it would weigh 1,385 tons. Each million of gold adds 3,685 pounds to the surplus and each million of silver adds 58,930 pounds. Ap plying cubic measurements to the treasury gold and silver, and piling the two metals on Pennsylvania avenue as cord wood is piled before delivery to the purchaser, the gold would measure thirty seven cords and the silver 400 cords, and both would form a solid wall eight j feet high and four feet broad for a distance ; of seven-eighths of a mile. Extending these calculations and comparisons to the interest-bearing debt equally interest ing results are obtained. The public debt reached the highest point in August, 1865, just twenty-two vears ago, when it was $2,381,530,295. The general reader will better appreciate the vastness of the sum when informed that it represents 70,156 tons of silver, which would make a procession of carts that would extend from Richmond, Va., to a point twelve miles north of Philadelphia, the distance it would thus cover being 265 miles. The interest-bearing debt is now, not includ lnteresi-oearinir ueoi is nu» , : in? the Pacific railroad bonds, $1,001,- j 976,850, showing that the sum paid has been $1,379,553,445, or more than one half of the total amount, and represent ing 40,637 tons of silver dollars, which would extend 154 miles, if packed in carts containing one ton each. Reducing these figures to a basis where they may be intelligently compre hended and that the rapidity with which the government has reduced its bonded debt may be fully realized by the general reader, the reduction has been at the average rate of $62,706,975 each year, $5,225,581 each month, $174,186 each day, $7,258 each hour and $120 47 for every minute of the entire twenty-two years. Pursuing the calculation to the smallest divisible space of time, the bonded debt of the United States has been decreased at the rate of two dollars and seven mills for every second, or for every swing of the pendulum, for the entire period from August 31, 1865, to July 31,1887. This is an exhibition of recuperation and ma terial progress on the part of thecountry and of sterling honesty and integrity on lh« part of the government and people that is without parallel in the world's history. THE MON KEY AND IIIS PROBLEM. He Returns to His Native Haunt« With a Bottled Conundrum. The author of "Under the Punkah'' tells an amusing incident of his life in India. He had given to a tame monkey a lump of sugar inside u corked bottle. The monkey was of an inquiring kind, and the effort to get at the mystery—and the sugar—nearly killed him. Sometimes, in an impulse of disgust, he would throw the bottle away, out of his reach, and then be distracted until it was given back to him. At other times he would sit with a counte nance of the most intense dejection, contem plating the bottled sugar, and then, as if pulling himself together for another effort at solution, would sternly take up the problem afresh and gaze into the bottle. He would tilt it up one way and try to drink the sugar through the cork, and then, suddenly re versing it, try to catch the sugar as it fell out at the bottom. Under the impression that be could catch it by surprise, he kept rapping his teeth against theglass in futile bites, and, warming to the pursuit of the revolving lump, used to tie himself into regular knots round the bottle. Fits of the most ludicrous melan choly would alternate with these spasms of furious speculation, and how the matter would have ended it is impossible to say. But the inoukey got loose one night and took the bottle with him , and it has always been a delight to me to think that whole forestalls of monkeys have by this time puzzled themselves into fits over the great problem of buttled sugar.— Youth's Com panion. Bait for .Beaux. "My dear girl," said a fond father to his daughter, "surely you're uot going to take all those trunks to Saratoga with you?" "Yes, papa, every one, and they are few enough." "But what in the world have you got in 'em "Bait, papa," said the dear girl brightly.— A'eu) York Sun. It is said that the convict population of the United States, not counting the rogues out of jail, is 64,349, or one to every 930 inhab itants. j driven Robertson out of office ; , OFFICIAL niXOKl M. One of tlio Results of a Non-partisan Civil Service. One of the advantages of a non-par tisan civil service is that public officials constitute a happy family, who are keenly alive to their community of in terest, and act in unison for the common benefit of their class. In this country the contending parties look sharply after the offices, and public officials must be constantly ready to endure sharp scru tiny and criticism. Hence the clamor that surrounds the conduct of American politics, which is in such sharp contrast with the quiet decorum of official life in England. There the gravest offense is one against decorum, and hence Lord Beiesford is in trouble. In the recent naval review, Lord Beresford, who is first Lord of the Admiralty, was on the royal yacht with the Queen. Signals were displayed from the yacht which, being interpreted, were as follows : "Tell Lady Charles to go at once on board the yacht Lancashire W itch, where I will join her." For any one to ßiimal a private message from the royal vacht was regarded as an outrageous breach of decorum, and Lord Beresford felt constrained to offer his resignation. The case of Mr. Robertson, clerk of the architect's department of the London Board of Works, is quite different. Ile has a salary of $2,250 a year, on which he lives in grand style, keeping his carriage and a liveried coachman. For a long while contractors, builders and architects have grumbled that it was impossible to do any business with the "board unless such and such architects were employed or such and such manufacturers' goods purchased, the persons being friends of Mr. Robertson. Recently several of these grumblers made a row about the fact that some valuable and coveted sites controlled by the board had been let at low rates to Mr. Robert son's brothers, and it was found that Mr. Robertson had himself invested $15,000 of his savings in the speculation. An investigation was held and the board by a vote of twenty-four to twenty decided that Mr. Robertson's conduct had been injudicious, but a proposal that he should be dismissed was rejected by twenty-five to nineteen. So Mr. Rob ertson still continues to receive the modest salary on which he thrives so well. The great London dailies were not sufficiently interested in the case to print the details of the investiga tion, such scandals being offensive to public decorum. In this country the papers would have made a disgusting racket about the affair that would have for Such au Envoy in the United States. One of the charges which Dr. McGlynn pours fourth so copiously against the church of which he still claims to be a : j member is that it entertains the design 0 f securing recognition to a papal nuncio We have a class of political aesthetes in this country who greatly admire the placid quiet of official life in England, and would like to see it established in this country, but they may be disap pointed. TIIE PAPAL NUNCIO. No Chance in this country. Cardinal Gibbons has denied this, and his denial will be gen erally accepted as conclusive. It may well be, however, that the appointment of a papal nuncio has been discussed in some quarters, but on the slightest re flection the proposal is seen to be so out of place that it is not likely ever to be seriously taken up by the authorities of the church. The structure of our na tional government is such that a papal nuncio could not have any functions whatsoever. To address the President on the affairs of the church would bring up a subject with which he has nothing in the world to do. The matter of the appointment of a papal nuncio to England was recently brought forward, and was the subject of a memorandum drawn up for the Pope by Cardinal Manning, a summary of which was given in the London Tablet. Cardinal Manning put the case in a way that is as pertinent to the state of the Roman Catholic Church in this country as in Europe. While holding that in countries where the church has a legal re lation as such to the state a nuncio may have important functions to discharge, he declares that "in a land like England, where the Catholic Church has no con nection of any kind whatever with the sovereign or the state; where the civil power has no right at all to make its voice heard in the nomination of bish ops. where the church relies merely on the common law of the land like all other subjects, then it cannot be seen what there remains for a nuncio to do. Ile could exercise no influence of any kind whatsoever on legislation or its appli cation. lie could claim nothing for bishops and priests which the lat ter could not claim directly from the government, if they desired it. The welfare of the church in England consists precisely in this, that she has no privi leges, and that she stands on the ground of common rights that are the same for all. A nuncio would thus bring no ad vantages. he would only do harm." This is precisely the case in this coun try, and it can hardly be doubted that Cardinal Gibbons and the heads of the Honian Catholic Church here share Car dinal Manning's views on this matter. An Unreasonable Mule. Sam Johnsing, an Austin colored man, has a mule that balks. After bam had belabored the mule for an hour the animal trotted off all right. "liar " said Sam confidentially to the mule, "dar, yer see. Ef y er would only do what's right we mout lib tergedder jes like two brudders."— Texas üiftings. Easy of Adjustment. Life at Newport—Mr. S.—"If I am not at home by twelve o'clock do not be anxious." Mrs. 8.—"And if I am not here when you return, dear, you needn't worry."— Life. PERSONAL TITLLS. BILL CODY'S CREAT SPLURGE IN LONDON SOCIETY. Since Receiving Royal Approval He Now Has Honorable Prefixed to His Name Some of the Differences Between Ameri can and English Ideas on Equality. Bill Cody, since his Wild West Show ha3 been honored with royal approval in Eng land, is respectfully styled the Hon. Wm. F. Cody by the London papers, owing to the fact that he was once a member of the Nebraska Legislature. This moves a ponderous Tory organ, St. James' Gazette, to the publication of an erudite article showing that titles of honor are not rec ognized by the laws of this country, and it regards the abundance of titles in America as evidence of a popular craving too strong for the constitution to re strain. The great prevalence of colonels, especially, it says, presents "a difficulty that must have occurred to every English man who has traveled much in the States." An Englishman trained to regard a title as a very serious and important thing must indeed be confounded by the abundance of "kunnels," "majahs" and "jedges" in this country. John Phoenix in one of his stories tells how on once setting sail from San Francisco he felt lonesome, because he alone of the pas sengers had no friends down to the wharf to see him off, and to conceal the fact he waved his hand as the boat started and called, "Good-bye, colonel, whereupon every man on the wharf said, "Good-bye, old fellow; take care of your self." Had our English friend been a bystander he might have thought, "Good 'evens, what a big army this blarsted country must 'ave 1" but such titles in this country are well under stood to be mere conventions of speech, signifying nothing but the ordinary civilities of life. They are the lubricants of casual intercourse. To address a stranger as "Mister" is too formal for this land of republican equality. Where the sense of fraternity is strong and the common bearing is familiar, as in the far Western country, "Pardner" is accepted as a proper initial salutation in making a friendly approach; but colonel or judge or captain is everywhere regarded as an appropriate title for use in chance meet ings between free and equal citizens. This is a free country and titles are open to all. A colored society in Baltimore, Md., has for its chief officer "a Most Royal King," who has his Grand Right and Left-hand Supporters. The polite and deferential clerk who waits on you in a store may be the Most Sublime and Right Worthy Ruler of his beneficial society, and for aught you can tell the man who drives the wagon that brings , your purchases home is a Most Exalted and Puissant Autocrat when in his lodge. But there the matter ends; however grand the titles employed by the Combined Brotherhood of Mutual Iloney fuglers at their meetings, nobody feels a bit the better or worse for having them or lacking them. The really funny thing is that in England people actually do attach great importance to these tags to names; and whether aman is Mr. Smith or the Iluke of Smythe makes a great difference in his sense of self -importance. In England every one looks up to some one and looks down upon some other one, and titles are revered as marking the gradations of society. There is nothing in the historical origin of titles to commend them to respect. They date from the decay of the Roman empire, when slaves and Rienials obtained the imperial purple and tried to soothe their uneasy sense of mean extraction by grandiloquent titles. Appellations that Cœsar or Augustus would have scorned were adopted by their weak and ignoble successors; and as the empire became weak and con temptible titles grew in magnificence. Europe, in falling heirto Roman civiliza tion, adopted the system of titles, and has ever since retained it. Republican dignity has made them a joke and a com monplace in this country. THE GEORGIAN AND IIIS MELON. An Occasion When One is Company And Two a Wasteful Multitude. J The true Georgia epicurean never ap proaches a watermelon until he has turned his back upon the effete civilization of the city. The slaughter of the melon rep resents a sacrifice which is as much out of place at a dinner table as a dish of deviled crab at a satyr's feast. It is an idyl of the fields that becomes a very dreary thing in deed robbed of its surroundings. The prep arations for the simple ceremony are few. One must go into the patch at early dawn, when the dew on the grass is heavy enough to wet his trousers nearly to the knee, and stealthily, even though com mitting no trespass—but if it be a trespass so much the better—remove a melon to the pellucid bottom of a spring. At about eleven o'clock, when the sun is high and the heat is trembling along the surface of the field, he should quietly carry his prize over to a snake fence, under the shade of a persimmon tree, and, having drawn a jack-knife's blade only rind deep longitudinally around the melon, thump the latter upon the top rail until tue inner structure is ruptured. The officiating priest then seats himseil flat aground and prepares for the final Ç^e mony. Never in his life does a man teel tue need of company less than at such a moment. A melon invariably divides with a hollow in one half and a great bulging cliff of meat. in the other, if there be company present ttie struggle that ensues between appetite ami politeness sears the soul beyond repair, i o man living ever tendered the fat halt oi melon to another and reserved tor bimse the hollow delusion but felt his existence embittered. No; absolute solitude at ttiis. critical moment is the greatest boon that can beconferred ; in fact, itisnecessary to tne na monv of the idvl. If he be alone the epicure, as our Boston friend would call him, pr out hunks of red meat with his knife and uses his fingers after the primitive manner of the true child of the soil to convey them to his mouth ; and as he eats, being skilled, the black seeds drop from the corner ot his mouth upon the bosom of the grand old mother earth, and the mocking b mi balanced upon the topmost branch far abo\ - him, furnishes the hidden music tor feast.— Macon Tdeyraph.