Indiana State Sentinel, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 November 1889 — Page 6

THE INDIANA STATE SENTINEL. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER G, 18S9.

THE OLD HOME OF WAGNER.

EDGAR L. VAKEMAN IN BAYREUTH. A Spot For Idyllic Retirement-The Musical Mecca of tht City Wagner's Origin Who Mle Illra Immortal 111 Influence on Music. Bayreuth. Bavaria, Oct. 21. Copyrighted. If Richard Wagner really desired to peek as deep a seclusion as possible, and to retire almost absolutely from all that had flavor of the modern about it, his judgment yas not amiss when he selected Bayreuth. The place is one of the oldest of Bavarian towns. Indeed, if one consider the irregularity of the streets and the general straggling, zig-zag haphazard arrangement, or rather want of arrangement, al out everything, the place must have originally grown up along some old Roman cow-path, and that one a most eccentric cow-path besides. Somebody has given Darmstadt the reputation of being the deadest town in Europe. That person had not Feen Bayreuth. l ana told that, at any time between the "Wagnerian revivals, when a party r strangers arrives at Bayreuth, it is such an event that the church bells are rung and the visitors are drawn in their fiakres to an inn by the populace. However this may be, there is a listlessness and a silence here that are ever painful. Twice a week the old market-place brightens up a bit. If there is any other business done here there are no evidences of it. The Rathhaus is a rat-house indeed; the churches are sullen and ruinous; the hotels are wearisome old places with their "offices" in a chair in a moldy court, or on an oaken table no larger than your hat ; the residences but a few of which were built during the present century are gray old tombs, about which even wild things in green have apparently ceased growing; the people themselves seem as wraiths, who dream between fests, and who are nly revived for a little time to gather the pfennigs and marks that those remarkable events bring here; and as soon as the strangers an gone the sleep of the years again immediately descends for another dreary cycle. Bat a long tim ago before Wagner was b-.rn, it seemed that others chose the place for a spot for idyllic retirement. The husband of the illustrious Margravine de Eaireuth, sister of Frederick II of Prussia, here built many of the deserted palaces and stately houses which are now either used as barracks or are entirely deserted. The Krmitaga is one and is located about three miles Horn Bayreuth. In this, it is related, the lady named wrote her famous "Memoirs." Als at this period Frederick II built the tine old theater here, decorated in the rococo style, which seats a thousand pef lc, and in which, during his time, operas and lieras were produced at great cost. Upon one, it is said, ."0,000 Serins were expended. So it will bo Rcen that "Wagner merely revived and surpassed what once existed here. Besides tho ancient glories of the Margravines, interest attaches to Bayreuth as the home of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, whose writings are known to all lovers of literature. He lived here from ISO! until the date of his death, in 1S2Ö, and lies buried in the little grave-yard just beyond the Erlangen gate. King Ludwig I erected hie monument, the work of Swanthaler, in one of the principal squares of Bayreuth. At the little hostelry called the Bothwenzel, near the Ermitage, a room is shown whero Richter loved to come and rest and write. But above all else, the pilgrim here is attracted to tho Richard Wagner theater, the musical mecca of Rayreuth. It is built fully a mile from the center of the town, half-way up the side of a little mountain, whose top is cro.vned by the soldier's memorial of 1R72-'7I, and with the exception of a few modern residences at either side of the broad, tre. bordered avenue leading to it, is quite isolated and alone in its glory. It is most untidy and even repulsive in exterior ap-Pt-i..c, and no style of architecture could he named in describing it unless, indeed, it might be called Wagnerian that ;s, architf ctu rally frightful. The material, ja a composite of stone and brick and concrete, with here and there the cross leanis of oak, so common in inferior German buildings, with ruble stone and plaster in the interstices. As you approach the level platz or space, set aside irom tho theater and grounds, there are to tho right a gigantic detached wine cafeand dance hall, und to the left an isolated beer hall anil promenade grounds. To describe the appearance ot tjie theater from a distance, without knowing for what purpose it had ben built, one would be attempted to pay that a (iennan wealthy farmer had built a large barn, or storehouse, upon a hill. Not quite satisfied with the room he had got, after a little he bad a shed for his cattle and horses erected at either side. Finally, after several years of atluence and determined to outdo any fanner in the principality, he had put another barn, twice as high and as large, behind and against tho first one constructed. But when alive, wise, old Wagner could give American theater builders points upon interior construction. The stage and accessories have been given the most attention, and, this portion of the theater (representing the last barn built by tho farmer) is twice as large as the auditorium itself. The width of the stage is ninety f-et ; the depth (stage proper) is seventyeight feet; to which is an extension forty feet deep and thirty-nine feet wide; giving on occasions like the presentation of " Parsifal" a total stage depth of 11H feet. The bight of the stage from the floor to the attachment of flies is ninety feet. The open t pace below the stage, the stage cellar, ha a depth of thirty-four feet, and the open ppace above the flies is twentysir feet, giving a total distance from the highest available point for use in tdage mechanism to the floor of the tstawe cellar of 150 feet. The auditorium to American eyes at first seems as painfully ugly and plain as is possiblo for the monkish, morbid genius of man to create. But one gradually discovers system and arrangement of wondrous real worth. There is not a proscenium box or parquet or dress-circle box in the theater There is no parquet or dress-circle. The seats circle to the right and left from tho cavernous space in front of the stage, where the orchestra is shut out from view, Vfo the rear, at an angle of elevation of hont 30. Following these, at eitherside, with lessening; projection, are lateral walls reaching to the ceiling, the ends of which are trea'.d with detached Corinthian columns with Jong, square bases. These diminishing colt'.mns terminatcat the rear at either end of tlin prince's gallery, set imruediately behind hi last and most elevated circle of seats. Ti:is gallery comprises simply six stall or l-xe, the whole capable of comfortably seating one hundred persons, from which extend to the rear large foyers or promenades. Above this gpllery is another small gallery, accommodating 2"0 peopl', so that, es the main floor contains 1,:4 chairs, there is seating capacity tor only l,nr0 person". These chairs are of cherry, square-framed, with square bt t ks and cane seats, and are roomy and comfortable. The ceiling which, in gray Vandyke and white, represents a canopy gathered at the top of the proscenium "and fastened down nlove the upper gallery snugly, has not a line of gilt or bright color. The somber columns at

either side simply represent hewn stone in gray and white. There is absolutely no decoration in the Richard Wagner theater unless the grouping of pas jets, gracefully hung from the cans of the columns and like sprays along the mid-hight of the columns, the" former series of which are continued around the cornice of the fence's gallery, may be called decorative. y an ingenious arrangement ingress and egress are provided, each two rows of seats having a separate entrance. During a perlormance the lights in the auditorium are lowered as much as possible, and to such an extent that reference to score or libretto is next to imjossibJe. Thus, there being no orchestra visible, and no gaudy decoration to distract the attention, the stage effect, be it of sight or sound, is wondrously hightencd and intensified. Indeed, looking from the center of t?,e auditorium upon a stage setting at Wagner's theater is like looking from the gloaming of some restful cavern out upon the great glory of the rising sun. One cannot but think of Rembrant effects. The very mind and sight and all faculties of mental and spiritual perception arc focused upon the one spot which is given a positive radiance by contrast. The cost of the theater was in the neighlorhood of $22.",000, and considering the difference in labor and value of material in Germany and America, what would equal an outlay of Sö00,000 in our country was expended. This fund was raised by direct taxation by Wagner upon 1.000 jtotrnnnU, or members of Wagner societies, who were virtually commanded to each contribute $225. Only $125,000 came this way. Then Wagner attempted to secure the remainder by giving performances of his higher works, but only about $20,000 was thus secured. Finally the late King Louis gave the remainder, $.SO,000. I had the good fortune to witness the first performance of Wagner's last and greatest work, "Parsifal," in 18X2, as w ell as to become personally acquainted with the composer, his wife and Abbe Lis'tz at that time. ' This gave me an opportunity to know how large a number of persons were necessary in the production of the wonderful music-drama. It clearly shows how impossible of popular rendition are Wagner's strange creations. There were: (ieneral managers, Feustel Muneker, Gross and Heckel; conductors, Levy and Fischer; choral directors and conductor's assistants, Humperdink, Porges. Kniepe, Frank, Stich, Thorns, Merz, Eichel and Hausberg; scenic artists and costumers Carl Brandt (who died in December, ISsi), his son Pritz Brandt, Bruckner, Fricke, Jotikowsky, Messrs. Plettungs, Schwab and Moritz, these only including the heads of corps; solo artists, I'nrnii-tf, Winklemann, (rudehus ami .laker; Kmidrij, Materna, Brandt and Mai ten ; durnrman:, Searia and Sfihr; Amfort in, Reichmann; Klingtor, Hill and Fuchs; Timrrl, Kindermann; the Knight, Stumpf ; the four Souinf (female voices I, Keil, (ialfy, Mikory and Von lluboeuet; llower girl soloists; Audre, Beleo, Pringle, Meta. (Jalfy, and l'orson ; flower girl chorus, twenty-four voices; tho massed chorus, met zo-sopranos, twelve; tenörs, twelve bassos, twenty ; baritones, eighteen ; besides a separate chorus of boys' voices for cathedral and distant effects numbering fifty, bringing tho grand total, with the orchestra, which had 104 performers, up to 287 persons. With those engaged in various other essential capacities, the number of persons actually employed was fullv 400. Kvirvbjdy knows tho history of Wagner's obscure origin; his trifling studies; his surpassing impudence while yet unbearded in proclaiming anew, and, "to him, the only correct, school of composition in lyric opera; his revolutionary career ; his exile to Switzerland; his ill-success in England ; his rebuti's at Paris, despite Myerbeer's noble aid, repaid by the subsequent crudest satires by Wagner; his literary diatribes against all who loved tho melodies of even so great predecessors as Mozart and Beethoven; and his general stupendous egotism self-consciousness, assertiveness, impudence, aggressiveness; or whatever it may be called; and his finally w inning tho heart and treasury of the erratic King Ixnii of Bavaria through the presentation of "Der Fliegende Hollander," anil his later triumphant kingly sway here at Bayreuth while giving the world, or rather his thousands of pilgrim discip'es, representations of his colossal musicdramas, from the "Ring of the Nibelung" in ls7i, to "Parsifal" in 1882, as were never elsewhere accorded any art creation on earth. But everybodr does not know the chief source of his success; nor much of his personality; and few, it seems to me from my own opportunities for observation and analysis, have had the calmness and patience to give both tho composer and his extraordinary product their just estimate. Just two people really made Richard Wagner immortal. One of these was the woman whose hand I grasped at "Wahnfried," the same one I had mot in 1SS2 nt the same place, whose lofty calm, marvelous!' winsome imperiousness and im passi von ess, and her supremo loyalty to her husband then, converted all enemies to friends, and now whose shining faith in the dead "Master's" deification and her own final reunion with him. would transform the whole world to Wagnerian disciples could it be brought within her influence. That woman was once Von Billow's wife. Wagner and Von Bulow were sworn friends. Wagner with his mighty genius for concentering all human aids lipon his own resistless creative and projective forces, saw, or felt, or believed, that this one woman was as necessary as life itself to the complete development of his purpose to create for the worid an absolutely new standard in lyric music. To think was to act and compel according act, with Wagner. So he ran away with this Cosima Von Bulow, Listz's daughter ; and as soon as Vou Bulow got a divorce, Wagner married her. Her children by Von Bulow and those by Wagner were ever, and now are, a happy brood together. These are the plain facts. Those may dis-uss them who wish. Whatever else it was, it was a union of genius and force without which Wagner would have broken and failed beneath the remorseless storms of opposition hia own remorselessness compelled. Probably now sixty years of age, "Madame Cosima" is a head taller than was the short and poddy Wagner. Quaint and odd in dress, spare and gaunt in figure the startling effect is hightened by the longest and scrawniest neck ever connecting woman's head and frame. She is as sallow as was her venerable father. Deep but phenomenally bright and piercing eyes gleam out under heavy brows. Her nose is long and hawked. Her mouth is large, with lips firmly set, with an expression of unconquerable will power ; and this is all intensified by iron-gray hair hooding the sides of the face almost to the chin, w hich is then gathered in a hug knot at the top of the head. There never lived so homely and yet so fascinating a man as was Listz, whose grotesque face I have studied in parlors and at pianos by the hour; Cosima Wagner is his prototype in woman. I l-lieve her tobe what Wagner ever insisted she was, the most intellectual woman in Germany. Not this alone. Her intellectuality was even surpassed by her matchless devotion. It did not make her his enemy. It made her make him. No flattery ever tempted her into tho weakness of vanity regarding her own majestic part in w hat the world got from Wagner. Hence, and because of this loyal abnegation only, she must ever be known as luminously as he who would not have pained immortality without just that power from her and just that abnegation which devoutly holds to this hoar. "No the world is wrong," she said. "It was all his niighty genius. I could help but lit

tle." Then with great spirit this remarkable asertion : "It is the eternal principle that the male shall create; that the female shall nurture. Few women ever created. They were 'derelicts,' wandering forces, when so striving. Had these known the master-power of mated genius in man, their contribution to tho world's good would have been infinitely greater!" Cosima Wagner not only gave her own magnificent powers to A agner, but she gave Listz Listz, the petted of kings and princes, the adored of all women, the greatest pianist the world ever knew, who never uttered word, made motion or struck noie, without presenting a living idea his endless and all-powerful slave. These two tremendous forces, with access to a king's treasury, gave him power to realize his ideas fully; a fortune no composer before him ever possessed. As to his influence upon music, I believe it to have been bail ; not because of his real accomplishment, but. because there remain only two classes to contemplate his work. One believes with Wagner that the ultimate was reached in his methods, and imitates them sadly and badly. The other absolutely rejects' everything Wagnerian. Neither disciples nor enemies are true critics. Time is the only inexorable determiner of what is best in art. And I believe time will give Richard Wagner his place : A transcendent pott and musician who twin genius created a new form of expressing simultaneously majestic ideas in blended sound and thought. Wagner made a new type of a certain expres.-ion. He did not reveal melody. Its divinest forms were before him. He disturled these for a little. They will again appear. He created immortally for the supremest appreciation of the intellect. The world will ever cherish that music which appeals to the supremest appreciation of the heart. Eikjar L. Wakemax.

THE UGLIEST PEOPLE KNOWN. Tho Ilntaks ot Sumatra The Doom of Their Old Feople. London Field. The population of Serapit turned out to see us. The women were a strange contrast to the men in appearance. While the latter were as lean as whipping-posts and uglier than most monkeys, the former at least those under twenty or so were plump, solidly built, full-bosomed creatures, and there were at least half a dozen in the crowd before us who might fairly be termed good looking. But the older members of the community, the women especially, almost surpass my powers of description to give an idea of their weird Tigliness. K. tersely summed them up as "baked monkey;1' but a monkey would at least have have had a covering of hair, whereas these dreadful persons had nothing but their very scanty clothing to conceal any part of the leathery integument that was so tightly shrunken over their skeleton bodies, and looked so hard and dry that you expected to hear them crackle when they moved. Their faces sectned to consist solely of skin drawn over a skull without a particle of ilosh, and looked precisely as if some one had tried to make a mask out of old leather, nd, failing, had thrown it down in disgust and stamped on it. Yet they seemed neither decrepit nor idiotic. The men carried their complement of arms; one old fellow had girded on the largest and crookedest sword there. He looked like Death with his scythe. A woman who resembled one of the dried mummies of blacks found in North Queensland, reanimated, was pounding paddy in a wooden mortar, so I concluded that appearances were deceptive, and that they were not nearly so old as they looked. Indeed, the Malayan races are not long-lived, and really old people are very scarce, such an instance as the late sultan of Brunei, who lived to nearly a hundred, being almost unheard of. And here is the appropriate place to speak of the strange and unnatural practice,' universally ascribed to the Rataks, and continued by Dutch travelers, though I do not understand that any European has actually witnessed the ceremony. When the elder members of a family have reached the stage of decrepitude and uselessness (and w hat their appearance must bo one shudders to contemplate), a general meeting of relations is held, and the senile ono is invited to ascend a small tree, w hich the affectionate relatives then shake with all their might, chanting a song expressive of hunger the while. If ho can succeed in holding on until the shakers are tired out, he is reprieved ; but if, as is most likely, he tumbles off, he is promptly dispatched. A Dutch ' author, Junghuhns, I think, grimly remarks thatthis ceremony usually takes place at the time of the year when limes are ripe, this fruit being very plentiful, and forming a large ingredient in the cuisino of both Malays and Bataks. But if the natives of the interior rescmblo those whom I am describing, the meal must be a mere form, I had forgotten to state that the Batnka file or grind nil their incisor teeth down to the level of the, gums, and only the jaws of a hyena could have disposed of one of tho elders of Serapit. As to their cannibalism there can be. no doubt. THE POSTAGE STAMP MYTH. Origin of an Idea That IIa Mothered Many Hundred of (ioorl People. Good Housekeeping. Now and then some one announces himself as the victim of the one-million postage stamp hoax. It is tirmlv believed that if 1.000.0U0 stamps are collected and forwarded to some one, a bed will be provided for an invalid boy in some hospital, or a home for an orphan. Christian churches have been the special victims, and there is hardly ono in England, tho United States, Australia, India, or in any other country, that has not had several members begging, borrowing, and even stealing postage stamps in order to make up the million that will goto clothe and feed some orphan. This swindle originated in the fertile brain of a postage-stamp collector at Stettin, Germany. He desired to get vast collections to sorrout and sell again, and hit upon a plan to set tho whole civilized world to go to work for him free of charge. He preyed on the sympathies of people by announcing that an orphan would bo cared for in "the Syrian orphan home" for every 1,000,000 stamps sent to him. This worked well ; and the next dodge was the starting of a mythical mission in China, tho holy sisters of w hich agreed, for every 1,.),000 stamps Bent to them, to save from the jaws of the crocodiles of the Yellow river at least one Chinese baby, and then educate and christianize it. The stamps were to be sent, not to Jerusalem or China, but to Munich or Stettin. The last claim on the sympathy of the world that has been made by this German is that for 1,000,000 tamps a home for an olrt lady or an old gentleman will be provided 'in one of three homes one in London, another in New York and tho third in Cincinnati. For f)'X),000 stamps a bed will be endowed in a hospital, and for 100.000 a home will te found for an orphan for one year. There are agencies in various cities to forward stamps to Stettin. It is estimated that this swindler has collected over 100,000,000 stamps in tho United States alone, and that these were worth from $500,000 to three time3 that amount. At the Authors Club. (Life. Brown "Who is that seed looking individual with the long hair?'' Jones "ThatisStarvling, the renowned poet Ilm great Masterpiece was published in the last number of iribh:tr't Jlamzme." Brown "And who U that well-dressed gentleman who just snubbed hiui so unmercifully?" Jones "lie is also a poet. He writes the advertisements for Plum's soap."

WHERE TO FIND COMFORT.

REV. DR. T ALM AGE'S LATEST SERMON From tho Text, "Cod Shall TTlpe Their Tear Away" Kinder Than an Earthy Parent, But "ot Always Called Upon Lot and Mercy. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, P. D., preached to an overflowing congregation at the Academy of music, Brooklyn, last Sunday. The text was, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Rev., vii, 17. He naid : Riding across a western prairie, wild flowers up to the hub of the carriage wheel, and while a long distance from any shelter, there came a sudden shower, and while the rain was falling in torrents the sun was shining as brightly as I ever saw it shine; and I thought what a beautiful spectacle this is! So the tears of the bible are not midnight storm, but rain on paneied prairies in God's sweet ami golden sunlight. You remember that bottle which David labeled as containing tears, and Mary's tears, and Raul's tears, and Christ's tears, and the harvest of joy that is to spring from the sowing of tears. God mixes them. God rounds them. God shows them where to fall. God exhales them. A census is taken of them, and there is a record as to the moment when they are born and as to the place of their grave. Tears of bad men are not kept. Alexander, in his sorrow, had the hair clipped from his horses and mules and made a great ado about his grief, but in all the vases of heaven there is not one of Alexander's tears. I speak of the tears of the good. Alas! they are falling all the time. In summer you sometimes hear the growling thunder, and you fee there is a storm miles away, but you know from the drift of the clouds that it will not come anywhere near you. So, though it may bo all bright around about us, there is a shower of trouble somewhere all the time. Tears! Tears! What is the use of them, anyhow? Why not make this a world where all the people are well and eternal strangers to pain and aches! What is the use of an eastern storm when we might have a perpetual nor' wester? Why, when a family is put together, not have them all stay, or if they must le transplanted to make other homes then have them all live? the family record telling a story of marriages and births, but of no deaths. Why not have the harvests chase each other without fatiguing toil? Why the hard pillow, the hard crust, tho hard struggle? It is easy enough to explain a smile, or a success, or a congratulation; but come now and bring all your dictionaries, and all your philosophies, and all your religions, and help me explain a tear. A chemist will tell you that it is made up of salt and lime and other component parts, but he misses tho chief ingredients the acid of a soured life, the vieriue sting of a bitter memory, the fragments of a broken heart. I will tell you w hat a tear is it is agony in solution. Hear me, then, w hile I discourse to you of the uses of trouble. First, it is the design of trouble to keep this world from being too attractive. Something must be done to make us willing to quit this existence. If it were not for trouble this world would be a good enough heaven for me. You and I would bo willing to take a lease of this life for a hundred million years if there were no trouble. The earth cushioned, and upholstered, and pillared, and ehandeliered with such expense, no story of other worlds could enchant us. We should say : "IOt well enough alone. If you want to die aw! have your body disintegrated in the dust and your soul go out on a celestial adventure, then you can go; but this world is good enough for mo." You might as well go to a man who has just entered the Louvre at Paris, and tell him to hasten oil to the picture galleries of Venice or Florence. ''Why," he would say, "what is the use of my going there? There are Rembrandt, and Ilubenses, and Raphaels here that I haven't looked at yet." No man wants to go out of this world or out of any house until lie has a better house. To cure this wish to stay here God must somehow create a disgust for our surroundings. How shall He doit? lie can not allord todeface His horizon, or to bear od" a fu ry panel from the sunset, or to subtract an anther from the waterliiy, or to banish the pungent aroma from the mignonette, or to drag the robes of morning in mire. You cannot expect a Christopher Wren to mar his own St. Paul's cathedral, or a Michaol Angolo fo dash out his own "Iast Judgment," or a Handel to discord his "Israel in Kgypt;" and you cannot expect (iod to Fpoil the architecture ana music of his own world. How, then, are we to be made willing to leave? Here is where trouble comes in. After a man has ngood deal of trouble he pays: "Well, I am ready to go. If there is a house somewhere whose roof doesn't leak I would like to live there. If there is an atmosphere fomewhere that does not distress the lungs I would like to breathe it; If there is a society somewhere where there is no tittle-tattle, I would like to live there. If there is a home circle somewhere where I can find ray lost friends, I would like to go there." He used to read the first part of the bible chiefly, now he read tho last part of the bible" chiefly. Why has he changed Genesis for Revelation? Ah ! he used to be anxious chiefly to know how this world was made and ail about its geological construction. Now he is chiefly anxious to know how the next world was made, and how it looks, and who lives there, and how they dress. He reads Revelation ten times now where he read Genesis once. The old story, "In the beginning God created the heavens and tho earth," does not thrill him half as much as the other Ptory, "I eaw a new heaven and a new earth." The old man's hand trembles as he turns over this apocalyptic leaf, and he has to take out his handkerchief to wipe his epectaeles. That book of Revelation is a prosiH'ctus now ot the country into which he is to soon inimierate; tho country in which he has lots already laid out, and avenues opened, and trees planted, and mansions built. The thought of that blessed place comes over me mightily, .and I declare that if this house were a great ship, and you all were passengers on board it, and one hand could launch that ship into the glories of heaven, I should be tempted to take the responsibility and launch you all into glory with one stroke, holding on to the f-ide of the boat until I could get in myself. And yet there are people here to whom this world is brighter than heaven. Well, dear 6ouls, I do not blame you. It is natural. Rut after awhile you will be ready to go. It was not until Job had been worn out with bereavements, and carbuncles, and a pest of a wife .that he wanted to see God. It was not until the firodigal got tired of , living among tho logs that he wanted to go to his father's house. It is the ministry of trouble to make this world worth less and heaven worth more. Again, it is the use of trouble to make us feel our complete dependence upon God. King Alphonso said that if he Lad been present at the creation he could have made a better world than this. What a pity he was not present! I do not know what God will do when somo men die. Men think they can do anything until God

shows them they can do nothing at all. Wc lay our great plans and we like to execute them. It looks big. God comes and takes us down. As Prometheus was assaulted by his enemy when the lance struck him it opened a great swelling that had threatened his death, and he got well so it is the arrow of trouble that lets out great swellings of pride. We never feel dependence upon God until we "get trouble. I was riding with my little child along the road and she asked if she might drive. I said, "Certainly." I handed over the reins to her, and I hid to admire the glee with which she drove. Rut after a w hile we met a team and we had to turn out. The road was narrow, and it was sheer down on both sides. She handed the reins over to mo and said: "I think you had better take charge of the horse."" So we are all children ; and on this road of life we like to drive. It gives one such an appearance of superiority and power. It looks big. But after awhile we meet some obstacle, and we have to turn out, and the road is narrow, and it is sheer down on both sides; and then we are willing that God should take the reins and drive. Ah! my friends, we get upset so often because w:e do not hand over the reins soon enough. Can you not tell when you hear a man pray whether he has ever had any trouble? lean. The cadence, the phraseology indicate it. Why do women pray better than men? Because they have had more trouble. Before a man has had any trouble his prayers are poetic, and he begins away up among the sun, moon, anil stars and gives the Lord a great deal of astronomical information that must be highly gratifying. lie then comes on down gradually over beautiful table-lands to "forever anil ever, amen." But after a man has had trouble praver is with him a taking hold of the arm ol God ami crying out for help. I have heard earnest prayers on two of three occasions that I remember. Once, on the Cincinnati express train, going at forty miles the hour, the train jumped the track, and we were near a chasm eighty feet deep, and the men who, a few minutes before had been swearing and blaspheming God. began to pull and ierk at the bell-rope, and got up on the nacks of the seats and cried out, "O God, Kive us!" There was another time, about eight hundred miles out at sea on a foundering steamer, after the last life-boat had been tplit finer than kindling-wood. They prayed then. Why is it you so often hear people, in reciting the last experience of some friend, say: "He made the most beautiful prayer I ever heard!" What makes it beautiful? It is the earnestness of it. Oh, I tell you a man is in earnest when his stripped and naked soul wades out in the soundless, shoreless, bottomless ocean of eternity. It is trouble, my friends, that makes us feel our dependence upon God. We do not know our own weakness of God's strength until the last plauk breaks. It is contemptible in us when there is nothing else to take hold of that we catch hold of God only. A man is unfortunate in business. He has to raise a great deal of money, and raise it quickly. He borrows on word and note all he can borrow. After awhile he puts a second' mortgage on his house. Then he puts a lien on his furniture. Then he makes over his life insurance. Then he assigns all his property. Then he goes to his father-in-law for help ! Well, having failed everywhere, completely failed, he gets down on his knees and says: "O IOrd, I have tried everybody and everything, now help me out öf tliis financial trouble." He makes God the last resort instead of the first resort. There are men w ho have paid 10 cents on a dollar who could have paid 100 cents on a dollar if they had gone to God in time. Why, you do not know w ho the Lord is. He is not an autocrat seated far up in a palace, from which he emerges onco a year, preceded by heralds swinging swords to clear the way. No. But a Father willing at our call to ftand by us in every crisis and predicament of life. I te'l you what some of you business men make me think of. A young man goes on" from home to earn his fortune. Ho goes with his mother's consent and benediction. She has large wealth, but ho wants to make his own fortune. He goes far away, falls sick, gets out of money. He fends for tho hotel-keeper where lie is staying, asking for lenieiue, and the answer he gets is: "If you don't pay up Saturday nk'ht, you'll be removed to the hospital"" The young man sends to a comrade in the eame building. No help. He writes to a banker who is a friend of his deceased father. No relief. He writes to an old school-mate, but gets no help. Saturday night comes, and he is moved to the hospital. Getting there, he is frenzied with grief, and he borrows a pheet of paper and a postage stamp, and he sits down, and he writes home, saying: "Dear mother, I am sick unto death. Come." It is t:50 o'clock when she gets the letter. At 10 o'clock the train starts. She is five minutes from the depot. She gets there in time to have minutes to fparc. She wonders w by a train that can go thirty miles an hour cannot go Fixty miles an hour. She rushes into the hospital. She says: "My son, what does all this mean? Why didn't you send for me? You pent to everybody but me. You knew I could and would help you. Is this the reward I get for my kindness to you always?" She bundles him up, takes him home, and gets him well very soon. Now, some of you treat God just as that young man treated his mother. When you get into a financial perplexity you call on the banker, you call ou the brokers, you call on your creditors, you call on your lawyer for legal counsel; you call upon everybody, and when you cannot get any help, then you go to God. You fay: "O Lord, I come to Thee. Help me nw out of my perplexity." And the Lord conies, though it is the eleventh hour. He says: "Why did you not send for me before? As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort vou." It is to throw us back upon an all-comforting iod that we have this ministry of tears. Again, it is the use of trouble to capacitnte us for theotlice of sympathy. The priests, under the old dispensation, were set apart by having water sprinkled on their hands, feet and head, and by the sprinkling of tears people are now set apart to the oflice of sympathy. When we are in prosperity wc like to have a great many young people around us, and we laugh when they laugh, and we romp when they romp, and we sing when they sing; but when we have trouble we like plenty of old folks around. Why? They know how to talk. Take an aged mother seventy years of age and she is almostomnipotent in comfort. Why? She has been through it all. At 7 o'clock in the morning he goes over to comfort a young mother who lias just lost her babo. Grandmother knows all about that trouble. Fifty years ago she felt it At 12 o'clock of that day she goes over to comfort a widowed soul. She knows all about that. She has been walking in that lark valley twenty years. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon some one knocks at the door, wanting bread. She knows all about that. Two or three times in her life she came to her last loaf. At 10 o'clock that night she goes over to sit up w ith some one severely sick. She know s all about it. She knows all about fevers, and pleurisies, and broken bones, che has been doctoring all her life, spreading plasters, and 1ouring out bitter drops, ana shaking up 10t pillows, and contriving things to tempt a poor appetite. Drs. Abernethy, and Rush, and Hosack, and Harvey were great doctors, but the greatest doctor the world ever saw is an old, Christian woman; Dear me ! Do we not remember her about the room when we were sick in our boy

hood? Was there any one who could ever so touch a sore without hurting it? And when she lifted her spectacles against her wrinkled forehead, so she could look closer at the wound, it wan three-fourths healed. And when the Lord took her home, although you may have been men and women thirty, forty, fiftv years of age, you lav on the cotfin lid and sobbed as though you were only five or ten years of age. Ö man, praise God if you have in your memory the picture of an honest, sympathetic, kind, self-sacrificing, Christ-like mother. Oh, it takes these people who have had trouble to comfort others in trouble. Where did Paul get the ink to write his comforting epistle? Where did David get the ink to write his comforting Psalms? Where did John get the ink to write his comforting Revelations? They got it out of their own tears. When a man has gone through the curriculum, and has taken a course of dungeons and imprisonments, ami shipwrecks, he is qualified for the work of sympathy. When I began to preach, my sermons on the subject of trouble were all poetic and in semi-blank verse, but God knocked the blank verse out of me long ago, and I have found out that I cannot comfort people except as I myself have been troubled. God make me the son of consolation to the people. I would rather be the means of soothing the perturbed spirit to-day than to play a tune that would set all the sons of mirth reeling in the dance. I am an herb doctor. 1 put into the caldron the root out of dry ground without form or comeliness. Then 1 put in the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley. Then I fu' into the caldron some of the leaves rom the tree of life and the branch that was thrown into the wilderness Marah. Then I pour in the tears of Bethanv and Go'otha; then I stir them up. Then I kiu e under tho caldron a fire made out of the wood of the cross, and one drop of that potion will cure the worst sickness that ever afflicted a human soul. Mary and Martha shall receive their Lazarus from the tomb. T'.a damsel shall rise. And on the darkneM shall break the morning, and God will wipe all tears from their eyes. You know on a well-spread table the food becomes more delicate at the last. I have fed you to-day with the bread of consolation. Let the table now be cleared and let us set on the chalice of heaven. Let the king's cup-bearers come in. Good morning, heaven ! "Oh," sayssome critic in the audience, "the bible contradicts itself. It intimates again and again that there oueht to be no tears in heaven, and if there be no tears in heaven how is it possible that God will wipe any awav?" I answer, have you never seen a child cryine one moment and laughing the next, and while she was laughing vou saw the tears still on her face? i And perhaps you stopped her in the midst of her resumed glee and wiped otT those delayed tears. So I think, after the heavenly raptures have come upon us, there may be the mark of some earthly grief, and w hile those tears are glittering in the light of t'io jasper sea God will wipe them away. How w ell He can do that. Jesus had enough trial to make 1 1 im sympathetic with all trial. The shortest verse in the bible tells the story "Jesus wept." The scar on the back of either hand, the scar on the arch of either foot, the row of scars along the line of hair, will keep all heaven thinking. Oh, that great weeper is just the one to silence all earthly trouble, wipe out all stains of earthly grief. Gentle! Why, His step is Boftcr than the step of the dew. It w ill not bo a tyrant bidding you to hush up your crying. It will bo a" father who will take you on His left arm, His face gleaming into yours, while with the soft tipsof the fingers of His right hand Ho shall wipe away all tears from your eyes. I have noticed when the children get hurt and their mother is away from homo they always come to me for comfort aud sympathy, but I have noticed that when the children get hurt and their mother is at home they go right past me and to her; I am of no account. So. when the soul comes up into heaven out of the wounds of this life, it will not stop to look for Paul, or Moses, or David, or John. These did very well once, but now the soul shall rush past, crying: "Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus?" Deaf Lord, what a magnificent thing to die if thou shalt thus wipe away our tears. Methinks it will take us some time to get used to heaven; the fruits of God without one speck; the iresh pastures without one nettle; the orchestra without one snapped string; the river of gladness without one torn bank; the solferinos and saflron of sunrise and sunset Bwallowed up in the eternal day that beams from God's countenance! 'Why should I wih to llnpr la lb wild. When thou srt wailing, father, to nceive thy child?" So, if wo could get any appreciation of what (iod has in reserve for us, it would make us so homesick we would be unfit for our every-day work. Trof. Iieonard, formerly of Iowa university, put in my hands a meteoric ttone, a stone thrown off from some other world to this. How suggestive it was to me. And 1 have to tell you the best representations we have of "heaven are only aerolites flung off from that world which rolls on, bearing the multitudes of the redeemed. We analyze these aerolites and find them crystallizations of tears. No wonder, flung off from heaven, "(iod shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." A THREE YEARS' OPERATION.

Successful Krndlratinn ot An Old Lady's Iifl(urliiK Board. An electric physician in New York City has been enjaccd on a sincle operation for over three years, eays the Detroit Frte J'reM. In the early part of lSst) a lady called upon him and told the doctor that she wished to have the superfluous hairs on her lip and chin removed. Ttiere is only one way to accomplish this successfully, and that is by inserting an electric needle into the capillary tube of each hair and killing the root ly electric shock. At a rough estimate, the physician placed the number of hairs on the woman's chin and lip at 0,(xiO lie is an exceedingly buy man, and he sat down and fi cured out how lonir it would take to accomplish the total eradication of the beard. Then a contract was entered into between the physician and patient, and the result was that the electrician has drawn a comfortable income from the patient eversince. He has completely annihilated the beard, and the lady's face is free of the old adornment. She is some thousands of dollars poorer, but ner soul i possessed with peace. And bo all ends happily, as in the tales of fairy-land. An Old itory Rvsnrrartod. An old story of theTippecanoe campaign has been resurrected by a veteran of 1SJ0. Two Irishmen in New York City had departed far enough from their natural affiliations to become ardent supporters of old Tippecanoe. Despite argument, entreaty and threats they worked for him loyally, and celebrated his elet-tion by going on a tremendous spree, which lasted intermittently all winter. The Harrison inaugural came around and found them far enough recovered to file applications for ofiice, after which they rejumed their interrupted celebration. The long continued soak resulted in delirium tremens, and by the time they emerged from the hospital President Harrison was dead and the Tyler administration bad thrown the wbisr party into consternation and antagonism. The two friends met in a saloon. "Whist Tat. fwhat do yeea think of the sitoowashnn noo?" "It's turrible." "Fwh.it wnld Gincrl Harrison saa if he war aloire to-daa?" "I'm thinkin' he'd saa: 'I'm dam'd glad I'm dead!'" A Lane With No Turning. Mrs. Laker (of Chicago) "ITas your husband founi work yet, Mrs. Webster?" Mrs. Webster "Yes; he has a life-time job now." "What at?" 1 "He was the first man taken for the Cronin jury."

WOMAN'S SPHERE.

A Woman Who Inclines To Think That It la Growing Too Wide. Tbe liuardiao. It is clear from the recent dipeuseion about female suffrage that there H a good deal of uncertainty and difference of opinion at the present day as to woman's sphere in this world Tiie movement which led to the improvement in women's education is etill so young that ita results can hardly yet be tested. We have no suilicient material to enable us to decide w hether, and if so in what direction, the female intellect dillers from the male. We have no adequate means of judging whether those special womanly qualities which are universally valued and admired are inherent in a woman's nature, or are due, in part at least, to the circumstances of her past life, sheltered as it has been from much of the struggle and competition of life. It must still be considered uncertain w hether the particular direction taken by the higher education of women is the "ideally right one. The advance lias been eo rapid that we have hardly had time to breathe, still less to ponder and judg". But the cry is for further advance, or rather ior more change, for new openings, for frctdi developments. It might perhaps be wiser, seeing that we have done so much, to be content for the present to move a little slower, and take time to test the work that has been already done. There seems something selfish in our haste. We wi.h that the changes should, at any rate, come in our day, that we may have the merit and the benefit of them. A little more caution is surely needed before we take tteps which it would be impo-ihle to retrace. Is it too much to ak that those who wish fcr more changes should at least take time to formulate what is their conception of woman's share in the work of society? I have been told that the only way to decide this is to open everything to woman for which nature has not obviously unfitted her. This suegestion, for Christians at least, has one decided objection. There is nothing in the nature of women to unfit them fur holy order', but we cannot imagine that "any Christian, however advanced an advocate of woman's rights she may be, would wish to ßee women as priests. Nature does not. therefore, seem to be an altogether afe guide in this tangled question. I should like to ask my fellow Christiana whether revelation has not something to sav to us on this subject. The old etory of the creation of woman tells us that she was made as a helpmeet for man. I doubt whether modern claims have advanced her to a nobler place. St. Paul's views about women are well-know n, but they are, as a rule, dismissed with some remarks about the nature of the times or a statement that St, Paul did not appreciate women was a misogynist, ia fact. Yet even lie had valued women friends Priscilla, Phoebe, Lois, Eunice. St. Peter was a married man, and lived with women round him, and he had found out that the ornament of women was "a meek and quiet spirit." The political platform of the nineteenth century does not somehow seem akin to the meek and quiet ppirit. I fancy that I have seen in America among the best women a better idea of woman's sphere than is often to be found in our own country. I seem to have noticed there some glimmerings of an idea that women should regard it as their duty to bring sweetness and light, intellectual as well as moral, into the lives of their male relations and friends, and w ith that object each woman should aim at making herself a complete a character as she could. If we women would only take tho trouble to ba something, to have a character, to have interests, to have ideals, to have true religion, who could say whero our power would stop? liut no, we want our rights, we want to make a noise, wo w ant to be of consequence, we are afraid that our opinions are not sufüeiently valued, we clamor for an appreciable test of our intluence. The gospel teaches us a diflcrent lesson. It would be well if we could content our selves for a time with bringing the fruits of our improved education, of our enlarged opportunities, to bear upon the duties imposed upon us within our old sphere, and those others which are intimately connected with it. Meanwhile we might well study, with a little more care than we have hitherto done, what are the peculiar characteristics of the female intellect. Tm much time has been wasted in the desire to prove that it is the same or equal tothat of man. If we believe that the fact that the world is peopled with beings of different sexes is not duo to chance but to the w ill of the Creator, we are to believe that He has appointed work of different kinds for each sex. Wo cannot believe that in the revelation lie has given us He has left us without guidance in the perplexing task of how this work is to be apportioned. Louise Creightox. Tuberculosis in Mrat. ltanrllle Courier No other peotde that ever lived in the world, so far as we know, have been so scrupulously enreful in the observance of sanitary laws as the Jews, and when we are told thatthyowa their freedom from consumption larcely to their riirid inspection of cattle, and see bow ritfid th inspection is as described above, we may well stand aghaat at the prospects before the people of Evansville from the introduction of the Chio.v.'O beef trust's meat here. In the, wholeoale slHiichtering of thousands ot cattl daily, it would be nisrvelous indeed if a larce per Ventage of the Chicago beef w as not diseased. The last le'iflature passed a law reqnirine all cattle to be used for food to be inspected oa foot, but the courts have decided the law to be unconstitutional on the croand ttiat it interferes with commerce between the states. This may be good law, but there U nothing to interfere with the povernment of the United States compelling such inspection, and if the consequences are a serious as lr. Behrand seems to prove, such government inspection will t necessary to save the American people from the Kiot destructive malady to which the. human family is subject. Interesting For Itoth of Them. Atlanta Constitution. An old necro woman w as accosted by a lady in this city, who stopped her carriage to ak: "Aunty, do you kuow of a good cook who wants to hire?" "Yes, mistis," replied the fat, jolly ebony dame. "I wants ter Lire michty bad; who's d lady?" "A friend of mine a Mrs. " The old woman gave a flouting gesture. "IiOr', missis, I wouldn't hire ter oat 'vornan fur mithin'. She's do raeanes white vornan in de eoutitry." "How do yon know, aunty?" "lxr', I lone bear as bow she Is fnm all da colored folks. Iey can't nothin' please her. ishe fun an' quar'l at her servant galls all da time. JShe so tickler nottiu doan suit her." "But, aunty, I know Mrs. , and she really isn't such an awful woman as you think." "No, missis, yon can't euada me dat woman is pood. I knows." "Well, aunty, I'm Mr. ." A flash of Uyinir skirts, a glimpse of long black heels, as they turned down the alley, an J the old darkey was no more. A Chip From the Illarney SHone. l.arfns American. Mr. Tiainface (to grocer) "That kercse n I bought of yon yesterday was very unsalisiactoty. It gives hardly any liiht at all." Grocer (who must have kissed tbe blarney stone) "Shure, lady, when such bright eyes as yer own are about, how con yez expect aony poor kerosise loight to shine at all in comparison with them." Mrs. l'lainface "I will take a gallon of tho tame sort." Proof Toslttve. Terre Haute Express. Johnsing "Does yon t'ink dat de young lady rekiprosates youah aOection, Jnlius?" Julias "I don't sot myself up to be much of a jedjre ot aich mattahs, Mittah Johnsing, but it do look w'en a lady squeezes a ge'muian so so hahd dat she breaks de razzer in has west pocket dat she am leanin' Lis way a little, eh?"