E

Early Conditions in America—See Poverty, Early, of United States.

EARLY HABITS TELL

The tree will not only lie as it falls, but it will also fall as it leans; that is, we shall go after what we are inclined to—is not that so?—which makes it all in all to us what the bent of our mind is.

Twenty years ago there were two boys in my Sabbath-school class, bright, lively fellows, who interested me very much; only one of them made me sometimes feel anxious. I often found him out evenings in company with young rowdies. When I asked him how it happened, he used to say he was only out on an errand; the boys spoke to him, and he could not help speaking, he was sure. Perhaps that was so, still it made me uneasy. I once said to his mother: “Is not Willie out of nights too much?” “Willie out nights! Oh, no; Willie does not go out nights.”

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The other boy, whose name was Arthur, I never met among the rowdies. His evenings, I am sure, were spent at home. I always found him studying his lessons, or reading with his sisters, or amusing himself at home.

That was twenty years ago. Both boys had begun to show which way they were leaning, and how their tastes inclined them. Twenty years will show it plainer.

The other day I heard of Willie. Somebody met him in Chicago.

“What is he?” I asked.

“A good-for-nothing, certainly, if not worse,” was the answer; “a shabby, idle, drinking fellow, whom nobody wants to employ.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear it—sorry, but not surprized. I wonder where Arthur is!”

“Arthur! Why, didn’t you know, he has just been taken into partnership with that old firm with which he served his time? They could not spare him, so they had to take him in.”

“Good!” I said. “It is just what I should have expected. He learned right.”—Young Folks.

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EARLY PROMISE

Two of the most celebrated historic rivers are the Abana and Pharpar. These streams begin their course under the most promising auspices. Their source is in Lebanon. The Abana, now called the Barada, is the pride and joy of the plain below. It forces its way from the declivity where it has its cradle through a rocky barrier and spreads out fan-like in seven streams over the plain. “Everything lives whither the river cometh.” A meadow, in which the whole Oriental world exults, holds in its lap Damascus, the most beautiful garden city in the world. Its many minarets and domes tower up above the countless bowers in the courts of the old houses. Abana still as ever sustains this fruitfulness and splendor. But only a few miles from its source its waters are exhausted, for the desert swallows it, and the Pharpar also. Both die, forming great swamps and evaporating.

So it is with many human beings whose lives are for a few years efficient and full of promise and even performance, only very soon to flag and fade and to fall into utter desuetude. (Text.)

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See Great Men’s Beginnings.

EARLY RELIGION

The Bible was once compared to a great tree, with its books as branches, its chapters as twigs, and the verses as leaves. A minister, addressing a Sunday-school gathering, announced his text as “on the 39th branch, the 3d twig, and the 17th leaf.” He said to his great audience, “Try to find my text.” A little lad who was in the pulpit, owing to the crowded state of the church, answered “Malachi, third chapter, and seventeenth verse.” The minister said, “Right, my boy; take my place and read it out.” It so happened the boy’s brother had died recently, and the sight of the little curly-headed lad, only eleven years old, with his little black gloves reading in silvery tones, “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels,” brought tears to many eyes. The minister laid his hand on the boy and said, “Well done; I hope one day you will be a minister.” The lad was Henry Drummond, afterward the loved teacher of thousands in America and Great Britain. (Text.)

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See Religion, Early.

EARNESTNESS

Professor Ticknor, speaking in one of his letters of the intense excitement with which he listened to Webster’s Plymouth address, says:

Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, to which his manner gave tenfold force. When I came out, I was almost afraid to come near him. It seemed to me that he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire.

The lips of the prophet of old were touched by the live coal. No great thing is ever done without earnestness. (Text.)

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When Patrick Henry concluded his well-known speech in March, 1775, in behalf of American independence, “no murmur of applause followed,” says his biographer. “The effect was too deep.” After the trance of a moment, several members of the assembly started from their seats. The cry, “To arms!” seemed to quiver on every lip, and glance from every eye. What was the secret of his power? The spirit of freedom so completely filled him that it overflowed into all other lives with which he came in contact.

Every Christian is given a message that makes for eternal freedom. With what earnestness ought we to advocate this much greater cause. (Text.)

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EARTH, CRY OF

M. Guyau, in his “Sketch of Morality,” relates a dream that he had. He felt himself soaring in heaven, far above the earth, and heard a weary sound ascending as of torrents amid mountain silence and solitude. He could distinguish human voices—sobs mingled with thanksgiving, and groans interrupted by benedictions; all melting into one heartrending symphony. The sky seemed darkened. To one with him he asked, “Do you hear that?” The angel answered, “These are the prayers of men, ascending from the earth to God.” Beginning to cry like a child, the dreamer exclaimed, “What tears I should shed were I that God!” Guyau adds: “I loosened the hand of the angel, and let myself fall down again to the earth, thinking there remained in me too much humanity to make it possible for me to live in heaven.”

It is that earth-cry that brings God down to help the needy.

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EARTH INCREASING

Accumulations of surface-matter are astonishingly rapid. Professor Newton estimates that 400,000,000 meteors fall to the earth annually. These add enormous quantities of matter to the earth, but do not, of course, account for all surface growth and changes. Modern London is built on the site of Roman London, but the ancient city is seventeen feet lower than the modern. The Jerusalem streets that Jesus walked through are twenty feet lower down than the streets of Jerusalem of to-day. One of the most interesting resorts in that city, in the time of Christ, was the pool of Bethsaida. Recently work being done by the Algerian monks has laid bare a large tank cut in the solid rock thirty feet deep.—Public Opinion.

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EARTH SOIL FOR HEAVENLY FLOWERS

The poor women in the tenements of the Whitechapel road in London had a contest, and the flowers that took the prizes were grown in pots that hung out in the alleys of the worst section in London; all the roses and the jonquils being victorious over soot and grime. And heaven is an exhibition where souls will receive recognition and reward for their victories, the flowers of faith and prayer and hope that bloom resplendent midst unfriendly conditions. For time’s sweetest flowers are rooted in earth, even while they borrow their bloom from heaven.—N. D. Hillis.

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EARTHEN VESSEL, THE

The author of this poem is unidentified:

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Earthly Treasures—See Treasures Laid Up.

EARTHQUAKES, SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT

Some Chinese attribute the latest earthquake shocks to the water-dragon of Canton, whose anger has been raised by the reclamation works. Coolies are dumping daily boatloads of sand and stone on the poor dragon’s back, and the beast naturally feels hurt.

It appears, however, that the real causes of the earthquakes were the Macao crabs! Here is the story:

Close by the hot springs in the neighborhood of Macao stands a small village wherein lives an old woman who has the misfortune to be the mother of an unworthy young man whose sole occupation is fishing. A few days previous to the first earthquake shock experienced in Macao the young man returned home with a couple of crabs and a few small fish.

Nothing extraordinary was noticed at first, but when the crabs had been boiled, one of them presented a peculiar appearance, as on the red background of its shell stood in bold relief a design in white which resembled a Chinese character.

Neighbors were called, and the wise man of the village soon explained that it was the king of the crabs that had found its way into the old woman’s kettle.

Thereupon the village prophet predicted that some great calamity would visit the unfortunate village.

Meanwhile the crabs of Macao and the neighborhood, having learned the fate of their king, assembled in great numbers, filling up every available hole, and started to shake the earth. Thus was their displeasure at the death of the king crab clearly shown.

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East, The, Amazed at Western Achievements—See Incredulity.

EASTER

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Eastern Customs—See Expectorating; Gestures and Uses of the Hands in the East; Tabooed Topics in the East.

Eating, a Guide in—See Affluence, The Principle of.

EATING AND CHARACTER

Gluttony tends to cynicism. Coarseness and extravagance of speech and manners go hand in hand with dietetic excesses, as, for cognate reasons, the repulsiveness of voracious animals is generally aggravated by a want of cleanliness. Among the natives of the arctic regions, where climatic causes make gluttony a pandemic vice, personal cleanliness is an almost unknown virtue, and Kane’s anecdotes of polar household habits depict a degree of squalor that would appal a gorilla.

Habitual abstemiousness, on the other hand, is the concomitant of modesty, thrift, self-control, and evenness of temper, and is compatible with heroic perseverance, tho hardly with great energy of vital vigor. The dietetic self-denials of Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman of the sixteenth century, enabled him to outlive the third generation of his epicurean relatives. During the latter decades of his long life he boasts of having enjoyed a peace of mind unattainable by other means. Within the bounds of reason, occasional fasts are by no means incompatible with intellectual vigor, tho they are chiefly apt to stimulate the activity of abstruse speculations. There are intellectual voluptuaries whose enjoyment of mental triumphs in controversy or cogitation seem, for the time being, actually to deaden their craving for material food. Isaac Newton, on the track of a cosmic secret, would send back plate after plate of untasted meals. Percy Shelley, in the words of his sprightly biographer, indignantly refused to alloy the nectar of poetic inspiration with a “boarding-house soup,” and in his creative moods rarely answered a dinner call without a sigh of regret. Benedict Spinoza, amid the parchment piles of his bachelor den, would fast for days in the ecstacy of his “Gott trunken”—“God-intoxicated”—meditations. Intermittent denutrition undoubtedly tends to clear off the cobwebs of the brain. (Text.)—Felix Oswald, Open Court.

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ECCENTRICITY

The Youth’s Companion tells this incident about the peculiar moods of Turner, the artist, in the matter of selling his pictures:

At times nothing could induce him to part with one of them, and at other times he would receive a customer with the greatest affability of voice and manner, and readily settle upon the sum to be paid for one of his treasures.

On one occasion, when he was offered one thousand pounds apiece for some old sketchbooks, he turned them over leaf by leaf before the eyes of the would-be purchaser, saying, “Well, would you really like to have them?”

Then, just as the man proceeded to take possession of the books, Turner, with a tantalizing “I dare say you would!” suddenly thrust them into a drawer and turned the key in the lock, leaving the customer dumb with indignation.

On another occasion a rich manufacturer of Birmingham managed to secure an entrance into the artist’s house, after considerable parley with the disagreeable janitress whom Turner employed. He hurried up-stairs to the gallery. In a moment Turner dashed out upon him with anything but a hospitable air. The visitor bowed politely and introduced himself, saying he had come to buy some pictures.

“Don’t want to sell,” said the artist gruffly.

“Have you ever seen our Birmingham pictures, Mr. Turner?” inquired the visitor blandly.

“Never heard of ’em,” returned the artist.

The manufacturer now took an attractive package of crisp Birmingham bank-notes from his wallet.

“Mere paper,” said Turner contemptuously.

“To be bartered for mere canvas,” retorted the visitor calmly, waving his hand in the direction of some paintings.

This ready wit and tone of cool depreciation had the effect of putting the erratic artist in a good humor at once. He changed his manner immediately, and not long after his visitor departed, having bought several fine paintings, and leaving the comfortable sum of five thousand pounds behind him.

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See Odd Behavior.

ECHOES

The explanations provided by the method of fairy tales are based upon the evidence of things that can not be perceived and upon assumptions that can not be tested. Take, for instance, the explanation of an echo; to the primitive mind, hearing the repetition of its shout, and conscious of only speaking once, is it not inevitable one should suppose that the shout came from another person? A futile search in the wood or under the cliff would lead to the thought that the person was hiding, and the more naturally, as on coming to the cliff whence the shout seemed to come one’s call would receive no answer. As at other times such mocking answers would always come from the same place, what more natural than to think that some person or spirit dwelt there? Hence such a story as Lander tells of his voyage down the Niger: “As they came to a creek the captain shouted, and where an echo was returned half a glass of rum and a piece of yam and fish were thrown into the water. On asking the reason why he was throwing away the provisions thus, he was answered: ‘Did you not hear the fetish?’ And so, in South Pacific myth, echo is the first and parent fairy to whom divine honors are paid as the giver of food, and as she ‘who speaks to the worshipers out of the rocks.’”—William Schooling, Westminster Review.

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Economic Injustice—See Injustice.

ECONOMIC MOTIVES

We know that an extremely severe medical examination is imposed upon immigrants to the United States, and that entrance into this country is pitilessly denied to those who seem even merely puny and sickly. The result of this examination is that the ocean transportation companies must return to their countries, at their own cost, rejected immigrants. To avoid this expense, the companies of the various countries have decided to take all the precautions necessary for protecting the health of their passengers. Thus, at Hamburg a company has had great halls built to shelter emigrants during their stay in the port before their embarkation; and, the results having been favorably recognized, they are going to build booths, capable of containing each 120 beds, arranged in accordance with the rules of up-to-date hygiene, each group of four booths to be provided with a special booth fitted up as a laundry, with vapor-baths, etc. We know, on the other hand, that the establishment of sanatoriums for consumptives had its origin in Germany in similar anxieties on the part of the insurance companies. Thus it is that the care of the pocketbook is still the surest motive power of social progress. (Text.)

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ECONOMY

We are enjoined to “lay aside every weight” in our Christian career. One way to do this is to study the art of reducing our necessities to the lowest terms, like this umbrella:

A twenty-six-inch umbrella that will fold up and go in an inside pocket without crowding has been invented and constructed by a Minneapolis man, we are told in The American Inventor. Says this paper: “This seems almost incredible until the secret is told. The handle and all the ribs consist of fine and very strong steel tubes, in sections, which telescope one inside the other. The covering is of very fine silk, which takes up but little room. The wooden handle of the umbrella is hollow and receives all the rest of the telescoping umbrella-rod when shut up. A small and light case is provided to contain the whole, which, as stated, goes easily into the pocket. If such a device can be made and sold for a reasonable price there is little to prevent the owner from making a fortune; there are few men who would not welcome an umbrella which could be always carried without inconvenience, and which could be put out of the way of the borrower-who-never-returns, when entering a public place, such as a restaurant.” (Text.)

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In the packing business nothing is lost but “the squeal of the pig.” Every part of an animal is now valuable. Much of the profit of a packing-house now comes from byproducts, like hair, entrails and the like, that once were thrown away.

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You do not see to-day as many of the old peach or pea or salmon or tomato cans emptied of their contents and thrown about in the vacant lot or in the rubbish heap of the private family or the general garbagepile of the community. It was a real nuisance to have so many of these useless “cast-offs” accumulating under eye and foot. And with the increased use of canned goods this was becoming more and more so. Loads of these refuse cans are now gathered every year and are made into shining sheets which are used as a covering and decoration of traveling trunks. Enough tin refuse is taken from the ash-heaps to keep several mills employed in turning this waste into products for the markets. Even the solder which is saved from these cast-away cans brings twelve cents per pound, and yields an income that pays well for the pains of gathering this rubbish. Window-sash weights are made out of the tops and bottoms of these old cans, while the body of the can is cleaned and rolled anew, and made serviceable for trunk covering.—G. P. Perry, “Wealth from Waste.”

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Have you ever, in hours of illness or of great preoccupation, performed some piece of work; undertaken, for example, some long-drawn piece of needlework, and woven your thoughts into the leaves and flowers? Through force of association, your inner experience and your work were henceforth completely identified, and after many years you could still say to yourself: This flower recalls the day when I was expecting news of my sick and absent son. I wavered between fear and hope and my hand trembled. Something of his fever has remained in this frail stem.... Here is a swallow that I embroidered after I had received happy tidings that reassured me and announced his near return. Never shall I be able to look at it without thinking of all the joy of which a mother’s heart is capable!

The labor involved in economy is like these patient toils. The little pennies also have their story. This story is made up of watchfulness, of cares, of tenderness, of sublime sacrifice. Never will the large sums of nameless money attain to the power of signification possest by these little pennies amassed one by one, put carefully away, to which one has said: Little penny, I keep you to-day in order that you may keep me to-morrow; I give you a post of honor; the day when misery approaches my sill and threatens to cross it, you will cry out: you may not pass!—Charles Wagner, “The Gospel of Life.”

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See Waste, The Problem of.

Economy by Inventions—See Labor-saving Inventions.

ECONOMY, DIVINE

The autographs of musicians who in life could not write a check for a crust of bread have in death been sold for fabulous sums. Not long ago at a sale in Berlin two of Beethoven’s letters sold for $187 and $200 each. A letter of Chopin brought $250, a visiting-card of Haydn $20 and a letter $427, two letters of Schubert $777, four letters of Wagner $322, a scrap of writing of Mozart sold for $276, while a Gluck manuscript changed hands at $1,000. Some of these men in life hardly received enough for their services to keep their musical souls connected with their emaciated bodies; but they wasted themselves in pouring out their immortal melodies, and this generation is putting down its gold for mere scraps of paper that had felt the touch of their dead hands! Of course, their service and music are not lost; but look! God does not even allow the screeds of paper, which were once crumpled by their perished fingers, to be lost, either! While their music is filling the world with its sweetness God is even picking up the tattered, torn, broken fragments blown by cruel winds up and down the desert of their lives, that nothing be lost!—F. F. Shannon.

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ECONOMY, ENGLISH VERSUS AMERICAN

When Thomas Hughes, author of “Tom Brown at Oxford,” who had experience in American concerns in his endeavor to plant an English colony in Tennessee, was in Boston a few years ago, he was asked, according to the Boston Post, why it was that cooperative distribution which had proved so successful in England, had never succeeded in America. “Simply,” he said, “because you Americans do not know what economy is in the sense in which people practise it in England. Many a workingman at home will walk two miles to the cooperative store with his basket on his arm, and do it in his bare feet at that, to save a shilling on his weekly purchase. No American mechanic would do that.”

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Economy in Metal—See Magnetism.

ECONOMY IN WORK

The editor of the Louisville Christian Observer is the author of the following:

Coming down to the office one frosty morning we saw a workman kneeling on the pavement trying to hammer straight a bent rusty nail. The pavement was slippery, the nail was obdurate, the man’s gloved hands were clumsy, the only tool he had was a stone. Consequently, he had lost much time and quite all of his temper and was using language that is never heard in polite society. Economy is a good thing, but now and again is it not better to leave the bent nail to itself, at least until a moment of leisure comes, and take a straight, new nail from the box? In our church work are there not old, bent, rusty methods that should be abandoned? Always is it not wisdom to seek formation of character rather than reformation—to endeavor to keep the nail straight instead of pounding it so later? And in conducting the financial affairs of our churches is there not often an economy that really is wastefulness? A spiritual new nail is a good thing to be put into the hand of the master of assemblies that he may drive it into a sure place. (Text.)

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ECONOMY OF ENERGY

In a shoe factory I was once shown an attachment to the sewing and other machines which caused the machine to stop whenever its work was done. When one button-hole was made the mechanism paused until it was given another task to do, so that no power was wasted, and no useless wear permitted. And the superintendent said: “That little iron ‘trick’ cost us two hundred dollars, but it saves us thousands of dollars every year in wear and tear of machinery and in attendance. It enables one operator to take care of two, three, and sometimes more machines.” Here, at least, is a hint that is intelligible and available to us all. How much longer would our youth stay by us if we had this life-saving attachment affixt; if we could only stop when a given task is done; if we did but apply ourselves but once to the one thing. (Text.)—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

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We—at least persons who have passed middle age—have only a certain amount of reserve force, and all that we draw upon in hurries is abstracted from that which should be distributed through the remainder of life. The secret of longevity is probably skill in so economizing the reserve of vital energy as to make it last out an unusual period. Persons who begin unusual exercises in youth may adapt their constitutions to the habit, and may thereby hold on to their full term of life; but this can not be done safely if one waits till mature age before beginning.—Public Opinion.

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Economy of Healthful Foods—See Health, Economics of.

ECONOMY OF NATURAL RESOURCES

It is hardly conceivable that the economic waste represented by the neglect of the marine forests and gardens will be much longer continued. The only vegetation that exists upon two-thirds of the superficial area of the earth is seaweed. This vegetation ought to contribute to the support of the population of the land surface of the globe to such an extent that the question of food supply—the nightmare of scientific inquirers into the probable future of civilization and of the human race—need worry no one. (Text.)—The Technical World Magazine.

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EDUCATION

A scientific man recently said, “You can not manufacture diamonds.” To a certain extent this has been disputed, for another famous scientist claims that he has produced genuine diamonds, tho too minute to be of commercial value. In the pastoral epistles of Paul minute descriptions are given by the apostles concerning the true furnishing of the minister of Christ.

The members of a congregation said of their new minister that they had got hold of “a gem of a pastor.” No college had made him a gem, but it was equally true that the excellent curriculum through which he had passed in a theological institution had polished him. He was not mere ministerial paste, but being a rough diamond when he went in, those who trained him sent him out cut and polished.

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I discovered on a leafless sapling near my window two birds, an adult phœbe and a young one apparently lately out of the nest. The elder kept up a running talk, occasionally darting out after a passing insect, which—I was surprized and amused to see—she carried to the little tree, and, after the youngster had seen it and opened its mouth to receive it, she swallowed herself! upon which the youth uttered a wailing cry. Then would come another long talk, and at every pause a complaining note from the infant. Several times these performances were repeated. Then the elder flew away, when at once the little one began to look out for himself, actually flying out, and once or twice while I looked succeeding in securing his prey.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

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To what shall I liken education? I would liken education to a voyage: A great ship rides in dock near a flat shore covered with small, low houses, and troops of little people go on board. The ship swings away from the wharf and makes out for the open sea. Captain, mates, and most of the crew know the course and the haven; but the passengers never crossed before. It is a long, long, voyage through storm and calm, through cold and heat; a voyage of years; a voyage that tests faith. The years pass and the little people grow and grow. During the voyage most of the passengers go overboard into the open sea; but some make the voyage to arrive at a coast with mountains and valleys, cities and castles, a world of powers and of activities unseen by the dwellers upon the low coast on the other side of the sea of life.

Such is education. And the question is how to keep the passengers on board until the ship makes harbor.—William Estabrook Chancellor, “Proceedings of the National Education Association,” 1909.

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John Stuart Mill, in his autobiography, says concerning his education:

The children of educated parents frequently grow up unenergetic because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. The education which my father gave me was in itself much more fitted for training me to know than to do.

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See Prodigy, A; Things, Not Books.

EDUCATION ADAPTED TO CAPACITY

Everybody has been trying to cut his garments by a measure which was good for somebody else at some other place and time. The strenuous pressure of life’s struggle for preservation has differentiated men into soldiers, merchants, advocates, poets, priests, laborers, and farmers, but it is not yet admitted generally that it would be well to study the child’s qualities and train him for his best future. Owners of cattle and horses can not and do not afford to do anything else; man alone is wasted in efforts to make every boy an attorney-at-law and every girl a piano-player. One boy in a thousand can become a good lawyer, and not much more than one in a thousand is needed. One girl in five hundred may learn to play a piano fairly well, and one in a thousand may have the genius which will give her piano-playing the touch of life. Health and joy in labor are the best education. Work is best done when it is the natural exercise of faculty. The boy learns if he does nothing but play until he is mature. It is not a good education, but sometimes it is better than a wrong education.—Kansas City Times.

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Education, All-round—See Comprehensiveness in Education.

Education, Complexity in—See Masterhand, Lacking the.

Education Due to Missionaries—See Missionary Accomplishments.

EDUCATION BY TRAVEL

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted the educational results of the cruise of the American fleet around the world in 1908:

“The most gigantic correspondence school in the history of education, with free courses in foreign travel, geography and natural history, is,” says the St. Louis Post-Despatch, “now in operation throughout the entire United States, and particularly in the West and Southwest. The instructors are the 15,000 sailors on Uncle Sam’s peace cruise around the world and the students are their relatives and friends, totaling 200,000 to a quarter of a million souls. The text-books are the shoals of entertaining and instructive letters from the fleet which are flooding the whole country with every mail, with throngs of picture post-cards as graphic illustrations. From Honolulu, Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, tons of letters are now on their way to the loved ones at home, bearing vivid lessons in the civilization of the Pacific islands and the antipodes. All over the country forgotten text-books on geography are being resurrected from dusty chests, so that mothers, sisters and sweethearts may chart each day the course pursued by the fleet. Book-stores report a largely increased sale of maps, globes and charts, due to an awakened interest in the remote sections of the earth. To the hundred or so families in St. Louis which have relatives with the fleet have come voluminous and thrilling letters, making them more familiar with Trinidad than they are with Porto Rico, and better acquainted with Magdalena Bay than they are with Charleston harbor. Such letters as these, spreading information broadcast in the land, are proving a vast engine against provincialism, ignorance and narrowness, and affording a cosmopolitan education to multitudes.”

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EDUCATION, HIGHER

A good illustration of the monetary value of higher education in chemistry and mining is seen when one compares Germany and England. Both countries have the same kind of iron ore and the same coal supply. England has the advantage of having her coal nearer the iron fields. In 1880 England mined and produced 8,000,000 tons of pig-iron per year, while Germany’s product was only 3,000,000. Since that time Germany has supported handsomely her great technical universities and sent out each year into her industries a stream of highly-trained experts, with the result that in 1907, while England’s production had risen from 8,000,000 to only 9,000,000 tons per year, Germany’s had risen from 3,000,000 to 13,000,000. It is more significant still that from 1900 to 1908 German iron brought on the average nearly $19 per ton, while English iron brought only $13 per ton, a difference of nearly 50 per cent in favor of the iron made by the better-educated German producer. This one result of these great German technical institutions would alone add $190,000,000 per year to German wealth if the iron were sold as raw pig-iron. As a matter of fact, a large part of this iron is made up into all sorts of manufactured products, made possible by their high technical education, and these products are exported and sold at many times the price of the raw pig-iron—New York Evening Post.

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EDUCATION NOT VICARIOUS

William has been to school for over a year, and his teacher says to him one day: “Now, William, I am afraid your father will think that I am not doing well by you; you must write a composition—you must send your father a good composition to show what you are doing.” Well, William never did write a composition, and he does not know how. “Oh, write about something that you do know about—write about your father’s farm,” and so, being goaded to his task, William says: “A cow is a useful animal. A cow has four legs and two horns. A cow gives good milk. I love good milk.—William Bradshaw.” The master looks over his shoulder and says: “Pooh! your father will think you are a cow. Here, give me that composition, I’ll fix it.” So he takes it home and fixes it. Here it reads: “When the sun casts off the dusky garments of the night, and appearing o’er the orient hills, sips the dew-drops pendant from every leaf, the milkmaid goes a-field, chanting her matin song,” and so on, and so on. Now, I say that, rhetorically, the master’s composition was unspeakably better than William’s; but as a part of William’s education, his poor, scrawly lines are unspeakably better than the one that has been “fixt” for him.—Henry Ward Beecher.

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Education of Indians—See Indians, American.

Education, Self—See Reading by Schedule.

EDUCATION TO BE PRIZED

Wesley himself, however, had a scholar’s hate of ignorance, and he toiled with almost amusing diligence to educate his helpers. He insisted that they should be readers, and scourged them with a very sharp whip if he found them neglecting their books. Thus he writes to one:

“Your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep. There is little variety; there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with daily meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian.”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

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Educational Growth—See Need, Meeting Children’s.

EFFACEMENT OF SINS

We are reminded of the promise that God will “blot out” our transgressions by the following incident:

John Maynard was in an old-time country schoolhouse. Most of the year he had drifted carelessly along, but in midwinter some kind words from his teacher roused him to take a new start, and he became distinctly a different boy, and made up for the earlier faults. At the closing examination he passed well, to the great joy of his father and mother, who were present. But the copy-books used through the year were all laid on a table for the visitors to look at; and John remembered that his copy-book, fair enough in its latter pages, had been a dreary mass of blots and bad work before. He watched his mother looking over those books, and his heart was sick. But she seemed, to his surprize, quite pleased with what she saw, and called his father to look with her; and afterward John found that his kind teacher had thoughtfully torn out all those bad, blotted leaves, and made his copy-book begin where he started to do better. (Text.)—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

(882)

Effects from Other’s Deeds—See Vicariousness.

Effort, Progress by—See Want Brings Progress.

Effort Renewed—See Extremity Not Final.

EGOISM

It is Nietzsche’s philosophy that each man should care only for himself. This philosophy is applied in the following incident. Many still apply it in their social conduct:

It was no very unusual sight in China, to see a thief running for all he was worth, pursued by two or three vociferating men or lads. But the crowd always made way for the thief, and never a foot nor a hand was put out to stop him, “He did not rob me; why should I stop him?” (Text.)

(883)

EGOTISM

Miss Gordon Cumming tells how she heard in Japan a bird which seemed to have for its sole note, “Me! Me! Me!” She and her party called it “the me-bird.”

There are numerous “me birds” that belong to the human family. They might also be called “ay, ay birds.”

(884)

In Delhi once stood a temple whose ceiling was set with diamonds, and beneath which stood the throne of the divine peacock. The jewels in this temple were worth $30,000,000. On the marble pedestal of the throne, in Arabic, were these words, “If ever there were paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.” But the facts are that this temple was built by poor slaves, many of whom died of starvation and cruelty while in the act of building it. This temple represents intensity without breadth. Treasures and education have been concentrated to produce an awful kind of egotism. Men and women have been known to be sublimely beautiful within themselves, but in relation to others ugly, hollow, and deformed, their narrowness grating rudely on the finer sensibilities. (Text.)—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(885)

See Self-measurement.

Egyptian Builders—See Builders, Ancient.

ELECT, THE

Two modern statements of the doctrine of “election,” neither of which would quite satisfy John Calvin or Jonathan Edwards, are given in The Congregationalist.

One was Henry Ward Beecher’s epigrammatic and convincing phrase: “The elect are whosoever will; the non-elect are whosoever won’t.”

Good as this is, there is another explanation that is a star of equal magnitude. It was made by a colored divine, who said:

“Brethren, it is this way. The Lord, He is always voting for a man; and the devil, he is always voting against him. Then the man himself votes, and that breaks the tie.” (Text.)

(886)

Electricity and Tree-cutting—See Improvement.

ELECTRICITY, WONDERS OF

In 1856 Dr. R. S. Storrs said:

Not a century has passed since Franklin first drew the lightning from the skies; and yet already man prints with it, paints with it, writes with it, engraves with it, talks with it, cures with it, and is ever finding out new uses for its strength. The cunning Hermes has himself come to earth, to run on errands for men, and no more for the gods. His traveling-rod, enwreathed with serpents, is now a wire, transmitting thoughts. His golden sandals are sparks of lightning; and he forwards our commerce, as he never could the ancient.

(887)

ELECTRIFICATION, SPIRITUAL

From the following illustration of electrical contact, Rev. William Arthur draws the moral that if we would be spiritually electrified we must draw nigh to God.

When a lecturer on electricity wants to show an example of a human body surcharged with his fire, he places a person on a stool with glass legs. The glass serves to isolate him from the earth, because it will not conduct the fire—the electric fluid. Were it not for this, however much might be poured into his frame, it would be carried away by the earth; but, when thus isolated from it, he retains all that enters him. You see no fire, you hear no fire; but you are told that it is pouring into him. Presently, you are challenged to the proof, asked to come near, and hold your hand close to his person; when you do so, a spark of fire shoots out toward you.

(888)

Elements and Structures—See Destruction, Gradual.

ELEVATION

Many of life’s hidden mysteries would be clear to us, if we could see them as God does—from above.

Many times aeronauts, carried out to sea, have made this curious observation: the higher they are, the more pellucid the water seems, enabling them to see, more and more clearly, the bottom, with its rocks and seaweed. In crossing the English Channel, which is not very deep, especially near Calais, the bottom may be easily seen, and a submarine could be followed there in all its evolutions. (Text.)—Ernest Constet, Revue Scientifique.

(889)

I remember an old woodsman in the Adirondack forest who used to say that he wanted to go to the top of a certain mountain as often as his legs would carry him because it gave him such a feeling of “heaven-up-histedness.” That is an uncouth, humble, eloquent phrase to describe the function of a great literature.

Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how mean a thing is man!

I want the books that help me out of the vacancy and despair of a frivolous mind, out of the tangle and confusion of a society that is busied in bric-a-brac, out of the meanness of unfeeling mockery and the heaviness of incessant mirth, into a higher and serener region, where through the clear air of serious thoughts I can learn to look soberly and bravely upon the mingled misery and splendor of human existence, and then go down with a cheerful courage to play a man’s part in the life which Christ has forever ennobled by His divine presence. (Text.)—Henry Van Dyke, The British Weekly.

(890)

ELEVATION AND VISION

A man once brought a young eagle home for his boys to play with. They were delighted and took it out to the barnyard to see it fly. But the eaglet would rather walk about among the hens and pick up wheat. The boys tossed it up in the air, but all their efforts were only in vain, for it flapped its great wings awkwardly, as if not knowing what to do with them and dropt back to the earth. The boys told their father of their inability to make the bird fly. Taking the eaglet under his arm, he called the boys with him to the mountain. As they were ascending the summit the bird began to open its eyes wider and wider. When they reached the peak, the eaglet began to expand its wings, and as it caught a vision of the unfettered blue bathed in the light of the rising sun, it soared away out of sight.

So it is in human life. It requires a vision of the heights to inspire a soul to its best flight. (Text.)

(891)

Climbing the stairs into the helmet of the Statue of Liberty gives one a splendid view of the harbor and lower section of New York. It is a toilsome, knee-straining business. But the vision is worth the effort.

One must reach the high places if he would get a vision of the King in His beauty and an outlook over the kingdom that is to be.—C. J. Greenwood.

(892)

ELOQUENCE

The storm that whirls among the mountains, the stoop of the whirlwind that wrenches the tree from its bed in the soil, the utmost rage of oceanic commotions—they have not that dominant power upon them to start our spirits, and carry our sympathies to an equal agitation, which eloquence has when it utters the force of one aroused soul.—Richard S. Storrs.

(893)

See Age and Oratory; Earnestness; Lord’s Prayer Interpreted.

Eloquence of Deeds—See Deeds That Talk.

EMANCIPATION

Every artist who works upon his canvas or upon the stone, or rears up stately fabrics, expressing something nobler to men, giving some form to their ideals and aspirations—every such man also is working for the largeness and so for the liberty of men. And every mother who sits by the cradle, singing to her babe the song which the angels sing all the way up to the very throne, she, too, is God’s priestess, and is working for the largeness of men, and so for their liberty. Whoever teaches men to be truthful, to be virtuous, to be enterprising; in short, whoever teaches manhood, emancipates men.—Henry Ward Beecher.

(894)

Embarrassment—See Fear of Man.

EMBELLISHMENT OF PREACHING

The Telugus often embellish their sermons to an extent inconceivably funny. A smart young preacher, a graduate of Ramapatam Seminary, in telling of the resurrection of Lazarus, said that he arose from the dead when called, tied his clothing about him (the Hindu’s idea of dressing), put on a beautiful head-cloth, raised an umbrella, and came walking out of the tomb. The force of the climax would appeal to any one who lived in India. An umbrella is such a sign of distinction that people who own one often carry it open in the night even tho there has been no rain for six months.

(895)

EMBLEMS

An apple is the emblem of the fall; held in the hand of Jesus Christ it signifies redemption. A cluster of grapes is the emblem of “Christ’s blood shed for us.” It is also the emblem of abundance and prosperity. The vine is a symbol of Christ. It is also an emblem of abundance. Wheat is an emblem of Christ as the “Bread of Life”; also of abundance and rejoicing. The olive is the emblem of peace and concord. The palm is the symbol of martyrdom. The pomegranate is the emblem of the future life and of immortality.—The Decorator and Furnisher.

(896)

See Colors as Emblems.

EMERGENCY

Men who had been with Mr. Hearst in San Francisco were reminded of the night he came into The Examiner office and heard of a man that had been seen on a half-submerged rock in the bay, with the tide rising and certain to overwhelm him. In the office they were wondering how he got there.

“What difference does it make how he got there?” Mr. Hearst cut in. “Get him off first and find out afterward. Charter tugs, call for volunteers, and save his life—that’s the main thing.” They went out with the tugs (it was a wild night), and rescued the man just before the seas rose over the rock. (Text.)—Charles R. Russell, Harper’s Weekly.

(897)

Emergency Devices—See Deception Justified.

EMIGRATION, CONQUEST BY

The martial resources of China are not yet developed, but that astute people have hit upon another plan to conquer and hold that which they regard as their own. A current news item from that country says:

China’s chief method of recovering Manchuria is to overrun it with emigrants from the congested mother country, and this plan has worked so well that already Japanese newspapers complain that the Japanese are losing both trade and ground there. Soon after the peace of Portsmouth the Chinese government contributed two million taels for emigration; free transportation began, at the beginning of the year, and in the spring months following as many as three thousand to four thousand coolies got off the train at Harbin daily. The Russians, who, before the war, considered themselves masters of the northern regions, are realizing that they are being crowded out altogether.

This is a suggestion of the peaceful but powerful forces that are at work in changing the map of the world.

(898)

EMOTION

What made Paganini so exceptionally great was the portentous development, the strength and independence, of the emotional fountain within. The whole of life was to him nothing but so many successions of psychological heat and cold. Incidents immediately became clothed with a psychic atmosphere—perhaps the life of emotion was never so completely realized in itself, and for itself, as in the soul-isolation of Paganini. What the tempest had told him his violin would proclaim; what the summer night had whispered was stereotyped in his soul, and the midnight song of birds came forth from the Cremona depths at his bidding.—H. R. Haweis, “My Musical Memories.”

(899)

See Feelings a Fountain.

Employe, Devoted—See Service, Interested.

EMPLOYER, A GOOD

By his employees Mr. Geo. W. Childs was fairly idolized; yet he demanded of every man the full measure of his duty, but he paid the best of wages. His rule was that every man should receive more than enough for a living—receive a compensation enabling him to lay something by for a rainy day. He encouraged thrift and providence among all in his employ. He surrounded them with every comfort, introduced for their benefit every appliance conducive to health, and annually, at Christmas-time, every person in his employ was substantially remembered.—Washington Craftsman.

(900)

ENCOURAGEMENT

Thirty years ago, in a poor schoolhouse in a back district, a boy at the foot of the class unexpectedly spelled a word that had passed down the entire class.

“Go up ahead,” said the master, “and see that you stay there. You can if you work hard.”

The boy hung his head. But the next day he did not miss a word in spelling. The brighter scholars knew every word in the lesson, hoping there might be a chance to get ahead. But there was not a single one. Dave stayed at the head. He had been an indifferent speller before, but now he knew every word.

“Dave, how do you get your lessons so well now?” said the master.

“I learn every word in the lesson, and get my mother to hear me at night; then I go over them in the morning before I come to school. And I go over them at my seat before the class is called up.”

“Good boy, Dave!” said the master. “That’s the way to have success. Always work that way and you’ll do.”

Dave is to-day the manager of a big lumber company, and he attributes his start to the words:

“Go up head, and see that you stay there. You can, if you work hard.” (Text.)—Genesee Courier.

(901)

The old should not dampen the high aspirations of the young. This is Cale Young Rice’s thought in the following verse:

(902)

When the Duke of Wellington was arranging his forces at the fateful battle of Waterloo his raw recruits outnumbered his veteran troops, and so to encourage them by the example of those skilled in war and tried in bravery, he put a veteran between every two of the recent recruits. Thus strengthened, they all withstood the fierce charges of the French cavalry and helped win the day for the allies. So when the Christian hosts go forth to battle it is well to have the tried and experienced Christians intermingled with those yet young in the spiritual life. It gives them courage and helps them to withstand temptations and trials by which they would otherwise be swept away.—S. Parkes Cadman.

(903)

An old minister, the Rev. Richard Knill, once placed his hands on the head of a little boy and lovingly predicted that he, too, would become a preacher. That boy was C. H. Spurgeon. A boy was standing on the steps leading to a platform on which a minister wished to ascend. He patted the lad’s head and hoped he would become a preacher of the gospel. That youth afterward went to the university and there became the means of the conversion of a young student. That student was J. Wilbur Chapman, the evangelist.

(904)

See Improvement; Money, Earning.

END OF THE WORLD

At some future time the sun will pass from the gaseous, or semigaseous, into the liquid stage, and from that moment it will begin to lose temperature rapidly. There is, therefore, a definite end in sight, a time beyond which the sun will cease to shine and the world, as it now exists, will come to an end.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

(905)

End, Unknown—See Happiness as a God.

ENDEAVOR

(906)

ENDEAVOR, CONSTANT

Parsifal emphasizes the fact that “heaven is not gained with a single bound.” After Parsifal had won the great victory and gained the Sacred Spear, still he had not grown enough to be worthy to rule in the council-chambers of Monsalvat. He had to grow to new heights. Thus, many years yet of struggle, temptation, and trial awaited him. Self-mastery and spiritual supremacy are attained, not by one victory, but by many. They come only as the rich fruition of a life of strenuous endeavor, a life of loyalty to duty and to love. (Text.)—B. O. Flower, The Arena.

(907)

ENDURANCE

Look at things as they are, and you will see that the clever unjust are in the place of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal, but not back again from the goal; they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears down on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned. And this is the way with the just; he who endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire life has a good report and carries off the prize which men bestow. (Text.)—Plato.

(908)

ENDURANCE OF PAIN

The incident below, printed in the New York Times, illustrates how pride and resolution will fortify a man to endure pain:

“Whom do you s’pose I’ve got inside here? Old one-eyed Ben Tillman! And if I don’t make him squeal nobody can. I won’t do a thing to him—oh, my!” And the dentist-surgeon brandished his forceps gleefully and returned to the pleasure of torturing the senator.

Next day the same young man came again. “Well, did you succeed in making Tillman yell?” he asked. The dentist shook his head sadly. “No,” he replied in a disappointed tone. “I couldn’t make him flinch. He didn’t make a sound, and, d’ye know, when he got out of the chair he turned to me with a smile and said: ‘Say, doctor, I didn’t know before that you ran a painless dental shop.’” (Text.)

(909)

ENDURING ART

You can go down into the narrow vault which Nero built as a retreat from the great heat, and you will find the walls painted all over with fanciful designs in arabesque, which have been buried beneath the earth fifteen hundred years; but when the peasants light it up with their torches, the colors flash out before you as fresh as they were in the days of St. Paul.—Wendell Phillips.

(910)

ENEMIES

Mr. Vernon L. Kellogg, with a child friend, were watching an ant-dragon as he caught an ant in a sandpit-trap.

“But, see,” cried Mary, “the ant has stopt sliding. It is going to get out!”

Ah, Mary, you are not making allowance for all the resources of this dreadful dragon of the pit. Not only is the pit a nearly perfect trap, and the eager jaws at the bottom more deadly than any array of spikes or spears at the bottom of an elephant pit, but there is another most effective thing about this fatal dragon’s trap, and that is this: it is not merely a passive trap, but an active one. Already it is in action. And Mary sees now how hopeless it is with the ant. For a shower of sand is being thrown up from the bottom of the pit against the ant and it is again sliding down. The dragon has a flat, broad head and powerful neck muscles, and has wit enough to shovel up and hurl masses of dry sand-grains against the victim on the loose slopes. And this starts the avalanche again, and so down slides the frantic ant.—Vernon L. Kellogg, “Insect Stories.”

(911)

Enemies Among Animals—See Subtlety Among Animals.

ENEMIES, AVOIDING

It would often be well for men to avoid enemies as did these sagacious rooks:

A curious incident in the recent history of the Gray’s Inn settlement of rooks is mentioned by a London correspondent in the Manchester Guardian. It appears that a couple of carrion crows settled in the gardens, and one day it was discovered that the rookery was deserted. The benchers, who are particularly proud of their rooks, gave orders for the carrion crows to be destroyed, and the gardener prepared pigeon’s eggs with good doses of arsenic. The crows swallowed them and seemed to grow fatter and healthier. At last strychnine was used, and the pair were poisoned. Then a curious thing happened. Not a rook had been seen for weeks at Gray’s Inn, but the next day they were all back as tho advised by telegram.

(912)

ENEMIES CONVERTED

Count Witte, Russian Prime Minister, summoned his secretary one day and gave him this order:

“Make out a full list of the authors of the articles that are directly against me in the daily press.”

The secretary went to work, and with the aid of his office force in a week prepared a list of about a thousand articles, with the writer’s names appended. The clippings were properly classified, put in an album, and dutifully handed to the Premier.

“In how many instances,” he asked, “have I been commended?”

“In three, your excellency.”

“Very well; now select the most abusive and personal of the unfavorable articles, and let me know the names of the writers.”

This list, too, was duly prepared and presented.

“Shall I bring this to the attention of the public prosecutor?” queried the secretary.

“For what purpose?”

“Why, to institute proceedings under the statutes regulating the press.”

“No, I do not wish it,” said the Premier. “I wish to select from these journalists my most aggressive critic and make him my advocate and spokesman. I shall offer him the editorship of my organ. Experience has taught me that the best champion and most faithful defender is the man who has been your bitterest assailant.” (Text.)

(913)

Enemies of Character—See Self-conflict.

Enemy of the World, An—See Mystery, Value of.

ENERGY

What unused energy still awaits utilization by man is indicated in the following calculation:

The tremendous amount of energy received from the sun may be illustrated in another way. Ordinary steam-engines, whether for railroad or factory use, are rated by their horse-power; a hundred-horse-power engine will drive a small steamer or operate a mill of some two hundred and fifty looms. Now, thirty calories of heat per minute, if completely utilized, would produce 2.8 horse-power. Neglecting atmospheric absorption, therefore, each square meter of the earth’s surface receives from the sun, when directly overhead, sufficient energy to run a 2.8 horse-power engine; or one horse-power is received for every four square feet of surface. The absorption of the air cuts this down about forty per cent, so that on a clear day at sea-level, with the sun directly overhead, sufficient energy to produce one horse-power is received on each six and a half square feet of surface.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

(914)

See Momentum.

Energy, Economy of—See Economy of Energy.

ENERGY, INDOMITABLE

Seldom has there been seen a more inspiring example of indomitable energy triumphing over fate than that which the Engraver Florian is now giving to the world, says the New York World.

Six years ago, while at work upon the designs for the new French bank-notes, he was suddenly stricken by paralysis. His right side became as if dead; he was bereft of speech; the hand whose skill had made him famous was useless forever. Did he complain? Did he resign himself to the inevitable? Did he sit down in despair and allow his young wife and daughters to support him? Not for a moment. He let the women work, it is true, but only while he learned to engrave with the left hand.

Hour after hour, day after day, month after month he passed, struggling with that awkward, untrained left hand, drawing at first crudely like a little child, then with ever-increasing precision. Gradually he educated the refractory member to obey his will. Drawing, water-color painting, designing for typographers succeeded one another, until to-day he has again attained absolute mastery over the engraver’s tools. Arsene Alexandre, the famous art critic, saw him at work recently, his wooden block screwed to a table, his left hand plying the tools with all the deftness his now dead right hand formerly possest, his speechless lips smiling and his face radiant with happiness.

(915)

ENGLISH, ERRORS IN

The following specimens of false syntax are given by the Printers’ Register:

A man who was suddenly taken sick “hastened home while every means for his recovery was resorted to. In spite of all his efforts he died in the triumphs of the Christian religion.” “A man was killed by a railroad car running into Boston supposed to be deaf.” A man writes, “We have decided to erect a schoolhouse large enough to accommodate five hundred scholars five stories high.” On a certain railway the following luminous direction was printed: “Hereafter when trains in an opposite direction are approaching each other on separate lines, conductors and engineers will be requested to bring their respective trains to a dead halt before the point of meeting, and be careful not to proceed till each train has passed the other.” A steamboat captain, advertising an excursion, says: “Tickets, twenty-five cents; children half-price to be had at the office.” An Iowa editor says: “We have received a basket of fine grapes from our friend W., for which he will please accept our compliments, some of which are nearly two inches in diameter.”—Printers’ Register.

(916)

English Passage, Superb—See Solace of the Sea.

ENGROSSMENT IN BUSINESS

The character is shaped by that which engrosses the attention most. Rev. W. F. Crafts, Ph.D., says:

A profane sea-captain came to a mission station on the Pacific, and the missionary talked with him upon religious subjects. The captain said, “I came away from Nantucket after whales; I have sailed round Cape Horn for whales; I am now up in the Northern Pacific Ocean after whales. I think of nothing but whales. I fear your labor would be entirely lost upon me, and I ought to be very frank with you. I care for nothing by day but whales, and I dream of them at night. If you should open my heart I think you would find the shape of a sperm-whale there.”

(917)

Enlarging Objects—See Science, Improvements by.

ENLIGHTENMENT

The difference between the savage and the enlightened man is often due to Christian civilization.

John Williams tells how the Raratongans were excited and overawed when, for the first time, they saw him send a written message to his wife. He requested a chief, who was helping, to take the chip to Mrs. Williams; but, thinking the missionary to be playing a joke on him, he asked, “What must I say?” “Nothing,” said Mr. Williams; “the chip will say all that I wish.” “But can a chip talk? Has it a mouth?” He got what he went for, and, still more perplexed, could only exclaim: “See the wisdom of these English! They can even make chips talk!”—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

(918)

ENTHUSIASM

The most terrific heat known to science is a torch operated by oxygen and acetylene, radiating a heat of 6,300 degrees, by means of which it is possible to weld aluminum, heretofore regarded as an impossibility. The torch makes a flame that will cut through two inches of solid steel in less than a minute and pierce a twelve-inch piece of the hardest steel in less than ten minutes—a task that would take a saw almost twenty hours to accomplish.

When the soul burns with the heat of great enthusiasm, it will burn through obstacles that are entirely insuperable to ordinary efforts.

(919)

Enthusiasm for One’s Work—See Art, Devotion to.

ENTICEMENT

In the legend, the Duchess Isabella, wishing earnestly to obtain some object, was instructed by the crafty court astrologer to kiss day by day for a hundred days a certain beautiful picture, and she would receive the fulfilment of her wish. It was a sinister trick, for the picture contained a subtle poison which stained the lips with every salutation. Little by little the golden tresses of the queenly woman turned white, her eyes became dim, her color faded, her lips became black; but, infatuated, the suicidal kiss was continued until before the hundred days were complete the royal dupe lay dead.

So we yield ourselves to the sorcery of sin; despite many warnings, we persist in our fellowship with what seems truth, beauty, liberty, pleasure, until our whole soul is poisoned and destroyed. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(920)

See Allurement, Fatal.

ENVIRONMENT

The Seminole Indians have a tradition regarding the white man’s origin and superiority. The Great Spirit made three men of fair complexion and then led them to a lake and bade them leap in. One immediately obeyed, and came out of the water whiter than before; the second did not leap in until the water became slightly muddy, and when he bathed he came out copper-colored; the third leaped in when the water was black with mud and he came out black.

Every man has some choice as to the kind of environment into which he will plunge, and the color of his character will ultimately show his choice.

(921)

The gardener bird of New Guinea builds its nest, and lays out a garden-plot in front, of grass and mosses; and when the female bird is sitting on her eggs the mate flies about in search of the brightest-colored leaves and flowers, which are placed upon this plateau of garden.

Many men have been reclaimed and encouraged by surrounding them with a beautiful environment.

(922)

Surely, it is not environment that makes temperament. Bittern and blackbird both frequent bogs, yet the bittern is a lonely misanthrope, whom I more than half suspect of being melancholy-mad, while the blackbird is as cheery and as fond of his fellows as a candidate.—Winthrop Packard, “Wild Pastures.”

(923)

You may take a piece of wax, and a piece of meat, and some sand, and some clay, and some shavings, and put them in the fire, and see how they act. One goes to melting, and one to frying, and one to drying up, and one to hardening, and one to blazing; and every one acted on by the same agent.

So, under identical moral influences and in the same environment, one man goes wrong, another repents, and another remains indifferent. Not what is done to us but what we do is the thing that determines character and destiny.

(924)

ENVIRONMENT, ADAPTATION TO

Joseph Cook taught that character tends to assume a fixt type, as marked as in the case of mice, cited below:

Mice were originally natives of southern Asia. From there they have accompanied man in his wanderings to all parts of the world, traveling, as he has traveled, in ox-teams and on the backs of donkeys, by steamship and railway; taking up their quarters wherever he does, first in log-cabins with thatched roofs; and finally, in some instances, on the nineteenth floor of a steel building where generation after generation may live and die in turn without having so much as touched foot to the earth.

Strangely enough, the race seems to be proof against the changes wrought upon most animals by difference in environment. Specimens from the opposite sides of the globe, or from widely separated latitudes, are said to be practically indistinguishable, as if at last the species had hit upon a style of form and coloring perfectly suited to all conditions of life.—Witmer Stone and William Everett Cram, “American Animals.”

(925)

Environment and Man—See Mean, The Golden.

Environment Controlled—See Control of Circumstances.

ENVIRONMENT, CREATING OUR OWN

Often the individual bemoans the depression of environment. A converse fact may be referred to, namely, that man produces his own environment. It is in his power largely to make his own world, by paying attention to the things of himself. An illustration of this is found by an English writer who insists that we can make our own climates, as he says:

Effective sanitary ventilation should supply gentle and uniformly diffused currents of air of moderate and equal temperature throughout the house. We talk a great deal about the climate here and the climate there; and when we grow old, and can afford it, we move to Bournemouth, Torquay, Menton, Nice, Algiers, etc., for better climates, forgetting all the while that the climate in which we practically live is not that out-of-doors, but the indoor climate of our dwellings, the which, in a properly constructed house, may be regulated to correspond to that of any latitude we may choose.

(926)

ENVIRONMENT, DESTRUCTIVE

An English writer, with some novel ideas of how the smoke-laden atmosphere of London might be purified, writes:

At one time I thought of proposing the establishment of horticultural home-missions for promoting the dissemination of flowerpot shrubs in the metropolis, and of showing how much the atmosphere of London would be improved if every London family had one little sweetbrier-bush, a lavender-plant, or a hardy heliotrope to each of its members; so that a couple of millions of such ozone generators should breathe their sweetness into the dank and dead atmosphere of the denser central regions of London.

A little practical experience of the difficulty of growing a clean cabbage, or maintaining alive any sort of shrub in the midst of our soot-drizzle, satisfied me that the mission would fail, even tho the sweetbriers were given away by the district visitors; for these simple hardy plants perish in a mid-London atmosphere unless their leaves are periodically sponged and syringed, to wash away the soot particles that otherwise close their stomata and suffocate the plant.

The ingenious scheme would fail because the plants themselves would become foul and need to be cleansed. Failing this, they would die. So in life character is easily incrusted with the spirit of worldliness. (Text.)

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ENVIRONMENT INADEQUATE

Shortly after Chief Justice Chase had gone for the first time to Washington, he was returning to the West. The train stopt at a little station in Virginia, and he was informed that it was the birthplace of Patrick Henry. He immediately left the car and stood upon the platform, admiring the magnificence of the scenery that opens before the traveler. He said, “What an atmosphere! What a view! What glorious mountains! No wonder that Patrick Henry grew here.” One of the natives, who was standing by his side, quietly replied, “Yes, sir; but as far as I have heard, that landscape and those mountains have always been here; but we haven’t seen any more Patrick Henrys.”

(928)

ENVIRONMENT, SPIRITUAL

A Dutch scientist has just completed five years’ study in South America. He took some insects from Holland into the rich tropic atmosphere, changed their environment, put them in a friendly environment, and gave them the best food. He expected to modify their coloring, having exchanged the damp, foggy sky of Holland for the brilliant hues of the tropics. And lo! these insects doubled their size; the dim subdued tints became gay and brilliant. At last he discovered that insects that in Holland crawled, in the South spread their wings to fly and meet God’s sun. He began with potato-bugs in Holland; he ended with brilliant creatures that lived on the nectar of flowers, and only five summers and winters stood between the marvel. Oh, marvelous transformation, through environment and food! More marvelous still the way the soul can grow. Last year you lived in the damp, foggy miasmatic levels of selfishness; sordidness, like a cloud, wrapt you about. Suppose you take down your tent, and move into the tropic realm of love and faith and hope. Open the soul’s wings to the light, the sun and dew of God’s spirit. Live in the atmosphere of purity and prayer. Expel hate and fear, like poisonous winds. Imitate Christ’s life. Love the master spirits. Read the great poets. Insist upon leisure to grow ripe. Guard your hours of solitude; practice the presence of God.—N. D. Hillis.

(929)

ENVIRONMENT THAT TRANSFORMS

The Japanese have an ingenious way of changing the color and appearance of birds and animals. For example, white sparrows are produced by selecting a pair of grayish birds and keeping them in a white cage, in a white room, where they are attended by a person drest in white. The mental effect on a series of generations of birds results in completely white birds. (Text.)

(930)

ENVY

The Duchess of Argyll is reported to have written to various European monarchs asking them whom they envied. Among the answers was one from the Czar of Russia, as follows: “I sincerely envy every man who is not loaded down with the cares of a great empire, and who has not to weep for the woes of a people.”

Not infrequently the envied are the envying, because each one is apt to think his own lot the hardest.

(931)

Good men are often hated for their goodness by bad men, who can not endure the contrast with themselves. An unidentified writer points out this kind of envy in the following verse:

(932)

ENVY GRATIFIED

Persons accustomed to gaze in awe upon suit-cases and steamer-trunks covered with labels of every size and color, thinking the while enviously of the fortunate owners of such baggage, who have such an advantage over the poor stay-at-homes, may perhaps be surprized to learn that there are shops where such labels may be had.

It is quite feasible, therefore, for any one to have his case or trunk covered with nicely worn labels, indicating that the owner thereof has roamed from Sydney to San Francisco; from Copenhagen to Colombo, to say nothing of all the capitals of Europe and Asia, with divers famous water-places thrown in for good measure.—Harper’s Weekly.

(933)

Ephemera—See Brevity of Life; Happiness a Good.

Epidemic from Neglect—See Neglect, Consequences of.

Epitaph, Curious—See Man a Timekeeper.

EPITAPHS

The following epitaphs, with the comment on them, are taken from the London Daily News:

There is an interesting epitaph on a gravestone in Poling churchyard, Sussex. It runs:

Here Lieth ye Body of Alice, ye wife, of Bobt Woolbridge, who Died the 27th of May, 1740. Aged 44 years.

Here is another:

Less comic, but more witty, is the epitaph found at Kingsbridge, S. Devon.

Here lieth the body of Robert (commonly called “Bone”) Phillips, who died July 27th, 1793, aged 65 years, and at whose request the following lines are here inscribed:

Here is an epitaph on a last-maker, who is said to be buried at Llanflantwythyl:

The following, more philosophic and general in its application, is on an eighteenth-century tombstone in Saint Mary’s Parish Churchyard, Mold, North Wales.

The correspondent also sends us an epitaph which has pithiness and force. It runs:

It was an epitaph which called forth the following topical epigram from Dr. Samuel Clarke, who had just seen the inscription, “Domus Ultima,” on the vault belonging to the Dukes of Richmond in the Cathedral of Chichester. In a mood of satire he wrote:

(934)

Equality, The Spirit of—See Respect, No, of Persons.

EQUALIZATION

The practise of some physicians is practically the philosophy of Christian socialism: “From every man according to his ability, to every man according to his need.”

“A Philadelphia judge,” says American Medicine, “has given expression to the opinion that ‘the life of a rich man is worth more than the life of a poor man, and the physician has a right to charge the millionaire more for his services than he does the laborer.’ He went on further to say that ‘the physician is unlike the merchant, who has goods of different quality to sell at various prices. He must give his best service in every case. Human life has a pecuniary value of variable quality, greater in the millionaire than in the laborer. Thus, the practitioner of common sense has a maximum and a minimum charge, and makes out his bills to suit the pecuniary circumstances of his patients.’” The writer thinks that “there will be no dissent on the part of right-thinking people” from this view. Carried to its logical conclusion, it would appear to justify a sliding-scale of prices for all the necessities of life, carefully adjusted to the varying incomes of the users. (Text.)

(935)

The conclusion reached in this extract leaves out of account the presence in the cosmos of a living God:

The quantity of energy existing in the universe remains constant, but transforms itself little by little into heat uniformly distributed at a temperature everywhere identical. In the end, therefore, there will be neither chemical phenomena nor manifestation of life; the world will still exist, but without motion; and, so to speak, dead.—Lucien Poincaré, “The New Physics and its Evolution.”

(936)

Equilibrium in Nature—See Complexity in Organs.

Equipment and Results—See Medical Missions.

Error as a Benefactor—See Discovery, Accidental.

ERROR CORRECTED

Human nature must be perfected by long processes of improvement analogous to that employed in getting a perfect chronometer.

From the practical point of view, chronometry has made in these last few years very sensible progress. The errors in the movements of chronometers are corrected in a much more systematic way than formerly, and certain inventions have enabled important improvements to be effected in the construction of these instruments. Thus, the curious properties which steel combined with nickel—so admirably studied by M. Guillaume—exhibits in the matter of dilatation are now utilized so as to almost completely annihilate the influence of variations of temperature.—Lucien Poincaré, “The New Physics and its Evolution.”

(937)

Error Exposed—See Dogmatism, Mistaken.

ERROR IN REASONING

It frequently happens that men are perfectly correct in their premises and in observing the facts, while their conclusions may be wholly wrong.

Ptolemy clearly saw that, if the alternation from day to night is caused by a rotation of the earth, then points on the equator must move with a speed of nearly one thousand miles an hour, a velocity exceeding more than tenfold that of the wind in the severest storm. A terrible gale would thus always blow from the east; birds in flight and objects thrown into the air would be left behind and carried with frightful rapidity toward the west. As these things do not happen, the earth, Ptolemy concludes, must be at rest.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

(938)

Error Leading to Success—See Experiment.

Eruption of Evil—See Evil Eruptive.

Escape—See Ingenuity; Rescue.

ESSENTIALS

Immediately after one of the fiercest battles of the Civil War a chaplain of one of the Federal regiments passed over the field of conflict in the performance of his duty. He noticed among the prostrate bodies one which moved, and quickly was at the side of a dying soldier. Recognizing that the man had not long to live, he at once proceeded to administer, but in rather a formal manner, the consolations of religion. Kneeling at the man’s side, he asked him to what church he belonged, and the surprizing answer came, “The Church which God hath purchased with His own blood.” “Oh, but that is not what I mean,” said the minister, “what is your belief?” The mortally wounded disciple replied, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” “Oh,” said the chaplain, “but you do not understand me—what is your persuasion?” The answer came from lips which were quivering in the agonies of death, “I am persuaded that neither death nor life shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” and with these words the soldier passed into the presence of Him who is the Savior of all them that believe in Him.

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Estimating One’s Self—See Self-depreciation.

ETERNAL LIFE, MAKING ROOM FOR

Have you ever noticed what happens when from one cause or another the water-mains in any street have become choked or polluted by the intrusion of some foreign body? You will see some one come along with an iron instrument and turn on the stopcock at some point in the roadway. Immediately there comes an up-rush, a mighty volume of water—swirling, heaving, rolling, hurtling out of the pipes beneath. And you will observe, too, that for a time it seems to be charged with filth; whatever it is that has been blocking the flow of the life-giving element is being stirred up and flung out with immense force. But after a time the jet clears, the evil is gone, the water becomes sweet and pure, and the flow full and steady. Then the covering is replaced; the cleansing process is at an end. And so it is with you and me. God has to get rid of our selfishness somehow that the life eternal may possess us through and through. The cleansing may seem to be a stern matter, but it is best to let Him have his way to the uttermost. We must be crucified with Christ in order to live with Him, but no man would ever repine at what it costs if he could foresee what is to be gained.—R. J. Campbell, The Christian Commonwealth.

(940)

ETERNAL, THE, AT HAND

A lady recently related in one of the journals how she went through a veritable blizzard to view a flower-show. With one step she passed out of the wild night, the deep snow, the bitter wind, into a brilliant hall filled with hyacinths, tulips, jonquils, cyclamens, azaleas, roses and orchids.

It is the privilege of godly men, at any time, to pass at a step from the savage conflicts of life right into the sweet fellowship of God, finding grace to help in the time of need.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

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ETERNITY

Walter Samuel Swisher is the author of these lines:

(942)

ETERNITY AS A SPUR

Once, when tempted to linger in a lovely landscape, Wesley cried, “I believe there is an eternity; I must arise and go hence”; and those words express the temper of his life. He lived in the spirit of Andrew Marvel’s strong lines:

“And this,” Johnson complained, “is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have his talk out as I do.”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

(943)

Ether, Doctrine of—See Mystery in Religion.

Ethical Judgments—See Judging from Facts.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLE

Horace Bushnell, the great preacher, when he was a young man, was troubled with religious doubts. He was an instructor in Yale College when a gracious revival prevailed in that institution. Fearing lest he should stand in the way of younger men who might follow his example, he became troubled in mind exceedingly. He walked the floor of his room in deep study. At last he reached this conclusion: “There is one thing of which I have no doubt: there is a difference between right and wrong. Am I willing to throw myself on the side of right as far as I can see the right?” That ethical principle dissolved his doubts. (Text.)

(944)

Etiquette—See Absurd Notions.

Etiquette, Breaches of—See Missionaries’ Mistakes.

Etiquette in the East—See Calls and Conveyances in the East; Propriety.

Etiquette Superseded—See Courage versus Etiquette.

EVANESCENT LITERATURE

We may be sure that any piece of literature which attracts only by some trick of style, however it may blaze up for a day and startle the world with its flash, lacks the element of endurance. We do not need much experience to tell us the difference between a lamp and a Roman candle. Even in our day we have seen many reputations flare up, illuminate the sky, and then go out in utter darkness. When we take a proper historical perspective, we see that it is the universal, the simple, that lasts.—Charles Dudley Warner, Atlantic Monthly.

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EVANGELISM, APOSTOLIC

As the fairy god Ceres in the old Greek mythologies went forth from Mount Olympus moving over the desert land, touching the miry bog and widening it into a river; touching the thorn-tree and causing it to be laden with olives, and the brier and it bears its luscious figs; touching the desert plain and it becomes a garden, so these disciples, filled with the light and love of Jesus Christ, go forth into the mortal darkness and spiritual destitution of the heathen world until under their influence pagan Rome casts all her idol gods into the sea and crowns Jesus King of kings and Lord of lords.—J. H. Jowett.

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EVANGELISM, UNHERALDED

In my mail the other evening I received this unsigned letter:

“I won’t let this incident pass without writing to you of it. My little daughter is a member of your Sunday-school. I do not have any religious faith. All my life I have been an unbeliever. The children of our neighborhood went to Sunday-school, and my little girl wanted to go with them. I consented. She came home one Sunday with certain verses to commit to memory, and said that when she learned them perfectly and recited them to her teacher, she would get a Bible as a reward. Last Sunday she did not return at the usual time. I waited for her for a while, and then went to the Sunday-school to see if she was there. I went into a room, and at once saw my little one standing and reciting the verses which she had studied. The young lady who was hearing her had her arm around her. Oh, sir! I can not describe the feeling that went through my whole being. I thought, If some one had done that to me when I was a child, what a different life I might have had! As I stood looking upon the scene, I made up my mind that I would start next Sunday and go to church, and try and get into touch with the spirit which the Sunday-school teacher showed.”—J. F. Carson, Sunday-school Times.

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EVANGELISM, UNUSUAL

Rev. W. E. Bentley, who is rector of an Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, has induced nearly twenty young actors to quit the stage and become Episcopal ministers. He maintains what is almost a theological seminary.

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EVANGELIZATION

In regard to the divine method for the evangelization of the world, the following bit of imagery is not without its deeper meaning. Mr. S. D. Gordon imagines that after Jesus went back to heaven, He and Gabriel had a conversation something like this:

Gabriel is saying: “Master, you died for the whole world down there, did you not?” “Yes.” “You must have suffered much.” “Yes.” “And do they all know about it?” “Oh, no; only a few in Palestine know about it so far.” “Well, Master, what have you done about telling the world that you have died for them? What is your plan?”

“Well,” the Master is supposed to answer, “I asked Peter and James and John and Andrew, and some more of them down there, just to make it the business of their lives to tell others, and others, and yet others, and still others, until the last man in the farthest circle has heard the story.”

And Gabriel is supposed to answer: “Yes—but—suppose Peter fails. Suppose after a while John simply does not tell others. Suppose their descendants, their successors away off in the first edge of the twentieth century, get so busy that they do not tell others, what then?”

And back comes the voice of Jesus, “Gabriel, I haven’t made any other plans—I’m counting on them.” (Text.)

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EVAPORATION

Said Moody: “We are leaky vessels and need constant replenishing. If we cut a leafy branch from a growing plant and put it in a warm oven, the leaves and stem will soon become smaller and lighter and more brittle, because the water in the branch has been evaporated by the heat. Often more than four-fifths of the weight of a growing plant is water. Hay is dried grass. The farmer cuts his grass and lets it lie exposed to the heat of the sun until most of the water it contained has evaporated.” (Text.)