Decatur Democrat, Volume 39, Number 13, Decatur, Adams County, 14 June 1895 — Page 8

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> L '2Bfe*^wxTr llw *li uX^Wifiß'w™ ,, fll ‘v? • vXw'r ™ \Ww W- \ aSP ®Wx * LA ' / Ayy CHAPTER Vll—Continued. “That is a long price, my dear Mrs. Ruthven.” “Not too long, I think; there are some fields attached which insure privacy at present, and are worth a good deal as building land. Then there is a good deal of handsome old-fashioned furniture in the house." x . _ , T “Oh! if your solicitors are satisfied, 1 have nothing to say against it. My business faculties are of the lowest order. 1 fear, however, that I cannot return before Saturday week. You will be sorry to hear that my friend De Meudon has been dangerously ill. I will try to return by Pans, and have a look at him.” “Yes, I am sorry,” said Mrs. Ruthven. “Then, I may only get on the track of your jewels, and have to go further a-neld to discover them. By the way, ou any note of their size and weight? “Only of some—a few. But I wish you would not go off on such a wild-goose chase. As for me, lam weary of the subject, and inclined to let them go. The whole affair has depressed and exhausted me. I feel pursued by an evil fate as if everything was insecure—l never feel safe!” , “Merely morbid feeling, such as you accused me of indulging, and proves that " you ought never to be left alone. Why do you think of going to so heathenish a place as Folkestone? My sister will only be too delighted if you will go to Chedworth, Dorrington's place in H shire. They will be there in about a fortnight, and get some pleasant people to meet you.” “You are very kind! But, at present, I want to be quiet—and ” “Captain Shirley,” announced a waiter. Marsden elevated his eyebrows interrogatively, and Mrs. Ruthven replied With a smile. “I beg a thousand pardons,” said Shirley, a sullen look of annoyance clouding his face. “I thought you were alone.” “I assure you I am very glad to see you,” cried Mrs. Ruthven, gaily. “I have been trying to feed my inexorable trustee, here, into good humor, to get his consent to my new purchase. Come and help me; and pray, take some luncheon. “I have already lunched, thank you.” “A glass of Burgundy, then? This, I assure you, is not to be despised.” Shirley condescended to take a glass—and began to thaw. “Come into the next room,” said Mrs. Ruthven, leading the way; and, nestling into the corner of a large sofa, she proceeded to coquette with both visitors. “Mr. Marsden is going all the way to Amsterdam, on the chance of finding my poor rubles,” she remarked, after a little discursive chatter. “Is it not good of him?” “We would all go further than Amsterdam, if we thought we could find them,” said Shirley, gallantly. “If? Yes, that is just it. But it is too far for a mere chance. By the way, how far is Amsterdam from Ostend?” asked Mrs. Ruthven, in a curious mocking tone. .. . “I really do not know,” returned Shirley, gravely, and looking very straight at her, his face darkening. “Why do you ask?” Mrs. Ruthven was saved the difficulty of answering, as her courier came in be-. fore she could reply, and handing a card to his mistress, asked: “Will you receive the gentleman, madime?” “Oh, yes, show Jtiim up.” Then, with a little confidential nod to Shirley, she added: “This is my engineer!” “He has lost no time,” he returned. “I shall not let him stay long. I will tell you all about him afterward” Marsden. «■ Shirley looked sharply at the door; but Marsden steemed too much occupied with his own thoughts to heed what was going on. In a few minutes a middle-aged man, of average height, with iron-gray mustache and whiskers, his right arm in a sling, came into the room, and made a deferential, though clumsy, bow. “Good morning, Mr. Colville,” said Mrs. Ruthven, who had risen, and was standing beside a table near one of the windows. “You have lost no time in answering my note.” “I was anxious to thank you for your kindness in writing,” he returned, in a low, hoarse voice. “And how is your little girl?” continued Mrs. Ruthven. “Let me see, she must - be nearly eight?” “No, ma’am,,she is nearly seven, and looks less. She is a delicate, weakly little creature, that’s s why I am anxious to keep her away in the country.” “Very naturally. I am sorry I cannot attend to you to-day, Mr. Colville,” graciously. “You see I am engaged with this gentleman and Captain Shirley,” bending her head in the direction 6t the latter. “But if you will call to-morrow, I can give you half an hour; do not be later than twelve.” " “I shall be punctual, and I thank you.” “Wait for a moment,” said Mrs. Ruthven. “I have a little gift here for my god-daughter.” She went to her writing table, and took from a drawer a small packet, tied with ribbon, which she placed in his hands. “You are very good, madame,” he said, as with another clumsy bow and a look at each gentleman, he left the room. “Do you not remember him at all?” asked Mrs. Ruthven. “No,” returned Shirley. “I never saw him before, and I cannot say he looks the sort of man I should be inclined to trust.” “You are too suspicious. The poor fellow has been unlucky. His arm was broken in some machinery, .and he is out of work.” “I have a fellow-feeling with the unlucky,” ?aid Marsden, rousing himself. “I've not had much good luck myself.” “Why, you seem to Be 4 remarkably lucky man,” said Shirley. “By the way, Captain Shirley,” began Mrs. Ruthven, in « languid tone. “I hone rou vrtfi excuse mt fw breaking go*

« engagement; but my head is quite too I' bad to drive down to Twickenham. It would not be worth while going in a closed carriage, and with my neuralgia an open one is not to be thought of.” “Pray do not dream of incommoding yourself on my account,” said Shirley, turning white. “But as you do not need me, I have business to attend to in the city, and will bid you good morning." He bowed to Marsden and went quickly away. “How cross he is,” said Mrs. Ruthven, as the door closed to him. “Yes, poor devil,” returned Marsden, carelessly, “you treat him rather badly." “Why does he cburt bad treatment? I do not want him to coine here." “There is a strong dash of cruelty in you, charming though you are." “Do you think so?” looking down and speaking softly. “Yes, I am capable of taking my revenge, believe me,” her lips quivering as she spoke. “I am quite sure these pretty velvety little hands could strike unflinchingly; but they could caress tenderly, too.” “Clifford!” she exclaimed with sudden emotion, then, correcting herself —“I mean Mr. Marsden." “No, no,” he said, smiling on her, “you have broken the ice, and I will not have the colder appellation.” “Not yet,’’ she said softly, withdrawing her hand which he had taken. “I may call you Clifford one day—but not now. Tell me, when do you go on this rather wild-goose chase to Amsterdam?” “To-night. I cross to Calais, and shall get to Amsterdam some time to-morrow. I shall not write, as I hope to see you so soon again. I trust you will go and amuse yourself somewhere. I can’t bear to think of your moping in an hotel at Folkestone; do go to my sister." “Well, perhaps I may, but I am anxious to settle about this place.” “We must also arrange about a second trustee; I feel my responsibilities too heavy.” “Oh! we can see all about that when you come back.” o “Good-bye, then, my dear Mrs. Ruthven. Wish me success.” He pressed her hand and was gone. Mrs. Ruthven grew very pale, as she stood for a moment in thought, and pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, then she looked in the glass, smiling at her own image. “I should never be alone,” she murmured. “Does he mean to be my constant companion? lam to select another trustee. Ah! Marsden, if you but loved me, I could forgive anything. Sometimes I almost believe you do. Be that as it may, you are bound to me —for love or for revenge—l will never let you go.” CHAPTER VIII. The result of Miss L’Estrange's selfcommune was very perceptible, at least, to herself. The careful watch she established over her own words and manner, however, was too delicately exercised to be in any way remarkable. She was bright and frank as ever, but she slid easily away from any approach of sentimental subjects, though talking readily on other topics. The chief change was an increase of animation and a tendency to mock at what used to touch her. Mrs. L’Estrange only noticed that Nora was in remarkably good spirits. Winton sometimes looked a little surprised, and bestowed more of his conversation on his older acquaintance than he used. The quiet weeks went by swiftly, their monotony broken by occasional dinners at the houses of the cathedral dignitaries at Oldbridge, where Nora’s songs and lively talk, and Mrs. L’Estrange’s gentle tact and sympathetic “listening” made both welcome guests. October was more than half over, and hunting had begun—a congenial amusement which interfered a good deal with Winton’s frequent visits'to Brookdale. The rapid falling of the leaves, and a succession of stormy nights, made Mrs. L’Estrange think seriously of spending November and December in town —a proposition which Nora originally urged. Mrs. Ruthven wrote at length, very amiably. She was detained in town by business, she said. She was in treaty for a pretty villa on the Thames, and would be delighted to have Miss L’Estrange’s counsel and assistance when she set about furnishing. Mr. Marsden had been so good iu trying to find her jewels, and had gone to Amsterdam in search of them, but all in vain. Was he at Evesleigh? for no one seemed to know what had become, of him. “Do you know, I think it would be very nice to help Mrs. Ruthven in choosing her furniture? Shall I tell her we are thinking of going up to town? Perhaps she would take rooms for us,” said Nora, when she had read this letter aloud at breakfast. “My dear Nora! she would not care for the trouble; and what a price she would agree to give for rooms! We must be very prudent; my little savings during the latter part of our stay in Germany will not go far.’’ “Oh, yes! I forgot. You are really a wonderful woman, Helen; I shall never be such an economist; but as to not caring for the trouble, I do not think you quite do Mrs. Ruthven justice; you and Mr. Winton are always of the same opinion, and I think you have caught his prejudice against her.” “I am not as much fascinated as you are, and I must say,.l am a good deal influenced by Mark Winton; when 1 look back”—she stopped abruptly. Nora, who longed to hear her reminiscences, gazed earnestly at her, and Mrs. L’Estrange, raising her eyes suddenly, encountered those of her stepdaughter filed upon her, and colored through her delicate pale skin, to Nora’s great surprise. “Some day,” said Mrs. L’Estrange, quickly, and with some confusion, “I must tell you my little history; every one has some touch of romance in their lives, even so prosaic a person as I am.” “Do, dear; tell it to me now/’ “Now ? Oh, no, I must interview cook, and plan the dinner; the romance of the past must give way to the needs of the present, vulgar though they be; some eveni ing, by thejfirelight, J will prose about days gone by. It Is fine and calm to-day; ' jet u» give Bea a holiday, and walk across

the park. The meet is at Crowland Gate, and we will see the hounds throw off.” “By all means, I feel as if I wanted U be in the open air." Mrs. L’Estrange went away to hei household duties. Nora sauntered into the drawing room and sat down at ths piano, but she did not begin to play f°> some moments. Was it possible that hei quiet, unselfish step-mother had had thrilling experiences? She was so reasonable, so wise in a simple way, that Nora could never imagine the irregularities and redundance which constitute romance gath- > ering round her. How good she had always been! even from her first entrance into the family. How she had stood between every one and her husband’s nasty irritation; how much Nora herself owed to her justice and generosity. Whnt a good influence she had been, how much she had endured from her selfish, unsympathetic husband, who looked upon her as a slave whom he had bought, and who had no rights, no title to consideration, whom he had married to be an upper servant. What a life of suppression, of careful conscientious sick-nursing she had had, without the reward of gratitude or recognition! From how much she had saved Nora herself! How strong and patient she had been. “If I can reward her I will," thought Nora. “I do hope Bea will be a good, loving child; she is like my father, but no woman would be as selfish and troublesome as he was! perhaps his bad health made him worse. I wish I were busier! my life is too easy; it leaves me too much time to think; I must not think.” And she applied herself diligently to a piece of Chopin’s bristling with accidentals and crabbed passages, till Bea, with a radiant face, came to tell her it was time to get ready. The walk through Evesleigh Woods and across the park was delightful. It was a soft autumnal morning, slightly leaden in coloring, like one of Wouverman’s landscapes, as if nature gently mourned her departed youth, the piues and larches gave out their aromatic odors, the grohnd was thickly trewn with red, lea the beech trees, for which Evesleigh was famous, and when the trio reached Crowland Gate, which opened on a wide common, where thp woods ended and an undergrowth of brushwood and furze afforded abundant cover, a tolerable field had assembled, but not many spectators. The rector’s daughters on horseback, the curate’s little children, with their governess, on foot, the banker’s wife from Oldbridge, in her smart carriage, with a couple of visitors from London. Every one knew every one else, and greetings were exchanged. Winton, who rode a powerful chestnut, with the temper that color is usually supposed to entail, managed to keep the fiery creature still for a moment beside Mrs. L’Estrange, “Very glad to have caught a glimpse of you. lam going off to-morrow to Devonshire, an old Indian chum of mine has asked me to share his hunting quarters in a splendid country. I hope I shall find you in town next month. You’ll let me know your movements?” “Yes, certainly. We shall miss you very much.” “I hope you will, unlikely though it seems. We must do some plays when we meet. Good-bye, Miss L’Estrange.” He stretched out his hand to Nora, who had taken a vantage post on a stile, pressing his horse with heel and knee to make it approach, but the animal kicked and resisted, glancing rounfl with wild, wicked eyes. “Consider yourself shaken hands with,” said Nora, laughing and shrinking. “I am afraid of your horse.” At that instant the hounds gave tongue. “They’ve found; they’re away,” cried every one. Winton’s horse, wildly excited, tried to bolt, and strove by every device that could enter into the heart of a horse to unseat his rider, rearing straight up, buck jumping, lashing out with his heels, in vain. A hand of iron controlled him, and the firm grip of the knees was not to be shaken. At last he darted off in the direction his rider chose like a bolt from a catapult During the struggle Mrs. L’Estrange covered her eyes, but Nora could not remove hers. She turned deadly white, for at one moment it seemed as if the horse would have fallen back, then she knew how little all her self-con-trol had done to uproot Mark Winton from her head. How splendidly he sat. She had not observed bet ~' what a fine figure he had. Would he come back safe after a run of such a vic._us animal? (To be continued.) The Ink Is Fading Away. “Some of the earlier 99-year leases made in this city were written in Inks that are in great danger of fading out long before the lease expires,” said a microscopist and expert in handwriting. “There is not an ink on the market but will fade seriously in thirty years. My business requires me to be informed, and I purchase samples of every ink I hear of and submit them to microscopic and chemical examination. I base what I have said on the results reached in those examinations. The inks made thirty or forty years ago Were not so good as those of the preceding three centuries, for many documents written in the latter are extant, the lines in which are clear and bright The inks of the present day are poorer than those of a generation back, because in this age of adulteration nothing escapes the adulterator. The same ingredients are used, but in a weakened form. Iron and aniline dyes are the basis of most inks. Where iron is used time produces a process of corrosion arid oxidation gradually fades to a pale brown. The logwood disappears. If documents written in these inks are kept in vaults where ventilation is bad, certain gases that are developed by the conditions act directly on the inks and hasten their disappearance. If in the middle of the next century a future biographer wants to examine the correspondence of any Chicagoan living to-day it isn’t unlikely he will find in it pieces of paper that once was covered with writing which has passed away, leaving only pale, faint lines. As to leases, probably there is some understanding of these facta, for instruments that have a long time to run are now printed.” Sea-anemones and some other creatures of low degree Ipcrease their species by budding. A small knot or wart appears on the body of the animal, and by and by develops into a perfect, though minute, animal of the same «pecies, separates fr«u its parent and sett 1 ?P

’ TALMAGE’S SERMON. THE PREACHER OPPOSES BIBLE RECONSTRUCTION. He 8how« How Futile Are the Aaaautte Made Upon the Bcriptnrce—The Bible aa Compared with Other Hooka—lta Divine Protection. Stand* Like a Kock. lu his sermon last Sunday Rev. Dr. Talmage dealt with a subject that is agitating the entire Christian church at the present moment—viz., “Expurgation of the Scriptures.” The text chosen was, “Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Romans lit, 4). The Bible needs reconstruction according to some inside and outside the pulpit It is no surprise that the world bombards the Scriptures, but it is amazing to find Christian ministers picking at this in the Bible and denying that until many good people are left in the fog about what parts of the Bible they ought to believe and what parts reject. The heinousness of finding fault with the Bible at this time is most evident. In our day the Bible is assailed by scurrility, by misrepresentation, hF infidel scientists, all the vice of earth and all the venom of perdition, and at this particular time even preachers of the gospel fall into line of criticism of the word of God. Why, it makes me think of a ship in a September equinox', the waves dashing to the top of the smokestack, and the hatches fastened down, and many prophesying the foundering of the steamer, and at that time some of the crew with axes and saws go down into the hold of the ship, and they try to saw off some of the planks and pry out some of the timbers because the timber did not come from the right forest.' It does not seem to me a commendable business for the crew to be helping the winds and storms outside with their axes and saws inside. Now, this old gospel ship, what with the roaring of earth and hell around the stem and stern and mutiny on deck, is having a very rough voyage, but I have noticed that not one of the timbers has started, and the captain says he will see it through. And I have noticed that keelson and counter timber are built out of Lebanon cedar, and she is going to weather the gale, but no credit to those who make mutiny on deck. When I see professed Christians in this particular day finding fault with the Scriptures, it makes me think of a fortress terrifically bombarded, and the men on the ramparts, instead of swabbing out and loading the guns and helping fetch up the ammunition from the magazine, are trying with crowbars to pry out from the wall certain blocks of stone because they did not come from the right quarry. Oh, men on the ramparts, better fight back and fight down the common enemy instead of trying to make breaches in the wall! While I oppose this expurgation of the Scriptures I shall give you my reasons for such opposition. “What,” say some of the theological evolutionists, whose brains have been addled by too Jong brooding over Darwin and Spencer,’ “you don’t now really believe all the story of the Garden of Eden, do you?” Yes, as much as I believe there were roses in my garden last summer. “But,” they say, “you don’t really believe that the sun and moon stood still?” Yes, and if I had strength enough to create a sun and moqp I could make them stand still or cause tfie refraction of the sun’s rays so it would appear to stand still. “But,” they say, “you don’t really believe that the whale swallowed Jonah?” Yes, and if I were strong enough to make a whale I could have made very easy ingress for the refractory prophet, leaving to evolution to eject him if he were an unworthy tenant. “But,” they say, “you don’t really believe that the water was turned into wine?” Yes, just as easily as water now is often turned into wine with an admixture of strychnine and logwood. “But,” say they, “you don’t really believe that Samson slew a thousand with the jawbone of an ass?” Yes, and I think that the man who in this day assaults the Bible is wielding the same weapon. There is nothing in the Bible that staggers me. There are many things Ido not understand, I do not pretend to understand, never shall in this world understand. But that would be a very poor God who could be fully understood by the human. That would be a very small Infinite that can be measured by the finite. You must not expect to weigh Ae thunderbolts of Omnipotence in an apothecary’s balances. Starting with the idea that God can do anything, and that he was present At the beginning, and that he is present now, there nothing in the holy Scriptures to .arouse skepticism in my heart. Here I stand, a fossil of the ages, dug up from the tertiary formation, fallen off the shelf of an antiquarian, a man in the latter part of the glorious nineteenth century, believing in a whole Bible from lid to lid. I am opposed to the expurgation of the Scriptures in the first place because the Bible in its present shape has been so miraculously preserved. Fifteen hundred years after Herodotus wrote his history there was only one manuscript copy of it Twelve hundred years after Plato wrote his book there was only one manuscript copy of it. God was so careful to have us have the Bible in just the right shape that we have fifty mantiscript copies of the New Testament 1,000 years old and some of them 1,500 years old. This book handed down from the time of Christ or just after the time of Christ by hand of such men as Origen in the second century and Tertullian in the third century and by men of different ages who died for their principles. The three best copies of the New Testament in manuscript are in the possession of the three great churches—the Protestant Church of England, the Greek Church of St. Petersburg and the Romish Church of Italy. It is a plain patter of history that Tlschendorf went to a convent in the peninsula of Sinai a*nd was by ropes lifted over the wall into the convent, that being the only mode of admission, and that he saw there in the waste basket for kindling for the fires a manuscript of the holy Scriptures. That night he copied many of the passages of that Bible, but it was not until fifteen years had passed of earnest entreaty and prayer and coaxing and purchase on his part that that copy of the holy Scriptures was put into the hand of the Emperor of Russia—that one copy so marvelously protected. Do you not know that the catalogue of the books of the Old and New Testaments as we have it is .the same catalogue that has been coaxing on down through the ages? Thirty-uipe books of the Old Testa-

now. Twenty-seveh books of the New Testament 1,600 years ago. Twenty-seven books of the New Testament now. Marcion, for wickedness, was turned out of the church in tho second century and In his assault on the Bible and Christianity he incidentally gives a catalogue of the books of the Bible—that catalogue corresponding exactly with ours—testimony given by the enemy of the Bible and the enemy of Christianity. The catalogue now Just like tho catalogue then. Assaulted and spit on and torn to pieces and burned, yet adhering. The book to-day, in 300 languages, confronting four-fifths of the human race in their own tongue. Four hundred million copies of it in existence. Does not that look as if this book had been divinely protected, as if God had guarded It all through the centuries? Is it not an argument plain enough to every honest man and every honest woman that a book divinely protected and iu this shape is in the very shape that God wants it? It pleases God and ought to please us. The epidemics which have swept thousands of other books into the sepulcher of forgetfulness have only brightened the fame of this. There is not one book out of a thousand that lives five years. Any publisher will tell you that. There will not be more than one book out of 20,000 that will live a century. Yet here is a book much of it 1,600 years old, and much of it 4,000 years old, and with more rebound and resilience and strength in it than when the book was first put upon parchment or papyrus. This book saw the cradle of all other books, and it will see their graves. Would you not think that an old book like this, some of it forty centuries old, would come along hobbling with age and on crutches? Instead of that, more potent than any other book of the time. More copies of it printed in the last ten years than of any other book, Walter Scott’s Waverley novels, Macaulay’s “History of England,” Disraeli’s “Endymion," the works of Tennyson and Longfellow and all the popular books of our time having no such sale in the last ten years as this old wornout book. Do you know what a struggle a book has in order to get through one century or two centuries? Some old books during a fire in a seraglio of Constantinople were thrown into the street. A man without any education picked up one of those books, read it and did not see the value of it. A scholar looked over his shoulder and saw it was the first and second decades of Livy, and he offered the man a large reward if he would bring the books to his study, but in the excitement of the fire tho two parted, and the first and second decades of Livy were forever lost Pliny wrote twenty books of history. All lost. The most of Menander’s writings lost. Os 130 comedies of Plautus, all gone but twenty. Euripides wrote 100 dramas. All gone but nineteen. Aeschylus wrote 100 dramas. All gone but seven. Varro wrote the laborious biographies of 700 Romans. Not a fragment left. Quintilian wrote his favorite book on the corruption of eloquence. All lost. Thirty books of Tacitus lost. Dion Cassius wrote eighty books. Only twenty remain. Berosius’ history all lost. Nearly all the old books are mummified and are lying in the tombs of old libraries, and perhaps once in twenty years some man comes along and picks up one of them and blows the dust and opens it and finds it tf»e book he does not want. But this old book, much of it forty centuries old, stands to-day more discussed than any other book, and it challenges the admiration of all the good, and the spite, and the venom, and the animosity, and the hypercriticism of earth and hell. I appeal to your common sense If a book so divinely guarded and protected in its present shape must not be in just the way that God wants It to come to us, and if it pleases God, ought it not to please us? Not only have all the attempts to detract from the book failed, but all the attempts to add to It. Many attempts were made to add the apochryphal books to the Old Testament. The council of Trent, the synod of Jerusalem, the bishops of Hippo, all decided that the apochryphal books must be added to the Old Testament. “They must stay in,” said those learned men, but they staid out. There is not an intelligent Christian man that to-day will put the book of Maccabees or the book of Judith beside the book of Isaiah or Romans. Then a great many said, “We must have books added to the New Testament,” and there were epistles and gospels and apocalypses written and added to the New Testament, but they have all fallen out. You cannot add anything. You cannot subtract anything. Divinely protected book in the present shape. Let no man dare to lay his hands on it with the intention of detracting from the book or casting out any of these holy pages. Besides that, I am opposed to this expurgation of the Scriptures because if the attempt were successful it would be the annihilation of the Bible. Infidel geologists would say, “Out with the book of Genesis.” Infidel astronomers would say, “Out with the book of Joshua.” People who do not believe in the atoning sacrifice would say, "Out with the book of Leviticus.” People who do not believe in the miracles would say, “Out with all those wonderful stories in the Old and New Testaments,” and some would say, “Out with the book of Revelation,” and others would say, “Out with the entire Pentateuch," and the work would go on until there would not be enough of the Bible left to be worth as much as last year’s almanac. The expurgation of the Scriptures means their annihilation. I am also opposed to this proposed expurgation of the Scriptures for the fact that in proportion as people become selfsacrificing and good and holy and consecrated they like the book as it is. I have yet to find a man or a woman .distinguished for self-sacrifice, for consecration to God, for holiness of life, who wants the Bible changed. Many of us have inherited family Bibles. Those Bibles were in use twenty, forty, fifty, perhaps a hundred years in the generations. To-day take down those family Bibles, and find out if there are any chapters which have been erased by lead pencil or pen, and if in any margins you can the words, “This chapter not fit to read.” There has been plenty of opportunity during the last half century privately to expurgate the Bible. Do you know any case of. such expurgation? Did not your grandfather give it to your father, and* did not your father give it to you? Besides that, I am opposed to the expurgation bf the Scriptures because the socalled Indelicacies and cruelties of the Bible have demonstrated ho evil results. A cruel book will produce cruelty. An unclean book will produce uncleanlinees. Fetch me a victim. Out of all Christendom and out of all the ages fetch me a viztim whose-heart has been hardened to cruelty or whose life has been made Impure by this book. Show me on*- One of

or forty years, moral nr and evening, had . all the members gathered together, and the servants Os the household, anfrthe' ' strangers that happened to be within the gates. Twice a day without leaving out a chapter or a verse they read this holy i book, morning by morning, night by night ' Not only the older children, bat the MttMP child who could just spell her way through * the verse while her mother helped her, the father beginning and reading one verse, and then all the members of the family in turn reading a verse. The father maintained his integrity, the mother maintained her integrity, the sons grew up and eh* tered professions and commercial life, adorned every sphere in the life in which? they lived, and the daughters went iUt<W families where Christ was honored, apU all that was good and pure and righteous reigned perpetually. For thirty years that family endured the Scriptures. Not' one of them ruined by them. Now, if you will tell me of a family where the ; Bible has been read twice a day for thirty years, and the children have been brought up in that habit, and the father went to ruin, and the mother went to ruin, and the sons and daughters were destroyed by it—if you will <oll me of one such incident, I will throw away my Bible, or I will doubt your veracity. I tell you if a man is shocked xfitli what he calls the indelicacies of the word of God he is prurient in his taste and imagination. If a ' man cannot read Solomon’s Bong without impure suggestion* he is either in his heart or in his life a libertine. The Old Testament description of wickedness, uncleanliness of all sorts, is purposely and righteously a disgusting account instead of the Byronic and the Parisian vernacular which makes sin attractive Instead of appalling. When those old prophets point you to a lazaretto, you understand It is a lazaretto. When a man r having begun to do right falls back into wickedness and gives up his integrity, the Bible does not say he was overcome by the fascinations of the festive board, or that he surrendered to convivialities, or that he became a little fast in his habits. I will tell you what the Bible says, “The dog is turned to his own vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.’* No gilding of iniquity. No garlands on a death’s head. No pounding.away with a silver mallet at iniquity, when it needs an iron sledge hammer. I can easily uhderstand how people, brooding over the description of unclean 4 ness in the Bible, may get morbid in mind ' until they are as full of it as the wings,' and the beak, and the nostril, and the claw of a buzzard are full of the odors of a carcass, but what is wanted is not that: the Bible be disinfected, but that you, the critic, have your mind and heart washed with carbolic acid! I tell you at this point in my discourse that a man who does not like this book, and who is critical as to its contents, and who Is shocked and outraged with its descriptions has never been soundly converted. The laying on of the hands of presbytery or episcopacy does not always change a man’s heart, and men sometimes get into the pulpit as well as Into the pew, never having been changed radically by the sovereign grace of God. Get your heart right, and the Bible will be right. The trouble is men’s natures are not brought into harmony with the word of God. Ah, my friends, expurgation of the heart is what is wanted. You cannot make me believe that the Scriptures, which this moment lie on the table of the purest and best men and women of the age, and which were the dying solace of your kindred passed Into the skies, have in them a taint which the strongest microscope of honest criticism could make visible. If men are uncontrollable in their indignation when tho integrity of wife or child is assailed, and judges and jurors as far as possible excuse violence under such provocation, what ought to be the overwhelming and long resounding thunders of condemnation for any man who will stand In a Christian pulpit and assail the more than virgin purity of inspiration, the well beloved daughter of God ? Let those people who do not believe the Bible, and who are critical of this and that part of it, go clear over to the other side Let them stand behind the devil’a guns. There can be no compromise between infidelity and Christianity. Give us the out and out opposition of infidelity rather than the work of these hybrid theologians, these mongrel ecclesiastics, these half-evoluted people, who believe tho Bible And do not believe It, who accept the miracles and do not accept them, who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures and do not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures—trimming their belief on one side to suit the skepticism of the world, trimming their belief on the other side to suit the pride of their own heart and feeling that in order to demonstrate their courage they must make the Bible a target and shoot at God. There is one thing that encourages nxe very much, and that is that the Lord made out to manage the universe before they were born and will probably be able to make out to manage the universe a little while after, they are dead. While I demand that the antagonists of the Bible, and the critics of the Bible go clear over where they belong, on the devil’s side, I ask that all the friends of this ifood book come out openly and above board in behalf of It. That book, which was the best inheritance you ever received from your ancestry, and which will be the best legacy you will leave to your children when you bid them good-by ns you cross the ferry to the golden city. o Young man, do not be ashamed of your Bible. There is not a virtue but it commends, there Is not a sorrow but it comforts, there is not a good law on the Statute book of any country but it is founded on these Ten Commandments. There are no braver, grander people in all the earth than the heroes and the heroines which it biographizes. The American Girl. Generally the American girl has improved in strength and become less frivolous. The hardest and the cleverest students in the public schools are ■ girls. They are entering freely into every employment that does not demand muscular power and rugged endurance. They are better able to take care of themselves than formerly. They are getting over nonsensical notions that dwarfing restrictions are es- ■ sentlal to feminine attractions. They are not afraid that they can know too much or do too much. Meantime they ' are Improving in their looks and increasing in their charms and their desirability as companions and comrades, and men are finding it out—New Y “ ks ™_ T-Tatia 4*faxk fa o '“**