Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 May 1884 — Page 12

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BEADING FOR THE SABBATH. Trust. I know not if or Hark or bright Shall be my lot; If that wherein my hopes delight Be best or not. It may be mine to drag for years A Toil’s heavy chain; Or day and night my meat be tears On bed of pain. Deai" faces may surround my hearth With smiles and glee; Or I innv dwell alone, and mirth Be stuange to me, My bark is wafted to the strand By breath divine; And on the helm there rests a hand Other than mine. One who has known in storms to sail I have on board; Above the raving of the gale I hear my Lord. He holds nn* when the billows smite— I shall not fall. it' sharp, 'tis short: if long, 'tis light— He tempers all. ®ufe to the laud, safe to the land— The end is this; And then with him go hand in hand Far into bliss. —Dean of Canterbury. Religious Notes. A Spiritualist temple, to cost $250,000, is being erected in the Back bay region of Boston. God keeps tossing back to the human race its failures and commanding it to try again. —Matthew Arnold. ft is announced that Bishop McTyeire. of the Methodist Church South, will shortly visit the China mission of that church. Rev. R, W. McAll recently stated that there are now ninety halls connected with his mission, of which thirty-five are in Faris. Mark this well, ye proud men of action! Ye are. after all, nothing hut unconscious instru merits of the men of thought.—Heinrich Heine. It is in contemplation to form an International Woman's Christian Temperance Union—a union ©f effort for the world in the cause of total abstinence. Pastor Martinez, who seven years ago opened a mission at Russia, near Barcelona, has now fifty members in his church and eighty children in his schools. The ancient Church of the Waldenses number 42 congregations, 6,002 regular attendants at ■worship. 3/,328 occasional hearers, and 3,616 communicants. Signor Conti, of Rome, reports that in the thirteen years of his work more than 300 persons have come under deep conviction and abandoned the Church of Rome. Not-to fear death is a slight to Him who made it our special punishment. Not to desire death is an indifference to Him whom we can only rea<‘h by passing through it.—F. W. Faber. Christianity is not a philosophy or a scholasticism. It is the light of life—plain truth for plain people; and it commends itself to every nungry heart, and to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. —Rev. Dr. Ellis. A correspondent of the Raleigh (N. C.) Chronicle gays: “I saw, the other day, a good large Methodist church, in Haywood county, near Pigeon river, that was built, shingles, pupit, pews, and all, from the timbers obtained from one tree that grew on Pigeon river.” The congregation of St. George’s Cathedral, Kingston, Canada, demand the right to select their own rector, and are almost unanimous in wanting the reinstatement of the Rev. Dr. Wilson, who was recently dismissed for encouraging the efforts of the Salvation Army in that vicinity. “India and Burmah." by Rev. W. E. Robbins, formerly of Indiana, now a member of the South India Conference, is highly spoken of by the India Witness and the Bombay Guardian. It gives the latest information regarding those great countries, and answers hundreds of questions which people at home are constantly asking. On Tuesday. April 8, 20,000 people are said to have been in St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the midday lecture there were present 4.000. In the evening when Bach’s “Passion Music of St. Matthew” was performed, the immense building was full an hour before service was commenced. The scene from the western gallery was some thine: magnificent, almost beyond description. It wa§ computed that there must have been present not fewer than 16,000 persons. The Bishop of London gave the blessing of the throne.

The Saturday Review hopes that the English government will not permit the Pope to take up his residence in Malta, for fear if he went there the Maltese population would soon become hostile to the British, through the influence of the priesthood. Even now. it says, this influence is unfriendly, and it would not be safe or prudent to strengthen it The Spectator suggests that the pontiff might secure the island of Elba for a retreat, in an extremity: but neither of these journals thinks he would help himself in any way by leaving Rome. M iss Knowles, a sister of Rev. J. H. Knowles, of Newark (New -Jersey) Methodist Conference, writes trom Naini Tal, India: “I hare every reason to be encouraged with our new school for English girls. The government has granted me Its. 125 a month for the coming year, and \V. F. M. S., at its late executive meeting, agreed to Bend jnonpy to buy a property. Miss Easton’s school at Cawnpore, also under the supervision of our North India Conference, is doing excellent work, and both these institutions promise much usefulness for the future. Miss Easton’s school opens this year witli fifty boarders, and pile has lately passed two girls in the government examination standard.” On Thursday, June 10, 1884. the celebrated London preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon, will have reached his fiftieth birthday. Arrangements are being made to give the day suitable celebration. A large memorial building, which is being erected in the rear of the Tabernacle for church offices, and which is to be known as Jubilee House, is to be formally opened on the occasion. A large sum of money, it is understood, is to be presented to the pastor, and Mr. Spurgeon is expected to go through the ordeal of shaking hands with his 5.000 members. It is well understood that whatever sum may be presented will be handed over by the reverend gentleman to the institutions which he has created. The company appointed to revise the author ized revision of the Old Testament concluded their eighty-fourth session in the Jerusalem Chamber on the 2d inst. Among those present were the Lean of Peterborough, Mr. Bentley, Dr. Chance, Mr. Cheyne, Professor Driver. Dr. Ginsbure. Archdeacon Harrison, Dr. Kay, Professor Leatlies, Professor Lunaby, Mr. Suzee, Professor Robertson Smith. Professor Wright and Mr. Addis Wright, secretary. Communications were received from Dr. Lindsay Alexander, Principal Douglas and Dr. (bitch, who were unable to attend. The final review was continued as far as Isaiah xxx, 18. It will be a somewhat striking coincidence if the revision of the authorized version should be completed in the same manner which is to be made memorable by the quincentenuial celebration of the memory of him who first gave to Englishmen the Holy Scriptures in theirown vernacular. The coincidence is not likely to pass unnoticed at the Wyeliffe celebration, The Mamertine Prison, Correspondence Troy Times. The Mamertine prison consists of two subterranean dungeons, one below the other. An old monk, with a lighted lamp, conducted us down a long flight of stone steps to the upper prison. We found ourselves in a cold, dark room, Duilt up on all sides and overhead with enormous stones. In ancient times the only connection between the upper and lower dungeons was by a circular hole just large enough to admit a human body. Through this opening prisoners were low ered to the dungeon below, in modem times a stairway has been cut aronnd through the rock from the upper to the still more horrible lower prison. No light of day has ever penetrated that dark, deep, damp, dismal dungeon. But the chief interest of the Mamertine lies in the tradition that St. Peter and St. Paul were confined there just before their martyr dom. Without believing or disbelieving the story, till we get some idea ot a Roman prison in Paul's day. In descending the stairs the numk paused before a rude indentation ill the stonewall, which we could imagine looked like the side of a man’s head. There our guide waxed eloquent and said: “Tins is the impression of St Peter's head! When the jailers were taking the

apostle to the prison below, they rudely pushed him against the wall, leaving this indentation in the solid rock!" In the lower dungeon the monk showed us a spring, aud again becoming elo (juent. he said: “Here Peter preached to two of his jailers until they believed and asked to be baptized. Then the apostle touched the floor, and this fountain burst from the rock; thus by a miracle water was furnished for baptism.” But, alas for the old monk's story, Plutarch tells us that Jugurtha drank of this same fountain when he was in the prison, and that was a century before Peter was born. We tasted of the water, and found it pleasant. AS TO STRANGE DREAMS. Some Remarkable Stories Suggested by a Clergyman’s Recent Essay. New York Herald. Four gentlemen were seated, one evening last week, in a private room of an up town resort One of them made casual reference to dreaming, and mentioned, incidentally, a paper read the night previous, by a clergyman, on the phenomena of dreams. Two of the party scoffed at the idea that persons ever dreamed of events to come. They admitted that they seldom had dreams, hut’ when they did dream, the fancies had little continuity and relevancy. One gentleman. however, boldly affirmed that he had had several demonstrations that the mind did often carry out in sleep the designs of the day. “When I was about twelve years old,” he said, “like most boys of that age. my principal occupation was deviltry of one kind or another. An old man, heartily detested by all the boys, had died in our neighbornood, and every evening his widow and grown daughter had to pass down a lane running parallel with our fence, along the top of which was laid flat boarding. Noticing the nightly trips of these two females, an idea oc eurred to me Keeping my own counsel. I laid my plans. I intended, some night when my parents were out, to wrap a sheet around my body, and climbing the fence run along it when the women came by. ‘‘Now here is the curious fact. Two days af ter, and before I had had a chance to carry out the plan, all the people about were greatly excited. A ghost had appeared, and there could bo no mistake as to its identity. It walked down the lane and distinctly said: ‘I am the ghost of old S .’ This was sworn to by two witnesses. I wondered who had forestalled me. I asked all the other boys, but none of them, that I was sure, knew anything of the matter. “The next night there was a battalion of watchers, I among them. All patiently, some tremblingly awaited the coming of the specter. Twelve o'clock, one o’clock passed, but it didn't come. Then we all went to bed. The next morning it was announced that a gentleman had seen the spook later in the night, and heard its cry. By this time my soul was filled with envy to think of the unknown who was kicking up such a row. A night intervened without disturbance, but on the following night it was laid forever, and with it the belief of many that souls can return from the other shore. “Two men had watched. At last they saw the gleam of white at the end of the lane. Suddenly it occurred to them what was the cause of the ghost’s great stature. It is walking on the fence. They laid for it, grabbed it by the arm, tore away the sheet, and with such endearing names little imp of hell,’ they awoke the spirit. Glancing wildly about me, I became unconscious. The mystery was solved. The neighbors were enraged until it was found that I was really sick from fright. I was sent away to school soon after, and never told until long years had succeeded that the scheme I carried out in sleep I hatched while wide awake. “Several years afterward I made up my mind to strike out for myself and leave home. Most of you, no doubt, have gone through the experience, so there is no need to speak of my homesickness. I had been away two weeks, and had, besides some money, a stock of attachments for sewing machines, but 1 had not the skill or boldness to dispose of them. One day I went to the Grand Central Depot and took the first train for home. Arriving at Stamford, Conn., I felt impelled to stop over It was the first time I had ever been in the town, and yet everything seemed familiar —streets, houses, the very trees shading the walks. At last it all came to me—l had seen Stamford in a dream. Details returned to my memory, and walking along I could tell what was to appear next. I knew that, in a triangular space, formed by the junction of two streets, I should find a brick building, the lower floor occupied as a dry goods store, with a sign over it in black and gold. In this srore I sold my stock to a man whose face had never before looked in mine, except in a dream. “Some time before I had had a suit of clothes made by a tailor in a town twenty miles distant from my home, and on wearing them found the vest did* not fit. I decided to return the gar ment for alterations, and went to bed. In the morning it was missing, and the most thorough search could not find it. About ten days after it came to me by express, with a note from the maker, hoping that it would now prove ail right. Investigation showed that in the night I had decided to return it I had gotten out of bed at 10:30 p. m„ gone to the express office and had written a note to the maker stating the alteration to be made, and then had expressed the package. All the time I must have been sound asleep. In 1881 a friend of mine went to Wisconsin under engagement to a manufacturing concern in Racine. Two months after I had a dream, in which I fancied myself on a train bound for Albany. Waiting in the depot in Springfield. Mass., 1 saw my friend coming toward me, and. getting down, shook hands with him and asked him to explain his sudden appearance. He said ‘the factory had burned down two weeks before and the firm had refused to continue its contracts.’ In a joking way I told the dream next morning to a gentleman who had been offered a position by the firm named. An hour after I had repeated it a telegram came from Racine announcing the total destruction <f the factory by fire the previous night. Subsequently letters brought the news that the firm had cancelled all contracts.

“In the township of Guilford, Conn., lives a queer character known as ‘Sherm’ Davis—fisherman, hunter, clam digger—he is anything, in fact, which will turn him an honest penny. He lives not far from the scene of the Alary Stan - nard tragedy, and most people who visited Black Rock at that time struck up an acquaintance with ‘Sherm.’ His house is always open, and it is considered the correct tiring when in that vicinity for the tired hunter, or wet trout fisherman to stop there and enjoy a chat with Sherm’s family, and after supper, indulge in generous draughts of punch. The night before I was to make my first visit to Davis', in a dream I had the experience to come—all day, in,company with a friend. I whipped troul streams, but no fly was fascinating enough to tempt a single fish. Tired, wet and hungry we reached Sherm’s at 5 o’clock. We found him just emptying a dilapidated basket containing fourteen trout, the largest weighing eleven ounces. He' condoled with us over otir poor luck, and soon, over a nice supper, we forgot the fatigue of the day. This was the dream. The reality, even to the Weight and number of Davis’ catch, was precisely as I had dreamed on the previous night it would be, except that my friend caught two small fish when my dream had given him no catch whatever. ” The dreamer had finished. Silence reigned until beer was ordered by one of the doubters. It disappeared and then the party broke up. The dreamer started off in an opposite direction to the rest. The third gentleman said to one of the two skeptics, “Well, what do you think?" The skeptic replied, “He is a remarkable dreamer, or a remarkable A Champion Spelter, Washington Letter. The boss speller of Congress is an Illinois congressman, a prominent Democrat, and the chairman of one of the leading committees of this Congress. A few weeks ago, in speaking of West Point, he characterized it as entirely too classical and asserted that there was not a young man in his district who could pass its entrance examinations. Congressman Belford. of Colorado, is ill the same committee andquite recently as a question was sprung between the two gentlemen. Belford said he did not propose to be dictated to by a man who spelt Rhode Island with a small r, and left out the h. Mr. Belford has made the same remark on the floor when engaged in discussion with the above named Congressman, and it is high time that the public know to what he refers. It is to the following sentence written by the above congressman. There is hardly a correctly spelled word in it and even the name is misspelled. Col., I suppose, means colleague. J give it verbatim: “Sly col. is pared witli Ml'. Baloo of road iland. If he were hear I would vote i.” Schoolboys who ate ambitious to become Congressmen need not despair because they do not spell well.

THE INDIANAFOLIS JOURNAL, SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1884.

BEECHER AND HIS CHURCH. A Graphic Sketch of the Great Preacher's Manner and Method. New York Tribune. In 1846 John T. Howard, then a member of Pilgrim Church, bought the First Presbyterian Church property in Brooklyn, extending through the block with a frontage on Cranberry and Orange streets. This step was taken after a consultation with David Hale, then of the Tabernacle Society in Broadway, New York, and literally the fostering father of New England Congregationalism in this region. The first meeting of those immediately interested in the organization of Plymouth Society was held at the house of Henry C. Bowen, in May, 1847. Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of a church in Indianapolis, was visiting New York during the anniversary season, especially to deliver the annual address before the American Home Missionary Society. He officiated in the new Ply mouth Church at its opening on May 16, 1847. The organization was formally made on Sunday, June Hi, with a membership of twenty persons. The first trustees wore Henry O'. Bowen, John T. Howard and Daniel Burgess. A call to the pastorate was at once extended to the brilliant Western evangelist whose tumultuous eloquence had kindled the enthusiasm of the little society to a white heat. In August the invitation was accepted, and on October 10 Mr. Beecher entered upon his long and celebrated pastorate. The old church at the outset was stretched and strained to its fullest capacity by eager congregations, drawn from all quarters by the sudden reputation of the stalwart preacher. I'pou the happy accident of a disastrous fire it was determined to replace the damaged church with anew and capacious edifice, which was completed and occupied on New Year's day, 18!50. Here was a novelty indeed in church enterprise, for with anew church having a seating capacity of 2.800, and an organ costing $22,000, tho entire outlay scarcely exceeded $90,000, and this plant became exceedingly thrifty, bringing in a largess of pewrentals reaching from $11,157 in 1853 to more than SOO,OOO for 1872. Tho so ciety, however, did not confine its activities to Plymouth Church. In 1856 it adopted the Bethel mission, for which it had labored many years, and has expended more than $75,000" in the purchase of the church buildings. In 1871 the churchincreased its range of religious work by adopting the May Flower mission, providing more than $25,000 for its church building in Jay street. It is at once seen that enormous revenues found their way into the hands of the trustees of Plymouth, so that not only was the society early freed from debt, but it became the generous almoner in many directions at home and abroad.

Mr. Beecher, it is conceded, provided the plans in substance for his church. It represents an idea, and indeed the dominant and distinctive idea of Congregationalism, and that is the ministration of an,evangelist or preacher to as many hearers as he can gather and hold by the vigor of his personality or the fascination of his oratory. So Mr. Beecher undertook to set the pulpit directly among the people, who literally swarm all around him, above and below, everywhere that there might be a seat or a foothold. The pulpit then nils one of the foci of the great square interior, a deep gallery with its organ of enormous dimensions and groat chorus choir rising immediately behind it and sweeping quite aronnd the interior,* while a second gallery crosses the southern end over the entrance. Taking the pulpit as a center, the pews of the floor range in bold arcs that reach from wall to wall, so that every sitting lies directly under the eye of the preacher. And the people are crowded up to the pulpit, until it is almost within arm’s length of the pew. So that Mr. Beecher is literally hemmed in by the surging masses that year after year crowd his church, and he can look into their eyes, read their faces, and catch the rebound of every thought or message lie gives. Thus he is all the while rekindling his own altar fires from the hearts of these thousands, invigorating his own exuberant enthusiasm from tho intellectual glow and emotional ardor which set in toward him in radiating confluence from the vast congregation. There is no ritual. There is no Christian symbol. There is hare, chilly nakedness as if the Lord's house , had been stripped. Bare walls, ceilings, window’s—wood work almost rude in its plainness, not a concession to grace, beauty, art or religious association and suggestion. ’ The organ is tho sole art product in the great room, but this is purely conventional and secular in its suggestion. So in Mr. Beecher’s ideal, the preacher and the people and nothing else fill and usurp the hour and the occasion of public worship, and there is not a chink left for the influx of an ecclesiastical or art impulse. The sermon is tho business of the place. It is the consummate blossom of the simple service which prepares and ripens the way for it The preacher enters with an eager pace and flushed face at a door under the organ gallery, lays down his wraps and that in a business-like way, goes up the pulpit steps with a firm tread, holding tightly some loose sheets of note-paper in one hand, lays them tidily down on the table by his chair, sits down and gazes steadily about, peering into the faces of the incoming throng, very much after the manner of a lawyer about to make an important plea, or of a thoroughpaced lecturer taking the measure of a lyceum audience. Air. Beecher is a good gazer and plainly browses among the faces and physiognomies for hint, suggestion, any chancewise disclosure that tell-tale faces have in store for him. It is not idle or eager curiosity, nor is it the brassy vanity of a little soul hungry for notoriety. It is a steady quest after the latch-strings that lay open the minds and hearts of men. The preacher's face gathers significance and purpose and a deep gravity, as the hospitable work of the busy ushers subsides into silence, and the brisk chatter of social, friendly cheer which has filled the place like hum of bees gives place to expectant attention to the man whose genius has brought them together. The great organ winds up an elaborate and suggestive voluntary, and at the first notes of the anthem prelude the eliorous choir rises and delivers the finely written composition with excellent discrimination and eoloring. Then the brief invocation follows, and then a hymn. The hymns with tunes are in every pew, and one may hear a congregation of 11,000 joining with the spirit and tho understanding in perfect rhythm and faultless intonation, under the leading of organ and choir. The diapason of such a vast gathering transfigures even the most trivial tune into something unworldly, and gives the first intimation of supernaturalism that reaches us. One is tempted to inuuire whether, after all, the people's singing at Plymouth is not almost as positive an element of Congregational enthusiasm as the preacher’s sermon.’ The Scriptures are read in scraps and fragments, and to the wonted ear clearly and even forcibly adumbrate the coming sermon. The sermon is hot and fresh from the mint, for the preacher has come straight from his study, where he has hastily summarized the points since breakfast, marked out his plan, looked out his Scripture references, and settled down into the mood and temper of his discourse. These loose sheets are the result of the morning; out lie subject-matter has been under lively incubation during the week, and the delivery which supplies pattern and color to the warp will unfold the many-plied personality, the luxuriant imagination, the distracting wealth of resource which at times seem to belittle and cheapen all contemporaneous oratory. And who is this wizard of speech who for nearly forty years has made the ears of a whole generation of English speaking people tingle and their hearts leap atul burn now with patriotic devotion, now with religious enthusiasm and then with dismay and direst misgivings! Born in 1813 in Litchfield, Conn., that prolific center of commanding intelligence, son of Dr. Lyman Beecher, a rugged, intrepid pioneer not only in social reform but in ecclesiastical ratiocination, leaping full tilt with eager alacrity against every doctrine and prescriptive usage which jarred against his own determinations —at once an irresistible evangelist and a fiery iconoclast; touched with Boston life for four or five years and seasoned with salt before the mast in a stretch of sailor life; brawny and lithe as a backwoodsman, his heroic physical constitution, mpregnable as against labor and disease; graduating at Amherst without serious suspicion of much scholarship, and then transplanted to Lane Seminary, Ohio, under the theological training of the president, his most untheological

father, he enters into the rank, spontaneous life of that early prairie world almost before the plow had driven the moccasin across the Father of Waters. So his formative years drank in the bucolic uneonventionalities, the large, fearless enterprise, the blunt individuality, uncompromising and resolute, and the human heartedness, the sense of human kiuship and social independence horn only of pioneer life. Well seasoned ami sorely strained in his earlier ministrations, ho stepped into the Plymouth pulpit with few illusions and still fewer pretensions. It was his battleground heneerorth, and he was not the, man to fight windmills. Culture had done very little for his equipment; neither, for that matter, had books, or schools, or learning. For in temperament lie is impatient of drill, systems, analyses and logical procedures, all of which are an abomination unto his soul. Intention serves as a man of all work, and he leaps to his conclusions through the eyes of his heart in a womanly way, notwithstanding the fineness, and vigor of his intelligence. Will-power, emotional volitions, dominate his purpose and expression. Then he seeks and reaches his conclusions through analogies, similitudes, symbolisms, correspondences. which from the outset prompted his intellectual and word proeessess, so that he sees visions, sketches, pictures and dreams dreams while most minds are busy with patent analyses, the laborious precision of the syllogism and exhaustive comparisons and reasonings. So his vocabulary, which has most eecentric and unlimited range in all directions, is flushed with color, force, sensible suggestions, figurative and descriptive flavors. It rises to the subtlest gradations of significance when thought and feeling are almost laid bare under a diaphanous idiom; it labors and struggles with fierce assault and heavy pounding onslaught, when the preacher seems swinging the old Thor hammer; then it fairly reeks with coarse realism, of the streets, the markets and the sharp slang of rude life — at once spiritual and rustic, picturesque and nigged, full of plaint and melody, or roistering mirth or thunderous invective. There is always missing the refined precision and elegance of thorough scholarship, the severe graces of classic suggestion and finely tempered reticence and the repose of consummate culture. Air. Beecher meanwhile has pushed the pitiless logic of individualism, which is the touchstone of Congregationalism, until he has reached almost absolute isolation and detached himself from tho church consciousness until he has literally become a church to himself, sole and absolute. Casting off, therefore, all restraints and affiliations of church and denomination, ho has resolutely rid himsolf of old theologies and beliefs. Darwin and Huxley and Spencer have crowded Aloses aside. The Law aud the Pentateuch are faded, and to the three prime enemies of souls — the world, -the flesh and the devil—Mr. Beecher has added orthodoxy, which he berates and derides in turn with all the energy of his brawny nature. His ministrations are crowded with iueonfimities —a tender pietism and glowing conception of the Christ, the second Adam, while denouncing the first Adam as a myth and a fraud; a tenacious clinging to the Scriptures here and there, as the basis of his preaching, while throwing overboard large portions and challenging the inspiration of the rest. But these paradoxes are inexhaustible, and it must suffice to add that the great preacher seems hurriedly devoting the closing decade of his ministry to plowing under and demo’ishing the splendid work of his former life and sowing the desolation with salt. The centuries are not prodigal of such richlyfurnished preachers. Unquestionably as a popular force Mr. Beecher is strictly unique and alone in staying power and mastery. So while orthodoxy gets well out of the way of his terrible philippics, all other doxies flock in and swell the congregation overfull, now in the seventy-first year of tho preacher's life. The charm and mystery of his eloquence seem hardly dimmed. It is yet. the old triumphs, the killing repartee, the kindling apostrophe, the tumultuous upheavals of volcanic combustions and detritus, and that wonderful voice remains w-ith its subduing, penetrating, pianissimos, and its irresistible vehemences But this is not the Henry Ward Beecher, whose sterling evangelism and winning orthodoxy in former years garnered in his yearly hundreds into the fellowship. The church now numbers over 2,700 members, and the great edifice could hardly hold them in a single congregation.

Whom Cau She Mean? Lucy Hooper’s Paris Letter. I have been perusing the latest arrived hatch of American society journals, and have laid down the papers aforesaid with something of the bewilderment wherewith the little old woman in the nursery rhyme surveyed the abbreviated petticoats that had been long aud comfortable when she wont to sleep, and that, when she awoke, barely covered her knees. The petticoats of Madame Propriety in our native land have been strangely bobbed off of late, it seems to me. In bygone days: if my memory serves me rightly, American society demanded, as the first vise on a passport for admission, the unquestionable chastity of every lady who desired to pass its guarded frontiers. It rather strikes me, in perusing the papers aforesaid, that nous avons changes tout cela. But why, O sapient American society, did you persistently snub poor Sara Bernhardt? Her morality was quite as good, or at least not one whit worse than is that of some of your recent pet femenine celebrities. Then, * too, there are American ladies who have taken their full share of the escapades of the fastest European circles, who go home, and are at once received into the odor of sanctity. lam beginning to doubt the ac curacy of my own recollections. I used to feel so proud and pleased, a sort of Pharisaical exaltation when I met Mrs. Tlireestars or Madame Mabille, or any other of the dames with “a history,” in French drawing-rooms, at being able to say to myself: * ‘These females would not he received at home.” Now I begin to fear that they would.be. The deinimondaine du grande monde is becommitig a power on the other side of the water as well as here. The Friendly Drummer’s Trunk. Detroit Free Press, At Macon I became acquainted with a commercial tourist He toured for a Philadelphia harness house, and he had two trunks. As soon as I found that he had two trunks I discovered why he came up to me in the reading-room of the’hotel, reached out the friendly hand, and said that he had carried my photograph next to liis heart for the last seven years. He wanted me to cheek one of the trunks on my ticket as we went up to Atlanta, and thus save him expense on extra baggage. Well, 1 agreed. It is seldom that I try to beat a railroad, but one must do something for his fellow mail now and then in this up hill road through life. It so happened that I had a pass around to Montgomery by way of Atlanta, and I handed it to the bag-gage-checker without a thought of what might follow. Asa consequence, while the harnesshouse tourist dropped off at Atlanta with tears in his eyes for my' disinterestedness, only one of his trunks dropped off with him. The other continued the ride with me for 150 miles, and after considerable telegraphing, it went back to Atlanta by express. Just how much it cost him to fail in love with me I don’t know, but I assure him, on nay honor, that whenever I can go out of my way again to oblige him I shall cheerfully do 30. Tooth-Drawing Extraordinary, Leisure Hour. The fashionable and eccentric physician. Dr. Mousey, who lived in Sir Robert Walpole’s time, took so keen a delight in drawing teeth by this particular process that in the absence of a patient w ith a fee for the service he would sometimes be iris own dentist, and operate on himself from a pure love of art. The process was this: Round the tooth to be drawn the doctor fastened securely a strong piece of eat-gnt, to the other end ot which a bullet was attached. A pistol having been charged with this bullet and a full measure of powder the operation was performed effectually and speedily. The doctor could rarely prevail on liis friends to let him remove their teeth in this singular and startlingly simple manner. Once a gentleman who had agreed to make trial of tho novelty, and had even allowed the apparatus to he adjusted, turned craven at the last moment. “Stop! stop! ”he exclaimed, “I’ve changed my mind.” “But I haven’t changed mine, and you are a coward for changing yours," answered the doctor, pulling the trigger. Even at this distance of time it would be pleasant to discover that the patient of this comedy was his Grace of Grafton, and that, to avenge himself for the loss of a place in tho Lord Chamberlain's gift, the operator attached the cat-gut to the wrong tooth.

THE YOUNG FOLKS’ COLUMN. THE PUZZLE DEPARTMENT. [Everything relating to this department must be addressed to W. H. Graffam, AVest Scarborough, Cumberland county, Maine. Original contributions and answers to each week’s puzzles are solicited from all. J Answers to Puzzles* No. 1073 LIGNUM VITAE MACLURITE FLA S II E R BAKER MAD L U L E AV O O T Z BRA N I) E R ORAN G E AI A in EPIPLEROSIS No. 1074—Snow-don. No. 1075—Lawson E. AlcKinney. No. 1076 OMAGRA MAS LIN ASSUME GLU T E N RIMERS ANE N S T No. 1077. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So neat* is God to man, AVhen duty whispers low. ‘-Thou must," The youth replies, "I can." No. 1078—Brazil. JIo. 1079 G ' AHA A MEND GHERKIN ANKLE DIE N No. 1080—Gondola. No. 1081 —Mouse. Original Puzzles. NO. 1698— GEOGRAPHICAL ARCOSTIC. (Five-letter words.) 1. A mountain of Arabia, famous in Scripture. 2. A liver of England, county of Devon. 3. A town and district of Arabia. 4. A town of Russia. 5. A town of Spain. 6. A town of Peru. 7. A town of British India. 8. A town of European Turkey. 9. A village of Austria. 10. A town of Russian Poland. 11. A group of Mountains in Central Asia. 12. A river of Austria. > My primals a paper will unfold; 'Tis quite well read by young and old. My finals, the city, if read aright, Where 'tis published will come to light. Maywood, 111. See U. U. NO. 1099— DECAPITATIONS. 1. Behead to boast and leave a fragment. 2. Behead commendation and leave to lift 3. Behead one who makes earthen vessels and leave an animal. 4. Behead to defraud and leave to make hot. 5. Behead to repair and leave the extreme point. Elma Hendricks. White Hall, Ind. NO. 1100— DIAMOND. 1. A letter. 2. A male name. 3. A boy's nickname. 4. A girl’s name. 5. Disordered. 6. Old. 7. A letter. E. J. s. Bloomington, Ind. no. 1101—square. 1. A handle [Obs.] 2. To turn. 3. A genius of mollusks. 4. Italian painter of tlie sixteenth century. 5. A shoemaker’s awl. [Prov. Eng. ] See U. U. NO. 1102 —ENIGMA.

My whole, composed of ten letters, is the name of a Western paper. My 10, 8,9, 1,3 was an author. My 2,8, 4 was the father of bush, My 9,3, 5,7, 7is a surname. My 6,5, 4is obscure. E. J. S. NO. 1103— CHARADE. Aly first is a domestic beast; So noted for his power, That, when enraged, the strongest man May well before him cower. Unto my second it is strange, That you should never fall. Nor oftener at home or church Than theater or ball. My whole —a word of modern use. To Webster quite unknown— Denotes to worry into terms. Arousing fears alone. Poplar Grove, Ind. h. s. NO. 1104— DIAMOND. 1. A letter. 2. A twig. 3. Families. 4. A word. 5. A woman’s nickname. 6. Artful. 7. A letter. Aunt Keziah. Moore’s Vineyard, Ind. NO. 1105— HALF SQUARE. 1. A metropolis. 2. Ingenious. 3. A small crustacean. 4. A State. 5. A white, soft and very malleable metal. 6. Nearby. 7. A letter. Elmer Hendricks. NO. 110 G —DIAMOND. 1. A letter. 2. A bush (rare). 3. Retiring. 4. A banker. 5. A journal. 6. Shrewd. 7. A letter. Richmond, Ind. M. B. L. s. no. 1107 —square. _ 1. A term in music. 2. Greas'e. 3. A large plant. 4. Short poems. Lily. Julietta, Ind. [Answers in three weeks. ] Our Prizes. 1. We offer a game of authors for the first complete list of answers this week. 2. For tho next best list we offer fifty pretty address cards with any name printed on them. Puzzles Answered. By E. J. S., Bloomington, Nos. 1074, 1075, 1078, 1079, 1080, 1081. By See U. U., Maywood, 111.. Nos. 1073, 1074, 1070. 1077 (partially), 1078, 1079, 1080. 1081. By H. S., Poplar Grove, Nos. 1074, 1078, 1079, 1080,1081. Prize Award. 1. No complete list of answers received. 2. See U. U., fifty cards. Foot Notes. Sf.e U. U. acknowledges with thanks the prize recently awarded him. We thank him for the good work just received. M. B L. S.—Your matter is exhausted. We should he thankful for a fresh supply at any time. Lilly. —Ditto. We hope you can make it convenient to visit us every week. Zabillo. —We will make use of your enigma next week. Thank you for returning it. J. B. Alexander. —We accept your crossword; the others cannot be used. Thank you. H. S.—We are always very glad to receive assistance from new contributors. We give place to your charade; the others shall follow right along. Please call around frequently. A Kunaway. The Yeung Churchmen. Harriet had a Skye dog, a wagon and a doll. “I think I will hitch Skye to my cart, and give Miss Sophronia Euphemia a ride." Miss Sophronia Euphemia was—what do you think? Why, the doll, of course; though it generally got called “Soph,” for short. “Who is this, my little maid?" said a gentleman, as lie picked up a bundle of clothes with a little girl in them away down the road. “Please, papa, it is Hattie,” said she. She knew her father’s voice, though he had hardly known his little daughter, • she was so covered with mud. Skye had taken it into his head to play runaway horse, and she had run after him and the cart and Sophia, aud had brought up in a pile by the road side, where her papa had found her. “And now let us tie Skye better," said she. “Are you not afraid to try him again?” he asked. “No sir; you see, Skye is not a girl or boy, and he does not know any better.” Her papa smiled and said nothing. “That’s the reason I’m not mad at you, Skye." Now, that I liked in Hattie. Somo children seem to think that, their playthings know, or ought to know, as much as they do. Skye got as good a supper as if lie had behaved

like a well trained horse. Dolly had a nice, gentle ride, and Hattie plenty of exercise and pleasure without losing her temper at all. A CONGRESSMAN AT THE CAPITAL. Unlike the Prophet, He Receives More Honor in His Own District than Elsewhere. Washington Letter in Pittsburg Dispatch. A congressman is a great man—in his own country. In Washington ho is very little known in his personality. To be sure the leaders in Congress are very well known on the floor, in society, on the streets, and through the press by tlie country at large. They have been written up politically, their persons, dress and maimers so minutely described and their habits so harped upon that every intelligent reader in the United States is familiar with them. The stranger in the galleries can pick them out without recourse to the diagram of seats. Tlie rank and file of membership, however, are unknown. Even the reporters and correspondents whose business compels a closer relationship with congressmen, Know comparatively few of them. These few are tho leaders and members of the delegations from States wherein their respective papers are situate. There is not a correspondent but to whom at least one hundred members are wholly unknown even by name. This is not flattering to the congressmen, but it is truth. It astonishes some of tho visitors, who occasionally ask a reporter through the wire netting which separates the sheep spectators from the goat reporters who the member is who is talking, to be told that he dosen't know. But life is too short and sweet to the congressional reporter to make the acquaintance of 325 men every two years merely for the sake of knowing what is no possible use to him. It will astonish the average reader still more to learn that there are upward of a hundred men on tlie floor of the House who do not know each other. I have seen two members introduced at an evening pat ty who were total strangers, and the one didn't know that the other was a member of the House, although both had served constantly through the long session and were then pretty well along in the second. This is pretty apt to take the conceit out of the rural statesman. Tlie other day I introduced Representative O'Neill, of Missouri, to General Bingham, of Philadelphia. We were standing in the main corridor of the House. O'Neill is a bluff Western man and a good fellow. Bingham is a genteel, aristocratic gentleman and a good fellow, also. The latter has been in Congress some time and has made his mark. O’Neill is anew member. I said, parenthetically, “Os course you know each other.” “I don’t think we have ever met before,” said General Bingham, politely. “No, I’m very glad to make your acquaintance General,” said O’Neill, extending his hand. “Thank you,” replied Bingham. “Are you in the city long!” said O’Neill —“for business or for pleasure!" “I am a representative in Congress from Pennsylvania, sir," replied tlie General, stiffly. “You can draw your own inference!” and he walked a way. It was too funny for anything. I remember introducing another Western member to hearty and lovable Tom Bowen, the millionaire senator from Colorado, in the Riggs House one evening. “Bowman, Bowman,” repeated the member, not having caught the name. “Bowen, sir,” said the Senator. “Oh, I beg pardon. What State are you from, Mr. Bowen!” An amused expression shown in Tom Bowen’s eyes as he glanced at me and answered, "from Colorado, sir.” “This is Senator Bowen, from Colorado,” I explained. “Oh, yes; I knew there was a Senator Bowen —” “But didn’t know Colorado,” put in the Senator. “Os oourse not.” It was too disagreeable to laugh then, hut I have been laughing ever since when I think of the gleam of intelligence which suddeutly cams into the congressional cheeks. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. Surrounded by Smoke and Drink—a Pleasant Picture to Contemplate. London Letter in Philadelphia Telegraph. Horrors! I did not see it at first, for one looks at the Speaker and heart of the House. But the whole edge of the corral is a sort of smothering, smoking volcano; a smoking, chewing, reeking, drunken and debauched ragged edge. I now understand why the ladies left. Ah! yes, lam a smoker: but there is a time to smoke. I never smoke in a church or in a temple. And such cigars as these, of the cheap Bowery order, uo man of any sense or sensibility will smoke at all! How do you know they are “two-for five's?” Well, I know this: that a man who is low enough and mean enough to smoke here, is too mean to smoke any other kind than “two-for-five’s.” Ten years ago when writing letters from this city to London, I was compelled to chronicle the fact that it was no strange thing to sec United States senators drinking, drunk in public barrooms along with knots of lobbyists and loafers. And it was all true then. But it is not truo now. The world moves. There is hope, for the great American heart is good, perfect State a folly or a wrong fairly to the people, keep it before them, so that they may not forget it, and my word for it, in less than five years it will be swept away. A year ago, when this paper sent me to the Capitol to interview and report upon the spittoons, I found hundreds of them there as big as wash-tubs, hideous, filthy, reeking tilings, poisoning tho air which the twenty-six men and all the ponderous and wonderful machinery under the Capitol was toiling night and day to purify. I found these monstrosities scattered through all the departments here at our federal capital. Their number was thousands then, if not legions. But this year I find they are only about half as large, and certainly not nearly'half as numerous. So you see that’by appealing to the people through this paper last year, in that one article on this foul subject, I have saved the country and am saving to-day to the country thousands upon thousands of dollars. Let us not despise the day of small things. And if you see a member moan enough to smoke, and chew, and spit about the House while at work for the people in our noble temple next yecr, I shall be surprised.

/ESTHETIC LANGUAGE, How To Talk Up to the Blue China—“lntense Adjectives. Philadelphia letter in Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph. That aestheticism should ultimately affect out forms of expression is not to be wondered at, but the knowledge brings with it a shock of surprise. Naturally it is the adjectives that bear the first impress'of these new notions. “Beautiful" is very tame as a term of description. Sea, sky and mountains become “splendid/’ also a person's eyes which may bo at the same time “soulful.”’“sombre” or ‘‘suggestive." “Gay” is a word used to express neutrality, and a general kind of soul-sickness. An eminent cynic has said that there are three periods to every one’s life—one in which everything appears white, another in which everything appears black, and a third in which everything appears gray. Gray seems to be the expression of a present that is not wholly without its charm, and is not what it might be, because it is haunted by so many unsatisfied longings: it is white with a little admixture of blackness. Then there is “gruesome” and “weird,” which you will often find applied to material and abstract things indiscriminate, as: “He had a certain weirdness of manner;” or “The draperiesjof the room had a weird effect. ” “Intense” is almost tlio Shibboleth of the aesthete. “Blithesome” is the new rendering of “gay.” while “subtle” and “sweet” are “vastly” admired. “She has a subtle sweetness that is vastly penetratine,” may pass as a phrase aesthetic. “Lurid" is a good word in its way, while “effective” .s not confined to any class or company. Colors are no longer light or dark; they are soft or tender. deep toned or subdued. “Introspective” is a fine thing to get off, especially as the quality it expresses is most “intensely” admired. “Woful is another adjective of the same ilk; so likewise “serene," “consummate,” “blissful” and “suolirae ” in such combinations as “serene joy.” “consummate art,” “blissful tenderness,” “sublime aspiration.” It would he impossible in a, passing comment to review all the words of the (Esthetic vocabulary. Their name is legion, their meanings infinite. The eharm of an aesthetic adjective lies in the fact that it may mean all or nothing. It is in a measure nor.-committa., though it-is only fair to stain that it generally moans a good deal of intensity, as aesthetic oino ! lions “■>.