I

ICE BEAUTY

If we had not our bewitching autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries—the ice-storm—when a leafless tree is clothed with ice from the bottom to the top—ice that is as bright and clear as crystal; every bough and twig is strung with ice-beads, frozen dew-drops, and the whole tree sparkles cold and white, like the Shah of Persia’s diamond plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms, that glow and hum and flash with all manner of colored fires, which change and change again, with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and green to gold; the tree becomes a sparkling fountain, a very explosion of dazzling jewels; and it stands there the acme, the climax, the supremest possibility in art or nature of bewildering, intoxicating, intolerable magnificence!—Samuel L. Clemens.

(1476)

Icebergs—See Gravitation and Icebergs.

IDEAL, DEVOTION TO AN

“It is not our aim to shine in the art of acting; that would be presumptuous and ridiculous in simple country people; but it must be the earnest desire of each one to try and represent worthily this most holy mystery.”

Thus spoke Pastor Daisenberger in his sermon to the peasant actors of Ober-Ammergau before the production of the Passion Play in 1870. In these simple, devout words of their minister, Archdeacon Farrar found the echo of the deeply religious feeling which animates the peasants of the Bavarian village, to which so many of the sordid outer world have thronged. There is no taint of commercialism nor worldly ambition, we are assured, in the hearts of these peasant actors. Time and again have they refused lucrative offers to produce their historic drama elsewhere; and they do not, it is said, yield to the temptation to extort money from the tourists who invariably flock to witness the performance. Even the recent floods have given proof how they can bear adversity.

(1477)

See Types, Distinct.

IDEAL, THE

A certain congregation could not find a pastor. They knew what they wanted. He must be a sound and able theologian, a literary man, up in science, polished to the last degree, good-looking, genial, a mixer, sympathetic, a hustler, not heady, humble minded, etc. A visiting minister, who knows them, told this story:

“A certain gentleman came to a horse-dealer and gave the following order: ‘I want a young horse with spirit and speed in him—something I’d like to drive myself for my wives and daughters. He must be entirely without blemish and work in single or double harness. He must be a perfect carriage-horse, and also good under the saddle, with several gaits. And he must be absolutely afraid of nothing.’

“‘Ah, I see—I see,’ replied the dealer. ‘You want a hoss without a speck on him; mettlesome, but gentle; young, but easily governed; guaranteed not to shy at anything; perfect any way you want to use him, in single or double harness, or as a saddle-hoss, with all the gaits.’

“‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted the gentleman, ‘that’s what I want exactly.’

“‘My friend,’ answered the dealer, ‘there ain’t no sich hoss!’”

The congregation doubtless caught the point.—Presbyterian of the South.

(1478)

See Being Before Doing.

IDEAL, THE, ATTEMPTED

Delos was a small but very celebrated island near the center of the Egean Sea. It was a sacred island, devoted to religious rites, and all contention, and violence, and, so far as possible, all suffering and death, were excluded from it. The sick were removed from it; the dead were not buried there; armed ships and armed men laid aside their hostility to each other when they approached it. All was an enchanting picture of peace and happiness upon its shores. In the center of the island was a large natural fountain, from which issued a fertilizing stream; a populous city stood near the port, and the whole island was adorned with temples and palaces of magnificence.

Such an island might our world be were it not for sin and its ravages; were war no more, and were the Fountain of Life permitted to water it. (Text.)

(1479)

Idealism and the Practical Life—See Practical, The.

IDEALS

(1480)

See Aspiration.

IDEALS AND PROGRESS

The Israelites were urged by the voice of God at the Red Sea to go forward. But they were not left without inspiring motives. There was a “promised land,” and to the hope of this Moses could appeal.

Man has not reached a very high life until he can look on to future achievement and blessing, and find in these his highest incentive to go on.

(1481)

Ideas Arousing Genius—See Arousement by a Thought.

Ideas, Great, Honored—See Monuments, Meaning of.

IDEAS GUIDING ACTIONS

Logical ideas are like keys which are shaping with reference to opening a lock. Pike, separated by a glass partition from the fish upon which they ordinarily prey, will—so it is said—butt their heads against the glass until it is literally beaten into them that they can not get at their food. Animals learn (when they learn at all) by a “cut and try” method; by doing at random first one thing and another thing and then preserving the things that happen to succeed. Action directed consciously by ideas—by suggested meanings accepted for the sake of experimenting with them—is the sole alternative both to bull-headed stupidity and to learning bought from that dear teacher—chance experience.—John Dewey, “How We Think.”

(1482)

IDEAS, POWER OF

The soul, which vivifies, moves, and supports the body, is a more potent substance than the hard bones and heavy flesh which it vitalizes. A ten-pound weight falling on your head affects you unpleasantly as substance, much more so than a leaf of the New Testament, if dropt in the same direction; but there is a way in which a page of the New Testament may fall upon a nation and split it, or infuse itself into its bulk and give it strength and permanence. We should be careful, therefore, what test we adopt in order to decide the relative stability of things.

Every house, workshop, church, school-room, atheneum, theater, is the representative of an opinion. What the eye sees of them is built of bricks, iron, wood, and mortar by carpenters, smiths, and masons; but the seed from which they grew and the forces by which they are upheld are ideas, affections, conceptions of utility, sentiments of worship. Strike these out of a people’s mind and heart, and its homes, temples, colleges, and art-rooms fall away, like the trunk of the oak when its life-power is smitten, and only the bald, sandy surface of savage life remains.—Thomas Starr King.

(1483)

Ideas, Worthless—See Disappointment.

IDENTIFICATION

Here is an imitation of Jesus that is worth while. Of Himself He said: “He calleth His own sheep by name”:

Mr. Wanamaker always remembers the men, women, and children of Bethany (Sunday-school and church) in his absences. He carries a little book in which are written the names and addresses of the 1,100 members of the brotherhood, nearly all the 5,400 Sunday-school children, and nearly all of the 3,600 members of the church. These names are arranged alphabetically, and each day when he is traveling he sits down with his book and, beginning the first day with the letter A, utters each name aloud and repeats to himself the individual circumstances of each in which prayer and help are otherwise needed. He continues this daily until he has exhausted the list. His idea in doing this is to recall to his mental vision the face of each. “And thus,” said the one who told me this, “no wonder Mr. Wanamaker knows us all by name, calls us all by our first names—Tom and Harry and Jim—and remembers the particular troubles or joys of each.” (Text.)—The Christian Herald.

(1484)

Identification, Descriptive—See Individuality.

IDENTIFICATION MARKS

There are men as well as garments whom it would be difficult to identify if they were to be (morally) cleansed.

In foreign countries some strange methods are adopted for identifying the contents of the wash-tub. In some parts of France linen is defaced with the whole name and address of the laundry stamped upon it, and an additional geometrical design to indicate the owner of the property. In Bavaria every patron of the wash-tub has a number stamped in large characters on his linen. In Bulgaria every laundry has a large number of stamps engraved with designs, and in Russia the laundries mark linen with threads worked in arrow shapes. In some Russian towns the police periodically issue regulations for laundries. In Odessa books of marks are furnished annually to the laundry proprietors, and these marks and no others can be used to identify them.—Albany Journal.

(1485)

IDLENESS

Says George S. Hilliard:

The ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation is the armor of the soul, and the train of idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem in which the devil is represented as fishing for men and adapting his bait to the taste and temperament of his prey; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook.

(1486)

Killing time? I would as soon think of cutting an angel’s throat that I met on God’s highway, coming straight from His throne. Pleasure-mongering! Somebody to entertain them! As if life were a cheese and men were maggots boring in it! Are there not thousands of foreigners asking to be taught? Are not the Spaniards knocking at our door, asking us to organize for them a school of morals, a Bible school, a school of religion, a school of patriotism, on Sunday afternoon? Are there not social settlements that ask for hundreds of workers and teachers? How would it look if a regiment of soldiers at a critical moment at Gettysburg had sat down on the grass and looked for a cool tree and paid some man to come in with a jew’s-harp and play to them, while the struggle for liberty went on? (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1487)

Idol-worship—See Fetishism.

Idols Destroyed—See Renunciation, Complete.

IDOLS IN CHRISTIAN SERVICE

Havelock, the English general in India, once held a wonderful prayer-meeting in the idol temple at Rangoon. In the hand of each of the idol gods that lined the sides of the great apartment, his men put a torch, and by the light of these torches in the idols’ hands they held their worship.

(1488)

IGNORANCE

The contrast between heathen and civilized men is indicated by this incident:

“Why did we not think of heating the hard stuff,” the natives exclaimed when they saw the welding of iron, “instead of beating it with stones?”

(1489)

However wise a man may himself be, he does well to guard himself against the ignorance of others:

Ah Wing Lee was walking down the street the other morning when a dog ran up behind him, yelping and barking horribly. The end of the Celestial’s pigtail rose in the breeze as he leapt aside in great alarm.

A benevolent passer-by, seeing the terror painted upon the yellow countenance, hastened to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder.

“Come, come, my friend, you need not be afraid. The dog won’t hurt you. Don’t you know the old proverb, ‘A barking dog never bites?’ Surely you—”

“That’s all velly good,” interrupted Ah Wing doubtfully; “you knowee ploverb and me knowee ploverb, but do the dog knowee ploverb?” (Text.)

(1490)

Stauber, the Lutheran minister who first ministered to the five villages in the Swiss mountains, which he afterward persuaded Oberlin to take as his parish, tells this incident to show the character of the people:

The Ban de la Roche, as you may know, is on a spur of the Vosges Mountains about twelve leagues from Strasburg. The people are very wild and ignorant. When I (Monsieur Stauber) first went there I visited the only school. A number of children were gathered together in a miserable cottage. As I entered I heard an appalling noise of scuffling, quarreling, and shouting.

“‘Silence, children, silence!’ I cried. ‘Where is your master?’ One of the children pointed to a little old man who was lying on a bed in the corner of the room.

“‘Are you the master of this school?’ said I, in some dismay.

“‘Yes, I be the master, sir—I be.’

“‘Humph! But don’t you teach the children anything?’

“‘No! I don’t teach the children nothing—for a good reason.’

“‘It must be a very good reason, indeed. What is it, my friend?’

“‘Well, I don’t know nothing myself, sir; so how am I to teach?’

“‘But, my good friend, why did they send you here, then?’

“‘Because, sir, I be too old to take care of the pigs?’”

(1491)

An English army officer and a foreign missionary met on an ocean steamer. The army officer contemptuously said he had lived in India thirty years and had never seen a native Christian. Shortly afterward, he recited with gusto his success in tiger-hunting, declaring that he had killed no less than nine tigers. “Pardon me,” said the missionary, “did I understand you to say that you have killed nine tigers in India?” “Yes, sir,” pompously replied the colonel. “Now that is remarkable,” replied the missionary, “for I have lived in India thirty years and have never seen a tiger.” “Perhaps, sir,” sneered the colonel, “you didn’t go where the tigers were.” “Precisely,” was the bland answer of the missionary, “and may not that have been the reason why you never saw any native converts?”

(1492)

An Italian tailor living at West Hoboken, N. J., appeared before Judge Carey and made application for citizenship. He told the judge he had been in this country twenty-two years.

“Do you know who Abraham Lincoln was?” asked Judge Carey.

“No, I don’t know who he was.”

“You don’t know who Abraham Lincoln was?” repeated the judge.

“No; does he live in West Hoboken?” asked the applicant.

“He is dead,” said Judge Carey.

“Well, I never heard of him,” continued the Italian. “Was he a tailor?”

The judge advised him to go home and study up on history and geography, and said: “No man who does not know who Abraham Lincoln was is fit to enjoy the privilege of American citizenship.”

When asked to name six of the United States, he answered, “New Jersey, New York, Boston, West Hoboken, Union Hill, and Hoboken.”

(1493)

One day recently a hard-working woman, the wife of a New York tailor in a small way, went out to market. In her hurry she left the apartment door ajar. Moreover, she forgot to replace, under the mattress, the red-flannel bag in which she and her husband kept their savings of fifteen years—some diamonds, a gold watch, and $1,400 cash.

Only a quarter of an hour later she came back—but the red-flannel savings-bank was gone. At last reports the police detectives had not recovered the money.

The pity of such a loss is more than personal. It is a national calamity. The vague distrust of all banks follows the popular ignorance of the difference in nature between a business man’s bank and a true savings-bank. Ignorance was the root of this small tragedy.—Review of Reviews.

(1494)

Many of us are as foolish as a poor immigrant who was discovered walking on the tracks of the Lehigh Valley Railroad in New Jersey. On his back he carried a huge package containing household utensils, as well as clothes. He seemed tired, tho he trudged sturdily on. He had not, however, acquired the veteran tramp’s skill in walking on the ties, and his journey was evidently telling on his physical powers more than the same distance by the roadway would have done. An agent stopt him and ordered him off the track, telling him that he was liable to arrest for trespass, besides incurring the risk of being killed by a train.

The man, who was a Hungarian, demurred, and produced a railroad ticket, good from Jersey City to Scranton, Pa. The agent looked at him in amazement, and asked why he was walking when he might ride. The Hungarian replied that he thought the ticket gave him only the privilege of walking over the road. His right was explained to him, and the tired man delightedly boarded the first train that stopt. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

(1495)

See Christianity and Civilization; Fear.

IGNORANCE, DIETARY

The untrained housekeeper is responsible for the sheer waste of one-fifth of the average salary—wasted because she does not know how to buy her foods, in quantity or quality; because she has not known what kind of foods to give to produce the best results; because, as a bargain-hunter, she is the cause of the great quantities of “material just like the goods, but at a cheaper price” which flood our markets and lack durability.

No man would employ a purchasing agent who did not know the materials he was to buy; yet woman, with the greatest purchasing power, goes at it without knowledge.

We find that the majority of young men in the universities who go wrong are of those who live in boarding-houses where landladies know little of the choosing and preparing of foods. An inadequate lunch is followed by hunger during the middle of the afternoon, with the resultant glass of beer to satisfy the appetite for the time being.

(1496)

IGNORANCE, DISADVANTAGE OF

Frederick of Prussia had a great mania for enlisting gigantic soldiers into the Royal Guards, and paid an enormous bounty to his recruiting officers for getting them. One day the recruiting sergeant chanced to espy a Hibernian who was at least seven feet high. He accosted him in English and proposed that he should enlist. The idea of a military life and a large bounty so delighted Patrick that he at once consented.

“But unless you can speak German the king will not give you so much.”

“Oh, be jabbers,” said the Irishman; “sure it’s I that don’t know a word of German.”

“But,” said the sergeant, “I know you can learn in a short time. The king knows every man in the guards. As soon as he sees you he will ride up and ask you how old you are; you will say, ‘twenty-seven years’; next, how long you have been in the service; you must reply, ‘three weeks’; finally, if you are provided with clothes and rations; you answer, ‘both.’”

Pat soon learned to pronounce his answers, but never dreamed of learning the questions.

In three weeks he appeared before the king in review. His Majesty rode up to him. Paddy stept forward with “present arms!”

“How long have you been in the service,” said the king.

“Twenty-seven years,” said the Irishman.

“How old are you?” asked his Majesty.

“Three weeks,” said the Irishman.

“Am I or you a fool?” roared the king.

“Both,” replied Patrick, who was instantly taken to the guard-house, but pardoned by the king after he understood the facts of the case.—Judge’s Magazine.

(1497)

IGNORANCE, HUMILIATION OF

An incident in a trial for a capital offense, in Nashville, Tenn., is thus spoken of in a news item:

A splendid, clean-looking young man was under examination and Mr. Fitzhugh, of Memphis, of the prosecution, got to the point of asking him which newspapers he had read at the time of the Carmack killing. The talesman had testified that he was thirty-one years old, a farmer, and the father of three children. His answers had been bright and his face sparkled with intelligence. But he hesitated when the interrogation concerning the newspapers was put to him.

“I haven’t read any about it in the newspapers. We don’t take any newspapers in our house. I—I kain’t read and I kain’t write, but I can farm. I never got the show to go to school but two or three days in all my life.”

A blush mantled his cheeks and for an instant there was a glistening in his eyes, then, throwing back his head, he left the witness-stand and marched out of the court-room, his expression of defiance silencing the laughter of the unthinking ones in the crowd. And this was only one of more than a score of examples of illiteracy.

How many a life is thus handicapped. It is not a commendation of parenthood that the child should thus be distinguished against in this age of widespread learning. On the other hand, all honor is to be given to the man who through diligent application in after life is able to surmount the difficulty of scanty knowledge.

(1498)

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

It is sometimes best not to alarm persons in peril by revealing the danger, as is illustrated by the Rev. Asa Bullard in the following incident:

On our way down the Ohio River one day, in a thunder-shower, my brother requested me to remind him on reaching Cincinnati to reveal a secret to me. That secret was, as I learned on reaching the city, that we were then sitting directly over several casks, not of whisky, but of gunpowder! He was acquainted with some of the officials of the steamer, and tho it was unlawful to carry that article on the boat, they had told him of the fact. When asked why he had seated himself in such a dangerous place, his reply was that “if the boat should be struck by lightning, or if for any cause the powder should be exploded, we were probably as safe there as we should be in any part of the steamer.”—“Incidents in a Busy Life.”

(1499)

Ignorance Mystified—See Enlightenment.

Ignorance of Money—See Money, Ignorance of.

IGNORANCE OF ORIGIN AND DESTINY

We know no more of our beginning and end, of what preceded the one and will round off the other, than King Alfred did. “Our life,” said he to his nobles one evening, as they were sitting beside the great fireplace, “is something that is bounded by impenetrable obscurity. A little bird flies from the darkness of the outside night into the brightness of this room, flutters a minute or two in the warmth and light, and then flies through the opposite window into the night once more.” Nearly two thousand years have gone by since Alfred delivered himself of this fable, but the centuries have brought us no new wisdom.—San Francisco Chronicle.

(1500)

See Unknown Realities.

IGNORANCE, PALLIATIONS OF

In “Gloria Christi,” we read the following:

The change in methods inaugurated by modern medicine in Syria is shown by an anecdote. It is said that once when Dr. Jesup was visiting Beirut, a native doctor asked him for an American newspaper. He secured it, and some days after came back for another. “What do you do with them?” asked Mr. Jesup. “Oh,” he said, “I tear them in pieces, soak them in water, and feed them in oil to my patients. It cures them all right!”

The palliatives of ignorance everywhere abound. As they are in medicine, so they are in morals.

(1501)

IGNORANCE, THE COST OF

The tree-butcher ruined many valuable shade-trees last fall (1909) and it is hoped that he will find steady employment at some other kind of work before spring arrives. Shade-trees are usually pruned by some one temporarily out of employment. His only qualification is the possession of an ax and saw. He needs work, so he finds some property owner who has some nice shade-trees and importunes him to have them cut back. The owner consents. The axman is to receive so much for the job and the wood the limbs make. The workingman at once sees that it is to his advantage to cut the limbs off close to the trunk of the tree, because he can complete the job quicker with no dangerous climbing, and by so doing he gets more wood. Consequently, the tree is ruined. Shade-trees should be trimmed up when young, so the top will be at least twelve feet above the walk. After this all that is necessary is to cut out the dead and superfluous branches.—Charles C. Deam, Secretary Board of Forestry.

(1502)

ILLITERACY

While a policeman was covering his beat near Delaware Avenue and Dickinson Street, says the Philadelphia Times, he came across a dead dog.

Taking out his book and pencil, he wrote the following:

“Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Dick——” and stopt.

Picking up the dog by its tail, the policeman carried it to Tasker Street, where he dropt it. Here he took his pencil and book out again and wrote:

“Dead dog at Delaware Avenue and Tasker Street.”

A passer-by asked the policeman what made him carry the dog to Tasker Street, to which he replied:

“Well, I couldn’t spell Dickinson, so I took the cur a square down to an easier street.”

(1503)

ILL-FORTUNE BECOMING GOOD-FORTUNE

An Australian miner had reached the very last of his resources without finding a speck of gold, and there was nothing for him to do but to turn back on the morrow, while a mouthful of food was left, and retrace his steps as best he might do to the nearest port. He flung down his tools in despair that last night, and staggered over the two or three miles of desert to the camp-fire. Next morning, early, after a great deal of sleep and very little food, he braced himself up to go back for his tools, knowing that they might bring the price of a meal or two when it came to the last. As he stumbled back that hot morning the way seemed very long, for his heart was too heavy to carry. At last he saw his wheelbarrow and pick standing upon the flat plain a little way off, and was wearily dragging on toward them, when he caught his toe against a stone deeply embedded in the sand, and fell down. This was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. He lay there and curst his luck bitterly, to think that he should nearly break his toe against the only stone in the whole district after all his failure to find gold. He felt like a passionate child who kicks and breaks the thing which has hurt him, and he had to beat that stone before he could feel quiet. It was too firm in the sand for his hands to get it up; so in his rage he dug it up with his pick, intending to smash it; but it would not smash, for it was solid gold, and nearly as big as a baby’s head. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

(1504)

ILL LUCK

There was a man during the reign of Kaiser Otho, who wore puffed breeches. Puffed breeches then were filled with flour, and when the wearer of the breeches sat down on a seat he sat down on a nail, and the nail tore the breeches and the rent emitted three pecks of flour. Why he should have sat down at that particular time, and in that particular place, is a mystery; and why there should have been a nail there, is to me an inscrutable mystery; but there is the fact, and the sufferer I consider an ill-used man.—George Dawson.

(1505)

ILL-PAID WORK

Generally, good, useful work, whether of the hand or head, is either ill-paid, or not paid at all. I don’t say it should be so, but it always is so. People, as a rule, only pay for being amused or being cheated, not for being served. Five thousand a year to your talker, and a shilling a day to your fighter, digger, and thinker, is the rule. None of the best head work in art, literature, or science is ever paid for. How much do you think Homer got for his “Iliad?” or Dante for his “Paradise?” Only bitter bread and salt, and going up and down other people’s stairs. In science, the man who discovered the telescope, and first saw heaven, was paid with a dungeon; the man who invented the microscope, and first saw earth, died of starvation, driven from his home. Baruch, the scribe, did not get a penny a line for writing Jeremiah’s second roll for him, I fancy; and St. Stephen did not get bishop’s pay for that long sermon of his to the Pharisees; nothing but stones. For, indeed, that is the world-father’s proper payment.—John Ruskin.

(1506)

ILLUMINATION

The Railway and Locomotive Engineering says:

Some of the principal requirements of a locomotive headlight are that the light from it shall be powerful enough to illuminate the track far enough ahead to permit of an emergency stop; that the light shall not be so brilliant as to cause temporary blindness or bewilderment in those upon whom it falls; that in the matter of signal observance it must not alter or modify the colors of the lesser lights which come into its field, and that it shall be as effective a form of light as can be devised for foggy or snowy weather.

(1507)

When Moses returned from communion with God his face shone so brightly that a veil was needed. There was another transfiguration which is the result not of glory reflected but of grace transfused. “Be ye transformed (lit. transfigured) by the renewing of your mind,” says the apostle.

The visitor to the beautiful church of St. Paul without the walls at Rome is sure to be asked by the sacristans to notice the wonderful columns of pure alabaster which are among the splendors of that edifice. The guide brings a lighted taper which he places behind one of these massive pillars. The translucent alabaster immediately glows with the light that seems to play all through it with lambent effulgence. The solid mass glorifies the flame, as the flame illumines the solid substance. (Text.)

(1508)

See Light.

ILLUSION, SPIRITUAL

Worldly men on first coming into the spiritual life often misjudge the values and dimensions of Christian realities. Only long Christian experience enables men to get the right perspective of Christian realities.

If you have always lived in valleys or near the sea level, then you have always been viewing distant objects through a dusty or vaporous atmosphere. If you should go to a mountainous region or an elevated plateau, you would suffer great illusion as to distances. As you would still have the mental standards of the lowlands, very distant objects would seem to be quite near. You would travel all day to reach a mountain that seems but an hour’s walk away.

(1509)

ILLUSIONS, MORAL

A celebrated naturalist tells us that one day he saw a bird drowning in a lake, and he felt sure that the bird had mistaken the water for the sky; it was a bright, transparent day, the clear, calm lake reflected the sky and the whole landscape in its depths, and the bird, not discerning that the world below it was a world of shadows, was betrayed to its doom. So all the glories of the upper world appear inverted in the world of evil. The lofty, the pure, the beautiful, the bright, are all seductively reflected in the depths of Satan; they are exaggerated there, they are seen in surpassing magnitude and splendor; error seems some nobler truth, disobedience some larger liberty, forbidden things seem the sweetest flowers and mellowest fruits of paradise.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1510)

ILLUSIONS, OPTICAL

On the chalk downs of Wiltshire, in sight of the town of Westbury, there appears a great white horse, which presumably marks the sight of one of the battles between Alfred the Great and the Danes. As you look at that white horse upon the hill from the road approaching it it is perfectly drawn—it is so accurate that I doubt if any painter of a horse could improve upon it; but some time ago when I was in that neighborhood, I went up to the white horse to see it on the spot. There I found that this cutting in the green turf which revealed the chalk below was so extensive that if I walked round the outline, I could cover about a mile, and the shape as it lay along the slope of the hill had no resemblance to a horse whatever. Like the long shadows cast by the setting sun, its sprawling limbs went down the hill, and were so much greater than the width of the body that you could not have told in walking over it that the artist—for an artist he was—who designed it could possibly intend to be drawing a horse; that perfect horse upon the hillside, to the traveler approaching from Westbury, appeared to have no existence at all—it was a great perspective drawing upon the hill, which, when seen close at hand, did not even suggest a horse’s form. Taking that as an illustration, does it not often strike you how the whole pageant of earth and sky, which delights our eye, is just as unreal as the scenery of the stage? Those clouds that drape the setting sun, and form lofty mountains and shimmering seas, making a landscape in the sky so beautiful that no painter on earth could reproduce it; those clouds that charm us with their beauty, if we were in the midst of them, would be merely like the drenching rain of an April day, without beauty, without charm. And those starry heavens which are to us all of the earth a subject of endless delight because of their beauty and their incomparable grandeur, are not in the least what they appear.—Robert F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit.

(1511)

The other day I came across the letter which Galileo wrote to Kepler, when he was afraid to publish the discoveries which had been made by the first telescope, and he uses this extraordinary language: “Fearing the fate of our master Copernicus, who, altho he has earned immortal fame among a few, yet, by an infinite number, so only can the number of fools be measured, is hissed and derided.” It was a peril in the seventeenth century even to say what those starry heavens are. They have no relation at all to the objects that we see. That little group of the Pleiades, which look like fireflies hung in a net in the sky, in which a very keen eye can perceive seven distinct stars, is really a group of between 400 and 500 suns, many of them larger than our own. And that genial sun himself, whose light we love, which gives to our planet its life, its warmth and its joy—if we could approach it would terrify us the more we approached it—a mighty mass of incandescent matter so awful that the imagination dare hardly entertain the reality of what it is. It may be said, however, that while these distant objects of the universe possibly mislead us, our eyes at any rate can trust the things which are close at hand. But that is quite a delusion, too. The matter which is close at hand, and which our fathers thirty years ago treated as the one certainty in the world, is a complete illusion. I took up in my hand some time ago a few grains of dried mud from a river-bed. To all appearance they were like grains of gunpowder, but they were put under the microscope, and there to my amazement every one of these tiny grains was a shell, as beautiful and as perfect in form as a nautilus sailing upon the sea. Not only does the matter we see delude us, but the delusion is greater from the fact of what we do not see. Now, the physicist seriously tells us he is using the strict language of science, and not the language of a fairy tale, when he says that all the matter we touch, including our own bodies, is made up of molecules, and the molecule is made up of atoms, an atom far too minute for the eye to see; and yet that atom, of which all matter is built up, is itself composed of electrons, so minute that they dart with inconceivable velocity from end to end of that tiny atom like a mouse in a great cathedral—such is the proportion of the electron to the atom.—Robert F. Horton, The Christian World Pulpit.

(1512)

ILLUSTRATIONS FROM CANDLES

Mr. Spurgeon had occasion, some time ago, says the Hartford Courant, to speak to a company of theological students on the importance of using illustrations in preaching.

A student observed that they found it difficult to get illustrations, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon remarked that illustrations enough might be found in a tallow candle. This was regarded as an extravagance of speech, whereupon the great preacher prepared a lecture to show what might be illustrated by candles. In delivering his lecture he used candles of various sizes and colors, together with lanterns and other suitable apparatus. A nicely japanned but shut-up box filled with fine unused candles illustrated an idle and spiritless church. Several colossal and highly-colored but unlit candles were shown, and with them a tiny rushlight shining as best it could. The big, handsome, unlit candles might be archbishops or doctors of divinity, or other persons of culture without piety, and the bright rushlight might be some poor boy in a workshop whose life is beautiful. Mr. Spurgeon showed an unlighted candle in a splendid silver candlestick, and then a brightly burning one stuck in a ginger-beer bottle. He showed what a few people might do by combining their good efforts, by exhibiting the combined light of twelve candles. The folly of trying to light a candle with the extinguisher still on was shown, and the dark-lantern illustrated the care of people who make no effort to let their light shine before men. The lecturer then placed a candle under a bushel, and afterward placed the bushel-measure under the candle—the point of which was obvious. In snuffing a candle he extinguished it, and remarked that Christians often did a like mischief by unwise rebukes and criticisms. The folly of burning the candle at both ends was illustrated. The last illustration was a number of lighted candles of various hues placed together on one stand, representing the Church’s true diversity in unity, all the different branches burning from one stem, and for one purpose. Some one in the audience asked if the “dips” did not give the best light, whereupon Mr. Spurgeon said he was not sure of that, and thought many of the “dips” would be the better for another dipping.

The man of genius can find illustrations in common things—sermons in stones or in candles. Every preacher should work these mines of natural analogies.

(1513)

ILLUSTRATIONS IN PREACHING

A good illustration is the most powerful “motor” ever invented; it will drag a whole congregation which has drifted into infinite space back again to earth in a twinkling. It comes like a sweet sea-breeze blowing in through the church windows on a hot Sunday, and relaxing the feverish tension of crowded worship.—Mackay Smith, Harper’s Magazine.

(1514)

ILLUSTRATIONS, STRIKING

Colonel Zell, at the time when Grant was up for the Presidency, and when the Democratic watchword was, “Anything to beat Grant,” was addressing an enthusiastic meeting of Republicans, when a Democrat sang out, “It’s easy talkin’, colonel; but we’ll show you something next fall.” The colonel was a great admirer of Grant. He at once wheeled about and with uplifted hands, hair bristling, and eyes flashing fire, cried out: “Build a worm-fence ’round a winter supply of summer weather; catch a thunderbolt in a bladder; break a hurricane to harness; hang out the ocean on a grapevine to dry; but never, sir, never for a moment delude yourself with the idea that you can beat Grant.”—Chambers’s Journal.

(1515)

Image in the Soul—See Restoring God’s Image.

IMAGE OF GOD REPRODUCED

Star photography is one of the most refined and delicate of the arts of modern science. Two factors enter into the production of the photo. It is the star which makes the picture, but the artist-astronomer is essential also. He has to expose the sensitive plate and to direct the telescope to the star, and the star by its light does the rest.

So when the gaze of the soul is set on God, He reproduces His own likeness by His own light. It is ours to point the telescope; His to paint the picture. (Text.)

(1516)

Imagery—See Evangelization.

IMAGERY OF THE MIND

Thought is an artist painting its pictures on the mind, so producing its imagery on the walls of one’s immortal nature. If evil, the mind becomes a mystic shrine painted with such figures as were found in some of the chambers of Pompeii, where excavators had to cover up the pictures because they were so foul. If good, the mind is like the cells in the convent of San Marco, at Florence, where Fra Angelico’s holy genius had painted on the bare walls angel imaginings and celestial faces. (Text.)

(1517)

IMAGINATION

Pure and noble imaginings become a power for good. A healthy imagination is a well-spring of pure pleasure, and by reading and keeping our eyes open to the world we store our minds with pictures which will in after life bring great satisfaction. George William Curtis says: “One man goes 4,000 miles to see Italy, and does not see it, he is so short-sighted. Another is so far-sighted that he stays in his room, and sees more than Italy.” We should train our observing faculties to see all of the beauty that lies about us, even to those finer tints, which it is said only the artist’s eye discerns—“the light that never was on sea or land.”—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1518)

See Dreams; Panic Through Fear.

IMAGINATION CAUSING DEATH

The British and Colonial Druggist discust the death of a young woman at Hackney under circumstances in which a certain insect powder largely figured. As the powder appeared by Dr. Tidy’s experiment to be perfectly harmless, the suggestion was not unnaturally made that the deceased, who was possibly of a hysterical, highly imaginative turn of mind, took the powder in the full belief that by its means her death might be accomplished. The writer of the article, we think wrongly, brings forward two remarkable instances of what may be regarded as practical jokes with melancholy terminations. In the case of the convict delivered up to the scientist for the purpose of a psychological experiment (the man was strapped to a table and blindfolded, ostensibly to be bled to death; a siphon containing water was placed near his head and the fluid was allowed to trickle audibly into a vessel below it, at the same time that a trifling scratch with a needle was inflicted on the culprit’s neck; it is said that death occurred at the end of six minutes), fear must have played no inconsiderable share in the fatal result, and we do not know whether all the vital organs were in a sound condition, tho they were presumably so. The old story of the case of a college porter is also one in point. The students entrapt him into a room at night, a mock inquiry was held, and the punishment of death by decapitation decreed for his want of consideration to the students. It is small wonder that, under the dominion of fear and belief in the earnestness of his tormentors, the sight of an ax and a block, with subsequent blindfolding and necessary genuflexion, a smart rap with a wet towel on the back of his neck should have been followed by the picking up of a corpse.—Lancet.

(1519)

A Sioux Indian, who had lost a relative by death, vowed to kill the first living thing he met. This was once not an uncommon practise among our Indians. Issuing from his lodge, he chanced to meet a missionary—a man much beloved by all, from whom this Indian had received many favors. Unwilling, but bound by his vow, he shot his benefactor as he passed. Indian usage did not sanction a bloody retribution on the murderer, since the obligation of his vow was recognized by all. The shaman, however, upbraided him for his act, and pronounced his doom, saying: “You will die within the year.” The Indian, tho apparently a well man at the time, was seized by a wasting disease, and actually did die within the specified time, a victim to his own superstitious imagination.—H. W. Henshaw, The Youth’s Companion.

(1520)

IMAGINATION, LURE OF

A certain legend relates that one of the Piscayan mountains is accurst, and that Satan dwells there. The grass is withered, a sinister hue rests upon everything, the sounds are mournful, the mountain stands a dark fantom in the midst of bedecked nature. But this is not the method of evil. The mountain up which the devil took our Master, and up which he takes us, is bathed in purple; in its rocks gleam jewels, its dust is the dust of gold, in its clefts spring flowers, and from its crest is seen the vision of kingdoms and the glory of them. Things, principles, maxims, amusements, relationships, creeds, ideals, utterly base and vile, are through the power of imagination purged into the lily’s whiteness, perfumed with the violet, steeped in the color of the rose. We are never invited to sin; the things which have ruined generations are prest upon us as nature, freedom, spirit, knowledge, gallantry, beauty, love, and we are deceived through the legerdemain of passion and fancy. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(1521)

IMITATION

Some men try to imitate good character as precious stones are imitated, according to this description:

The trade in artificial precious stones has become quite important, and the manufacture of them has reached a considerable degree of perfection. The products of some of the shops would almost deceive an expert, but the test of hardness is still infallible. The beautiful “French paste,” from which imitation diamonds are made, is a kind of glass with a mixture of oxide of lead. The more of the latter the brighter the stone, but also the softer, and this is a serious defect. The imitation stones are now so perfectly made and are so satisfactory to those who are not very particular, that their influence begins to be felt in the market for real stones. By careful selection of the ingredients and skill and attention in manipulation, the luster, color, fire and water of the choicest stones are, to the eyes of laymen, fully reproduced.—Popular Science Monthly.

(1522)

Imitation, as we see it in man, seems to extend over a wider range of action and production than in any other animal. It is not confined, as in the monkeys, to the production of like attitudes or bodily acts; it is not confined, as in the birds, to the imitation of sounds; it includes all alike, and is characterized, furthermore, by conscious pleasure in the doing. Every one who has observed children knows the keen delight with which they first perceive the likeness between two things; that to recognize in a picture a thing which they have actually seen is a distinct enjoyment; that in the same way the second telling of a story, or the second playing of a game, seems to give an additional and independent pleasure to the child. And so with ignorant people when they look at pictures, the great, if not the only source of pleasure seems to be the detecting of the likeness to something they know. After the artists of Greece and Rome had reached their highest levels and done their best work, the critic of art found in the exactness of the likeness one of the highest, perhaps the highest element of excellence. The birds that flew to the grapes of Zeuxis, the horse that neighed to the painted horse of Apelles, the painted curtain of Parasius that deceived Zeuxis himself—these seemed to Pliny, and, I suppose, to the ancient world generally, to be the highest tributes to the excellence of the artists.—Lord Justice Fry, Contemporary Review.

(1523)

Our evil deeds as well as our good ones will be imitated, often to our own undoing as in the following incident:

The Green Bag tells of an experience which Nathaniel Whitmore, a prominent Maine lawyer, had with a student who was graduated from his office. When Mr. Whitmore was past sixty this young man started practise in a neighboring town; and the older lawyer gave him charge, as agent, of certain property situated in the town where his former clerk was practising. Everything was drawn up in legal form, and the young man fulfilled his duties most satisfactorily. The rents came regularly, together with full accounts of repairs, which were much less than formerly; tenants were satisfied; the property never paid so well before, and Mr. Whitmore was well pleased. Then came a brief letter stating that the property had been sold for taxes. Dumfounded, Mr. Whitmore hastened to his agent to demand what this meant. “How does this happen that I am sold out for taxes?” he asked. “There was nothing in the agreement about taxes,” explained the young man, handing to his former client the signed agreement. “Had taxes been mentioned, I should have paid them.” “Who bought the houses?” the elder man asked, with a shade of amusement in his tone, as a light began to dawn on his mind. “I did,” replied the young man, modestly. “The devil you did! Where did you learn that trick?” asked Mr. Whitmore, now fully comprehending the situation. “In your office,” came the answer, in the same modest voice. “I look out for a poor client, but a rich lawyer can look out for himself.” The two men shook hands and changed the subject.

(1524)

A beautiful statue once stood in the market-place of an Italian city. It was the statue of a Greek slave-girl. It represented the slave as tidy and well drest. A ragged, uncombed little street child, coming across the statue in her play, stopt and gazed at it in admiration. She was captivated by it. She gazed long and lovingly. Moved by a sudden impulse, she went home and washed her face and combed her hair. Another day she stopt again before the statue and admired it, and she got a new idea. Next day her tattered clothes were washed and mended. Each time she looked at the statue she found something in its beauties until she was a transformed child.

The history of the Christian religion has been a continuous record of men transformed by contemplation of the great Example. (Text.)

(1525)

See Christ Inviting Men; Example, Power of.

IMITATION DISAPPROVED

It is no use to try to get another man’s style, or to imitate the wit or the mannerisms of another writer. The late Mr. Carlyle, for example, did, in my judgment, a considerable mischief in his day because he led everybody to write after the style of his “French Revolution,” and it became pretty tedious. They got over it after a time, however. But it was not a good thing. Let every man write in his own style, taking care only not to be led into any affectation, but to be perfectly clear, perfectly simple.—Charles A. Dana.

(1526)

IMITATION OF GOD

(1527)

IMITATION OF NATURE

How far the manual and technical arts of human life owe their suggestion and origin to imitation is a point which, so far as I know, has not been fully considered. That the first canoe was made in imitation of a rotten tree which had served as a ferry-boat; that the first pillar was constructed in the likeness of an erect tree; that the Gothic arch was made to represent the overreaching boughs in some forest glade; that the triglyph in the Doric frieze represents the ends of the cross-beams which rested on the architrave—all this seems very probable, and suggests that further investigation might show that to a great degree imitation of the objects of nature, or of earlier structures, underlies all the various arts and products of human labor.—Lord Justice Fry, Contemporary Review.

(1528)

See Nature a Model.

IMMANENCE OF GOD

But where shall we look for the highest, the most complete and perfect revelation of God that the human mind is capable of grasping? Grant the truth there is in all the symbols which the imagination of men has produced. The earth is like the little ball you can hold in your hand. The solar system is like the revolving electric lights in the Museum of Natural History. The infinite and eternal energy is like the sun radiating light and heat and life upon the earth. He is like the flaming fire which consumes the evil and purifies the good. He is like the wind and like the ocean and like the most beautiful statue that art can produce. More than that. God is not only like all these symbols; He is in the symbols. God is in the solar system, the very life and soul of the universe. God is in the fire that consumes and purifies. God is in the flower and the bird and the beast.—Frank O. Hall.

(1529)

The immanence of God is illustrated in these lines from an unidentified source:

(1530)

Immensity of Space Reveals God—See Converted by the Comet.

Immigrant Savings—See Prosperity as an Advertisement.

IMMIGRATION

There is an ominous side to immigration, but there are alleviating facts. One of these was thus referred to by Bishop Warren of the Methodist Episcopal Church:

A while ago I was in a small country village in New England. For the first time in my life I looked upon a Methodist Episcopal church, once filled with happy worshipers, but now closed and abandoned. The population of the entire township was declining, and tho a few of the last remaining Methodists had added their help to the older and stronger Congregational church, even this was looking into the future with fear and trembling. Many of the native stock had died or moved away, and “foreigners were creeping in.” I got a boy to guide me to where one of these foreigners—a Finlander—lived. It was a neatly painted home, with a fine garden and an acre of land, all paid for, and occupied by the Finn and his son. All the foreigners in the village were Finns and there were of them just six men and four women. Of the latter, two were wives of two of the men and two were young women serving in American families. And what sort of people were they? One of the six men, I was told, was a lay preacher and, as Sunday services were a long way off and quite irregular, this little homeless community of ten dreaded and shunned immigrants were maintaining a weekly prayer-meeting! (Text.)

(1531)

The total immigration to the United States for 1909 was 751,786. The net gain in foreign population was 718,433. The comparative immigration from the leading countries of the world for three years is shown in the following table:

RACE OR PEOPLE 1909 1908 1907

Italians, North-South 190,398 135,247 294,061

Polish 77,565 68,105 138,033

German 58,534 73,038 92,936

Hebrew 57,551 103,387 149,182

English 39,021 49,056 51,126

Scandinavian 34,996 32,789 53,425

Irish 31,185 36,427 38,706

Magyar 28,704 24,378 60,071

Slovak 22,586 16,170 42,041

Greek 20,262 28,808 46,283

Croatian and Slovanian 20,181 20,472 47,826

French 19,423 12,881 9,392

Scotch 16,446 17,014 20,516

Ruthenian 15,808 12,361 24,081

Mexican 15,591 5,682 91

Lithuanian 15,254 13,720 25,884

Finnish 11,687 6,746 14,860

Russian 10,038 17,111 16,807

Japanese 3,275 16,418 30,824

The reader sees at once that more immigrants came from Italy than from any other country. In fact, the immigrants from Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Scandinavia numbered altogether 198,630, while those from Italy alone were 190,398. Of these Italian immigrants 25,150 (in 1908, 24,700 and in 1907, 51,564) came from northern Italy and 165,248 (in 1908, 110,547 and in 1907, 242,497) from southern Italy.

Of the total 751,786 immigrants, 220,865 or 29.4 per cent., declared that the State of New York was their intended place of residence (of Hebrews 60.2 per cent., of Italians 39.9 per cent., of Poles 23.8 per cent.).

(1532)

IMMORTALITY

The heart of man hears the call and feels the attraction of life beyond, as the woodland brook hears the call of the distant sea and hastens on to meet it.

(1533)

The fadeless hope of everlasting life is thus exprest by St. John Adcock:

(1534)

When the late Dr. Reese, of Swansea, preached the last time in North Wales, a friend said to him—one of those who are always reminding people that they are getting old: “You are whitening fast, Dr. Reese.” The old gentleman did not say anything then, but when he got to the pulpit he referred to it and said: “There is a wee white flower that comes up through the earth at this season of the year. Sometimes it comes up through the snow and frost; but we are glad to see the snow-drop, because it proclaims that the winter is over and that the summer is at hand. A friend reminded me last night that I was whitening fast. But heed not that, brother; it is to me proof that my winter will soon be over; that I shall have done presently with the cold east winds and the frosts of earth, and that my summer, my eternal summer, is at hand.” (Text.)—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(1535)

James T. White is the author of the following lines, entitled “A Sea Shell.” They appeared in the New York Tribune:

(1536)

IMMORTALITY, A SYMBOL OF

This apostrophe to a butterfly was written by Alice Freeman Palmer:

(1537)

IMMORTALITY, EVIDENCE OF

Man, who builds bridges, sails ships, fights battles for liberty, erects cathedrals, writes hymns and prayers, founds homes, is given a little handful of thirty or forty years. Nor can the bulk of the elephant above man’s size ever explain the two hundred years given to some Jumbo munching hay, or the three thousand years given to some tree that is dead, inert and voiceless. The architect builds a marble palace for centuries, stores it with art treasures, that all the generations may throng in and out, feeding the eye and feasting the hunger for beauty, in form and color. But God spent millions of years upon this body, fearfully and wonderfully made, storing the soul’s temple with intellect, memory and judgment, with conscience, affections and moral sentiments. And did He build this soul that goes laughing, weeping, inventing, praying, through life, for that goal named a black hole in the ground?—N. D. Hillis.

(1538)

IMMORTALITY, FEELING OF

Living on the surface of the earth sense impressions constrain us to regard the earth as flat and still, and the sun and other heavenly bodies as moving across the heavens above our heads. But astronomers know that by long watching of the heavenly bodies an observer comes often to feel the motion and sense the rotundity of the earth.

So of the man who will live in the spiritual altitudes. He reasonably believed before in the future life, but all his impressions have been earthly, materialistic. But on the higher level he actually “lays hold on the powers of an endless life.”

(1539)

IMMORTALITY, INTIMATIONS OF

Eugene Field is the author of this:

(1540)

(1541)

IMMORTALITY OF INFLUENCE

Richard Watson Gilder writes this verse about a dead poet:

(1542)

IMMORTALITY, PROOF OF

(1543)

Immunity from Colds—See Vitality Low.

IMMUNITY FROM DISEASE

The island of Barbados, in the West Indies, is remarkably free from malaria, and this immunity from a disease which is so common in the tropics has been attributed to a species of fish that inhabits the waters of that island, and whose chief food is the larvæ of the mosquito. These fish are tiny minnows, never exceeding an inch and a half in length, and are generally known as “millions,” altho they bear a most impressive scientific name. They belong to the family of “top minnows,” feeding on the surface of the water, and their diminutive size enables them to swim over lily-pads and similar vegetation, which is covered only by a thin film of water, and there feast upon mosquito larvæ and other insects.

These fish thrive in stagnant or running water, and whether it is fresh or brackish appears to have no effect upon them. The minnows will swim up stream against a strong current and then enter the smaller rivulets, thus distributing themselves over an entire water system. The young of these fish are not hatched from eggs, but are born alive.

The Panama Canal Commission has decided to employ these minnows in the fight to rid the Isthmus of the malarial mosquito, and has imported a great quantity of the little fish. There are mosquito-eating fish in the Panama waters, but they are not sufficiently numerous to be of much value. However, a systematic stocking of the lakes and streams in the Canal Zone with the “millions” from Barbados should act as a severe check on the mosquito population of Panama, and indirectly aid in stamping out malaria.—Harper’s Weekly.

(1544)

See Disease, Exemption from.

Immutability—See Individuality of Germs.

IMPARTIALITY

Lieut. Edmund Blaney, of the Atlantic Avenue police station, Brooklyn, who locked up his son brought in on the charge of fighting, is to be commended for his determination that his own shall be treated no better than others. It is a gratifying instance of the absence of “pull” and a delightful example of paternal willingness to see that punishment is meted out when it should be. Lieutenant Blaney could have let his fighting son, a man of twenty-three, and the other prisoner go upon their promise to appear in court, and no one would have taken exception to such a display of fatherly interest, but he preferred the Spartan attitude. The public need not expect this rule to be generally followed, for not many parents have the firmness to deal out the same degree of severe treatment to their own offspring as to those of others. A not to be overlooked feature of the case is the evident reduction of the young man’s opinion of his ability to violate the law and escape the consequences. He thought, or said, that he could not be arrested because he was an officer’s son. That was yesterday. To-day he is wiser and it is hoped a slightly better citizen from a forced realization that ordinances are intended for all alike.—Brooklyn Standard Union.

(1545)

Impartiality of God—See Privilege.

IMPATIENCE

Victor Hugo pictures a man who is so maddened by failure and misfortune that he resolves on suicide. He is at the end of his resources, and he capitulates to death. No sooner has he committed suicide than the postman drops a letter in at his door which contains the information that a distant relative has left him a large fortune. If he had waited but one hour longer! For want of patience he lost all!

(1546)

Sergeant Cotton in his book “A Voice from Waterloo,” tells us what Wellington thought Napoleon ought to have done:

Napoleon never had so fine an army as at Waterloo. He was certainly wrong in attacking at all. He might have played again the same defensive game in the French territory which he had played so admirably the year before; that campaign of 1814 I consider the very finest he ever made. He might have given us great trouble and had many chances in his favor. But the fact is he never in his life had patience for a defensive war.

(1547)

IMPATIENCE OF REFORMERS

The besetting sin of the reformer is his impatience. The world must be redeemed at once. “The trouble seems to be,” said Theodore Parker of the anti-slavery cause, “that God is not in a hurry, and I am.” “If my scheme is not sufficient to redeem society,” said a labor leader not long ago, “what is yours?” as tho every self-respecting man must have some panacea of social salvation. The fact is, however, that a time like ours, whose symptoms are so complex and serious, is no time for social panaceas. As one of the most observant of American students of society has remarked: “When I hear a man bring forward a solution of the social question, I move to adjourn.” Jesus proposes no surgical operation which at one stroke can save the world. He offers no assurance that the tares of the world shall be exterminated by one sweep of the scythe. He adds faith to patience.—Francis Greenwood Peabody, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1904.

(1548)

IMPERFECTION IN NATURE

It is constantly felt by thoughtful minds that nothing is complete in this universe. We wait for perfection and can not know it in this life or in this world.

In the world of flowers there are three primary colors, of which many broken shades form a countless number of secondary tints. But the scientific botanist points out a remarkable fact: many flowers are of compound colors. Some are red and blue; some are red and yellow; some are blue and yellow; but there never has been such a thing as a plant whose flowers burst into all three of the primary tints. Roses are red in various shades, and yellow also in many shades. But that is all; no florist has ever been able to produce a really blue rose. The same fact applies to the chrysanthemum; it may be red in some shade or other, or it may be yellow in a whole range of alternative tints; but the vain dream of the Japanese is to find the fabled “blue chrysanthemum.” A great fortune would await any one who could produce by his art a blue rose or a blue chrysanthemum. Nature denies to flowers the ability to range through the whole gamut of the colors of the rainbow.

(1549)

IMPERFECTION, MAN’S

Upon all man’s works we write one word—imperfect. Full as our world is of the beautiful and the useful, it also holds much of immaturity, wreckage and failure. The scientist insists that there is not one perfect leaf in the forest, not a red rose but holds some blemish, not a cluster or bunch but has suffered some injury. The winters chill the roots, untimely frosts bite the seed, rude storms strain the boughs. What Nature offers man is not perfection, but enough of use and beauty to satisfy to-day’s hunger, and to allure man to something better. Dwelling, therefore, under skies that oft are unfriendly, we perceive that even man’s best work shares in imperfection. His trains jump the track, his bridges break, his ships sink, rust destroys his tools, fire smites his factories, epidemics shorten his life. His fine arts are elective, representing the selection of the best elements carried up to the ideal conditions, and yet even man’s arts represent many forms of injury. All the treasure-houses of the world fail to show one statue that is perfect. The Winged Victory is without a head, the Venus di Milo is without arms, the Minerva has a black stain on the forehead, while only the torso of Jupiter remains, all else having gone.—N. D. Hillis.

(1550)

Imperfection, Value of—See Diverse Influences.

IMPERFECTIONS CORRECTED

Some years ago I visited Albany, N. Y., when the Capitol was not finished. I saw men at work, apparently, removing stones from the wall on one side. When I asked about it, a workman said: “When that wall was erected they were unable to get granite of the right quality and color to complete the architect’s design. In order that the work might not be delayed, some blocks of wood were used temporarily. Now they have the quality and color of granite required, and are taking out those wooden blocks and replacing them with granite.” The Capitol was being built up, after the fashion of the architect’s ideal.

So it is to-day with us. In the temple, our character, which is His dwelling-place, there are faulty stones. As we come to a clearer knowledge of the person of Jesus we perceive these imperfections and replace them with alabaster hewn from the Rock of Ages, “carved as the angels carved their crowns in the fadeless days of June.” If we are living up to the requirements of our profession, we are thus being built up in Him, continually approaching the ideal of the Master architect. (Text.)—H. G. Furbay.

(1551)

Imperfections in Character—See Diverse Influences.

Imperviousness—See Evil, Repellence of.

Impoliteness—See Politeness.

Importance, not Size—See Work Despised.

IMPOSSIBLE, ACHIEVING WHAT SEEMED

Hon. Richmond P. Hobson gives his impressions of army achievements as he recalls his prison experiences in a Spanish fortress, and has this to say:

From my prison window in Santiago, which was but little in the rear of the Spanish line of entrenchments, I saw the Spaniards fortifying the city for twenty days. I watched them with critical interest. I saw them bring up guns from the ships and place them. Then I saw our men come up and drive the Spaniards into those entrenchments, and when they had driven them into the entrenchments I saw them go on and try to take the entrenchments themselves. It looked to be an impossible thing, but as yet the artillery was silent. The men came on up the hill and the artillery opened, and my heart sank when I saw that it was flanking artillery. For a moment the American fire ceased as tho the enemy’s guns had been a signal. “Now, then,” said I to myself, “this is the place where the individuality of the soldier will appear, for each man there knows that he is just as likely as any other man to be struck with that shrapnel.” None of them had ever been under fire before; they could not be put to a harder test; but how did they respond to it? Instantly after the lull a more rapid fire set in, and a more rapid rush of men up to the trenches. In spite of flanking artillery we had taken those fortified trenches with unsupported infantry—a thing that army experts the world over said could not be done.

(1552)

IMPOSSIBLE, NOTHING

At the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, when it appeared that an accident was imminent by the surging of the crowds against the speakers’ platform, Webster requested the people to kindly move back. A man in the crowd answered back: “It is impossible!” Thereupon the great Massachusetts statesman cried out: “Impossible! Impossible! Nothing is impossible on Bunker Hill!”—Charles E. Locke.

(1553)

IMPRECATION IN PSALMS

Said one Unitarian minister to another, about the time when the breaking out of our Civil War exposed the wickedness of its instigators: “I never before felt so much like swearing.” “Well,” was the reply, “I felt as you do; but I turned to the Old Testament, and picked out one of good old David’s imprecatory Psalms. I read it twice aloud, and since then I have felt much better.”

(1554)

IMPRESS

(1555)

IMPRESSION BY PRACTISE

A native Korean, who was told to memorize the entire Sermon on the Mount, did so with remarkable exactness. When asked how he accomplished it, he said: “My teacher told me to learn it with my heart as well as with my memory, so I hit on this plan. I would try to memorize a verse, and then find a heathen neighbor of mine and practise it on him. I found the verse would stick after I had done that, and I couldn’t forget a word of it.”

(1556)

IMPRESSIONS

On almost any sea beach you may see lying together smooth white pebbles, and ragged sponges, both drying in the sun and waiting the return of the tide. But when the tide comes and strikes the pebbles not a drop of the water enters them, thousands of years they have rolled up and down there, wearing smoother and growing more impervious all the time. But at the first touch of the incoming tide the sponges drink themselves full.

There is the same difference in men. Tides of spiritual influence flow around some men and they keep growing harder—the same tides fill and transform others.

(1557)

See Testimony of Nature.

IMPRESSIONS, EARLY

The things children most quickly note and in which they take most interest may indicate their bent of mind and help parents and instructors to shape their education along lines of least resistance. Thus R. H. Haweis says:

“Long before I had ever touched a violin I was fascinated with its appearance. In driving to town as a child—when, standing up in the carriage, I could just look out of the window—certain fiddle-shops hung with mighty rows of violoncellos attracted my attention. I had dreams of these large editions—these patriarchs of the violin, as they seemed to me. I compared them in my mind with the smaller tenors and violins. I dreamed about their brown, big, dusty bodies and affable good-natured-looking heads and grinning faces. These violin shops were the great points watched for on each journey up to London from Norwood, where I spent my early days.”

(1558)

Impressions Permanent—See Teachers’ Function, The.

Impression, Vivid—See Reminder, Severe.

IMPRISONED LIVES

In the Persian desert the sad sight may be seen of brick pillars in which many an unfortunate victim has been walled up alive, as a horrible method of inflicting capital punishment. Some awful tales of cruelties perpetrated here are told. The victim is put into the pillar, which is half built up in readiness, then, if merciful, the executioner will cement quickly up to the face, when death comes speedily; but sometimes the torture is prolonged, and the inmate has been heard groaning and calling for water for three days.

How many lives are walled lives—built around and bricked in by torturing limitations that suffocate joy and hope, and are no more than a lingering death!

(1559)

IMPROVED CONDITIONS

In a district of Glasgow where the death-rate used to be forty in a thousand, sanitation has brought it down to twenty-eight, and it has been brought down to seventeen or eighteen in some parts of London. Boston reduced its death-rate from thirty-one to twenty, and Croydon, Eng., from twenty-eight to thirteen. Even the friction-match has had its share in prolonging life. “Doubtless many a fatal pneumonia and pleurisy has been contracted when the luckless householder’s lire had died out overnight, and he was struggling with flint, steel and tinderbox.” In London during the last century nearly two hundred thousand persons perished of smallpox. Macaulay says that a person without a pitted face was the exception. But, thanks largely to vaccination, in a recent year there were only fourteen cases of smallpox among New York’s inhabitants, and in the German army, where vaccination is compulsory, the dread disease has been eradicated. The production of pure water by distillation has done much to abolish alimentary diseases among sailors at sea, and lime-juice defends them from scurvy. When the first emigrant ships went out to Australia, one-third of the passengers perished on the voyage, but when the ship-owners were forced to alter their terms and receive pay only for those they landed safely, the death-rate became smaller than when these same persons were living upon shore. In Queen Elizabeth’s time, one in two thousand of her London subjects was murdered annually. At the same rate there would be 2,500 murders every year in London now, whereas the number is no more than twelve. This is what the lighter street and a more efficient police have done for the British metropolis. Facts like these are a most wholesome and agreeable corrective for the lament over the departure of the “good old times,” so much affected by the cynic and the pessimist.—Boston Journal.

(1560)

IMPROVEMENT

(1561)

We can all help make the world better, as suggested by Annie Aldrich in these verses:

(1562)

If Christian methods of felling the tree of evil had advanced as far as the art of tree-cutting described below, we should soon be rid of bad institutions and tendencies:

“It is reported in the German press,” says Forestry and Irrigation, “that successful experiments have been made in various forests of France in cutting trees by means of electricity. A platinum wire is heated to a white heat by an electric current and used like a saw. In this manner the tree is felled much easier and quicker than in the old way, no sawdust is produced, and the slight carbonization caused by the hot wire acts as a preservative of the wood. The new method is said to require only one-eighth of the time consumed by the old sawing process.”

(1563)

Some day we shall be wise enough to utilize the hint suggested in the extract, by caring as much at least for improving the human race as we now care for improving our domestic animals:

A. Ogerodnikoff, a wealthy Russian dealer in furs in Vladivostok, while visiting San Francisco, told an interesting story of experiments made by his cousin, Rachatnikoff, who has been devoting himself for years to the propagation of a beautiful race of people. Ogerodnikoff, according to the press reports, said:

“Years ago Rachatnikoff attracted to his estate especially handsome men and girls of more than usual beauty by offering free land to forty or fifty men carefully picked from among a large number of applicants and selecting for them as wives fine-looking young women from different parts of Russia. This selected colony has flourished beyond all expectation, and over a hundred children have been raised from these unions.

“These children are so pretty as to make the Rachatnikoff estate famous.” (Text.)

(1564)

Improvement, Material—See Advancement, Rapid.

Improvement Meeting With Disfavor—See Safety Valves.

IMPROVING TIME

One of the most important books on British ornithology is Gilbert White’s “Natural History of Selborne.” This work is made up of the jottings and notes of the author concerning the animals he saw in his daily walks through the woods and fields in the immediate vicinity of his little country parish, which he seldom left. (Text.)

(1565)

IMPUDENCE, BRAZEN

Unblushing assurance in rascality is not a new thing in the world.

A firm of shady outside London brokers was prosecuted for swindling, says Everybody’s. In acquitting them, the court, with great severity, said:

“There is not sufficient evidence to convict you, but if any one wishes to know my opinion of you I hope that you will refer to me.”

Next day the firm’s advertisement appeared in every available medium, with the following well displayed: “Reference as to probity, by special permission, the Lord Chief Justice of England.”

(1566)

Impulsiveness—See Suspicion.

IMPURE THOUGHTS

A man went to his friend and asked the loan of a barrel. “Certainly,” was the reply, “if you will bring it back uninjured.” The man used the barrel to hold brandy until he could get certain bottles from the factory, when he filled them and returned the barrel to his friend. But the barrel smelled of brandy, and the owner sent it back with the request that it be cleansed. Boiling water was poured into the barrel, but it still smelled of brandy. Acids and disinfectants were put in, but the smell of the brandy could not be removed. It was left out in the rain, but all to no purpose; the smell of the brandy still remained. So it is with impure thoughts; when they are once admitted they remain and taint the whole life.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1567)

IMPURITIES

Should not men be as careful of the moral atmosphere of their lives as of the air in their rooms?

Mr. John Aitken, a well-known investigator of the atmosphere, made a series of experiments on the number of dust particles in ordinary air. His results show that outside air, after a wet night, contained 521,000 dust particles per cubic inch; outside air in fair weather contained 2,119,000 particles in the same space; that near the ceiling contained 88,346,000 particles per cubic inch. The air collected over a Bunsen flame contained no less than 489,000,000 particles per cubic inch. The numbers for a room were got with gas burning in the room, and at a height of four feet from the floor. These figures, tho not absolute, show how important is the influence of a gas-jet on the air we breathe, and the necessity for good ventilation in apartments. Mr. Aitken remarks that there seem to be as many dust particles in a cubic inch of air in a room at night when gas is burning as there are inhabitants in Great Britain, and that in three cubic inches of the gases from a Bunsen flame there are as many particles as there are people in the world.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

(1568)

Impurities, Atmospheric—See Soot.

Impurities Tested—See Tests.

INADEQUACY OF NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

Dr. H. O. Dwight was telling us of a voyage that he took in the Levant with a Turkish official; and as they sat down in the cabin at the dinner table the Turkish official, inviting Dr. Dwight to drink with him, said: “You may think it strange that I, a Mohammedan, should ask you, a Christian, to drink with me, when wine-drinking is forbidden by our religion. I will tell you how I dare to do this thing.” He filled his glass, and held it up, looking at the beautiful color of it, and said: “Now, if I say that it is right to drink this wine, I deny God’s commandments to men, and He would punish me in hell for the blasphemy. But I take up this glass, admitting that God has commanded me not to drink it, and that I sin in drinking it. Then I drink it off, so casting myself on the mercy of God. For our religion lets me know that God is too merciful to punish me for doing anything which I wish to do, when I humbly admit that to do it breaks His commandments.” His religion furnished this pasha with no moral restraints or power for true character.—Robert E. Speer, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1569)

Inattention Overcome—See Rank, Obsequiousness to.

Inborn, The—See Innate, The.

Incantation—See Birth Ceremonies; Exorcism.

Incense—See Offerings, Extravagant.

Incentive—See Heaven.

INCENTIVES

The most interesting chapel in Italy is the Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. In this edifice is a famous picture. On the right-hand side is a female figure with three children at her knee; she is holding in one hand a little rod, and in the other a golden apple; and she is pointing to an exceedingly narrow door.

Yes, the gate of life is narrow, and rod and apple—chastisement and reward—are necessary incentives urging entrance. (Text.)

(1570)

INCERTITUDE

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle is responsible for the following story from Washington:

“Jadam,” said Major McDowell, the clerk of the House of Representatives, to J. Adam Bede, of Minnesota, yesterday, “that was a fine speech you made to-day, a fine speech.” “Yes, I thought it was a pretty good speech,” Mr. Bede assented modestly. “It was an extremely fine speech. It was logical and had wit in it, and was delivered with great declamatory effect. I listened to it with much pleasure.” “I am glad you liked it,” chirruped Mr. Bede. “Indeed I did,” the Major continued, “and now, if it is betraying no confidence, I’d like to ask you a question.” “Why, my dear Major,” exclaimed Bede, “of course I shall be glad to do anything I can for you. Go ahead.” “Well, Jadam,” and the Major put a fatherly hand on Bede’s shoulder. “I wish you would tell me which side of the question you are really on.”

(1571)

The representative of an English newspaper, sent some time since to Ireland to move about and learn by personal observation the real political mind of the people there, reported on his return that he had been everywhere and talked with all sorts, and that as nearly as he could make out the attitude of the Irish might be stated about thus: “They don’t know what they want—and they are bound to have it.”—Joseph H. Twichell.

(1572)

See Duality.

Incitement—See Inspiration, Sources of.

INCITEMENT

Very much of human discontent arises from first hearing our wrongs described by others:

Rufus Choate, the American lawyer, defended a blacksmith whose creditor had seized some iron that a friend had lent him to assist in the business after a bankruptcy. The seizure of the iron was said to have been made harshly. Choate thus described it: “He arrested the arm of industry as it fell toward the anvil; he put out the breath of his bellows; he extinguished the fire upon his hearthstone. Like pirates in a gale at sea, his enemies swept everything by the board, leaving, gentlemen of the jury, not so much—not so much as a horseshoe to nail upon the door-post to keep the witches off.” The blacksmith, sitting behind, was seen to have tears in his eyes at this description, and a friend noticing it, said: “Why, Tom, what’s the matter with you? What are you blubbering about?” “I had no idea,” said Tom in a whisper, “that I had been so abominably ab-ab bused.” (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(1573)

See Inspiration.

Incitement to Evil—See Responsibility Evaded.

INCONSISTENCY

An anonymous writer in The Independent tells the following story as illustrating Mr. Hearst’s belief that “money will buy the fruit of any man’s work”:

Some time ago a young writer applied to him for employment on his New York newspaper, and was engaged to fill a position which would become vacant at the end of a week, but in the interval the fact came to the attention of a university professor who had always taken an interest in his advancement.

“I am sorry,” said the good man, “that you should have chosen that particular school of journalism for your professional start.” And he proceeded to descant upon the responsibility a journalist owed to society, the influence of one educated youth’s example upon others of his class, the tone a writer inevitably took from the character of the journals he worked for, etc. “And your untarnished sense of self-respect, my young friend,” he concluded, “will be worth more to you, when you reach my time of life, than all the salaries an unprincipled employer can pour into your purse.”

So imprest was the neophyte with this lecture in morals that he called upon Mr. Hearst the next morning and announced that he had changed his mind about accepting the proffered position. The editor scanned his face shrewdly, and then inquired the reason. After much hesitancy the young man told him the whole story, and started to leave.

“Ah,” said Mr. Hearst. “Be seated a moment, please!” And, turning to his secretary, he added: “Write a letter at once to Professor X. Y., present my compliments, and say that I should be pleased to receive from him a signed article of five hundred words—subject and treatment to be of his own choosing—for the editorial page of next Sunday’s paper. Inclose check for $250.

“Now,” he remarked, with a cynical smile, as he bade his caller good-by, “you can see for yourself what comes of that.”

He did. The Sunday issue contained a signed article, which gave the paper the reflection of a good man’s fame, and spread the influence of his example among other university professors, and—did what to his self-respect?—all at the rate of fifty cents per word! (Text.)

(1574)

See Injustice.

INCONSPICUOUS WORKERS

Most of this world’s work is done by the people who will never be known. To every worthy worker, however, a mede of credit is due, and sometimes it finds recognition, as in the instance here recorded:

An officer who was at West Point a generation ago tells of the influence Miss Susan Warner had on the boys of the Academy in the ’70’s and ’80’s. “The Wide, Wide World,” by Miss Warner, was a popular book then with the cadets’ mothers, who would urge their sons to visit Constitution Island and write home a description of the author. So many boys would visit the Island. Every Sunday afternoon the Warner sisters would send their man-of-all-work in a boat to the Point to bring over a load of cadets. The boys would gather around Miss Susan as she sat on the lawn and listen to her read the Scriptures and explain them in a bright, cheerful view of religion and life. After the talks would come a treat of tea and home-made gingerbread. She was very delicate and frail and often her talks would completely exhaust her. She kept up correspondence with many of the visiting cadets long after they had become distinguished officers. Her last letter to one just before her death had a pathos known only to her cadet friends. It read: “I no longer have the strength to cross the river to meet the boys, and the superintendent we now have will not allow them to come to me, so my usefulness with them seems to be at an end.”