The Universalist. [volume], August 07, 1897, Page 2, Image 2

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Detroit Convention Address.
Christian Citizenship.
BV REV. WIEBCR F. CRAFTS.
TSubstance of the address given before the Universatist Young People s
Christian Cnion at Detroit.]
One of the most serious perils of
our politics is the neglect of civic
duties by Christian citizens. This, I
am sure, will not be so common in the
coming days when the fruitage of the
citizenship movement of this young
people’s society has culminated, and
when the ballot—the scepter of po
litical power—has been put in the
hands of these young men and young
ladies. For then the people will
have learned what our voters in the
church failed to learn in the individ
ualism of their religious life. They
will have thoroughly learned, before
going to the polls in the twentieth
century, that patriotism and piety
both call to the polls and primaries
as loudly as patriotism ever called to
war, or piety to prayer. The most
radical cure for political corruption
is the exaltation of the ethical char
acter of political actions. A noble
sentiment came into my life as-a
young man from Gail Hamilton, who
said, speaking of the sacredness of
political duty, “the eve before elec
tion should be a vigil. The election
itself should be a sacrament.”
Let us have not only an idea of what
government ought to be, but a very
specific idea of what the Young Peo
ple’s Christian Union's part in mak
ing it what it ought to be, should be.
That was a capital sermon preached
by a street preacher in London, who
had for his text: “They that have
turned the world upside down have
come hither also.” He said: “Firstly,
the world was originally right side
up; secondly, the devil came and
turned it wrong side up; thirdly, it
must b9 turned right side up again;
and fourthly, we are the chaps to do
it.”
In the first answer I have made to
the question. What are our country’s
needs? I have spoken of the ideal
government, which includes Chris
tian citizenship and statesmanship,
but now I turn to our country’s needs,
from the standpoint of realizing
those ideals. And the second need
of our country is better citizenship—
a Christian citizenship. Good citi
zenship is not enough in these try
ing times. It must beCaristian citi
zenship. In Washington City, as
many of you know, a generation or
more ago, they started to build a
monument to the father of his
country, but when they built only
one third of its height, they found
that they had laid too weak a foun
dation, and that if they added any
more weight the whole would sink
into the sand, and so for a generation
the monument remained incomplete.
At last a man arose who was able to
take out the inadequate foundation
without disturbing the monument,
and little by little put a stronger
and broader foundation in its place.
Thus they carried the monument up
to its full height and brought forth
the capstone with rejoicing, crying,
“Grace, grace, unto it.”
The structure of our political life
must likewise have an adequate foun
dation. In these days when great
corporations have bribes to offer,
such as the world never saw before,
both for legislators and voters—in
this day when demagogues are more
skillful than ever before in sophis
tries, we must have, as our founda
tion, not only an intelligent citizen
ship, but pre-eminently a Christian
citizenship. Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Stowe, of whose book it is said that
it was the first draft of emancipation,
of whom a confederate brigadier gen
eral said gallantly, “Lee surrendered
to Mrs. Stowe at Appomattox,”—Mrs.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, who could
not drop a ballot into politics, but
who dropped in a book that out
weighed the majority of the ballots
of that day.—Mrs. Stowe said one
day, on her Florida plantation, to her
uneducated negro servant who had
at least a legal right to vote, “Sambo
don’t you think I ought to have a right
to vote as well as you?” He replied,
“Law, Missus, does you think that
women has sense enough to vote?”
(Laughter.) I am not asking for wom
an’s suffrage, but I am asking that
those who vote, whether men or wom
en, black or white, native or foreign,
shall have “sense enough to vote.”
(Applause.)
Since 1890 I have been advocating
what 1 hope you will also urge, that
just as soon as possible we shall pass
laws to take effect on the first day of the
twentieth centurv, giving everybody
full warning by passing them soon,
that all new voters, native and foreign,
must, after the dawn of the twentieth
century, by an educational qualifica
tion, or test of some sort, prove, be
fore they receive the scepter of suff
rage, that they have sense enough to
vote.
There are three necessities of life in
arepublic likeours. We must have in
telligence enough to resist the sophis
tries of the demagogue. We must
have conscientiousness enough to re
sist the bribes of the corporations,,
never so tempting as now, for the
citizens as well as for their selected
legislators. And we must also have
a spirit of equality. Only the Sab
bath can give us as a people, the in
telligence and the conscientiousness
and the spirit of equality that are the
three necessities of life in a republic.
What is the matter with the Spanish
republics aDd the French republic?
When you read news, I hope you have
the habit of looking behind the news,
for the philosophy that underlies the
facts. France has more cabinet
changes than all the rest of Europe
together. It is a republic “good for
this day only,” lying in the crater of
a not extinct volcano. Look at the
Spanish republics south of us. I was
an editor recently, for two years, and
read one hundred and fifty newspa
pers a week. I think there was never
a week during those two years, and I
think that there has never been a
month in the last five years, when
there have not been from one to five
revolutions going on down there.
Whenever election time comes, they
get out their guns. Let those who
think a written constitution makes a
safe republic remember that these
Spanish republics have got just as
good a constitution as we have, for
they have copied ours.
What is the matter with these re
publics? The matter is that they
have no Sabbath. The toilers spend
their Sabbaths in labor, and the leis
ure classes in brutish dissipation and
childish play, and, therefore, they
cannot develop manhood enough, not
enough of the spirit of equality, not
enough of conscientiousness and in
telligence to govern themselves. Rob
Burdette said very significantly, and
it takes in this whole question of the
continental Sunday as against the
American Sabbath, from the political
and civic standpoint: “The Declara
tion of Independence was not born in
a beer dive on Sunday afternoon—not
by a long shot.”
Another need of our country, be
sides this one of citizenship, and the
outcome of it, is Cnristiau stateman
ship; and here let me recur to that
same monument of Washington, as I
saw it from a most picturesque point
of view. I think it has never been
brought to the public notice, but I
believe that the Washington monu
ment was placed where it is with re
ference to the window in the White
House back of the president’s desk.
When in the president’s room this
flashed upon me, for right back of
his desk in an arched window, which
he looks through as he comes in; and
all the presidents, one after another,
as they come from their private apart
ments; each president seeing every
morning before he takes his seat, as
if framed in that arched window, a
picture of what a president ought to
be, a monument of the first president,
which, like him it celebrates, is sim
ple and lofty and strong. We want
statesman like Washington in all
those respects.
Recently JNew York has built a
centenial arch in honor of Washing
ton, and selecting from all his writ
ings a single sentence to put upon it,
New York has cut into it these words
in which Washington rebuked the
substitution of expediency for right:
“Let us raise a standard to which the
wise and the honest may repair. The
event is in the hands of God.” (Ap
plause.) How New York can write a
license law under the shadow of that
arch I do not understand. I would
like to write across every liquor
license those words of Washington,
and the words of James Russell
Lowell: “They enslave their chil
dren’s children who make compromise
with sin.”
The panels as we put them up,
Washington on the one side, and the
average politician of to day on the
other, do not make a pretty pair. I
was reminded when all the people
were so relieved and satisfied at the
adjournment of the last Congress, of
a funeral where a passer-by said to
the sexton, “Who is dead?” The
name was given of a cross, crabbed,
unpatriotic citizeD. “What did he
die of? What was the complaint?”
The old sexton replied, “No com
plaint. Everybody satisfied.”
But why were we bo short of states
man, just when a great commercial
and monetary crisis made them nec
essaries of life? The answer to that
question is, that good men cannot be
elected at the polls unless good men
are selected at the primaries, and
that good men will not usually be
selected by primaries which good
men do not attend.
What right have we to expect from
a primary held in a saloon any other
choice than between a bad candidate
of our party and the worse candidate
of the other? The better citizens in
such cases often stay home on elec
tion day, a thing they would have no
need to do if they had not stayed at
home on the night of the primary.
Very likely the primary came on
a prayer meeting night, because
prayer-meeting Christians were not
influential enough in politics to be
considered, and because they were
neither wanted nor expected. But
they were needed. And it would
have been better if they had left the
praying to the women, and had gone
to the primaries, as one church did,
pastor and all. (Applause)
How often it happens that the
good man that ought to have been
nominated was not, because the good
men who ought to have attended the
primaries did not!
It needs be emphasized that, no
matter what better political machin
ery we get, even though immigration
be restricted and educational tests
for suffrage established, we shall
never get better officers unless we
nominate better candidates, and that
such will not be nominated unless
good citizens attend the primaries
which even now they could usually
control, if they would. Let us get
better primaries, and in the meantime
use those we have.
Another of our country's needs is
law enforcement. We need better
laws, but most all, we need to en
force the laws we have. (Applause.)
We need, to that end, first of all, bet
ter mayors—mayors like Nehemiah,
that will stand Rtiff as 6teel, even
when there is no “public sentiment”
for the law, because public conscience
and the law are on their side. When
Nehemiah came to Jerusalem, there
was no “public sentiment” in favor
of the Srbbath. Even the chuich
officers needed to be “cleansed”
before they could keep the. gates.
It wTas a case of one man and
God, but that was a majority; and
he had the law also, and the con
science of the people on his side,
and that made him unanimous, and
so he went ahead and enforced the
law. I have talked with many may
ors in my ninety-thousand miles of
travel, in Sabbath reform, and I have
found that most of them are not ag
gressively good, but either bad, or
goodish or goody, or good for noth
ing, like the men who elected them,
by sins of omission and commission.
We need officers like Daniel’s three
friends, who dared to stand upright,
when all the nation had curvature of
the spine, before that fiery furnace.
Daniel was the same kind of a man.
A little child attempting to repeat a
text about Daniel got the “spirit” of
the passage instead of the exact
wording: “As for this Daniel, an ex
cellent spine was in him.” The
trouble with most of our mayors is
that they talk about the wisdom of
the law, as if it were a bill of fare
they were to look over and choose
what they like, instead of exacting its
enforcement in every particular.
That is, they give us jawbone instead
of backbone,
Let me tell the Young People’s
Christian Union who were so unfort
unate, so far as they have already left
school, as to miss education in civics
which our public schools have ne
glected, that there are six ways to
enforce the law in any city today.
First, by electing a good mayor. But
if you miss that, you can, second,
enforce the law by electing a good
sheriff. The sheriff is really to the
mayor of the county, and should en
force the laws if the mayors neglect to
do so. Third, by the police depart
ment—by the police commissicners
or by the chief of police, or by indi
vidual policemen. Fourth, by elect
ing a good judge. Fifth, by electing
a good prosecutor. Sixth, by appeal
ing to the Governor to enforce the
law by commanding his sheriffs to
do it. It is one of the strangest ab
surdities that only one or two govern
ors of the United States have discov
ered what “chief executive” means
It means that whenever, anywhere in
the state, the laws are neglected, the
Governor should call upon his offi
cers, sheriffs, and police commission
ers, so far as they are state officers,
to enforce the laws. Every governor
should say today to such officers all
over the land, wherever the laws are
not obeyed, “In the name of the
state enforce those neglected laws.”
(Applause).
Ihe seventh way is tor the people
themselves to go into the courts and
enforce the law as every citizen has
the right to do, singly or in law and
order leagues. The prelude to such
action should be the awakening of
public sentiment which will often
make the public officers do their
duty, and so lessen the work of the
league. For instance, in St. Paul,
formerly one of the most horribly
ring-ridden cities I ever saw, where
the people were utterly discouraged,
I got the Endeavors to print the
state law on the liquor and Sabbath
question, and distribute 30,000 copies
from house to house. That, with
other forces, broke “the ring” of that
city, which has been a better city
ever since. (Applause.)
The last of the needs of our coun
try is better laws. We want to put
into our laws, into our constitution,
where the people alone can change
it, the provisions against gambling
and the liquor traffic and monopoly.
There are railroads enough in this
country now to belt the world four
teen times with a single line of rails.
At the beginning of the twentieth
century, if their growth keeps on as
in the past, there will be enough to
belt the globe twenty times. And
those railroads will be owned by
twenty “railroad kings,” each one a
king in mere than a figurative sense,
with an “iron crown” twenty-five
thousand miles around, compared
with which the famous “Iron crown”
of Europe is but a baby’s plaything.
And they will elect a railroad em
peror with power greater than that
of any Roman Emperor or Russian
Czar. A little handful of men will
own all the oil, the gTain, the coal,
the iron, the cotton,—a hundred men
masters, and a hundred millions,
counting their families in their ser
vice. Then “government of the peo
ple, by the people, for the people,”
will “perish from the earth, if we
have allowed the people to be de
graded by the holiday Sunday. But
if we hold fast to the Sabbath, the
people will be intelligent and con
scientious enough,and have enough
of the spirit of equality to meet this
problem, as they have such emer
gencies in the past; and the ship of
state, with Christian men on deck,
will come safely through the tidal
wave of trusts—“God’s hand on the
helm, and his breath in the sails.”
(Applause.)
IN REPLY TO BRO. OROSLEY.
BY REV. JAMES GORTON.
My old friend, Bro. Crosley, has
the misfortune not to agree with me
in my affirmation that “creed or dog
ma, whether true or false, is not re
ligion, nor is it any part of religion.”
The difficulty with mv brother is,
that he entirely fails to apprehend
my position, and, therefore, succeeds
admirably in misrepresenting me. I
am not going to tell him that I have
not agreed to furnish him with ideas,
and then besides that furnish him
with brains to understand them; for
I am quite sure he has plenty of
brains to understand me if he will
look again and read my article over
carefully.
I defined the “pure religion” of St.
James as “an inward life of right
eousness and love, and an outward
life of kindness and mercy, justice
and beneficence.” I also illustrated
or elaborated this definition with
other similar definitions. Now it was
of religion as thus defined that I said
creed or dogma constituted no part.
If I have “missed the mark,” then St.
James has also missed it.
Then, further, although creed or
dogma constitute no part of religion,
as thus defined, I did not intimate
that creed, dogma, were not valuable
aids to such a religion, and even es
sential to it, so that they were true.
Indeed, I distinctly said that they
were “helps” in the development of a
religious life.
Now food is essential to the body.
Without it the body would perish.
Nevertheless the food is not the body.
Food is essential to life, but the food
itself is not life. Similarly, creed,
doctrine, truth, religious principles,
may indeed be essential to the relig
ious life—to religious character and
conduct—but they are not of them
selves religious character and con
duct. Indeed, a man might know
and believe any amount of the most
important religious truth and yet
fail to be religious.
Further, I did not intend or desire
to minimize doctrine or truth, or in
any way to detract from their import
ance. I only intended to made prop
er distinctions—distinctions between
results, and means to a result.
I did not say, or intimate, that the
result could be had without the
means. I simply said the means
were not the result. I might have
gone further, perhaps. It is by no
means the man who has the most of
truth who has necessarily the most of
religion.
I am perfectly well aware that
there is a loo3e general way of
defining religion which would in
clude not only dogma, creed, in the
definition, but would also include
church government, modes of wor
ship, ordinances, forms and ceremo
nies, robings and genuflections, and
perhaps many other things. But we
insist, and we think it must be evi
dent, that none of these things, how
ever important they may be as in
struments or as helps, are any part
of religion, as we have defined re
ligion. We believe it is a matter of
good sense and sound logic to make
these distinctions. If my definition
of religion is faulty, then the defini
tion of St. James is also faulty; and
my brother should first correct his
Bible before he flies at me. If he
shall believe otherwise than I have
here stated then we will agree to
disagree and let it rest there.
But he must not suppose he at
taches greater importance to truth
than I do, or that he believes more
strongly in it than I, merely because
I regard truth as an instrument,
while he seems to regard it as an end
in itself. Is not this latter position
that which is by far too apt to charac
terize the narrow dogmatist and the
bitter sectarian! Have not persons
been known to have but little truth,
dogma or creed, and yet to have
much of genuine religion! On the
other hand, have not persons been
known to have much of truth, creed,
dogma, and yet to have very little of
genuine religion!
Is not the dark spot on the history
of the past the estimating of men,
not by what they were in conduct
and character, but by what they
believed, or failed to believe! Do
we want to perpetuate that folly
and iniquity in this age!
Chicago, July 27th.
A LESSON FOR THE NATIONS.
We said la9t week that the frag
ments received by cable of Rudyard
Kipling’s poem on the Queen’s Jubi
lee, written as the pageant ended,
seemed,to indicate something far bet
ter in poetry and spirit than any of
the loyal verse that had been pre
viously produced by the occasion.
We now have the whole of it, and it
is a hymn, as well as a poem, fit to
sing in the holiest moments of a na
tion’s approach and prayer to God.
It reads as follows:
‘■Recessional."
“God of our fathers, known of old;
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful hand vve hold
Dominion over palm and pine;
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
“The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
“Far-called our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the lire;
Lo. all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judea of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
“If. drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in
awe;
Such boasting as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law;
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
“For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guatding calls not Thee to guard;
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord.
“Amen.”
There is a noble spirit, because a
humble and a contrite spirit, a true
lesson in godliness that pervades
every line. We might spare the
fourth verse; if it were omitted there
would be scarce a flaw of art in what
remains. It is high art and exalted
sentiment, fit expression of a Chris
tian people.
We, too, are a nation that is in
great danger of arrogant conceit.
Less than a month ago we were thun
dering our frantic self-confidence and
praise, and too much forgetting it is
the God of nations from whom we
have received peculiar mercies.
A people is safe in its success and
glory only as it keeps in mind its
dependence on God, and its duty to
him. Let the people be proud of
their native country; let them say
and boast that it is the best country,
with the dearest freedom the world
ever saw; let them give their day to
blare of guns and show of ships; let
them tell of their fathers’ greatness
and of the extent of states or colo
nies; but woe to the land and its
people if, under the froth and vanity
of noise and pride, there is not an
abiding sense that all our national
blessings are the gift of God, and
that they only impose upon us duties
to the peoples of the nation or the
empire, and of the world. For
‘ The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.”
It is not the pride before man, but
the humility before God that will as
sure permanent success and glory to
a nation. Soldiers and ships are not
a nation’s best defense. The great
Babylon is perished with its boast
ful king. Only in God will Britain
or America be strong. The miles of
the armored fleet and the thousands
of fire-throated guns were put on
proud exhibition, and the nations
were bidden to wonder at the unap
proachable might of the island that
rules the seas. In long procession
the premiers and the soliiers of a
score of colonies paraded before the
Empress Queen; and the greatness
of the British Empire and the good
ness of its Queen were told and sung
by millions of voices in all the hun
dred tongues of the Empire, till
there was danger that men would
forget that only God is great, that
there is none good but one, that is
God. Now that the pageant ends it
is well that one who has also sung
the soldier’s songs should remind the
people of the vanity of all that does
not rest in God.
‘ Far-called our navies melt away
On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.”
To ua Americans is the lesson, to
France, to Germany, as well as to
England. Will we not remember it!
“For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on thy people. Lord!”
—Independent.
—Since 1892 the British mint has re
coined 37,000,000 gold coins, sovereigns,
and halt sovereigns. The average loss
in wear of the gold coins returned as
being light weight was 2523 pence for
the sovereigns and 2377 pence for the
half sovereigns. ,
SOME COMMON MISTAKES TOUCH
ING EDUCATION.
BY PRESIDENT C. E. NASH, D. D.
It is clearly a mistake to conclude
that the merits of a college may be esti
mated from its eise, its wealth, its hold
upon the public imagination, or some
other external attribute. For many
a youth the best university has been the
private study of some consecrated do
minie or parson, who made up in per
sonal touch what was lacking in fellow
ship and apparatus. Perhaps the true
ideal is to preserve amid the multiplic
ity of modern facilities the power of
that old intimacy between teacher and
pupil. The danger in the big institu
tion is that it will thrust them farther
and farther apart, a distance which will
assuredly prove fatBl to the incipient in
tellectual Hte of many a student not yet
sufficiently independent in hie mental
ambitions to maintain himself without
personal tutelage. As for fame or repu
tation, these are baubles which may be
got temporarily at least by vigorous self
advertisement.
It is a mistake to assume that the ad
vent of the great university implies and
will compel the decline and final disap
pearance of the minor institutions now
so numerous. - Doubtless the education
al movement in this particular in trying
to follow the industrial movement, to
mass and concentrate the facilities of
culture in a comparatively few centers.
But education is not to be gained en
masse, and, in spite of the increase of
apparatus and the devising of many in
genious theories, it remains true that
there is no royal road, and no short cut,
to learning.
The strength of the universities is in
their command of rare and costly facili
ties for special and advanced research,
in the eminent names upon their faculty
roosters, and, perhaps, in their location
at or near important centers of popula
tion, thus affording outside means for
varied acquaintance with the living ac
tivities of men. Their weakness lies in
the confusion which the very richness
and fecundity of their equipment pro
duce upon the unfledged mind, in the
want of a distinct moral or religious as
piration, and of the personal interest or
fellowship which the smaller circle
stimulates. The university should be
regarded as the topmost step of a series
which begins with the kindergarten and
includes the primary, intermediate, and
high schools, and also the college. The
University is really a cluster of special
or professional schools, presupposing the
general training which it is the business
of the college to complete. The average
youth needB much more the broad basic
discipline and the moral bracing of the
smaller collegiate institution than he
needs the enormous, overwhelming sup
ply of special machinery which the great
university affords. The college legi.
timately and logically comes first, but
after the college, by all means the uni
versity, if possible.
It is agaiu a mistake, and a grievous
one, to assume that education ought to
be divorced from moral and religious
training, and that, therefore, the secular
izing spirit ot the age ought to be en
couraged. It is a mistake to infer that
the culture of the intellect can best be
secured by ignoring the motives and
unctions which arise in the clarified
conscience and the spiritual aspirations.
On the other hand, if we are to give any
recognition to religion in education, it
is a mistake to suppose that the so
called non-sectarian or non denomina
tional school has any advantage over
those which look for maintenance chiefly
to the sympathies of some particular
type of faith or communion. All these
"none” are negative and empty things.
There is no essential harm in the sect
or denomination as Buch, and no reason
why we should pretend to ignore or
dispense with their separate claims. Gy
all means let us avoid bigoted narrow
ness, but let us equally beware of the
liberality which is merely indifferentism,
which shrinks from allegiance to any
one form of religion because it cares
nothing much for religion itself.
The denominational school, not as a
mere proselyting agency to advance
the tenets or the fortunes of a sect, but
as a means of collecting and directing
the benevolences of a sect, is not at all
out of harmony with the times, and not
likely to disappear. If the denomina
tion itself has aright to exist, then it
has a right and a good reason to work
in its own name and way tor the ad
vancement of education. Thus the en
thusiasm of a special form of faith is
brought to bear as an additional im
pulse to quicken the interests of educa
tion. Without this peculiar backing
our American higher schools would
have flourished but feebly in the past,
and even now, though the state has
entered upon a policy of secular educa
tion which proposes to tax the commu
nities heavily for the maintenance of
great secular establishments, and
though, on the other hand, it is be
coming a sort of fashion for individuals
to seek an earthly immortality of repu
tation by endowing great schools with
fabulous wealth, the denominational
college, rallying the religious affections
of millions, continues to supply its op
portunity of education to the greater
number, and to grow in usefulness and
power year by year. I would almost
undertake to affirm that in these schools,
as a rule, not only is the moral life of
the student better cared for, and not
only are his social instincts nurtured
under more salutary conditions, but
his intellectual liberty is often more
securely safeguarded, as the dominance
of wealth is not so pronounced.
—Dr. James Martineau, who has just
celebrated his ninety-second birthday,
is one of the few living authors whose
literary activity dates from the be
ginning of the Victorian reign. Dr.
Martineau published hie first b.>ok,
“The Rationale ot Religious Inquiry,"
in 1837.
MRS. LIVERMORE <TO A WOUNDED
SOLDIER TERRORIZED.
I asked Mrs. Livermore if she bad
ever seen anyone afraid of death, at the
actual hour of dying.
"Never but once,” ehe replied, "and
then it was the fault of an evangelist.
It was after the fight at Fort Donelson.
Eighty mortally wounded men had been
brought into my ward at the St. Louis
hospital, among them a soldier with
both lege and an arm shot off. This
man was lying in that stupor that usu
ally precedes death, when an evangelist
entered, and, bending over the bed,said:
'Have you made your peace with God?
If not, you will be in hell in lees than an
hour.’
"Instantly the man’s stupor was re
placed by the most horrible fright.
‘Pray for me,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t
stop,' was the reply, as the speaker hur
ried on to give his grewsome message to
other sufferers, 'You must pray for
yourself.’ Delirious with pain and
wholly possessed by this new and terri
ble idea the soldier sent out shriek
after shriek of agony. 'I cannot die! I
have been a wicked man!' was his re
peated wail. His cries aroused and ex
cited the other men and the ward became
a pandemonium of groans and screamB
and beseechings. In vain I urged and
the surgeon commanded quiet. I di
rected the doctor to send the evangelist
out of the ward, and I got upon the bed
of the man who had first been aroused.
Taking him by the shoulders and look
ing straight into his eyes I said: 'Stop
this screaming at once!’ ‘But I am go
ing to hell!’ he cried. ‘Well if you muBt
go to hell,go like a man!' I replied. ‘But
why must you go?’ What is Christ for
if a man like you, who has stood up to
be riddled, and torn, and killed for his
country, is going to hell? It is a libe
upon God.’
"I had dispatched a messenger for a
chaplain. When he came I said: ‘Don’t
say a word, but sing,’ and gradually
peace settled over the ward, while the
poor fellow listened to ‘Jesus, Lover of
My Soul,’ 'There'll Be No More Sorrow
There,’ ‘Rock of Ages,’ and many other
comforting hymns. I kept my place on
the bed, softly repeating prayers and re
assuring passages of Scripture till my
patient whispered, ‘I do believe Jesus
will save me.’ He died that night.
"The overzealous evangelist received
summary treatment at the hands of
Mother Bickerdyke. When he began to
question her ‘boys' she approached him
with the words: ‘Look here. You leave
this ward quick or I'll take you by the
nape of the neck and pitch you out.’”—
Indianapolis Journal.
College Education and Life.
Inevitably at this time of the year
when all through the country young
men and women are being graduated
from echool and college, the mind of the
elderly person gravitates towards a dis
cussion of a problem which crops up ae
regularly as the weeds of a country way
side. “How well does a CDllege educa
tion fit the individual for the real issues
of life?” the elderly person asks, when
ever a newspaper column is open to him
or a listening ear is presented.
Because he sees no direct result to be
obtained from a knowledge of Greek
roots when a knowledge of nursing-bot
tles is required, he decries the knowl
edge of Greek roots, and he does this of
ten so wittily that his arguments are
remembered when the common-sense of
the other Bide is forgotten.
And yet the common-sense is so pal
pable! The education of the young, as
has many timeB been pointed out, is
meant for development; but most of all
it is meant tor making the young famil
iar with ground already gone over by
previous generations, so that when the
peculiar genius of the individual begins
to be felt, opportunity for its free ex
pression may be found at once, and no
time lost in useless experiments. A col
lege education gives a young girl the
possibility for many opportunities,
which she exercises or not, as inclina
tion prompts.
She may not be trained for the nursery
by it, but then neither does home life
train her for it, unless she has young
sisters and brothers in whose carejshe
takes a share.
But it doeB broaden her mind, enlarge
her sympathies, widen her preceptione,
and increase her knowledge of human
nature, and all these things mean the
possibility of her being a more potent
factor in the home over which she may
be called to preside. It does not mean
greater sweetness and love in her;
neither does it mean less. College edu
cation neither creates nor destroys qual
ities that are integral parts of individ
ual character.
But the best part of college training,
both for men and women, is that the
ideal which belongs peculiarly to cer
tain institutions is cultivated. The
ideal of honor and of truth-telling
fostered at the West Point Academy, for
instance, has had its influence on every
graduate, and kept our army, whatever
its shortcomings may have been, in point
of honor above reproach. The ideal of
a college moulds its members to it; and
this, after all, when the ideal ie a good
one, seems, for men and women alike,
as good a preparation for life as practi
cal training iu the various arts.—Har
per's Bazar.
—A monumental structure of wood
has j ust been erected over the grave con
taining the ashes of the late du Maurier,
whose body was cremated according to
hie directions. The structure is orna
mented at the head and foot of the grave
with uprights, out of which are carved a
form of ancient Celtic cross. From the
uprights runs a center piece, on which
appears the following inscription, the
closing lines being the conclusion of
"Trilby;” "George Buseon du Maurier.
Born in Paris Gth March, 1834. Died in
London 8th October. 1890. A little trust
that when we die, We reap our sowings,
and so—good-bye.”