Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1893 — Page 2

THE REPUBLICAN. Geore E. Marshall, Editor. RENSSELAER - INDIANA

‘•Procrastination is the thief of time,” but saves’postage stamps if applied to the matter of correspondence. “Hear instruction and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is. the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates. For whoso findeth me findeth life” „ “It is folly to gild refined gold and the height of foolishness to paint the lily,” but the man who perfects a dead sure process for imparting an agreeable and lasting odor to chrysanthemums has a great future awaiting him. The weather prophets seem to have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that we are to have an uncommonly severe winter. The«sample exhibited in this latitude Dec. sth indicate that they may possibly have staggered on to the truth in some unaccountable manner. Some tender-hearted people are denouncing the all absorbing game of foot-ballas immoral, dangerous alike to life and hopes of .eternal salvation, leading the infatuated adept into all sorts of excesses and dissipations. Yet the game was introduced in America by Rev. D. S. Shafi, of Jacksonville, Ill.' This presumably pious parson organized the first regular team on this side of the Atlantic at Yale College in 1872. “The Lost Atlantis” is only a fabulous country, island or continent, that tradition says once existed between the shores of Europe and America, that a great earrthquake or natural convulsion destroyed, with all its inhabitants. The disappearance of one of the largest islands off the Australian coast recently gives a color of possibility to the fable that is far from comforting to the inhabitants of the isles of the sea.

It is said that American dyers have not as yet been able to attain the best results with seal skins, their work being far inferior to that of foreign workmen. The aristocratic dames of eastern cities when they find it necessary to have their costly sealskin cloaks repaired always send them abroad. The fur trade in New York is largely in the hands of Ger-man-Hebrews, and the traffic is carried on in all sorts of places, from private apartments to large establishments employing many workmen and large capital. People with a taste for statistics will be interested in figures bearing upon the matter of life insurance. The vast sums involved in the almost innumerable projects of socalled life insurance are realized by few. The sum total of life insurance policies issued in the world is thought to reach the enormous sum 0f512,000,000,000. Of this amount $5,500,000,000 is placedin the United States. New schemes are constantly developing and as matters now run the United States will soon have as great an amount in policies as all the balance of the world together. It is published for a fact that many well-to do citizens of Soda Springs, Idaho, made the World’s Fair trip as cattle < tenders on stock trains, receiving their passage and S2O and a return ticket as compensation for their services. Merchants and lawyers, preachers and physicians dropped their dignity for the time and saved their cash in this way. The fact is not presented in derogation, but rather as an illustration of the energetic and thrifty spirit that inspires the typical Western character. Mr. Galbreth, of Muncie, who was reported to have got out of breath very suddenly while involved in a life and death struggle with a running noose depending for its offensive qualities upon a lord of the forest in the neighborhood of an interior Pennslvania town, the same having been reported to have been lovingly applied to the Adamic protuberance projecting beneath the noble visage of the aforesaid Galbreth has returned to the magic metropolis of the gas belt with the reliable information that, to the best of his knowledge, he is still destroying the life-preserving qualities of his usual allowance of the circumambient atmosphere. Mr. K. M. Prolis, of Ceylon, connected with the Cingalese exhibit at tbo World's Fair, has established himself in business in Chicago. He will deal in East Indian jewelry, precious stones and silk embroidery, ■r. Prolis will become a naturalised

citizen of the United States, says be likes the country and hopes to make it his future home if he can stand the winters, of which he has a dread. He is superstitous, has had his fut ure foretold by a horoscope, wears a “goma” ring for luck, which he will change for a diamond at the expiration of a term of eighteen years, seven of which have passed away. All precious stones are believed by the Cingalese to bring good luck if properly worn.

It will be shocking information to many people to be told that human skulls and skeletons are regularly imported from Egypt to the United States to be ground up and sold as fertilizers. Such transactions are a travesty on civilization, and are fraught with more inherent barbarism and incipient cruelty than the most savage acts of painted aborigines, for the simple reason that they are committed by civilized men without any other object or excuse than the love of a trifling gain. “Ail flesh is grass” indeed, but we can surely raise enough grass without despoiling the graves of a vanished race or tampering with the tombs of silent centuries. If there is any spot or object on earth that should be held sacred and inviolate by all mankind it is the grave and its silent occupant. How we recoil at the thought that in some future age our own resting places and the last couch of those we have loved may be thus ravished, robbed and outraged to serve the material wants and insatiable greed of the future man. That we, “the heir of all the ages and the latest born of time” should be guilty of such barbarity almost passes belief, vet the fact is given to the public for truth by the New York Sun.

A very unique specimen of the genus “crank” made his debut into public life on the evening of Nov. 16, at New York. He rejoiced in the name of Roeth, and casually called at the famous Delmonico restaurant carrying a jag and a gun and incidentally some irrational ideas about a mission he had to reform existing evils. He began shooting in a regardless fashion and emptied his revolver to the great damage of plateglass and detriment to the nerves of the frightened guests, at the same time howling, “Down with the rich!” The restaurant was as speedily emptied of guestsrwaiters and proprietors as the crank’s revolver had been of its bullets, but officers captured Roeth after a hard fight. He was registered at the police station as G. A. Roeth, occupation stone cutter, age 28. He stated that he made $25 a week and had never suffered poverty himself, but that he had been impressed with the terrible contrast between the lavish luxury of the rich and the suffering and privations of the poor, and he had only planned his performance at Delmonico’s as a means of calling ■ the attention of the public to such conditions, without any intention of harming any one. He was remanded for trial.

Bridget. Didn't Like It.

Detroit Free Press. She was a young wife just married from boarding school, one of the lovey dovey order, and although educated in Boston didn’t know beans from any other vegetable. Hence this dialogue with the cook: “Now, Briddy, dear, what are wo to have for dinner?” “There’s two chickens to dress, mum.” “I’ll dress them the first thing. Where are their clothes?” “Holy Moses, mum, they’re in their feathers yet.” “Oh, then serve them that way. The ancient Romans always cooked their peacocks with the feathers on. It will be a surprise to hubby." “It will that, mum. Sure if you wans to help you could l& parin’ the turnips.” “Oh, how sweet! I’il pair them two and two in no time. Why, I had no idea cooking w.is so picturesque!” “I think, mum, that washing the celery do be more in your line.” “All right, Briddy. I’ll take it up to the bathroom, and I’ve some lovely Paris soap that will take off every speck.” “Thank you, mum. Would you mind telling me the name of the asylum where you were eddicatcd? I think I’ll have to take some lessons there myself if we be goin to work together.”

The Common Origin of All Races.

Dr. Daniel G. Brlnton In Forum. Every fresh discovery goes to show that the differences iu man’s physical powers or mental capacity are due to exposure to special agencies of climate, nutrition, disease, custom, or other secondary cause, and not to any original diversity. The true field of modern anthropological research is to analyze and explain these secondary causes.

Unreasoable.

Tld-Blts. Would-be Purchaser —How much for the picture? Artist —The price is SI,OOO. “Why, man alive! you expect to be paid*as much for your work as if you had been dead (our or five hundred

“UNHORSED”

iS&ul of Tarsus and Elis Sudden Conversion. The Macy Lmiou to be Brawn f om th< Great Apoatle'e Life an* Career—Dr , Talmage's Sermon. Dr. Talmage preached at Birmingham, Ala., last Sunday. Subject — “Unhorsed.” Text, Acts ix, 3-5 — “And as he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddnly there shiped round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, ! am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” The Damascus of Bible times still stands with a population of 135,000. It was a gay city of white and glistening architecture, its minarets and crescents and domes playing with the light of the morning sun ; embowered in groves of olive and citron and orange and pomegranate; a famous river plunging its brightness into the scene; a city by the ancients styled “a pearl surrounded by emeralds.” A group of horsemen are advancing upon that city. Let the Christians of the place hide, for the cavalcade coming over the hills is made up of persecutors, their leader small and unattractive in some respects, as leaders sometimes are insignificant in person—witness the Duke of Wellington and Dr. Archibald Alexander. But there is something very intent in the eye of this man of the text t and the horse he rides is lathered with the foam of a long and quick travel of 145 miles. He urges on his steed, for those Christians must be captured and silenced and that religion of the cross must be annihilated.

Suddenly the horses shy off and plunge until the riders are precipitated. Freed from the riders, the horses bound snorting away. You know that dumb animals at the sight of an eclipse, or an earthquake, or anything like a supernatural appearance, sometimes become very uncontrollable. A new sun had been kindled in the heavens, putting out the glare pf the ordinary sun. Christ, with the glories of heaven wrapped about him, looked from a cloud, and the splendor was insufferable, and no wonder that the horses sprang and the equestrians dropped. Dust-covered and bruised. Saul rises,, shading his eyes with his hands from the severe luster of the heavens, but unsuccessfully, for he is struck stone blind as he cries out, “Who art thou, Lord?” And Jesus answered him: “I am the one you have been chasing. He that whips and scourges those Damascene Christians whips and scourges me. It is not their back that is bleeding —it is mine. It is not their hearts ‘hat is breaking—-it is mine. lam esus, whom thou persecutest.”

I learn from this scene that a vorldly fall sometimes precedes a piritual uplifting. Here is Paul on orseback—a proud man, riding with government documents in his pocket, graduate of a famous school, in which the celebrated Dr. Gamaliel ad been a professor, perhaps havng already attained two of the three titles of the school —rab, the first; rabbi, the secondhand on his way to rabbak, the third and last title. I know from his temperament that his horse was ahead of the other horses. without time to think of what posture he should take, or without consideration for his dignity, he is tumbled into the dust, and yet that was the best ride Paul ever took. Out of that violent fall he arose into the apostleship. So it has been in all ages and so it is now. Again, I learn from the subject that the religion of Christ is not a pusillanimous thing. People in this day try to make us believe that Christianity is something for men of small caliber, for women with no capacity to reason, for children in the infant class under six years of age, but not for stalwart men. Look at this man of the text! Do you not think that the religion that could capture such a man as that must have some power in it? He was a logician, he was a metaphysician; he was an all conquering orator; he was a poet of the highest type. He had a nature that could swamp the leading men of his own day, and hurled against the sanhedrin he made it tremble.

He learned all he could get in the school of his native village; then he had gone to a higher school, and there mastered the Greek and the Hebrew and perfected himself in belles-lettres; until in after years he astonished the Cretans and the Corinthians and the Athenians by quotations from their own 'authors. I have never found anything in Goethe or Carlyle or Herbert Spencer that could compare in strength or beauty with Paul's epistles.. I do not think there is anything in the writings of Sir William Hamilton that shows such mental discipline as you find in Paul’s argument about justification and the resurrection. I have not found anything in Mijton finer in the way of imagination than I can find in Paul's illustrations drawn from the amphitheater. Oh, instead of cowering and shivering when the skeptic stands before you and talks religion as though it were a pusillanimous thing—instead of that take your New Testament from your noCket and show him the picture of the intellectual giant of all the ages prostrated on the road to Damascus while his horse i$ flying wildly away, and then usk

your skeptic what it was that frightened the one and threw the other? Oh. no, it is no weak gospel, it is a glorious gospel. It is an all conquering gospeL It is an omnipotent gospel. It is the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. Again, I learn from the text a man can not become a Christian until he is unhorsed. The trouble is we want to ride into the kingdom of God just as the knight rode into castle gate on palfrey, beautifully caparisoned. We want to come into the kingdom of God in fine style. No kneeling down at the altar, no sitting on “anxious” seats, no crying over sin, no begging at the door of God's mercy. Clear the road, and let us come in all prancing in the pride of our souL—No, we will never get into heaven that way. We must dismount. • Again, I learn from this scene of the text that the grace of God can overcome the persecutor. Christ and Paul were boys at the same time in different villages, and Paul’s antipathy to Christ was increasing. He hated everything about Christ. He was going down then with writs in his pockets to have Christ’s disciples arrested. He was not going as a sheriff goes, to arrest a man against whom he had no spite, but Paul was going down to-arrest those people because he was glad to arrest them. The Bible says, “He breathed out slaughter.” He wanted them captured, and he wanted them butchered. I hear the click and clash and clatter of the hoofs of the galloping steeds on the way to Damascus. Oh, do you think that proud man on horseback can ever become a Christian? Yes! There is a voice from heaven like a thunderclap uttering two words, the second the same as the first, but uttered with more emphasis, so that the proud equestrian may have no doubt as to who is meant: “Saul! Saul!” That man was saved, and he was a persecutor. And so God can by His grace overcome any persecutor. The dayS of sword and fire for Christians seem to have gone by. The bayonets of Napoleon pried open the “inquisisition” and let the rotting wretches out. The ancient dungeons around Rome are today mere curiosities for the travelers.

That woman finds it hard to be a Christian, as her husband talks and jeers while she is trying to say her prayers or read the bible. That daughter finds it hard to be a Christian with the whole family arrayed against her—father, mother, brother and sister making her the target of ridicule. That young man finds it hard to be a Christian in the shop or factory or store when his comrades jeer at him because he wjjl not go to the gambling hell or other places of iniquity. Oh, no, the days of persecution have not ceased, and will not until the end of the world. But, oh, you persecuted ones, is it not time that you began to pray for your persecutors? They are no prouder, no fiercer, no more set in their way than was the persecutor in the text. He fell. They will fall if Christ from heaven grandly and gloriously look out on them. Again, I learn from this subject that there is hope for the worst offenders. It was particularly outrageous that Saul should have gone to Damascus on that errand. Jesus Christ had been dead only three years, and the story of his kindness and his generosity, and his love filled all the air. It was not an old story as it is now. It was a new story. Jesus had only three summers ago been ijvthese very places, and Saul every day in Jerusalem must have met people who knew Christ, people with good eye-sight whom Jesus had cured of blindness, people who were dead and who had been resurrected by the Savior, and people who could tell Paul all the particulars of the crucifixion —just how Jesus looked in the last hour, just how the heavens grew black in the face at the torture.

He heard that recited every day by people who were acquainted with the circumstances, and yet in the fresh memory of that scene he goes to persecute Christ’s disciples, impatient at the time it takes to feed the horses at the inn, not pulling at snaffle, but riding with loose rein, faster and faster Oh, he was the chief of sinners! No outbreak of modesty when he said that. He was a murderer. He stood by when Stephen died and helped in the execution of that gcod man. When the rabble wanted to be unimpeded in their work of destroying Stephen and wanted to take of their coats, but did not dare to lay them down least they be stolen, Paul said, “I’ll take care of the coats,” and they put them down at the feet Paul, and he watched the coats, and he watched the horrid mangling of the glorious Stephen. Is it a wonder that when he fell from the horse he did not break his neck—that he did not catch somewhere In the trappings of the saddle and he was not dragged or kicked to death? He deserved to die miserably, wretchedly and forever, notwithstanding all his metaphysics, and his eloquence, and his logic. He was the chief of sinners. He said what was true when he said that. And yet the grace of God saved him, and so it will you. If there is any man in this house who thinks he is too bad to be saved and says, “I have wandered very grievously from God; I do not believe there is any hope for me,”! tell you the story of this man in the text who was brcught to Jesus Christ in spite of his sins aqd opposition. You say you have exasperated Christ and coaxed your own ruin; so did Paul. And yet he sits to day on

one of the highest of the heavenly thrones, and there is mercy for you, and good days for you and gladness for you, if you will only take the same Christ which first threw him down and then raised him up. It seems to me as if I can see Paul today rising up from the highway to Damascus, and brushing off the dust from his cloak, and wiping the sweat of excitement from his brow, as he turns to us and all the ages, saying, “This a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” Once more I learn from this subject that there is a tremendous reality in religion. If it bad been a mere optical delusion on the road to Damascus, was not Paul just the man to find it out? If it had been a sham and a pretense, would he not have pricked the bubble? He was a man of facts and arguments, of the most gigantic intellectual nature, and not a man of hallucinations. And when I see him fall from the saddle, blinded and overwhelmed. I say there must have been something in it. And, my dear brother, you will find that there is. something in religion somewhere. The only question is, where? There was a man who rode from Stamford to London, ninety-five miles, in five hours on horseback. Very swift. There was a woman of Newmarket who rode 1,000 miles in 1,000 hours. Very swift. But there are those here, aye, all of us are speeding on at tenfold that velocity, at a thousandfold that rate toward eternity. May Almighty God, from the opening heavens, flash upon your souls this hour the question of vour eternal destiny, and oh, that Jesus would this hour overcome you with his pardoning mercy as he stands here with the pathos of a broken heart and sobs in your ear. “I have come for thee. I come with my back raw from the beating. I come with my feet mangled with the nails. I come with my brow aching from the twisted bramble. I come with my heart bursting for your woes. I can stand it no longer. I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.”

THE SERPENT’S TONGUE.

It Often Obtrudes and Vibrates with a Warning Purpose. I have on numberless occasions observed the common pit viper of southern South America, which is of a sluggish disposition, lying in the sun on a bed of sand or dry grass, coiled or extended at full length. Invariably on approaching a snake of this kind I have seen the tongue exserted; that nimble, glistening organ was the first and for sometime the only sign of life or

wakefulness in the motionless creature. says the Fortnightly Review. If I stood still at a distance of some yards to watch it the tongue would be exserted again at mtervalsf ifT” moved nearer or lifted my arms or made any movement, the intervals would be shorter and the vibrations more rapid, and still the creature would not move. Only when I drew very near would other signs of excitement follow. At such times the tongue has scarcely seemed to me the “mute forked flesh” that Ruskin calls it, but a tongue that said something which, although not audible, was clearly understood and easy to translate into words. What it said, or appeared to say, was: “I am not dead nor sleeping, ahd I do not wish to be disturbed, much less trodden on; keep your distance, for your own good as well as for mine.” In other words, the tongue was obtruded and vibrated with a warning purpose. Doubtless every venomous serpent of sluggish habits has more ways than one of making itself conspicuous to and warning off any large, heavy animal that might injure by passing over and treading on it, and I think that in ophidians of this temper the tongue has become, incidentally, a warning organ. Small as it is, its obtrusion is the first of a series of warning motions, and may therefore be considered advantagous to the animal, and, in spite of its smallness, I believe that in very many instances it accomplishes its purposes without the aid of those larger and more violent movements and actions resorted to when the danger becomes pressing.

Mysterious Disappearance.

Texas Siftings: Customer (in restaurant) —I ordered some cheese, waiter, Waiter—Yes, sah. I done brought it, sah. “Well, where is it then?” “Didn’t yo’ eat it?” “Eat it? Certainly not.” “Then I'spects it must have got away, sah."

His Self-Respect.

New York W< ekly. Tramp— All my troubles come from card-playin', mum. I lost me self-respect, an’ then I didn’t care what became of me. Housekeeper (sympathetically)— Poor man! I should think you would have lost your self-respect. Tramp—Yes, mum. A man can have no self-respect w’en he always loses.

Coming Events.

Tex** Sifting*. “You needn’t put on any airs. You will be an old maid all your life," said a seven-year old Chicago girl to her younger sister. “That's where you are fooling yourself. I’ll be divorced three time: before you are engaged,” replied sissy.

SHOOTING Off BICYCLES.

Two Hunters Say They Find it Pleasanter Than Tramping on Foot. St. Lorrs Globe Democrat. T4ist Tuesday two young men rode into St. Louis on bicycles. They wore hunting coats and looked considerably travel stained. At the Lindell Hotel they registered as George Pierce and John Rogers, of New York. They carried guns—one a Winchester rifle and the other a double barrelled shotgun. In conversation after breakfast they related their experience of the past three weeks, when they left Springfield, Mo., coming on the wheels over the Ozarks on a hunting excursion. •Mr Pierce said: “Having plenty of time we chose this way of making the trip. The weather was all that could be desired, and as to finding and killing game we had all that we wanted. Before starting out we practiced on our wheels with the guns until we could ride and shoot very accurately. But usually we got off when we came across turkeys or deer, although I killed one turkey while coming down a pretty steep incline. My friend here, who carried the rifle most of the way, didn't undertake to shoot while on his wheel, but would ride up close, dismount and then do’ his destructive work. But I shot quail, squirrels, one turkey, hawks, rabbits and nearly all kinds of game while riding. One day we glided around a turn in the road, and only about fifty yards in front of us we came upon three deer. We were moving along noiselessly, and when they saw us they seemed to be struck dumb with amazement;, • Rodgers jumped off, got tangled in his wheel, and fell sprawling. I alighted all right, but when I raised the gun to shoot all I saw was a cloud of dust away down the road. HI admit that we were about as much startled and amazed when we saw the three deer as they were when they suddenly saw us round tho curve with less noise than a bird makes in flying. Of course we kept the roads, and had to push our wheels up the hills, but, as a rule, we got along very nicely, and were well taken care of by people with whom we stopped on the way. “When we started out on the trip we agreed not to leave the roads in pursuit of game, and to avoid the larger towns as much as possible. Rolla is about the only town of any size we stopped at, We forded several streams, and got slightly damp in attempting some of them. We have taken some pictures by the way and many notes to be developed later on.

“I have taken a good many excursions on my wheel, and so has Rodgers, but this has been the most delightful experience I ever had. You would be astonished to know how little real fatigue or annoyance attended our journey. We carried our ..little haversacks,, with necessary changes of underclothing and handkerchiefs, and belt with cartridges. I had to get powder and shot on several occasions and reload my brass shells, and that is all we had to purchase except our powder. We hope to make Chicago before stormy weather sets in. We shall spend a day or two, however, in Illinois, duck shooting before we make our run eastward. If you can ride a bicycle, like fine scenes, and shooting that is novel, make the run in pleasanf autumn weather that we have just finished, and you will find out what real sport is. I never heard of hunting with a bicycle before, but 1 hope to find a good many sportsmen chafing game that way before long..

PEOPLE.

Col. T. E. Dawson, of Grand Forks, N. D., owns the first military order issued by General Grant. It is a simple document, is No. 1, dated July 2, 1861, appointing Mr. Dawson quartermaster and commissary of the Twenty-first Illinois. It is signed “Col. U. S. Grant, Springfield, Ill.” Mr. Dawson has refused $3.00(F for it. City Librarian John Taylor, o! Bristol, Tenn., who died a few days ago, learned the trade of blacksmith when a youth and elevated himself by his own talents and energy. He was an authority on historical and antiquarian subjects. \ Mr. -Paderewski’s extraordinary popularity in England is shown by the fact that as soon as his agent had made arrangements in twentytwo cities for a tour the tickets in some of these cities were sold a month or more before the date of the concert. To an interviewer Mr. Paderewski said that he sometimes, when preparing for a concert tour, played fifteen hours a day to keep his fingers supple and his memory active. It is fatiguing, he admits, but he has an antidote, which i| billiards, “If I walk or ride, or merely rest, I go on thinking all the time, and my nerves get, no real rest. But when I play Billiards I forget everthing, and the result is mental rest and physical rest combined.” When Booth was playing Richard in Chicago in 1879 a m< ntally unbalanced spectator named Gray shot at the actor twice from the * gallery. One of the bullets Mr. Booth secured and had it set in a gold cartridge upon which 'he hivl engraved the words: “From Mark Gray to Edwin Booth, April 23, 1879.'* This grim reminder he always preserved. Tea of excellent flavor, and of » flavor eoual to some of the higher grades in China is cultivated by Mrs. Increase Sumner, of Starke, Fla. Shs raises three crops a year.