Hope Republican, Volume 2, Number 28, Hope, Bartholomew County, 2 November 1893 — Page 2

HOPE REPUBLICAN. By Jay C. Smith, HOPE INDIANA A l.Aitifa .lumber of people will read of the wearing out of a number of Senator's throats with a great deal of indifference, if not positive satisfaction. A JBWPI8H was caught on the Pacific coast at Avalon, Cal., recently by a Mr. Lindley, that tipped the beam at 300 pounds, being the largest of the species ever captured. The latest evolution of the slot machine gives your weight, plays a strain of the latest popular song, and tells your fortune, all for a nickle. And yet some people talk about hard times and grinding monopolies. The Washington City real estate boom seems to have collapsed, or at least shrunk to a remarkable degree. It is estimated that there are 10,000 vacant houses in that town and real estate values barely hold to last year’s figures in cases where a large advance was confidently predicted. Da. Talmage occasionally grows witty in his Sunday sermons. In one of his recent efforts, in speaking of Theosophists and their alleged miraculous performances, he said the ‘ most remarkable achievement of these mysterious devotees was their success in keeping out of the insane asylum. That will strike the average uninitiated man as a pretty good hit, There was a great deal of betting in New York on the outcome of the races between the Vigilant and the Valkyrie. Those who lost, as usual, knew that they would lose, but bet as they did against their better judgment. That is generally the way. Men who bet on elections and lose always do so from a patriotic motive, and not for the money they hope to gain. We all know such men, and the subterfuges they invent to cover their losses and chagrin are not the least amusing feature of a hot campaign. The Viking ship will pz-obably be “presented” to the United States government, and will oe removed from Chicago to Washington City to serve as a memorial and an attraction at the Smithsonian Institution or the navy yard. Capt. Andersen, of the Viking ship, has been in Washington on this business for some time: It is understood that a subscription, amount not stated, is necessary before the plan of “presentation” can be carried out. Those foreigners do not appear to have been in this exposition business for their health any more than'the “selfsacrificing” Chicagoites. Three great battle ships have been lost within the last three months. The Victoria, of the English navy, went down because of a mistake of her commander. The Haytien crusier Alexander Petion and the Russian ship Pousalka succumbed to the ordinary perils of navigation. Peace seems to be more dangerous than war—to the modern castles of iron that try to float the waves in modern times. Safety has been sacrificed to solidity and strength. The thickness of their armor has increased in proportion to the weight of guns and powers of projectiles until the battle ship of the day seem to be more dangerous to its crew than to the enemy it is constructed to exterminate. A New York philanthropist | spends thousands of dollars every year to aid the poor, but is careful to never give the beneficiaries of his bounty a cent of money. His theory is that ready cash demoralizes people in urgent need. This good man will go to almost any trouble to help a person he considers worthy by supplying him with groceries, paying his rent, or securing him employment. As soon as employment is secured for the object of his charity, he inwardly asks for the repayment of the sums paid out by him, stating to the poor man that he is under moral obligations to refund at any convenient season the sums expended for bis benefit. If the party pays, the philanthropist regard* the

case as « r.riumph of self-respect and of more benefit to the poor man than to himself. If the poor man fails to pay it is all the same with the rich philanthropist—he keeps on giving to persons who succeed in enlisting his sympathies. This benevolent man allows himself an income of $6,000, and devotes all the balance of the large profits from his mercantile business to charity. “History repeats itself.” In olden times great public characters listened to the sibyl’s tale, or the seer’s warning. Who has not read “Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day when the lowlands shall meet thee in battle array?” Great warriors never embarked in a new venture without consulting oracles, and the Witch of Endor is quite as prominent a character in Holy Writ as some people of more canny reputation. Men in all ages have dabbled in the mysterious and sought to “catch on” to events of the future before they become due at their station. Probably a great many distinguished persons would be ashamed to confess to their faith in the superhuman. The latest exhibition of a public character of this nature was the visit of a fortune teller from Wisconsin to ex-President Harrison at Indianapolis. The retired statesman was not at home, but the modern “seer” delivered her message from the “Great Beyond’’ to his private secretary, to the effect that Mr. Harrison was_ down in the Book of Pate for re-nomination and re-elec-tion, but that many misfortunes and pitfalls lay in the path of his further triumphal progress. It was all revealed to her in a' dream, and she felt in conscience bound to warn Mr. Harrison of the triumphs and tribulations that awaited him, so that he could be prepared to thwart his enemies and avert to a great degree the misfortunes while holding fast to the rewards that follow well laid plans. Advertising that Pays. Philadelphia North American. It has been rightly said “the time to advertise is all the time." The most successful merchants of the country are those who have been the most persistent in keeping their business befoi’e the public. Experience of more than a century has shown that newspaper advertising is pre-eminently the best, quickest and cheapest method. Reference to the files of the North American of more than a hundred years ago shows that the wide awake business men in those days were, as now, the men whose names appeared most frequently in its advertising columns. It has been conservatively estimated that the merchants of the United States are spending more than $60,000,000 annually for newspaper advertising. A recognized factor in business since the beginning of journalism, it has only been within the last decade that advertising has reached such proportions and become such a lever in the commercial world. The shoppers of to-day no more think of making a purchase without consulting the columns of their newspaper than they do of going to a place of amusement without first reading the newspaper criticism or notice of the attraction. The life of business is advertising, and there is no more profitable season for newspaper advertising than during a general business depression, when the great majority of people feel compelled to economize in every possible way. The paper to advertise in is, of course, the paper that reaches the buyers. It Failed. Indianapolis Journal. “Stranger,” said the young man with the white hair and the dyed mustache to the photographer, “I am here to get my picture took, and I’ll tell you how it is. I’ve jist popped the question to a widder down our way, with forty acres of as good ground as ever a hog stuck his nose into, and I am now goin’ to read her answer. When you see the pleasant smile stealin’ over my face, I want you to fire off your ole machine and let ’er go,” “All right.” The young man took his position, but he didn’t get his photograph taken. Instead, he rose to go without a word, “What’s the matter?” asked the photographer. ’■There ain't nothin’ the matter, ’ceptin’ that she says she’s stuck on a preacher, and that I ain’t got the sense I was horned with, that’s all.” Sincere Appreciation. Atchison Globe, When a man laughs ten times a day, nine of the laughs were inspired by something he said himself.

ABOUT LIFE BOATS. With Incidental Remarks on Theosophy and Other Subjects. The Only, Ark of Safety In the Qotpel Ship—Dr. Tnlinage’e Sermon: Dr. Talrnage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. He chose for his subject ‘"Unsafe Life Boats," the text being Acts xxvii, 32. “Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat and let her fall off." While your faces are yet somewhat bronzed by attendance on the International boat contest between the Vigilant and the Valkyrie I address you. Good things when there is no betting or dissipation, those outdoor sports. We want more fresh air and breeziness in our temperaments and our I'eligion. A stale and slow and lugubrious religion may have done for other times, yet will not do for these. But my text calls our attention to a boat of a different sort, and instead of the Atlantic it is the Mediterranean, and instead of not wind enough, as the crews of the Vigilant and Valkyrie the other day complained, there is too much wind and the swoop of a Euroclydon. I am not calling your attention so much to the famous ship on which Paul was the distinguished passenger, but to the lifeboat of that ship which no one seems to notice. For a fortnight the main vessel had been tossed and driven. For that two weeks, the account says, the passengers had “continued fasting.” I suppose the salt water, dashing over, pad spoiled the sea biscuit find the passengers were seasick anyhow. The sailors said, “It is no use; this ship must go down,” and they proposed among themselves to lower the lifeboat and get into it and take the chances for reaching shore, although they pretended they were going to get over the sides of the big ship and down into the lifeboat only to do sailor’s duty. That was not sailorlike, for the sailors that I have known were all intrepid fellows and would rather go down with the ship than do such a mean thing as those Jack Tars of my text attempted. My subject is “Unsafe Lifeboats.” We can not exaggerate the importance of the lifeboat. All honor to the memory of Lionel Lukin, the coach builder of Long Acre, London, who invented the first lifeboat, and I do not blame him for ordering put upon his tombstone in Kent, the inscription that you may still read there: “This Lionel Lukin was the first who built a lifeboat, and was the original inventor of that principle of safety by which many lives and much property have been preserved from shipwreck, and he obtained for it the king's patent in the year 1785 " But do we feel the importance of a lifeboat in the matter of the soul’s rescue? There are times when we all feel that we are out at sea, and as many disturbing and anxious questions strike us as waves struck that vessel against the sides of which the lifeboat of my text dangled. Questions about the church. Questions about the world. Questions about God. Questions about our eternal destiny. Every thinking man and woman has these questions, and in proportion as they are thinking people do these questions arise. There is no wrong in thinking. If God had not intended us to think, and keep on thinking, he would not have built under this wheelhouse of the skull this thinking machine, which halts not in its revolution from cradle to grave. Even the midnight does not, stop the thinking machine, for when we are in dreams we are thinking, although we do not think as well. There is a splendid new lifeboat called Theosophy. It has only a little while been launched, although some of the planks are really several thousand years old and from a wormeaten ship, but they are painted over and look new. They are really fatalism and pantheism of olden time. But we must forget that and call them Theosophy The Grace Darling of this lifeboat was an oarswoman by the name of Mme. Blavatsky; but the oarswoman now is Anna Besant. So many are getting aboard the boat it is worthy of examination, both because of the safety of those who have entered it and because we ourselves are invited to get in. Its theory is that everything is God. Horse and star and tree and man are parts of God. We have three souls—an animal soul, a human soul, a spiritual soul. The animal soul becomes after a while a wandering thing, trying to express .Itself through rfiediums. It enters beasts or enters a human being, and when you find an effeminate man it is because a woman's soul has got into the man, and when you find a masculine woman it i» because a man’s soul has taken possession of a woman’s body. If you find a woman has become a platform speaker and likes politics

she is possessed by a dead politician, 1 who forty years ago made the platform quake. The soul keeps wandering on and on, and may have fifty or innumerable different forms, and finally is absorbed in God. It was God at the start and will be God at the last. But who gives the authority for the truth of such a religion? Some beings living in a cave in central Asia. They are invisible to the naked eye. but they cross continents and seas in a flash. My Baptist brother, Dr. Haldeman, says that a theosophist in New York was visited by one of these mysterious beings from central Asia. The gentleman knew it from the fact that the mysterious being left his pocket handkerchief, embroidered with his name and Asiatic residence. The most wonderful achievement of the theosophists is that they keep out of the insane asylum. They prove the truth of the statement that no religion ever announced was so absurd but it gained disciples. Instead of heeding the revelation of a bible, you can have these spirits from a cave in central Asia to tell you all you ought to know, and after you leave this life you may become a prima donna, or a robin, or a gazelle, or a sot, or a prize fighter, or a Herod, or a Jezebel, and,so be enabled to have agreat variety of experience, rotating through the universe, now rising, now falling, now shot out in a straight line and now describing a parabola, and on and on and up and up, and down and down, and round and round. Don’t you see? Now, that theosophic lifeboat has been launched. It proposes to take you off the rough sea of doubt into everlasting quietude. How do you like that lifeboat? My opinion is you had better imitate the mariners of my text and cut off the ropes of that boat and let her fall off. Another lifeboat tempting us to enter is made up of many planks of good works. It is really a beautiful boat —almsgiving, practical sympathies for human suffering, righteous words and righteous deeds. I must admit I like the looks of the prow, and of the rowlocks, and of the paddles, and of the steering gear, and of many who are thinking to trust themselves to her benches. But the trouble about the lifeboat is it leaks. I never knew a man yet good enough to earn heaven by his virtues or generosities. If there bo one person here present on this blessed Sabbath all of whose thoughts have been always right, and all of whose words have always been ri£ht, let him stand up; or if already standing let him lift his hand, and I will know that he lies. Another lifeboat is Christian inconsistencies. The planks of this boat are composed of the split planks of shipwrecks. That prow is made out of hypocrisy from the life of a man who professed one thing and really was another. One oar of this lifeboat was the falsehood of a church member and the other oar was the wickedness of some minister of the gospel whose iniquities were not for a long while found out. Not one plank from the oak of God's eternhl truth in all that lifeboat. All the planks, by universal admission, are decayed and crumbling and fallen apart and rotten and ready to sink. “Well, well!” you say. “No one will want to get into that lifeboat.” Oh, my friend, you are mistaken. That is the most popular lifeboat ever constructed. That is the most popular lifeboat ever launched. Millions of people want to get in it. They jostle each other to get the best seat in the boat. “Well,” says some one, “this subject is very discouraging, for we must have a lifeboat if we are ever to get ashore, and you have already condemned three.” Ah, it is because I want to persuade you to take the only safe lifeboat I will not allow you to be deceived and get on to the wild waves and then capsize or sink. Thank God, there is a lifeboat that will take you ashore in safety, as sure as God is God and heaven is heaven. The keel and ribs of this boat are made out of a tree that was set up on a bluff back of Jerusalem a good many years ago. Both of the oars are made out of the same tree. The rowlocks are made out of the same tree. The steering gear is' made out of the same tree. The planks of it were hammered together by the hammers of executioners who thought they were only killing a Christ, but were really pounding together an escape for all imperiled souls of all ages. But while in my text we stand watching the marines with their cutlasses, preparing to sever the ropes of the lifeboat and let her fall off, notice the poor equipment. Only one lifeboat. Two hundred and seventy-six passengers, as Paul counted them, and only one lifeboat. My text uses the singular and not the plural. “Cut off the ropes of the boat,” I do not suppose it would have held more than thirty people though loaded to the water’s ed<*e.’ I think by marine law all our modern vessels have enough lifeboats to hold all the crew and all the passengers I in case of emergency, but the ma-

rines of my text were standing by the only boat, and that a small boat and yet 276 passengers. But whatthrills me through and through is the fact that though we are wrecked by sin and trouble, and there is only one lifeboat, that boat is laigc enough to hold all who arc willing to get into it. And be my remaining days on earth many or few I am going to spend rnv time in recommending the lifeboat'which fetched me here, a poor sinner saved by grace, aQ d in swinging the cutlasses to sever the ropes of my unsafe lifeboat and let h?r fall oil. My hearer, without asking any questions, get into the gospel lifeboat. Room! and-'yet there is room! The biggest boat on earth is the gospel lifeboat. You must remember the proportion of things, and that the shipwrecked craft is the whole earth, and the life boat must be in proportion. You talk about your Compamars, and your Lucanias, and your Majesties, ami your City of New Yorks, but all of them put together are smaller than an Indian’s canoe of Schroon lake compared with this gospel lifeboat, that is large enough to take in all nations. Room for one and roo;n for all. Get in! How.' 1 How? you ask. Well, I know how you feel, for summer before last, on the sea of Finland, I had the same experience. The ship in which we sailed could not; venture nearer than a mile from store, where stood the Russian palace of Peterhof, and we had to get into a small boat and be rowed ashore. The water was rough, and as we went down the ladder at the side of the ship we held firmly on to the railing, but in order to get into the boat we had at last to let go. How did I know that the boat was good and that the oarsmen were sufficient? How did I know that the Finland sea would not swallow us with one opening of its crystal Jaws? We had to trust, and we did trust, and our trust was well rewarded. In the same way get into this gospel lifeboat. Let go! As long as you hold on to any other hope you are imperiled, and you get no advantage from the lifeboat Let gol Does some one here say, “I guess I will hold on a little to my good works, or to a pious parentage, or to something I can do in the way of achieving my own salvation. No, no; let go! Trust the Captain, who would not put you into a rickety or uncertain craft. For the sake of your present and everlasting welfare, with all the urgency of an immortal addressing immortals, I cry from the depths of mv soul and at the top of my voice, “Let go!” Last summer the life saving crew at East Hampton invited me to come up to the life station and see the crew practice, for twice a week they are drilled in the important work assigned them by the United States government, and they go through all the routine of saving the shipwrecked. But that would give little idea of what they would have to do if some midnight next winter, the wind driving beachward, a vessel should get in the grasp of a hurricane. See the lights flare from the ship in the breakers, and then responding lights flaring from the beach, and hear the rockets buzz as they rise, and the lifeboat rumbles out, and the gun booms, and the lifeline rises and falls across the splintered decks, and the hawser tightens and the life car goes to and; fro, carrying the exhausted mariners, and the ocean, as if angered by the snatching of the human prey from the white teeth of its surf and. the stroke of its billowing paw, rises with increased fury to assail the land. So now I am engaged in no light drill, practicing for what may come over some of your souls It is with some of you wintry midnights, and your hopes for this world" and the next are wrecked. But sec! Seel The lights kindled I on the beach. I throw out the life line. Haul in, hand over hand! Ah. j there is a lifeboat in the surf which ■ all the wrath;of earth and hell can [ not swamp, and its captain, with j scarred hand puts the trumpet to j to his lips and cries, “Oh, Israel, j thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help.” But 'what is the use of all this if you decline to get into it You might as well have been a sailor on board that foundering ship of the Mediterranean when the marinc-rs cut the ropes of the boat and let her fall off. The Jury’s Sympathies. New York Weekly. Stranger—You still have lynching here, do you? p Westerner-Only in the. case of bad characters. When a fairly good citizen gets arrested for anything we aiways et the law take its'coursi lhats encouraging," Yes; you see an average iurv can always be relied upon to hang a good citizen if it gets a chance." j twL Czar dl ,^ lik^ s G «>rman so much ,?D.nf c i reC m y d L ocli,led answerfn D t> .f \ 0frieer Wh ° him, m that tongue until the remarks, were repeated to him in English