Decatur Democrat, Volume 38, Number 20, Decatur, Adams County, 3 August 1894 — Page 7

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' vjm liiWwrA l Tffif o - ■»— CHAPTER XVllf—Continued. For some minutes—three or four, perhaps, and so brief a space of time makes a longish pause in a critical situation—Gilbert Sinclair kept silence. Sir Cyprian, standing with his back against one end of the velvet-covered mantel-piece, waited with polite tranquillity. Not by a word or gesture did he attempt to hurry his guest. “LeOk you here, Sir Cyprian," Gilbert began, at last, with savage abruptness. “If we had lived in the dueling days—the only days when Englishmen were gentlemen—l should have sent a friend to you to-night instead of coming myself, and the business might have been arranged in the easiest manner possible and settled decisively before breakfast to moriow. But as our new civilization does not allow of that kind of thing, and as I haven’t quite strong enough evidence to go into the divorce court, I thought it was better to come straight to you and give you fair warning of what ycu may expect in the future." “Let us suppose that dueling is not an exploded custom. We have France and Belgium and a few other countries at our disposal if we should make up our minds to fight. But I should like to know the ground of our quarrel before we go into details. ’’ “I am glad you are man enough to fight me," answered the other, savagely. “I don’t think you can require to be told why I should like to kill you; or, if you have been in doubt about it up to this moment, you will know pretty clearly when I tell you that I saw jump off the balcony of my wife’s sum-mer-house this afternoon. ” • “I am sorry that unceremonious exit should offend you. I had no other i way of getting back to Marchbrook in I time for my train. I should have had I to walk the whole width of Davenant Park and about a mile of high-road, ■ if I had left by the summer-house W door.” fl “And you think it a gentleman-like f [ thing to be in my neighborhood for a I fortnight, to avoid my house, and to [ | meet my wife clandestinely in a lonely R corner of my park?” “There was no clandestine meeting. K You insult your wife by such a supposition, and prove—if proof were need•l ed of so obvious a fact—vour unworthik ness of such a wi'e. My visit to the R summer-house was purely accidental. I I heard Mrs. Sinclair singing—heard the bitter cry which grief—a mother’s I sacredjgrief—wrung from her in her solI itude, and followed the impulse of the I moment which prompted me to conL sole a lady whom I knew and loved f i when she was a child.” I “And afterwards, when she had L ceased to be a child—a few months be- [ < fore she became my wife. Your atL tachment was pretty well known to the I world in general, I believe. It was I only I who was left in ignorance." I “You might easily have known what I the world Knew —all there was to be I known—simply nothing. ” | “You deny that you have done me any L wrong? that I have any right to ask ■ you to fight me?” r “Most emphatically, and I most dis- |, tinctly refuse to make a quarrel on any I ground connected with your wile. But I you will not find me slow to resent an |, insult should you be so ill-advised as to I provoke me. As the friend of ConI stance Clanyarde I shall be ever ready I te take up the cudgels for Constance I Sinclair, even against her husband. |k Remember this, Mr. Sinclair, and reE member that any wrong done to Lord I'J Clanyarde’s daughter will be a wrong |J that ! shall revenge with all the power II God has given me. She is not left W solely to her husband’s tender merR Even the dull red hue faded from R Qilbert Sinclair's cheeks as he conR fronted the indignant speaker, and left ■ him livid to the very lips. There was | a dampness on his forehead, too, when ■ he brushed his large, strong hand || across it. R “Is this man a craven?” thought Sir RL Cyprian, remarking these signs of agiand fear. “Well,” said Sinclair, drawing a long ■ breath. “I suppose there is no more to ■be said. You noth tell the same story I —an innocent meeting, not preconR certed—mere accident. Yes, you have R the best of me this time. The unlucky R husband generally has the worst of it. ■ There’s no dishonor in lying to him. RpHe’s out of court, poor beggar. ” ■ “Mr. Sinclair, do you want me to R throw you out of that window?” ■ “I shouldn't much care if you did.” There was a sullen misery in the anH swer and in the very look of the man ■as he sat there beside his enemy’s ■ hearth in the attitude of dull apathy, R qnly looking up at intervals from his ■ vacant stare at the fire, which touched V Cyprian Davenant with absolute pity. ■ •Here was a man to whom Fate had R given vast capabilities of happiness, Btemd who had wantonly thrown away ■all that is fairest and best in life. “Mr. Sinclair, unon my honor, I am «torry for you, ’’ he said, gravely. “Sorry your incapacity to believe in a nc■ble and pure-minded wife; sorry that ■ you should poison your own life and ■your wife’s by doubts that would never ■ enter your mind if you had the power ■to understand her. Go home, and let Ryour wife never know the wrong you Jhave done her." B “My wife! What wife? I have no Bhfe/’said Sinclair,” with a strange Bmile, rising and going to the door> ■That’s what some ieilow says in a ■lay, I think. Good-night, Sir Cyprian ■Davenant. and when next we meet I

hope it may be on a better-defined footing." He left the room without another word. Before Sir Cyprian's bell had summoned the smooth-faced valet, the street door shut with a bang, and Gilbert Sinclair was gone. Sir Cyprian heard the doors of the hansom clapped to, and the smack of the weary driver’s whip, as the wheels rolled up the silent street “What did he mean by that speech about his wife?" wondered Sir Cyprian. “The man Icoked like a murderer!” He did not know that at this moment Gilbert Sinclair was half afraid that brutal blow of his might have been fatal. CHAPTER XIX. MBS walsingham breaks faith. Christmas, which, in a common way, brings life and bustle, and the gathering of many guests to good old country houses, brought <n y gloom and solitude to Davenant. Mr. Sinclair’s visitors had departed suddenly, at a single flight, like swallows l e’ore a storm in autumn. Mrs. Sinclair was very ill—seriously ill—mysteriously ill. Her dearest friends shook their heads and looked awful things when they talked of her. It was menta 1 , they feared. “Poor dear thing! This comes of Lord Clanyarde’s greediness in getting rich husbands for all his daughters.” “The cld man is a regular harpy,” exclaimed Mr?. Millamount, with a charming indjfle ence to detail. And then these fashionable swallows skimmed away to fresh woods and pastures new—or rather fresh billiardrooms and other afternoon teas, evening part songs and morning rides in rustic English lanes, where there is beauty and fragrance even in midwinter. Constance had been missing at afternoon tea on the day of Gilbert s sudden journey to London, but her absence in the cozy morning-room where Mrs. Millamount amused the circle by the daring eccentricity of her discourse was hardly a subject of wonder. “She has one of her nervous headaches, no doubt, poor child,” said Mrs. Millamount, taking possession of the tea-tray; “she is just the kind of woman to have nervous headaches. ” “I’ll give long odds you don’t have them,” said Sir Thomas Houndslow, who was lolling with his back against the mantelpiece to the endangerment of the porcelain that adorned it. “Never had headache but once in my life; and that was when I came a cropper in the Quorn country, ” replied Mrs. Millamount, graciously. Vapors have given way to feminine athletics, and there is nothing now so dowdy or unfashionable as bad hea'th. When the dressing-bell rang and Miss Sinclair was still absent, Melanie Dupont began to think there was some cause for alarm. Her mb tress was punctual and orderly in all her habits. She had gone, to walk in the p%rk immediately after luncheon, quite three hours ago. She had no idea of going beyond the park, Melanie knew, and she only wore her seal-skin jacket and a garden hat. She might have gone to Marchbrook, perhaps, in this careless attire, but not anywhere else, and her visits to Marchbrook were very rare. Melanie was puzzled. She went down stairs and sept a couple of grooms in quest of her mistress. The ga deners had all gone home at 5 o’clock. “You had better dock in the summerhouse by the fir plantation,” said Melanie. “I know Mrs. Sinclair spends a deal of her time there. The young men took the hint and went straight off to tfye summer-house together, too social to take different directions, as Melanie had told them to do. They had plenty to talk about —the way their master was going it, the lad luck which had attended his racing stable lately, and so on. “I think there’s a curse on them buildings at Newmarket, ” said one of the men. “We haven't pulled off so much as a beggarly plate since they was finished.” “There’s a curse on buying halfbreed colts,” retorted the older and wiser servant. “There's where the curse is. Rogers—mistaken economy.” The classic temple was wrapped in darkness, and Rogers, who entered first, stumbled over the prostrate form of his mistress. She lay just as she had fallen at her husband’s feet, felled by his savage blow. The elder man got a light out of his fusee box, and then they lifted the senseless figure into a chair and looked at the white face o.i which there were ghastly streaks of blood. Mrs. Sinclair groaned faintly as they raked her from the ground, and'this was a Jrelcome sound, for they had almost bought her dead. There were some flowers in a vase on the table, and the elder groom dipped a handkerchief in the water and dabbed it cn Mrs. Sinclair’s forehead. “I wish I’d get a drop of spirit in my pocket," he said: “a sup of brandy might bring her round, perhaps. Look about if you can see anything in that way, Rogers.” Rogers looked, but alcohol being an unknown want to Mrs. Sinclair there was no convenient bottle to be. found in'the summer-house. She murmured something inarticulate, and the locked lips loosened and trembled faintly as the groom bathed her forehead. “Poor thing, she must have had a fit,” said the e:der man. “Apocalyptic, perhaps,” suggested Rogers. “We'd better carry he • back to the house between us. She’s only a featherweight, poor little thing.” So the two grooms conveyed Mrs. Sinclair gently and -carefully back to Davenant, and contrived to carry her up to her room by the servants' staircase without lotting all the house into the secret. “If it was a fit, she won’t like it talked about,” said the head groom to the housekeeper, as he refreshed himself with a glass of Glenlivet after his exertions. “Master’s gone up to London, too,” said the housekeeper; “that makes it awkward, don’t it? I should think somebody ought to telegraph.” Melanie Duport took charge of her mistress -with a self-possession that Would have done credit to an older woman. LIL She sent off at once tor Dr. Webb,

who came post-haste to his most li» portant patient. The Doctor found his patient weak and low, and her mind wandering q little. He was much puzzled by that contusion on the fair forehead, but Constance could give him no explana* tion. “I think I fell,” she said. “It was kind of him to come to me, wasn’t it, for the ioveof old times!" “It must have been a very awkward fall," said Dr. Webb to Melanie. . “Whore did it happen’’’” , Melanie explained how her mistress had been found in the summer-house. “She must have fallen against some ’ piece of furniture, something with a blunt edge. It was an awful blow. She is very low, poor thing. The sys- , tom has received a severe shock." And then Dr. Webb enjoined the greatest of care, and questioned Melanie as to her qualifications for the , post of nurse. Mrs. Sinclair was not to l be left all night, and some one olse ? must be got to-morrow to relieve " Melanie. It was altogether a serious case. Gilbert Sinclair returned next morning, haggard and gloomy, lojking like a man wno bad spent a night at the gaming table with fortune steadily adverse to him. He met Dr. Webb in ‘ the hall, and was.tttd that his wife was seriously ill. “Not in danger?” he asked, eagerly. “Not in immediate danger.’’ 1 “I thank God for that. ” L It seemed a small thing to be thank- ’ ful for, since the surgeon’s tongue was i not very hopeful, but Gilbert Sinclair had been weighed down ; by the apprehension of something worse than this. , He found James Wyatt alone In the billiard-room, and learned from him that his guests were already on the , wing. Three days later and Mr. Wyatt had ’ also left Davenant, but not for good. He had promised to run down again in a week or so, and to cheer his dear friend, who, although always treating him more or less de haut en bas, allowed him to see pretty plainly that he was indispensable to his patron's con--1 tentment. And your modern Umbra will put up with a good deal of snubbing when he knows his patron is under his thumb. |TO BE CONTINUED. | THE SAME GIRL. Just Returned with His Bride He Meets a Sympathetic Old Friend. “Hello, Jack, old boy! Haven’t met you in a month. ” “No; I just returned from the country with my bride. ” “Really? Shake. My congratulations. Come —I’ll open a small bottle in her honor. She wasn't a Squedunk girl, , where we summered last year, was she?” “Exactly. You left in July. I lost my heart In August.” “Ah, you old rascal! Well, hero's te the bride! Drink hearty. Great town, that Squedunk; full of awfully jolly girls; some of them great flirts tco.” “Ah?” “At least I found them so. I had no end of fiancees, so to speak — sometimes meeting two or three on the same evening by appointment. It was great sport. You see, a man has to go a long way around among so many girls at a summer resort. But they were charmers —no mistake. ” “Yes; I found them so.” “And so deuced sentimental, too, hy Jove! I remember one in particu ar — a hazel-eyed blonde with a bewitching air. Gad! She would actually hug herself into hysterics. And such kisses—waow! We used to wander over the lovely mountain paths by moonlight till midnight. A dear girl, too; forgotten her name. Guess you didn’t meet her. Let me see —it was Lottie somebody ” “Not Lottie Huggus?” “That’s the girl—the very same, by Jove!" “She’s upstairs now.” “Gad, you don’t say." “Fact! She's on her honeymoon.” “Waow! Who’s the poor devil?” “I am.” —Boston Herald. How Rogues Divide. A band of professional forgers, says Detective Robert A. Pinkerton, before starting out always agree on a bas s of division of all moneys obtained on their forgery paper. This division might be about as follows: For a presenter where the amount to be drawn does not exceed $2,000,15 to 25 per cent.; but where the amount to be drawn is from $3,000 to $5,000 and upwards, the “presenter” leceives from 35 to 45 per cent The price is raised as the risk increases, and it is generally consid-. ered a greater risk to attempt to i ass a check or draft of a large denomination than a smaller one. The middleman gets from 15 to 25 per cent. His work is more and his responsibility is greater, but the risk is less. There are plenty of middlemen to be had, but the “presenters” are scarce. The “shadow,” when one accompanies the band, is sometimes paid a salary by the middleman and his expanses, but at other times he is allowed a small percentage, not to exceed 5 per cent., and his expenses, as with ordinary care his risk is very slight. The backer and ferger get the balance, which usually amounts to from 50 to ( 0 per cent. The expenses that have been advanced the men who go out on the real are usually deducted at the final division. A Boom in the Holy Land. The East is really waking up. The railroad from Jerusalem to Jaffa is to be extended to Nablus and Gaza, and there is a project on foot for the establishment of a line of steamers on the Dead Sea. The intention is to bring the rich produce of Moab across the sea in a few hours instead of carrying , it, as now, around the north and south end of the sea by caravan, a trip of four or five days’ duration. The next we hear will probably be news of an uprising on the part of the camel drivers against the innovation which is to take the bread and dates out of their mouths. A Bridge that Has Killed 22 Men. In Roseville, N. J., a man named Boylan has a private footbridge over the tracks of the Morris and Essex Railroad, Since its erection it has been the cause of the death of twentytwo men. The last victim was George Garrison, a brakeman, who was killed by being crushed between the roof of a'car and the bridge lately. London has only one death per year where it used to have four. The great falling off in mortality is due to the better drainage recently introduced. ■ . ....... . . .........

TALMAGE’S SERMON. ; —— I WHAT JOB KNEW ABOUT DENT- ■ IBTRY AND ENAMEL OF TEETH. . Dr. Talmage Choocei n Cntque Text and Constructs a Sermon of Rare PowerJob's Escape by “the Skin of His Teeth” —Promises That Never Die. i A Narrow Escape. i Rev. Dr. Talmage selected as the ’ subject for his sermon through the press this week “Narrow Escapes,” ! the text being taken from Job xix, 20, “lam escaped with the skin of my 1 teeth.” i Job had it hard. What with boils 1 and bereavements and bankruptcy and a fool of a wife he wished he was dead, and Ido not blame him. His flesh was 1 gone, and his bones wore dry. His teeth wasted away until nothing but the enamel seemea left. He cries out, 1 “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” There has been some difference of opinion about this passage. St. Jerome and Schultens and Drs. Good and Poole and Barnes havo all tried their forceps on Job’s teeth. You deny my interpretation and say, “What did Job know about the enamel of the toeth?” He knew everything about it. Dental surgery is almost as old as the earth. The mummies of Egypt, thousands of *w J BEV. DE WITT TALMAGE, D. D. years old, are found to-day with gold filling in their teeth. Ovid and Horace and Solomon and Moses wrote about these important factors of the body. To other provoking complaints Job, I think, has added an exasperating toothache, and putting his hand against the inflamed face he says, “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.” A very narrow escape, you say, for Job’s body and soul but there are thousands of men who make just as narrow escape from their soul. There was a ' time when the partition between them and ruin was no thicker than a tooth’s enamel, but as Job finally escaped so have they. Thank God! Thank God! Saved as by Fire. Paul expresses the same idea by a different figure when he says that some people are “saved as by fire.” A vesi sei at sea is in flames. You go to the 1 stern of the vessel. The boats have shoved off. The flames advance. You can endure the heat no longer on your face. You slide down on the side of the vessel and hold on with your fingers until the forked tongue ot the fire begins to lick the back of your hand, and you feel that you must fall, when one of the lifeboats comes back, and say they think they have room for one more. The boat swings IkQder you; you drop into it; you are saved. So some men are pursued by temptation until they are partially consumed, but after all get off, “saved as by fire.” But I like the figure of Job a little better than that of Paul, because the pulpit has not worn it out, and I want to show you, if God will help, that some men make narrow escape for their souls and are saved as “with, the skin of their teeth.” It is as easy for some people to look to the cross as for you to look to this pulpit. Mild, gentle, tractable, loving, you expect them to become Christ tians. You go over to the store and say, “Grandon joined the church yesterday.” Your business comrades say: “That is just what might have been expected. He always was of that turn ol mind.” In youth this person whom I describe was always good. He never broke things. He never laughed when it was improper to laugh. At 7he could sit an hour in church perfectly quiet, looking neither to the right . hand nor to the left, but straight into the eyes of the minister, as though he understood the whole discussion about the eternal decrees. He never upset things nor lost them. He floated into the kingdom of God so gradually that it is uncertain just when the matter was decided. Here is another one, who started in life with an uncontrollable spirit. He kept the nursery in an uproar. His mother found him walking on the edge of the house roof to see if he could balance himself. There was no horse he dared not ride: no tree he could not climb. His boyhood was a long series of predicaments. His manhood was reckless; his midlife very wayward. But now he is converted, and you go over to the store and say, “Arkwright joined the church yesterday.” Your friends say: “It is not possible! You must be joking!” You sav: “No. I tell the truth. He joined the church. ’’ Then they reply, “There is hope for any ot us if old Arkwright has become a Christian!” By the Skin of Your Teeth. In other words, we all admit that it is more difficult for some men to accept the gospel than for others. I may be addressing some who have cut loose from churches and bibles and Sundays, and who have at present no intention of becoming Christians themselves, but just to see what is going on. and yet you may find yourself escaping, before you hear the end, as “with the skin of your teeth.” Ido ! not expect to waste this hour. I have ! seen boats go off from Cape May or Long Branch and drop their nets, and after awhile come ashore, pulling in the nets without having caught a single fish. It was not a good day, or they had not the right kind of a net. But we expect no such excursion today. The water is full ot fish; |he wind is in the right direction; the gospel net is strong. O Thou who didst help Simon and Andrew to fish, show us to- , day how to cast the net on the right . side of the ship! , Some es you in coming to Gou will have to run against skeptical notions. It was useloss tor people to say sharp : teA’.si,.'

and cutting things to those who reject the Christian religion. I cannot say such things. by what process of temptation or trial or betrayal you have como to your present state I know not. There are two gates to your nature—the gate of the head and the gate of the heart. The gate of your head is locked with bolts and bars that an archangel could not break, but the gate of your heart swings easily on its hinges. If 1 assault your body with weapons, and it would be sword stroke for sword stroke, and wound for wound, and blood for blood, but if I come and knock at the door of your house you open it and give me the best seat in your parlor. If I should come at you to-day with an argument, you would answer me with an argument; if with sarcasm, you would answer me with sarcasm, blow for blow, stroke for stroke, but when I como and knock at the door of your heart you open it and say, “Come in, my brother, and tell me all you know about Christ and Heaven.” Three Que«tk>n«. Listen to two or three questions. Are you as happy as you used to lie when you believed in the truth of the Christian religion? Would you like to have your children travel on the road in which vou are now traveling? You had a relative who professed to be a Christian and was thoroughly consistent, living and dying in the faith of the gospel. Would you not like to live the same quiet life and die the same peaceful death? I received a, letter sent me by one who has rejected the Christian religion. It says, “I am old enough to know that the joys and pleasures of life are evanescent, and to realize the fact that it must be comfortable in old age to believe in something relative to the future and to have a faith in some system that proposes to save. 1 am free to confess that I would be happier if 1 could exercise the simple and beautiful faith that is possessed by many whom I know. I am not willingly out of the church or out of the faith" My state of uncertainty is one of unrest. Sometimes I doubt my immortality and look upon the deathbed as the closing scene, after which there is nothing. What shallll do that I have not done?” Ah, skepticism is a dark and doleful land! Let me say that this Bible is either tfue or fa'se. If it be fa'se, we are as well off as you. If it be true, then which of us is safer? Let me also ask whether trouble has not been that you confounded Christianity with the inconsistent character of some who profess it. .You are a lawyer. In your profession there are mean and dishonest men. Is that anything against the law? You are a doctor. There are unskilled and contemptible men in your profession. Is that anything against medicine? You are a merchant. There are thieves and defrauders in your business. Is I that anything against merchandise? Behold." then, the unfairness of charging upon Christianity the wickedness of its disciples! We admit some of the charges against those who profess religion. Some of the most gigantic swindles of the present day have been carried on by members of the chu/clf. There are men in the churches who would not be trusted for $5 without good collateral security. They leave their business dishonesties in the vestibule of the chifrch as they go in and sit at the communion. Having concluded the sacrament, they get up, wipe the wine from their lips, go out and take up their sins where they left off. To serve the dqvil is their regular work: to serve God, a sort of play spell. With a Sunday sponge they expect to wipe off from their business slate all the past week’s inconsistencies. You have no more right to take such a man’s life as a specimen of religion than you have to take the twisted irons and split timbers that lie on the beach at Coney Island as a specimen of an American ship. It is time we draw a line between religion and the frailties of those who profess it. A Righteous Indignation. Again, there may be some of you who in the attempt after a Christian life will have to run against powerful passions and appetites. Perhaps it is a disposition to anger that you have to contend against, and perhaps, while in a very serious mood, you hear of something that makes you feel that you-must swear or die. 1 know of a Christian man who was once so exasperated that he said to a mean customer, “I cannot swear at you myself, for lam a member of the church, but if vou will go down stairs my partner will swear at you.” All vour good resolutions heretofore have been torn to tatters by explosions of temper. Now there is no harm in getting mad if you only get mad at sin. You need to bridle and saddle these hot breathed passions, and with them ride down injustice and wrong. There are thousands of things in the world that we ought to get mad at. There is no harm in getting red hot if you only bring to the forge that which needs hammering. A man who has no power of righteous indignation is an imbecile. But be sure it is a righteous indignation and not a petulency that blurs aud unravels and depletes the soul. There is’a large class of persons.in mid-life who have still in them appetites that were aroused in early manhood, at a time when they prided themselves on being a “little fast,’’ “high livers,” “free and easy,’’ “hail fellows well met.” They are now paying ni compound interest for troubles they collected twenty years ago. Some of you are trying co escape, and you will —yet very narrowly, “as with the skin of your teeth.’;’ God and your own soul only knows what the struggle is. Omnipotent grace has pulled out many a soul that was deeper in the mire than you are. They line the beach of Heaven-the multitude whom God has reseqed from the thrall of suicidal habits. If you this day turn your back on the wrongand start anew, God will help you. Oh, the weakness of human help! Men will sympathize for awhile and then turn off. If you ask for their pardon, they will i give it and say they will try you again; but falling away again under the power of temptation,' they cast you off forever. But God forgives seventy times seven: yea, seven hundred times: yea, though this be the ten thousanJfch time he is more earnest, more sympathetic, more helpful this last time than when you took your first misstep. If, with all the influences favorable for a right life, men make so many mistakes, how much harder it is when, for instance, some appetite thrusts its iron grapple into the roots of the tongue and pulls a man down with hands of destruction! .. under such

circumstances, he break away, there will be no sport In the undertaking, no holiday enjoyment, but a struggle in which the wrestlers move from side to side and bend and twist and watch for an opportunity to get in a heavier stroke, until with one final effort, in which the muscles aro distended, and the veins stand out, and the blood starts, the swarthy habit falls under the knee of the victor - escaped at last as with the skin of his teeth. A Trial Anked. In the last day it will be found that Hugh Latimer, and John Knox, and Huss, and Riley were not the greatest martyrs, but Christian men who went up incorrupt from the contamination and perplexities of Wall street, Water street, Pearl street, Broad street, State street, Third street, Lumbard street, and the bourse On the earth they were called brbkers or stockjobbers, or retailers, or importers, but in Heaven Christian heroes. No fagots wore heaped about their feet, no inquisition demanded from them recantation, no soldier aimed a spike at their heart, but they had mental tortures, comnared with which all physical consuming is as the breatn of a spring s morning. I find in the community a large class of men who have been so cheated, so lied about, so outrageously wronged that they have lost faith in everything. In a world where everything seems so topsy turvy they do not see how there can be anv God. They are confounded and frenzied and misanthropic. Elaborate argument to prove to them the truth of Christianity or the truth of anything else touches them nowhere. Hear me, all such men. 1 preach to you no rounded periods. no ornamental discourse, but I put my hand on your shoulder and invite you into the peace of the gospel. Here is a rock on which you may stand firm, though the waves dash against it harder than the Atlantic Ditching its surf elear above Eddystone Do not charge upon God all these troubles of the world As long as the world stuck to God God stuck to the world, but the earth seceded from his government, and hence all these outrages and all these woes. God is good. For many hundreds of years he has been coaxing the world to come back to him, but the more he has coaxed the more violent have men been in their resistance, and they have stepped back and stepped back until they have dropped into ruin. Try this God, ye who have had the bloodhounds after you, and who had thought that God had forgotten you. Trv Him and see if He will not pardon. Try Him and see if He will not save. The flowers of spring havq no bloom so sweet as the flowering of Christ’s affections. The sun hath no warmth compared with the glow of his heart. The waters have no refreshment like the fountain that will slake the thirst of thy soul. At the moment the reindeer stands with his lip and nostril tbrust into the cool mountain torrent the hunter may be coming through thicket. Without crackling a stick under his foot, he comes close by the stag, aims his gun, draws the trigger, and the poor thing rears in its death agony and falls backward, its antlers falling on the roc but the panting heart that drinks from the water brooks of God’s promise shall never be fatally wounded and shall, never die. Coming Our Way. Halley’s comet is coming back—the comet which in the year 1066 shed a celestial splendor over the Norman conquest and who-e terror-inspir-ing visit was commemorated by the hand of Queen Matilda in the Bayeux tapestry; the comet that in 1456, the year of the battle of Belgrade, scared Che Turk and Christian alike, and was anathematized by a bull from the Pope; the comet whose strange scimitar form still chilled the marrow of the ignorant and superstitious at its latest return in 1835. It is yet far away, says the Providence Journal, but the eye of science sees it, already within the orbit Neptune, rushing onward and earthward with constantly Increasing velocity as it falls along the steep curve of its orbit. And a call to arms, a call for preparation, has just been issued from one of the chief watch towers of astronomy. Prof. Glassenapp announces that the computing bureau ‘ established by the Russian Astronomical Society has undertaken the calculation of the true path of Halley’s comet with a view to predicting the i exact date of the next return. He hopes that astronomers acquainted ' : with unpublished observations of the ' 1 comet will communicate the informa- ! tion to the society. After its peri- , helion the comet was watched retreating out into space until May, ’ 18361 when it was finally swallowed i from sight. It will be in perihelion ’ again about 1911, but with the great 1 telescopes now in existence and the greater ones that may then have , been constructed, it is probable that the comet will be detected coming t sunward a year or more earlier than ■ that. The fact that the labor of ■ computing the precise time of its re- • turn is already about to begin gives 1 assurance that the next time it will 1 not be a question of how many days : but rather of how many hours or even t minutes the calculation will be in ; error. Pledges at the Mont de Piete. A correspondent who interviewed the manager of the Monte de Piete, or big pawnshop of Paris, has published a rather curious list of various articles pledged during the year. The most popular among them were bed sheets, of which 91,194 pairs were pledged; there were 549 eider-down quilts. 254 fans, 392 boxes of mathematical instruments. 1,972 saucepans, 460 sewing machines, 57 pianos, and 977 looking glasses—Exchange. A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer says: ‘ ‘To protect fruit trees from caterpillars take axle grease tar, or any other waxy substance, and apply on the limbs above the forks of the trees, and worms cannot cross and therefore will starve to death or drop off and not harm the tree. This is a cheap remedy for small trees, just beginning to bear.” Would that plenty would vie with poverty in remembering the poor.