Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1890 — Page 3

INDIANA STATE NEWS.

• Laporte will have a street railway. *■ Kokomo is organizing a paid fire department ' Gay is the name of a new postoffice in jfioward county. Another fine artesian well has been fetrnck at Mancie. 1 The Chief Fire Engineer of Anderson is paid but SIOO annually. > Counterfeit ten-cent pieces are cireulat in? freely at Port Wayne. The Reeves pulley works at Columbus srill be removed to Kokomo. The Farmers’ Alliance has organized in every school district in Brown county. Edward Alexander’s little daughter near Shelbyville, was burned to death on the 29th. The Creamery Package Factory at Portland, was damaged $6,000 by fire night before last , Isaac Endaily, of Madison, celebrated his 99th birthday on the 31st He was a veteran of the war of 1812.

‘ The bicycle fever has seized the-editorial fraternity of South Bend, without exception to age, sex or size, i William Ferguson, employed in a Kokomo paper mill, was caught by a pulley, breaking one arm and two ribs. William Justice, near Yorktowu, while felling a tree on the 31st, was caught by the falling branches and crushed to death. Rev. A. I* Orcutt, pastor of the Chris tian Church at Muncie, asked for more salary, and the request has caused a wide -division in the church. ' In boring for natural gas at Montezuma, « depth of 1,276 feet has been reached, with no signs «if trenton rock. The boring will be continued indefinitely. John and Lloyd Mase, who stole hogs* from the Treasurer of Vigo county, have; been sentenced to eleven and eight years’; imprisonment, respectively. Wbßeley county farmers are taking strong ground in favor of gravel roads, bompelling a candidate to pledge himself in advance for a gravel-road tax. Rev. Peter aVenetton, convicted at Youngstown, 0., of embezzling $6,000 from a widow, was sentenoed to three years’ imprisonment in the penitentiary. "xrAtflunatic named Jacobus-is coaflneddw jail at Goshen, and itis a peculiarity of Ihls mania that he dare not eat unless directed by divine inspiration. He never misses a meal. In Boone township, rCass county, the paloon men triumphed in the township primary, and the antisare putting a ticket in the field called “No Politicians,” Both factions are Democratic. Huntington is alarmed over the belief that it is the most extravagantly managed city in that section Indiana, and that its tax levy is the largest of any city of its class with the exception of Peru. The oyolone cut a swath two miles vwide across the southern portion of Daviess county, and the estimated damage to farm bouses, barns, Umber, live stock, etc., is ($75,000. There was no loss of life. The Franklin College year book shows a (total enrollment of 218 students, with 80 Sn the college department, 99 in the preparatory, and 107 in the art school. *Comgnencement exercises will be held, begin . rning June 6.

1 Grant Sheridan, of (Pulaski oounty, has •'been arrested at Logansport, as a member -of a gang of horse thieves operating extensively in Cass, White, Fulton, Miami and Pulaski oountiea, which has resulted lin the loss of fifty horses. Henry Parker, of Vanderburg county, (borrowed Alexander Darling’s team, un«der the plea he wanted to move his family, but he used it in hauling several loads of •corn from Darling’s cribs, which was sold ito Evansville parties. His arrest followed. The Indiana Unive rsity.is nearing the {dose of its |ixty-flfth college year, and ithe catalogue shows 300 students in attendance, of whom 216 are males. The senior class numbers forty-one. David. (Starr Jordan, M. D., Ph. D., LL. D., to {President. - : Mrs. Frank J. Geiger, of Fort Wayne, was frightfully burned by the ignition of her clothing, while working about thej kitchen stove. Her cries attracted Fred Ulmer, a passing street car driver, and by using his overcoat, be was able to smother tbe flames and save her life. Charles Bauer has taken a ten-years 'lease of the Terre Haute House at Terre Haute, paying SB,OOO per annum tbe first two years, and $9,000 per year thereafter, ibesides buying the furniture. It is claimed this hotel covers more space than any other one in Indiana. , Patent*: George Adams, New Albany, ‘steam engine: Joshua Admire, Smith’s Valley, corn planter; Ludwig Gutmann, (Fort Wayne, choking eleotro-magnets; (Daniel Hershoerger, Huntington, for wiring fence pickets; Abraham Kimber, Indianapolis, railway tie; Nathan A. Long, rainwater filter; Samuel Maxfleld, Angola, implement for recovering lost pipe from tubular wells; George R. Morrison, folding olothea-braeket; Oscar E. N. Rich burg, Marion, farm gate; Frank Sohefold, New Albany, means for transferring molten glass, and means for transferring pots {containing molten glass; Wm. L. Smith, (Indianapolis, car-ooupling; Frederick Ullrich, Pern, vehicle axle; Charles H. Van Eppe, Scott, fence wrench; John G. Zeller, Richmond, elevator gate. DePanw University report* in lte general summary of students a not total of 902 of which 896 are in the preparatory school; -268 in the Asbury school of liberal arte,and 70 in the school of theology, while the other departments make this showing; school of >law. 24; school of military tactics, 174; school of music, exclusive of orchestra chorus and sight singing, 190; school of art, 46, and DoPauw normal school, 164. There are at least two well-defined cases of leprosy in Crawford oounty. If tee of the Board of Health has been called to them it is not known. The parties { are father and son. The affliction is de> scribea as appearing in spots. These are whiter than the surrounding flesh and sink below tbe adjacent surface. They are ‘doubtless lepers, and, if investigation is jmade, it is equally sure that other oases (will come to light. One of the patients is well advanced in years. < r William Grimes, of Almo, abandoned his young wife and child, and on the 29th escorted another woman to church. This

angered the ladies of Alamo, and headed by the deserted wife, they waylaid Grimes and gave him a heating, male escorts being present to insure no resistance upon the part of Grimes. Monday, Harmon Deets, who accompanied the ladies, was arrested and fined for assault, although he did nothing hut stand by and witness the attack on the recreant husband. Walter A. Anthony, of Richmond, Va., went to Crawfordsville, Wednesday, searching for his wife, and was surprised to discover that while he had absented himself in Europe she had procured a divorce. This was followed by her marriage to W. H. English, a wealthy resident of Denver, Colo.

Five years ago James Money completed a two-year term in prison at Jeffersonville for larceny. He went to Bridgeport, where India Warman, a wealthy widow, fell in love with him while he worked on her farm. Her relatives told her he was a convict, but she professed to believe in a conspiracy and married him. Growing tired of his spendthrift habits, she refuged him money, when he took one of her horses and sold it. She had him sent down again for two years and then obtained a divorceMoney completed his second term on Wednesday. The farmers in the neighborhood Of Wheeling have been victimized out of about S4OO by a walnut stump shark. This robber represented that he was baying walnut stumps to be used in veneering, and paid $1 each. For every stump he offered in payment a twenty dollar gold piece, and received sl9 in good money, f .From -twenty to twenty-five purchases were made, and then the stump buyer fled the country. The twenty dollar gold pieces which he worked off were all shown ■to be counterfeit.

Several weeks ago a “Mme. Naomi” the Michigan fat woman, five feet high and five feet wide, advertised to appear at a museum in Ft. Wayne, and bestow her hand, heart and deed to a five-thousand-dollar farm to any young man who would marry her. The advertisement met the eye of Thomas J. 'Crowley, a solicitor for a New York life insurance company, who came straightway to Ft. Wayne, was accepted by the fat female, and the two were wedded -on the museum stage on Thursday night before a crowded house. The faculty of Wabash, College held an important meeting to-day to take action in regard to the oration of Perry J. Martin, who secured the Baldwin prize of S4O by using the speech of-another person. Martin had confessed his guilt and returned the money, and said that he never dreamed of securing the prize, and only wanted to make a creditable showing. He asked to be permitted to graduate next June. It was the unanimous decision of the faculty that Martin be dismissed from the college, and notice to this effect was sent to Martin. The first Methodist Church in Muncie was organized in 1896, and the first circuit rider was Rev. G.C. Beeks. Muncie was made a station >in 1851, and Simpson’s Chapel was erected in 1856. In 1886 the membership numbered 377, but the discov ery of natural gas gave a wonderful im petus to the city, the population rapidly increased, and the.membership is now 919. A new church has been completed, costing $32,000, and underthe pastoral care of Rev* Cyrus U, Wadethe congregation is enjoying a wonderful degree of prosperity as a religions organisation. According to an opinion just rendered by the Supreme Court of Anderson the Young Men’s Christian Association is not a religious corporation within the meaning of the law. In Macon county, a man named Hamsher, on his-death, left a will bv which most of his property was bequeathed to the Young Men’s Christian Association of Decatur. The heirs-couteated the will on the ground that under the statutes of Illinois a religious hody-can not hold over ten acres of land. In the opinion of the oourt the Young Men's Christian Association is not wholly a religions body, but is largely a charitable and benevolent organization, jyfl therefore, the amount of property to he held by religious corporations does not apply to said association . This is the first time the question has ever been tested in the oourts. Out of about eighty houses destroyed by the tornado in Jeffersonville, the owners of four-fifths of this number are poor people, whose little homes were their only possessions. All of the homeless ones have been given shelter by their more fortunate neighbors, but the situation over there has been much underestimated, sad it is a mistake to suppose that no assistance is. needed in the little city across the river. In the blocks between Market and Front and Mulberry and Fourth, nearly every home is ruined, and the inmates lost most of their furniture. Some of them succeeded in saving only the clothing they wore npon their backs. Since the terrible accident occurred Dan Phipps has fed and given shelter to thirteen families. John Ferguson, grocer, has provided for an equal number. A meeting of the Commercial club was held at the City hall Tuesday night, and speeches favoring the asking of outside assistance were made. Thus far subscriptions to the amount of only about two hundred and fifty dollars have been sent in.

MUNICIPAL ELEOTIONB.

The Ist was a Democratic day. The municipal election in Chicago resulted in a pronounced Democratic victory, the Board of Aldermen being Democratic over ail opposition. The Democrats at Milwaukee elected George W. Peck (Peck's Bad Boy) for Mayor by about 5,000 majority. Many city elections In Missouri wore held under the Australian system. It worked well. Sixty cities In Kansas held elections. In Manhattan all the offloers are women Re publicans. In Leavenworth the Democrats carried everything with a male ticket Atchison went Republican with one oouncil woman elected. Topeka went Republican and male. At Salina, the election was an animated one. The female suffragists hud nominated a woman candidate for the school board from two wards. A colored woman was run by the anU~snffragi*U. The suffragists were defeated and the colored woman elected by an overwhelming majority. ■ At Hiawatha three women were elected to the school board, bat at Wellington the three women candidates were snowed under. Throughout the State hot about half the women who registered voted.

A SOBERING MACHINE.

Backs County, Ft., Has a Scheme for Be. forming the Jolly Good Fellows. The winter crop of tramps in Backs and Montgomery Counties is so abundant this year that ordinary measures for driving them out have proved futile, and the county authorities are studying how best they may dispose of the troublesome vagrants. On account of the extremely mild winter the tramps who usually seek a warmer clime in the cold months are hovering about the comfortable barns and haystacks in BnOka and Montgomery Counties, and are lodging also in the railroad stations and conveniently open freight-cars. The sobei vagrants are troublesome enough, hut the hundreds of intoxicated tramps are even worse to deal with, and they not only defy the orders to "move on," but also threaten violence to country folks whosa farms they invade. An old-time Backs County farmer has suggested that a revival of the sobering machine that did effective work in Doylestown thirty or forty years age might have a wholesome influence on the hordes of tramps and make them shun Bucks County as they would flee in terror from soap and water. Not many of the present generation in Doylestown are familiar with the sobering machine, but men who lived there in the’sos and early '6os readily remember the unique apparatus, and probably there is more than one man in Doylestown to-day who would hesitate to tell how well he recalls the old sobering machine. Thfe famous mechanism was nothing more nor less than the shafts and front wheels of a light wagon gear, with a big Wooden box fastened firmly upon the axle, making a rough kind of a cart. The machine was kept in a convenient dark alley, and whenever obe of Doylestown’ 8 good citizens came home so filled

VaeKs

A BUCKS COUNTY SOBERING MACHINE.

with ardent spirits that he could nol handle himself the machine was run out from its hiding place, the tipsy man was seized and dumped upon his back in the box, and with three «r tour burghers al the shafts he was given a ride over the rough streets that was enough to shake every drop of liquor out of him and make him a soberer and wiser man. This heroic treatment was oftenest applied to intoxicated strangers, but the moral influence of the machine was allpowerful in preserving the sobriety o! the townspeople. The circumstance* now are such that many Backs and Montgomery County men believe it would be well to revive this old-time a,oral institution. —Philadelphia Record.

THE NEW GENIUS OF LICHT.

A Description «f the Nnv fititac Bet Up la Edlaon'i laboratory. Among the many objects of interest to the visitor at the great laboratory of Thomas A. Edison, in West Orange, N. J., the first to attract attention is the remarkable statue that has recently been plaoed in position in tbe library. Tbe statue a ttracted Mr. Edison’s attention at the Paris Exposition, where it occupied the place of honor in the Italian Department. He was so mnch pleased with it that he purchased it, and it was shipped to this country, and now occupies the place of honor in the center of tbe magnificent library. It is entitled "Tbe New Genius of Light,” and was the work of an Italian artist, B. Bordiga of Rome, nnd was finished late in the fail of The subject is an allegorielectrtoilj over other means of illumination.

NEW GUN IUS OF LIGHT.

It Is tbe life-sixe figure of a graceful Joutta in tbe full vigor of early manood, posed in a half recumbent position and partially supported by half ex tended wings, on tbe ruins of a broken gas lamp. Tbe right arm is extended high above the bead and holds aloft an incandescent lamp of fifty-candle power, tbe connecting circuits from which extend downward, and, partially supported by tbe left band, continue to tbe base of the statue, where they are Joined to a voltaic pile. About tbe base of tbe itatue are grouped a telephone transmitter. a telegraph key, and a gear wneeL Tbe whole is mounted on a pedestal three feet high. Tbe modeling of the central figure is singularly strong and firm, and the finish is almost perfect—

N. Y. Herald.

Tin Soldiers.

Blackwood's Magazine tells of a factory which makes 5,000.000 tin soldiers yearly out of sardine cans. Samuel J. Randall, since tbe death of Judge Kelly, is the oldest member of the House in continuous service. He was elected to the Congress next suo* -eediugthat ip which" Judge Kelley made his debut, in 1862. Following close upon Mr. Kandail is Mr. O’Neill •I the Second (Fenueyivmata) District

THE MOST PERFECT BOOK,

Dr. Tabnage’s Beautiful and Eloquent Tribute to the Bible. “A Living Dog is Better Than a Bead Lion”—Small Faculties Actively Used are of More/ Use Than Great Faculties Unemployed _____ Last Sunday morning Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage preached at the Academy of Mfisic, taking for his text, Eecles. 9:4 “A Lite Dog is better than a Dead Lion.” The eminent divine said:

The Bible is the strangest, the loveliest, the mightyest, the weirdest, the best of books. Written by Moses the lawyer, Joshua the soldier, Samuel the judge, Ezra the builder, Job the poet, David the Shepherd, Daniel the prime-minister, Amos the herdsman, Mathew the custom-house officer, Luke the doctor, Paul the scholar, John the exile; and yet a complete harmony from the middle verse of the Bible, which is the eight verse of the one hundred and seventeenth Psalm, both ways to the upper and lower lids, and the shortest passage, which is the thirty-fifth verse of the eleventh chapter of John, to the longest verse, w hich is ths ninth verse of the eighth chapter of Esther, and yet not an imperfection in all the 773,693 words which it Isjcomposed of. It not only reaches over the past, but over the future; has in it a ferryboat, as in second Rarnuel; and a telegraphic wire, as in Job; and a railroad train, & in Nahum; and introduces us to a foundryman by the name of Tubal Cain, and a ship-builder by the name of Noah, and an architect bythe name of Ahollab, and tells us bow many stables Solomon had to take care of his horses and how he paid for those horse*. But few things in this versatile and comprehensive book interests me so much as its apothegms, those short, terse, sententious, epigrammatic sayings, of which my text is one—“A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Here the lion stands for nobility, and the dog for meanness. You must know that the dog mentioned in the text is not one of our American or European or Scottish dogs that, in our mind, is a synonym for the beautiful, the graceful, the affectionate, the sagacious arid the true. The St. Bernard dog is a hero, and if you doubt it, ask the snows of the Alps, out of which he picked the exhausted traveler. The shepherd dog is a poem, and if you doubt it, ask the Highlands of Scotland. The Arctic dog is the rescue of explorers and if ycu doubt it, ask Dr. Kane's expedition. The watchdog is a living protection, and if you doubt it, ask ten thousand homesteads over whose safety he watched last night. But Solomon, the author of my text, lived in Jerusalem, and the dog he speaks of in the text was a dog iu Jerusalem. Last December I passed days and nights within a stone’s-throw of ~wfagre Solomon wrote his text, and from what I saw of the canines of Jerusalem by day, and heard of them oy night, I can understand t-ne slight appreciation my text puts upon the dog of Palestine. It is lean and snarly and disgusting, and afflicted with parasites, and takes revenge on the human race by filling the nights with clamor. All up and down the Bible, the most of which was written In Palestine or Syria, or contiguous lands, the dog is used in contemptuous comparison. Hazael said, “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing!” In self-ab-negation the Syro-Phoenician woman said, “Even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the Master’s table.” Paul says, in Philippians, “Beware of dogs;” and St. John, speaking of heaven, says, “ Without are dogs.”

On the other hand the lion is healthy, strong, and loud-voiced, and at its roar the forests echo and the mountains tremble. It Is marvellous for strength, and when its hide is removed the muscular compactness is something wonderful, and the knife of the dissector bounds back from the tendons. By the clearing off of the forests of Palestine and the use of fire-arms, of whioh the lion is particularly afraid, they have disappeared from places where once they ranged, but they were very hold In olden times They attacked an army of Xerxes while marching through Macedonia. They were so numerous that one thousand lions were slain in forty years in tbe amphitheatre of Rome. The Barbary lion, the Cape lion, tbe Senegal lion, the Assyrian lion, make up a most absorbing and exciting chapter in natural history. As most of toe Bible was written in regions lionhaunted, this creature appears In almost all parts of toe Bible as a simile. David nnderstood its hahlts of night prowling and day slumbering; as is seen from his description: “The yonng lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. The sun ariaeth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.” And again he cries out, “My soul is among lions.” Moses knew them and said,.“Judah Is couched like a lion.” Samson knew them, for he took honey from the carcass of a slain lion. Solomon knew them and says, “The king’s wrath is as toe roar of a lion.” and again, “The slothful man says, There is a lion in the way.” Isaiah knew them, and says, in the millennium, “The lion shall eat straw like an ox.” Eztktol knew them, and says, “The third was as the face of a lion.” Paul knew them, and tays: “I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” peter knew them and says, “The devil ns a roaring lion walketh about.” St. John knew them, and says of Christ, “Behold the Lion of tho tribe of Judah 1”

Now, what does iny text mean when it puts a living dog and a dead lion aide by side, and says the former is better than the latterl It means that small faculties actively used are of more value than great faculty unemployed. How often you see it! Some man with limited capacity vastly useful. He takes that which God baa given him sad soys: “My mental endowment is not large and the world would not rate me high for my intelligence, and my vocabulary is limited, and my education was defective, but here goes what I have lor God and salvation, and the making of the world good and happy.” Ho puts in a word here and a word there, encourages a faint-hearted man, gives a Scripture passage lu consolation to some bereft woman, picks up a child fallen in tbe street and helps him brush off the lust and puts a five-cent piece in his band, telling hi n not to cry, so that the boy is singing before he gets around the corner; waiting on everybody that has a letter to carry or a message to deliver; comes Into s rail-train, or stage-coach, or depot, or shop, with a smiling face that sets everybody to thinkiug, “if that man can, with what appears small equipment in life be happy, why cannot I, possessing far more than he ham, be equally happy?” One day of that kind of doing things may not umount to much, but forty years of that—no one but God Himself can appreciate its immensity. There are tens of thousands of such people. Their circle of acquaintance is small. The man is known over at tbe store. He is clerk er weigher or drayman, and he is knotrn among tboee who sit near him clear back in the church under tbe galleries, and at the ferry gates where he comes in koockiug tbe snow from bis shoes, and threshing his arms around his body to .evtve cirvul-itioD, on so mo January morning. But If be sho lid die tomorrow there would not fca a hundred people who would anew about U. He will never have bis

in the newspapers but once, and that will be toe announcement of his death, if some one will pay for the insertion, so much a line for the two lines. But he will come up gloriously on the other aide, and the God who has watched him all through will give him a higher seat and a better mansion and a grander eternity than many a man who had on earth, before his name, toe word Honorable, and after his name LL. D. and F. R. S. Christ said in Luke, the sixth chapter, that in heaven some who had it hard here would laugh there. And X think a laugh of delight and congratulation will run around the heavenly circles when this humble one of whom I spoke shall go up and take the precedence of many Christians who in this world felt themselves to be of ninety-nine per oent. more importance. The whisper will go round the galleries of toe upper temple: “Can it be possible that that was the weigher in our store 1” “Can it he possible that that was toe car-driver on our street!” “Can It be possible that was the sexton of our church!” “Can it oe possible that is the man that heaved coal into our cellar!” “I never could have thought it What a reversal of things I We were clear ahead of him on earth, bat he is clear ahead of us m heaven. Why, we had ten times more brains than he had, we had a thousand times more money than he had, we had social position a mile higher than he bad, we had innumerable opportunities more than- he had, but it seems now that be accomplished more with his one talent than we did with our ten;” while Solomon, standing among the thrones, overhears the whisper, and sees the wonderment, and will, with benignant and all suggestive smile, say, “Yea, it Is as I told the world many centuries ago—better is small faculty active used than great talent unemployed, ‘better a living dojrthanadeadlion.'”

The simpler Tact Is that the world has been, and the world is now, full of dead lions. They are people of great capacity and large opportunity, doing nothing for the improvement of society, “ nothing for the overthrow of evil, nothing for the salvation of souls. Some of them are monetary lions. They have accumulated so many hundreds of thousands of dollars that you can feel their tread when they walk through any street or come into any circle They can by one financial move upset the money market. Instead of the ten percent, of their income which the Bible lays down as the proper proportion <ot their contribution to the oause of God, they do not give five per cent, or three per cent, or two per cent, or one per cent, or a half percent, or a quarter per cent That they are lions, no, one doubts. When they roar, Wall street, State street, Lombard street, and the Bourse tremble. In a few years they will lie down sad die. They will have a great funeral, and a long row of fine carriages, and mightiest requiems will roll from the organ, and polished shaft of Aberdeen granite will indicate whejrik their dust lies, but for all use to the world that man might as well have never lived. As an experiment as to how much he can carry with him, put a ten-cent piece in the palm of his dead hand, and five years after open the tomb, and you will find that he has dropped even the tencent piece. A lion! Yes, but a dead lion! He left all bis treasures on earth,and has no treasures in heaven. What shall the stoneeutter put upon the obelisk over him! I suggest, let it be the man’s name, then the date of his birth,then the date of his death, then the appropriate Scripture passage, “Better is a living dog than a dead loin.” But I thank God that we are having just now an outburst of splendid beneficence that is to increase until the earth 1b girdled with it It is spreading with the speed of an epidemic, but with just the opposite effect of an epidemic. Do you not notioe how wealthy men are opening free libraries, and building churches in their native village! Have you not seen how men of large means, instead of leaving great philanthropies in their wills for disappointed heirs to quarrel about, and the orphan courts to swamp, are becoming their own executors ■ and administrators! After putting aside enough for their families (for “he that provideth not for his own, and especially those of his own household is worse than an infidel”), they are saying: “What can 1 do, not after lam dead, but while living; and in full possession of my faculties, to properly- direct the building of the churches, or the hospitals, or the colleges, or the libraries that I design for the public welfare, and while yet I have full capacity to enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the good accomplished ! There are bad fashions and good fashions, and, whether good or bad, fashions are mighty. One of the good fashions now starting will sweep the earth—the fashion for wealthy men to distribute, while yet alive, their surplus accumulation. It is bring helped by the fact that so many large estates have, im-

mediately after the testator’s death, gone into litigation. Attorneys with large fees are employed on both sides, and to# case goes on month after month, and year after year, and after one court decides, it ascends to another court and is decided in the opposite direction, and then new evidence is found, and the trials ore all repeated. The children, who at the father’s funeral seemed to have an uncontrollable grief, after the will is read go into elaborate process to prove that the father was crazy, and therefore incompetent to make a will; and there are men on toe jury who think that tbe fact that the testator gave so much of his money to the Bible Society, and the mis-' sionary society, or the opening of n free library is proof positive that he was insane, and that he knew not what he was signing when he subscribed to the words: “In the name of God, amen. I, being of sound mind, do make this my last will and testament.”

The torn wills, the fraudulent wills, the broken wills hare recently been made such s spectacle to angels and to men that all over the land successful men are calling la architects and spying to them: “How much would it cost for me to build a plo-ture-gallery for our town!” or, “What plans cun you draw me out for a concert hall!” or, “1 am especially interested in the Incurables,’ and how large a building would accommodate three hundred of such patients!” or, “The Church of Ood has been a great help to me all my life, and I want you to draw me a plan for a church, commodious, beautiful, well ventilated,and with plenty of windows to let in the light; I want you to get right at work in making out plans of such a building, for, though 1 am well now, life is uncertain, and before I leave the world 1 want to see something done that will be an appropriate acknowledgment of the goodness of God to me and mine; now when can I hear from you!” In our city we have many examples of this. What a grandeur of beneficence has onr fellow-citizen, Mr. Pratt, demonstrated, building educational institutions which will put their hands on the nineteenth century, and the twentieth century,and all the centuries! All honor to such a man I Do not say so when he is dead, say it now. It would be a good thing if some pf the eulogies we chisel on tombstones were written on paper in time for; the philanthropists to read them while yet they are alive Less post-mor-tem praise, and more ante mortem. My text also means that an opportunity of the living present is better than a great A— sstumtjr pawed. We much of

our time In saying: “If I only bad.” We can all look back and see some occasion where we might have done a great deed, or might have effected an important reacne, or we might have dealt a stroke that would have accomplished a vast iesult. Through stupidity or lack of appreciation of toe crisis, or through procrastination, we let the chance go by. How much time we have wasted in thinking of what we might have said or might have done! We spend hoars and days and years in walking around that dead lion. We cannot resuscitate it. It will never open its eyes again. There will never be another spring in its paw. Dead as any feline terror of South Africa, through Whose heart thirty years ago Gordon Gumming sent the slug. Don’t let us give any more time to the deploring of the dead past There are other opportunities remaining: They may not be as great, but they are worth our attention. Small opportunities all around, opportunities for the saying of kind words and the doings of kind deeds. Helplessness to be helped. Disheartened ones to be encouraged. Lost ones to be found. Though the present may be insignificant as compared with the past. “Better is a living dog than a dead lion.” The most useless and painful feeling is the one of regret Repent of lost opportunities we must, and get pardon we may, bat regrets weaken, dishearten, and cripple for future work. If a sea-captain who once had charge of a White star steamer across the Atlantio ocean, one foggy night runs on a rock off Newfoundland, and . the passengers and ship perish,shall he refuse to take command of a small boat up tbe North River and say, “I never will go on the water again unless 1 can run one of the White Star line!” Shall the engineer of a lightning express, who at a station mis-read the telegram of a train dispatcher and went into collision, and for that has been put down to the work of engineering a freight train, say, “1 never will again mount an engine unless I can run a vestibule express”! Take what you have of opportunity left. Do your best of what remains. Your shortest winter day is worth more to you than can be the longest day of a previous summer. Your opportunity now, as compared with previous opportunities, may be small as a rat-terrier compared with the lion which at Matabosa, fatally wounded by the gun of David Livingstone, in its death agony leaped upon the missionary explorer, and with its jaws crushed the bone of his arm to splinters, and then rolled over and expired, but, “Better is a living dog than a dead lion”

My text also means that the condition of the most wretched man alive is better than that of themost favored sinners departed. The chance of theso last is gone. Where they are they cannot make any earthly assets available. After Charlemagne was dead he was set in an ornamented sepulchre on a golden throne, and a crown was put on bis cold brow, and a sceptre in his stiff hand, but that gave him no dominion in the next world. One of the most intensely interesting things I saw last winter in Egypt was Pharoah of oiden time* the very Pharoah who oppressed the Israelites. The inscriptions on his sarcophagus, and the writing on his mummy bandages, prove beyond controversy that he was the Pharoah of Bible times. All the Egyptologist* and the explorations agree that it is the old scoundrel himself. Visible are the very teeth with which he gnashed against the Israalitish brick-makers. There are the sockets of the merciless eyes with which he looked upon the overburdened people of God. There is the hair that floated in the breeze off tbe Red Sea. There are the very lips with which he commanded them to make bricks without straw. Thousands of years afterward, when the wrappings of the mummy were unrolled, old Pharaoh lifted up his arm as If iu imploration, but his skinny bones cannot again clutch bia. shattered sceptre. He is a dead lion. And is not any man now living, In the fact that he has opportunity of repentance and salvation, better off than any of those departed ones who, by authority or possessions or influence, were positively leonine, and yet wicked. What a thing to congratulate you on Is your life! Why, it is worth more than all tbe gems of the universe kindled’ into one precious stone lam alive! VVbat does that mean! Why, it means that I •till have all opportunity of being sated* myself, and helping others to be saved. T*<f be alive! Why, it means that I have yet another chance to correct my past mistakes, and make sure worn for heaven. Alive, are we? Come, let us celebrate it by new resolutions, new self-examination, new consecration, and * new career. The smallest and meet insignificant to-day is worth to us more than Eve handled yesterdays. Taking advantage of the present, let us get pardon for all the past, and security for all tbe future. Where are our forgiven sins) I don’t know. God don’t know, either. He says “your sins aid iniquities will I remember no more.” What encouragement in the text for all Christian workers! Despair of no one’s salvation, U hile there is life there is hope. W hen in England a young lady asked for a class in a Sunday-school, the superintendent said, “Better go oat on tbe street and get your own class.” She brought in a ragged and filthy hoy. The superintendent gave him good appareL In a few Sundays he absented himself. Inquiry discovered that in a street fight be had bis decent apparel torn off, He was brought in and a second time respectably dad. After a few Sundays he again disappeared, and it was found that he was again ragged and wretched. “Then,” said the teacher, “we can do nothing with him.” But the superintendent fitted him up again and started him again. After a while tbe gospel took hold of him and his heart changed. He started for the ministry and became a foreign missionary and on heathen grounds lived, and translated the Scriptures, and preached, until among the most illustrious names of the Church on earth and in heaven is the name of glorious Robert Morrison. Go forth and save the lost, and remember however depraved, however ragged, and however filthy and undone a child is. or a man is, or a woman is, they sre worth an effort I would rather have their opportunity than any that will ever be given to those who lived In magnificent sin and splendid unrighteousness and then wrapped their gorgeous tapestry around them and without a prayer expired. “Better is a living dog than a dead lion.” In the great day it will be found that the last shall be first. There are in the grogshops and in the haunts of iniquity to-day those who will yet be models of holiness and preach Christ to the people. In yonder group of young men who came here with no useful purpose, titers is one who will yet live for Christ and perhaps die for Him. In a pulpit stood a stranger, preaching, and he said: “The last time I was* in church was fifteen years ago, sad the circumstances were peculiar. Three young men had coma, expecting to disturb the service, and they had stones in their pockets which they expected to hurl at the preacher. One of the young mon referred to refused to take part in the assault, and the others In disgust at his cowardice, left tbe building. One of the three was ha need for forgery. Another Is in prison, condemned to death for murder. I was the third, but tbe grace of God saved me.” My hearer, give no one up. The case may seem desperate, but the grace of God likes to undertake a dead lift I proclaim it this, day tbailtbepeoDlo-Kree Grace! Living and dying, be that my theme—Free Dace! across tbe seas—rree uncsi open out those words in flowers, lift tern In arches, build them in thrones, roll them in orato-rios-Free Grace! That wlifaet Edeutse the earth and people heaven with nations