Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1892 — Page 7

HOLIDAY AND HOLY DAY.

Yuletide Theology by Dr. Talmage. ' r Chrirtxnaa JtMional—lß9B to Be a Year of I Wonders—Tribate to the Dying Year. • v. - ‘ Dr. Talmage preached at Brooklyn last Sunday. Text, Colossians ii, 16: “In Respect of a holy day.” He said: I What the Bible here and elsewhere calls a holy day we, by change of one letter and change of pronunciation, call holiday. But by change of spelling anil accentuation we cannot change the fact that holidays have great significance. Whether you t take the old style of my text nnd ’call th.m holy days, or the modern style and call them holidays, they somehow set all my nerves a tingle and my deeper emotions in io prpfoundest agitation. i For years Christmas day, starting in the midst of one week, and New Year's day, starting io the midst of another week, we have been perplexed to know when the holidays begun and when they ended,and perhaps we may have begun them too soon or continued them too long. But this year they are bounded by two beaches of geld—Sabbath. Dec. 25, 1892, and Sabbath, lan. 1. 1893 I propose that we divide this holiday season, the two Sabbaths of the holiday and the six days between, into three chapters—the ’first part a chapter of illustrious birthday; the second part a chapter of an annual decadence; the third part a chapter of chronological introduction. First, then, a chapter of illustrious birthday. Not a day of any year but has been marked by the nativity of some good or great soul. But what are all those birthdays compared with December 25, for on or about that day was born one who eclipsed all the great names of the centuries — Jesus of Bethlehem, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus of Golgotha, Jesus of Olivet, Jesus of the heavenly throne. The greatest pictures have been made about scenes in his lifetime. The greatest sacrifices on fields of battle or in hospital or on long march or in martyrdom have been inspired by his self abnegation. The finest words of eloquence ever speken have been uttered in the proclamation of his gospel. The grandest oratorios that have ever rolled from orchestras were descriptive of his life and death. • No wonder we celebrate his birth —rro testant church,Catholic church, Greek church, St. Isaac’s of St. Petersburg, St Peters at Rome, the Madaleine at Paris, St. Paul’s in London, Joining all our American cathedrals and churches and log cabin meeting houses and homes in keeping .this pre.-eminent birth festival. Elaborate and prolonged efforts have been made to show that the star that pointed to the inanger in which Christ was born was not what . it appeared to be, but a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Astronomers, you know, can calculate backward as well as forward, and as they can tell what will occur a hundred years from now among the heavenly bodies so they can accurately calculate backward and tell what occurred eighteen or nineteen hundred years ago. And it is true that seven years before Christ in Chaldea, about three hours before day dawn, there was a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. But I prefer the simple story of the Bible, that a light of some kind i —stellar or meteoric —pointed from the sky to the straw cradle.

When it is so easy for God to make a world that he puts eighteen millions of them within one sweep of the telescope, he could certainly afford one silvery or fiery signal of some kind to point the world to the place where the sovereign of the universe lay incarnated and infantile. * If a king at the birth of a son can have the palace illumined and couriers sent with swift dispatch to announce the gladness at the gates and wake up an empire with cannonade, lam not surprised that at the birth of the Son of God there was celertial agitation, and my only wonder is that.mstead of one star or one meteor giving signal, all worlds did not make demonstration. You see, the birth at Bethlehem must have been more novel and startling to the heavens than the crucifixion on Calvary. It was expected that Christ would be maltreated. The world always had maltreated its good and great friends. Joseph hurled into the pit, Shadrach put into the fiery furnace, Jeremiah lowered intoadungeon. David hounded from the throne, Elijah compelled to starve or take his food from the beak of a filthy raven, and Socrates condemned to death, so that the Calvarian massacre was in the same old line of malreatment. As the finger of light that Dec. 25 pointed to the straw cradle, now all the fingers of Christendom this moment, fingers of childhood and old age, fingers of sermon and song and, decoration and festivity, point to the’ great straw cradle. Am I not right in saying that the first of the three chapters of the holidays should be devoted to the illustrious birthday? As far as possible gather the children and grandchildren, but put no estopple on racket, whether of laughter or swift feet or toys in shape of rail trains or trumpets or infant effigy. Let the old folks for one day at least say nothing about rheumatism or prospect of early demise, or the degeneracy of modern times, or the poison in confectymery. If children and grandchildren can not have full swing during the holidays* when will they have it? They

will be still soon enough, and their feet will slacken their pace, and the burdens of life will bear them down. Houses get awfully still when the* children are gone. While they stay let them fill the room with resounding mirth that you can hear the echoe i twenty years after they are dead. The second chapter of the holidays must speak of annual decadence. This is the last Sabbath of the year. The steps of the year are getting short, for it is old now. When it waved the springtime blossoms the year was young, and when it swung the scythe and cradle through the summer harvest fields t|>e year was strong, but it is getting out of breath now. and after six more throbs of the pulse will be dead. We cannot stop this annual decadence. Set all the clocks back, set all the watches set a]! the th? chronometers back, but you set time back. For the old family clock you might suppose that time ’ would . have especial respect, and that if you took hold of these old hands on the faca of that centenarian of a time piece and pushed them back you might expect that time would stop or retreat for at least a few minutes. “No. no!” says the old family clock. “I must go on. I saw your father and mother on their wedding day. I struck the hour of your nativity. I counted the festal hours of the day in which you brought home a bride. I sounded the knell at your father's death. I tolled at your mother’s departure. Yea, I must sound your own going out of life. I must go on. I must go on. Tick, took! Tick, tockl” But there is a great city clock high up in the tower. There are so many wrongs in all our cities to bexighted, so many evils to be extirpated, so many prisons to be sanitaried—stop the city clock until all these things are done. Let Common Ccuicil and all the people of the great towp decree that ths City Hall clock shall stop. We do not want the sins of 1892 to be handed over to 1893. We do not want the young year to inherit the misfortunes of the old year. By ladders lifted to the tower and by strong hands take hold and halt the city clock. “No, no!” says the city clock. “I cannot “wait until you correct all evils or soothe all’ sorrow or drive out all sin, I have been counting the steps of your progress ss a city. I have seen your opportunities. I have deplored your neglects; but time wasted is wasted forever. I must go on. T must go on. Tick, tock! Tick, took!” But in the tower of the capitols at Washington and London and Berlin and Vienna and and all the great National capitals there are clocks. *

Suppose that by presidential proclamation and resolution of Senate and House of Representatives our national clock in the Capitol turret be ordered to stop. “Stop, O clock, until sectional animosities are cooled off, until our Sabbaths are better kept and drunkenness turns to sobriety, and bribery, fraud and dissipation quit the land! Stop, O clock in the tower of the great United States Capitol!” “No, no!” says the says the dock. “I have bean going on so long I cannot afford to stop. I sounded the birthday of American independence. I rang out the return of peace in 1865. I have seen many presidents inaugurated. I struck the hour of Lincoln’s assassination. I have beat time for eman-

cipation proclamation, .apd Chicago fire, and Charleston earthquake, and epidemics of fever, and cholera. Nations never stop. They march on toward salvation or demolition. And ( why should I stop? I chime for the national holidays. I toll for the mighty dead, I must go on. I must go on. Tick, tock! Tick, tock!” Sorry am I to have 1892 to depart this life. It has been a good year. What bright days! What starry nights! What harvests! What religious convocations! What triumphs of,art and science and invention and religion ! But, alas, how sacred it has been with sorrows! What pillows hot with fever that could not be cooled! What graves opening wide epough takedown beauty, strength, and usefulness! What octogenarians putting down the staff of earthly pilgrimage and taking the crown of heavenly reward! What children, as in Bible time, crying, “My head, my head! And they carried him to his mother, and he sat on her knees until noon and then died."

What mingling of emotions in this closing year! What orange blossoms for the marriage altar, and what myrtle for the tombs of the dead! Hosannas and lamentations in col* lision. Anthem and dead march mounting from the same ivory keys. I advised that you divide this season into three chapters —the first a chapter of illustrious birthday, the second a chapter of annual decadence, the third a chapter of chronological introduction, and this last chapter we have reached. In olden times there the was a style of closing an old year and opening a new one that was very suggestive. TBo family would sit up until twelve o'clock at night, and when the clock struck twelve the family would all go to the front door of the house, take down the bar and turn back the lock and swing the door wide open to let the old year out and the new year in. And that is what we are going to dp. With the same measured step that time has kept since it started it will come tp outdoor in the closing night of this week. “Why?” you ask. “Have you any forebodings or premonitions?” No! “Are you expecting the millennium this year?” Nol “Why, then, say this about the coming year?” For the simple reason that I find as the years go by they become more and

more eventful. Compare the Nine teen th century with the last half. The surges of'this ocean of times are rolling higher and higher. And so I expect that'lß93 will be a greater year than 1892. Its wed ding bells will be merrier. Its ob sequies will be sadder. Its scientific discoveries more brilliant. Its pros perities more significant. Its open ing more grand. Its termination more stupendous. In what mood shall we open the door of the new year? With faith, strong faith, buoyant faith, tri umphant. God will see you through His graei will prove sufficient if you trust him.■ You can go to him at any time and .find sympathy. He will console and help in every crisis. Come, now, let me unstrap that knapsack of care from your shoul ders. Come prosperity or adversity, come wadding or burial, come health or sickness, come life or death, com? time or eternity, all’s well, ftU’s weU. If you keep your lica.t right, all else will be right. Living and dying, may it all be his! Thus in three chapters I have counseled that the holidays be grouped. May nothing interfere with their felicities. May they be so spent that they will be food for pleasant reminiscence further on. You know that after awhile the old homestead will be broken up. For years and years. the children come home td spend the holidays, and the house is rummaged from garret to cellar, and the scenes of childhood are rehearsed, and we laugh till the tears come as we talk over some boyish or girlish freak or cry over some old trouble ended, but the heart swings back again to mirth, for it does not take a half second for tear of the eye to strike the smile of the lip. For a few years the grandchildren make the holidays merry. One of the many uses of grandchildren is to keep old folks young. Then after a few years the annual gathering at the old homestead is half broken up, for father or mother is gene. About two years after (for there are generally about two years between the time of their going) the other half of the holiday season is

broken up. Then the old house goes into the possession of strangers, and the sons and daughters by that time have homes of their own. They plant theirown Christmas trees, and nang up their own children’s stockings, and twine their own holly and mistletoe, and have their own good times.

Meanwhile we. their parents and '▼’’andnarent’!. will. I ♦hS'Mir.h the atonement of our blessed Lord, be keeping holidays livelier and higher up—in the presence of the very Christ whose birth the earthly Christm&s.conimemorates, ana oi cue “Ancient of Days” who saw the first year open and will see the last year close, in companionship with the ever widening circle of heavenly kindred, manj' already there and many soon to come, and the tables of that festivity will purple with the grapes of Eschol, and redden with “the new wine of the kingdom,” and glow with “twelve manner of fruits” from the trees of life, and the gifts of those holidays will be mansions and thrones and crowns of glory that never fade away. Oh. that these delightful holidays of earth may fit us for those more delightful holidays of heaven!

Mosquitoes in Texas. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. “Speaking of mosquitoes,” said F« JL. Goodwin, a guest of the Southern, “reminds me of an expenenceT once had at Galveston, Tex. I arrived at the Island City late one night, very tired, and was soon sleeping soundly. About 4 o’clock in the morning I awoke, fully convinced that I was being roasted alive. 1 discovered that my bed had no mosquito bar and that several thousand of those ravenous songsters had been presenting their bills. A mosquito bite is rank poison to me, and cause: a swelling resembling a boil. By daylight my eyes were swelled shut, my hands were puffed up like a prizefighter’s after a mil), and from head io heel 1 was in about the same condition to which the devil reduced Job. It was two days before I could leave my room. Galveston , island and the low land of the coast is a great breeding ground of the mosquito. When tlqere is a strong oreeze from the sea they are blown into the bay, and the city is thus kept during the greater part of the year comparatively free from these pests. They are always to be found, however, and it is necessary to sleep under bars even during the months of January and February. Bai!road brakemen in south Texas are sometimes compelled to wear mosquito netting over their faces while on duty."

THINGS WORTH KNOWING.

A vessel that has had oil in it may be easily cleaned by first pouring into it sqme diluted carbolic acid. In stamping letters it is sometimes better to wet th? envelopes than the stamps, for this does not remove any of the mucilaginous substance of the stamp?, and the stamp is not so liable to be lost from the letter. Tea or coffee stains of long standing may be removed by rubbing the cloth with glycerine, after washing once, a second washing leaves the linen as clean as before. Ink stains are so frequent that everyone at time desires somethittg to remove them. To remove them from linen, rub the spots while wet (if stains are old wet with water) with tartaric acid; to remove them from silk, saturate the spot with spirits of turpentine; after a few hours rub the spot, and tho ink stain will crumble away without injuring the fabric.

THE BALE EXPRESS.

Detroit Free Frea*. The night express for Bale stood ready to depart in the huge, glassroofed, dimly lighted terminus. The big clock with an illuminated disc showed that the hour for leaving was past, but the officials were still packing people into the already overcrowded. train. The only problem that troubles the mind of an European railway official is how to get a quart into a pint measure. The traveler in Europe is still treated as a criminal deserving no mitigation of punishment, and a long railway journey is made as crowded and uncomfortable as possible. The night express to Bale during the height of the Swiss travel is usually sent off in two sections. The first was gone and the second was about to leave. The last passenger jammed in, the door was slammed shut, the usual nonsensical tooting of horns, blowing of shrill whistles and ringing of bells were accomplished, and finally the Bale express pulled out, passing the first tall buildings on each side of the deep trench containing the rails, then the more scattered villas of the suburbs, and at last with increasing speed it rattled into the dark open country. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and a few deluded mortals on the train, thinking they might get some sleep, pulled down the semicircles of cloth that covered the lamps in the roof of every carriage, thus darkening the compartment. Just as each one had settled himself in the small amount of space allowed him the doors of the first compartment swung' suddenly open and the guard, with a dim lantern at his belt, stepped in, bringing with him a gust of wind and the roar of the train, which suddenly deadened again as he closed the- door. This mystical entrance of the guard with the train flying through the darkness always startles a passenger unaccustomed to the methods of continental railways. “Tickets,gentlemen,if you please.” Each man tumbled for his ticket. The guard handed back some of the tickets without looking at them; others he put in his pocket. “Here,” said a passenger, protestingly, “give me back my ticket. It is for Bale.” “You will not be asked for it again,” answered the guard gruffly. “But it is exactly the same as the ticket my friend here has. You gave his back.” “I tell you you will not need your tickets. Permit me to understand my own business.” The passenger, being a Frenchman and therefore, accustomed to tyran-, ny, whether that of a republic or a monarchy, subsided into silence and the impolite guard swung whirling night. The next batch of passengers was not so complaisant. An Englishman refused to give up his bunch of coupons which was to take him through Switzerland guard paid no attention to him until he had examined all the other tickets retaining some and returning others, to the bewilderment of the victims. “Allow me to examine your tickets,” he said at last to the Englishman.

. “Yes; but you must not keep them as you did the others. , I will tear out the Bale coupon.” “If you do it will not be valid. I must tear it out myself.” Reluctantly the tickets were given up. The guard instantly stuffed them all in his pouqh“This is an outrage,” cried the passenger, indignantly. “I want your number and a written receipt for the tickets." You will receive your tickets at Bale if you apply for them,” answered the guard as he left the compartment. The Englishman fumed and threatened and cursed the high-handed methods of railways owned by the government, nothing could be done until morning. He called some of his fallow passengers to witness the manner in which he had been treated and settled himself back to sleep, if sleep frere possible. Meanwhile, in the first compartment the door again swung open and another guard put in an appearance. He was costumed exactly like the first, but instead of working in the darkness he put up his hand, snapped apart the artificial eyelid that covered the lamp and flooded the

compartment with light. “ Tickets, gentlemen, if you please. ” A howl went up from the passengers. How often during that wretched night were they to be asked for tickets ? Was this sort of persecution to occur every half hour? The guard looked from one to another in astonishment. How often ? This was the first time. Tickets would not be again required until they reached the German frontier. Then they would have to get out anyhow, because of customs inspection. “Tickets, if you please. ” “ I have already given up my ticket. " “To whom?" “To a guard who came in here a moment ago. I protested, bqt it was of no use. "

“Impossible. There has been no guard here before me. " An immediate outcry bewildered the guard. Everyone talked as loud and as fast as be could, accompanying his emphatic declarations with energetic gestures, as is the amusing custom with foreigners. The guard looked suspiciously at them aIL This was evidently a plot—a new dodge. He must have tickets or money, he said. Those who had given up their tickets told him to find the other guard if he wanted the tickets. It was not likely, they added,

that they were going along a shaky' footboard oh a night express to search for him. The guard w*nt to the next compartment, advising those he was leaving to have their tickets ready by the time he returned. In the next compartment, and the next, he found the same state of things, and at last it occurred to him that a whole train load of passengers, native and foreign, could hardly have entered into a ticket suppressing conspiracy. The Englishman had been particularly insulting, and experience told the guard that it is the man who is lying and trying to cheat that is always polite. The man in the wrong cannot afford to use bad language. The guard then thought that his co laborer at the other end of the train had suddenly gone crazy and collected the tickets a’ong the whole line of carriages, instead of Confining himself, as usual, to the rear half. Getting out once more on the foot board he worked his way along toward the rear of the train. He had gone about half way when he met the other guard. “Have you been collecting tickets in mv hlaf of the train?” “That is just the question I was going to ask you. Some one in uniform has been through the rear half and everything is in confusion. I have seen nothing of him.” “Nop have T. Perhaps he is in the sleeping car. ” “No, he has not been there at all, but in every other carriage.” “He cannot have ezcaped. He may be on the engine.”

“Well, you go forward and see. I’ll go to the rear and keep a lookout.” The guard did not think much of the crew on the engine. The driver was an Italian, a swarthy, brigandish looking man, who never satisfactorily accounted for his desertion of bis native country, where he claimed to have driven the Rome-Naples express. Why should a man in such a position leave it to take a place on a slow local train, as Partenza had done before be was promoted to the Bale express? —• Still no one claimed he was not a good engineer. The fireman was a compatriot of the guard, but he stammered fearfully. This natural defect was looked upon with suspicion by the guards and the minor officers of the line. There must be something evil about a man who had an impediment of speech. The stammering stoker was on the tender shoveling down coal when the guard-reached the engine. He was asked if any one was on the engine except the two who should be there, but before the man could stammer out either a negative or affirmative the guard lost patience, and working his way over the quivering machine he reached the eab, where Partenza, with hje hand on the lever, was peering ahead into the darkness' “Has thebe been anyone on the engine since you started?” “No.” said the Italian in a surely . atone; “who should be with us?” “There is someone on the train concealed. I thought he might be here. He is dressed like a guard and has taken up a quarter of the tickets—perhaps more. ” r The engineer’s hand dropped from the lever and he started at the guard

with eyes so wide and with such a gleam of insanity in them that the other stepped involuntarily back from him. The Italian drew the back of his grimy hand across his black perspiring brow. “My God!” he cried huskily, “The Death. Guard!” “What do you mean?” “He was on my train before —on the Naples express that was wrecked. He has followed me here. I will not take this train to Bale.” Before the guard could reply the stoker came tumbling down over the coal, wild to speak, but unable to make a sound. “He has seen him,” cried the guard. “He has seen something, what is it, you fool?" The fireman, realizing his helplessness, sprang forward and attempted to pull the lever. ” “None of that, you stuttering idiot. Don’t interfere with what you don’t understand,” and the Ital ian struck him a staggering blow that knocked him against the side of the cab and at the same time seemed to break the bonds that imprisoned his speech. “The red light!” he shrieked. You have passed it!" The engineer with an oath threw himself on the lover and flung on the air brake, that instantly checked the flying train like a blow. Right ahead the guard saw the rear lights of the forward half of the Bale express. The next instant he was tumbling handover lieels down the embankment. The Italian stuck to his engine as it went grinding through the splintering fragments of the standing train, reeling over at last and burying him under a mass of hissing iron. No man whose ticket was taken up applied for its return at Bale.

Boy Preened Flat in a Bale of Cotton.

Brenham, Tex., special Walter Gardner.a boy who worked at J. T. Lott’s gin. twenty miles east of here, was crushed to death in a bale of cotton, Nov. 23. The bands were busy packing cotton in the press preparatory to pressing a bale when Gardner was missed. Nothing was thought of his absence and they filled the packing box with the lint and the press closed down. When the sides were dropped to roll out the bale they found the remains of the boy mashed out fiat and baled up in the cotton. Gardner had probably fainted and fallen into the press box and been covered up without the other hands noticing him. '

HEAVY WEIGHTS MARRIED.

The Bridegroom Weighs 097 Ponds and the Bride Tips the Beam at 672. N. T. World. _ _' " 7 Two hearts that boat In lumps of fat— Two folks that weigh a ten. They don’t weigh a ton, of course, the fat man and the fat woman who were married in Huber’s Museum, but Prof. Landon, the gifted lecturer and off hand poet, who gave away the bride, said so, and 1,179 pounds avoirdupois won’t go into poetry any way you can fix it.

CHAUNCY MORLAND AND ANNIE BILL.

The bride’s name is Annie Bell, or was. rather, prior to 3:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon. She is now Mrs. Chauncey Morland. She wore a white satin dress cut princess, with bangaline over the petticoat. The bridegroom is rather a heavy set person, or what would be called chunky built. He was arrayed in the conventional black. The clergyman was the Rev. G. G. Hepburn, said by the management to be connected with Grace Chapel, which is hard by the museum. The bridesmaid, Miss Jennie Higbee, of Brooklyn, has a sister who is in the profession, a Miss Amelia Hill, a fat lady, of great drawing power. The best man was a Mr. Will Block. When the clergyman asked “Who giveth this woman in marriage?” Prof. Langdon came to the front and gracefully handing over the plump and blushing bride, said, “I do. The bridegroom found the ring and the knot was tied. When it was all over Prof. Langdon kissed the bride, shook the hand of the bridegroom and was going towish him many happy returns of the day, but caught himself just in time. The Professor held a red and rosy apple in his hand as he presented Mr. and Mrs. Morland to the spectators. “Perhaps,” said he, turning to the bridegroom, “you can tell me what the difference is between the bride and this fine apple?” “No, sir,” said the bridegroom. “What is the difference between the bride and the apple?” “You have to squeeze this apple" before you get cider,” said the Pro-, fessor. “But you have to get ’side her before you can squeeze the bride.” The applause that followed closed the event of the day. The bridgroom was born in Indiana, is twenty-one years old and weighs 607 pounds avoirdupois. The bride was born in Columbus, 0., but she now calls St. Louis her home. She weighs 572 pounds. His Winning Smile.

Ho walk* the street with a beaming mails. His face shines like the sub. And his head Is crowned with a brand now tile— It is plain bls side has won. -New York Pres*.

Frivols of the Past.

Bangs weie first worn in thecourt of Louis XIV. Greek ladies had 137 different styles of dressing hair. Catharine de Medici Imported muffs into France from Italy. Corsets have been worn on the waists of Egyptian mummies. On festive occasions both Greeks and Romans wore garlands of flowers. Shoes with heels 6 inches high were worn at the court of Louis XIV.

Mary’s Little Lamb, . No wonder Mary's little lamb Had draperies white aa snow: It had too much sense to wear them Trailing on the ground yon know. —Smith. Gray * Co.’* Monthly. Mary, who owned the little lamb Is married now, you know; Her lirst-born sob is ten years old. And he to school doe* go. He oft excite* the teacher’* ire By fracturing the the rule! Then, as of old. the children laugh. To see the --lam" at school. -Detroit Free Free* Bryant Fin du Siecled. , x x . The melancholy day* are h«re! I The wind t* oold; the leaf I* sere > The weary tramp, with visage palet I* looking tor some aloe wanajeu