P

Pace—See Slowness.

Pagan Conception of Death—See Death, Christian View of.

Pagan Kindness—See Generosity.

PAGAN THOUGHTS

On Stanley’s first trip through Africa he came to the King of Uganda, who most cordially asked, first of all, for the health of Queen Victoria and of the German Emperor. Then he somewhat disconcerted the great traveler by asking him, “What news do you bring me from above?” This heathen king had a perfect right to expect that his visitor was one in heart and idea with that greater explorer, David Livingstone. But as Stanley proceeded westward he could tell the character of those with whom the natives were acquainted. The first question put by the natives nearer the West Coast was, “Have you any gin?”

(2287)

PAIN

(2288)

Pain, Cry of—See Bird Notes.

PAIN IN ANIMALS

In dealing with animals it is necessary to consider carefully what signs may be depended upon as proofs of their suffering. Certainly their struggles and cries are not always true indications. All wild animals struggle under restraint. With many, cries indicate fear rather than pain. A hare when shot rarely cries; when closely pursued by dogs it often does. Animals when trapped rarely cry until some one approaches the trap. Frogs will cry out loudly on the appearance of anything at all resembling a snake; when injured with stones or cut by the scythe in mowing they rarely do so. Every gamekeeper knows that it is a common thing for a rat or rabbit, when caught by the leg in one of the ordinary steel-traps, to gnaw off its limb and so escape, while other animals when kept short of food will readily eat their own tails. Another proof that animals are less sensitive to pain than man is their comparative freedom from shock after severe injuries. When a man meets with a severe injury of any kind, a train of symptoms follow which are collectively known by the name of shock. A striking pallor takes the place of the natural color, the skin becomes covered with a clammy moisture, the eye loses its natural luster, and the extremities become deadly cold, and while the ear may detect the fluttering action of the heart, the pulse at the wrist is often quite imperceptible. All these symptoms point to a great disturbance of the nervous system, whereas the lower animals often sustain the severest injuries without exhibiting any of the symptoms of shock.—W. Collier, Nineteenth Century.

(2289)

PAIN, LEARNING BY

The gipsies of Transylvania, according to a writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, teach young bears to dance by placing the animal on a sheet of heated iron, while the trainer plays on his fiddle a strongly accentuated piece of dance-music. The bear, lifting up its legs alternately to escape the heat, involuntarily observes the time marked by the violin. Later on the heated iron is supprest, when the animal has learned its lesson, and whenever the gipsy begins to play on the fiddle the young bear lifts its legs in regular time to the music.—Public Opinion.

(2290)

Pain Relieved—See Patience.

PAIN STRENGTHENS

When the little girl told her music-teacher that it hurt her fingers to practise on the piano, the teacher answered: “I know it hurts them, but it strengthens them, too.” Then the child packed the philosophy of the ages into her reply: “Teacher, it seems that everything which strengthens hurts.”—F. F. Shannon.

(2291)

PAIN, THE ANGEL OF

When Theodosius was put upon the rack he suffered very great torture at the first. Somebody asked him how he endured all that pain on the rack. He replied: “When I was first put upon the rack I suffered a great deal; but very soon a young man in white stood by my side, and with a soft and comfortable handkerchief he wiped the sweat from my brow, and my pains were relieved. It was a punishment for me to get from the rack, because when the pain was all gone the angel was gone.” (Text.)

(2292)

PAINSTAKING

In spite of his continual need of movement, his passionate love of sport in all its forms, and especially of motoring, his expansive, rather mad, but very attractive youthfulness, Alfonso XIII, even in his flying trips, never loses the occasion to improve his mind. He is very quick at seizing a point, possesses a remarkable power of assimilation, and, altho he does not read much, for he has no patience, he is remarkably well informed regarding the smallest details in matters that interest him. One day, for instance, he asked me, point-blank:

“Do you know how many gendarmes there are in France?”

I confess that I was greatly puzzled what to reply, for I have never cared much about statistics. I ventured to say, off-hand: “Ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand! Come, M. Paoli, what are you thinking of? That’s the number we have in Spain. It’s more like twenty thousand.”

This figure, as I afterward learned, was strictly accurate.

As for business of State, I also noticed that the king devoted more time to it than his restless life would lead one to believe. Rising, winter and summer, at six o’clock, he stays indoors and works regularly during the early part of the morning, and often again at night. In this connection, one of his ministers said to me:

“He never shows a sign of either weariness or boredom. The king’s ‘frivolity’ is a popular fallacy. On the contrary, he is terribly painstaking. Just like the queen mother, he insists upon clear and detailed explanations before he will sign the least document; and he knows quite well how to make his will felt. Besides, he is fond of work, and he can work anywhere—in a motor-car, in a boat, in a train, as well as in his study.”—Xavier Paoli, McClure’s.

(2293)

Any one, says a writer in The Atlantic Monthly, can hold out a dumb-bell for a few seconds; but in a few more seconds the arm sags; it is only the trained athlete who can endure even to the minute’s end.

For Hawthorne to hold the people of “The Scarlet Letter” steadily in focus from November to February, to say nothing of six years’ preliminary brooding, is surely more of an artistic feat than to write a short story between Tuesday and Friday.

The three years and nine months of unremitting labor devoted to “Middlemarch” does not in itself afford any criterion of the value of the book; but given George Eliot’s brain power and artistic instinct to begin with, and then concentrate them for that period upon a single theme, and it is no wonder that the result is a masterpiece.

“Jan van Eyck was never in a hurry,” says Charles Reade of the great Flemish painter, in “The Cloister and the Hearth,” and therefore the world will not forget him in a hurry. (Text.)

(2294)

Painting the Living—See Motive, Mercenary.

Palliatives—See Music as an Anesthetic.

PALLIATIVES VERSUS PREVENTION

The principle indicated in the extract will some day be adopted by Christianity in its treatment of the moral life. Mere palliatives are insufficient:

The aim of reasonable people should be to keep themselves in health rather than to be always straying, as it were, upon the confines of disease and seeking assistance from drugs in order to return to conditions from which they should never have suffered themselves to depart. The various alkaline salts and solutions, for example, the advertisements of which meet us at every turn, and which are offered to the public as specifics, safely to be taken, without anything so superfluous as the advice of medical men, for all the various evils which are described by the advertisers as gout or heartburn, or as the consequences of “uric acid,” do unquestionably, in a certain proportion of cases, afford temporary relief from some discomfort or inconvenience. They do this notwithstanding persistence in the habit or in the indulgence, whatever it may be, the overeating, the want of exercise, the excessive consumption of alcohol or of tobacco, which is really underlying the whole trouble which the drugs are supposed to cure and which at the very best they only temporarily relieve, while they permit the continuance of conditions leading ultimately to degeneration of tissue and to premature death. (Text.)—The Lancet.

(2295)

PANIC THROUGH FEAR

The New York Evening Post thus describes the condition of panic on our ships at the beginning of the Spanish War:

Almost any officer who served in the fleet before Santiago could relate not one, but a great many incidents that occurred where the men of our ships would have slaughtered each other if the good little angel that sits up aloft (and our exceedingly bad marksmanship at that time) had not protected us from the mistakes (incomprehensible to landsmen) which caused our ships to fire at each other, at colliers, dispatch-boats, torpedo-boats, and at nothing at all—and all this in the clear atmosphere of the tropical seas.

Such was the effect of the long, nervous tension that thousands of shots were fired at pure fantoms of the imagination. The broadsides of powerful battleships repeatedly burst into a furious cannonade that was arrested only with the complete annihilation of the supposed enemy. For one of our ships to approach the fleet at night was to run a grave risk. The sea was alive with Spanish torpedo-boats. Signals, lights, etc., were misunderstood or disregarded. The enemy might have obtained possession of them and displayed them for our confusion. There were many narrow escapes. Several of our vessels were struck by shells, but the luck that followed us throughout the war prevented a disaster. I could mention the names of officers who have never been able to comb their hair down flat since the particular night on which they came within an ace of sinking a friend—with whom they have never since ceased to exchange congratulatory drinks. (Text.)—New York Evening Post.

(2296)

Panoply—See Armor.

Paper, Invention of—See Antiquity.

Papers, The Opinions of—See Reports to Order.

Paralysis—See Salvability.

PARADOX

Nature is full of paradoxes. The water which drowns us as a fluent stream can be walked upon as ice. The bullet which, when fired from a musket, carries death, will be harmless if ground to dust before being fired. The crystallized part of the oil of roses, so graceful in its fragrance—a solid at ordinary temperatures, tho readily volatile—is a compound substance, containing exactly the same elements and exactly the same proportions as the gas with which we light the streets. The tea which we daily drink with benefit and pleasure produces palpitation, nervous tremblings, and even paralysis if taken in excess; yet the peculiar organic agent called “thein,” to which tea owes its quality, may be taken by itself (as thein, not as tea) without any appreciable effect—Vyrnwy Morgan, “The Cambro-American Pulpit.”

(2297)

Joseph Hart, the hymnist, wrote “The Paradox,” as follows:

(2298)

PARASITES

Society has too many members who are willing to live on the labor of others, like the shoveler duck described in this extract:

One of the ducks has learned a convenient trick for getting his dinner. Some of the diving brotherhood who feed under water stir up a great deal that floats, and the shoveler, preferring to take his provision from the surface, follows his diving neighbor to the feeding-place, and while the feeders below stir up the inhabitants, he swims around on the surface and catches whatever floats.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(2299)

PARASITISM

Some of the intruding insects that come from oak galls are not harmless. They are the ones called parasites. They live in the houses not for the sake of the protection or the food furnished by the house, but in order to eat the actual dwellers in the house. Often and often not a single real gall-insect comes out in the spring from many of the little houses, but only a little swarm, or sometimes just two or three, or even one, of these insect-devouring parasites that has eaten up the rightful owners of the house.—Vernon L. Kellogg, “Insect Stories.”

(2300)

PARDON

In the Isle of Man is an old, gray, ruined tower in which was formerly hanged one of the best governors the island ever possest. He had been accused of treachery to the king during the time of the civil wars, and received sentence of death. Intercession was made for him, and a pardon was sent; but the pardon fell into the hands of his bitter enemy, who kept it locked up, and the governor was executed.

(2301)

Pardon, Conditional—See Mercy, Limitation of.

PARDON FOR A CHILD’S SAKE

The following incident is related by Mrs. Pickett, widow of General George E. Pickett, of the Confederate Army, of her first meeting with President Lincoln after the war:

I was in Richmond when my Soldier fought the awful battle of Five Forks, Richmond surrendered, and the surging sea of fire swept the city. The day after the fire, there was a sharp rap at the door. The servants had all run away. The city was full of Yankees, and my environment had not taught me to love them. With my baby on my arm, I opened the door, and looked up at a tall, gaunt, sad-faced man in ill-fitting clothes. He asked: “Is this George Pickett’s home?”

With all the courage and dignity I could muster, I replied: “Yes, and I am his wife, and this is his baby.”

“I am Abraham Lincoln.”

“The President!” I gasped. I had never seen him, but I knew the intense love and reverence with which my Soldier always spoke of him. The stranger shook his head and replied:

“No; Abraham Lincoln, George’s old friend.”

The baby pushed away from me and reached out his hands to Mr. Lincoln, who took him in his arms. As he did so an expression of rapt, almost divine tenderness and love lighted up the sad face. It was a look that I have never seen on any other face. The baby opened his mouth wide and insisted upon giving his father’s friend a dewy infantile kiss. As Mr. Lincoln gave the little one back to me, he said:

“Tell your father, the rascal, that I forgive him for the sake of your bright eyes.”

(2302)

Pardon through Intercession—See Sacrificial Mediation.

Parentage—See Life, Source of.

PARENTAL CAUTION

On the plain of Troy are dotted many Turkish villages. Thousands of storks make their nests on the roofs of the cottages. When Dr. Schliemann was digging in the ruins of the hill of Hissarlik, and discovering the remains of cities, he had two comfortable nests made for storks on the roof of his hut. But none would take up their abode. The hill was too cold and stormy for the little storks and the parents instinctively knew it.

(2303)

Parental Mal-influence—See Politeness.

Parental Religion—See Religion, Family.

PARENTAL SACRIFICE

D. L. Moody told this story of missionary self-sacrifice:

A good many years ago I was stopping in a house in the West, and saw there a bright boy of thirteen who didn’t bear the name of the family he was living with, and yet was treated like one of the family. In answer to my inquiries, the lady said, “He is the son of a missionary. His parents couldn’t educate their children in India, so they came back here. But they had learned the language of India, and they did not feel that it was right for them to stay in this country. Finally, the husband said, ‘You stay here, wife, and educate the children and I will go back.’ The mother said, ‘No; God has used me there with you—we will go back together.’ ‘But,’ the father said, ‘you can’t give up those children. You never have been separated from them since they were born. How can you leave them in this country and go back?’ She replied, bravely, ‘I can do it if Christ wants me to.’ They made it a matter of prayer and put notices in the papers that they were going to leave their children, and asked Christian people to take them and educate them. I saw the notice and wrote that I would take one child and bring it up for Christ’s sake. The mother came and stayed a week in our home and observed everything. She watched the order and discipline of the family, and after she was convinced that it was a safe place to leave her boy, she set the day for departing. My room adjoined hers, and when the time came to start, I heard her pray, ‘Lord Jesus, help me now. I need Thee. Help me to give up this dear boy without a tear, that I may leave him with a smile. Oh, God, give me strength.’ She was helped to leave with a bright smile on her face. She went to five homes in the same way and went back to India, leaving her five children. Some time afterward,” Mr. Moody continued, “I was in Hartford and found a young man busy in the good work of picking up the rough boys of the streets and bringing them to my meetings and trying to lead them to Christ. It pleased me very much and I asked who he was. He was studying in the theological seminary, and I found he was one of those five sons of that brave woman, and all of the five were expecting to return to India to carry on their father’s work.”

(2304)

PARENTHOOD AMONG SAVAGES

An Australian mother will coddle her baby with ape-like fondness, and hardly ever let it stray out of sight for the first four years; but as soon as the toddling little imp seems able to take care of itself, its debt of gratitude to its progenitors has to be paid by the worst kind of slavery. At the first sign of insubordination a half-grown boy is apt to be kicked out, if not killed, by his own father. (Text.)—Felix Oswald, Good Health.

(2305)

Parentless—See Sympathy, Practical.

Parents—See Example of Parents.

PARENTS AS TEACHERS OF RELIGION

The teaching and preaching by fathers and mothers in the seclusion of the home circle are doing much more to determine the fate of souls than the eloquent sermons and elaborate lessons in pulpit and Sunday-school. Parents are touching life at its beginnings, making impressions that can never be obliterated. The family is the natural and divinely appointed school of religion because it has the first opportunity. The smallest thing at the beginning of life affects all the future. A child but a year old slipt and fell on a wet floor, and tho that was seventy years ago, the man is lame yet. And the moral nature is as easily crippled as the body. The moral lameness we see in the old or middle-aged is often caused by some mistaught or neglected lesson in infancy.—The Cumberland Presbyterian.

(2306)

Parents, Example of—See Family Religion.

PARSIMONY IN GIVING

On one occasion a new silver dollar found itself in the same plate with a penny with the head of an Indian upon it. And the goddess of Liberty looked down upon the Indian, and said: “You miserable, copper-faced, feather-trimmed heathen, what are you doing in this plate, in the same company with me?” And the copper coin, with the Indian’s face, responded: “I am found in a great many more missionary gatherings than you are!”

(2307)

PARTIALITY

Chief Justice Marshall, of the United States, was all his life an ardent votary of quoits. He was an active member of the Barbecue or Quoit Club for forty years, their main amusement being quoits and backgammon. Great respect was paid to the veteran lawyer in these contests. Once an old Scotch gentleman was called in to decide between him and a keen rival as to the winner, and after a most careful measurement that oracle gave his decision thus: “Maister Mairshall has it a leetle,” tho every bystander saw it was quite the other way. (Text.)—Croake James, “Curiosities of Law and Lawyers.”

(2308)

Pass, Let it—See Evil, Ignoring.

Passengers to Heaven—See Obligations to the Church.

PASSING OF LIFE

(2309)

PASSION, GROWTH OF

An old man was once walking with a little boy. They came across four shrubs. The old man said to his youthful companion:

“Pull up the least one.”

He obeyed with ease.

“Now the next.”

He obeyed, but it did not come so easily.

“And the third.”

It took all his strength to move its roots, but he succeeded.

“Now the fourth.”

In vain the lad put forth all his strength. He only made the leaves tremble. He could not move the roots. They had gone strongly into the earth, and no effort could dislodge them.

Then the wise old man said to the ardent youth:

“This, my son, is just what happens with our passions. When they are young and weak one may by a little watchfulness over self and the help of a little self-denial easily tear them up, but if we let them cast their roots deep into our souls there is no human power can uproot them. For this reason, my child, watch well over the first movements of your soul and study by acts of virtue to keep your passions well in check.” (Text.)

(2310)

Passport, Value of a—See Token, Value of a.

Past and Present Compared—See Religion Diffused.

PASTOR, THE IDEAL

(2311)

Path, Narrow—See Promises.

PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS

A Viennese lady, who had suffered for a long time from cataleptic or lethargic attacks, was finally buried in one of her trances. The sexton, who fortunately happened to be a thief in this instance, had reopened the grave and was busy removing her clothes during the ensuing night, when a resurrection of the dead took place. Stricken with terror, he was running away, when the woman called him back, requesting to be taken to her doctor.

A little girl, mentioned by Tissot, shocked at her sister having helped herself to a coveted morsel, remained stiff and motionless for an hour, a spoon in her hand, and her arm outstretched toward the dish.

A soldier, quarreling with a companion, in a fit of passion seized a bottle to throw at him; cataleptic rigidity fixt him in this attitude, motionless, unconscious, his eyes full of anger and defiance.

In another case a magistrate on the bench, insulted in the middle of his summing up, remained as if petrified in an attitude of indignation and threat at his insulter.

Again, we read of priests being cataleptized at the altar in the attitude of elevating the sacrament.—A. de Watteville, Fortnightly Review.

(2312)

PATHS, KEEPING ONE’S OWN

Some twenty years ago a United States naval officer conceived the idea that if vessels eastbound took one ocean path and vessels westbound another, collisions would be avoided. Steamship lines eagerly fell in with the suggestion, and the result is that ingoing and outgoing liners may follow well-defined lanes of traffic. Separate paths are laid out for vessels of high power. Slow vessels, freighters and the like, have their special steaming zones. Since that time no collision on the high seas between two liners has occurred.

If every man would be equally careful to keep in his own territory moral collisions and many of life’s catastrophes would be avoided.

(2313)

PATIENCE

Edward Collins Downing bids us to wait through earth’s night for the coming day of God’s accomplishments:

(2314)

Lady Henry Somerset has told how her attention was first called to the work of relieving the sufferings of poor city children.

“I was moved in that direction by the rare patience and imagination of one little boy. His example convinced me that patience was one of the qualities I needed most, and in seeking it I grew into that work. I was in a hospital on visiting day while the doctors were changing a plaster-cast which held the crippled boy’s limb. The operation was exceedingly painful, I was told. To my surprize the little sufferer neither stirred nor winced, but made a curious buzzing sound with his mouth. After the doctors left him, I said:

“‘How could you possibly stand it?’

“‘That’s nothin’,’ he answered; ‘why, I just made believe that a bee was stingin’ me. Bees don’t hurt very much, you know. And I kept buzzin’ because I was afraid I’d forget about its being a bee if I didn’t.’”

(2315)

When the quality most needed in a prime minister, who should be fully master of the situation, was the subject of conversation in the presence of Mr. Pitt, one of the speakers said it was eloquence, another said it was knowledge, a third said it was toil. “No,” said Pitt, “it is patience.” And patience is undoubtedly a prime quality of mastery in any situation.—James T. Fields.

(2316)

See Wait and See; Waiting.

Patriot, Acting the Part of a—See Pretense.

PATRIOTISM

The spirit of Lincoln, who struck hard blows at the Southern cause but always spoke charitably of the Southern people, is embodied in this poem:

(2317)

A Japanese mother had given her three sons to the war. The first was reported slain. She smiled and said, “It is well. I am happy.” The second lay dead upon the field. She smiled again and said, “I am still happy.” The third gave up his life and they said to her, “At last you weep!” “Yes,” she said, “but it is because I have no more sons to give to my beloved country!”—Marshall P. Wilder, “Smiling ’Round the World.”

(2318)

See Fidelity; Home Where the Heart is; Symbol, Power of a.

PATRIOTISM, DISINTERESTED

A rather refreshing sight for this year of our Lord would be a repetition of the office seeking the man as in “Saul’s” case, where it was said, “They sought him (to make him king) but he could not be found.”

It is said of Abraham Lincoln that, fully expecting, owing to the meager success of the Union armies up to that time, that he would fail of reelection as President, he resolutely set about putting the governmental departments in order for his successor. He took special pains that as little inconvenience as possible (and detriment to the country’s interests) should be experienced in the transfer of power. How differently he might have acted but for his distinguishing patriotism! Washington once said: “It is of little consequence that my closing days be embittered if only the liberties of my country be conserved.” (Text.)

(2319)

Patriotism, Early—See Loyalty.

Patriotism, Emblem of—See Memorials of Patriotism.

PATRIOTISM, LACK OF

A significant punishment was administered recently to a man in Hoboken, N. J., for an act of disrespect to the Stars and Stripes. He was returning from an entertainment in the early morning hours, when he noticed a large flag flying from a pole in a citizen’s yard. In a spirit of mischief he opened his pocket-knife and cut the halyards and the flag came fluttering to the ground. A policeman saw it fall and promptly arrested the man. When asked by the recorder before whom he was arraigned why he had done the mischief, he had nothing to say but that he objected to see the flag flying at that time in the morning. The recorder answered that it was right to have that flag flying at any time, and he would pass a sentence that would teach the offender a lesson of respect. He ordered him to climb the forty-foot pole and replace the flag, and instructed two policemen to see that it was done. The news of the sentence attracted a crowd and the man was jeered as he clumsily climbed the pole and put the flag back. It is a curious fact that the man who cut the flag down was an American, but it was flying in the yard of a Frenchman, and the arrest was made by an Irish policeman, and the recorder who pronounced sentence is said to be of English descent.

Every one has a contempt for a man who lowers the symbol of his nation’s honor. But it is too often forgotten that dishonorable conduct and unprincipled trickery do more to dishonor the nation to which a man belongs than any insult to his flag.

(2320)

Patriotism Scorned—See Memorials of Patriotism.

Patrons Cared for—See Deportment.

PATTERN, PERFECT

We must not look for truth from men and women whose souls are out of sympathy with truth. The trouble with us all as human beings is that none of our natural virtues are wholly sound and perfect. There is at least a little untruth in all our truth, a little jealousy even in our best praise, a little pride even in our piety, a little superciliousness in our forbearance. Jesus alone could properly claim to be a type for all human character.

In a bullet foundry the first anxiety does not concern the bullets themselves. Of course it is absolutely necessary that each one should be perfectly spherical in shape. The essential antecedent condition is a perfect mold. If the bullet-mold is deformed, every bullet will share its deformity. Therefore the first need is to make the mold right, and then every bullet will share its rectitude.

(2321)

PATTERN, THE DIVINE

“Tapestry Weavers,” the poem by Dr. A. G. Chester, on page 535, has been translated into Japanese and published in the leading magazine of the country, which circulates over 50,000 copies, and the lines have also been printed in its English form upon large cards, which are distributed throughout the schools of Japan.

A returned missionary from China, who was recently introduced to Doctor Chester, remarked: “I am delighted to make the acquaintance of the author of ‘The Tapestry Weavers,’ a poem I have loved and admired and used by way of illustration for many years.”

In connection with a fair lately held at the Waldorf-Astoria, New York City, for the benefit of the Home for Crippled Children, a number of copies of the poem, printed upon tinted paper and bearing the author’s autograph, sold readily and realized a handsome sum.

(2322)

PAYMENT OF DEBTS

In a suit lately tried in a Maryland court, the plaintiff testified that his financial position had always been a good one. The opposing counsel took him in hand for cross-examination and undertook to break down his testimony upon this point.

“Have you ever been bankrupt?” asked the counsel. “I have not.” “Now, be careful,” admonished the lawyer, with raised finger. “Did you ever stop payment?” “Yes.” “Ah, I thought we should get at the truth,” observed counsel, with an unpleasant smile. “When did this suspension of payment occur?” “When I had paid all I owed,” was the naive reply of the plaintiff.—Success Magazine.

(2323)

PEACE

The following outlook toward universal peace was written by George Frederick Knowles:

(2324)

“The inauguration of a monument of Christ, the Redeemer, on the Cordillera of the Andes,” says Carolina Huidobro, in The Christian Herald (New York), “has a grand significance, at once political and social. The colossal statue upon a pinnacle 14,000 feet above the sea, surrounded by peaks of perpetual snow, dominating as it does the two countries which stretch out on either side of the mountain range, is a tangible witness of international brotherhood.... Chile and Argentina have not only created a symbol; they have inculcated into the minds of men for all ages an idea of greater significance than any other in our contemporary age, by erecting that colossal monument to the Christ, with the inscription on its granite pedestal: ‘Sooner shall these mountains crumble to dust than Argentines and Chileans break the peace which, at the feet of Christ, the Redeemer, they have sworn to maintain.’ On the opposite side of the base are the words of the angels’ song over Bethlehem: ‘Peace on earth, good-will to all men.’ The statue cost about $100,000, and was paid for by popular subscription, the working classes contributing liberally.” (Text.)

(2325)

See Christmas; Militarism.

PEACE PACT

When William Penn made his treaty with the Indians under the spreading branches of an elm-tree on the banks of the Delaware, it was not for lands, but for peace and friendship. “We meet,” said Penn, “in the broad pathway of good faith and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between me and you I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust, or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man’s body were to be divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and blood.” The Indians replied: “We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the sun and moon shall endure.”

Such a peace pact does God make with men; and such a pact ought man and man, and nation and nation to make with each other.

(2326)

Peace Predicted—See Age, The New.

PEACEFUL INSTINCT OF SIMIANS

The acquisitive energy of a monkey-swarm must be witnessed to be credited. In the banana-gardens of the tierra caliente a Mexican capuchin monkey will exhaust his business opportunities with the dispatch of a Cincinnati bank cashier; but, in his attempt to reach the Canadian side of the hedge with a good armful of plunder, so often falls a victim to the pursuing dogs that monkey-trappers frequently rent an orchard for the special purpose of capturing the retreating marauders. In spite of their mischievous petulance, nearly all the Old World species of our four-handed kinsmen are emotionally sympathetic and ever ready to rescue their wounded friends at the risk of their own lives. At the cry of a captured baby baboon the whole tribe of passionate four-fisters will rush in regardless of consequences, and a similar tendency of cooperation may have given our hairy forefathers a superior chance of survival and secured their victory in their struggle for existence against their feline rivals. Their list of original sins may have included gluttony, covetousness and violence of temper, but hardly a penchant for wanton bloodshed. With the exception of the fox-headed lemurs and the ultra-stupid marmosets, nearly all our simian relatives evince symptoms of a character-trait which might be defined as an instinctive aversion to cruelty. Menagerie monkeys indulge their love of gymnastics by frequent scuffles; but the sight of a bona fide fight awakens a chorus of shrieks expressing a general protest rather than an emotion of fear or even partizan interest, for in an open arena the stouter members of the obstreperous community are sure to rush in and part the combatants.—Felix Oswald, Popular Science Monthly.

(2327)

PEACEMAKER, THE

(2328)

Pearl, The Unexpected—See Discovery, Fortunate.

Pearls—See Appreciation.

Peccability of Men—See Vincibleness.

Pedagog Rebuked—See Unnatural Education.

PEDIGREE

Shells keeping their form and delicate color and delicate wings of insects are preserved in stone, embedded there ages ago, “Trees waved, butterflies flitted on brilliant wings and hosts of creatures basked in the sunlight long before human foot trod the earth,” says Edith Carrington in “Ages Ago.” Some pique themselves in being able to trace descent through a few centuries. But there is a humble creature haunting our back-yards counting his pedigree by millions of years. The common wood-louse, tho shy and modest, might boast if he liked—the scion of an ancient and noble family, the trilobites, once the monarchs of the world and the most numerous and highly organized creatures in it. (Text.)

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Penalty from Mistaken Ideas—See Individualism, Excessive.

PENTECOST, MODERN

The Hawaiian Islands are among the greatest of the marvels of missionary success.

During the five years ending June, 1841, 7,557 persons were received into the Church at Hilo, constituting three-fourths of the whole adult population of the parish. When Titus Coan left Hilo, in 1870, he had himself received and baptized 11,960 persons.—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

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Penuriousness—See Sight, Imperfect.

People, Contact With—See Speech, Common.

Perfection—See Compliment.

Peril and Reward, Ignoring—See Pride in One’s Task.

PERISHABLENESS

At the World’s Fair at St. Louis, Mo., the heroic statue of Joliet was so fine a work of art that a movement was set on foot to preserve it after the close of the fair. Many admirers of it subscribed for the expense, and it was removed to the entrance of O’Fallon Park. The figure was twenty-five feet high and fifteen feet long. The work of removal was difficult and cost nearly $2,000, but it was safely accomplished and it made an imposing addition to the beauties of the park. But it was made only of staff, and tho it was believed it would last for ten years, it was not supposed that it was permanent. Not long after, however, while hundreds of people stood admiring it in its new position, there was a sudden break in the image. A cloud of white dust arose, and when it cleared away the big statue had disappeared. A heap of white dust was all there was to show where it had been. It had absolutely crumbled to powder. All the work that had been expended on its formation and removal was lost in a moment. So it is with all human work, however beautiful and imposing. In God and His work alone is permanence. (Text.)

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Permanence of the Spirit—See Record, Living.

PERMANENCY

“The first lizard possest the snout of a dolphin, the head of a lizard, the teeth and jaws of a crocodile, the backbone of a fish, paddles like those of a whale and the trunk and tail of a quadruped—a very monarch of the early seas. Kill or be killed must have been the rule of his life,” says the great French novelist Currie. But it would seem the coat of mail worn by the tortoises and turtles was a better protection than the powerful claws and jaws of the fish-lizard, which was short-lived. The former are alive and flourishing to this day—the latter have altogether vanished. On the grave of John Keats are the words, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” (Text.)

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Permanent Impressions—See Teacher’s Function, The.

PERMANENT, THE

Rev. Robert P. Wilder, missionary to India, gives the following account of a vivid dream he had while working in the mission field:

“I thought the Master came to me and said, ‘Take heed how ye build.’ I asked Him to show me the pattern. The veil was removed and I saw the pattern; but I saw that very much of my work was not in line with the pattern. Presently He took me into a little room and showed me a very small column of silver, and He said, ‘That will abide the test. When the fire comes, that will not be destroyed.’ I asked Him what it represented, and He said, ‘That represents the little gifts to the needy ones.’ ‘Inasmuch as you have done it to one of these little ones you have done it to me, and inasmuch as the left hand did not know what the right hand gave, it is precious.’ Then He showed me another little column of gold, and He said, ‘That also will abide the test. That represents the hours of prayer alone with your Master.’ At last we passed into a great room, and I pointed out to Him the elaborate carving in the woodwork. I had spent many months on it, but the Master said, ‘Yes, it is well done, but it is wood, and when the fire strikes, the wood, hay and stubble will go.’” (Text.)

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PERSECUTION AND PRAYER

When holding services in a little chapel on the edge of Manila, we had a young convert named Candido, about nineteen or twenty years old, in charge. We had to meet out under the trees, and there was an old man who lived close by where we were holding the services—an old gambler, sixty years old, named Marcelina. Of all the vile brutes I ever saw, that old Marcelina was the worst. He would go at night, and while we were holding services he would throw stones and brickbats. If there ever was a devil incarnate, he was one. We had patience with him for a long time. One day Candido came into my office and sat down in a chair and was looking greatly discouraged. Finally he said: “What shall we do with that old Marcelina? He came in last night and hit one of the little girls on the head with a stone, and she is seriously injured.” I replied, “I don’t know what you ought to do. I believe if Jesus were on earth, He would pray for that old man.” “That is a doctrine which you don’t find until you take the gospel,” he answered. “With us, it is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and stab the other fellow in the back.” It cheered my heart to hear that little fellow say that. He went out and gathered twelve or thirteen young men in a room as a praying-band, and for two long months they met every single night to pray for the conversion of that old man. Marcelina, hearing of it, came up and asked, “What are you doing?” “We are praying for you, that God will give you love in your heart.” He rushed out, raving and swearing, and the next time they held a service, he threw clubs and stones. Still the boys did not give up. After that Marcelina could not sleep; and one night he got up when everybody else was asleep and stole like a sentry to where Candido lived and called him out. He said, “Candido, I wish you would tell me what it is that you have which I haven’t got; how can you treat me so kindly, when I am a brute to you?” They walked up under the palm-trees and bananas at the other side of the house, and that nineteen-year-old boy and the proud old gambler knelt down side by side to pray. I do not explain these things, but I know what happened that night. Marcelina knelt down and God took away that stony heart which he had had for fifty years and gave him as new and tender a heart as a young child ever had. Later there stood up thirty-seven people for baptism, and when I looked at Marcelina my heart seemed to come into my throat. I knew the struggles that he had gone through, and after I had baptized him, he said: “I beg your pardon; I thought that I was doing good when I threw stones; I did not know any better.” Before he sat down I put my hand on his shoulder and said: “Wait, one word more; what must we do to win a fellow man for Jesus?” He looked around and sat down, crying like a little child, and we all wept with him; we could not help it. In a moment he arose and gave this testimony, with the tears streaming down his cheeks and his voice shaking: “Pastor, we can not win men by throwing stones at them; we can not win them by treating them as I have been treating you; we must love them to Jesus.” That is what we must do in Latin-America for those people who do not love Jesus; we must step over the barrier and help them and “love them to Jesus.” Do they need us?—J. McLaughlin, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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PERSECUTION, RELIGIOUS

It was during the latter half of the eighteenth century in Europe that some statesmen commenced the much-needed work of reform. Conspicuous among them was Joseph II of had the right to regulate the religion of his subjects. In Bohemia a certain sect was formed, made up of thrifty, honest and hard-working peasants, who believed in God and named themselves deists. This offended the Emperor and he gave instructions to have them brought to justice; those who determined to stand by their belief were to receive twenty-five lashes “not because they are deists,” said Joseph, “but because they declare themselves to be something which they do not comprehend.” The lash did not prove effective, so he deported them.

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PERSEVERANCE

The gentlest and least noticed efforts if repeated persistently enough will have their effect in due time. This is a lesson to be learned by those who are trying forward movements of reform:

In a gun-factory a great bar of steel, weighing five hundred pounds, and eight feet in length, was suspended vertically by a very delicate chain. Near by a common bottle-cork was suspended by a silk thread. The purpose was to show that the cork could set the steel bar in motion. It seemed impossible. The cork was swung gently against the steel bar, and the steel bar remained motionless. But it was done again and again and again for ten minutes, and lo! at the end of that time the bar gave evidence of feeling uncomfortable; a sort of nervous chill ran over it. Ten minutes later, and the chill was followed by vibrations. At the end of half an hour the great bar was swinging like the pendulum of a clock. (Text.)

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It is not clear that Paganini owed much to any one but himself—his indomitable perseverance and his incessant study. His method is to be noted. For ten or twelve hours he would try passages over and over again in different ways with such absorption and intensity that at nightfall he would sink into utter prostration through excessive exhaustion and fatigue. Tho delicate, like Mendelssohn, he ate at times ravenously and slept soundly. When about ten he wrote twenty-four fugues, and soon afterward composed some violin music, of such difficulty that he was unable at first to play it, until incessant practise gave him the mastery.—H. R. Haweis, “My Musical Memories.”

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I once thought I would like to test the perseverance of a large moth in performing its first upward journey; and as it was one from a chrysalis to be found in nature at the foot of a tree that attains some considerable height, I was, of course, prepared to exercise a little patience myself.

As soon as the moth had emerged, I placed it at the bottom of a window curtain that hung about eight feet high to the floor. In less than half a minute it had reached the top and was struggling hard to get still higher. I took it down and again placed it at the bottom. Up it went as fast as before, and this was repeated nine times with exactly the same result.—W. Furneaux, “Butterflies and Moths.”

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“Years of fruitless and apparently hopeless toil had almost determined the directors of the London Missionary Society to abandon altogether the work at Tahiti. Dr. Haweis, chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the founders of the society, and the father and liberal supporter of the South Sea Mission, earnestly opposed such abandonment of the field, and backed his arguments by a further donation of a thousand dollars. The Rev. Matthew Wilks, the pastor of John Williams, declared that he would sell the clothes from his back rather than give up the mission, and proposed, instead, a season of special prayer for the divine blessing. Such a season was observed; letters of encouragement were written to the missionaries, and—mark it!—while the vessel was on her way to carry these letters to Tahiti, another ship passed her in mid-ocean, which conveyed to Great Britain, October, 1813, the news that idolatry was entirely overthrown on the island, and bore to London the rejected idols of the people.” (Text.)—Pierson, “The Miracles of Missions.”

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A young girl sat singing at the piano. “Sing it again,” said the singing teacher, and the tired girl sang it again and again and again. “But you do not sing it properly, and I question if you will ever make a great singer.” But the little girl tried hard and practised the next day and the next; the next week and the next; the next year and the next. One day she stood before 5,000 men and women, and she sang till she seemed to take them out of themselves and to carry them up in the clouds of enchantment, over seas of melody, into an ecstasy of delight, until the people wept from the excess of their emotions. That girl was Lillian Nordica.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

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A pious woman, when it was decided to close the prayer-meeting in a certain village, declared it should not be, for she would be there if no one else was. True to her word, when, the next morning, some one asked her jestingly, “Did you have a prayer-meeting last night?” “Ah, that we did!” she replied. “How many were present?” “Four,” she said. “Why, I heard you were there all alone.” “No, I was the only one visible; but the Father was there, and the Son was there, and the Holy Spirit was there, and we were all agreed in prayer.” Before long others took shame to themselves at the earnest perseverance of the poor woman, the prayer-meeting was revived and the church prospered. (Text.)

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See Criminals, Tracing; Persistence.

Perseverance in Saving—See Persistence in Doing Good.

Perseverance, Unexampled—See Aerial Achievement.

PERSIA, THE MOSLEM SITUATION IN

Perhaps I can not illustrate the degraded condition of the people in Persia better than by referring to the condition of women, because the key to the condition of the entire people is the condition occupied by their women. I will illustrate it by describing the manner of cultivating rice in northern Persia, in that portion bordering on the Caspian Sea. Among the people there, the planter as a rule marries as many women as he needs for the cultivation of his rice. They prepare the fields and sow broadcast in a seed-plot. These fields are not very large usually. The women further prepare it for cultivation by flooding the fields with water and then by plowing and cross-plowing under the water, standing in the great pools knee-deep or more. When the rice has grown to the height of six inches or more, the women go out in the early dawn and often they work with their babes strapt on their backs. It is necessary for them to transplant the little blades that have come up in the seed-plot; so they pull the rice plants up by the handful and transplant them, a few plants at a time, working steadily all day long until the evening twilight deepens and it is too dark to work any more, when they take refuge on a little elevation that may or may not be protected by a booth. There they remain during the night and are ready to start work again at the dawn. This they do, day after day. And when the harvest has come, and the crops have been gathered and safely placed in the storehouses, these women are probably divorced and turned out to live lives of misery and shame and degradation, until they may be so fortunate, as they would consider it, as to become the wives of other planters.

I will give you another illustration of their condition. Not long ago I was sitting in my study when a department representative came to me and said that, lying out in the open, behind the Legation, was a poor old sick woman; and he thought perhaps I might be able to do something for her, as she needed attention very badly. I went and investigated the case and found a poor, decrepit old woman. I say old woman, for tho she was only about thirty-five years of age, at thirty-five in Persia they become broken down and decrepit. I investigated her case, and my investigation revealed this story. She had been the wife of a certain man and had gradually been getting blind. She had also fallen and broken her hip-joint, and, being no longer able to do his work, he had carried her out in the open desert and left her to die there. We took her in our hospital, where our doctor cared for her; and when they washed her in order to dress her wounds, they found that she had maggoted bed-sores on her body. We did everything we could for her, and God in His mercy relieved her of her physical sufferings. It was His mercy that placed her in our hands for the last few days of her life, in order that she might hear the story of the love of Christ.—Lewis F. Esselst, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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PERSISTENCE

If the wind is in the east with a blue hazy atmosphere it seems to affect the fish in some unaccountable way, and while it lasts a rise can rarely be got out of them. I have noticed this hundreds of times, often when the water was in splendid fishing order, and the river full of new run fish, but whatever quarter the wind blows from there is always a chance while the fly is in the water, and to insure success the angler must make up his mind to have many blank days. He must never tire of throwing his fly, and never be put out by failure.—H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, “Fishing.”

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Mutsuhito, Emperor of Japan, is the author of the following quatrain:

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It is the men who stick to it that secure the sweets of fortune.

“I never was in New Hampshire but once,” said Mr. Lincoln, “and that was in the fall of the year—a cold, rough day, and a high wind was blowing. Just outside the city I noticed a big bull-thistle, and on this thistle was a bumblebee trying to extract honey from the blossom. The wind blew the thistle every which way, but the bumblebee stuck. I have come to the conclusion that persistency is characteristic of everything in New Hampshire, whether men or bumblebees.” (Text.)—The Youth’s Companion.

(2345)

See Resoluteness.

PERSISTENCE IN DOING GOOD

Some of the Christians in Uganda are very faithful in pleading with others to give up their sins. One man, named Matayo, was giving way to drink. His Christian friends reminded him of his wound in the war. “You have a big wound in your soul, caused by drunkenness. Give up drink, or assuredly the wound will get worse and kill you eternally.” Matayo replied: “Why can’t you leave me alone?” Mika Sematimba answered, “When you were shot, did we not pick you up and carry you home? Did you then think we hated you? You are shot now, and we want to carry you home. Do you remember, when we were carrying you, how you said, ‘Let me walk; your carrying makes the wound hurt me?’ We didn’t let you walk. We knew you could not walk, but that you would faint on the road; and now we know you can not keep sober, and we want to help you. You say, ‘Leave me alone,’ but we won’t leave you alone. We know you will get worse if we do.”

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PERSISTENCE IN MISSIONARIES

Several attempts were made to open missionary work in Lua Niua, which was inhabited by a Polynesian race, speaking a language similar to that spoken by the Tongans and Samoans; but the heathen priests prevented it. Finally the Rev. J. F. Goldy, chairman of the Solomon Islands District, took with him a Christian Tongan teacher named Semisi Nau and a Christian Samoan named Pologa.

The people, incited by the heathen priests, refused them permission to land and Mr. Goldy was about to return, when these two brave men positively refused to leave, saying, “If the people will not allow us to come ashore we will live in the boat and preach from the water; but these people must hear of God’s love for them.”

For three months they lived there, anchoring close to the beach. They were abused and harried by the people on the land and were unable to go ashore. There is no fresh water on this island, and their only drink is coconut milk. Day after day these two faithful men suffered from thirst, but God touched the heart of a native who swam out to their boat under cover of night, and brought them coconuts.

Finally, a friendly chief at the other end of the lagoon invited them to come ashore and he and his people listened willingly and eagerly to the story of the gospel. A church has been built and the gospel has captured that end of the land. (Text.)

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PERSISTENCE PAYS

“I [John Wesley] remember to have heard my father ask my mother, ‘How could you have the patience to tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times over?’ She answered, ‘Why, if I had told him but nineteen times, I should have lost all my labor.’”—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”

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PERSISTENCY REWARDED

Eighty-eight letters to Andrew Carnegie, asking him to buy an organ for the Cote Brilliante Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, written in the last eight months, brought a check at last for $1,125 from the philanthropist.

The check was accompanied only by a printed receipt form, and the church-members, while jubilant over getting the price of the organ, are wondering whether Mr. Carnegie really wanted to give the money, or did so to put an end to the series of letters. The letters were first sent at intervals of two weeks by different officials and members of the church, the intervals decreasing to one day, as the appeals for aid brought no reply.

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A San Francisco lad, Cleve T. Shaffer, of the Potrero district, has perfected a soaring machine that he is now manufacturing for the market. He has the first airship factory in the West and is advertising for business. The Shaffer glider is marketed as a pleasure device. The pastime of scudding over fields at lightning speed is recommended as entirely safe and most exhilarating. Shaffer is twenty years old.

While building his gliders for the trade Shaffer, in a shop established in the rear of his home, is fitting an enlarged glider with a power motor which he declares will make of it a biplane-aeroplane superior to those of the Wrights, Bleriot, Curtiss, Latham, Paulhan and the other aviators already famous.

Shaffer is secretary of the Pacific Aero Club, the lively little organization of air-travel zealots which has sprung from the widespread interest in the new field of experimentation in San Francisco. The story of Shaffer’s efforts to solve the aviation problem is inspiring. Tho a mere boy, he is a “pioneer” in aerial experimentation. Without funds and without any suggestion, support or encouragement from older persons, Shaffer as a boy of fifteen years, at a time when aviation was a subject engaging the attention of only a handful of men in the entire world, began persistent and systematic experiments. The lad became the laughing-stock of his home district in the Potrero hills. He was looked upon as a freak, a child with something wrong in his make-up—because of his unquenchable mania for air-travel experiments.—Sunset Magazine.

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Persistent Effort—See Difficulties, Overcoming.

Personal Application—See Odd One, The.

PERSONAL ELEMENT IN LITERATURE

As no glass is colorless, but tinges more or less deeply the reflections from its surface, so no author can interpret human life without unconsciously giving to it the native hue of his own soul. It is this intensely personal element that constitutes style.—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

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PERSONAL ELEMENT, THE

A great violinist being announced to play on his $5,000 instrument, the building was taxed to its utmost capacity to hold the eager throng. As he began to play they cheered his efforts and listened as if spellbound while he drew forth the rich strains of melody. Suddenly the character of the music changed and it was apparent to the people that something was wrong with the violin. The artist frowned, raised it high in air and in a tragic manner brought it down against a stand with such force that the instrument was shivered and flew in a thousand pieces.

The people were horrified that the man should, in a moment of ill temper, thus destroy a $5,000 instrument. As the manager gathered up the fragments, the musician exclaimed, “Friends, this instrument was a $2 violin I purchased on my way here and played on that you might know that it is not the price of the instrument which determines the value of the music. That depends on the player’s touch. I will now play on my $5,000 violin.”

So everywhere it is “the man behind the gun” that counts in the final results. (Text.)

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PERSONAL EVANGELISM

President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton, gives this incident of Dwight L. Moody:

Whenever I came into contact with Mr. Moody I got the impression that he was coming separately into contact with one person at a time. I remember that I was once in a very plebeian place; I was in a barbershop, lying in a chair, and I was aware that a personality had entered the room. A man came quietly in upon the same errand that I had come in on and sat in the chair next to me. Every word that he uttered, tho it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal and vital interest in the man who was serving him, and before I got through with what was being done to me I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. Moody was in the next chair. I purposely lingered in the room after he left and noted the singular effect his visit had upon the barbers in that shop. They talked in undertones. They did not know his name. They did not know who had been there, but they knew that something had elevated their thought. And I felt that I left that place as I should have left a place of worship. Mr. Moody always sought and found the individual. (Text.)

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PERSONAL INFLUENCE

“The Catch-my-pal Movement” is attracting great public attention in the northern or Protestant section of Ireland. The nature of the movement will scarcely be suspected from the designation which has attached to it in popular speech; it is really an organization for the reclamation of drunkards. The originator, who is a Presbyterian layman living at Armagh—Patterson by name—had no intention of launching a general reform work; he stumbled into his present great service in a spontaneous attempt to help a poor fellow whom he found dead drunk at the foot of an Armagh lamp-post one day last July. By dint of genuine Christian sympathy and much hard work, Mr. Patterson succeeded in sobering the man up and persuading him to quit the drink. Then he sent the fellow to get a drunken “pal” and together they saved him. The three then went to work for a fourth. By the time Mr. Patterson had reformed six of the tipplers, he found to his surprize that he had actually started a “movement.” It was organized later under the dignified name of “The Protestant Total Abstinence Union,” but the public has not been able to remember that title. The main idea of using drunkards to save drunkards has been so perfectly exprest in the phrase “Catch my pal” that only that name is known to the “man in the street.”

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Personal Influence Pervading the World—See Faith, A Child’s.

PERSONAL PREACHING

Rev. Dr. Samuel M. Zwemer, of Arabia, says that forty years ago Dr. Talbot Chambers preached a missionary sermon in one of the New York churches, on a rainy Sabbath, when there was only one man in the audience. He made an appeal for the payment of the deficit of the Dutch Reformed Board. That deficit amounted to $55,000, and $11,000 were needed immediately to meet the crisis. Before Dr. Chambers went to bed that night there was a ring at the door, and Mr. Warren Ackerman announced himself as the man who had heard the sermon that morning. He drew out his check-book and wrote his check for $11,000. Early in the morning there was a ring at the door, and there stood Mr. Ackerman asking for a return of the check which he had given the previous night. “Now,” Dr. Chambers thought, “he is coming back because he feels he has given too much, and is giving one-half of the total amount needed.” But when the check was filled in the amount was $55,000, the largest single gift ever received by the Reformed Board. In such fashion does a sense of personal responsibility enable men to do exceeding abundantly above all that they are able to ask or think for the kingdom of God.

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Personal Touch in Music—See Music of Despair and of Hope.

PERSONAL WORK

Our Roman Catholic brethren have a strong hold upon the cities—and why? Instead of putting a single priest in a great parish, as we put a single minister, they put a whole corps of clergy and a company of sisters to come into personal vital touch with the people, and especially with the sick and the poor.

Campbell Morgan became pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in London with a beggarly attendance at the services. Soon the building was crowded to the doors. He said: “Do not give me credit for this great work. Give it to the twenty deaconesses who have gone from house to house, heart to heart, pleading the cause of Christ.”

A priest of the Church of Rome says: “We have had very little anxiety in competition with Protestant church in our great cities, so long as a single man was both preacher and pastor in a great parish. But the deaconesses with black bonnets and white ties, who find their way to the hearthstones of the people, will win.”—J. P. Brushingham, Pittsburgh Christian Advocate.

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PERSONALITY AS A REDEMPTIVE FORCE

The salvation of the world is not to be by schemes of salvation, but by saviors, and the saviors of society are persons fit to be strong, good seed. Why is not social redemption accomplished by the vast movement of social mechanism, in which we are all so much involved that every man’s trade—as Robert Louis Stevenson once said—is that of a joiner? It is because human society is not a factory, but a field; not a mechanical unity, but a vital unity; not made of wheels, but made of people. What is needed in our day, as never before, is not new social machinery, but new personality, more wisdom, sanity, patience, light, capacity to control the already elaborate mechanism of the time; and without these traits the wheels will soon run down and the work be undone, and the workers be smitten with despair; and the children of the kingdom will find themselves good people indeed, but not good seed, fit for the field of the modern world.—Francis Greenwood Peabody, “The Religious Education Association,” 1904.

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PERSONALITY, INFLUENCE OF

Marian Bonsall, who was sent to Japan by The Housekeeper to prepare a series of articles on the home life of that country, writes as follows of the Empress:

American women read with interest and admiration of the active part taken by the Empress in Red Cross work during the war, and of how she spent many hours out of her days in making bandages. The effect of these bandages upon the wounded soldiers has been of deep interest to medical and scientific men, for the soldiers honored by them seemed to rally under a peculiar mental influence. All other bandages were destroyed after their first use; those made by the Empress were sterilized and used again for the simple reason of their effect on the recovery of the soldiers.

The Empress used to go personally to the hospitals many times, and visit among the wounded. One of the servants of a friend of mine in Tokyo, told her of his inability to speak when as a wounded soldier he had lain in an army hospital and had been addrest by the Empress. Tho she was so wondrously kind and gracious he could not thank her, and even had he been able, he said, he knew no words sufficiently polite. Then he added proudly, “The Empress could not speak to every one, but the soldiers are her children.”

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PERSONALITY IS A MYSTERY

Science hath measured man in part; in the laboratory, science points to an analysis of a man weighing a hundred and fifty pounds. In one jar are ten or twelve quarts of water, in another jar the lime, the ash, the carbon, the phosphates, and then a tiny vial holding a little iodin, and a little phosphorus. But that row of jars containing all the elements of the body must not be labeled man. Beyond those jars is a certain immeasurable element, an impalpable something, an invisible essence, a secret spirit, a hidden power, that is fenced about with bones and sinews, but that will suddenly compel you to laugh, to love, to burn with moral indignation, and will spread out before you a canvas and dim your eyes with tears; that will wave a wonder-working wand woven of words, and show you an imperial palace built yonder upon foundations of clouds, and then with a stroke dissolve all, and leave not a wrack behind. These twelve jars, analyzed by science, can not write poems or paint pictures, or carve altars, or enact laws, or sing lullabies, or create a Christmas tree.—N. D. Hillis.

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PERSONALITY, LOCATION OF

A writer in The Atlantic Monthly says:

The spinal cord runs along the back, with all its ganglia; the weight of the brain is well behind; yet we are not there. In other words, the curious thing is that we feel ourselves to be, not in the region where impressions are received and answered in the brain, and spinal cord, but where they first meet the nerve-extremities. We seem to inhabit not the citadel, but the outer walls. At the point of peripheral expansion of the nerves of sense, where the outer forces begin to be apprehended by us as inner—“in front,” where the fingers feel, and the nose smells and the eyes see—there, if anywhere, we find ourselves to be.

I have often been interested to notice whereabouts on our bodily surface another animal looks to find us. The man or even the little child, looks at the face. Is it because the voice issues thence? Yet it is the eyes, rather than the mouth that is watched. Is it because the expression, the signal-station for the changing moods, is there more than elsewhere? A dog, also, invariably looks up into the face. So does a bird, notwithstanding the fact that the food comes from the hand. Why does he not consider the “I,” so far as his needs are concerned, to lie in the part that feeds him? But no; he cocks his head to one side, and directs his lustrous little eye straight to our own, in order to establish what communion he can with the very “him” of his master and friend.

It is hardly less pathetic than our own human efforts to pierce, by the searching penetration of eyes, to the real personality of each other. We never succeed.

(2360)

Personality, Multiplex—See Multiple Consciousness.

Personality Superior to Misfortune—See Misfortune, Superiority to.

Perspective—See Point of View.

Perturbation—See Baptism.

Perversion—See Guidance Evilward.

PERVERSION OF GIFTS

Dr. N. D. Hillis, speaking of the perversion of men’s talents to low or bad uses, says:

And oh, the pity of the waste and abuse of these gifts! Oh, the sorrow of Jesus at these opportunities despised and flung away! Are roses reddened for the swine to lift its tusk upon? Are pearls made to be flung in the mire, in which they are trampled and lost? Is a hospital fitted up as a room in which physicians and nurses riot, drinking up the precious wines, consuming the jellies, wasting the soft linens, while wounded soldiers lie in the darkness without, moaning and dying as their own life-blood ebbs away in the black night? When Philadelphia, in the morning after Gettysburg, rushed a relief train to the battle-field, how would the whole land have quivered with indignation at the news that the officers in charge had forgotten sobriety and honor, and looted the train of its gifts, counting the treasure to be personal to themselves, in utter contempt of heroes wounded and dying?

(2361)

See Woman’s Sphere.

Perversity—See Girls, Little, and Slamming Doors.

PESSIMISM

Carlyle was never a hopeful prophet. He called himself a radical of the quiet order, but he had none of the hopefulness of radicalism, nor was it in him to be quiet on any subject that interested him. There is a good deal of truth in the ironical remark of Maurice, that Carlyle believed in a God who left off governing the world at the death of Oliver Cromwell. He saw nothing in modern progress that justified its boasts, and it must be owned that his social forecasts have been all too amply fulfilled. The hopefulness of Emerson positively angered him. He took him round London, showing him the worst of its many abominations, asking after each had been duly objurgated, “Do you believe in the devil now?”—W. J. Dawson, “Makers of English Prose.”

(2362)

PESSIMISM IN LITERATURE

A few days ago Mr. Berth, a young New Yorker, committed suicide in a hotel at St. Paul, Minn. The explanation given for his rash act is that constant study of pessimistic literature had affected his mind. Among his books was found a melancholy tale by Edgar Saltus, in which Berth had marked many depressing passages. About eighty years ago fashionable society in London affected great admiration for Addison’s tragedy of “Cato.” After one of the stage renditions of the play a man named Budgell, imprest by the closing scene of the play, in which the hero commits suicide, left the theater and plunging into the Thames was drowned. On his body was found this couplet:

While such susceptibility to pessimistic writing as was shown by Berth and Budgell is, of course, extremely rare, it is nevertheless, a fact that an author who depicts life in dreary colors is sure to exert a most undesirable influence over many of his readers. The force of this applies to all kinds of writing. Whether a man pens an epic poem or a newspaper editorial, the tone of his philosophy is sure to leave its ultimate effect on those who peruse his words.—New York World.

(2363)

Pessimists, The, and the Optimists—See Loads, Balking Under.

PEST, CONTAGIOUS

The Survey, in commenting on Dr. H. G. Beyer’s statement at a recent conference of the New York Academy of Medicine that the fly is “not merely a pest but an epidemic,” says:

One fly lays 120 eggs in the season, and as each of these eggs takes but ten days to reach maturity, it has been computed that twelve flies surviving the winter will produce 40,000 the following summer. When to this estimate of numbers is added the experimentally proved fact that one fly carries upon his legs alone anywhere between one and six million bacteria, there seems little exaggeration in Dr. Beyer’s characterization.

Observation has shown that the fly is omnivorous and ubiquitous, and that, certain unsanitary conditions being fulfilled, where-ever the fly is, there also are certain diseases. In regard to these diseases the most startling evidence is given for typhoid, but careful experiments have shown that no less than ten others, among them tuberculosis, carbuncle, cholera, tapeworm and summer diarrhea, have been spread by flies, and there is good reason to believe that smallpox, leprosy and diphtheria might be added to the list.

It is the omnivorousness of the fly, together with his choice of breeding-places, that makes him a menace to health. A fruitful source of disease bacteria is damp, decaying organic matter, and it is just such matter, usually stable refuse, that is used for a breeding-place by flies. Experiments with young flies fresh from the breeding-ground showed them to have live bacteria either on the outside of their bodies or in the digestive tracts. This same decayed organic matter is also the food of the fly, but with true democracy of taste he is glad to share man’s food also, and it is this willingness to take his dessert out of the sugar-bowl after a dinner of decayed fish that constitutes his chief danger to man.

(2364)

Pests—See Barriers; Piracy, Bird; Remedy for Pests.

Pests, Utilizing—See Ingenuity.

PEW, IF I WERE IN THE

There are a great many things which can be done by those in the pew to assist the ministry, and to better the Church and her services. Here are a few of them. If I were in the pew:

I would acquire the habit of getting to church on time, for then I would get the full benefit of the service and would not disturb others by my late arrival.

I would have my regular seat, and see that it is occupied every Sunday.

I would have my entire family with me on the same bench.

Upon reaching my seat, I would kneel, or bow the head in a few words of silent prayer, asking the Lord to prepare my heart for a season of spiritual worship and the acceptance of the truths and instructions presented by His messengers.

I would join in the singing with my whole soul, not making it a mere word or note service, as it often is.

While public prayer is being offered, I would have a personal, silent prayer of my own to offer. This prayer would be short, so that, when through with it, I could follow the trend of the one who is praying aloud.

I would greet every stranger and make him feel that I appreciated his coming to worship with us.

I would see that every visiting member or stranger is invited into some home for lodging and entertainment. I would not forget to be hospitable.

I would frequently invite the minister into my home, feeling that his presence would increase the spirituality of my family.

I would not criticize the minister, the sermon, or the church, before my children, or non-church-members. I would exercise the greatest charity toward them all.

I would frequently remember the minister with little gifts and tangible assistance, and thus help to share the sacrifices he makes for the Church—which means me and my family.

I would occasionally call on the minister in his home.

I would not be slow to praise him for his successes, and encourage him in his efforts. If I had any suggestions for his improvement, I would make them in a tactful, kindly way.

I would actively cooperate with the minister in every church work.

I would attend all council-meetings, and endeavor to increase the spirituality, peace, and prosperity of the Church.—O. H. Yereman, Gospel Messenger.

(2365)

PHILANTHROPY

Dr. John Barnardo, who devoted his life to the rescue and cure of poor children, tells the experiences here quoted:

A lady on one occasion came to Stepney in her carriage. A child was in it. I granted her an interview, and she laid down five 100-pound notes, saying they were mine if I would take the child and ask no questions. I did not take the child. Again, a well-known peer of the realm once sent his footman here with £100, asking me to take the footman’s son. No. The footman could support his child. Gold and silver will never open my doors unless there is real destitution.

“It is to the homeless,” said the doctor, “the actually destitute, that we open our doors day and night, without money and without price.” (Text.)—Westminster Gazette, London.

(2366)

PHILANTHROPY, PRACTICAL

Samuel Saucerman is the originator of the “Trimmer Band,” which is an unique and effective method of promoting temperance and thrift in the young, from nine to sixteen years of age. To every boy in the State of Iowa who will take the pledge to abstain from tobacco in every form, intoxicating liquor, gambling and profane language, Mr. Saucerman will give $1.00 upon his joining one of these “Trimmer Bands,” and will pay him one cent a day for three years, and another $1.00 at the end of that period. Members of these “Bands” are urged to save their nickels and dimes, which would otherwise be spent for tobacco and liquor, and also hold monthly meetings to discuss economy, finance, clean living, and everything in line with industry and morals. To show good faith, each boy must deposit 50 cents with his first dollar, and at the end of the three years, even if he has not himself saved a cent, he will have $12.00. The object is to establish habits of saving, which will enable every boy at twenty-one to have saved sufficient to start him in life, or to go to college.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(2367)

Photography of Germs—See Invisible, The, Made Visible.

Physical Ailments—See Remedies, Strange.

Physical Training—See Play and Morals.

PHYSICAL WEAKNESS OVERCOME

Rev. W. F. Crafts, Ph.D., writes of the success of scores of men who were born physically defective:

The list includes club-footed Byron, halting Akenside, frail Spinoza, deformed Malebranche, disfigured Sam Johnson, Walter Scott, “a pining child”; Sir Isaac Newton, “who might have been put in a quart pot when born”; Voltaire, who was for some time too small and weak to christen; Charles Sumner, who weighed three and a half pounds at birth; Lyman Beecher, who weighed but three pounds at first, and was laid aside by his nurse to die; Goethe, Victor Hugo, and D’Alembert, who were so weak at birth that they also were not expected to live, and also Pope, Descartes, Gibbon, Kepler, Lord Nelson, Sir Christopher Wren, James Watt, John Howard, Washington Irving, William Wilberforce, and many others whom the world has delighted to honor as mental giants—a list that well-born children could hardly match—whose bodily weakness in infancy in any but a Christian land would have marked them as unworthy to be raised to manhood. The study of such a group ought to be an inspiration to boys handicapped by any physical weakness, and it also suggests that mind and will may conquer the most adverse circumstances.

(2368)

Pibroch, The—See Music of Despair and of Hope.

PICTURE, RECORD PRICE FOR

Frans Hals was the hero of the evening at the Yerkes sale at Mendelssohn Hall, April 7, 1910. His “Portrait of a Woman” brought the highest price of the evening, $137,000, the highest price ever given for a picture at a sale in America and $8,000 more than the record-breaking price of the evening before, $129,000, which was paid for a wonderful Turner.

The dear old Dutch woman whose portrait Frans Hals painted more than 400 years ago could never have dreamed, if her practical soul was given to anything in the nature of visions, of ever being worth, in any form, so very many thousand dollars. She was the calmest-looking person in the hall when the curtains were drawn aside and she was revealed sitting quietly in her big chair, a wide ruff around her plump throat, a close cap encircling her placid face, one hand at her waist as she sat primly for her portrait, the other at her side clasping her Bible.—New York Times.

(2369)

Pictures—See Piety.

PICTURES, INFLUENCE OF

It pays to spend thought on the pictures we put on our walls. A charming woman once said:

“My earliest impression is a picture that hung on the wall over my bed and which I had to look at the last thing every night before I went to sleep. It was that of a white horse upon the back of which was crouched the body of a fierce tiger, with his teeth and claws embedded in the flesh of the horse. The blood ran down from the wounds and the whole thing was frightful to me. I went to sleep every night afraid and very uncomfortable. This picture is as vivid to me to-day as tho I was looking at the real thing, and will never be erased.”

If that had been the picture of “The Guardian Angel,” or “The Evening Prayer,” or some one of the many that are pleasing and that teach some beautiful lesson, that woman would have had a happier remembrance, and would be better both physically and morally.—Religious Telescope.

(2370)

While we empower the police to put down with a strong hand the exhibition in shop windows, and the censor of stage plays and spectacles to interdict the parade in theaters of pictures and scenes of an “immoral” character, because it is recognized that these have a tendency to corrupt the mind of youth—and age, too—nothing whatever is done to restrain the daily increasing evil of pictorial placards displayed on every boarding, and of highly-wrought scenes produced at nearly all the theaters, which not only direct the thoughts, but actively stir the passions of the people in such way as to familiarize the average mind with murder in all its forms, and to break down that protective sense of “horror” which nature has given us, with the express purpose, doubtless, of opposing an obstacle to the evil influence of the exemplification of homicide. It does seem strange—passing strange—that this murder culture by the educationary use of the pictorial art has not been checked by public authority. We have no wish to make wild affirmations, but knowing what we do, as observers of development, we can have no hesitation in saying that the increasing frequency of horribly brutal outrages is by no means unaccountable. The viciously inclined are, in a sense, always weak-minded—that is to say, they are especially susceptible to influences moving them in the direction their passions incline them to take; and when the mind (or brain) is imprest through the senses, and particularly the sense of sight, in such manner as to produce mental pictures, either in waking thoughts or dreams of homicide, the impulsive organism is, as it were, prepared for the performance of the deeds which form the subjects of the consciousness. We are, of course, writing technically; but the facts are indisputable, and we trust they will be sufficiently plain. It is high time that this ingenious and persistent murder-culture should cease.—London Lancet.

(2371)

PICTURESQUE

Thomas Rowlandson, the artist, at one time in his career devoted himself to book illustration, in a series of plates on Goldsmith, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne and other humorists of his day. It was this that led William Combe, then in a debtors’ prison, and who had never met the artist, to write his humorous poem, “Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque.”

Ought not every Dr. Syntax of the pulpit or platform go in search of the picturesque? (Text.)

(2372)

PIETY

In considering the pictures of sacred subjects produced in the early ages of faith and simplicity, we must not forget that the chief intention of the artist was to stimulate the piety of the spectator, and not to make a “pretty” picture. Thus it is recorded of the saintly Florentine monk, Fra Angelico (1387–1455), that before he began the painting of a religious subject he fasted and prayed, and that while he was at work on his picture he always remained kneeling.—Frederick Keppel, “Christmas in Art.”

(2373)

PILGRIM, THE

Charlotte Wilson, in Scribner’s, writes a song of the pilgrim who minds not the hardships or fortunes of the road so he but reaches the goal of the journey:

(2374)

Pilgrimage—See Journey to Heaven.

Pilgrimage, The Mecca—See Mecca, Influence of.

PILOT, NEED OF

A man who spurns the guidance of others or of God is like this self-confident sea captain:

A bright boy went to sea; he loved it and rose to quick promotion. While quite a young man he became master of a ship. One day a passenger spoke to him upon the voyage, and asked if he should anchor off a certain headland, supposing he would anchor there, and telegraph for a pilot to take the vessel into port.

“Anchor! no, not I. I mean to be in dock with the morning tide.”

“I thought perhaps you would signal for a pilot.”

“I am my own pilot,” was the curt reply.

Intent upon reaching port by morning he took a narrow channel to save distance. Experienced sailors on board shook their heads dubiously, while cautious passengers besought the young captain to take a wider course. He only laughed at their fears and declared he would be in dock by daybreak. A sudden squall swooped down upon them; wild alarm spread throughout the vessel. Enough to say that the captain was ashore earlier than he promised—tossed sportively upon the weedy beach, a dead thing that the waves were weary of, and his ship and freight were scattered over the angry sea. The glory of that young man was strength; but he was his own pilot.