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DILL AHP'S LETTER i William Agists GrandchiUrrn la Eclvii; Problems. TOO IMED ON IKE LITTLE ONES Cartow Philosopher Discusses Modern Methods of Teaching and Re- t cords Hie Disapproval Thereof. If twothlrd3 of a, houso costs four fifths of the lot arid both together cost 14,400, how much was paid for each? Well, that Bum Is easy If you know how to do it. Our little school girl has nio to help her every night and some cf these tangled up sums strain my old fashioned mind, for the rult of threo is abolished and new methods adopted. I remember a sum in the old Smiley arithmetic If six men can cut four acres of wheat in three days by work ing six hours a day, how many men will It take to cut nine acres In four lays and work eight hours a day? These perplexing problems remind me cf Judge Pob Strozler's charge- to the jury In a horse case, where the plain tiff sued for damages because the horse he 'bought was a stump-sucker and wouldn't work on the off side. Four teen witnesses had testified, some for and some against the horse, some for glanders but not for stump-sucking, 6ome for stump-sucking but not for glanders, and some swore he was eound and some unsound. Gentle men," eaid he, "if you believe that the horse had the glandors but didn't ctump suck, or that he sucked stumps but didn't have the glanders, or that glanders Is an unsoundness but stump tucking is only a habit, or if the horse wouldn't pull when worked on the off side and couldn't be cured of It, though tii. Vourt knows from experi ence that L Xmld be cured of it; or If you believe from the evidence that the horse was not warranted sound as against stump-sucking and off-siding, I but only against such material things , as glanders and swlney and the like, then you must find for the plaintiff or the defendant according to the weight of the testimony." My candid opinion is that some of these miscellaneous problems are too perplexing for children not yet in their teens, and if parents or grandparents or uncles or aunts or somebody don't - -.gve help the child would give up in de spair. I have often wondered how those pupils got along who had no --help. My father helped me all my school life and my wife and I have helped our children. It is Impossible for a school teacher to give patient at tention to each child where there are thirty or forty pupils In the grades. v , Only five hours to teaca In and four or five different text-books for each pupil and book, while it tanes me half t- 'and hour every night for one pupil In one book. Hence it is that only a few pupils get a fair education la a grad ed school only those who are bright and willing and have help at home. ;f Parents that can't help or won't help lose their home influence over their children. Every phase of their educa tion is turned over to the public school, which Is a free machine and teaches books only, morals, mocesty and obe dience are not in the curriculum. Many little children are sent there to - ecu mem uui ui tiien uiuuiers way, ior she has work to do or shopping or vis- iting, or must go to the club. Never theless, a few make good scholars and good citizens, and for their sake the system must go on. It is no better in the colleges, for the most charitable estimate is that not more than ten lu a hundred ever make a creditable suc- .Nces8 in life. The ninety had just as well not been born, but the ten will Save Sodom, and It will be found that these ten got their best education at home. Good morals, good DrlnciDles. obedience, self-denial, industry, kind ness and good manners are a better foundation to build on than books. To make the home happy and Inviting Is the secret of all success. The family is a more Important institution than the school, and love is the keystone of the family. I scolded a little grandson the other day and he got mad and went off and told his little cousin that grand ' pa was mean and he was going to tell his mamma on him. Next morning he came to see us again and came to me and kissed me and it made us both happy. A little granddaughter was troubled because her baby brother was rl--Jck and the doctor was sent for. She lourned over It tearfully and then frightened up and said: "Well, If baby dies I am going to keep him for a doll." The Innocent prattle and sports of these children is my greatest comfort, md it almost grieves me that they have to grow up and encounter trouble grief and misfortune. George lt Jincis Train may be a crank, but I Oad rather be him In that park with a score or two of happy children around ,me every day than to he I'ierpont Mor gan or Rockefeller. It Is pathetic to l"'k nf thai iiMii wno In tiuw punt it 1.1 M'Vi my years, who lias traveled all over the world; lived In Australia, lec tured In Kr.gland. Ireland and the Uni ted S!at s Id laboring tr.en; written and had published many bookx of trav el and biography, ami at last discarded all contact with m n and society and Fettled down to daily communion with little children in the public parks In New York city. Accompanied by a friend I got quite near to him once, for I wanted to hear his conversation with the children, but ho turned and f-aw us, and, taking up his little ban ket of dainties, walk d away to an other siat and soon had another crowd around him, and the only reason he gives for his peculiar conduct Is, "For of such is the kingdom of heaven." I am aaln comforted with new books-. Geoire Smith has sent me his lotff-t edition of his delightful and In structive bi-ok. "The Story of Georgia." P. is a contribution to the history of our state that every Georgian should have in he house. It Is replete with the -.oniances cf our revolutionary his tory aro tnc biography or our noted men and comes down to the period of the civil war, where Colonel Avery and Semmes and Kell took It up. There has just been published another Interesting and Instructive book by General S. G. French. The title la "Two Wars," an autobiography being the part he and his command played in the Mexican and the confederate wars. The author was a prominent factor In both, and he Is a vigorous, pleasing and graphic writer. The book is happily Introduced by Bishop Elli son Capers, of South Carolina. It is published by The Confederate Veter an at Nashville, Tenn. It is dedicated ' to the confederate soldiers who bat tled to maintain the causo for which Oliver Cromwell and George Washing ton fought." it Is Indeed gratifying to see our own people multiplying our own histories and thereby fortifying this generation against the malignant and slanderous productions of such authors as the great Goldwin Smith and the small Maclay. It takes a lot of work to keep up with them fellows. I think we are about even with the Roosevelt Incident and the miscege nation crowd. Maybe we are a little ahead. We have all had our say and can afford to wait. I still think that Roosevelt Is a better man than I think he Is, but he Is In awful bad company. Bill Arp, in Atlanta Constitution. We are ready to enter your name or. our subscription books. You will not miss the 6mall sum necessary to he coma our customer. VIRGINIA'S NATURAL TUNNEL. Caid to be as Interesting a Curiosity as the Natural Bridge. Said to Be as Interesting a Curiosity as the Natural Bridge. While the tourist comes from afar to view the Natural Bridge, and carries away forever photographed on his memory the stupendous spectacle, yet the natural tunnel of Scott County is conceded by most people who have seen them both to surpass the bridge in grandeur and sublimity of scenery. 1 he tunnel is situated fourteen miles west of Gate City. Stone Creek, a considerable stream, flows through it. and at high tide rushes along its cav ernous bed with, a noise resembling the heaviest thunder. The tunnel is about one-eighth of 'a mile in length, and curves in the form of a letter S. A.t its southern entrance it is very high, the noble ceiling bending gracefully, forming a circular dome, as smooth and regular as if hollowed out by the hand of art. From this point it grad ually ("im'.nishes in size, the roof com ing down till, at the northern entrance it reaches to within thirty feet of the surface of the water. The northern ('.eclivity above ihe tunnel is irregular and presents little attraction except its bold and rugged height, but the south ern side fully compensates for all de ficiencies. Here a perpendicular wail, almost as smooth as polished marble and as white as alabaster, rises 400 feet high and curves in such a manner that to one looking up from below the regular rim presents a complete semi circle. In the spring time the summit of the wall is fringed with green inter twined with honeysuckles. On the east ern side Chimney Rock, an irregular but perpendicular column, rises from the bottom of the chasm to the level of the plateau above, standing clear of the wall from base to summit. The ridge through which the tunnel extends is covered with a heavy growth of timber, and a public highway, leading from Clinchport to Rye Cove, passes along its crest. The Virginian and Southwestern Railroad has been constructed through the tunnel, and presents, perhaps, the only instance of a railroad running through a natural tunnel. Owing to the curvature the railroad company had to tunnel through the angular pro jection near the northern entrance, thus making a double tunnel. Scott County Leader. If you have something to sell, let the people know it. An advertisement in this paper will do the work. DR. TALMAGES SERMON SUNDAY'S DISCOURSE BY TH" NOTED DIVIN. Subject 1 Tim KweM 1 nfliirnce Wi Art Aflt-t'tAtl For Ji,l or i:tl lly I oicr. That H' hl,l,jin Itrritvlie Import ance of (.odil A l loin. tf'ojyr'Kli'. 11,1 Washington-, ). C.-Iu this discourse Dr. Ta Image demount! aW that we are affected by forces tlmt we seldom recog nize mid enlarges upon human accounta bility. The text in Job xr.iu, 31 , "Cnrint t i u biud the sweet iniitlen :c of Pleiades?" Whut i the moaning of that quention which God pat to Job? Have we all our lives been rending it, and are moot of us kno'-ant of it beauty and power mid practical sueitivencos? A mean ingles tttssagp of Scripture many thought it to be, but the telescoped were buy age after ;, and astronomical obnr rvations kept on questioning the skies until the mean ing of my text comes out lustrously. The Pleiades la n constellation of Be veil star apneanng to the naked eye, but scien tific instruments reveal more than 4K) pronerly belonging to the group. Alcyone is the name of the brightest s!ar of "that group called the Pleiades. A Russian as tronomer observed that Alcyone is the centre of gravitation of our solar system. Hugh Macmillan Hays that the sun and its planets wheel around that centre at the rate of 422.000 miles a day in an oroit which it will take J'J,0!W,0iHj" years to com plete. The Pleiades appear in the spring time and are associated with (lowers and genial warmth and pood weather. The narration of the Mediterranean was from May to November, the rising and the setting of the Pleiades. The priests of liclus noticed that rising and setting 2000 years .before Christ. Now, the glorious meaning; of my text is plain as well as radiant. To give Job the beautiful grace of humility Cod asked him, "Canst thou bind the sweet influ ences of the Pleiades''"' Have you any Dower over the laws of cravitation? Can you modify or change an influence wielded by a star more thin 4)0.000 miles nwayr Can vou control the winds of the spring time? Can you call out the flowers? How little yon know compared with omnis cience? How little you can do compared with omnipotence! The probability is that Job had been tempted to nrrogr.nce by his vast attain ments. He was a metallurgist, a zoolog ist, a poet, and shows by his writings he had knowledge of hunting, of music, of husbandry, of medicine, of mining, of astronomy and perhaps was so far ahead of the scholars and scientists of his time that he may have been somewhat pulled up; hence this interrogation of my text. And there is nothing that so soon takes down human pride as an interrogation point rightly thrust. Christ used it mightily. Paul mounted the parapet of his great arguments with such a battery. Men of the world understand it. Demos thenes began his speech to the crown and Cicero his oration- against Catiline and Lord Chatham his most famous orations with a question. The empire of ignor ance is so much vaster than the empire of knowledge that after the most learned and elaborate disquisition upon any sub ject of sociology or theology the plainest man may ask a ouestion that will make the wisest speechless. After the pro foufidest assault upon Christianity the humblest disciple may make an inquiry that would faience a Voltaire. Called upon, as we all are at times, to defend our holy religion, instead of argu ment that ran always Vie answered Vy argument let us try liie power of interro gation. We ought to be loaded with at least half a dozen questions and always ready, and when Christianity is assailed, and we are told there is nothing in it and there is no Cod and there never was a miracle and that the Scriptures are un reasonable and cruel and that there nev er will be a judgment day, take out of your portable armory of interrogation something like this: What makes the condition of woman in Christian lands better than in heathen lands? Do you think it would be kind in God to turn the human ra-ce into a world without any written revelation to explain and en courage and elevate and save? And if a revelation was made, which do you pre fer the Zenda-Vesta of the Persian or the Confucian writings of the Chinese or the Koran of Mohammed or our Bible? If Christ is not a divine being, what did He mean when ITe said. "Before Abram was, I am?" If the Bible is ft bad book, what are the evil results of reading it? Did you see any degrading influence of the book in your father or mother or sister who used to read it? Do you not think that a judgment day is necessary in order to explain and fix UP things that were never explained or fixed up? If our religion is illogical and an imposition upon human credulity, why were Herschel and Washington and Glad stone and William McKinley its advo cates? How did it happen that our religion furnished the theme for the greatest poem ever written, "Paradise Lost," and to the painters their greatest themes in the "Adoration of the Maji," "The Transfiguration," "The Last Supper," "The Crucifixion," "The Entombment," "The Last Judgment," and that , all the tchools of painting put forth their utmost genius in presenting "The Madonna?" Why was it that William Shakespeare after amazing the world as he will amaze the centuries with the splendor and pow er of "The Merchant of Venice," and "Coriolanus," and "Richard III.," and "King Lear " and "Othello," and "Mac beth," and Hamlet" wrote with his own hand his last will and testament, begin ning it with the words: "In the name of God, amen! I, William Shakespeare, of Stratford-on-Avon, in the County of Warwick, in perfect health and memory (God be praised!) do make and ordain this my last will and testament, through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Sav iour, to be made partaker of liie ever lasting and my body to the earth whereof it is made?" Had Shakespearei lost his reason when he wrote his faith in Christ and the great atonement? Put your an tagonist a few questions like that, and you will find him excusing himself for an engagement he must meet immediately. These words also recognize far-reaching influences. Job probably had no adequate idea of the distance of the worlds men tioned from our world, but he knew them to be far off, and we, who have had the advantage of modern sidereal inves tigation, ought to be still more impressed than was Job with the question of the text, as it puts before us the fact that worlds hundreds of thousands of miles distant have a grip on our world. There are swept influences which hold U3 from afar. There may have been in our an cestral line perhaps 200 years ago some consecrated man or woman who has held over all the generations since an influ ence for good which we have no power to realize, and we ii turn by our virtue or vice may influence those who biiall live ?'") ye im ?rom now. . i ((mvriimot, is ns pownful m nuitpiml gr.twiation, and if, as my text ti-u lns n I e, i''nc con-' linns, the Pleiades, vlmh me indlioni of mill I' from our earth, influence the arth we oiu'ht to be impretiM d with how may , influenced by olh' rs jar away back and how we may influence other lar down the future. That nil away up nmniiii the Alleglmnies, no thin you think it will hardly tmd ita way down the rocks, become the mighty Ohio, roll ing into the MiKsntrfippi and rolling into tli e. That word you utier, that deed yml do, may auument itself a the Venn go by until rivers cense to roll and tha ocean itself imiiil ba dried up in the burn ing of the world. Puul, who wa all tli time (ayin important things, said noth ing more Martlmgly suggestive than when he declared. "None of in liveth or dietli to himself." Words, thosajdits, actions, hare an eternity of flight. As Job could not bind the sweet in fluences of the Seven Stars, as they were called, an we cannot arreat or turn aaide the good projected loutf ag,o. Thoso in fluences Mere marled centuries before our cradle was rocked and will rei?n cen turies after our graves are dinr. Ob, it in a tremendous thing to live! Cod help ua to be aright. Astronomers ran easily locate the Ple iades. They will take you into their oh servatoriis on a clear night and aim their revealing instrument toward the part in the heavens where those seven stars have tliejr habitude, and thev will point to the constellation Taurus, anti yuu tnn mi'. for yourself. But it is impossible to fjoint to influences far back that have affected our character and will affect our ('e.stiny. We know the influences near by pa ternal, maternal, conjugal but by the time we have gone buck two generations, or. at most, three, our investigations falter and fail. Through the modern, interesting habit of searching back to find tne ancestral tree we may find a long list of names, but they are only names. The const eration or abandon ment of some one 200 years ago was not recorded. It would not be so important if you and I. by our pood or bad be havior, blessed or blasled only tho.--i im mediately around us, but our goodness or our badness will reach as fur r.s the strongest ray of Alcyone yea, across the eternity. C'ndrr this "consideration, what rlo you think of those who give themselves up to- frivolity or idleness and throw away fifty years of their exist, enee as though they wer? shells or peb bles or pods instead of embyro eternities? I suppose one of the greatest surprises of the next world will be to see what wide, far-reaching influence for cood or evil we have all everted. I am sneaking of ourselves, who are only ordinary peo ple. But who can fully appreciate tlr far-reaching good done by men of wealth in Great Britain for the working classes Mr. Lister, of Bradford; Edward Akrovd, of Halifax: Thomas Sikcs, of lluddersneld; Joseph Wentworth. and Josiah Mason, and Sir Titus Salt? This last great soul, with his vast wealth, pro vided 756 houses at cheap rent for 3iH)0 Marking people, and chapel and cricket ground and croquet lawn and concert hall and savings bank, where they might deposit some of their earnings, and life insurance for those who looked further ahead, and bathhouses and parks and museums and lecture halls with philosophical apparatus, the generous example of those men of a previous gen eration being copied in many places in Canada and the United States, making lite, which would otherwise be a pro longed drudgery, an inspiration and a joy. If something appears against us, they say. "Wait till I hear the other side. If disaster shall befall us, we know from wnom woujd come the first condolence. Family friends, church friends, business friends, lifelong friends. In our heart oi hearts we cherish them. When the heirs of a vast estate in England wished to establish their claim to property worth $100,000,000 they offered a reward of SoUO ior the recovery ot an old Bible, the family record of which contained the evidence requisite. But any Bible, new or old, can help us to & vaster inheritance than the one spoken o:, one that never lades away. The sweet influences of the heavenly world, which many wise men thought for a long while was Alcyone, the centre of the constellation of the Pleiades world of our future residence, as we hope: World of chorus and illumination: world of reunion; world where we shall be everlastingly complete; world where our old faculties will be itensified and quick ened and new faculties implanted; world of high association with Christ, through whose grace we got there at all, and apostles and poets, Habakkuk, and St. John of Patmoe, and Edward Young, his "Night Thoughts" turned into eternal day: and lioratius Bonar of modern hymnology, and Hannah More, and Mrs. Itemans, ana Mrs. bigourney, who strucK their harps till nations listened; and David, the victor over Goliath with what seemed insufficient weapons; and Joshua of the prolonged day in Gibeon, and Havelock, the evangelist hero, and those thousands of men of the sword who fought on the right side. What company to move in! What guests to entertain! What personages to visit! What choirs to chant! What banquets with lifted chalice filled with "the new wine of the kingdom!" What victories to celebrate! The stories of that world and its holy hilarities come in upon our souls some times in song, sometimes in sermon, sometimes in hours of solitary reflection, and they are, to use the words of my text, sweet influences. But there is one gtar that affects us more with its sweet influences than the centre star, the Alcyone of the Pleiades, and that is what one Bible author calls the Star of Jacob and another Bible author calls the Morn ing Star. Of all the sweet influences tha have ever touched our earth those that radiate from Christ are the sweetest. Born an Asiatic villager, in a mechanic's home, living more among hammers and eaws and planes than among books, yet at twelve years of age confounding robed ecclesiastics and starting out a mission under which those born without optic nerve tool; in the clear daylight and those afflicted with unresponsive tympa num were made to hear and those almost doubled up with deformities were straightened into graceful poise and the leprous became rubicund and the widow's only son exchanged the bier on which !he lay lifeless for the arms of his over joyed mother and pronouncing nine bene dictions on the Mount of Beatitudes and doing deeds and speaking words which are tilling the centuries with sweet in fluences. Christ started every ambulance, kindled every electric ray, spread everv soft hospital pillow and introduced all the alleviations and pacifications and rescues aud mercies of all time. He was the loveliest being that ever trod our earth more beauty in Ills eyes, more tenderness in His manner, mora gentleness in His foot.-iteps, more nusic in His voice, more dignity in His brow. more Kracefulaeas in the locks that rolled upon His ifiou!der, i tore ci:;,-. i n His aou). Sweet influence of th, !!( 'v Ci. ..!, with nil Hi ti aii'-i '1111111!.; ai 1 ' : ' i., ; n nd eii!!i( iji.it ii; p.)t r. W Ih ,i tli.iS, power m luiiy fe.t th'ic will " iio Hue cms to pai dull, and no luiu.' ciroi ti eorrei t, nnd no nine surtou ti nun fort, and l more bmi l.icc t break. But ,4 the old dine ship (,iifi,ri wuti bed the riHiii( f 1 1 1 a Pleiades fr safs navi gation h ml set s.ul m M.-ditcii 'am a'x waters, but were sure to get back int port before the constellatm i Orion oi 10 into sight the neasoii of cyclone am! hurricane -so theie u a til in to sail for heaven, ami that 1 while thfl sweet l l lluences are upon u and before tho storms overtake aud delay. () e l all your soul to the light ami warmth uuJ co'n fort and inspiration of that g-os;el which has already peopled heaven with Tmlliona of the rtinoneJ and is helping other millions to that glorious destina tion. Do not postpone tha things of Cnl and eternity until the storm nf hie swoop and the saltation of a great futurw are upon ur. Do nos. oure wait until Orion takes the place of tho Pleiades. Weigh anchor now nnd with chart un rolled and pilot on board head for the reunions and raptures that await all the souls forgiven. "And they need no candle, neither light nor the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, aui they shall reign forever and ever. NEWSY CLEANINGS. Southern. California has 2500 acres In beets. Yale's class of 77, Scientific School, Las Riven the university I?ii000 to found a (scholarship. The building record of the present year In Chicago Is fsald to bo without parallel fIiico isfrj. Harry Trego, of Pineville, Tenn., has shot n buhl cnglo measuring tdght feet from tip to tip. . Puropean investigators declare that any living creature will lose llcsh on a continued diet of horse meat. Alaska Is the region in which liie greatest extension of telegraphic fa e.lities has taken place this year. In some school districts of Kansas enough wheat was raised this year to feed the inhabitants for fifty years. Berlin's Corporation of Merchants has agreed to Hie Government's plan of organizing a Chamber of Commerce. A marble monument to the 110,000 Tennesseans in tho Civil War has been unveiled at the National Cemetery, at Knoxville, Tenn. It Is estimated that the projected railway from southern to -western Australia will cost .$22,000,000, and take five years to build. The Orling system of wireless tele graphy has been officially tested at London, the results being satisfactory except In torpedo steering and tele phoning. A monument to the memory of John Ericsson, the inventor of the first ar mored warship, the monitor, and of the screw propeller, has been unveiled In Stockholm, Sweden. A fresh irade has been issued by the Sultan renewing the former decree by which .Tews traveling to Palestine are forbidden to remain more than two months in that country. The Treasury Bureau of Statistics, at Washington, has compiled data showing that the States carved out of the Louisiana Purchase repay its cost j-early with one per cent, of their agri cultural productions. LABOR WORLD. The building trades are generally well employed. It Is estimated that one workman iii 230 owns his own home. The seamen were never better or ganized than they are to-day. The laws designed for the protection of factory labor are operating benefi cially. German iron and steel workers are experiencing an unusual season of Idleness. Thousands of women and children work at the tailoring trades in New York City. There are not enough electrical engi neers to supply the demand for that class of labor. The number of co-operative indus trial establishments in the United States have increased during the past year. The evils of child factory labor have been gradually lessened, so that there Is a decrease in the mortality rates of youthful mill employes. Striking workmen at the Adam Schaaf Piano Company, at Chicago, have been enjoined from interfering with its non-union men. As a result of American competition workmen in British tobacco factories have been told that bonuses they have enjoyed heretofore will be withdrawn. It Is said that several manufacturers are about io back financially a move ment having for its object the refor mation of the apprentice system ia the United States. More strikes have occurred In Spain this year than for many years past. Quite a few of them have been attend ed with disorder, necessitating the cabl ing out of troops. The street railway companies of Salt Lake City, Utah, have set a new standard for employes in requiring that they shall not have defective eye sight. To this end an order has been Issued that after the first of the year men Avearing glasses will no longer be retained in the service. CAUSE FOR DOUBT. Harry So you don't believe a worJ of it? Why not? Dick He declared that it was the honest truth. That's why, when a man tells me he is telling the truth, I don't object to believing him; but when he says it is the. honest truth then I sus pect he is lying. Baffin Transcript.