M (continued 2)

(2037)

MISERY EXCITING SYMPATHY

The subjects which especially awakened the pencil of Thomas Rowlandson were the denizens of the squalid quarters of London. Muther says of him: “The cry of misery rising from the pavement of great cities had been first heard by Rowlandson, and the pages on which he drew the poor of London are a living dance of death of the most ghastly veracity.” (Text.)

(2038)

Misfortune—See Desires Inordinate.

Misfortune, Meeting—See Nature, Enjoyment of.

MISFORTUNE, SUPERIORITY TO

The Caucasian mountaineers have this proverb: “Heroism is endurance for one moment more.” The fact is recognized that the human spirit, with its dominating force, the will, may be and ought to be superior to all bodily sensations and accidents of environment. In a recent psychological story called “My Friend Will,” Charles F. Lummis pays a striking tribute to the power of the human mind over accident and chance, when he makes his “friend Will” say: “I am bigger than anything that can happen to me; all those things—sorrow, misfortune and suffering—are outside my door. I’m in the house and I’ve got the key!” (Text.)

(2039)

Misrepresentation Rebuked—See Honesty in Business.

MISSION FRUIT

A young married woman, wife of a Mohammedan, was lying ill in one of the mission hospitals in North India. While there she was daily taught of the love and compassion of the Savior, and she soon desired to know and serve Him. Her husband was told of her wish and was exceedingly angry and had her removed immediately from the hospital. He prohibited the mission ladies from visiting her. But just before the conveyance came to take her away she called the doctor and missionary to her and said: “I can be taken away from you, but not from Christ, for I can pray to Him even behind the purdah, but I want you to remember my desire. You know Jesus well, I only know Him a little; when you meet me at the judgment seat of heaven, just go to Him and tell Him who I am and how anxious I was to publicly confess Him on earth. Make it plain to Him, please.”

(2040)

There is an old Indian legend that a poor man threw a bud of charity into Buddha’s bowl and it blossomed into a thousand flowers. So we throw the bud of Christian truth into isolated and scattered communities, into the far-off lands, and lo, it bursts forth into a thousand fragrant blossoms and bears fruit in every activity of human life.—J. A. Huntley.

(2041)

The first fruits of the gospel on mission fields are growing and ripening by the river of the water of life, day by day. No more weighty proof of the success of missions can be found than the transformation of individual character and the every-day life.

One of the Chinese brethren is a ferryman, poor in money, but rich in faith. One evening he ferried a passenger over the river, who had a lot of things tied up in a cloth. After throwing the cash for his fare into the bottom of the boat, the man departed hurriedly. The Christian went to pick up the money, and found a pair of gold bracelets, worth $400, which the man had dropt. He tied up his boat and tried to find the man, but he was lost in the crowd. The boatman went home much troubled. According to Chinese law, he could keep them if unclaimed. After prayer, he decided to go to the chapel. The preacher heard the story. Said he: “Your passenger doubtless was a robber, and these things have been stolen. I will go with you to the mandarin, and we will give the bracelets up to him. A search will be made, and the owner found.”

This was done, and the mandarin said: “Well, I have never seen or heard anything like this. Your religion must be a true religion, and your God a living God, thus to influence a poor man to give up wealth for conscience’s sake.” (Text.)

(2042)

See Transformation.

MISSION SURGERY

On many fields missionaries have found that ministry to the ills of the body has assisted in the conversion of souls. Thus in Formosa:

Dr. Mackay, a well-known medical missionary, has found it a help to his work to minister to bodily ills. He extracted twenty-one thousand teeth in twenty-one years, and thirty-nine thousand in all, and has dispensed considerable medicine. Extracting teeth is cheaper than dealing out medicine, for beyond the instrument there is no outlay. The natives have lost all faith in their old doctors.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(2043)

Mission Work—See Service with Hardship.

MISSIONARIES, MEDICAL

Africa has 135,000,000 inhabitants and 75 medical missionaries.

India has 300,000,000 inhabitants and 200 medical missionaries.

China has 350,000,000 inhabitants and 241 medical missionaries.

Japan has 42,000,000 inhabitants and 15 medical missionaries.

Turkey has 22,000,000 inhabitants and 38 medical missionaries.

Persia has 9,000,000 inhabitants and 11 medical missionaries.

Burmah has 7,500,000 inhabitants and 9 medical missionaries.

India alone contains 66,300 lunatics, 153,000 deaf and dumb, 354,000 blind and 400,000 lepers.

All missionary hospitals (Protestant) in the world can accommodate 100,000 in-patients and 2,500,000 outpatients annually.

These facts point to the need of men and means in order that the world may be Christianized.

(2044)

See Medical Missions.

MISSIONARIES’ MISTAKES

Prof. Harlan P. Beach, in an address before the Fifth International convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for foreign missions on the subject “Efficiency is limited and the kingdom is retarded by violating reasonable standards of taste or propriety,” said:

In speaking on this subject, I can show its importance, perhaps, by an incident which happened about twenty years ago near Peking. One night I heard a loud knocking at the outer gate of our compound. The gatekeeper went out and was astonished to see a dust-laden, wobegone new missionary. He had arrived at Tientsin, his station, about four days before. He found himself in a new community, where he could not get his bearings, and had come to our station to learn what to do from two of our prominent missionaries. I was glad to meet the newcomer, but I said, “Why did you arrive so late?” “Well,” he replied, “I couldn’t help it.” I looked at his cart; he had three mules attached to it tandem by a great tangle of ropes. He added: “The trouble is, I had hardly gotten started from Tientsin when this front mule, who is young, took a notion that he would desert the beaten track. He left the roadway suddenly before the carter could prevent it and made a dash straight for a china-shop. There was a terrific crash. The ropes got caught between the legs of the second mule and dragged him over into a great lot of jars which went to pieces, and even the wheel-mule, hemmed in by the vast timbers that do duty as shafts in China, yielding to the shock, crashed into the china-shop.” It took a long time to get that difficulty righted, and hence he was late.

This incident illustrates my subject in six respects: (1) Missionaries, like those mules, make many breaks; (2) they usually make them at the start; (3) the breaks are generally due to ignorance, or to wilfulness; (4) the work of missions is retarded greatly by these mistakes, just as my friend was delayed until late that night; (5) mistakes of missionaries involve their associates, as the action of this frisky front mule brought the whole outfit into disrepute; (6) what is most important of all, they bring loss to superiors. Those mules were mere animals, but there was a carter there and also my friend, who was anxious to hasten the coming of the kingdom that he took the trip at great inconvenience for that very purpose. Tho we missionaries are only rarely mules, we are all and always servants of a great Master, and are retarding His cause and bringing reproach upon His name and upon the Church of God, if we are guilty of such breaches of etiquette as are suggested by this parable.

(2045)

MISSIONARY, A, IN THE MAKING

At the age of ten, David Livingstone went to work in the cotton factory as a piecer, and after some years was promoted to be a spinner. The first half-crown he earned he gave to his mother. With part of his first week’s wages he bought a Latin text-book and studied that language with ardor in an evening class between eight and ten. He had to be in the factory at six in the morning and his work ended at eight at night. But by working at Latin until midnight he mastered Vergil and Horace by the time he was sixteen. He used to read in the factory by putting the book on the spinning-jenny so that he could catch a sentence at a time as he passed at his work. He was fond of botany and geology and zoology, and when he could get out would scour the country for specimens.—Robert E. Speer, “Servants of the King.”

(2046)

MISSIONARY, A LITTLE

“I can not afford it,” said John Hale, the rich farmer, when asked to give to the cause of missions.

Harry, his wide-awake grandson, was grieved and indignant.

“But the poor heathen,” he replied; “is it not too bad they can not have churches and schoolhouses and books?”

“What do you know about the heathen?” exclaimed the old man testily. “Do you wish me to give away my hard earnings? I tell you, I can not afford it.”

But Harry was well posted in missionary intelligence, and day after day puzzled his curly head with plans for extracting money for the noble cause from his unwilling relative. At last, seizing an opportunity when his grandfather was in a good humor over the election news, he said: “Grandfather, if you do not feel able to give money to the missionary board, will you give a potato?”

“A potato?” ejaculated Mr. Hale, looking up from his paper.

“Yes, sir; and land enough to plant it in, and what it produces for four years?”

“Oh, yes!” replied the unsuspecting grandparent, settling his glasses on his calculating nose in such a way that showed he was glad to escape on such cheap terms from the lad’s persecution.

Harry planted the potato, and it rewarded him the first year by producing nine; these, the following season, became a peck; the next, seven and a half bushels, and when the fourth harvest came, lo, the potato had increased to seventy bushels. And, when sold, the amount realized was put with a glad heart into the treasury of the Lord. Even the aged farmer exclaimed: “Why, I did not feel that donation in the least! And, Harry, I’ve been thinking that if there were a little missionary like you in every house, and each one got a potato, or something else as productive, for the cause, there would be quite a large sum gathered.”—Friend for Boys and Girls.

(2047)

MISSIONARY ACCOMPLISHMENTS

When the American missionaries came to the Sandwich Islands, they struck off the shackles from the whole race, breaking the power of the kings and chiefs. They set the common man free, elevated his wife to a position of equality with him, and gave a piece of land to each to hold forever. They set up schools and churches, and imbued the people with the spirit of the Christian religion. If they had had the power to augment the capacities of the people, they could have made them perfect; and they would have done it, no doubt.

The missionaries taught the whole nation to read and write, with facility, in the native tongue. I don’t suppose there is to-day a single uneducated person above eight years of age in the Sandwich Islands! It is the best educated country in the world, I believe. That has been all done by the American missionaries. And in a large degree it was paid for by the American Sunday-school children with their pennies. I know that I contributed.—Samuel L. Clemens.

(2048)

MISSIONARY ADAPTATION

In 1881 James Robertson left the pastorate to accept the newly created post of superintendent of home missions for Manitoba and the Northwest. He set off at once on his first missionary tour, driving two thousand miles, at first through heat and dust and rain and then through frosts and blizzards. He preached where he could, and was not to be discouraged by any situation. Once, coming to a settlement late on a Saturday evening, where the largest building was the hotel and the largest room the bar, he inquired of the hotel man:

“Is there any place where I can hold a service to-morrow?” “Service?” “Yes, a preaching service.” “Preaching? Oh, yes, I’ll get you one,” he replied with genial heartiness. Next day Mr. Robertson came into the bar, which was crowded with men. “Well, have you found a room for my service?” he inquired of his genial host. “Here you are, boss, right here. Get in behind that bar and here’s your crowd. Give it to ’em. God knows they need it.”

Mr. Robertson caught the wink intended for the boys only. Behind the bar were bottles and kegs and other implements of the trade; before it men standing up for their drinks, chaffing, laughing, swearing. The atmosphere could hardly be called congenial, but the missionary was “on to his job,” as the boys afterward admiringly said. He gave out a hymn. Some of the men took off their hats and joined in the singing, one or two whistling the accompaniment. As he was getting into his sermon one of the men, evidently the smart one of the company, broke in:

“Say, boss,” he drawled, “I like yer nerve, but I don’t believe yer talk.” “All right,” replied Mr. Robertson, “give me a chance. When I get through you can ask any questions you like. If I can I will answer them; if I can’t I’ll do my best.”

The reply appealed to the sense of fair play in the crowd. They speedily shut up their companion and told the missionary to “fire ahead,” which he did, and to such good purpose that when he had finished there was no one ready to gibe or question. After the service was closed, however, one of them observed earnestly: “I believe every word you said, sir. I haven’t heard anything like that since I was a kid, from my Sunday-school teacher. I guess I gave her a pretty hard time. But look here, can’t you send us a missionary for ourselves? We’ll chip in, won’t we, boys?”—Robert E. Speer, “Servants of the King.”

(2049)

Missionary Beginnings—See One, Winning.

MISSIONARY CALL

Friends were trying to dissuade one whose ancestors were not three generations out of cannibalism from going as a missionary to one of the savage islands of Polynesia. They recounted all the hardships and dangers to be encountered. “Are there men there?” asked the volunteer.

“Men? Yes; horrible cannibals, who will probably kill you and eat you.”

“That settles it!” was the sublime rejoinder. “That settles it! Wherever there are men, there missionaries are bound to go!”

(2050)

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE

On October 15, 1819, in the Park Street Church, Boston, a mission to the Hawaiian Islands was organized with the following members: Messrs. Bingham and Thurston, ministers; Messrs. Whitney and Ruddles, teachers; Thomas Holman, physician; Elisha Loomis, printer; Daniel Chamberlain, farmer, together with their wives, and three Hawaiian young men from the Cornwall Missionary School. These seventeen went forth to erect a Christian civilization upon pagan shores, for they represented the Church, the common school, the printing-press, the medicine-chest, and the implements of agriculture. They set sail from Boston October 23, 1819, and reached the Hawaiian coast March 31, 1820, after somewhat more than five months.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(2051)

Missionary Giving—See Crowning Christ.

Missionary Good Sense—See Diplomat, A, and Missions.

MISSIONARY LITERATURE

There came into our office the other day a man who had only recently closed a very successful missionary pastorate of several years to become the minister of a large church which was not so strongly missionary. He ignored that fact, however, and began to employ his former methods, which included the observance of the monthly concert of prayer for missions. He made out his program, based on the missionary magazine of his denomination, and as he met one after another of those whom he had assigned to help him, he gave them their parts. One of the prominent members of the church he called to his study and said to him, “I want you to read such and such an article in your magazine and give us the gist of it at the next missionary meeting.” “My magazine,” replied the man. “I haven’t—I don’t take any magazine with that article in it.” “What, don’t you take the missionary magazine? Just look at it,” said he, laying it out before him. “Oh, is that it? Never saw it before. How much is it? Thirty-five cents? I guess if you are going to have this concert business every month, I might as well subscribe for it and have my own copy. Looks pretty good, too, doesn’t it? Didn’t know missions could be drest up so well. Cover looks like one of our regular magazines.” This pastor knows how to do it. Other wise pastors will mention the best missionary books; they will see that their people know of the latest missionary literature.—F. P. Haggard, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(2052)

MISSIONARY MARTYRDOM

A convert from Islam took advantage of the Ameer’s visit to Kandahar and crossed the frontier, unbidden and uninvited, to preach Christianity in Afghanistan. He was arrested, taken before the Ameer, and sent in chains to Kabul, but was murdered before reaching there. He was named Abdul Karim, and was at one time one of the workers at Bannu. Mrs. Pennell wrote that when he was taken prisoner and refused to repeat the “Kalima,” saying he was a Christian, he was taken to Kandahar. The Ameer questioned him, and on his again refusing to repeat the “Kalima,” and saying he had come to preach the gospel, he was ordered to be flogged, put in chains, and to be taken to Kabul, where he was to await the return of the Ameer, and unless he changed his mind would get due punishment.

Heavily chained hand and foot, he set out with an escort for Kabul; that at the villages he was spat upon, and the hairs of his beard pulled out—and at length the poor, weary sufferer, at a village before reaching Kabul, was murdered. (Text.)

(2053)

Missionary Power—See God in Missions.

MISSIONARY PRAYER

The late Joseph Cook is the author of this prayer in verse for the spread and triumph of God’s kingdom:

(2054)

Missionary Preaching—See Text, Power of a.

MISSIONARY RESULTS

Charles Darwin, the scientist, described the Terra Del Fuegans as the most degraded specimens of humanity he had ever seen. He considered them beyond the reach of civilization. The missionaries carried the gospel to them, and Darwin, seeing the change wrought, said with great frankness and willing publicity, “Truly the missionary’s message is a magician’s wand.”

(2055)

Rev. Egerton R. Young, a missionary among the Indians of Canada, tells of an obdurate old man whose heart had been touched by the missionary whose ministrations had brought his child back to health:

He attended an open-air meeting standing at first a quarter of a mile off. At the next meeting he drew a bit nearer, then nearer still. Six weeks later he was among the circle kneeling at the foot of the cross, making his confession. “Missionary,” he said, “I was a fool, but now I have got the moss out of my ears, and the sand out of my eyes, and I see clearly, and I hear all right. I am so glad I came.”

Was it not of such scenes as these that the prophet was thinking when he wrote, “The eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopt.” (Text.)

(2056)

See Evil Turned to Good.

MISSIONARY SACRIFICE

San Quala was one of the first converts among the degraded Karens. From the lowest state the gospel raised him, with a rapidity that no civilization ever knew, to a noble Christian manhood. His first impulse was to tell others of Jesus. He helped to translate the Bible into the Karen tongue, for fifteen years guided the missionaries through the jungles, and then himself began to preach and to plant new churches. In one year he had formed nine, with 741 converts; in less than three years the nine had grown to thirty, with 2,000 converts. He did his work without salary, and when the English Government offered him a position, with large compensation, he at once declined, tho his poverty was such as prevented him from taking his wife with him in his missionary tours.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(2057)

See Sacrifice for Religion.

Missionary’s Gallant Action—See Courage, Christian.

Missionary’s Liberation—See Intervention, Divine.

MISSIONARY TESTIMONY

Mr. Darwin was not regarded as a Christian, but he had the greatest respect for good in Christianity, and was candid enough to acknowledge it. This is the way in which he answered some shallow critics of foreign missionaries:

They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars where the conquerors spared neither women nor children—that all these things have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. For a voyager to forget these things is a base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far.

(2058)

F. A. McKenzie, the well-known foreign correspondent of the London Mail, says, in the London Christian World:

A stranger stopt me, one day. “I can not understand,” said he, “why you, a newspaper man, should advocate missionary work; it is not your business. Why do you meddle with it?”

“I do so because I am a Christian imperialist,” I replied. “The white man’s civilization is the best the world has seen, and the white man’s civilization is rooted in Christianity. I know that every missionary is an active campaigner, not merely for a new theology, but also for a new life, based on the foundation-stone of our civilization—the cross. I want the white man’s ideas to triumph not for the glory of the whites, but for the betterment of woman-life and child-life throughout the world.”

(2059)

Missionary Work—See Song, Effective.

Missionary Work Admired by Atheist—See Atheist’s Gift to Missions.

MISSIONARY WORK AT HOME

Whitefield found himself in the presence of what seemed an urgent and overwhelming call to preach. Here were the Kingswood miners, a community ignorant, vicious, forgotten, who, beyond all others, needed the care and teaching of the Christian Church, and yet were left completely outside, not merely of its agencies, but even of its very remembrance. When Whitefield was setting out for America some wise and keen-sighted friend said to him, “If you have a mind to convert Indians, there are colliers enough in Kingswood.”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

(2060)

MISSIONARY WORK, VALUE OF

Belle M. Brain tells the following in her book, “The Transformation of Hawaii”:

A visitor to the Hawaiian Islands a few years ago said to King Kamehameha V: “Really now, don’t you think things are in a worse condition than before the advent of the missionaries?”

“I leave you to judge,” answered the king. “Since you have come into my presence you have broken the ancient law of tabu in three ways. You walked into my presence instead of crawling, you crossed my shadow, you are even now sitting before me. In the old days any one of these things would have cost you your life.”

(2061)

MISSIONARY ZEAL

If all Christians had the willing zeal of these poor South Sea islanders, the world would soon be converted to Christ:

On one occasion Mr. Williams explained the manner in which English Christians raised money to send the gospel to the heathen, and the natives of Raralonga exprest great regret at not having money that they might help in the same good work of causing the Word of God to grow. Mr. Williams replied: “If you have no money, you have something that takes the place of money; something to buy money with”; he then referred to the pigs that he had brought to the island on his first visit, and which had so increased that every family possest them; and he suggested that, if every family in the island would set apart a pig for causing the Word of God to grow, and, when the ships came, would sell the pigs for money, a large offering might be raised. The natives were delighted with the idea, and the next morning the squeaking of the pigs, which were receiving the “mark of the Lord” in their ears, was heard from one end of the settlement to the other.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(2062)

See Courage, Christian.

MISSIONS

Carlyle, in his life of Cromwell, says that he ranks the foreign missionary and his convert with the greatest heroes in history. It is in his story of Kapiolani. These Christian teachers in the South Seas brought the queen to faith in God, and to the new ideas of home, school, government and social progress. But the people still worshiped the gods whose home was in the crater, whose column of fire was on the sky. So the missionary and the queen told the people that they would dare the native god. They made their way to the foot of the mountain. The people shrieked, wept, implored, but these two walked bravely on. They stood on the edge of the crater, breathing the sulfurous gases. The queen hurled stones into the abyss and shouted her threats and denials. When they came down, in safety, superstition was dead. Carlyle says that a Christian missionary slew a cult in that hour, and that the event will always rank in history with Elijah at Baal and the Christian convert who cut down the sacred oak of Thor for Germany. But foreign missions have produced scores of heroes and heroines like these. The history of missions is a sky that is ablaze with light that will shine forever and forever.—N. D. Hillis.

(2063)

See Advice to Missionaries.

Atheist’s Gift to Missions.

Barbarism.

Bible Fruit.

Bible, Testimony to.

Calls and Conveyances in the East.

Catholic Foreign Missions.

Child Religion, Changes Wrought by.

Christianity, Practical Proof of.

Confessions.

Conversion.

Christian Honesty.

Cruel Greed.

Cruelty, Chinese.

Death-bed Faith.

Deceit with God.

Demonology.

Diplomat, A, and Missions.

Embellishment of Preaching.

Enlightenment.

Expectorating.

Faith and Support.

False Inference.

Fidelity, Christian.

Following Christ.

Functions and Gifts in the East.

Gestures and Use of Hands in the East.

Harvest from Early Sowing.

Heathen Receptiveness.

Heathendom.

Husband and Wife, Relations Between.

Ignorance.

Ignorance, Palliations of.

Impression by Practise.

Inadequacy of Non-Christian Religions.

India, Medical Opportunities in.

Intelligence Outdoing Ignorance.

Investment Return.

Knowledge Comparative.

Living the Gospel.

Medical Missions.

Miracles, Evidential Value of.

Persistence in Missionaries.

Prayer for Common Needs.

Proof.

Propriety.

Propriety, Observing the Rules of.

Rapport.

Religions Contrasted.

Religious Infractions of Propriety.

Rescue.

Reservation.

Reward, Thousandfold.

Sabbath, Observing the.

Sacrifice.

Shut-in Missionary Work.

Song, Effective.

Speech and Missionaries.

Statesman on Missions.

Surgery in Korea.

Tabooed Topics in the East.

Testimony Indisputable.

Way, The Right.

MISSIONS A SUCCESS

The Christian Century says there are yet a few intellectual provincials that scoff at the missionary enterprise, but their ignorance is so coming to shame them that their dolorous and caustic voices are not often heard. No one but a moral agnostic, a medieval race-hater, or a dogmatic religious quack could be cynical about an enterprise that shows such amazing success as does the missionary propaganda. Here are some figures that show the growth of thirteen years:

1895. 1909.

Total amount given $13,470,318 $24,613,075

Given by native churches 1,458,464 4,859,605

(Not included in above.)

Number of missionaries 11,033 21,834

Number of native workers 49,566 92,272

Number of stations 18,545 43,934

Number of actual church-members 1,030,776 2,097,963

Number of adherents 2,770,240 4,866,661

Number of accessions to church in year 62,256 135,141

Number of schools 19,384 29,190

Number of pupils 860,287 1,413,995

The grand total of receipts for the great cause is seen to be a total of nearly $30,000,000, and the number of workers employed to be more than 114,000. In each case the numbers have about doubled in the thirteen years, while the number of stations has increased in a like proportion. The total of actual communicants in the churches has more than doubled, while that of the adherents has fallen but little below the same rate of increase. As the missions grow older and the life of the communities about them is elevated, the number of church-members will advance in an increasing ratio over that of adherents. The total number now in the Christian communities in the foreign field reaches practically 7,000,000.

(2064)

MISSIONS AND COMMERCE

Commenting on the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Dr. N. D. Hillis says:

What if the American News Company should send a shipload of books to Borneo? The people can not read. What if they send a shipload of typewriters to western Africa? The people can not write. What if you send a cargo of sewing-machines to the Hottentots? Well, they do not wear clothes. Wealth comes through selling manufactured goods. But savages do not want these conveniences. Now, think of what this American Board has done. Once they sent out a band to civilize a South Sea island. In the band were six carpenters, two blacksmiths, two bricklayers, one architect, two tailors, two shoemakers, two weavers, two farmers, one physician, four preachers. In forty years after they landed, one ship a week unloaded its cargo at that port—that tells the whole story. Since then the trade from New England ports alone has yielded enough profit to merchants in a single year to pay for the entire missionary enterprise.

(2065)

MISSIONS APPROVED

Jacob A. Riis says that he once “growled against foreign missions, like many others who know no better.” He writes that now he has learned that “for every dollar you give away to convert the heathen abroad, God gives you ten dollars’ worth of purpose to deal with your heathen at home.”

(2066)

MISSIONS AS SOCIAL SAFEGUARDS

The influence of a Christian mission in safeguarding a community is set forth in the following:

“During the great dock strike September, 1889, which shook London to its center, the strikers—gaunt, grim and desperate—were marching en masse past the mission premises, when a socialistic leader, who stood watching, turned to Mr. George Holland (a notable promoter of London missionary work), and said, ‘Do you know what keeps these men from sacking London?’ ‘What do you mean?’ was the reply. ‘Only this, it is the influence of such missions of mercy as yours.’ All thoughtful, observant men know that this witness is true.”

(2067)

Missions, Medical—See Renewal.

MISSIONS, REASONS FOR

In the Peninsular war, for every Frenchman killed there was sent out by England the weight of a man in lead and eight times his weight in iron, not to speak of the cost in blood and treasure. In the Indian wars in this country it has sometimes cost on the average a million dollars to kill an Indian, while an average expenditure of $200 was spent in converting them. There is no lack of money nor means to compass the evangelization of the world within the present century if there were but the spirit of enterprise to dare and undertake for our Redeemer. Talleyrand boasted that he “kept his watch ten minutes ahead of the rest of mankind.” The Christian Church should surpass rather than be surpast by others in her enterprise. The time will come when disciples will look back to this age of missions with as much surprize as we now look back to those days when a learned prelate in the House of Lords, and a defender of orthodoxy too, could calmly argue against sending missionaries to the Orient! or as we contemplate with amazement speeches against the suppression of the slave-trade that have no interest to us except as fossils and petrifactions of an antediluvian era!—A. T. Pierson, Missionary Review of the World.

(2068)

MISSIONS, SUCCESSFUL

In the course of his cruising in the South Seas, Lord Byron (a cousin of the poet), landed on an island of which he thought he was the discoverer. Suddenly a canoe appeared. Instead of containing armed savages, its occupants were two noble-looking men, clothed in cotton shirts and very fine mats. They boarded the ship and presented a document from a missionary stating that they were native teachers employed in preaching the gospel to the people of the island. Lord Byron then went ashore. In the center of a wide lawn stood a spacious chapel, and neat native cottages peeped through the foliage of banana trees. On entering a cottage, he found on a table a portion of the New Testament in the native language.

This story of Lord Byron’s surprize visit was told at an overflow meeting in Exeter Hall at the anniversary of the Bible Society in 1836. When the speaker had concluded, a stranger arose and introduced himself to the audience as the missionary who had discovered the island, had made Christianity known to its people, and had translated the very portion of the Scripture which Lord Byron had found. It was John Williams, the heroic missionary of the London Missionary Society, whose noble work had drawn those savages from cannibalism and idolatry to the worship of the true God.

(2069)

MISSIONS, TESTIMONY TO

Edgar Wallace, the war correspondent of the London Daily Mail, writes in the highest terms of what he saw of the Kongo Balolo missions. He said in part:

“No battle I have ever witnessed, no prowess of arms, no exhibition of splendid courage in the face of overwhelming odds, has inspired me as has the work of these outposts of Christianity. People who talk glibly of work in the mission field are apt to associate that work merely with house-to-house visitations and devotional services and the distribution of charity. In reality it means all these things plus the building of the houses one visits, building of the church for the devotional services, and the inculcation in the native of a spirit of manliness which renders charity superfluous.

Somebody told me there was difficulty in getting men and women for the missionary work in Kongoland. Speaking frankly as a man of the world, I do not wonder. I would not be a missionary in the Kongo for five thousand pounds a year. That is a worldly point of view, and it is not a high standpoint. It is a simple confession that I prefer the “flesh-pots of Egypt” to the self-sacrifice that the missionary life claims. Yet were I a good Christian, and were I a missionary hesitating in my choice of a field, I would say, with Desdemona, “I do perceive here a divine duty.”

(2070)

A singular tribute to missions was that exprest to me by the editor of a North China newspaper: “Broadly speaking, it is a fact that the only white man who is in China for China’s good is the missionary. It never occurs to the average business man here that he has any obligation to the Chinese. Yet only on that ground can he justify his presence.”—William T. Ellis, Men and Missions.

(2071)

Mistaken Spiritual Judgment—See Illusion, Spiritual.

MISTAKEN VIEW OF CAUSE

In winter, when millions of city dwellers breathe the air of ill-ventilated dwelling-houses, lung infections are more frequent than in midsummer, when ventilation is enforced by the horrors of stagnant heat. But the coincidence of frosts and catarrhs has decided the bias of the popular hypothesis, and in sixteen different European languages the word cold has become a synonym of an infection which the absolutely conclusive evidence of physiological facts proves to be a result of vitiated warm indoor air, and to be curable by cold outdoor air. In other words, the best remedy has been mistaken for the cause, and as a consequence catarrhs are considerably more frequent than all the other disorders of the human organism taken together.—Felix Oswald, North American Review.

(2072)

In October, when the first night-frosts expurgate the atmosphere of our Southern swamps, ague and yellow fever subside with a suddenness which would certainly have suggested the idea of curing climatic diseases by artificial refrigeration, if cold had not somehow become the hygienic bugbear of the Caucasian race. Gout, rheumatism, indigestion, toothaches and all sorts of pulmonary disorders are ascribed to the influence of a low temperature, with persistent disregard of the fact that the outdoor laborers of the highest latitudes are the halest representatives of our species. “Catching cold” is the stereotyped explanation for the consequences of our manifold sins against the health laws of nature; but the secret of the delusion can be traced to the curious mistakes which logicians used to sum up under the head of “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy—the tendency of the human mind to mistake an incidental concomitance for a causal connection. Woodpeckers pick insects from the trunks of dead trees, and the logic of concomitance infers that the decay of the tree has been caused by the visits of the birds, which in our Southern States are known as “sap-suckers.” Young frogs emerge from their hiding-places when a long drought is broken by a brisk rain, and the coincidence of the two phenomena has not failed to evolve the theory of a frog-shower.—Felix Oswald, North American Review.

(2073)

Mistakes of Missionaries—See Missionaries’ Mistakes.

MISUSE OF TALENT

The life of Swift is a living tragedy. He had the power of gaining wealth, like the hero of the Jew of Malta; yet he used it scornfully, and in sad irony left what remained to him of a large property to found a hospital for lunatics. By hard work he won enormous literary power, and used it to satirize our common humanity. He wrested political power from the hands of the Tories, and used it to insult the very men who had helped him, and who held his fate in their hands. By his dominant personality he exercised a curious power over women, and used it brutally to make them feel their inferiority. Being loved supremely by two good women, he brought sorrow and death to both, and endless misery to himself. So his power brought always tragedy in its wake.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

(2074)

Mnemonics, An Exercise in—See Memory.

Mobility—See Movement Unceasing.

Model, The Mouth as a—See Nature as a Model.

MODELS

At the University of Glasgow stands a statue of James Watt; and by his side is the original model of a steam-engine, the identical engine, indeed, on which Watt exercised his inventive genius and the pattern substantially of every steam-engine in the world.

There is just as truly a model for every man in the world. (Text.)

(2075)

Models in Nature—See Insect, a Model.

Moderation in Diet—See Diet and Endurance.

MODERN LIFE

Except his own immortal poem and a few suggestions of the art and architecture of his time, there is nothing on this continent that Homer, resurrected and transported here, would recognize as belonging to the world in which he lived. The steamships, railways, telegraphs, telephones, electric motors, printing-machines, factories, and, indeed, all that we use, all that we enjoy, on land or sea, in peace or war, in our homes, in our places of business, on our farms, in our mines, or wherever we toil or rest—all, all is new, all belongs to the new world. The inventions of recent years have so changed the world that the man of thirty is older than Methuselah—older in that he has seen more, experienced more than the oldest of all the ancients.—Inventive Age.

(2076)

MODERNITY

Many a moral failure has resulted from not keeping up with God’s moral progress, just as this mechanic failed through not keeping up with the new inventions:

The very great changes that have been wrought in machine-shop equipment during the past few years have hit many of the older mechanics pretty hard. A good deal of significance is contained in the remark of one such man: “I have had to learn over my trade three times and I’m too old to learn it again.” He had been given a difficult job to do on a modern engine-lathe containing the latest useful mechanisms for saving labor and procuring accurate work, and because he did not understand the tool he failed in his efforts until a younger machinist came to his assistance. (Text.)

(2077)

MODESTY

Colonel Nicholas Smith, in “Grant, the Man of Mystery,” gives us the following side-light upon Grant’s character:

During a strenuous campaign, the opposition resorted to every means to discredit him and made the most virulent attacks upon his personal character. Grant remained silent and took no part in the campaign. He retired to his little home in Galena, received his friends, drove and walked about the streets, took tea and chatted in the most familiar way with his neighbors, and seemed totally unconscious of the fact that he was the central figure in one of the great political struggles of the century.

(2078)

Of Grant’s demeanor after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, Colonel Smith says:

The little man, in the dress of a private soldier, who commanded the armies which brought about this glorious consummation, was not among those who joined in the demonstration of joy. When he reached his camp that night he was none other than the real Grant—modest, quiet, regardless of the greatness of the occasion. General Horace Porter, who was with him at the time, says Grant had little to say about the surrender.

(2079)

A group of church-members, on a tour, were delayed at a railway station. One of them, after looking at a locomotive engine, asked his friends what part of the engine they would choose to be if it represented the Church. One replied, “I would be the brake, for that is often needed for safety.” Another said, “I would prefer to be the whistle, calling people’s attention to the fact that ‘the King’s business requireth haste.’” “And I would like to be the boiler, for that is an essential part of the engine.” “What would you like to be, brother?” said one to a quiet man who had not replied. “Oh,” said he, “I think I am only fit to be the coal, ready to be consumed so long as the engine moves.”

(2080)

A story is told among the friends of Gen. Samuel S. Sumner, U.S.A., retired, who was until recently the commanding officer of the Pacific Division.

General Sumner, after the San Francisco earthquake, went to San Rafael. There he was informed by one of the guiding spirits of the village that he must aid in patrolling and guarding against fire and unruly refugees. Something in General Sumner’s bearing evidently imprest the man, for after a moment’s thought he said: “I think I’ll make you a second lieutenant.” “Thank you,” answered General Sumner. “I don’t think any rank ever conferred upon me ever pleased me more unless it was when I was made a major-general in the regular army.” (Text.)

(2081)

The grace of modesty seems sometimes rare and its exhibition is always pleasing. An instance of modest reticence is given in this concerning a well-known author:

They had met in Brooklyn at a little evening party—the young man and an older one—and were coming back to Manhattan together. The young man inquired the elder’s vocation in life, and the elder replied that he had practised law for eighteen years.

“And, later,” he added, “I have done a little writing.”

“Ever get anything published?” asked the young man.

“Yes, a few things,” replied the elder.

“Write under your own name?”

“Yes.”

“By the way, I don’t believe I quite caught your name.”

“Thomas Nelson Page,” replied the other quietly.

(2082)

See Humility of a Scientist.

Mohammedans and the Bible—See Bible, Grip of the.

Molding Children—See Religious Training; Training Children.

Molding Men—See Tenderness of God.

MOMENTUM

The obstacles in a man’s way are determined by the gait he is going. An old negro driving a mule down the street three miles an hour has to get out of the way for everything, but when the chief of the fire department comes down the street a mile a minute everything roosts on the sidewalk and gives him the right of way.—Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.

(2083)

Many men fail to overcome sharp temptation because they have not by long previous habits acquired the momentum of right thought and right action. We can not fly unless we have learned to walk and to run.

“Any one who has ever watched a heavy bird rise from the ground,” says the American Inventor, “has doubtless noticed that it runs along the ground for a few feet before it rises; the bird must acquire some momentum before its wings can lift its heavy body into the air. The natives in certain parts of the Andes understand this fact very well and by means of it catch the great Andean vultures, the condors. A small space is shut in with a high fence and left open at the top. Then a lamb or a piece of carrion is placed on the ground inside. Presently a vulture sees the bait and swoops down upon it; but when once he finds he has alighted on the ground inside he can not get out, for he has no running space in which to acquire the momentum that is necessary before his wings can lift him.”

(2084)

Money and Precedence—See Medical Missions.

Money, Discreditable Use of—See Vulgarity in the Rich.

MONEY, EARNING

Mr. Lincoln earned his first dollar by taking two men and their trunks to a Mississippi steamer which waited for them in midstream.

“I was about eighteen years of age,” he said, “and belonged, as you know, to what they call down South the ‘scrubs.’ I was very glad to have the chance of earning something, and supposed each of the men would give me a couple of bits. I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on board, and I lifted the trunks and put them on the deck. The steamer was about to put on steam again, when I called out, ‘You have forgotten to pay me.’ Each of them took from his pocket a silver half-dollar and threw it on the bottom of my boat.

“You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.”—James Morgan, “Abraham Lincoln, The Boy and the Man.”

(2085)

Money-getting, a Game—See Game of Greed.

MONEY, GREED FOR

The individual man thinks in the beginning, “If I could only make myself worth a hundred thousand dollars, I should be willing to retire from business.” Not a bit of it. A hundred thousand dollars is only an index of five hundred thousand; and when he has come to five hundred thousand he is like Moses—and very unlike him—standing on the top of the mountain and looking over the promised land, and he says to himself, “A million! a million!” and a million draws another million, until at last he has more than he can use, more than is useful to him, and he won’t give it away—not till after his death.—Henry Ward Beecher.

(2086)

MONEY, IGNORANCE OF.

A sick-nurse in a Vienna hospital administered by nuns was observed burning up a bunch of paper money which she had found in the bed of a deceased patient.

She thought the bank-notes were rubbish, and it took the authority of the mother superior to convince her that the rubbish represented a small fortune.

Subsequently it turned out that the sister, who had lived in the nunnery since her third year, never went outside, and had nothing to do with the administration or with worldly things whatsoever, had never heard of the existence or use of money in any shape or form.—Boston Post.

(2088)

MONEY, HOW WE SPEND OUR

The diagram below is designed to show how much the people of the United States spend every year for the drink traffic as contrasted with church work, education and the leading standard articles of food, clothing and shelter.

The cost of liquors and tobacco is based upon the Internal Revenue reports for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1908. The other expenses are estimated for the year 1909 from the reports of the Secretary of Agriculture, the census of manufacturers for 1905, the report of the Commissioner of Education and other Government and census figures.—“American Prohibition Yearbook.”

(2087)

MONEY NO TEMPTATION

A certain Parson Scott was sent to Goldsmith to induce him to write in favor of the administration. “I found him,” says Scott, “in a miserable set of chambers in the temple. I told him of my authority; I told him that I was empowered to pay most liberally for his exertions, and, would you believe it, he was so absurd as to say, ‘I can earn as much as will supply my wants without writing for any party; the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary to me.’ And so,” said the reverend plenipotentiary, with unstinted contempt, “I left him in his garret.” What Goldsmith’s exact earnings were at this time, it would be interesting to know: what sum it was that he found sufficient for his wants; but we know that this offer came at the close of twelve years’ desperate struggle for bread, during which his first work had brought him little profit, and “The Vicar of Wakefield” had been sold for £60 to pay his landlady.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(2089)

MONEY POWER IN CANADA

I wrote to a friend of mine in Toronto for some figures. I shall leave out the hundred thousands.

In 1881 the population of Canada was between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000; in 1901 it was 5,372,000; in 1908 it was 6,940,000; and in 1909, between 7,000,000 and 7,500,000. Now, then, what are their bank deposits? In 1880, thirty years ago, they were $96,000,000; in 1884, $131,000,000; in 1890, 176,000,000; in 1900, $358,000,000; in 1908, $593,000,000; in 1909, $917,000,000; showing an increase of almost 63 per cent. in one year.

What was the value of the farm products of the Dominion last year? $532,000,000, an increase of one hundred million in one year. They have the largest continuous wheat-field in the world. One field nine hundred miles by three hundred miles. I am talking about money, and this is Canadian money, with a population of between seven and seven and a half millions; and they have deposits of $917,000,000 in the bank.

We all know the phenomenal growth that Canada has had and is destined to have. When I asked, “What are the resources of Canada?” my friend replied, “I don’t know, Marling, but they are beyond the dreams of avarice.” Then I got this telegram from him to back it up:

“According to the census of 1901, the capital invested in Canada was $2,356,000,000 and the value of the products $992,200,000.”—Alfred E. Marling, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.

(2090)

MONEY POWER IN THE UNITED STATES

Do you know how many people there were in the country in 1880, thirty years ago? There were fifty millions. Do you know what the wealth was then estimated to be? $43,000,000,000. Ten years afterward, in 1890, there were 62,000,000 persons living in this country; that is a growth of 24 per cent. in ten years. But the growth of the wealth in those ten years was from $43,000,000,000 to $65,000,000,000, which is a growth of 51 per cent. in that decade. Population grows 21 per cent.; wealth grows 51 per cent. In 1900 there were 76,000,000 people; a growth of 22 per cent. in ten years. The growth in wealth was $88,000,000,000, or 35 per cent. in those same ten years. In 1904, the year of our last census, the population was 82,000,000, showing an increase of 8 per cent.; and the growth in wealth was $107,000,000,000. That is 21 per cent. in wealth in four years, while the population was growing only 8 per cent.

The estimated average daily savings in the United States between 1900 and 1904 over and above all consumption, was thirteen millions of dollars.

In 1900, the savings-bank deposits in the United States were $2,300,000,000; and in 1908, eight years later, they were $3,400,000,000, an increase of 47 per cent.

I have it on the authority of the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce of New York that the banking power of the United States is practically 40 per cent. of the banking power of the world. And this I read in a commercial review a few days ago: “The bank deposits of the United States amount to more than double the whole world’s known supply of gold. They are about equal to the whole volume of money in the world, counting gold, legal tender, currency, etc. They are greater in value than the world’s total amount of gold and silver since the discovery of America, and they would be sufficient to pay more than one-third of the entire debt of fifty leading nations of the world.”—Alfred E. Marling.—“Student Volunteer Movement,” 1910.

(2091)

Money Safe With Men of Principle—See Principle.

MONEY, TAINTED

Dr. Watkinson tells us that some years ago two scientists of Vienna made a series of bacteriological experiments on a number of bank-notes which had been in circulation for some time. The result of their researches was sufficiently startling. On each bank-note they discovered the presence of 19,000 microbes of disease—some of tuberculosis, some of diphtheria, and some of erysipelas. More than that, they found one bacillus peculiar to the bank-note—the bank-note microbe, so to speak, because it is found nowhere else. It thrives and fattens and multiplies on the peculiar paper of which a bank-note is made. Is there not a parable here?

If every evil use that is made of money were to leave its mark on the coin or bill, how great would be the moral infection thus recorded.

(2092)

Money Transmitting Disease—See Contamination.

MONOTONY

Before each of a row of machines in a certain Pittsburg shop, as described in Charities, sits a girl. Each girl picks up a bolt with her left hand, takes it from the left with her right hand, feeds it point downward into the machine. When she has done this 16,000 times, she will have earned ninety-six cents. Unless she or the machine breaks down, such is her ten-hour day.

In these machine-made days, it is not the monotony of such a task which is most impressive. The girl of the 16,000 motions attracts and holds the attention.

With motions fewer in number but infinitely greater in variety, the day’s work of a family is done. The house-worker is not tied to a machine. She stands up to her tasks one moment and sits down the next. She may think of other things, and to-morrow will be in its duties and performances a little different from to-day.

The house-worker gets tired. Is it really the same grinding, breaking weariness as that of the girl who sits before the machine and makes 16,000 identical motions in a ten-hour day?

(2093)

Monstrous Treatment—See Cruel Greed.

Monument—See Love, Filial.

Monument of Christ—See Peace.

MONUMENTS, MEANING OF

A great monument is erected not because the man to whom it is dedicated needs it, nor because it will alleviate the bodily ailments of other human beings. It is erected in honor of the great ideas which the man represented. It is built for the future as much as for the past; even more for the future. It is raised above the earth as a lofty sign which will teach coming generations a great lesson in a way that books never can. The American sculptor, Greenough, who designed the Bunker Hill monument, wrote: “The obelisk has a singular aptitude in its form and character to call attention to a spot memorable in history. It says but one word, but it speaks loud. It says, ‘Here!’ That is enough. It claims the notice of every one. No matter how careless, how skeptical or illiterate the passer-by may be, he can not escape the appeal of a monument.”—New York Star.

(2094)

Moods and Apparel—See Dress Affecting Moods.

MOODS DETERMINING DESIRES

An unidentified writer points out how different moods affect our minds:

(2095)

MOODS OF THE SPIRIT

Pantheism, atheism, agnosticism, materialism, pessimism—how many ugly, dangerous words there are in the dictionary, and how many young men imagine that they have all these spiritual diseases when, as a matter of fact, they are only in the way of normal spiritual development. A man comes to say of certain things that are mysterious, of which he thought he knew, “I don’t know.” Then he labels himself or allows himself to be labeled an “Agnostic.” No religious life for him. Another man sees that the great God can not stand apart from His universe, but must be working in it and through it all. He labels himself “Pantheist,” or is so labeled. Another man suddenly discovers the abyss of actual wo in the world, the evil that, for the present at least, is without remedy. He is called a “Pessimist.” Another man looks to the right hand and to the left hand, and for the time he sees not God. The final word for him is “Atheist.” Now, we can not have a free expression of what people from time to time are actually believing until we get over our fear of all such names. We must have a faith that is wholesome enough and large enough to keep us from being afraid of our own thought. The fact is, that we are continually mistaking the passing moods of the spirit for the finalities of thought. These moods through which we pass have been familiar to the most profoundly religious minds.—Samuel M. Crothers.

(2096)

MOORINGS, SAFE

Before the era of steam, men used to tow their boats wearily up the lower Ohio, or the Mississippi, with a long line. At night it was not always safe for them to fasten their boats on the bank while they slept, because there was danger from the wash of the underflowing current that they would find themselves drifting and pulling a tree after them. Therefore, they sought out well-planted, solid, enduring trees, and tied to them, and the phrase became popular, “That man will do to tie to.”

(2097)

Moral Contagion—See Retort, Personal.

Moral Decay—See Corruption, Inner.

Moral Meaning of the World—See Faith in a Moral Universe.

Moral Pervasiveness—See Character Imparted.

MORAL SATISFACTION

Mr. Robert E. Speer says:

When I was in the city of Tokyo, I went to the house of a missionary to meet half a dozen of the leading native Christian men of Japan. They were thoughtful, well-read, thoroughly educated, keen students. There was scarcely a school of Christian thought with which they were not familiar. I asked them what it was in Christianity that had most appealed to them. I supposed, of course, they would answer that they were glad of their faith because it had thrown light on the dark, perplexing problems of life which Buddhism and Shintoism were unable to solve. Instead, every one said that what they valued most in Christianity was the moral rest that they had found there. The intellectual satisfaction was little compared with the sweet voice that was now sounding in their hearts, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

(2098)

Morality, Sum Total of—See Love and Law.

Morally Weak, Financially Strong—See Drink, Peril of.

Morning—See Dawn of Christian Light.

Mortal Pomp—See Glory Faded.

MORTALITY RESISTED

The Christian would naturally call the attention of persons like those mentioned in the extract to Jesus’ words, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”:

A fantastic organization is described in The British Medical Journal. It is a league against illness and death, which has been formed, so we are assured, in the State of Iowa. Says the paper named above:

“Already several hundreds of persons have joined. A condition of membership is that every one on admission must sign a pledge that he or she will continually assert that it is nothing but custom and habit of thought that causes people to be sick, grow old, or die. Any member who is reported sick from any disease and is confined to his bed for a continuous period of three days is to be fined for the first offense; for a second offense he is to be suspended from membership; a third offense entails expulsion from the society.” (Text.)

(2099)

MOSAIC OF THE KINGDOM

Bishop Simpson gives this illustration of the composition of Christ’s completed kingdom:

In some of the great halls of Europe may be seen pictures not painted with the brush, but mosaics, which are made up of small pieces of stone, glass, or other material. The artist takes these little pieces, and, polishing and arranging them, he forms them into the grand and beautiful picture. Each individual part of the picture may be a little worthless piece of glass or marble or shell; but with each in its place, the whole constitutes the masterpiece of art. So I think it will be with humanity in the hands of the great artist. God is picking up the little worthless pieces of stone and brass, that might be trodden under foot unnoticed, and is making of them His great masterpiece.

(2100)

Moslem Life—See Persia, The Moslem Situation in.

MOTHER

So long as young men and maidens honor and love their parents there is hope and success awaiting them. We do not know the author of these lines:

(2101)

Hester I. Radford, in The Atlantic Monthly, writes the following:

(2102)

MOTHER, A BRAVE

From his mother Ben Jonson received certain strong characteristics, and by a single short reference in Jonson’s works we are led to see the kind of woman she was. It is while Jonson is telling Drummond (who wrote the records of his life) of the occasion when he was thrown into prison, because some passages in the comedy of “Eastward Ho!” gave offense to King James, and he was in danger of a horrible death, after having his ears and nose cut off. He tells us how, after his pardon, he was banqueting with his friends, when his “old mother” came in and showed a paper full of “lusty strong poison,” which she intended to mix with his drink just before the execution. And to show that she “was no churl,” she intended first to drink of the poison herself. The incident is all the more suggestive from the fact that Chapman and Marston, one his friend and the other his enemy, were first cast into prison as the authors of “Eastward Ho!” and rough Ben Jonson at once declared that he too had had a small hand in the writing and went to join them in prison.—William J. Long, English Literature.

(2103)

Mother, A Heart Broken—See Juvenile Court Experience.

Mother, A Reminder of—See Reminders.

Mother Caution—See Reasoning Power in Animals.

MOTHER INSTINCT

A cow’s melancholy over the loss of her calf led to a strange incident at the home of Josiah Brown, near Mount Carmel.

Brown owned a cow with a spotted calf which was so peculiarly marked that some time ago, when it was killed for veal, the skin was made into a rug. The mother cow was downcast and bellowed continually.

Mrs. Brown went into her front parlor, and there on the floor lay the cow, placidly licking the calfskin rug. It is supposed the cow approached the house and by chance saw the calfskin through the window, then quietly pushed the doors open and walked in. One barred door had been forced open by the cow’s horns.—Boston Journal.

(2104)

MOTHER LOVE

Not long ago a woman fifty years old went to a teacher in School No. 2, and with tears in her eyes, begged permission to sit down with the little ones five to six years old, that she might learn to read and write. She explained that she had two boys in the West, and desired to learn her letters that she might be able to communicate with them. Her daughter had done this for her, but three years ago the daughter died, and now the hungry-hearted mother was willing to make any sacrifice to keep in touch with her sons. So she entered school without telling any one, even her husband. Four weeks from the day she entered she was able to read through the primer, first reader, and almost through the second. Now she can write so any one can easily read every word. She learns ten new words at home every day, and always knows her lesson perfectly. She has learned to begin and end a letter, and it will not be long before she can write a love-letter—a genuine mother love-letter—to her boys. Through the goodness of my friend, I have in my possession a yellow sheet of paper containing one of her writing exercises. Reading between the lines, there is something inexpressibly touching about it. The words are such as may be found in the copy-book of any schoolboy, but the mother, with her hard hands and tender heart, as she copied the words imagined herself writing a letter to one of her sons. After writing her address and the date, this imaginary epistle, brimming with a real love, reads: “My dear son Hugh:

Surely there is no ordinary clay in this vessel! She may not be able to understand the plan of her soul’s divine Potter, but a brave trust and a high hope reside at the center of her being.—F. F. Shannon.

(2105)

One calm, bright, sweet, sunshiny day an angel stole out of heaven and came down to this old world, and roamed field and forest, city and hamlet; and just as the sun went down he plumed his wings and said: “Now my visit is out, and I must go back to the world of light, but before I go I must gather some mementos of my visit here”; and he looked over into a beautiful flower-garden and said, “How lovely and fragrant these flowers are,” and he plucked the rarest roses, and made a bouquet, and said, “I see nothing more beautiful and fragrant than these; I will take them with me.” But he looked a little farther and there saw a little bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked babe, smiling into its mother’s face, and he said, “Oh, that baby’s smile is prettier than this bouquet; I will take that, too.” Then he looked just beyond the cradle, and there was a mother’s love pouring out like the gush of a river, toward the cradle and the baby, and he said, “Oh, that mother’s love is the prettiest thing I have seen on earth; I will carry that, too!” With the three treasures he winged his way to the pearly gates, and lit just on the outside, and said, “Before I go in I will examine my mementos,” and he looked at the flowers and they had withered; he looked at the baby’s smile and it had faded away; he looked at the mother’s love and there it was in all its pristine beauty and fragrance. He threw aside the withered flowers and the faded smile and winged his way through the gates and led all the hosts of heaven together and said, “Here is the only thing I found on earth that would keep its fragrance all the way to heaven—a mother’s love.”—“Popular Lectures of Sam P. Jones.”

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See Artifice; Prodigal, The; Wayward, Seeking the.

MOTHER LOVE IN BIRDS

The loon, or great northern diver, is reported to have displayed her mother love and anxiety to a sportsman fishing in Sebago Lake in Maine: He surprized the mother with one young one near his canoe. She was employing every artifice to call the little one away, but the infant swam so near the boat that the fisherman took him aboard in his landing-net, and, holding him on his knee, gently stroked his downy coat, to the evident satisfaction of the youngster. Meanwhile the mother was in an agony of distress. At first, forgetting her native wildness and timidity in her mother love, she boldly approached the canoe, and, rising in the water till she appeared to stand upon it, furiously flapped her wings, uttering menacing cries. Finding this of no avail, she pretended that she was wounded, rolling over in the water and finally lying still as if dead, evidently to attract attention to herself and away from the young one. The fisherman, touched by these displays of motherly affection, put the young loon into the water, upon which the mother instantly came to life and again tried to entice her little one to go with her. (Text.)—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

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MOTHER, MEMORY OF

Lamar Fontaine, looking back after a long life of adventure, writes thus of a parting with his mother:

Those long-ago days now rise before me in all their vividness. As I pen these lines, nearing the seventy-seventh milestone in life’s rugged pathway, I feel the loving kiss yet burning on my lips where she prest it as she bade me “good-by.” There are some things in our life that time does not efface, and this is one of them. They are like the brand of red-hot iron that sears the tender hide of the bleating calf; once burned in, it lasts as long as life. I can see the last wave of her hand as she watched us move off across the prairie, and the picture is branded in my brain.—“My Life and My Lectures.”

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MOTHER, PRAYER OF A

John Wesley might well be expected to become, as he did, the great religious leader of his day with such a mother behind him.

“His mother, with the finer prescience that love gives to a mother, saw in her second son the hint of some great, unguessed future, and she writes in her diary under the head of ‘Evening, May 17, 1717, Son John:

“‘What shall I render to the Lord for all His mercies? I would offer myself and all that Thou hast given me; and I would resolve—oh, give me grace to do it!—that the residue of my life shall be all devoted to Thy service. And I do intend to be more particularly careful with the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever I have been; that I may instil into his mind the principles of true religion and virtue. Lord give me grace to do it sincerely and prudently.’”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

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Mothers as Protectors—See Father Animals Unparental.

MOTHER’S INFLUENCE, A

Grant’s love for his family was one of the strongest and most attractive traits of his character. He never failed to appreciate the worth of his mother’s love, patience and wisdom during his early years at Georgetown. When she died in 1883, at Jersey City Heights, New Jersey, the General, when at the funeral, said to Dr. Howard Henderson, her pastor: “In the remarks which you make, speak of her only as a pure-minded, simple-hearted, earnest, Methodist Christian. Make no reference to me; she gained nothing by any position I have filled or honors that may have been paid me. I owe all this and all I am to her earnest, modest and sincere piety.”—Nicholas Smith, “Grant, the Man of Mystery.”

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In a letter written by Grover Cleveland on the eve of his election to the governorship of New York State, he stated to his brother:

“I have just voted, and I sit here in the office alone. If mother were alive I should be writing to her, and I feel as if it were time for me to write to some one who will believe what I write.... I shall have no idea of reelection or of any high political preferment in my head, but be very thankful and happy if I serve one term as the people’s governor. Do you know that if mother were alive I should feel so much safer. I have always thought her prayers had much to do with my successes. I shall expect you to help me in that way.”

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See Truthfulness Rewarded.

MOTHERS NOT IN FICTION

A sick youth was lying in bed, watching with quiet eyes his mother’s form moving gently about the room where for weeks she had been ministering to him with tenderest heart and hands. There had been stillness there for a little while, when the boy spoke: “I wonder why there are no mothers in fiction.” “Why, there are, dear; there must be,” the mother answered quickly, but when she tried to name one, she found that none came at the call. When she related me the little incident, I too immediately said that our memory must be strangely at fault that it did not furnish us with examples in plenty. Maternal love! Why, art was filled with illustrations of it, and so was literature. And yet, on making search, I too have failed to find the typical mother where it seems she would so easily be found.—Atlantic Monthly.

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Mother, The, and the Lambs—See Father’s Voice.

Mother Wisdom—See Wealth and Work.

MOTHERHOOD

We can understand how Tennyson was preserved from the fatality of recklessness, how it is he wore the white flower of a blameless life, and ruled himself with chivalrous regard for womanhood, when we study his mother’s face. What such a woman must have been in the home, and what sort of home it must have been where she moved like a ministering spirit, we can readily imagine.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Poetry.”

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Alexander the Great never wore any garments save those made by his mother. These beautiful robes he showed to the Persian princes who came to visit his court as marks of the skill of Olympia, who was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a sovereign and the mother of a conqueror.

Every child does not have mother-made garments; but is it not true that every child is mother-made? And does he not more than continue the succession of her royal soul?

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MOTHERHOOD, DIVINE

I remember going one day into a great church in Paris and seeing, round back of the altar, in a little chapel sacred to the Virgin Mary and above a little altar in the little chapel, a bas relief. It represented the figure of a woman with a babe in her arms standing on the world; and under her feet, crusht and bleeding, was a serpent. It is only a woman with a babe in her arms that is going to crush the serpent after all.—Hugh Birkhead.

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MOTHERHOOD IN ANIMALS

Louis Albert Banks tells of a man who killed a she bear and brought her young cubs home to train up as pets:

When they got to camp the motherless pets were put in a box and given something to eat; but eat they would not and yelp they would, making a distressing noise. He took a switch and whipt them, but they only cried the louder. At first every one was sorry for them; but by and by, as the crying was continued, everybody began to scold on account of the noise. He thought that on account of the noise they made he would have to kill them. At length, however, he brought the mother-bearskin, and covering this over something, he put it in a corner of the box. The men stept back so that they could see without being seen, and pretty soon each little cub had smelled the motherskin and had nestled up close to it as contented as could be, and soon they were sound asleep. (Text.)

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MOTION, CHANGE BY

The effect of rotation in changing the shape of plastic bodies can readily be shown in simple experiments. A light metal ring is mounted on a vertical axis about which it can be rotated with great rapidity. When the ring is at rest it is circular in shape, but when it is rotated it becomes flattened along the axis, bulging out at what we may call the equator. The faster the ring is rotated the greater and greater becomes its departure from circular shape.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

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Motion Desired—See Home, Choice of a.

MOTION WITHOUT PROGRESS

There’s one kind of an engine that’s always a nuisance to me, and that’s these little switching-engines down by the station. They run up and down side-tracks, shoving cars; and that’s all they do from week to week and from month to month. They’re always getting in the way of wagons and scaring horses. But when I see a grand locomotive start to the seacoast cities, there is music in her whistle. There is something which says she’s determined to land her passengers at their destination on time. There are a great many of us Christians just switching backward and forward on side-tracks.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”

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Motive, A Pure—See Pride in One’s Task.

MOTIVE, MERCENARY

Portrait-painting was the deliberate choice of Sir Godfrey Kneller because it was profitable. It was said of him: “Where he offered one picture to fame, he sacrificed twenty to lucre.” He said of himself: “Painters of history make the dead live, and do not begin to live themselves till they are dead; I paint the living and they enable me to live.” And in this he succeeded, for he painted ten sovereigns, and among other celebrities, Marlborough, Newton and Dryden. He was rewarded, too, by poems written in his honor by Pope, Addison, Steele and others. King William got him to paint the beauties of Hampton Court. (Text.)

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Mountain, The—See Viewpoint, The.

Mourning—See Bible Customs To-day.

Movement—See Slowness.

MOVEMENT UNCEASING

There is nothing absolutely stable in the universe. From the ultimate eon to the largest world in space everything is moving. If we believe in progress we shall say that everything is moving on. If anything should actually stop it would be instantly destroyed. If a man could go to the top of a high tower, or a mountain, and there could come to absolute rest, the atmosphere of our earth, light as it seems, but traveling about nineteen miles in a second, would by its friction probably reduce him in a second to a patch of flame and dissipate him as a fiery gas in every direction.

So, if in our life progress we should try to stop and live in a dead past, or turn back to old conditions, the world’s rush of progress would leave us behind, or its frictions would wear our spirits out.

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Moving Pictures in Churches—See Churches and the Crowd.

Much in Little—See Miniature Work; Economy.

Much in Little Space—See Useless Labor.

Multiformity of Life—See Individuality.

MULTIPLE CONSCIOUSNESS

Newspaper readers have been furnished with the details of the case of the Rev. Ansel Bourne, which may be briefly recalled. Some years ago a stranger arrived in Norristown, Pa., rented a store, stocked it, and began business in a quiet, business-like way which attracted no attention and aroused no suspicion as to any mental difficulty. Some two months later one of his neighbors was startled by a call from the newcomer, who, in a bewildered way, demanded to know where he was, and after a time explained that he was a Rhode Island clergyman, could not account for his presence in Norristown, knew nothing of any of his actions while there, and could only recall that he had drawn some money from a bank in his native place two months before, after which his life was a blank. And yet, during the entire period his actions had been apparently rational, altho certainly in nowise suggestive of the clerical profession—rather the reverse. For two months he had been the sharp, shrewd business man during business hours, and a genial and by no means straight-laced companion after his store was closed. These instances of “multiplex personality” have been recognized by alienists since the time of the historic cases of Louis V and Felida X. In one state the patient is cheerful, frank, generous; in another, morose, taciturn, miserly; now belligerent and then the most peaceable of mortals; by turns mendacious and truthful, the soul of honor, and the most depraved of wretches, reveling in immorality, and leading the life of an ascetic. That the different states are due to changes in the psychical activity of different portions of the brain is now the accepted theory, borne out by experiment. This activity may be set up, modified, perverted, or totally arrested by disease; but it may also be caused by the influence of one will over another, as in the familiar illustrations of hypnotism. A few years ago Dr. Hammond hypnotized a young man before the New York Medico-Legal Society, causing him to commit imaginary thefts, assaults, etc., and the phenomena are now the common property of the medical lecture-room.—Chicago News.

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MUSIC

When Gainsborough was asked how he had obtained the marvelous expression of inward peace on the face of the “Parish Clerk,” he said he painted it in time and tune with the sweet singing of a voice next door, the movements of the brush forming the beautiful face, and that it was the music that looked out from the eyes and smiled on the mouth.—“Stories of the English Artists.”

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During the Civil War a Union regiment was camping in a Southern town, and the people stubbornly refused to fraternize with the men. Houses and shops were closed to them, and the citizens kept inside. The commanding officer ordered his band to strike up “Dixie.” Instantly, as if by magic, doors opened, shutters came down, and soon the street was alive with men, women and children—all merry and hospitable.

The music had unlocked their hearts.

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MUSIC AND CHILDREN

Music, especially singing, has a fascination and power over children that is truly wonderful. It soothes and subdues their passions and awakens every noble emotion. The school day is always brighter and better if it is begun with a stirring song. If the children are tired and nervous or ill-tempered, a song will quiet them as oil upon a troubled sea. “Music,” says Luther, “is the art of the prophets, the only art which can calm the agitation of the soul.” Its moral and religious power has long been recognized by the Church, but the school is just beginning to realize its value.—John W. Carr, “Journal of the Religious Education Association,” 1903.

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Music and History—See History and Music Correlated.

MUSIC AND SPIDERS

While a gentleman was watching some spiders it occurred to him to try what effect a tuning-fork would have on the insects. He suspected that they would regard the sound just as they were in the habit of regarding the sound made by a fly. And sure enough they did. He selected a large, ugly spider that had been feasting on flies for two months. The spider was at one edge of its web. Sounding the fork, he touched a thread at the other side of the web and watched the result. Mr. Spider had the buzzing sound conveyed to him over his telephone wires, but how was he to know on which particular wire the sound was traveling? He ran to the center of the web very quickly, and felt all around until he touched the thread against the other end of which the fork was sounding; and taking another thread along, just as a man would take an extra piece of rope, he ran out to the fork and sprang upon it. Then he retreated a little way and looked at the fork. He was puzzled. He had expected to find a buzzing fly. He got on the fork again and danced with delight. He had caught the sound of the fly and it was music to him. It is said that spiders are so fond of music that they will stop their spinning to listen, and a man once said that when he retired to his room for quiet before dinner and played the flute, large spiders would come onto the table and remain quite still, “running away as fast as their legs could carry them” directly he had finished—Electrical Review.

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MUSIC AS A THERAPEUTIC

Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” says:

Besides the excellent power music hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself. In proof of the truth of the foregoing, many well-authenticated instances may be cited. Among them may be mentioned the case of King Philip of Spain, who, when suffering from hopeless melancholia, was restored to health by the singing of Farinelli in an adjoining chamber, after every other remedy had proved futile.—Boston Musical Herald.

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Music has a vast future before it. We are only now beginning to find out some of its uses. It has been the toy of the rich; it has often been a source of mere degradation to both rich and poor; it has been treated as mere jingle and noise—supplying a rhythm for the dance, a kind of Terpsichorean tomtom—or serving to start a Bacchanalian chorus, the chief feature of which has certainly not been the music. And yet those who have their eyes and ears open may read in these primitive uses, while they run, the hints of music’s future destiny as a vast civilizer, recreator, health-giver, work-inspirer, and purifier of man’s life. The horse knows what he owes to his bells. The factory girls have been instinctively forced into singing, finding in it a solace and assistance in work. And for music, the health-giver, what an untrodden field is there! Have we never known an invalid to forget pain and weariness under the stimulus of music? Have you never seen a pale cheek flush up, a dull eye sparkle, an alertness and vigor take possession of the whole frame, and animation succeed to apathy? What does all this mean? It means a truth that we have not fully grasped, a truth pregnant with vast results to body and mind. It means that music attacks the nervous system directly, reaches and rouses where physic and change of air can neither reach nor rouse.—H. R. Haweis, “My Musical Memories.”

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MUSIC AS A TRANSFORMING POWER

No one denies the influence of music for good. A teacher told me of a boy, an incorrigible little fellow, who was almost entirely cured of his bad traits by a violet song.

He sang the violet song at home, on the street, on the playground, and in school. He loved and believed it; and its tender thought had helped him to become a noble young man.—Elizabeth Casterton, “Journal of the National Educational Association,” 1905.

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MUSIC AS AN ANESTHETIC

A physician of Geneva, in Switzerland, has successfully employed music to soothe and tranquillize the dreams of persons who have taken ether or chloroform in order to undergo surgical operations.

The music is begun as soon as the anesthetic begins to take effect, and is continued until the patient awakes. It is said that not only does this treatment prevent the hysterical effects sometimes witnessed, but that the patient, on recovering, feels no nausea or illness.

Another physician uses blue light to produce anesthesia. The light from a sixteen-candle-power electric lamp, furnished with a blue bulb, is concentrated upon the patient’s eyes, but the head and the lamp are enveloped in a blue veil, to shut out extraneous light. Insensibility is produced in two or three minutes.—Harper’s Weekly.

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MUSIC, CHARM OF

A bewitching way to win a mate is to charm her by music. This is the fashion of our little house-wren, who arrives first in the nesting region, selects a site for the home, and then draws a mate out of the vast unknown by his charm of voice. No one could do it better, for he is a delightful, tireless singer.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

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MUSIC ELEVATING

R. H. Haweis says:

I have known the oratorio of the Messiah draw the lowest dregs of Whitechapel into a church to hear it, and during the performance sobs have broken forth from the silent and attentive throng. Will any one say that for these people to have their feelings for once put through such a noble and long-sustained exercise as that could be otherwise than beneficial? If such performances of both sacred and secular music were more frequent, we should have less drunkenness, less wife-beating, less spending of summer gains, less pauperism in the winter.

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Music from Pain—See Suffering Transformed.

MUSIC, GOD’S

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MUSIC, GOOD CHEER IN

It is related of James Nasmyth that the rhythmic sound of a merry little steam-engine introduced into his machine-shop so quickened the strokes of every hammer, chisel and file in his workmen’s hands that it nearly doubled the output of work for the same wages.

A master tailor employed a number of workmen, who, getting hold of a slow, doleful but catchy air, hummed it to the movement of their needles, much to the retarding of their work. Observing the secret, he treated the men to lively airs, having a merry swing and a rapid movement, and soon the deft and nimble fingers reverted to their accustomed quickness.

There is science as well as philosophy in singing over our tasks.

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MUSIC IN THE SOUL

The orchestra does not make music; it is only an instrument for conveying music from one spirit to other spirits. The orchestra no more makes the music which it conveys than the telegraph wire makes the message which it conveys. Music is not a volume of sound; it is an experience which sound transmits from one soul to another soul. The composer creates in himself the symphony. He translates this creation into symbolic language upon a sheet of paper. The orchestra translates this translation into chords. These chords received through the ear awaken in the hearer an experience similar to that which was in the soul of the original composer.—Lyman Abbott, The Outlook.

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See Soul Music.

MUSIC OF DESPAIR AND OF HOPE

On the occasion of the funeral service of King Edward VII, William Maxwell, in the Record and Mail, of Glasgow, writes as follows concerning the pipes and song:

No music can express the abandonment of grief like the pipes, for none is so individual. Its notes are the tradition of centuries of wild freedom, and are bound by no ordinary system. No music is so personal, for the pipes are the retainers of the clans.

They, too, wear the tartan, and voice the feelings of their clan—its joy and grief, its triumph and despair; and none is more national, for it embodies the soul of a people, its strength and its passions.

They are famous ballads to which the music of sorrow has been wedded. For there are two national ballads known as “The Flowers of the Forest,” and both are written by women. The first version was written by Jane Elliot, of Minto, and bewails at Flodden Field—