Pike County Democrat, Volume 27, Number 8, Petersburg, Pike County, 3 July 1896 — Page 6

TALMAGE’S SEBMON. The Pursuit and Destruction of the Animal Kingdom Ltkeaed Unto tht ChrUtiaa'i Amnlt UpM Vic*—The Weapons of Chris, ttauity and Their Various Usee. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage delivered the following discourse before his Washington congregation, taking for his test: ’ < Hr was s mighty hunter before the Lord.— 'Genesis x., It In our day, hunting is a sport; out in the lands and the times infested with wild beasts it was a matter of * life or death with the people. It was very different from going oat on a sunshiny afternoon with a patent breechloader, to shoot reed birdsou the flats, when Pollux and Aehilles and l)iomedes went out to clear the land of lions and tigers and bears. My text •ets forth Kimrod as a hero when it presents him with broad shoulders and shaggy apparel and sun-browned faee and arm bunched with muscle—“a mighty hunter before the Lord.” I think he used the bow and the arrows with great success practicing archery. 1 have thought if it is Inch a grand thing and such a brave thing to clear wild beasts out of a country, if it is hot a better and braver thing to hunt <lowa and destroy those great evils of | society that are stalking the land with j fierce eye and bloody paw. and sharp | tusk and quick spring. 1 have wondered if therein not such-a thing as Oospel archery, by which those who j have been flying from the truth may he captured lor God aud Heaven. The Lord Jesus in llis sermon used the art

of angling for an illustration when He said: “I will make you fishers of men,” , And so I think 1 hove authority for using hunting as "an illustration of Gospel truth; and I pray God that there may be many a man to-day Vho will begin to study Gospel archery, of whom it may, after awhile, he said: “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." How much awkward'Christian work there is done in the world! How many , good peoplq there are who drive soul* away from Christ instead of bringing them to Him! All their fingers are thumbs—religious blunderers who upaet more than they right. Their gun has a crooked barrel, and kicks as it goes off. They are like a clumsy comrade who goes along with skillful j hunters; at the very moment when he ought to be most ^uict. he is crocking an aider, or falling over a log amd frightening away the gdme. How few Christian people have ever learned the lesson of which 1 read at the beginning of this service, how that the Lord Jesus Christ at the well went from talking about a cup of Avater lo to the most practical religpus truths, which won the woman’s soul for God! Jesus in the wilderness w as breaking bread to the people. 1 think it wksr'good bread; it was very light brea aljyd the yeast had done its work thoroughly. Christ, after He had broken the bread, •auk to the people: “beware of ° the yeast, or of the leaven, of the Plmrii sees.” So natural a transition it was; aud how easily they all understood llim! But how few Christian people there are who understand how to fasten the truths of God and religion to the son is of men. Truman Osborne, one of the Evangelists who went through this country years ago. hud a wonderful art in the right direction He .came to my father s house one dayv aud while we were all seated in the the room, lie said; “Mr. . Talmago, are all your children Christians?” lather said; “Vefi, all but Dt Witt” Then- Truman Osborne lo deed down into the fireplace, and began to tell a story of • a storm that came on the mountains, and all the sheep were in the fold: but

there was one iamb outside that per4shi*<l in the storm. lla«.i he iooked /Cue in the eye, 1 should have been angered when lie told the story: but lie looked Into the fireplace, ami it was «olpathetically and beautifully done that 1 never'fousld any peace until 1 was sure I was inside the fold, where the other sheep were. “'i he archers of oMea time- studied tlu ir art. They were v.-rv precise in t he matter. The old books •rave special directions as to how an archer should go, and as to what tin archer should do. He must stand erect and firm, liss left • foot a little in advance of the right foot With his left hand he must fake i hold of the bow iu the middle, and thru with the# three tinkers and the thumb of his right-hand he should lay hold of the arrow and affix it to the string—*o precise was the direction |iv«n. Hut how clumsy we are about areligious work! How little skill and . care we exercise. How often our, ar•tows miss the mark! Oh, that there 'were more institutions established In tall the towns and cities of our land, where men might learn the art of doing good—studying spiritual archery, and known *s.‘‘mighty hunters before the Lord!" It the first place, if yon want to be effectual iu doing good, you must be srerj „sure of your weapon. There was something very.-fascinating jabout the archery of olden times. Perhaps you do not know what they could do with the bow and arrow. Why the chief battles fought by the English f’lantagenels were w ith the long-bow. They would take the arrow of polished woodland feather it with the plume of a bird" and then it would fly from the bow-string of plaited silk. The broad fields - of Agio court, and boln-ay Moss, and Neville’s ('mss heard the loud thrum of the archer's bowstring. Now, my Christian friends,we have a mightier weapon than that. It is the arrow of the Gospel; it is a sharp arrow; it is a straight arrow; it is feathered from the wiug of the dove of <9«4'a spirit; it flies from a bow made out of-the. wood of the cross. As far a.-, I can estimate or calculate, it has brought down a00.000.00b souls. Paul knew how to bring the notch of that arrow on to that bowstring, and its whirr was heard through the Corin

thian theaters, and through the court room, until the knees of Felix knocked together. It was that arrow that stuck in Luther's heart when he eried out: “Oh, my sins! Oh, my sins!” If It strike a man In the head, it kills his skepticism; if it strike a man in the heel, it will turnJhis step; if it strike him in the heart, he throws up his hands, as did the Emperor Julian bf old when wounded in the battle, crying: “O, Galilean, thou has conquered!” ' In the armory of the earl of Pembroke there are old corselets which show that the arrow of the English used to go through the breastplate, through the body of the warrior and out through the backplate. What a j symbol of that Gospel which is sharper ! than a two-egded sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of body and soul, and of the joints and marrow! Would to God we had more faith in that Gospel! The humblest man. if he had enough faith in it, eould bring a hundred souls to Jesus—perhaps 500. Just »n proportion as this age seems to believe less and less in it, I belive more j and more in it. What are men about j that they will uot accept their own deliveranc? There is nothing proposed I by men that can do any thing like i this Gospel. The religion of Kalph j Waldo Emerson was the philosophy | of ieicles; the religion of Theodore Parker was a sirocca of the desert covering up the sold with dry sand; the religion of Ilenan was the romanc of believing nothing; the religion of the lluxleysand the Spencers merely a pedestal on which human philosophy sits shivering in the night of fc!ie soul, looking up to the stars, offering no help to the nations that crouch and groan at the base. Tell me where: the^c is one mau who has rejected that Gospel for another, who is thoroughly satisfied, and helped, and contented in his skepticism, aud 1 will take the car to-morrow and ride 500 miles to see him. The full power

of jtlie Gospel has not yet been touched. Asa sjwrtsman throws up his head and catches the ball flying! through the air. just so easily wilj this Gospel after awhile catch thid rouud world flying' from its orbit audl bring it back to the heart of Christ. Give ft full swing, and it will portion every sin. heal every wound, carfc every trouble, emancipate every slave, and ransom every nation. Ye Christian men and women who go out thii afternov»n to do Christian work,' as you go into the Sunday schools, the lay preaching stations and the penitentiaries, and the asylums, I want you to feel that you bear in your hand a weapon, compared with which the lightning has no speed, and avalanches ba^e no heft, and the thunderbolts of Ileaveu have no power; it is the arrow of the omnipotent Gospel. Take careful aim. Pull 'the arrow clear back i until the head strikes the bowl Then let it lly! And may the slain of the Lord be many! Again, if you want to be skillful in spiritual archery, you must hunt in unfrequented aud secluded places. Why does the hunter go three or four days in the Pennsylvania forests or ovCr Kaquetto lake into the wilds of the Adirondacks? It is the only why to do. The deerC are shy, and pue “bang” of the gdn clears the forest. From the California stage you see, as you go over the plains, here and there, aoorote trotting along, almost within range of the gun—sometimes I quite within rauge of it. No one cares for that; it is worthless. The good game is hidden and secluded*. Every hunter knows that. So, many of the souls that will be of most worth for'Christ aud of most value to the church. are secluded. They do not icome in your wav. You will have td go where they are. Yonder they are down in that cellar; yonder they arc | up in that garret. Far away from the i door of any elinreh, the Gospel arrow has net been pointed 4t them. The' tract distributor sin 1 city missionary sometimes catch a glimpse of them as a hunter through the trees gets a momentary sight of a partridge or I a roebuck. The trouble is, we are: waiting for the game to come to us. j We are not good hunters. Wc are standing in some street or highway! expecting that the-timid antelope wilt ; come up and eat out of our handijs ; We are expecting that tiite prairie ! fowl will light on our church steeple. ' It is lfot their habit. If the ehureh [. should wait lO.OM.OUO of years for tlfe world to come in and be 1 saved, it will wait in vain. >>The world will not come. What the church wants now is to lift its feet from damask ottomans, ami put them in the stirrups. >Ye want a pulpit on wheels. The church wants not so much eush- j ions as it wants saddle-bags and ar* j rows. We have got to put aside the

gowjj and kid gloves, and put on tiie hunting shirt. We have been fishihg so long in the brooks that run under the shadow of the church that the fish know us. that they avoid the hook, and escape as soon as we come to the bank, while yonder is Upper Saranac and Big Tupper's lake, where the first swing of the gospel net woo Id break it for the multitude of the fishes. There is outside work to be done. What is that I see in the backwoods? It is a tent. The hunters have made a clearing aud camped out. What do they care if they have wet “feet, or if they have nothing but a pine branch for a pillow, or for the northeast stoi*m? If a moose in the darkness steps into the lake to drink, they hear it ri^ht away. If a loon cry in the moonlight they hear it. So in the serf ice of God we have exposed work. We have got to camp out and rough it. We are petting all our care on the people who come to our churches. Wuat «n we doing for the thousands upon thousands that do not come? Have they no souls? Are they sinless, that they need ro pardon? Arc there no dead In their houses, that they need no comfort? Are they cut off from God, to go .into eternity—no vving to bear them, ho light to .cheer them, no welcome to greet them? I hear to-day, surging up from the lower depths, a groan that comes through our Christian assemblages and thro ugh oox beautiful churches; and it blots _

out all this scen« from my eyes to day, as' by the- mists of a great Niagara, for the dash and the plunge of these great torrents of life droppiug down into the fathomless and thundering abyss of suffering and woe. I sometimes think that just as God blotted out the churches of *Thyatira and Corinth and Laodicea, because j of their sloth and stolidity, he will blot out American and English Chris* tianity, and raise on the ruins a stalwart, wide-awake, missionary church, that can take the full meaning of that command: "'Go into all the world, and preach * the Gospel to every creature.” I remark, further, if you want to succeed in spiritual archery you must have courage. If the hunter stand with trembling hand or shoulder that flinches with fear, instead of taking the catamount, the catamount takes him. What would become- of the Greenlander if. when out hunting for j the bear, he should stand shivering ! with terror on au ieeberg? What j would have become of Du Cnaillu and 1 Livingstone in the African thicket, i with a faint heart and a weak knee? j When a panther conies within 20 paces j of you aud it has its eye on you and it ' has squatted for the fearful spring. | “Steady there!”

Courage, 0 ye spiritual archers" | There are ‘“great monsters in iniquity prowling1 all around about the com* j inunity. Shall we not of the strength i of God go forth and combat them?. We not only need more heart, but more backbone. What is the church j of God, that it should fear to look in ! the eye of any transgression? There is 1 the Bengal tiger of drunkenness that prowls around, and instead of attack* ing it, how many of us hide under j the church pew or the communion * table! There is so much invested in it1 we are afraid to assault it; millions of dollars in barrels, in vats, in spigots, in corkscrews, in gin palaces with mar- j ble floors and Italian-top tables, and j chased ice-coolers, and in the strychnine, and the logwood, and the tartaric acid, and the nux vomica, that go to to make up oui;'*‘pure" American drinks. I looked with wondering eyes qii the ‘‘Heidelberg tun.” It is j the great liquor vat of Germany, which is said to hold SCO hogsheads of wine, and only three times in a 100 j 3*ears it has been tilled. But, as I stood and looked at it, I said to my-j self; “That is nothing—S00 hogsheads. ! Why. our American vat bolus 2,500,000 barrels of strong drinks, and we keep 200.000 men with nothing to do*but to see that it is tilled.” Oh, to attack this great monster of intemperance, and the kindred monsters Of fraud and uucleanness, requires you to rally all your Christian courage. Through the press, through j the pulpit^ through the platform, you must assault it. Would to God that all our American Christians would band, together, not for crack-brained fanaticism, but for holy Christian reform. *1 think it was in . that there went out from Lucknow, India, under the sovereign, the greatest hunting party that was ever projected. There were 10,000 men in that hunting party. There were camels and horses and elephants. On some princes rude', and loyal ladies, : under exquisite housing, and 500 coolies waited upon the train, and the desolate places of India were invaded by this excursion, and the rhinoceros, the deer and elephant fell under the stroke of saber and bullet. After awhile the party brought back trophies worth 50,000 rupees, having left the wilderness of j India ghastly with the slain bodies of

wild beasts, would to God that instead of herd and t here a straggler going out to tight these great monsters ‘ ofTniquity iu our ecuutry. the million membership of our churches would band together and hew* in twain these great crimes that make the land fright- j fui with their roar, and are fattening j upon the- bodies and souls of immortal men! tVho is ready for such a party as that? Who wilt be a mighty hunter for the Lord? I am sure that there are some here who at some time have been hit by the Gospel arrow. You felt the wound of that conviction, and you plunged into the world deeper, p'usl as the stag, when the hounds are aftr.r it, plunges into Scroon lake, expecting in that way to escape. Jesus Christ is ou your track to-day, impenitent man! not iu wrath, but in mercy. O ye chased and pantiug souls! here is the stream of God’s mercy and salvation, where you may cool your thirst! Stop that chase of mu to-day. By the red fountain that leaped from the heart of my Lord. I bid you stop. Is there in all this house anyone who can refuse the offer that comes from the heart of the dyiug Son of God? Why. do you know that there are, in the* banished world, souls that, for that offer you get today, would fling the crown of the universe at your feet, if they possessed it? But they went out on the mountains, the storm took them, and they died. There is in a forest in Germany a place they call the “deer leap”—two j crags about eighteen feet apart, between them a fearful chasm. This is called the “cUjer leap” because once a hunter was-'on the track of a deer; it came to one of these crags; there ; was no escape for it from the * pursuit of the hunter, and in j utter s despair it gathered itself j up, ami in the death agony attempted to jump across. Of course, it fell, and J was dashed on the rocks far beneath, j Here is a path to Heaven. It it plain, it is safe. - Jesus marks it out ! for every man to walk in. But here is a man who says: *T won't walk in that path; I will take my own way.” He comes on until he confronts the chasm that divides His soul from Ileaven. Xow His last hour has come, j and he resolves that He will leap that ! chasm, from the heights of earth to the heights of Heaven., Stand, back, now, and give Him full swing, for no soul ever did that successfully. Let him try. Jump! Jump! He misses the mark, and he goes down, depth below depth, “destroyed without remedy.” Men! angels! devils! what shall we call that place of awful catastrophe? Let it be known forevev as the sinner's death leap.

FOREIGN TRADE. Un* Ibmimi faB the Kiport of imet> lean Manufactures Causes tTstn to CaU—• Ur Ore ana. Nothing' appears to give the calamity organs so much pain as the vast increase in the exports of American manufactures under the existing tariff. In attempting to find a false explanation of this healthy phenomenon in trade the Boston Commercial Bulletin, * rampant organ of tariff spoliation, says that ‘if the truth were known it would probably be found that in many cases the increase merely represents the dumping of surplus product on the foreign market at a price to get rid of it.” This is quite a hypothetical sentence; but a Commercial Bulletin ought to have no great difficulty in ascertaining the truth of. such a matter. There is cc doubt that there are instances in which surplus products have been shipped abroad at a loss, merely to get rid of them. It is one of the curses of the high tariff system that it unnaturally stimulates production beyond the demands of home consumption. Be? hind the tarifF wall the trusts have sometimes extorted such high prices from American consumers that they could afford a loss, on small foreign shipments. A case in point is the recent transaction, of the nail trust with one of its customers, who bought nails on foreign account, sent them abroad and brought them back, and sold the cargo at a profit for less than the price in the home market. There is no evidence, however, that the trust sold these nails for export at a loss. But it would ba grossly absurd to predicate such exceptional conditions of a volume of manufactured exports which for this fiscal year ‘will amount to little less than §225,000,000 in value. The official returns of commerce bear ample evidence to those who can read them that these unprecedented exports of manufacture s have been made in the course of a growing, healthy and profitable trade. Hundreds pf manufacturers have testified that thej* sold their goods in the foreign market for the same prices which they obtained at home. Some have testified that they obtained better prices abroad than at home, because the foreign competition was not so keen as that \v!hich they encountered in the home market. Manufacturers who should expert annually anj> considerable proportion of §225,000,000 of goods at a loss would have to recoup themselves by enormous profits from American consumers or go out of business. The Boston Commercial Bulleiiu repeats the commonplace, which was so familiar in the mouths of the British protectionists a generation ago, that “of all the markets in the world none is so good as the home market.” Ev-1 ervbody knows that in the poorest, as well as in the richest countries the foreign trade bears but a flight proportion to the bplk of the domestic ex

'changes. Hut the existence of an outlet for the surplus products of un in* dustrial nation, be tbe|r greater or less, makes all the difference between prosperity and stagnation. When this outlet becomes closed by a high tariff in obstructing;the supply! of raw materials of production, reaction in domestic trade is sure to follow at frequent intervals. In pursuing its theory that the exports of American manufactures aro of small importance thn Commercial Bulletin says that the first shipments of leather re presen ted heavy losses until the English tanneries were forced to an-extent out of the padrket. The truth is that there was no stability in the leather trade until hides were put on the free list, nearly aj quarter of a century ago, when the jprotectionists in congress were momentarily off their guard. So great has beep this boon to American tanneries that the tariflfmongers have not succeeded in restoring the duty on hides, f Whether the annual etfportsdf le&theif be $10,000,000 or $‘.*0,000,0JO, they represent the entire surplus, and thus insur^ stability ‘to the whole trade. The tenners of the United States are mos^ fortunate in having what the Commercial Bulletin is pleased to call “a dmpping ground for their surplus.” Th£ loss of this dumping ground by a Revival of the duty on hides would bfe severely felt by every branch of this great industry. The Boston tariff organ is “glad,” nevertheless, to witness “a reaching out of American manufacturers for markets beyond their borders;” and it aays that “the thing njow to do is to hold what has been gainijed.” There is one absolute condition |n holding this gain and extending the field of achievement, and that is in the maintenance of the policy of free raw materials. When the raw materials!of production are taxed tbe exportation of manufactured goods in competition with foreign rivals whose materials are free is out of tbe question. With the closing of the outlet for surplus products nnder a high tariff system stagnation in trade is sure to ensue. The materials of the enormous volume of manufactured exports which are steadily increasing nnder the present policy are all free. Yet with variant cries of “calamity!” and “home marketf* the tariff spoilers, under the lead of McKinley, are rushing once more to the assault upon this beneficent policy.— Philadelphia Record. RECIPROCITY REPORT.

fht> !>cbctn* of Friendship by Compulsion— A ( outnuL As chairman of a subsection of the ways and means committee Represen* tatiye Hopkins, of Illinois, took much pains to collect the opinions of inter* ested parties about the Blaine scheme of commercial friendship by compulsion. The interested parties were mostly pork packers^ millers and makers of agricultural i mplements and machinery. Prom sudh people Mr. Hopkins obtained a great balk of opinions, mostly identical in substance and all of which could he reduced to a eery few pages without material loss of either sense or force; According to a synopsis which has been sent froqi Washington, this document states that in lists our exporta reached high water mark, the total being fl,03G, 27M4& But it omits to state • i i

that this was the fiscal year ended June SO, 1892, and that Tery few of the Blaine trade arrangements were in force during that time. The report is candid enough to say that the next fiscal year the exports fell off to $847,--665.194. What were" the reciprocity dickees doing that year? The total was nearly 55,000,000 less than it was in 18SI, 12 years before, though in the nttural course of things our commerce should have grown considerably daring the interval. In 1881 our exports exceeded our imports by $259,700,000, while in 1S93 our imports exceeded our exports by $18,700,000. Was • reciprocity” the cause of this change"? True, the report claims that onr exports to the dicker countries increased, but that only goes to show that if

“reciprocity” increased our export trade a little other features of the McKinley bill destroyed nearly 51S3.000,000 of that trade. If McKinleyism fed the export trade with a teaspoon it depleted that trade at the bunghole. And $q it is of the whole argument. If it shows that “reciprocity,” whieh so far as it is the genuine thing is free ; trade, is a good thing, it shows even more plainly that McKinleyism as* whole is destructive of our export trade and a very bad thing. One thing will serve to illustrate the general dishonesty of the report. Great ado is made about the fact that in our trade with Brazil we import far more than we export, and the claim is made that “reciprocity” would change all that. But the fact is .carefully suppressed that during the four years before the adoption of the Blaine “reciprocity” scheme our imports from Brazil exceeded our exports to that country bj’ §189,$00,000, while during the four years after the adoption ol that scheme the excess was no less that §302,780,000, or §113,980.000, or nearly 60 per cent., greater. This kind of statistical dishonesty is characteristic of the entire document, and stamps it as a mere electioneering document of the most unscrupulous sort,— Olncv’s Chronicle. STILL WANt MORE. Modest Demand of the Nall Manufacturers —They Want the Karth. “A notable shipment,” said the Cleveland (O.) Leader a few' days ago, “was made from Cleveland yesterday. At the docks at tjhe foot of Case avenue 60CX000 pounds of nail's were loaded on the fleet of the Cleveland Steel Canalboat Co. The nails are consigned to Yoki*haraa, Japan.” It is explained that the competition of German nail manufacturers yeas overcome by the company which made tpis shipment. The price of nail^-to buj-ers in this country has been it^reased by 200 per ” cent, since May last competition having been suppressed and the price ; pushed up from 85 cents to §2.25 per keg by a trust combination called the hail pool. But while the people of this country are compelled to pay §2.25 per j keg in carload lots at the mills, the j combination sells nails to foreign !

j buyers SI less per keg1. Owing to this ! i discrimination in favor of the | foreigner. nails have recently ! been shipped to Germany and brought back aiid sold here at a good j pro tit for less than the ring's domestic price* The competition of Europe ! in Japan is overcome by a similar dis- | crimination, jpst as the steel rail com- j bination recently overcame the compe- j tition of England there by selling 10,- j 000 tons of rails for $21.26 per ton while j American buyers are forced to pay $2& j The nail makers neither deserve nor ■ need any tariff protection whatever, j This is proved by their own trade j operations. But they are all for Me- i Kinley, and expect that the republican j party—which recently voted in con- j gress to»increase their present tariff ! duty by 15 per cent, will in' due time t make their tariff rate sohigh'that they ; can force Americans to pay $4.50 per I keg while they are selling to foreigners for $1.25. —N. Y. Times. A DELUSION. Th« Idea That Men Can Tax Theiuselves Kich Is 1'reposterous. The chief difficulty in combatting j the preposterous claims of the McKin- j leyites lies in the fact that their theo* 1 ties are not based on , facts or logic, 1 but are wholly a matter of faith. No I amount of reasoning, no statement of ; facts, can do. anything to convince men who worship the high tariff fetish that their idol is a humbug and • fraud. The persistence of the delusion that men can tax themselves and everybody else rich is due to the willingness of most people to accept as truth any plausible statement if it only coincides with their prejudices and short-sighted selfish inclinations. The basis for the revival of McKinlevistn at this time is the undeniable fact that there are a great many poor people in this country at this time. The high tariff apostles come to the poor men and tell them j that If heavier taxes are put on foreign goods, American goods will be^ dearer, and so everybody will be rich. Without stopping to ask how giving more of the products of their labor in taxes, and paying higher prices for what they bny, will help those who are now poor, the discontented class shout “Hurrah for McKinley! Down with the cheap goods and up with tariff taxes! We want the man who promised ns prosperity.” Clarlatans and quacks have alwava existed and probably will always continue to find credulous dupes who swallow their fairy stories. But surely the history of popular crazes and of successful impostors has never shown greater gullibility on the part of the people than the present blind worship of McKinleyism. • I| W. H. Need* Farther Redaction. With the price of pig iron sagging, the trusts manage to hold up the prices of finished products of iron and steeL Meanwhile they sell their surplus in foreign markets at prices which compete with foreign competitors. The ability to fleece home consumer* is a tariff-made ability. In this sear son of depression the unnecessary tan upon the steel and iron using trades if keenly felt.—Philadelphia Keenr& ^

Economy—just think—every bottle of Hood's Sur* parillft contains 100 doses. This Is true only ©I Hood’s Sarsaparilla The One True Blood Purifier. All druggists, |l. Hood’s PJHs care biliousness, headache. Twin Suus. The star Alpha Centauri—the nearest star to. the earth as far as we yet know—consists, as the telescope shows, of two suns, one of which is five or six times brighter than the other. But recent observations by Mr Roberts at the Cape of Oood Hope observatory have led him to the conclusion that the two components of Alpha Centauri, much as they'differ in brightness, are really nearly equal in weight. Together they are twice as heavy as ou* sun. It seems to follow from thes« facts' that one of those twin suns is losing its light, and in the? course oi ages may become only a gigantit opaque planet, while its companion will still continue to blaze with sola! splendor.-r-Youth s Companion. ? "V': I

Home Influence. - ' ; Home is the test of character. If * man is harsh and cruel and rough at home, that is what he is in business and society. al though >• he may conceal it with a mask. The man who is disrespectful and unkind to his parents at home will show the same spirit to the young lady whom he now courts when she becomes his wife.—Kev. A, P. Palmer, Methodist, Utica, X. Y. > Woman. . The character of a people is deteiv mined by the standing of its women, lu barbarism she is a creature without a soul; in civilization she is a hu« man being; in Christendom she is dv* vine. The Kingdom of Heaven will be at hand when every man becomes a king and every woman a queen upon a throne.—Revi J. W. Magruder, Methodist, Cincinnati, O. Half A MILLION To be Given Away in Articles of T*M Neal Value to the Users of mail Pouch ‘Ch&wlhg and Smoking" (The Ofllv ANTI-NERVOUS and ANTI-DYSPEPTH3 J

TOBACCO. SAVE YOUR COUPONS (or EMPTY, BAGS until coupons appear) AND GET! IN EXCHANGE FREE THE FOLLOW-, INC VALUABLE and USEFUL ARTICLES* • VALUABLE PICTURES. a Handsome Water Color* Fac-similes. Land- _ scape and Marine, size 14x23. 12 subjects. ® Fine Pastels Fac-simi!es» Landscape and © Figures, size £0x34 inches, 12 subjects. a Beautiful Venetian Scenes. Works of Art size 20x30 inches, 4 subjects. © Magnificent Water Color Gravures, after fh* 0 moos artists, size 22x23 inches, 4 subjects. © beenofeted, Except Through Dealer*, at very A highprieee. They are smitetide den-ration* far w any home,and io be appreciated mutt beoetn. 2 CHOICE BOOKS, © Cloth Bound Standard Works, ever 180 © letted titles; by Eminent Authors. Popular Novels. SOt titles byParoriteAnttKaa. ® TOBACCO POUCHES. L> Rubber, seii-closing. Convenient andnaef&L © PIPES, French Briar (Guaranteed Genuine). POCKET KNIVES, lack Knives and Pen Knives, Cr*t quality, “ *1, hand Atn-ricaa manufacture. Razor Steel © forged,£ndj'tempere<n^ades. Sing Handle a Highest Credo SteeL HoMorv Ground. I POCKET BOOKS, © Finest Quality Leather, Ladies’ and Gents*. • CYCLOMETERS, © f 000 Mils Reoeahnq. For any size Bicycle. © EXCELLENT Open Face WATCHES, © The “Mail Pouch* Watches are maae by , leading American Watch Company • ..oda e-tpieranUed, trithovt qualification. © The “wots” contain ail improvements np to date. They will wear and perform well • for a life time ifonly ordinarily cared for. Conpoua explain how to secure AU Articles* . One Coupon in each 5 cent (3 owner) Package. Too Ctrupone in each 10 rent (4 outre) Packages | Mail Poach Tobacco is sold b» all dealers, ’ Packages (nuc <m tale) containingno coupons erlll be accepted na coupons. "2ox.” Empty Bag me oat Coupon, “4 or.” Empty Bag a* too Coupons. ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE Mailed on application. living complete list and description of all articles ana Titles of Books and Pictures; alto tell toieOthoKtooft them, Th* Bloch Bros. Tobacco Co., Whooting, W. ¥«, Ko coopeu exchanged after July X, 1997 \

You can reach practically all - the great resorts of America* by the through car lines of “America's Greatest Railroad**— TheJlJlewjYori When you come in hot and thirsty,—HIRES Rootbeer. Mad. «nlj b» Tfc* Cbarto. *. Hm C*.. FhiladalpMa. Ai3e.fKt«|ia>k«i(a&ai. 8»M twinUn. QPIUD -P4 EDUCATIONAL._. MMrZ££Z£l££‘,Sn&SJXS; ’CHICAGO CONSERVATORY. music sSBESim