Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1891 — Page 7

HUMDRUM ABOLISHED.

Type of Christ and Type of the , Truth Seekefs. Solomon and Qneen of Sheba—More Spice in the Daily Life of MankindDr,Talmage's Sermon, Rev. Dr. Talmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday, Subject, “Humdrum Abolished.’ Text, II Chronicles, ix., 9. He reviewed the relations and circumstances of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and then said : '“ Well. my friends; you know that all theologians agree in making Solomon a type of Christ, and making the Queen of Sheha a type of every truth-seeker; and I shall take the responsibility of saying that all the spikenard and cassia, and frankincense which the Queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon is mighty suggestive of the sweet spices of our holy religion. Christianity is not a collection qf sharp technicalities, and angular facts, and chronological tables, and dry statistics. Our religion is compared to frankincense and to cassia, but never to nightshade. It is a bundle of myrrh. It is a dash of holy light.. It is a .sparkle of cool fountains. It is an opening opaline gates. It is a collection of spices. Would God that we were as wise in taking spices to our Divine King as Queen Balkis was wise in taking the spices to the earthly Solomon. What many of us most need is to have the humdrum driven out of our life and the humdrum out of our religion; The American and English and Scottish church will die of humdrum unless there be a change. An editor from Sah Francisco a Tew’ weeks ago wrote me saying he was getting up for his paper a symposium from many i clergymen, discussing among other things: ‘Why do not people go to church?" and he wanted my opinion, and I gave it one sentence: People do not go to church because they can not stand the humdrum. The fact is that most people have so much' humdrum in their worldly calling that they do not want to have added the humdrum of religion. We need in all our sermons and exhortations and songs and prayers more of what Queen Balkis brought to Solomon. ; The fact is that the duties and cares of this life, coming to us from time to time, are stupid often, and inane, and intolerable. Here are men who have been bartering and negoti--aUng^climbing,—pounding, hammer--tng for twenty yeare, forty years, > fifty years. One great, long drudgery has their life been, their faces anxious, their feelings benumbed, their days monotonous. What is necessary to brighten up that man’s life, and to sweeten that acid disposition, ■and to. put sparkle into the man’s spirits? The spicery of our holy religion. Why, if between the losses of life there dashed a gleam of eternal gain, if between the betrayals of life there came the gleam of the undying friendship of Christ, if in dull times in business are found ministering spirits flying to and fro in our office, and store, and shop, every-day life, instead of being a stupid monotone, would be a glorious inspiration, penduluming between calm satisfaction and high rapture. How any woman keeps house without the religion of Christ to help her is .a mystery to me. To have to spend the greater part of one’s life, as many women do, in planning for the meals, in stitching garments that will soon be rent again, and deploring breakages, and supervising tardy subordinates, and driving off dust that soon again will settle, and doing -the-same- thing "day- inand- dayont/and year in and year out, until their hair silvers, and the back stoops, and the spectacles crawl to the eyes, and the grave breaks open under the thin sole of the shoe —oh, it is a long mo- 1 notony! w hen Christ comes to the drawing-rooS, and comes to the kitchen, and comes to the nursery, and comes to the dwelling, then how cheery become all womanly duties. She is never alone now. Martha gets through fretting and joins Mary at the foot of Jesus. All day long Deborah is happy because she can help Lepidoth; Hannah, because she can make a coat for young Samuel; Miriam, because she can watch her infant brother; Rachel, because she can help her father water the stock; the widow of Sarepta because the cruse of oil is being replenished. O woman, having in your pantry a nest of boxes containing all kinds of condiments, why have you not tried in your heart and life the spicery of our holy religion? “Martha! Martha! thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken awav from her.” I must confess that a great deal of the religion of this day is utterly insipid. There is nothing piquant or elevating about it. Men and women go around humming psalms in a .minor key and culturing melancholy, and their worship has in it more sighs than rapture. We do not doubt their piety. Oh, no! But they are sitting at a feast where the cook has forgotten to season the food. Everything is flat in their experience and in their conversation. Emancipated from sin, and death, and hell, and on their way to a magnificent heaven, they act as though they were trudging on toward an everlasting Botany Bay. Religion does not seem ‘to agree with them. It seems to catch in the windpipe and become'a tight strangulation instead of an exhilaration. AU the infidel books that have been writen, from Voltaire down to {Herbert Spencer, have not done so

much damage to our Christianity as lugubrious Christians. Who wants a religion woven out of the shadows of a night?. Why go growling on your way to celestial enthronement? Come out of that cave and sit down in the warm light of the Sun of Righteousness. Away with your odes to melancholy and Hervey’s “Meditations Among the Tombs.’ I have to say, also, that we need to put more spice and enlivenment in our religious teaching, whether it be in the prayer-meeting, or in the Sabbath-school, or in the church. We ministers need more fresh air and sunshine in our lungs, and our heart, and our head. Do you wonder that the world is so far from being converted when you find so little vivacity in the pulpit and in the pew? We want, like the Lord, to plant in our sermons and exhorta-i tions more lilies of the field. We want fewer rhetorical elaborations and fewer sesquipedalian words; arid when we talk about shadows we do not want to say adumbration; and when we mean queerness we do not want to talk about idiosyncrasies; or if a stitch in the back we do not want to talk of lumbago; but in the plain venacular preach that gospel which proposes to make all men happy, honest, victorious and free. In other words, we want more cinnamon and less gistric. Let this 'be So in all the different departments of the work to winch Lord calls us. Let us be plain. Let us be earnest. Let us be commonsensical. When we talk to the people in a vernacular they can understand, they will be very glad to receive the truth we present. Would to God that Queen Balkis would drive her spice-laden dromedaries, into all our.sermons and praper-meet-ing exhortations. More than that, we want more life and spice in our Christian work. The poor do not want so much to be groaned over as sung to. With the bread and medicines ‘ and the garments you give them, let there bean accompaniment of smiles and brisk en(-ouragerrieht7 Do not stand and talk to them about the wretchedness of their abode, and the hunger of their looks, and the hardness of their lot. Ah! they know it better than you can tell them. Show them the bright side of the thing, if there be any bright side, Tell them that for the children of God there is immortal rescue. Wake them up out of their stolidity by an inspiring laugh, and' while you send in help, like the Queen of Sheba/ also send in the spices. There are two ways of meeting the poor. to come intotheir house with a nose elevated in disgust, as much as to say: “I don’t see how you live here in this neighborhood. It actually makes me sick. There is that bundle —take it, you poor, miserable wretch, and make tne most of it.” Another way is to go into the abode of the poor in a manner which seems to say: “The blessed Lord sent me. He was poor himself. It is not more for the good I am going to try to do you than it is for the good you can db me.” Coming in that spirit, the gift will be as aromatic as the spikenard on the feet of Christy and all the hovels in that alley will be fragrant with the spice. We need more spice and enlivenment in our church music. Churches Slit discussing whether they shall have choirs, or precentors, or organs, or bass-viols, or coronets: I say, take that which will bring out the most inspiring music. If we had half as much zeal and spirit in our churches as we have in the songs of our Sabbath schools, it would not be long before the whole earth would quake with the coming God. Why, in most churches, nine-tenths of the people do not sing; or thgy_.slnjJ.jiQ_ reebly Thatthe’people at their elbows do not know they are singing. People mouth and mumble the praises of God; but there is not more than one out of a hundred who makes ‘ ; a joyful poise” unto the Rock of our Salvation. Sometimes when the congregation forgets itself, and is all absorbed in the goodness of God, or the glories of heaven, I get an intimation of what church music will be a hundred years from now, when the coming generation shall wake up to its duty. I promise a high spiritual blessing toany one who will sing in church, and who will sing so heartily that the people all around can not help but sing. Wake up! all the churches from Bangor to San Francisco, and across Christiandom. It is not a matter of preference; it is a matter of religious duty. Oh, what a mistake you have made my brother. The religion of Christ is a present and everlasting redolence. It counteracts all* trouble. Just put it on the stand by the pillow of sickness. It .catches in the curtains, and perfumes the stifling air. It sweetens the cup of bitter medicine, and throws a glow on the gloom of the turned lattice. It is a balm for the aching side, and a soft bandage for the temple stung with pain. It lifted Samuel Rutherford into a revelry of spiritual delight while he was in physical agonies. It helped Richard Baxter until, in the midst of such a complication of diseases as perhaps no other man suffered, he wrote “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest, ” Audit poured light upon John Bunyan’s dungeon—the light of the shining gate of the shining city. And it is good for rheumatism, and for neuralgia, and for low spirits, and for consumption; It is the catholicon for all disorders. Yes, it will heal all your sorrows. Why did you look so sad to-day when you came in? Alas! for the loneliness and the heart-break, and the load that is never lifted from your soul. Some of you go about feeling like Macaulay when he wrote:

“If I had another month of such days as I have been spending I would be impatient to get down insp my little narrow crib in the ground - like a weary factory child.”’ And there have been times inu your life when you wished you could get out of this, life. You have said: “Oh. how sweet, tdmy lips would be the dust of the valley,” and wished you could pull over yqu in your last slumber the coverlet of green grass and daisies. You have said? ‘‘Oh, how beautifully quiet it must be in the tomb. I wish I was there.” I see all around me widowhood, and orphanage, and childlessness; sadness, disappointment, perplexity. If I could ask all those to rise in this audience who have felt no sorrow, and been buffeted by no disappointment—ls I could ask all such to rise, how many would rise? Not one. Across the couches of your sick tand across the graves of your dead I fling this shower of sweet spices. Queen Balkis, driving up to the pillared portico of the house of cedar, Carried no such pungency of perfume as expales to-day from the Lord.’! garden. It is peace. It is sweetness. It is comfort. It is infinite satisfaction this Gospel I commend to you. Some one could not under- . Stand why an old German Christian scholar used to be always so calm and happy and hopeful when he had so many trials and sicknesses and ailments. A man secreted himself in the house. He said: “I mean to watch this old scholar and Christian. ’’ And he saw the old Christian man go to his room and sit down on the chafe beside the stand, and open the Bible and began to read. He read on and on, chapter after chapter, hour, after hour until his face was all aglow with the_tidings from heaven, and when the clock struck twelve he arose, and shut his Bible, and said, ‘‘Blessed Lord, we are on the same old terms yet. Good-night, goodnight. Oh; you sin-parched and you trouble-pounded here is comfort, here is satisfaction. Will you come and get it? I can Ho? tell you what the Lord offers you hereafter so well as I can tell you now. ‘ ‘lt doth not yet appear what we shall be.” Have you read of the Taj Mahal in India, in some respects the mostmajestic building on earth? Twenty thousand men were twenty years in building it. It cost about $16,000,000. The walls are of marble, inlaid with carnelian from Bagdad, and turquois from Thibet, and Jasper from the Punjaub, and amethyst from Persia, and all manner of precious stones. A traveler says that- it -seems to him like the shining of an enchanted castle of burnished silver. The walls are 245 feet high, and from the top of these springs a dome thirty more feet high, that dome containing the most wonderful echo the world has ever known; so that ever and anon travelers standing below with flutes, and drums, and harps, are testing that echo, and the sounds from below strike up and then come down as it were the voice of angels all around about the building. There is around it a gardep of tamarind, arid banyan, ana palm, and all the floral glories of the ransacked earth. But that is only a tomb of a dead empress, and it is tame compared with the grandeurs which, God has builded for your living and immortal spirit. Oh, home of the blessed! Foundations of gold! Arches of victory! Cap-stones of praise! And a dome in which there are echoing and re-echo-ing the hallelujahs of the ages. And around about that mansion is a garden —the garden of God—and all the springing fountains are the bottled tears of the Church in the wilderness, and all the crimson of the flowers is the deep hue that was caught up front the-carnage of 'earthly m arty rdoms.and the fragrance is the prayer of all the saints, and the aroma puts into utter forgetfulness the cassia and the spikenard, and the frankincehso, and the world-renowned spices which the Queen Balkis, of Abyssinia, flung at the feet of King Solomon.

Through obduracy on our part, and through the rejection of that Christwho makes heaven possible, I wonder if any of us will miss that spectacle? I fear! I fear! The. Queen of the South will rise up in judgment against this generation and condemn it, because she came from the utter most parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here! May God grant that through your own practical experience you may find that religion’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all her paths are paths of peace—that it is perfume now and perfume forever. And there was an abundance of spice: “neither was there any such spice as the Queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.”

No Words Wanted.

Life. « Brigg ( s —A friend of mine got off a bright thing the other day. He called on a young lady who had a pet dog she was trying to make bark, but the dog wouldn’t, until finally she said, “Fido, if you will bark for me I’ll kiss you.” Then my friend spoke up and said. “I can bark pretty well myself.” Griggs—Ha, ha! What did the girl say?” Briggs—Nothing; She simply sent the dog away. The young women of Newburyport. Mass., have begun the publication of a new local weekly which they call the Howler. It is reported that Justin Mcr Carthy’s son, Justin Huntley McCarthy, has become a convert to. Buddhism. '

BLAINE NOT IN IT.

Secretary of State Blaine Said to Have No Presidental Asz ' . pirations. He Does Nu: Want the Presidency and Is Displeased With the Overzcaloafc--ness of His Friends.

The announcement from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., on the 28th, to the effect that .Mr. Blaine would not be a candidate for the presidential nomination next year, would not suffer the use of his name In connection with the nomination, and would soon say so over his name, while creating no surprise, was the subject of general comment in political circles this evening. Such a step on the part of the Secretary of State has been expected for some time, and proceedings like those at the Cincinnati League convention last week will only hasten the day when hewill announce that he can not accept the nomination. Th® ardor of his friends will yet prove the disaster of their hopes. On every hand the question has been asked during th e past three or four days; “If, a s ex-Governor Foraker says,Mr. Blaine’s administration is proving so satisfactory, why would it not be policy to, continue it another four years?” Congressman Bouteile, of Maine, and ex-Congreeman Thos. M. Payne, of Pittsburg, both most intimate friends of the Secretary of State, who had charge of his campaigns in the last three national conventions, have within the .last month told their friends, in private conversation, that Mr. Blaine would not only not be a candidate for the nomination, but that he would, if the agitation continued, very soon announce over his name that he could and would not accept the nomination if it should be tendered to him. Mr. Blaine, it is well known tn Washington, hopes that he will not be placed in the embarrassing position of making this statement at this early day, but it may as well be stated now, and with some positiveness, if not not authority, that if the friends of Mr. Blaine do not cease their untimely agitation, he will take himself out of the line of possibility before the campaign for th e nomination fairly opens.

PREPARING TO INSPECT MEAT.

Dr. Salmon Will Begin Putting Into Effec * the New Law in a Few Days. Germany and France will, within a very few days, no longer have any excuse for maintaining an embargo against Ameri•an meat, for on Thursday or Friday Dr. E. ILEalmon, Chief of the Bureatiof Animal Industry, will leave for Chicago to Superintend the beginning of operations under the new meat-inspection law. He will take with him the microscopes, lags and seals which are to be used In inspecting meats, and will locate the inspectors at the various slaughter houses and inaugurate the system which is to be carried on permanently. The expert veterinarians will jbe assigned to each slaughter house to do the actual work of inspecting,, and they will be assisted by men who will handle the meat and do the tagging. The entirejorce of and assistants will be under the direction of a central officer. Most of those who are to be engaged in the inspection work are already in the employ of the Department of Agriculture, and such additional force as will be necessary will be engaged by Dr. Salmon when he reaches Chicago. The doctor has taken an important part in the various steps of the meat inspecting system. The various voluminous rules and regulations which are issued under the name of Secretary* Rusk were first drafted by Dr. Salmon. It has been through him also that cattle exporters have made their recent successful efforts to get American livestock admitted to German ports without the former haof Animal Industry, Dr. Salmon has bent all his energies toward breaking down the foreign restrictions put upon our meats and live stock, and his efforts hav e been remarkable successful.

PROTEST AGAINST MR. BLAIR.

The Chinese Government Unwilling to Receive Him as American Minister. Washington, April 28.—The Chinese Government has notified the Government of the United States, through the Department of State, of its unwillingness to receive Hon. Henry W. Blair as our Minister to China. This is all the information that could ba obtained here to-night. Secretary Blaine would not talk upon the subject, and the Chinese Minister sent down word to callers that he had retired, and his interpreter was not In the house. Mr. Blair is not in Washington, but his son was found, arid, expressed surprise when informed of the action of Chinese government. It was he'said, <fce first that any of the family had heard of it. His father, he felt sure, was not aware of the situation. It is wel * understood here that the objection to Mr* Blair is based upon his utterances con. cerning the Chinese question, and that the republication of extracts from his speeches produced a deep impression upon the minds of prominent Chinese officials, which finally resulted in the notification received by the State Department. The objection of the Chinese government to Mr. Blair caused no comment at "Washington, as this government recognizes the right of a foreign power to express its uu willingness to receive a minister who is not entirely acceptable. Twenty-five hundred men at the Michigan Central shops joined the striking carworkers on the 28th. A sanguinary combat occurred between the strikers and s hundred policemen, Shots were freely exchanged, and Charles Kenitz, a striker, was mortally wounded. The Mayor has issued a proclamation calling upon the regiment of militia in the city to be read. for duty at a Moment's notice. The annoy rias are under military protection

BLAIR RECALLED.

The Chinese Government ’jb Objections Respected by Secretary Blaine. Fear of “Strained Relations” Not Likely to Arise from It—Mr. Blair In ter vie wed.....

Secretary Blaine, on the 29th of April, declined to talk about Minister Blair being unacceptable to the Chinese government further than to say that the matte: was a diplomatic affair and he did not care to say any thing about it for publication oi notice and reply to newspaper speculation! about it. Minister Yen, at the Chinese legation, would only [say through an interpreter that he had received a dispatch from his home government expressing the unwillingness of the Emperor to rechive Mr. Blair, which he was instructed to lay before Secretary Blaine without delay. This, he said, was the only instructions he had received oq the subject, but he declined to furnish a copy of the dispatch or to State the reasons for this action. While the dispatches giving reasons for not receiving Mr. Blair in China is a profound secret, everbody understands that it is because he is opposed to Chinese immigration to this country, The published report that Mr? Blair's commission had been made out with his location abroad left blank, so that if noj acceptable to China he could be sent to Japan, is regarded as absurd everywhere in diplomatic circles. Mr. Blair.it is believed, has by this time been officially notified of the feeling of the Chinese government in'the matter.

Among department officials there is a general indisposition to discuss the subject of Mr. Blair’s rejection. Still it is evident that there is no general desire to magnify the Incident into the proportions of a dip. lomatic rupture. It is a long.established rule of diplomacy that a nation is not obliged to accept a minister who is not persona grata, and that a rejection on that account is not to be construed into an intended affront to the dignity of the natioq which sends the minister. The United States hesitated for a long time to fully indorse this rule, and .phowed some resentment when the Austrian government, during the last administration, asked thaf Minister Kelly be not sent to Austria as United States minister. But about the time of the Sackville-West episode the United States, represented by Mr. Cleve. land, became an enthusiastic adherent of the policy that a nation is not bound to receive or retain a foreign minister who is not acceptable to Its people. Then, too, there was a lingering recollection of the fact that the United States had, about the time of the French revolution, sent homo the representative of the French republic because ho had made himself obnoxious to the people ol the United States. In these cases the demand for the ministers’recall waff rather peremptory, and we did not show the consideration manifested by the Chinese government in refraining from an absolute rejection of Minister Blair, and simply stating that his coming to China in the capacity of United States minister would not be entirely agreeable to the govern* ment of that country. Altogether, the opinion in official circles Is general that [he United States Is, by its own conduct, estopped from resenting Minister Blair's rejection, and that, after waiting for a length of time sufficient to maintain the national dignity, a 1 new minister will be appointed by President Harrison.

Ex-Senator Blair, the new Minister to China, arrived at Chicago on the morning of the 29th ult., and was questioned in regard to the report that the Chinese govtrnmenthad submitted to the Department of State a formal protest against his being lent to China. “I have received no official notice of such a protest'.” said Mr. Blair. "All I know about it is what I have seep In the newspapers. I may be permitted to doubt its correctness for the reason that the State Department knows that l am en call me it would have dono so without delay. I shall not stop here any longer than I originally intended in'order to await official information. If I hear nothing from Washington by to-morrow I shall proceed to San Francisco, and sail from that point. I do not think, of course, that there is any good reason why China should object to me. Neither do I believe that the Chinese government thinks so. During my service in>Congress whatever I did I did from conviction. " Whatever I did in the matter of Chinese immigration also received the indorsement of the government. It is Incredible that any nation would seek to enforce personal liabilities, especially at this late day.” Senator Blair will return to Washington to-morrow. To-night he received a dispatch from Secretary Blaine containing nothing but a request to that effect Mr. Blair did not appear at all unpleasantly affected by the change in his plans, which was, however, something of a surprise to him. “I have no informationTegarding the matter beyond what is contained in Mr. Blaine’s dispatch,” he said shortly after its receipt; ‘‘l can say nothing, therefore, as to the rumor that the State Department has been notified by China that l am a persona non grata, and that in consequence I am to be sent to Japan or Persia. As I have no official knowledge of the cause of my being requested to return to Washington, Fean of course «ay nothing about my future movements. Until one I was not aware that I was not to continue my journey to China. I have my credentials foi the, latter country, and officially I do not knowthatlamnottegotherestill. Even ij the Chinese governmeht has taken the action reported it would certainly be improper for me to discuss its rights to do so, oi the expediency of the act, since, so far ai my official knowledge goes, I am still th< accredited minister. Personally, I do not care a snap whether I go or stay.” Attorney General Miller has received th< report from the United States Attorney a New Orleans on the lynching of the Mafia but will not make it public until after th President’s return.

A COUNTRY BOY’S RIDE

Few Novels Can Excel in interest the Life of Bank President Williams. Kansas CityTlrnes. “Forty years ago, one pleasant summer day, a good deacon front' Norwalk, Conn-, drove into the city of New York in an old-fashioned one-horse shay. He brought wit’i him his son, a mere boy of eighteen or nineteen, then fbr the first tin.; to experience* the vicissitudes of life in a large city. Would you like tc know what became of that boy?” in quired Mr. J. S. Gaffney, ofNen York, superintendent of agencies foi the United States Life Insurance Company, now registered at th» Coates House. “Well, I will tell you. To-day that youth is the president of the Chemical National Bank of New York» City, the most solid and substantial banking institution in the. country, His name is George Williams, and he has been connected with that bank in some capacity from the day hr first entered the doors With his father forty years ago until the pres ent. Such a record in America, where everything is shifting and changing, is worth more than .a passing mention. The Chemical National Bank is the bank in which the wealthy Neu Yorkers, the Astors, the Vander bilts, the Goulds and many other: who care more for security than in terest make their large deposits I myself have seen a check for $5. 000,000 in favor of Jay Gould on the Chemical National Bank. ThJ stock is limited to $300,000, but th<; property of the bank, independent o| the name, is worth $10,000,000. Is ii any- wonder that the shares, which started in at a par value of SIOO, ar<| now worth $5,000 at least, and it’i: almost impossible to get one of then at any figure? Other bahks comj and go, other banks rise and fall, but this bank seems to have caughl glimpses of immortality, if this phrase can be used in speaking of a brink. “The brains of this bank, the mar who has made it what it is to a large degree, i§ George Williams. His. record is one to be envied. He has made money himself, and he is rated a millionaire several times over in the commercial agencies. But he he can command tens of millions of dollars. He is regarded as one ol the best among living financiers. li you can get his endorsement to any project you can get any amount ol money that you need in New York. __ Go to your Kansas City bankers or any bank on either side of the water and whisper the magic name ot George Williams to them and it will cause the sesame to opentheir vaults and let out their millions. Too often the worth, the merit, the work of men like George Williams is forgotten in the West, especially where men are always in a hurry, but once in a while we remember these things.”

Old World Names.

Siberia signifies thirsty or dry. Corsica signifies a woody place. Scylla signifies the whirlpool of destruction. Sicily signifies the land or country of grapes, Sardinia signifies footsteps of men, which it resembles. Rhodes signifies serpents or dr» gons, which are produced there in abundance. Syracuse denotes bad flavor, sc called from the unwholesome marsi upon which it stood. The English of Caledonia is a high hill. This was a rugged, mountainous province in Scotland."’" **"'7'"”” Gaul, the ancient name of France, signifies yellow-haired, as yellow haii characterized its inhabitants. Africa signifies a land of corn oi ears. It was celebrated for its abundance of corn and all sorts oi grain. . Asia signifies between or in the middle, from the fact that geographers place it between Europe and. Africa. Hibernia is utmost or last habitation, for beyond this to the westward the Phoenicians never extended their voyages. Italy signifies a country of pitch, from its yielding great quantities ol black pitch. Calabria received its name from the same characteristic..

Trimming a Tiger’s Claws.

Attached to the Schoenbrunn palace, near Vienna, is a menagerie. For some time past the magnificent Bengal tiger there has suffered from ingrowing nails. That is, the claws, not having natural usage and wear, grew out and curled back into th« flesh of the paws, which ulcerated. They had to be clipped. A small cage was put over the door of the large one, and the tiger was decoyed into this by a pigeon. Then he was forced down to the floor by crossbeams, and his paws sticking out, were chained to the bars of the cage. The claws were clipped at the root and their points withdrawn from th< ball of the foot, into which they had grown. The tiger stood the opera tion with less resistance and fear than fiad been expected, and feels much better since. If you hesitate what crop to grow in a field, seed it with grass and clover, dr clover alone. It will nevei come amiss. The crop can be fed; it may be sold as hay, or it may bi turned under as manure; and' eithei way will return more value than al most any grain crop, ( 5 ■ r— ■ Jstna signifies a furnace, dark 01 •rnnigr.