C

Calf Intelligence—See Direction, Sense of.

CALL, THE, OF GOD

In the summer of 1871, Rev. Robert W. McAll and his wife, visiting Paris at the close of the war with Germany, and led by a deep desire to reach workingmen with the gospel, were giving away tracts in the hotels and on the public streets, when a workingman said: “If any one will come among us and teach us not a gospel of priestcraft and superstition, but of truth and liberty, many of us are ready to hear.”

Mr. McAll returned home, but above the murmur of the waves and the hum of busy life he heard that voice, “If any one will come and teach us ... we are ready to hear.” He said to himself, “Is this God’s call? Shall I go?” Friends said, “No!” But a voice within said, “Yes.” And he left his English parish and went back, and in a district worse to work in than St. Giles in London he began to tell the old story of Jesus. Soon the little place was crowded, and a larger room became a necessity; and sixteen years later that one gospel hall has become 112, in which, in one year, have been held 14,000 religious meetings, with a million hearers, and 4,000 services for children, with 200,000 attendants.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

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CALL TO BETTER LIFE, THE

When summer is ending the wild bird in arctic zones responds to the call of the tropic winds and perfumes and plumes his flight for southern feeding-grounds. So the soul of man is drawn and responds to subtle and haunting attractions in the realm of holiness and heaven.

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Call to Duty—See Responding to the Call.

CALLS AND CONVEYANCES IN THE EAST

A source of offense (in the East) are calls formal in character. One can ruin his social standing by going to make this call in a wrong style of conveyance. A friend of mine had bought a Chinese sedan-chair with shorter handles than those of an ordinary sedan. It was loaned to a millionaire from New York to bring him up from the river, and it caused the greatest excitement that the city had ever known. People were laughing for years over it. Why? Because those shorter handles made of that sedan a spirit chair, in which the ghost is carried at funeral processions. It was just as appropriate as if Dr. Anderson, of the First Presbyterian Church up here, should receive a visiting clergyman in a hearse down at the station and bring him uptown in it. It is safe to say that the sight of his guest looking out through the glass sides would not be forgotten. You have reached your place, and you desire to make a good impression; but you are in such haste that you leap down from your cart, or gharry. Well, if a lady should do this in China or India, she might just as well in America if she desired to make a good impression upon a new friend, approach this friend’s house skipping, or on the run; or a gentleman might just as appropriately vault a fence to get over into the yard, instead of entering by the gate where he was going to make a call.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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Calmness—See Confidence.

CALMNESS IN A CRISIS

Speaking of that “anxious moment” in the decisive battle of Königgrätz before the arrival of the Crown Prince in the rear of the Austrians, Bismarck, according to Mr. Schurz’s autobiography in McClure’s Magazine, related the following incident showing von Moltke’s coolness:

It was an anxious moment, a moment on the decision of which the fate of the empire depended. Squadrons of cavalry, all mixt up, hussars, dragoons, uhlans, were streaming by the spot where the King, Moltke, and myself stood, and altho we had calculated that the Crown Prince might long have appeared behind the Austrian rear, no sign of the Crown Prince! Things began to look ominous. I confess I felt not a little nervous. I looked at Moltke, who sat quietly on his horse and did not seem to be disturbed by what was going on around us. I thought I would test whether he was really as calm as he appeared. I rode up to him and asked him whether I might offer him a cigar, since I noticed he was not smoking. He replied that he would be glad if I had one to spare. I presented to him my open case in which there were only two cigars, one a very good Havana, and the other of rather poor quality. Moltke looked at them and even handled them with great attention, in order to ascertain their relative value, and then with slow deliberation chose the Havana. “Very good,” he said composedly. This assured me very much. I thought, if Moltke can bestow so much time and attention upon the choice between two cigars, things can not be very bad.

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Calmness of Pupils—See Discipline Among Children.

CALVARY, ANTICIPATING

Overbeck, the celebrated German painter, in one of his immortal canvases, represents the child Jesus at play in Joseph’s workshop. He is fashioning sticks and blocks into the shape of a cross, as if anticipating and rehearsing in his tender years the tragedy of Calvary. Child as he is, even in his play the serious work of his life looms up before Him.

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Canadian Resources—See Money Power in Canada.

Candles, Illustrations from—See Illustrations from Candles.

CANT

A professor, addressing an academic audience, warned his hearers against cant. At the close, questions were invited and one of the students asked the professor, “What is cant?” “There is a kind of religion,” was the reply, “which is natural to an old woman, and there is another which is natural to a young man; but if the young man professes to have the religion of the old woman, that is cant.”

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CAPACITY

You do not preach to the acorn that it is its duty to become a large tree; you do not preach to the art-pupil that it is his duty to become a Holbein. You plant your acorn in favorable soil, where it can have light and air, and be sheltered from the wind, you remove the superfluous branches, you train the strength into the leading shoots. The acorn will then become as fine a tree as it has vital force to become. The difference between men and other things is only in the largeness and variety of man’s capacities.—James Anthony Froude.

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CAPACITY LIMITING SUPPLY

You can limit the working of almighty power, and can determine the rate at which it shall work on you. God fills the water-pots to the brim, but not beyond the brim; and if, like the woman in the Old Testament story, we stop bringing vessels, the oil will stop flowing. It is an awful thing to think that we have the power, as it were, to turn a stopcock, and so increase or diminish, or cut off altogether, the supply of God’s mercy and Christ’s healing and cleansing love in our hearts. You will get as much of God as you want, and no more. The measure of your desire is the measure of your capacity, and the measure of your capacity is the measure of God’s gift.—Alexander McLaren.

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See Receptiveness.

CAPACITY, ORIGINAL

During the trial in court of a case involving the originality of a picture, an eminent counsel put this question to Gainsborough: “I observe you lay great stress on the phrase, ‘the painter’s eye’; what do you mean by that?” “The painter’s eye,” replied the artist in a smart repartee, “is to him what the lawyer’s tongue is to you.”

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Capacity, Restricting—See Routine.

Captain and Crew Stedfast—See Loyalty.

CAPTAIN, CHRIST OUR

Among the old war pictures I remember one of a captain of artillery bringing his battery into action. His whole soul was in the effort to rally his men and guns on the line. You could hear the thunderous roll of the wheels, crushing over all unevenness and hindrance, the frantic straining of the horses, the fearless, intense resolution of the men, and above all, the captain waving his sword, shouting his commands—but shot dead just as the guns wheel into line. Our Captain died rallying us, but He rose again, and He still has His dying enthusiasm of love for each one of us.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

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CAPTAIN, OUR

Every ship has a captain. Some captains are good, some bad. Years ago, I went by steamer from Quebec through the lower St. Lawrence and around the Dominion coast. Our captain was under the influence of liquor the whole way, and you can easily imagine that I was glad to get ashore safely. One of the ocean steamship lines once dismissed a captain who, tho thoroughly capable when he was sober, was given to drink. Another ocean line took him up, hoping that he had reformed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Bringing his steamer across the Atlantic, and being under the influence of drink, he ran her too far north and on a winter’s night rushed his steamer on to the rocks. That night 532 people found a watery grave. Surely that is not the kind of captain with whom we would ever care to sail. On the other hand, there was in my earlier days a captain of the Cunard Steamship Company—Captain Cook by name—careful, capable, endlessly vigilant. The passengers felt safe while he was on the bridge.

Some one has charge of us in all our life’s voyage, and either we are under the command of Jesus Christ as Captain of our salvation, or under the command of Satan, the captain of ruin and death and despair.—A. F. Schauffler in The Christian Herald.

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CAPTAIN, THE DIVINE

A vessel lies at the wharf. Her timbers are sound, her masts are stanch, her canvas is bent. The tide coaxes her seaward; the winds plead with her to move. The ship itself strains at her moorings to be leaping over the ocean. But the vessel must wait, wait for the skipper’s will. Not best timbers or fullest tide can carry that ship to the distant port until the master reveals his mind to the vessel. The earnest expectation of the vessel waiteth for the revealing of the captain.

So, here is the world; the master-builder has fitted it with all things needful for its consummation; it is ready for its wonder purpose; but it must wait; something is needed for the accomplishment of that end. The earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God.—T. C. McClelland.

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Card-playing—See Amusements.

CARE IN PERFORMING DUTIES

The postal-clerk must know the various mail routes as familiarly as he does the faces of his best friends. His car, with its tier over tier of pigeon-holes, and its ranks of yawning mail-bags, is to him no labyrinth of mysteries. His eyes are in his fingers, and the skilful musician’s touch is not more accurate than the aim of this wizard of the mail-car. The department rules are exacting, and if an occasional error results from the hurried manner in which the mail is thrown, in course of distribution, it is sure to be detected by the next clerk into whose hands the stray piece of mail falls, and a report of it is at once sent to the division superintendent to be charged against the clerk making the error. During a given year the number of letters and other pieces of mail matter distributed was 5,329,521,475. The number of errors made in handling this vast quantity of matter was only 1,260,443. The number of pieces handled for each error committed were 4,228, thus making the percentage of correct distribution 99.98. All employees are required to attest their skill by frequent examinations, and for this purpose much of the leisure time of each is devoted to studying the mail schemes of the various States attaching to the division in which he is employed—John M. Bishop, Magazine of American History.

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CARE OF GOD, THE

There are winter times with blight and cold and fruitlessness and storm for us all; times when we do not see that the wonder-workings of the divine care are on us. But they are on us, definitely, “all the days.” The sun was not only bringing the earth around all winter to a time when spring should break forth; but the coal you burned to expel the winter’s cold that same sun had caused to grow in ancient ages in its original vegetation; the wood that enclosed the comforts of your home and shut out the driving storm, that sun had caused to grow in recent years; day by day all the winter through the sun sent light to cheer your rooms while snows lay deep and winds were wild; and day by day the sun purified the air and sterilized germs of disease, and so made it possible for you to baffle sickness and nurse your loved one back to health. The sun was working for your good all the time. Even so our Lord is ever working in us and in our lives to will and to do of his good pleasure.—Monday Club, “Sermons on the International Sunday-school Lessons for 1904.”

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CARE-FREE

The Baroness Burdette-Coutts inherited from her grandfather, of the Coutts Bank, a fortune of about $20,000,000. She managed it ably, but devoted it to great works of charity during her long and busy life. Not long before her death she said:

“I seem to be living in a transitional age. Every one is in such a hurry nowadays, and I don’t ever remember being in a hurry. The weather never depresses me. I don’t mind noise and rather enjoy the rush of the motor-busses past Holly Lodge. I don’t myself know what nerves are, and yet I’ve had to send Tip, my fox-terrier, to a restcure.” (Text.)

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Carefulness—See Headwork.

Careless Work—See Anyhow, The Land of.

CARELESSNESS

Down in the fire-room of a big steamer that was lying at the wharf in New York, a young man was told to do a certain piece of work in connection with the pumps. There were two pumps close together in the room—one for feeding the boiler and the other to use in case the ship should take fire. This latter one was capable of throwing a volume of water as large as a man’s body. The young man, who had been employed on the ship for three years, and who, when he concentrated his attention on it, knew all that was necessary concerning the work in hand, went to the wrong pump and removed the cap from the fire-pump. In a moment he discovered his error, but the force of the water was so great that he could not replace the cap on the pump. Without a word he ran to the deck, left the steamer, and took the cars for his home in another State. Before the accident was discovered the water had filled the hold of the vessel, and in spite of every effort the vessel sank, and many thousands of dollars of damage was done.—Louis Albert Banks.

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See Ignorance.

CARELESSNESS, COST OF

The city of Butte, Montana, is built over a mine which has been on fire for seventeen years, not blazing out, but smoldering quietly, every effort being made to keep out the air, without which it can not spread very rapidly.

As to the origin of this fire the story is that a miner named Henshaw left his candle burning on a pine beam in the mine when he finished work one day seventeen years ago.

“Goin’ to leave the glim there, Bill?” his partner queried.

“Sure; what’s the difference?”

“Oh, nothin’, only there’ll be nobody round here for quite a while and I was just thinkin’ that if a fire started it might spread.”

“Well, we’ll take chances; let’s go!” was the glum response.

They went out, but the fire didn’t. A set of timbers caught and the flames spread quickly.

Since that time thousands of men have been engaged in fighting this fire without complete success, for it still burns, and a fortune has been expended in the conflict.

What a price to pay for a foolish act! All acts of carelessness are not followed by such serious consequences, but there is always an element of risk in doing the wrong thing.

In how many lives has the fire of sin been kindled by some deed of folly in early life, and it still smolders in the soul, cursing the man’s whole being.—Onward.

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CAREERS CONTRASTED

In the year 1877 two young men stood up with the rest of their class at Bowdoin University to receive diplomas. One was called Bob, the other was called Charlie. They were Maine boys, both of them, and of about the same age. Within the last few weeks those two boys, now grown into grizzled men in the early fifties, have been conspicuous in the news of the day.

One of them, Bob, went in for fame, and after devoting the best years of his life to wrestling with arctic storms, throwing dice with death, enduring the very limits of privation and hardship, more than once glad to chew tanned leather or bite into rancid blubber, he emerged the other day with a story of discovery which thrilled the whole world, and will send his name, Robert E. Peary, sounding down the ages to the end of time.

The other boy, Charlie, went in for fortune. He had already developed the knack of the money-maker, and he did not tie up his talent in a napkin. He sold candy. He sold ice. He sold lumber. He acquired banks and trust companies and juggled stocks and bonds until he amassed a fortune of twenty millions. Then something happened. On the day after New-year’s day of this year (1910), his money gone, his reputation destroyed, his liberty lost, he took the 10:43 train on the Southern Limited, escorted by a United States marshal and two deputies, on the way to the Federal prison at Atlanta, Ga., to which he had been sentenced for a term of fifteen years. Every legal device to save him had been tried, and had failed, and Charles Wyman Morse has now become convict Number 2814—that is all.—Current Literature.

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CARGOES THAT WRECK

Every ship has a cargo, or if no cargo it is seeking for cargo. Some cargoes are safe and some dangerous. In olden time they used to load grain in bulk, which was dangerous, for if the grain shifted in a storm it was apt to throw the ship on her beam ends. Cotton is a dangerous cargo, and many steamship lines advertise, “These ships carry no cotton.” Some years ago, an evil-minded man tried to ship an infernal machine on one of the steamers of a transatlantic line. His intention was that the clockwork in the machine should go off while the ship was in mid-ocean, and blow her to pieces. Fortunately, the clockwork went off while the infernal machine was on the dock. It blew off the stern of the steamer and killed thirteen men. Surely that would have been a dangerous cargo to carry.

Just so every man carries a cargo. By this I mean a cargo of opinions, passions, appetites, and these are sure to wreck any young man who carries them.—A. F. Schauffler, The Christian Herald.

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CASTE

Dr. Pauline Root, of India, gives this example of the tenacity of the Hindus to their rules of caste:

The Brahman custom which prescribes for every man and woman the ceremonial bath every day also prescribes that during any illness the bath shall be omitted. A woman who is ill is banished to a little room and left to take care of herself unless a hired person is sent to be her nurse. I had under my care a young girl of high caste who was ill with an illness which had already carried off the mother and two sisters. The father was ready to make almost any concessions to me if I would only come and save his daughter’s life. I insisted that she be brought out into one of the main rooms of the home, and that she be given a cot to sleep upon. When she grew better she wanted me with her most of the time to sit beside her and hold her hand. I really thought she was succumbing before love. Finally, I told her that she was convalescent enough to have her ceremonial bath. The next morning her father met me with a munificent gift. I saw the girl arrayed in her beautiful dresses, but a great distance had been put between us, and when I held out my hand she refused it, saying, “Please don’t touch me; I have taken my bath.”

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Catalepsy—See Pathological Condition.

Catching Souls—See Fishers of Men.

CATHOLIC FOREIGN MISSIONS

Probably few people outside the Catholic Church know what that body is doing for the evangelization of heathen lands. And if we are to believe the Catholic leaders and writers, their own people have shared to some degree this lack of information and interest, for the Catholic missionaries have had to struggle on with little support from home compared with the generous gifts the Protestant missionaries receive. A report has just been issued by Monsignor Freri, general director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, that is full of information on this subject. It is summarized in the New York Evening Sun and Post and many Catholic journals. Its figures afford some interesting comparisons. While an unmarried Protestant missionary receives about $600, the income of the Catholic missionary, who receives no stated salary, is less than $111. While the Northern Methodists of America alone last year subscribed over $2,000,000 in missionary funds, and all American Protestants more than $11,000,000, Catholics the world over contributed in all but $1,342,292.27.

Monsignor Freri’s report shows the actual receipts for 1909 to be $61,755.02 in excess of those of the preceding year. He directs special attention to the zeal of the Catholics of France, who, in spite of the extraordinary burdens imposed upon them by the confiscation of religious property and the separation of Church and State, contributed $630,688.51, almost half of the total.

The United States and its insular possessions hold the second place with the gift of $220,637.78. This is an increase of $27,583.38 over 1908. Germany gave $140,530.92; Belgium, $71,529.40; the Argentine Republic, $47,448.97; Italy, $46,898.74; Spain, $39,080.42; Mexico, $24,149.60; Switzerland, $18,532.74; Chile, $16,403.93, and the British Isles donated a trifle above $25,000, of which Ireland gave $15,478.92.

It is estimated that the number of Catholic missionaries in the foreign field, exclusive of converted natives who have taken up the work, is 54,000, of whom 10,000 are priests, 4,000 teaching brothers, and 45,000 nuns. In addition to their share of the general fund, the missionaries receive alms and contributions from various sources. Yet, to quote an address delivered by Monsignor Freri before the Catholic Missionary Congress:

“Including all these sources of income, and after consultation with many heads of missions, I think I am far within the truth when I say that the total contribution for missions, from all sources, is less than $6,000,000 a year. If we reckon 10,000 priests, 4,000 brothers, and 40,000 nuns, this would give an average of less than $111 per capita. With this they must support themselves, build churches, maintain schools, hospitals, asylums, colleges, pay the transportation of missionaries, etc.”

One of the chief missionary bands is that of the “White Fathers,” or Algerian missionaries, whose missions in Uganda Mr. Roosevelt visited in his African travels. According to the report, the total number of baptisms within the jurisdiction of this one organization during the year beginning July, 1908, was 10,000.

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CATHOLICITY, A KING’S

His (Edward VII) catholicity, the object of both praise and censure, was proverbial. An instance of this was given in a letter written by Archbishop Magee, in December, 1873. Speaking of a week-end visit to Sandringham, where Edward, then Prince of Wales, attended his services, he said: “Just returned from church, where I preached for twenty-six minutes (Romans, 8:28). The church is a very small country one, close to the grounds. The house, as I saw it by daylight, is a handsome country house of red stone with white facings, standing well and looking quietly comfortable and suitable. I find the company pleasant and civil, but we are a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir A. Rothschild and his daughter; a Roman Catholic, Col. Higgins; an Italian duchess, who is an English woman, and her daughter brought up as a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young lords, and a bishop. The Jewess came to church; so did the half-Protestant lady. Dizzy (Disraeli) did the same, and was profuse in his praises of my sermon.”—New York Evening Post.

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CAUSALITY IN CHILDREN

A few illustrations will suffice to make clear the instinct of causality in children. I draw first of all upon notes taken on the religious development of a boy between the age of three and six years. At the end of the third year, while visiting Niagara Falls with his parents, this boy showed his first interest in the cause of things. While watching the water of the falls from Prospect Park, he said: “Mama, who pours the water over Niagara Falls?” We may imagine similar questions being asked by the American Indian ages previously, and answered in terms of “Gitchie Manitou, the Mighty.” From this beginning, the boy during the next three years seemed to be trying to make himself clear upon the question of where things come from originally, and who keeps the world going. “Who makes the birds?” “Who made the very first bird?” “Who fixt their wings so they can fly?” “Who takes care of the birds and rabbits in the winter when snow is on the ground?” “Who makes the grass grow?” “Who makes the trees?” “Who makes them shed their leaves and then get them back again?” “Who makes it thunder?” “Who put the moon in the sky?” “Who made the whole world?” “Who made people?” “Who made me?” “Does God make everything?” “Who made God?” “Was God already made?” “Is God everywhere?” Such were the questions asked again and again, with all sorts of comments in reply to the answers that were given him. The question of what is the origin of things was seldom or never asked. It was always who; and when the personal cause he was seeking was named “God” in connection with numerous objects, he finally generalized by asking if God makes everything.—George E. Dawson, “The Child and His Religion.”

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Causative Sense Instructive—See Automatic Experience.

CAUSES CURED

A bitter fountain comes rushing down the mountain side, and drinking thereof, the people of the city are poisoned. Along comes a man who says: “I will build a lime factory just above the city, and pour a stream of lime-water into the bitter fountain.” Jesus’ method was simpler. Go higher up, into the mountain of God, and strike the rock, that sweet waters may gush forth, to flow through the land, carrying health and happiness to all that stand upon the banks of this river of water of life. Jesus reformed institutions by reforming human nature. He was a fundamental thinker. He dealt with causes.—N. D. Hillis.

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Caution in Revealing Truth—See Truth Fatal.

CEMETERY, THE EARTH AS A

Again and again this old poetic fancy of the earth as one great cemetery buried several times deep with dead men, women and children, has been refuted by figures. But great is the error and will prevail, unless the truth be well and steadily upheld. The population of the earth is now about 1,500,000,000. Suppose the human race to have existed for 6,000 years and you have sixty centuries. In each century you may count three generations of mankind, or one hundred and eighty generations in all, each being a generation of 1,500,000,000. Now, lay out a cemetery for one generation. It will be a huge estimate to give to every man, woman, and child a grave five feet by two, or ten square. You want for your graveyard, then, 15,000,000,000 square feet of ground. A square mile contains something less than 28,000,000 square feet. You want, then, a graveyard fifty-five miles long by ten wide for your whole generation. Now multiply this by one hundred and eighty and you have your burial-ground for 6,000 years of mankind. That is, a strip of land, 1,800 miles long by 55 miles wide will be ample. In other words, a cemetery containing 100,000 square miles would be sufficient for the entire human race to lie side by side. The estimate which I have given you of continuous population is obviously enormously large. The estimate of the size of each grave is very large. A strictly correct estimate would reduce the size of the required cemetery more than one-half. But enormous as it is, you could lay out your burial-ground for all men who have lived on earth, so that they could lie side by side in Arizona or in California, or you could lay it out in Texas large enough to accommodate the race of 6,000 years past, and also the race for 6,000 years yet to come, all sleeping in the soil of that one State of this Union. But some one says the race of man has been on the earth 100,000 years. That is a pure imagination and there is not, so far as I know, a fact on which to rest it. But suppose it is true, and suppose the population always what it is now, you have provided for 6,000 years of it. You want nearly seventeen times as large a cemetery for the generations of a thousand centuries. That is, you want 1,700,000 square miles in it. Lay it out whenever you please, 1,700 miles long by 1,000 miles wide. It is but part of the United States. And so enormously large have been the rough estimates thus far used, it is safe to say that if the human race has been in existence 100,000 years, a separate grave could be provided for every individual of the race within a part of the United States east of the Mississippi River.—W. C. Prime, New York Journal of Commerce.

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Censure, Misplaced—See Reflection, Imperfect.

Census-taking, Primitive—See Collective Labor.

CENTER OF LIFE

Some men have a Ptolemaic notion of life; their little earth is the center around which all things move. If I have been of that sort, I will remember that the age has outgrown that. It is time to reconstruct one’s life on the Copernican theory, admitting that ours is only a little earth in the great universe, and finding our true solar center in the great moral gravitation of the divine love.—Franklin Noble, D.D., “Sermons in Illustration.”

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Ceremonial Purging—See Prejudice, Religious.

CEREMONY, USELESSNESS OF

At Teschen, which town Stephen Schultz, missionary to the Jews, visited several times, he entered the store of a Jewish merchant to buy some articles. He conversed with one of the Jewish clerks on the necessity of an atonement for sin, when the Jew asserted that every man can atone for his own sins. Schultz made him agree to the statement that we are all become altogether as an unclean thing, and then asked him:

“How, then, can we pay our debts to God or atone for our sins?” “We must pray, fast, give alms, etc., for altho we dare not now offer any sacrifices, yet if we read over the institution and rites of sacrifices, it will be accepted.” Schultz, without paying any attention to this absurd statement at this time, asked: “How much do I owe for these articles I bought?” “Fifty-seven cents.” “Please write it down upon the counter, lest I forget it.” The Jew did so, and Schultz read ten times: “Fifty-seven cents,” and then walked toward the door as if he would depart. The clerk called him back, saying: “You have not paid me.” “What! Have not yet paid? Have I not read over ten times just what you wrote?” “Yes, but that will not pay your debt.” “And will you then deal so treacherously with God, and think to pay your debts to Him by repeating some prayers?” (Text.)—Missionary Review of the World.

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CHAINS

David had twenty-four columns of marble around his banqueting room, and he chained a bandit and an old enemy to each column, and in the presence of his enemies feasted. Christ enables the soul to chain hate, envy, lying, avarice, gluttony, jealousy, evil-speaking, sloth, and then the soul exclaims, Thou hast spread me a table in the midst of mine enemies! (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

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CHALLENGE

The outburst of the matchless hymnic genius of Isaac Watts was the response to a challenge. When a youth of eighteen he complained to his father, who was a deacon in an Independent church at Southampton, England, of the poor quality of the hymns sung in the nonconformist services of the time. “Suppose you make a few,” said his father, with more than a suggestion of gentle sarcasm. Taking up the challenge, the poet retired; and soon, out from his seclusion where he had put on his “singing robes,” came the hymn: “Behold the Glories of the Lamb,” which was sung at an early meeting; and so began a career of hymn-writing which continued through the author’s life, and which later aroused to song a whole nest of singing-birds.

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Chance and Work—See Toil and Providence.

Chance, Decision by—See Coincidence and Superstition.

CHANCE FOR THE BOY

From Congregational Work is taken the following incident:

Patrick A. Collins, Mayor of Boston for a number of years past, believed that a boy’s word is worth listening to. One time complaint was made to him that a saloon was located too near a certain public school. The politicians and others interested in keeping the place open urged him not to interfere with the resort. The school authorities desired it closed and removed.

After the Mayor had listened to arguments from both sides, he said:

“Well, I’m going to let the boys of the school tell me what they think of the place. Send me,” he said to the principal of the school, “half a dozen of your brightest boys. I’ll listen to them.”

The next day half a dozen of the boys, ranging from ten to fifteen years of age, called on the Mayor. Each boy gave some reason why he believed the saloon ought to be taken away, until it came to the last one, a youngster of twelve. He looked the Mayor squarely in the eye, and gave as his reason:

“My school gives me a chance to be Mayor of Boston some day; the saloon can’t. I think us boys ought to have all the show we can get to be Mayor. That’s all I know about it.”

The Mayor threw himself back in his chair and laughed heartily; then, straightening up, he said to the last spokesman:

“My boy, you have said more than did all the politicians and the teachers. You shall have the show to be Mayor. That saloon will have to quit business at once.”

The boys gave the Mayor a hearty cheer, and marched out of his office. They had conquered, and were consequently happy and triumphant.

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CHANGE RENOVATES

Police captains find that if they change every man around to a different position about once in so often, it is good for the entire force. The managers of some business offices say that a good big jar is beneficial to almost everybody, and especially for those in danger of believing that they are indispensable. It is a most remarkable boy who is not improved, on occasions, by a genuine “calling down.”—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

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Change Wrought by Time—See Time, Changes of.

Changes in China—See Chinese Progress.

CHANGES WROUGHT BY CHRIST

The geologist tells us that ages ago vast and horrible creatures filled the air and waters—fierce and hideous monsters swarmed and fought in the primeval slime; but in due time God swept away mastodon, mammoth, megatherium, and filled the world with mild and beautiful forms of life.

To-day we see moral changes wrought far more wonderful than any to which the petrifactions of the geologist witness; we see the power of Christ destroying passions far more terrible than the lizards, serpents, and crocodiles of the antediluvian world, creating graces sweeter and fairer than the choicest forms of perfected nature.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

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Channels, Choked—See Life.

CHARACTER

That a life tells more than a creed is shown in this incident told in the Young Man:

Mr. John Morley said to a Presbyterian minister who was his guest: “How was it that your Church tolerated Drummond? His views were surely not those of the Free Church.” “No,” said the minister, “but we never took him seriously as a thinker. No one believed that he would shape the theological opinions of the Church. We regarded him rather as a religious influence.” “Ah, yes,” said Mr. Morley, “you are quite right; he wasn’t a thinker.” After some talk on other matters he returned to the subject: “You said a little while ago that Drummond was a religious influence. How did he show that?” “Well,” replied the minister, “for one thing, he cleansed Edinburgh University life for several years.” “Ah,” said Mr. Morley thoughtfully, “that’s better than being a thinker.” It is never easy for the Church to drive out heretics who are not thinkers, but who purify by love the sources of spiritual life in men.

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As the light is rayed back from the flower and the wave, from the rock and the roadside, from all objects in nature and all ornaments of art, no matter from what center it emanated first, so the excellence of a character, when serenely and brightly exprest through life, attracts an immediate and instinctive response from all natures around it.—Richard S. Storrs.

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See Appearance; Trust.

Character and Evil—See Evil Germinal.

CHARACTER AND FAME

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Character and Manners—See Dual Character.

CHARACTER-BUILDING

Men might as well try to erect a skyscraper on a bog as to attempt to build a character on anything less enduring than Jesus. Every little while some one makes a new religion with Jesus omitted. These structures dot the plains of nineteen centuries. For a time they appear attractive. But, sooner or later, their tenants discover that there is something wrong with the underpinning. Happy they if they can succeed in moving out before the flimsy fabrics collapse and bury their misguided occupants beneath unseemly ruins.—Joel B. Slocum.

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See Daily Character Work.

CHARACTER CONDITIONED BY THE PHYSICAL

A news item from Toledo, Ohio, reads:

Skilled surgeons at St. Vincent’s hospital have transformed Harold Hurley, the bad boy, into Harold Hurley, the good boy.

A few days ago, Harold, aged twelve, who was slated for the Lancaster reform school, was taken to the hospital. To-day he was taken home, a changed boy, different in thought, acts, and even appearance.

Harold has been a problem to his mother and to the juvenile court officers for some time. Probation Officer Dilgart got a look at Harold recently and discovered a peculiar scar on the boy’s forehead. Inquiry developed that when five years of age Harold stumbled, and striking his head upon a stone, sustained a fracture of the skull. Gradually he became bad; but instead of being sent to Lancaster, he was removed to the hospital, where the pressure of a broken bone on his brain was removed.

After the operation the lad’s faculties gathered slowly. Dr. James Donnelly states that the pressure of the piece of bone upon the brain had gradually dulled all the higher sensibilities, and if it had gone on Harold would in time have become an utter degenerate. (Text.)

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CHARACTER, CROWN OF

That all men may attain the crown of a Godlike character is the lesson of this poem by Edwin Markham:

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CHARACTER IMPARTED

Said a young lady to her hostess: “I want to scent my lace handkerchief and I have no sachet with me.” The handkerchief was taken by the lady and placed inside a great rose-jar. “Your handkerchief will be scented in a few hours and the fragrance will never depart from it.” And it never did. The lady explained that the jar had been obtained in China and had been a rose-jar for generations. But when it came into her possession she spent a large sum of money on attar of roses to penetrate the inner glazing of the glass and her object was fulfilled. The fragrance would never depart from it and was communicated to any object placed in it for a few hours. Roman Catholic priests remark that if they can have charge of a child until he is ten years of age he will never depart from the faith. Certainly the pervasive influence of the moral atmosphere is a mighty power in determining character.

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Character Impugned—See Modesty.

Character in Pictures—See Genius, Portraying.

Character Like the Diamond—See Reflection of God.

CHARACTER MORE THAN CLOTHING

A Scotch nobleman, seeing an old gardener of his establishment with a very ragged coat, made some passing remarks on its condition. “It’s a verra guid coat,” said the honest old man. “I can not agree with you there,” said his lordship. “Ah, it’s just a verra guid coat,” persisted the old man; “it covers a contented spirit, and a body that owes no man anything, and that’s mair than mony a man can say of his coat.” (Text.)

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CHARACTER NOT PURCHASABLE

In an address, made not long before his death, Bishop Potter, of New York, said:

About a year ago there came into my study in New York some one whom I had never seen, a stranger whose name sent in upon his card I did not recognize, and whose errand I could not divine. “Sir,” he said, “I am from such and such a part of the country. In that part of the country a very fierce political campaign is now in progress. One of your clergy is attacking from the pulpit the moral character and moral standards of a gentleman, a candidate there for a very high office, whom I represent.”

I said: “I have not got any clergymen out in that part of the world. I have no more jurisdiction there than you have.” He said: “Perhaps not in the sense you mean, but it is one of your men.” “Thank God for that,” said I. “As he came from here he believes in you, and he thinks that sort of talk is his duty.” “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I want you to stop it,” said he, “and I am authorized by the distinguished gentleman whom I represent to say that if you will stop it he will make it worth your while.”

I felt like saying, “I will come high.” I got up and walked to the door. I opened it and stood there. He looked there a moment in some perplexity. I said: “Does it not occur to you, sir, that this interview is at an end.” He went out.

I mention that incident as a proof of the statement I have made here. Here was a person in a distant part of the country, a candidate for a very high position, who had not the smallest hesitation in sending an emissary to me with an intimation that if I were prepared to silence a speaker who was saying disagreeable things that money would be put to make it worth my while. I am saying that with that symptomatic you can not ignore the appalling significance of such a condition of things. (Text.)

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CHARACTER POTS

I had sometimes caught a glimpse of the small scullery-maid at my boarding-house; but one day, slipping to the kitchen for a cup of hot water, I had a queer bit of a chat with her. She was scouring granite pots with a vim and vigor which were bound to bring results, and all the while her face was as shining as her finished work.

“Do you like them, Alice?” I asked.

“No, I hate them,” she replied emphatically.

“What makes you smile so over them, then?” I asked, curiously.

“Because they’re ‘character pots,’” the child replied at once.

“What?” I inquired, thinking I had misunderstood.

“‘Character pots,’ miss. You see, I used to only half clean them. I often cried over them, but Miss Mary told me as how, if I made them real shiny, they’d help to build my character. And ever since then I’ve tried hard, miss; and, oh, it’s been so much easier since I’ve known they were ‘character pots.’”

I said a word or two of encouragement, and went on my way, knowing that I had been rubbing up against a real heroine. Everyday life is brimful of disagreeable duties. Why not turn them every one into “character pots?”—East and West.

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CHARACTER SELF-COMMENDING

It is told of Antipater, an officer in Alexander’s army and a favorite in his court, that one day Philip of Macedon, placed in a position which required special vigilance, made his appearance at a late hour in the morning, with the apology: “I have slept rather late this morning, but then I knew that Antipater was awake.” And at another time, when some person exprest surprize that Antipater did not clothe himself in a purple robe, the badge of nobility and greatness, as the other commanders and ministers of state were accustomed to do, Alexander replied: “Those men wear purple on the outside, but Antipater is purple within.”

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CHARACTER SHOWN IN THE FEET

Distinctions of character are not seen, really, in the feet themselves, but in what the owner does with them. Sometimes it is significant that their owner does not know what to do with them. He is vulgarly, defiantly self-sufficient and despises ceremony, so when he smokes a cigar he puts his feet on the mantel-piece, out of the way. Or he is a country-bumpkin, painfully self-conscious, so he stands on one foot and then on the other, and shifts them about, perplexed what to do with them, as ill-bred folks, when they sit idle and sociable, are perplexed by possessing a pair of hands. On the contrary, the fop—whose feet are clad without spot or speck, and regardless of expense—knows very well what to do with them; they are part of the exhibition which is his constant care. In general, it is a sign of vanity to thrust forward habitually a neat foot when one is at rest. A conceited man nurses a leg and admires a foot, which he twitches and twirls beneath his delighted eyes—quite unconsciously, and in a different manner from the fop; for the vain man thinks of the effect produced upon other people, but the conceited man is satisfied with himself, without any regard to the ordinary mortals who may chance to be observing him. Very different is the generous mind of the philanthropist, who thinks constantly of the rest of the world, and not of himself. There is nothing cramped about any of his ideas or of his possessions. He forgets such small matters as fashion and details of appearance. Except on state occasions, he considers neatness to be a hindrance; everything about him is large, from his benevolent schemes down to his well-worn shoes. His stand is not alert, but patient, well set on the ground; he is ready and steady; he waits to give what he can, and to do what he can, and while he thinks of weighty matters, personal details are forgotten. He may walk flat-footed in old shoes; insteps and heels are infinitely beneath his consideration, so his foot is not the type that the dancing-master believes to be the one thing necessary for a gentleman; but he has already flattened injustice under his feet, and the horror of the dancing-master shall never reach his ears.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

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Character, Springs of—See Springs of Character.

CHARACTER, SUPPORT OF

A man once purchased a vacant lot on which stood a gigantic elm-tree.

So much did he admire the elm that when he erected his house he built it around the trunk. He did not care to mutilate it or cut it down, but desired that it should constantly exhale its aroma and moisture in his drawing-room. The silence of its growth and steady expansion would be a constant source of interest to himself and to his friends. The opening in the roof was capped to shut out the insect enemies and to shut in the fragrance. When a cyclone swept over the village and the lightning flashed around, the house had shelter and protection in the tree. Other houses might fall, but not that one.

We are all builders of character. Whether that character will stand the tests of life or not depends on whether we have built Christ into our character or not. If He is in us a real and living personality, we shall never fail. (Text.)

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CHARACTER, TEST OF

You can not read a man so well during his busy hours as by what he does after supper, or from the closing hour of business to bedtime. You can not gage his character so well by the money he spends for necessaries or the living of his family as by that little overplus of money which is left after the necessary expenses are paid. What does he do with his spare money, that margin left over from business and from living expenses? What he does with that margin will throw a wonderful light upon his character.

The largest part of every active life must be devoted to getting a living, attending to one’s affairs, and this is done by most people in a routine sort of a way. You can not tell much about the real man during these hours, because he has a system, his regular daily routine, and he does very much the same thing every day. But the moment he is free, he is quite a different man. Then his real propensities come out. People are not natural until they are free from restraint.

Watch the boy and the girl when they are free from their regular duties, and see how they spend their evenings, what society they keep, what companionships they form, what they do. This will be a pretty good test of their character.—Success.

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Character that Shines—See Luminosity.

Character Unaffected by Death—See Death Does Not Change Character.

CHARACTER, UNSEEN PLACES IN

The editor of the Central Presbyterian moralizes on flowers from a back yard as follows:

A lovely flower came to us last week from the back yard of a home in the city. It was a white hyacinth, large and full, white as the driven snow, and sweetly perfumed. And it came not from the florist’s hothouse, nor from the fine plot at the front of a good home, but from the little yard at the rear. What a thing of beauty and fragrance to spring up in this homely place, common, soiled and trampled! It is a happy thought, not uncommon nowadays, to make the back yard, not often seen by other’s eyes, a place of beauty and sweetness, turning the common and the obscure into a source of pleasure and all that is wholesome and inspiring.

One may do well to look after the back yard of his own life. He has sometimes a front that all men see and admire. Toward his friends and neighbors he is careful to make a fair exhibition of good morals and courteous manner. He maintains a front with which no fault can be found. But can the rear, the small and commonplace, the every-day and out-of-sight part of character and conduct, bear the same careful inspection? Are there any fair and fragrant flowers that spring up where no man ever looks, and only God’s eye can see?

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Character Wrought by Hardship—See Saved in Service.

CHARACTERISTIC TRAITS

A look, a touch, a word is enough, not infrequently, to betray the man back of it, the unconscious being the characteristic.

Mendelssohn once revealed his masterhand as a musician to the organ-keeper in Strasburg Cathedral by the way he made the instrument speak, just as Giotto, as an artist, did to a stranger on one occasion by drawing a perfect circle at a stroke.

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Characteristics Revealing Authorship—See Recognition by One’s Work.

Characterization, Improper—See Badness in Boys.

CHARITY

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See Other Side, The.

Charity, Inadequate—See Injustice.

CHARITY, LOGIC OF

Put a Chinaman into your hospital and he will get treated. You may lie awake at night drawing up reasons for doing something different with this disgusting Chinaman—who somehow is in the world and is thrown into your care, your hospital, your thought—but the machinery of your own being is so constructed that if you take any other course with him than that which you take with your own people, your institution will instantly lose its meaning; you would not have the face to beg money for its continuance in the following year. The logic of this, which, if you like, is the logic of self-protection under the illusion of self-sacrifice, is the logic which is at the bottom of all human progress. The utility of hospitals is not to cure the sick. It is to teach mercy. The veneration for hospitals is not because they cure the sick, it is because they stand for love, and responsibility.—John Jay Chapman.

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CHARITY RESPECTED

It is reported that during the late disturbances in southern China consequent upon the French expedition to Tonquin, a small Wesleyan mission station at Fatshan was at the mercy of a riotous mob. The chapel was wrecked. The hospital for days was menaced and was hourly expected to fall, but here, for the first time, the rioters appeared to hesitate. Some of the sick were removed before their eyes; others, they knew, could not leave the building. They constantly threatened assault, but the blow never came, and amid their angry menaces the doctor was allowed to pass freely to and from the hospital. A finer touch than that which compelled a kindred feeling between this rabble and its foreign benefactors does not exist in nature. The Chinese mob probably did not include many acute controversialists in theology, but it did, as a whole, recognize the presence of that charity which is rightly regarded as the essence of religion.—London Lancet.

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Charm, A, Surrendered—See Reservation.

Chastening—See Affliction, Uses of.

Chastisement—See Discipline.

CHEER, GOOD

Eben E. Rexford writes this cheering philosophy:

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CHEER, SIGNALS OF

Sailors who navigate the seas on the South Atlantic coast are always glad when they near the harbor of Savannah, for that means that they will pass within saluting distance of the “little lighthouse girl.” This is the officially accepted title of Florence Martus, who has for the last eleven years waved a friendly signal to every craft passing between the city and the sea. It is a hobby of this young girl to greet the ships that go and wish them a safe return, and greet the ships that come and congratulate them on their voyage.

The Martus dwelling is the only habitation on Elba Island. There is no landing wharf, and visitors arrive on an average once a year. The barks, the steamers, and the various other craft never get near enough for an exchange of greetings other than that most expressive form of good will, the waving of a handkerchief by day and of a lantern by night. And as the girl sends out her welcome, the seamen who know all about her, and who would resent the elimination of the ceremony which she so popularized, send back an answering salute, three “toots” of the steam-whistle. Then Miss Martus is as happy as a belle at a debutante party.

It is her desire that no vessel shall pass the lighthouse without receiving a salute. She never overlooks a sail in the daytime, and her handkerchief is ever ready for its service of cordiality. She says it is her ambition to signal every ship that touches at Savannah. She was asked her reason for signalling the passing sea throng, and she answered that it was to cheer the crew.

This beautiful and unselfish ministry illustrates how a noble heart invents ways to scatter sunshine. The world passes us like ships on the sea. How much interest do we take in others? How far a kind word, or smile, or handshake goes to help the friendless and hopeless. It is not the great acts but the little deeds of kindness that make human beings happy. (Text.)

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“That boy,” said the foreman in the machine-shop, “will make a good workman. He always whistles at his work.” (Text.)

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Cherubim—See Love Rather than Knowledge.

Child, A, as Reconciler—See Good Will.

Child, A Little—See Soul, Your.

CHILD, FAITH OF A

The prediction that “a little child shall lead them” applies in this poem to a skeptic rather than to ravenous beasts.

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Child, Influence of a—See Pardon for a Child’s Sake.

CHILD LABOR

The National Child Labor Committee was organized in 1904. Up to that time very little had been done toward preventing the employment of children in many industries, the worst of these being the work of coal-breaking in mines and long days of labor in textile factories. A summary of the work accomplished by the committee in six years will show the gains that are being made in saving children from the too heavy burdens of labor at a tender age, under which their growth is often stunted, and their education interrupted or prevented.

Eight-hour day for children under 16 established in 10 States and District of Columbia (in many or all industries).

Hours of employment for children reduced in 13 more States.

Child labor laws passed for the first time in 6 States.

Age limit of 14 years applied to factories and stores: In 1904, 12 States; in 1910, 19 States.

Also from factories and stores the limit in 1910 extends to offices, laundries, hotels, bowling-alleys, etc.

Age limit of 16 for work in coal-mines; 1904 none. In 1910 6 States fixt limit of 16 years; 18 States at 14, and 8 States at 12.

Employment forbidden during school hours: 1904 in 14 States; 1910 in 23 States.

Night-work prohibited: 1904 in 13 States, the age limit in some being as low as 12 years. 1910: 24 States with 16-year limit, 7 States with 14-year limit, 2 States with 12-year limit, 1 State (in certain industries) with 18-year limit. New York prohibited night work in messenger service 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. to all minors.

Compulsory education: Laws for the first time in 6 States. Age limit for attendance raised in 6 (more) States.

Child-labor laws now (1910) exist in every State except Nevada. They are being steadily improved.

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See Missionaries in the Making.

CHILD, LEADING OF A

A young mother who had lost her firstborn, sat fondling its icy hands, and amid her tears said, “If ever I get to heaven, it will be these little fingers that will pull me there.” (Text.)

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Child Nature—See Animism.

CHILD RELIGION

There is a striking story of a certain missionary who was sent for on one occasion to go to a little village in an out-of-the-way corner of India to baptize and receive into church fellowship sixty or seventy adult converts from Hinduism.

At the commencement of the proceedings he had noticed a boy about fifteen years of age sitting in a back corner, looking very anxiously and listening very wistfully. He now came forward. “What, my boy? Do you want to join the Church?” “Yes, sir.” “But you are very young, and if I were to receive you into fellowship with the Church to-day, and then you were to slip aside, it would bring discredit upon this church and do great injury to the cause of Christ. I shall be coming this way again in about six months. Now you be very loyal to the Lord Jesus Christ during that time, and if when I come again at the end of the half year I find you still stedfast and true, I will baptize and receive you gladly.”

No sooner was this said than all the people rose to their feet, and, some speaking for the rest, said: “Why, sir, it is he who has taught us all that we know about Jesus Christ.”

And so it turned out to be. This was the little minister of the little church the honored instrument in the hand of God for saving all the rest for Jesus Christ.

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CHILD, SAVED BY A

Dr. George Grenfell, who did much to open up to civilization and to Christianity the hinterland of the Kongo, was traveling in the little steamer called the Peace up a great tributary of the Kongo which had never before been navigated by a white man. Suddenly the craft was stopt and surrounded by a crowd of canoes filled with natives. These were armed with spears and their attitude was hostile and malignant. Dr. Grenfell momentarily expected that some of the murderous weapons would be hurled at him. But by a happy inspiration he called to his wife who was in the cabin, “Show them the baby!” She rushed forward and held out the infant she was nursing. The savages, amazed at the sight of the first light-colored baby they had ever seen, and charmed with its smiles and its entire lack of fear, dropt their spears, smiled in their turn with delight, and at once became the sincere friends of the missionaries. Thus once again was verified the prediction, “A little child shall lead them.”

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CHILD, THE

The value and possibilities of a new-born child are thus set forth by James Oppenheim:

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See Faith, a Child’s.

Child, The, as an Educator—See Home, Foundation of the Republic.

Child Training—See Prodigy, A; Training Children.

Child’s View of God—See Anthropomorphism.

Childhood and Nature—See God in the Child Mind.

CHILDLIKE TRUST AND MATURITY

A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little, rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum. He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as older bruises.

But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish, and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the heritage of years that are ripe.—Charles H. Parkhurst.

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Children—See Cruelty to Children.

CHILDREN AND CIVIC SERVICE

Two hundred clubs of children on the New York East Side cooperate with the street-cleaning department in keeping clean streets in their respective neighborhoods. They hand prepared cards furnished by the city to every one seen throwing rubbish in the street, which read as follows:

Give your banana-peels to a horse. Horses like them. Orange-peels, peanut-shells, newspapers and other rubbish must not be thrown in the street. Keep yours and throw them in the receptacle placed at street corners for that purpose. You should sprinkle your sidewalk before sweeping. Don’t raise the dust, as it breeds disease. It is against the law to throw rubbish from the windows to the street. Don’t put paper, rags and other rubbish either in the ash-can or garbage-can.

A badge is given to each child to wear on which is inscribed the motto: “We are for clean streets.” Thus thousands of children are learning to take pride in their city.

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CHILDREN AND GARDENS

Professor Hanna, head of the Department of Natural History of the Board of Education, New York, divided an open lot into some three hundred little garden plots, took boys from the Bowery district, and girls as well. Each child spaded up its own ground, planted its seeds, pulled out the weeds, and watched the ruddy vegetables grow. A thousand questions arose to these city-born children. Given a black clod and a drop of rain-water, and a few seeds, how does the same clod make a beet red, and a carrot a golden hue? How could one clod condense the smells of a whole soap factory, into one little onion? How does a potato come to have starch in it? If one bunch of green weeds is worth ten cents for spinach, why doesn’t everybody in Wall Street go to farming? When some of the boys reached the Bowery Saturday night, the first question they asked their fathers was: “How much it would take to buy a ticket to Dakota.” Ah, Wordsworth, looking across the field, and writing, “My heart with rapture thrills and dances with the daffodils,” and Ruskin with his confession of what the fields and brooks did for his culture, throw a pathetic light on the lives of the little waifs of the tenement-house, starved for an outlook on the grass and the wave, and the shrub and the flower. Plainly the child has a right to its outlook upon the world of nature.—N. D. Hillis.

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Children and Music—See Music and Children.

Children and the Bible—See Adapting the Bible.

CHILDREN FORMING PARENTS’ CHARACTER

A friend once said to me: “So long as my children were little, I lived at peace with my faults and bad habits. Perhaps they were annoying to others, but they caused me no uneasiness. But since my children have grown up, I am ashamed to meet their eyes, for I know they judge me, observe my attitude, my manner of acting, and measure my words. Nothing escapes them; neither the little ‘white lie,’ nor my illogical reasoning; neither unjustifiable irritation, nor any of the thousand imperfections I formerly indulged in. I require now to be constantly on my guard, and what will finally happen is this, that, instead of my having trained them, my children will have formed my character.”—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

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CHILDREN, LINCOLN’S REGARD FOR

When Lincoln, on his way by train from Washington to Gettysburg, was halted at a station, a little girl was lifted up to an open window of the car, and handing a bouquet of rosebuds to him, said: “Flowers for the President!” Mr. Lincoln took the rosebuds, bent down and kissed the child, saying, “You’re a sweet little rosebud yourself. I hope your life will open into perpetual beauty and goodness.”

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Children Missionaries—See Song, Effective.

Children, Neglecting the—See Home, The Old and the New.

Children, Religious Nature of—See Animism.

CHILDREN, ROMAN CATHOLIC CARE OF

Bishop Fowler, in the Christian Advocate, describes the method by which Roman Catholic institutions in South America receive and care for foundlings:

No thoughtful man can watch the long processions of children which the sisters are teaching, and believe that Romanism is closing its career. She takes the utmost care of all the children she can obtain. In the great cities she has her foundling institutions. The arrangement for receiving foundlings is unique. It reminds one of the standard advertisements for stolen property, “No questions asked.” There is a rotary dummy in the side of the building above the sidewalk. This contrivance turns round instead of moving on pulleys. The outside is simply flush with the wall. Any one can turn it around. On the other side is a little bed. The waif is placed in this bed, the trap is turned back to its place, a bell is rung, a servant comes to the bed, takes out the waif, and no one is the wiser. The party depositing the child may be round the corner and gone in the darkness. The child is cared for, soon put to work, soon hired out, and becomes a source of income to the institution, and adds one more to the rolls of the church.

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CHILDREN SAFE

An old sexton in a cemetery took special pains with the little graves. When asked why, he said: “Sir, about those larger graves I don’t know who are the Lord’s saints, and who are not; but you know, sir, it’s different with the bairns.” (Text.)

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CHILDREN, SAVING

Judge Benjamin B. Lindsey speaks as follows of his work in dealing with juvenile delinquents:

I have often been asked how it is if I can trust a youthful burglar to go alone to a reformatory why can not I trust him to go alone to work?

The answer is that the individual is weak rather than vicious. He is strong enough to last over night, but not strong enough to last a month. He goes to the institution. He learns the trade of a carpenter or a stone-cutter—then he has some incentive in life. He gets out of the habit of being bad. When he comes out he is proud of his job, and as soon as we get him work he wants to show how well he can do it—the past is behind him forever.

This new children’s crusade started in 1900. We are now going on the theory that the law is not one-tenth of the problem. Psychology, for want of a better word, is the other nine-tenths. The solution of the problem of child delinquents lies chiefly in knowing how to get at truth, in getting loyalty to the state and to the law. Once you get a boy to go regularly to school the problem is solved. On the other hand, we do not want him to think that the court is a brute or dead easy.

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CHILDREN’S RELIGIOUS IDEAS

A CHILD’S PRAYER

Please, God, grandpa has gone to you. Take good care of him. Please always mind and shut the door, because he can’t stand drafts.

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A PRAYER TO THE DEVIL

A little child was seen to bury a piece of paper in the ground. On examination of the paper by a curious adult, it was seen to contain the following: “Dear devil, please come and take aunt. I can’t stand her much longer.”

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MEN ARE GODS

Seeing a group of workmen, a child said:

“Mama, are these gods?”

“Gods? Why?”

“Because they make houses and churches, same as God makes moons and people and ickle dogs.”

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A WRESTLE WITH OMNIPRESENCE

A girl who had been taught that God is everywhere said, one day:

“Mama, me don’t see God. I dess He’s don to take a walk.”

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GOD POSSESSES A BODY.

A child who heard the expression, “this footstool,” used in a conversation, asked the man on whose knees she sat at the time the meaning of the expression. On being told that the earth is often spoken of as “God’s footstool,” she exclaimed:

“O-h-h! what long legs!”

Another child drew a picture of Jesus and of God, making God have very long arms.

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HEAVENLY MAIL FACILITIES

A child whose grandmother had just died asked her mother if God had a street and a number. When asked why she wanted to know, she replied:

“Nothing, only I wanted to write a letter to Him to send grandma back again.”

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A COWORKER WITH GOD

A three-year-old boy was with a woman whose home was a second home to him. They were in the flower-garden. Seeing a crocus in bloom, and remembering that the previous fall he had put the bulb into the ground (as one of his age so often does things, by the help of others), he asked, “Did I make that flower grow?” When told that God sent the rain and the sunshine which made it grow, he insisted that he had had a part in the process, and finally dropt the subject by saying:

“God and I make the flowers grow.”—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, “Studies in Religious Nurture.”

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Children’s Thoughts About God—See Anthropomorphism.

CHINA AND AMERICA COMPARED

They tell a story of President Sheffield, of North China College, and a great military official, who is his friend. I met the general once during the Chinese New-year holidays. He is a large, fine-looking man, very liberal and progressive, and much interested in Western customs. One day, when calling, he was discussing these. Suddenly he drew his chair very close to Dr. Sheffield and said in a confidential whisper: “Tell me, is it true that in your country the woman and not the man is the head of the household?” Dr. Sheffield drew a little nearer and answered in the same manner: “Well, I will tell you just how it is. Sometimes it is the one, and sometimes it is the other. It just depends on who is the stronger.” “Ah!” and the general leaned back with a sigh of relief. “That is just the way it is with us.”—Frances B. Patterson, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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CHINESE PROGRESS

The Rev. Dr. J. Walter Lowrie, returning to the field after a furlough prolonged by ill-health, writes in amazement that the changes that had taken place during his absence of twenty months were greater than had taken place during the preceding twenty years of his residence in China. Of course, there is commotion. You could not expect one-third of the human race to rouse itself from the sleep of ages without having more or less disturbance in various places. But the disturbances in China to-day are signs of progress. They mean that at last China is awake. We remember that of old, the dying Francis Xavier lifted up his hands and said: “Oh, rock! rock! when wilt thou open?” For nearly a hundred years Protestantism has been hammering upon that rock. Now it has opened.—A. Judson Brown, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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CHIVALRY

The days of the Crusades are gone, but the spirit of chivalry abides to-day as then.

When Captain Moreu, of the Spanish cruiser Cristobal Colon, was in New York, he was interviewed by a reporter who, in the excess of his patriotism, put this rather indelicate question to the vanquished naval officer: “What do you think, Captain Moreu, of the chivalry of a nation whose women greet the admiral of a hostile power with kisses and flowers?” a reference to the way Admiral Cervera was lionized by American women on his way to a military prison. The bluff old captain of the Colon, who spoke English fluently, lifted his eyebrows, and, smiling indulgently, politely replied: “And what do you think of an admiral who could draw your brave Hobson from the water and kiss him in admiration of his courage? Remember, young man, chivalry is the monopoly of no nation.” (Text.)

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CHOICE

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Choice by Chance—See Devil, The, Chosen.

Choice, Everything Depends on—See Experience, Value of.

CHOICE IN PRIMITIVE ORGANISMS

Headly, in his book on “Life and Evolution,” instances our old friend, the ameba, which we have since childhood all agreed to be one of the most primitive forms of life. This microscopic creature, a unicellular morsel of protoplasm, undoubtedly has the power of choice. It exercises this power whenever it eats. Diatoms enveloped in flint are its favorite food. When an ameba comes in contact with one of these minute vegetables it swallows it through an aperture—a mouth—which it conveniently makes at whichever point an aperture is required. But when, on the other hand, the ameba comes in contact with a small grain of flint he leaves it severely alone; he does not treat it as he does the flinty envelop of the diatom.

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Choice, Right—See Way, The Right.

CHOICE UNFORESEEN

Men for high positions are not always chosen because of previous preeminence, but frequently through circumstances of situations or from expediency:

There are Presidential candidates and aspirants who have an erroneous idea of the candidacy, similar to that of many persons on the subject of wines and cigars, who consider the oldest as the best; while the real connoisseur knows perfectly well that such commodities are not permitted to exceed a certain age without losing rather than gaining in quality. Some keep their Presidential aspirations constantly before the people—as, for instance, Blaine and Sherman for several years. Others get up a drumming and fifing as soon as the year for the nomination comes on? If most of these people would poke their noses a little into the political history of this country, they would find that for a generation or more we have had no President whose reputation and “boom” was two years older than the hour of his election. When the Democrats nominated James K. Polk as their candidate, the politicians, surprized and disillusioned, inquired, “Who is James K. Polk?” The name of the Whig President, Zachary Taylor, was famous scarcely one year before the election. Pierce and Buchanan were absolutely less known than their rivals, Marcy and Cass, and before Lincoln’s nomination there was nowhere any talk about him; every one was thinking of Seward. Who, in 1862, would have prophesied that U. S. Grant would one day become General-in-chief and President of the Republic? Such an individual would have been regarded as fit subject of a lunatic asylum. Hayes owed his nomination to his hard-won victory of the year previous over the Democrat, Allen, in the gubernatorial campaign in Ohio; and no one had thought of Garfield two days before his nomination.—Der Deutsche Correspondent.

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Choices—See Modesty.

CHOIR, THE

Church choirs are often a source of trouble to a pastor. A colored minister down South takes hold of the situation thus:

De choir will now sing dat beautiful piece, “We ain’t got long to stay heah,” after which dey will consider demselves discha’ged and will file out quietly, one by one. We’se gwine to hab con’gational singin’ heahaftah in dis yere chu’ch.

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CHOKED

It is a dreadful thing to be choked. Those who have either by accident or design suffered partial strangulation tell us that it is one of the most dreadful experiences. It must, to the all-seeing eye of God, be a dreadful thing to behold so many of His children gasping for a breath of life, being choked by the evil weeds, thorns, and tares indigenous to the flesh or diligently planted there by the enemy of souls while they sleep. It is a sad thing to see the corners of a corn-field left unreaped during the harvest (because the grain growing there among the thorns is not worth reaping), afterward reaped down and bound in bundles and burned, the thorns and choked product of a good seed together. It is a sadder thing to behold the lives of not a few Christians all overgrown and choked with thorns and weeds just ripening for the fire of destruction, because they are shriveled and choked and not fit to be gathered into our Lord’s garner. (Text.)—The Independent.

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CHRIST A GUIDE TO THE FATHER

Mr. Robert E. Speer met a poor blind Christian in Korea whose only knowledge of the word of God had come through the kindnesses of his friends, when they would read, translating out of a Chinese Bible and giving chapter and verse as they read. His knowledge of the life of Christ was wonderful, and when Mr. Speer asked him what incident he liked best of all in the gospel, he said, “I like best the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John, that tells the story of the blind man to whom the Lord restored his sight.” Mr. Speer asked the man what he looked forward to most, and he replied, “I look forward most to Christ’s meeting me at the gate of heaven. I wouldn’t dare to go up to see the Father alone, a poor blind man from Korea, but I shall wait at the gate, and He will find me out just as he did that poor blind man in the ninth of John, and He will lead me up to his Father and mine.”

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CHRIST APPROVED

In London City Temple, Dr. Joseph Parker was troubled by the absence of workingmen from church, and invited hundreds to lunch there. He said: “Bring your dinner buckets, and your pipes if you want to; I want to have a good talk with you.” Stepping out in front of them, he said:

“Men, why don’t you come to church?”

A leader among them said: “The Church is not for the likes of us, the Church is for the rich, and the Church is for the prosperous. You don’t want us there; that is what is the matter with the Church.”

Dr. Parker then said, “Men, what is the matter with Jesus of Nazareth?”

Instantly a working man swung his cap and said: “He is all right.” And a thousand or more working men kept swinging their caps and saying, “He is all right, He is all right.” (Text.)

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Christ a Protector—See Protection.

CHRIST, A THERAPEUTIC

An experiment in treating neurotic patients was tried in the Massillon State Hospital, Ohio, when a picture entitled, “Christ Knocking at the Door,” a copy of Hofmann’s masterpiece, was unveiled during the religious services. The painting was life-size, on cathedral glass, and illuminated by electric lights. The hope was that by flashing the lights suddenly on the picture a beneficial therapeutic effect would be produced on the minds of the inmates of the hospital. (Text.)

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Christ as Pattern—See Following Christ.

CHRIST, DESTROYER OF SIN

Recent science has enabled us to solve enigmas of the physical universe which once seemed forever impenetrable. Cholera has been, for example, through long ages “a pestilence walking in darkness.” There was no denying the plague; it demonstrated itself in the most awful manner, but none could divine its active principle, the secret of its power. But at last the cholera-germ has been tracked out, and the fatal pest never before seen by human eyes can now be studied under a powerful microscope, large as the human hand. The immense significance of this discovery to our race who may say?

For ages sin has been preeminently the pestilence walking at noonday, and the world has stood aghast before the obscure and terrible destroyer; but the glass of revelation in the hand of Jesus Christ has shown large and vivid the fatal principle which has tainted and decimated the race.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.” (Text.)

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CHRIST, FAITH IN

The last hours of the great Archbishop Whately are a brilliant testimony to the simplicity of his faith and complete devotion to Christ.

To one who observed his sufferings and asked him if he suffered much pain, he said:

“Some time ago I should have thought it great pain, but now I am enabled to bear it.” His intellect was unclouded by illness. He could think and speak. Some one said to him, “You are dying as you have lived, great to the last.” The reply was, “I am dying as I lived, in the faith of Jesus.” Another said, “What a blessing your glorious intellect is unimpaired.” He answered, “Do not call intellect glorious; there is nothing glorious out of Christ!” Another said, “The great fortitude of your character supports you.” “No, it is not the fortitude of my character supports me, but my faith in Christ.” (Text.)

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CHRIST FOR ALL

In an Austrian city there are twelve figures of Christ, each representing a different aspect. The country folk, crossing the bridge to the city in the morning, worship them as they pass. The stockmen pray to the image of Christ the Shepherd, the artizans to Christ the Carpenter, the market-gardeners to Christ the Sower, the ailing and infirm to Christ the Physician, the fishermen to Christ the Pilot, etc. “Enlightened minds will never forget that there is but one Christ, and yet to each follower the thought of Him that is born of a special need will always be the one that makes His image in the soul.”

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Christ, Glory of—See Glory of Christ.

CHRIST, GOODNESS OF

A missionary was speaking with a Tibetan Lama about Christ. The Lama exprest himself charmed with the gospel story and then added, “Our saint Tsong K’aba was like Christ. He went about teaching and leading the people, and he was persecuted, too.” Then he added, “Even to-day it isn’t wise for a Lama to be too good!” (Text.)

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CHRIST IN THE CONGREGATION

Dr. George A. Gordon, the Boston preacher, tells of a dream that transformed his ministry:

I was in the pulpit before a great congregation, just ready to begin my sermon, when a stranger entered and passed slowly up the left aisle of the church, looking first to one side and then to the other, as tho silently asking with his eyes that some one would give him a seat. He had proceeded nearly half-way up the aisle when a gentleman stept out and offered him a place in his pew, which was quietly accepted. I remembered his face wore a peculiarly serious look, as of one who had known some great sorrow. His bearing, too, was exceedingly humble, his dress poor and plain, and from the beginning to the end of the service he gave the most respectful attention to the preacher. To myself I constantly asked, “Who can that stranger be?” And then I mentally resolved to find out by going up to him directly the service was over. But before I could reach him he had left the house. The gentleman with whom he sat, however, remained behind, and approaching him I asked, “Can you tell me who that stranger was who sat in your pew this morning?” He replied: “Why, do you not know that man? It was Jesus of Nazareth.”

One had been present in the church for an hour who could tell me all that I so longed to know; who could point out to me the imperfections of my service; who could reveal to me my real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger; who could correct the errors in our worship, to which long usage and accepted traditions may have rendered us insensible. While I had been preaching for half an hour He had been there and listening, who could have told me all this, and infinitely more, and my eyes had been holden and I knew Him not, and now He was gone. And then I awoke, for behold, it was a dream. No, it was not a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a miniature of an actual ministry. (Text.)

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CHRIST, INTIMACY WITH

“I know Jesus Christ,” said Bushnell, “better than I know any man in the city of Hartford, and if He should be walking along the street and see me, He would say, ‘There goes a friend of mine.’” (Text.)

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CHRIST INVITING MEN

In the Doré Gallery in London is the artist’s last picture, left unfinished. It is entitled, “The Vale of Tears,” and was intended to illustrate the words, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” Jesus is in the distance pointing to Himself. Over Him is a deep mist spanned by a rainbow whose light in varying degrees falls upon the multitude of faces and forms before Him, some just touched, others beaming and aglow with radiance.

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Christ, Monument to—See Peace.

CHRIST OUR PILOT

Passengers from Europe to New York know that when the steamer reaches a point fifteen miles from Sandy Hook the pilot comes on board to superintend the navigation into New York harbor. The great steamer slows down and the pilot climbs on board. If this happens in the darkness of night the passengers looking down from the deck can see a lantern on the surface of the ocean where the pilot’s boat is lying. Presently he emerges from the blackness and is soon on deck. From that moment the anxieties of the captain and the officers are at an end. So when Christ is on board our life, the government is upon His shoulders. (Text.)

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CHRIST STILL PRESENT

A common and comforting Christian belief is put into verse by Edith Hickman Duvall:

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CHRIST THE CONQUEROR

Priscilla Leonard writes this verse on Christ’s method of establishing His reign:

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CHRIST THE DOOR

This poem by Mary M. Redding, is based on an actual incident of one of Dr. George Adam Smith’s Syrian journeys:

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Outside one of the beautiful gateways of the magnificent mosque of St. Sophia, in Constantinople, there is a picture of an open Bible with this inscription: “The Lord said, I am the door; by me if any man enter in he shall be saved.” The Mohammedans left this inscription when they took the beautiful temple from the Christians; because they could see no reference in it to Jesus Christ. Everything else that suggested Christianity or the cross was obliterated. There is a twentieth-century spirit that would obliterate Jesus Christ and the necessity of His saving work. But meanwhile He, the strong Son of God, calmly waits for the world’s recognition. He has presented His proofs, and the responsibility is ours. There is no other gospel, no other road, no other Christ. For his own convenience man has invented a number of “short cuts.” But it remains as true to-day as when Jesus Himself spoke the words, that he who climbs up some other way is “a thief and a robber.”—Joel B. Slocum.