S (continued 2)

(2889)

Equally famous with the man in the moon and the woman in the moon is the hare in the moon, says Garrett P. Serviss in his “Astronomy with the Naked Eye.” The original is a Buddhist legend. The god Sakkria, disguised as a Brahman, pretended to be starving and went to the animals for help. The monkey got him a bunch of mangoes; the coot picked up a fisherman’s neglected string for him; the fox stole him a pot of milk. At last the god approached the hare. “I have nothing but grass,” said the hare, “and you can’t eat that.” “But your flesh is good,” suggested the pretended Brahman. The hare assented. “Then,” said the Brahman, “I’ll kindle a fire at the foot of this rock, and you jump off into it. That’ll save me the trouble of killing you.” The hare assented again, but as he leaped from the rock the god caught him in his arms and then drew his figure in the moon as a perpetual reminder of the excellence of self-sacrifice. (Text.)

(2890)

See Goodness in the Bad; Poverty, Christian.

SELF-SACRIFICE IN NATURE

The last word of science harmonizes with the first word of the gospel; the doctrine of sacrifice has been scorned in many quarters as being unscientific. Such a disparagement is no longer countenanced by scientists, for they now point to the principle of utter abnegation of self as one of the most potent of natural laws. We are told that one portion of a flower is sacrificed for the sake of the flower as a whole. The rose multiplies its petals, but the blossom that is thus beautified never comes to seed. The flower dies in its new beauty, but a more glorious stock has thus been produced. So it is also with insect life. The bee toils night and day for weeks without sleep or rest, wearing itself out. Its life has nothing to do with its own pleasure, but is entirely surrendered for the good of the community. So science has furnished unexpected sanctions to the doctrine of sacrifice.

(2891)

SELF-SUPPRESSION

When we ask what it is that has made Boswell’s book a great classic, we are bound to concede to Boswell himself the credit of having inaugurated a new style of biography, conceived with the true originality, and carried out with conspicuous success. Toady, sycophant, braggart, eavesdropper—all these and more Boswell may have been, but he had one great gift, the faculty of recognizing greatness, and of suppressing himself in the presence of greatness.—W. J. Dawson, “The Makers of English Prose.”

(2892)

SELF-SURRENDER

The caddis-fly leaves his tube behind and soars into upper air; the creature abandons its barnacle existence on the rock and swims at large in the sea. For it is just when we die to custom that, for the first time, we rise into the true life of humanity; it is just when we abandon all prejudice of our own superiority over others, and become convinced of our entire indefensibleness, that the world opens out with comrade faces in all directions.—Fortnightly Review.

(2893)

Selfish, The, Rejected—See Social Religion.

SELFISHNESS

The boy in this anecdote had apparently not been taught that it is better to give than to receive:

“Well, Bobby, how do you like church?” asked his father, as they walked homeward from the sanctuary, to which Bobby had just paid his first visit.

“It’s fine!” ejaculated the young man. “How much did you get, father?”

“How much did I get? Why, what do you mean? How much what?” asked the astonished parent at this evident irreverence.

“Why, don’t you remember when the funny old man passed the money around? I only got ten cents.” (Text.)—Lippincott’s Magazine.

(2894)

Said Romola to Tito’s child, after calamity had overtaken him:

There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was young and clever and beautiful and his manners to all were gentle and kind. I believe, when I first met him, he never thought of anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds—such as make men infamous. He denied his father and left him to misery; he betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep himself safe and get rich and prosperous.

That is the history of a man given over to his own selfishness.

(2895)

The Moslem mollah is notoriously reluctant to give anything away. A mollah had fallen into a large pool of water and was struggling for his life to reach the bank. “Give me your hand, oh my lord, and I will pull you out,” said a passer-by who had responded to the lusty cries for help. “No, indeed,” replied the mollah; “I have never yet given anything to any one, and I certainly will not begin now.” Not liking to leave the drowning man, his would-be rescuer, responding to a bright idea that occurred to him, said, “Will you take my hand, then, oh my lord?” “Gladly,” answered the mollah, and allowed himself to be drawn out of the pool, saving his life without losing his innate selfishness.

(2896)

SELFISHNESS AND UNSELFISHNESS

There was a stream gliding blithely and care free down a mountain-side in its course to the ocean. On the way it passed a stagnant pool, which asked whither it was going. The stream answered that it went to contribute its cup of water to the vast ocean. “Wait!” said the pool. “Why give up all your substance to the ocean, which has no need of it? Follow my example, and hold on tight to what you have. Soon the hot season will be around and the glaring sun will shrivel you up.” But the stream’s unselfishness forbade such a course, and it flowed merrily onward, while the pool gathered itself more closely together and settled down in its position of selfish ease and comfort. Presently the hot season came, and the sun scorched everything beneath its blazing heat. But the little stream flowed securely beneath an archway of overhanging trees, the leaves and branches of which made it immune from dangers and obstructions. And the sun peeped through the leaves and smiled upon it, saying that it could not harm such an unoffending thing. And the birds came to sip of its refreshing waters, while the sweet flowers bloomed along its side. The farmer in the field looked kindly upon it, the cows came to drink of it, and the stream pursued its way happily, blessing everything and being blest. But not so with the pool. The sun glared down on it, drying it up and making it repugnant and stagnant. And the breezes, kissing it by mistake, carried the unhealthy stench over the land, introducing malaria wherever it went. Everything shunned and avoided it, and because of its selfishness it was transformed into a murky, vile puddle, reeking with hurtful germs. But the stream emptied its water into the ocean, from which it was borne aloft into the clouds and carried back to the mountain summit whence it came, there to begin again its joyous course.—S. G. Weiscotton.

(2897)

SELFISHNESS BROUGHT OUT

The common council of Trenton, N. J., has passed an ordinance providing that all street-car passengers that can not get a seat need not pay their fares. The reason is, of course, that the company does not provide nearly enough accommodation for the public. Probably there is not a city in the United States where this condition does not exist. The profits of the street-car companies are largely augmented by patient strap-hangers. But, as to Trenton, the effect of this ordinance has been extraordinary.

Passengers that were consumed with ill-nature when they had to stand on a crowded car now let empty cars swish past them and patiently wait on the street corner until a full one comes along, on which they may ride free.

The ordinance has also exterminated the car boor. When a lady steps inside all the men in the car spring to their feet and offer her their seats. The conductor has to refund the fare of the man that loses his seat in this way. The amusing part of the situation, however, is that very often the lady wishes to stand herself, especially if she is economical.

The whole plan smacks of exasperation. The only good point about it is the fact that the council feels that something ought to be done to force a public-service company to serve the public. Some cities have tried the plan of a lower fare for the man that has to stand, which undoubtedly is the better plan.—Ripple, Christian Endeavor World.

(2898)

Selfishness, Getting Rid of—See Eternal Life, Making Room for.

SELFISHNESS REBUKED

A hard bargainer sent the following advertisement to a paper: “A lady in delicate health wishes to meet with a useful companion. She must be domestic, musical, an early riser, amiable, of good appearance, and have some experience in nursing. A total abstainer preferred. Comfortable home. No salary.” A few days afterward the advertiser received by express a basket, labeled, “This side up, with care; perishable.” On opening it, she found a tabby cat with a letter tied to its tail. It ran thus:

“Madam, in response to your advertisement, I am happy to furnish you with a very useful companion, which you will find exactly suited to your requirements. She is domestic, a good vocalist, an early riser, possesses an amiable disposition, and is considered handsome. She has had great experience as a nurse, having brought up a large family. I need scarcely add that she is a total abstainer. As salary is no object to her, she will serve you faithfully in return for a comfortable home.” (Text.)

(2899)

SELFNESS

Our life not being an emanation from God, but a personal self-containing product of his power, we are not born to a perception of truth which floods our capacities as soon as they are opened, as the tides of a sea pour up each inlet that is scooped out to receive them; we do not receive pleasure, and utter it mechanically, as the pipes of the organ pour out without partaking the harmonies that breathe through them. But we, each one of us, as our life is unfolded, separate from all others, radically discriminated in its vital unity from that of every other, must set up for ourselves on the theater of the universe.—Richard S. Storrs.

(2900)

Sense Impressions—See Pictures, Influence of.

Senses, Limited—See Limitation of the Senses.

Senses, The, as Indicators of Men—See Characteristic Traits.

SENSITIVENESS

The sensitive plant, that shrinks from the touch, is rightly regarded as occupying a high place in the vegetable world. When its delicate leaves are seen drooping from contact with the finger, we might fancy it gifted with a sort of consciousness, by which it can not only feel and perhaps suffer, but also visibly attempt to withdraw from suffering. It is an interesting object to notice, whatever may be our speculations in regard to it, and we naturally have strong interest in a plant so curiously endowed. Some men and women in our most civilized communities seem to be very much akin to this little shrub. Their one distinguishing characteristic is sensitiveness. They are easily hurt, easily irritated, easily offended. They translate every touch, however innocent or even friendly, into an intent to trouble or annoy them. They are constantly fancying slights, suspecting insults, imagining ridicule, dreading censure.—Public Ledger.

(2901)

Moral shocks are communicated to the whole world as certainly as earth tremors to the whole earth. No man can do a wrong deed or a right one without affecting every other man.

That the earth is extremely sensitive even to the slightest shocks, contractions, or alterations is shown by the tremendous rapidity with which the indications of these are transmitted to various parts of the globe. A few minutes after the first shock was felt in San Francisco the seismographic instruments at Washington recorded the tremor. (Text.)

(2902)

A most remarkable example of a peculiar sensitiveness has been observed in certain moths of the family Bombyces—notably the Oak Eggar, the Emperor, and the Kentish Glory. Take a newly emerged female of either of these species, shut her up in a small box, conceal the box in your pocket, and then walk about in some country spot known to you as being one of the haunts of that species of moth. Then, if any of the males of the same species happen to be in the neighborhood, they will settle or hover about close to the female which, altho still concealed and quite out of their reach, has attracted them to the spot.—W. Furneaux, “Butterflies and Moths.”

(2903)

“An Apology for My Twilight Rambles” was the original title of the tender hymn: “I love to steal away a while,” by Phebe Hinsdale Brown. The story in a word is this: Phebe was left an orphan in her Canaan home (New York), and fell under the cruel care of a relative who caused her to grow up timid and retiring to a painful degree. Marrying Timothy H. Brown, she made her home for some time in Ellington, Conn., caring for a growing family. At sunset, one day, she stole away from her cares for a little relief and for communion with God, in a rich neighbor’s flower garden, which, indeed, was her favorite resort. Her trespass was reported to the mistress of the house, who accosted her with: “If you want anything, why don’t you come in?” meaning, “Get out!” Next day, with a wounded spirit and filled with tears, holding her baby to her bosom, she wrote the lines above, nine stanzas in all, and sent them to the feminine churl who was so little of a neighbor and belied the odor of the flowers that blest her garden. (Text.)

(2904)

Sensitiveness to Pain—See Pain in Animals.

SENTIMENT, MIXED

In a home designed to get men and boys on their feet and become independent and self-supporting, there was found in the pocket of one of the boys the following poem:

(2905)

SENTIMENT, USELESS

A gentleman was one day relating to a Quaker a tale of deep distress, and concluded very pathetically by saying, “I could not but feel for him.” “Verily, friend,” replied the Quaker, “thou didst right in that thou didst feel for thy neighbor, but didst thou feel in the right place—didst thou feel in thy pocket?” (Text.)

(2906)

Sentiment versus Sentimentalism—See Feelings, Reserved.

Sentiments of a Dying Soldier—See Essentials.

SEPARATION

The South Sea islanders have a singular tradition to account for the existence of the dew. The legend relates that in the beginning the earth touched the sky, that being the golden age when all was beautiful and glad; then some dreadful tragedy occurred, the primal unity was broken up, the earth and the sky were torn asunder as we see them now, and the dew-drops of the morning are the tears that nature sheds over the sad divorce. (Text.)

(2907)

Seraphim—See Love Rather than Knowledge.

SERENITY IN LIFE

(2908)

SERMON, A BRIEF

The longest sermon on record was preached by the Rev. Isaac Barrow, a Puritan preacher of the seventeenth century, who once delivered a sermon in Westminster Abbey lasting three hours and a half; and the shortest sermon ever preached was perhaps the sermon which Doctor Whewell was fond of repeating from the text, “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.”

The sermon occupied barely a minute in delivery, the following being a verbatim report:

I shall divide the discourse into three heads: (1) Man’s ingress into the world; (2) His progress through the world; (3) His egress out of the world.

Firstly, his ingress into the world is naked and bare.

Secondly, his progress through the world is trouble and care.

Thirdly, his egress out of the world is nobody knows where.

To conclude:

If we live well here, we shall live well there.

I can tell you no more if I preach a year. Then he gave the benediction.

(2909)

Sermon, Eccentric—See Grace Sufficient.

SERMON HEADS

Preaching a trial sermon in presence of an audience of only two persons must in any case be a trial to one’s nerves, but especially so when the two happen to be the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait) and Dean Stanley. We read of such an unfortunate young “candidate for priest’s orders” so preaching in that rather awful presence. In his confusion he stammered out, as he began, “I will divide my congregation into two—the converted and the unconverted.” Dr. Tait interrupted him with: “I think sir, as there are only two of us, you had better say which is which.”—Chicago Standard.

(2910)

SERMON, SAVING A

When pastor of Park Avenue Church, Brooklyn, New York, I was preaching one Sunday morning to a languid audience, for it was a hot, sultry day in summer. The windows were all open for ventilation, but scarcely a breath of air was felt. The atmosphere was oppressive, and the service dragged. When about half way through my sermon, a sparrow flew through one of the open windows, and startled the drowsy audience by flying round the church, at times threatening to light on one or other of the ladies’ bonnets. At length it lighted on the communion-rail, directly in front of the pulpit and in full view of the audience, and there settled down quietly. All eyes were intent upon it. My discourse had been rudely interrupted, but as if by inspiration I was seized with the thought to change my theme, speak of God’s care for His children, and use the little bird as an object-lesson. This I did, quoting the Savior’s words in Matthew 6:26: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” The audience was intensely interested, every mind was alert, every soul thirsty for the comforting truth. The little creature remained perfectly quiet, and seemed as interested as any of the rest of us. Just before I closed he flew out of one of the windows, having left a message of hope and comfort to tired hearts. I have felt a warmer place in my heart ever since for “God’s sparrows.”—Elijah Humphries, Our Dumb Animals.

(2911)

Sermon, The Effect of a—See Creature, A New.

Sermon versus Salmon—See Preaching, Responsibility in.

Sermons in Candles—See Illustrations from Candles.

SERVICE

Service is labor baptized and anointed, and consecrated to high ends.

William Carey, cobbling shoes in that dingy little room in Leicester, tho he was never a skilful workman, yet cobbling them as best he could, putting in honest leather and sound pegs and strong stitches, and consecrating the toil to the service of God’s kingdom, was as truly in the Father’s business as was Dr. William Carey, the distinguished Oriental scholar, when translating languages, preaching the gospel, and baptizing converts in India. That little workshop, with its hammers and awls and scraps of leather, represented a department of the heavenly Father’s business. (Text.)

(2912)

Dr. Grenfell, whose devoted labors among deep-sea fishermen are known and appreciated on both sides of the Atlantic, was converted at a mission conducted in England by D. L. Moody. Meeting the evangelist many years afterward, Dr. Grenfell recalled the circumstance. Immediately Mr. Moody asked Dr. Grenfell, “And what have you been doing since?” Christians must not live on their past experiences. “What have you been doing since?” will be the Master’s question.

(2913)

Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. A similar spirit was manifested by H. B. Gibbud with excellent results, as told by him in this extract:

I was going from cell to cell among the prisoners, when one man called me back, and asked if I remembered him. I did not.

“Well,” said he, “I remember you. You got me out of the ‘dives’ in Mulberry Bend in New York City about twelve years ago, took me to the Florence Mission, and gave me a note to the Home of Intemperate Men. Do you remember?”

I was unable to place him, as I had done a similar act for quite a number.

“You will remember me, I think, when I tell you the circumstances. I was nearly naked; you got some clothes for me. I was shivering with delirium tremens, and could not dress myself, so you drest me. Now you remember me, don’t you?”

I was still unable to recollect him.

“Well, there is one thing more, and that is what broke me up. After you had drest me, you said, ‘You want to look nice, so I’ll black your boots’; and you did.

“Now I could not tell, to save my neck, what you said about Christ; I did not want to do better; I did not go to the home; all I wanted was what I could get out of you. But your blacking my boots—I have never been able to get away from that.”

“I did not want your religion, but to think that you cared enough about my soul to black my boots, that has followed me all these years, and when I have been drunk and stupid that thing would haunt me. I have thought of it hundreds of times, and now I thank God has brought me here to meet you again, and I want you to pray for me.” (Text.)

(2914)

The whole material universe is ever compulsorily engaged in mutual service. The spheres wait on earth, air, sun, clouds, and sky. But the spiritual universe has for its grace and its glory the principle of service consciously rendered by love and sacrifice.

Two ragged street urchins stood one day before the window of a picture store in London, and one cried out, “Look, Jim, look!” “What is it?” Jim asked, and the little fellow answered, “Why, there he is. That’s our earl.” It was the photograph of the Earl of Shaftesbury, in truth the earl of the poor and opprest. The motto of his family is “Love—Serve,” and nobly did he live up to his motto. At his funeral a laboring man was heard to say in a choking voice, “Our earl’s gone. God A’mighty knows he loved us. We sha’n’t see his likes again.” (Text.)

(2915)

The flowers got into a debate one morning as to which of them was the flower of God, and the rose said: “I am the flower of God, for I am the fairest and the most perfect in beauty and variety of form and delicacy of fragrance of all the flowers.” And the crocus said: “No, you are not the flower of God. Why, I was blooming long before you bloomed. I am the primitive flower; I am the first one.” And the lily of the valley said modestly: “I am small, but I am white; perhaps I am the flower of God.” And the trailing arbutus said: “Before any of you came forth I was blooming under the leaves and under the snow. Am I not the flower of God?” And all the flowers cried out: “No, you are no flower at all; you are a come-outer.” And then God’s wind, blowing on the garden, brought this message to them: “Little flowers, do you not know that every flower that answers God’s spring call, and comes out of the cold, dark earth, and lifts its head above the sod and blooms forth, catching the sunlight from God and flinging it back to men, taking the sweet south wind from God and giving it back to others in sweet and blest fragrance—do you not know they are all God’s flowers?”

(2916)

Service and Age—See Age and Experience.

SERVICE AND SACRIFICE

An old Roman coin bore the design of an ox standing between a plow and an altar, thus signifying its readiness for either service or sacrifice. No symbol could more beautifully represent the attitude of the true servant of Christ—ready, while the Master wills, to bow the neck to the yoke and toil in his service; and just as ready when the call comes, to sacrifice everything, even life itself. (Text.)—Zion’s Herald.

(2917)

Service as Testimony—See Witness of Service.

SERVICE, AUXILIARY

Many a humble parent or teacher might find comfort in the following pretty fable:

A taper lay in a drawer, when its owner took it and climbed a winding stair in a tower. “Where are you taking me?” asked the taper complainingly. “I am going to show big ships their way over the sea,” answered the owner. “Why, no ship could see me or my little light,” said the taper. “Leave that to me,” added the owner as he lighted the big lantern, and then blew the taper out.

(2918)

SERVICE, HUMBLE

Our service ought to be positive. Every day brings with it some chance to help. If your service can not be great, let it be small, only let it be service in some way for the good of another and for the glory of God. An old Scotch woman in Edinburgh was arrested as a suspicious character. She was seen furtively picking some things from the sidewalk and putting them beneath her shawl. On examination it was found that the articles were only little bits of glass. Questioned, she replied that she was only picking up the stray pieces of glass that they might not cut the bairnies’ feet.

Remember, there is glass to be taken from life’s highways; there are thorns to be uprooted and roses to be planted.—Joel B. Slocum.

(2919)

See Earthen Vessel.

SERVICE, INTERESTED

Washington housekeepers are inclined to think that T. B. Witherspoon, of St. Louis, was romancing recently when he told of a negro servant who has been in his employ for fifteen years. It appears that the negro was given ten days’ leave and money to spend for a trip down to New Orleans, but in three days turned up again, and here is the way Mr. Witherspoon explains the negro’s return, quoting the servant:

“‘You see, suh, it done get mighty miserably cold night after I lef’ you, and I knows dat Miss Kate (my wife) ain’t got no business tryin’ to work dat furnace, and I know you ain’t gwine to bother with it. Nary one of you got enny business with a dirty old furnace, least of all Miss Kate, who ain’t got no right to soil her little han’s. I couldn’t sleep good thinkin’ about it, an’ dat’s why I gits back quicker’n I ’spected.’

“There is a specimen act of an old-time, true-hearted darky, whose first thought is of the comfort of his employer.”

(2920)

Service, Lowly—See Example.

SERVICE, METHOD OF

When Jael served her yellow-hued dainty to Sisera in that fine dish, she set an example that is worthy of being followed in more ways than in that hospitable one. Milton in his noble thoughts set in his lofty style has served his “butter in a lordly dish.” A kindness or a benefaction dealt in a courteous spirit and in fine chivalry is equally “butter in a lordly dish.” Above all, a life lived in the exercise of a character that is sterling and pure gold—serving viands of soul in divinest thoughts and sublimest virtues and inspirations that gods might envy, is “butter in a lordly dish.” The substance of a deed is heightened in merit by its service when the mettle of the dish matches the quality of the meat.

(2921)

SERVICE, RELIGIOUS

If a child finds itself in want of anything, it runs in and asks its father for it—does it call that doing its father a service? If it begs for a toy or a piece of cake—does it call that serving its father? That, with God, is prayer, and He likes to hear it. He likes you to ask Him for cake when you want it; but He doesn’t call that “serving Him.” Begging is not serving; God likes mere beggars as little as you do; He likes honest servants, not beggars. So when a child loves its father very much, and is very happy, it may sing little songs about him; but it doesn’t call that serving its father; neither is singing songs about God, serving God. It is enjoying ourselves, if it’s anything; most probably it is nothing; but if it’s anything, it is serving ourselves, not God.—John Ruskin.

(2922)

Service Unnoticed-See Results of Good Deeds.

SERVICE, UNSEEN

I heard of a young woman, a domestic in a home, who loved her Savior and whose heart He had filled with a love for her fellow men. Opportunities for service such as the world recognizes were few, but every night she was accustomed to gather the daily papers after they had been thrown aside. Taking these to her room she used to cut from them the list of death notices, and laying these before her she knelt and in prayer commended those in sorrow to the gracious help of her Father in heaven. She did not know them, but they were in sorrow, and in the only way she could she ministered to them. We are not judges, but I much mistake if in the eyes of Him who judges not as man judges, such service as that does not rank high up above the princely gifts that attract the attention of the world.—Robert Johnston.

(2923)

SERVICE WITH HARDSHIP

In a recent number of Forward the story is told of a young Chinese slave girl whose mistress brought her to the Presbyterian Mission Hospital at Canton. She was doomed to blindness and lameness, so her mistress abandoned her. The doctors amputated her leg and gave her little tasks to perform about the place and taught her about the heavenly Father and Savior. She developed leprosy and was forced to leave these friends whom she had learned to love, and go to the darkness and horror of a leper settlement. But she went a Christian, and in two years that blind, crippled leper built up a band of Christians in that leper settlement, and in five years a church grew out of her work. That poor crippled invalid life is to-day a center of joy and service, and other leper villages are sending to her to ask about the wonderful good news which can bring joy even to outcasts.

(2924)

Service, Wrong Conception of—See Seeking Service.

SHADOW

In sylviculture the growth and fiber qualities of young conifers are artificially improved by shutting off the sunlight and leaving the trees in very dark places.

There are many virtues in human character that seem to develop more robustly and come to finer strength in the shadows of adversity.

(2925)

SHADOW AND SUNSHINE

A terrible shadow in Coleridge’s life was the apparent cause of most of his dejection. In early life he suffered from neuralgia, and to ease the pain began to use opiates. The result on such a temperament was almost inevitable. He became a slave to the drug habit; his naturally weak will lost all its directing and sustaining force, until, after fifteen years of pain and struggle and despair, he gave up and put himself in charge of a physician, one Mr. Gillman, of Highgate. Carlyle, who visited him at this time, calls him “a king of men,” but records that “he gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings, a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilderment.”—William J. Long, “English Literature.”

(2926)

Shadow of a Great Life—See Living in the Shadow.

SHADOWS

We are made sure that the sun shines not necessarily by seeing it, but often by noting the shadows it casts.

So the presence of God in our lives may often be indicated by the shadows of sorrow and trial.

(2927)

SHAKING-UP

Many a man will confess that a sound thrashing at the hands of some other lad in the days of his youth was the beginning of his moral development; that, after the ache was over, it set him to thinking. Nature abhors monotony almost as much as a vacuum, and seems to have provided that at various times a general shaking up is necessary to maintain the proper standard.—James M. Stifler, “The Fighting Saint.”

(2928)

SHAME

If our deeds were all to be put on a canvas for men to see, should we be as much ashamed of some as them, as the man in this anecdote?

There was once a rich landlord who cruelly opprest a poor widow. Her son, then a little boy of eight years, witnessed it. He became a great painter, and painted a likeness of the dark scene. Years afterward he placed it where the cruel man saw it. He recognized himself in the shameful picture, turned pale, trembled in every joint, and offered a large sum to purchase it that he might put it out of sight. (Text.)—Louis Albert Banks.

(2929)

SHAMS

Christianity, like its Founder, is the enemy of all false pretense. Jesus’s denunciations were severest against hypocrites:

The amount of pain and discomfort which malingerers are willing to endure to obtain their discharge is almost incredible, but the facts are well attested. A limb has been held in a fixt position for many months and not even the application of the actual cautery has sufficed to move it. Many men have chopped off some fingers and have claimed that it was an accident. Mental derangement of one sort or another is a favorite form of malingery, but the results usually resemble the popular or stage idea of insanity rather than the true products of mental alienation.

The threat of the application of the actual cautery has cured paralysis, but cases have been recorded where malingerers have endured the cautery on several occasions. A man who simulated blindness was placed on the edge of a jetty and told to walk straight forward. He stept out and fell into the water, for he knew that those who were testing him dared not let him drown. In another case, however, a man who seemed to have paralysis of an arm allowed the amputating knife to be placed to it without flinching, but when thrown into the river he struck out with both arms and swam. (Text.)

(2930)

Musical connoisseurs often express disappointment at the sound of some imposing-looking organ. The instrument with the great dimensions of its outer frame and the gorgeous show of its great gilded pipes in front would give the impression of great power. But those pipes, instead of being of hollow and sonorous metal, are solid pieces of wood. They are decorated dummies, incapable of giving forth a single sound. The musical pipes in such an instrument are hidden from view but they alone are of service.

In the world we must expect shams of character and ostentations, impositions, but in the Church of God there should be no such thing as “folly that is set in great dignity.” (Text.)

(2931)

Examination of the premises occupied by a Los Angeles private bank, lately closed for lack of funds, showed that the supposed vault was a big door without any opening behind it. The door was of steel, with plate-glass knobs, shiny combination dials and all the features of an imposing safe protecting quantities of money. Just how such a sham affair could be put in without becoming a matter of comment is hard to see. Or do workmen set such doors often enough not to be surprized by them? (Text.)

(2932)

Sharing Blessings—See Responsibility.

SHELTER

He was only a butterfly, one of those beautiful, large, bluish-black ones that we so often see about the garden, but he knew enough to get in out of the wet.

It was during one of the heavy showers that so frequently, in the hot days of midsummer, come suddenly upon us, driving every one to the nearest cover. To escape the downpour, which meant great injury, if not destruction, to so delicate a creature, he quickly flew to a near-by Balm of Gilead tree, where, alighting on the under side of a large leaf, he clung with wings closely drawn together and hanging straight downward, using the big leaf as an umbrella to shield him from the great drops falling all around. High and dry, here he remained until the shower had passed, and the blue sky and warm sun called him once again to his favorite haunts.—St. Nicholas.

(2933)

See Compensation.

SHEPHERD, THE GOOD

A gentleman traveling in the lonely part of the highlands of Scotland was attracted by the bleating of a ewe, as the animal came from the roadside, as if to meet him. When nearer she redoubled her cries and looked up into his face as if to ask for assistance. He alighted from his gig and followed her to a considerable distance from the road, where he found a lamb completely wedged in betwixt two large stones, and struggling with its legs uppermost. He took out the sufferer and placed it on the green sward, when the mother, seemingly overjoyed, poured forth her thanks in a long-continued bleat.

The good Shepherd giveth His life for His sheep. He rejoices more at the safety of the lost sheep than over the ninety and nine that were safe in the fold. (Text.)

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Shining—See Lives that Shine.

SHINING AS LAMPS

The British Weekly prints this:

(2935)

Shining Wherever You Are—See Lives That Shine.

Ships, Watching the—See Cheer, Signals of.

SHORING UP

When building a house it is common for the carpenters to insert timbers under the ground-sills pending the time when the stone foundations can conveniently be placed.

Similarly we may employ expedients in character-building. Children may not be ready as yet to grasp principles of conduct; but meanwhile we give them rules, detail commands, and minute precepts; these serve to “shore up” the life while the principles are being formed.

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SHRINKAGE

If a man tries to live on his own moral resources, without new supplies of divine grace, he will experience a shrinkage of character like that of the sun, as described in this extract:

The sun is gradually falling into itself, the outer layers are falling toward the center; the sun is shrinking, growing smaller; and this contraction, this falling in of the outer particles, produces the immense outflow of energy. The whole sun contracts, every particle of its whole mass falls toward the center and contributes its mite to the total supply of heat. The surface particles move, of course, through a much greater distance than do those within the sphere. On account of the tremendous mass of the sun a very slight contraction will suffice to maintain its supply of heat. A shrinkage in the solar diameter of some 300 feet a year is all that is necessary to account for the great outpour of energy.—Charles Lane Poor, “The Solar System.”

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“SHUT-IN” MISSIONARY WORK

In 1891, Miss Mary Ashton, a “shut-in,” zealous for the spreading of the gospel in foreign lands, and desirous to do her share, began the sale of ribbon bookmarks and leaflets on which were printed Scripture texts and choice poems. With a few helpers, the sales and her income increased from year to year, so that, at her death in 1899, she was supporting a Bible woman in China, another in India, and four missionaries in those countries.

After her death, Miss Theodosia Haine, of Warren, O., also a member of the “Shut-in” Society, volunteered to undertake Miss Ashton’s work. This she is successfully doing and much literature is being disseminated through her efforts. The profits resulting from the sale of Miss Haine’s work go to the Mary Ashton Fund of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.—Record of Christian Work.

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SICK, MIRROR AN AID TO THE

The looking-glass, whether a plus or a minus quantity, plays a more important part in the sick-room than most nurses and physicians give it credit for.

“All things considered, I think it a good plan to give a sick person a chance to look at himself occasionally,” said a prominent doctor, recently. “Of course, the indulgence must be granted with discretion. If a patient is really looking seedy, a turn at the looking-glass is equivalent to signing his death warrant; but if taken at a time when braced up by some stimulant or a natural ebullition of vital force, a few minutes of communion with his own visage beats any tonic I can prescribe. It thrills the patient with new hope. It makes him feel that he isn’t quite so far gone as he had thought, and that possibly a fight for life is, after all, worth while. Being thus sensitive, a persistent withholding of a mirror convinces the patient that he must be too horrible for contemplation, and he promptly decides that the best thing for him to do is to give up the ghost and get out of the way.

“That is one of the mistakes hospitals were apt to make up to a few years ago. When I was a young fellow, getting my first practise after graduation, I served on the staff of several hospitals, and in all, especially in the free wards, those aids to vanity were strictly forbidden.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

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Sick-room, Atmosphere of the—See Talking and Sickness.

SIDE, CHOOSING THE RIGHT

Not many years ago I was asked to go to a Georgia county and speak, and when I got there some saloon-keepers came in and stood up by the wall on one side of me, their object being to intimidate me. I said, “Neighbors, you have sent for me to come and speak to you on the whisky issue. I am no orator; I am no Brutus. I am not going to tell you which side of this question I am on, but you just step up to God and ask which side He is on; go to Christ and put me down on His side. Go out there to the graveyard, and take up that mother who has buried her husband and sons in drunkards’ graves, and ask her which side she is on—and then put me down on her side. Put me down on the side of God and Christ, and the women and children of this land.”

The leading saloon man in the crowd wiped the tears from his eyes. He had just buried a sweet wife and child, and he walked out and said, “Boys, I’m done; I throw up the sponge.” The next election in that county the prohibition element carried the day by five hundred majority.—Sam P. Jones.

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SIGHT, IMPERFECT

A rich man, of very miserly character, was found to be suffering from cataract in both eyes. Blindness ensued, and he was at last compelled to consult a famous oculist. He was appalled by the costly fee which was required for an operation, but reluctantly assented to an operation on one eye. This restored his sight in one eye, and the oculist advised a similar operation on the other. “Oh, no,” said the miser; “it’s far too expensive. I will manage with the sight of one eye.” Most people would not hesitate to call such a man a fool, yet are not many men and women contented with semi-blindness? One eye may enable us to see material things, but not spiritual things.

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Sight, Sacrificed—See Science, Devotion to.

Sign of Distinction—See Embellishment of Preaching.

Signs—See Superstition.

SIGNALS

We should be as alert to hear God’s voice in the soul as these ship-masters are to hear the signals:

Experiments in the conductivity of sound through liquids were begun many years ago by Prof. Elisha Gray, and in 1901 a system of signals based thereon, designed by A. J. Mundy, was successfully tested in Boston Harbor. Steamships plying between Boston and New York have been equipped with the apparatus, and are said to use it very frequently in signaling.

Our representative, while on the Herman Winter, observed the perfect operation of the apparatus when approaching, passing, and leaving the Pollock Rip lightship. It had been prearranged that the signal should be the number 73, the number of the lightship. This locality was reached shortly before daylight, yet when the ship was seven miles from the lightship, tossed by tempestuous seas, the signal, seven strokes, then three, was faintly but distinctly heard. Within two miles it was quite loud, and the peculiar A musical note of the bell was plainly noticeable. It is feasible to signal words with a special code, and no doubt such a system of communication will soon be perfected. (Text.)—The Scientific American.

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See Listening for Signals.

SIGNALS UNHEEDED

The engineer of the Philadelphia and Reading flyer, which on the night of January 27, 1903, plowed its death-dealing way without warning into the splintered cars of the Eastern express on the New Jersey Central Railroad, near Westfield, N. J., was extricated from the wreck suffering terribly from wounds from which he afterward died. When first carried to the hospital and questioned concerning the cause of the wreck, he could give no clear idea of how it happened that he ran by the red signal. In his agony he kept murmuring: “I saw nothing!” His later testimony was somewhat confused, but it hardly added to or subtracted from the force of that short, sad lament, “I saw nothing!” Many a mortal spirit rushes through this world seeing nothing, speeding on and on toward eternity, and recklessly running by signal after signal set by merciful hands to warn it of the dangers ahead.—Grace and Truth.

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SILENCE

(2944)

SILENCE AND SPEECH

A young man who was an inveterate talker was sent by his parents to Socrates to learn oratory. On being presented to Socrates the young man spoke so much that Socrates was out of patience. When the bargain came to be struck, Socrates asked him double the price. “Why charge me double?” asked the young man. “Because,” said Socrates, “I must teach you two sciences; the one to hold your tongue, and the other how to speak.”

Silence may be as eloquent as speech. The art of the matter is practise, each at the right time and in the right place.

(2945)

Silence Under Provocation—See Provocation, Silence Under.

SILENT PROCESSES

When I was a boy the new shoe (it was a boot then) was a mortification wherever I went. It announced my coming like a brass band. It was unescapable. To a modest man it was an agony. Even an assertive man found it inconvenient at times.

But now the shoes, even the newest of shoes, shoes worn for the first time, do not squeak one little squeak. They would not disturb the typical but mythical pin-fall silence.

Where has the squeak gone? It has been taken up by a layer of some sort of cloth or soft fiber between the two layers of leather. It is a very simple device, and the wonder, as with so many other simple devices, is that it was not thought of before.

What I want to do is to apply the non-squeak method to my life. I want to put something between the rubbing surfaces of my thoughts and words and actions that will make them noiseless. I want the operation of my brain and the energy of my life to be silent. I shall be glad when the world sees results, but I do not care to have it see processes.

I want my shoes to “get there,” but I don’t want them to squeak on the way.—Arrow, Christian Endeavor World.

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SIMPLE-MINDEDNESS

An army examiner once had a very stupid candidate before him, who apparently was unable to answer the simplest question. At last the examiner lost his temper, and with sarcastic emphasis, quite lost on the youth before him, queried.

“Suppose, sir, that you were a captain in command of a company of infantry; that in your rear was an unpassable abyss; that on either side of you towered perpendicular rocks of untraversable height; that before you stood the enemy, one hundred men to each one of yours; what, sir, would you do in this emergency?”

“General,” said the aspirant to military honors, “I should resign.”—Tit-Bits.

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SIMPLICITY

Hon. E. B. Washburne says: “When Grant left his headquarters at Smith’s plantation (a short distance above New Carthage, on the Louisiana side) to enter on the greatest campaign in history, he did not take with him the trappings and paraphernalia so common among military men. All depended on the quickness of the movement. It was important that he should be encumbered with as little baggage as possible. He took with him no orderly, nor horse, nor a servant, nor an overcoat, nor a camp-chest, nor even a clean shirt. His entire baggage for the six days—I was with him at that time—was a tooth-brush! He fared like the commonest soldier in his command, partaking of his rations and sleeping on the ground with no covering except the canopy of heaven.”

(2948)

See Life, The Simple; Tact.

SIMPLICITY AND TRUTH

The first rule of evidence in courts is that the easiest explanation is the most probable one. The court always rejects the far-fetched as the improbable. If the snow should fall to-night, and to-morrow morning at daylight footprints in the snow should be found, you could explain the footprints in the easiest possible way—namely, a man went down the street. A far-fetched explanation would be that an aeroplane came along, that a man leaned out of the basket, and holding a shoe in either hand carefully made these footprints so as to create the impression that some one had walked down Orange Street. We reject the explanation because it is involved. We choose the easiest explanation and the simplest.—N. D. Hillis.

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SIMULATION

There are many insects, birds and beasts that preserve their being by simulating what they are not, that they may remain undistinguishable and escape the pitfalls that may lie in wait for them; also to catch the unobservant and destroy them. Among these are the “specter insect,” the “walking-stick insect,” and the “praying insect” (Mantis religiosa), which is so constructed, with its fore-legs stiff and thrust into the air to resemble a withered twig, that it may escape foes from this very resemblance, also that it may catch any unwary insect that ventures near for its own subsistence, thus simulating an attitude of patient endurance quite like those scavengers of the human race—pious beggars who simulate faith and patient endurance, but are really burglars and robbers. The sphinx caterpillar also simulates what it is not, and escapes its enemies by putting on a false appearance, and also attracts its food in a like manner.—Mrs. M. J. Gorton, Popular Science News.

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Sin, Bondage to—See Bondage to Sin.

SIN-CONSCIOUSNESS

The Rev. James Guthrie, one of the Scottish Covenanters, had a man-servant who was much humbled and perplexed by hearing his master pray regularly in family worship for one who was present that his sins might be forgiven. There were few, of course, in the household circle, and the man naturally thought that it was he who was prayed for. After Mr. Guthrie had one night been especially fervent in supplication for this person present, the man could bear it no longer and spoke to his master, wishing to know wherein he had come short. Judge of the astonishment of both when Mr. Guthrie said it was himself he had been praying for.

(2951)

A deacon in a Jacobite church near Tripoli, Syria, was seeking relief for his sin-burdened conscience. He heard of a woman who wrote out all her sins on a paper and laid it on the tomb of St. Ephraim. When she found the paper later, there were no traces of writing on it, so she knew her sins had been erased. The deacon wrote his, and placed them under the altar-cloth beneath the sacred wafer which he believed to be the very body of Christ; but the ink showed no signs of dimness. He was disappointed and discouraged, but just at that time he found a tract entitled “Looking unto Jesus,” which showed him a better way.

(2952)

See Experience and Bible.

SIN COVERED

In the old days the gutters were open in the streets, but in modern towns they are put underground; so society is always forcing vices and abuses underground, covering them up by a variety of regulations that they no longer shock the public sense. Still, on occasion, the covered drain may prove its deadly virus, and the covered sin of the community is still there, working and threatening mischief.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

(2953)

Sin Exposed—See Exposure.

SIN, FASCINATION OF

Let the young especially beware of the insidious approacher of evil. Says Lady Montague:

I have sat on the shore and waited for the gradual approach of the sea, and have seen its dancing waves and white surf, and lingered till its gentle notes grew into billows and had well-nigh swept me from my firmest footing. So have I seen a heedless youth gazing with a too curious spirit on the sweet motions and gentle approaches of an inviting pleasure, till it has detained his eye, and imprisoned his feet, and swelled upon his soul and swept him to a swift destruction. (Text.)

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SIN, HIDDEN

Donald Sage Mackay, in “The Religion of the Threshold,” writes in substance as follows:

Henry Drummond vividly describes the ravages of the African white ant. One may never see the insect possibly in the flesh, for it lives underground. But its ravages confront one at every turn. You build your house, perhaps, and for a few months fancy you have pitched on the one solitary site in the country where there are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and lintel and rafter come down together with a crash. You look at a section of the wrecked timbers and discover that the whole inside is eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the thickest of them you can push your little finger. It is a vivid picture of the way in which concealed sins eat out the pith of the soul. To the outward eye everything may remain the same, but the fiber of character has been punctured through and through, till the whole nature is corroded.

(2955)

Sin, Ineffaceable—See Consequences, Irreparable.

SIN, ORIGINAL

What a strange misuse of language to speak of sacred writers as inventing original sin! Can we say that Jenner invented the smallpox, or that Pasteur invented the rabies, or that any of the celebrated physicians invented the maladies which are known by their names? What these famous men did was to successfully diagnose, characterize, and treat diseases which already existed, and which proved their malignant power by carrying thousands of men and women to the grave. (Text.)—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

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SIN, SENSE OF

It is popular in some quarters to pooh-pooh, the sense of sin, or to smile away the seriousness of sin.

Alfred de Musset, when he was young (the same fact is told of Merimee), once, being very much scolded for a childish freak, went away in tears, deeply penitent, when he heard his parents say, after the door was shut: “Poor boy, he thinks himself quite a criminal!” The thought that his misdeed was not so very serious, and that his repentance was mere childishness, wounded him deeply, and the impression remained engraved on his memory forever. (Text.)

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SIN, SUBTLETY OF

Our scientists, by the aid of powerful lenses, intense lights, exquisite adjustments, have succeeded in rendering visible the germs of several terrible maladies which decimate us, and these ardent naturalists hope ultimately to discover germs still more minute and obscure. But can any one believe that a bacteria of immorality will ever be revealed by the microscope as the germs of disease have been? Fever and cholera germs, germs of consumption, hydrophobia, erysipelas, have been disclosed by the fierce light of modern research; but no one will suppose that the germs of intemperance, impurity, anger, covetousness, deceit, pride, murder, foolishness, will ever be thrown on the screen, and an antidote be found for them in the pharmacopoeia. If it were thus possible to exhibit the secret of our sins, how we should shudder at the sight of the naked human heart, and shrink from the ghastly things which nestle there! But such a spectacle is not possible, and we are sure that it never will be. The germs of moral disease are in the soul itself; no glass of science may make them visible, no physician may deal with them, no medicine may purge them.—W. L. Watkinson, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”

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SIN WITHOUT ATONEMENT

A writer, speaking of the wasteful use of coal in England, and the consequent diminishing of the national store, says:

Our stock of coal is a definite and limited quantity that was placed in the present storehouse long before human beings came upon the earth. Every ton of coal that is wasted is lost forever, and can not be replaced by any human effort, while bread is a product of human industry, and its waste may be replaced by additional human labor. The sin of bread-wasting does admit of agricultural atonement, while there is no form of practical repentance that can positively and directly replace a hundredweight of wasted coal.

Here is an instance of a sin without atonement. Man can not reproduce the coal that he has once wasted. Grace has a kindlier word for our moral waters. The “years that the locust eaten” may be restored. (Text.)

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SINNERS AND GOD

The following is taken from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon entitled, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” The sinners are given a dreadful warning.

The wrath of God burns against them; their damnation don’t slumber; the pit is prepared; the fire is made ready; the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The devils watch them; they are ever by them, at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy, hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw His hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost. The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath toward you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten times so abominable in His eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.

Jonathan Edwards was born October 5, 1703. What a difference time makes in religious thinking.

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SINS, ACCUMULATED

A great mogul engine goes dashing along at a high speed, plowing its way against wind, and defying every obstruction. But little snowflakes, steadily falling on the track, grow into a heap that brings the monster to a standstill.

Not one great crime, but many small sins block the soul’s progress heavenward.

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Sin’s Causes—See Disease, Causes of.

SINS, PET

An officer in India, who one day fell asleep with his left hand hanging over the couch, was awakened by his young pet lion licking him. The rough tongue brought blood, and the officer tried to withdraw his hand. At the first movement the lion gave a short growl and grasped the hand more firmly, upon which the officer, seeing that his lion cub had become suddenly changed from a domestic pet to a wild beast, took a loaded pistol from under his pillow with his right hand and shot the animal dead.

There are pet sins that men caress, parade, and boast of. They appear harmless enough to the casual observer, but at some unexpected moment they becoming a “roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.” (Text.)

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SINS OF YOUTH

In some strata there are to be seen the marks of showers of rain which fell centuries ago, and they are so plain and perfect that they clearly indicate the way the wind was drifting and in what direction the tempest slanted from the sky. So may the tracks of youthful sins be traced upon the tablet of life when it has merged into old-age tracks on which it is bitter and sad to look, and which call forth many a worthless longing for the days and months which are past. (Text.)—Mursell.

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Sins That Are Regarded as Little—See Little Sins.

SINGING CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH

The time will soon come when singing will be regarded as one of the great helps to physicians in lung diseases, more especially in their incipient state. Almost every branch of gymnastics is employed in one way or another by the doctors, but the simple and natural function of singing has not yet received its full meed of attention. In Italy, some years ago statistics were taken which proved that the vocal artists were especially long-lived and healthy, under normal circumstances, while of the brass instrumentalists it was discovered that consumption never claimed a victim among them. Those who have a tendency toward consumption should take easy vocal exercises, no matter how thin and weak their voices may seem to be. They will find a result at times, far surpassing any relief afforded by medicine. Vocal practise, in moderation, is the best system of general gymnastics that can be imagined, many muscles being brought into play that would scarcely be suspected of action in connection with so simple a matter as tone production. Therefore, apart from all art considerations, merely as a matter of health, one can earnestly say to the healthy, “Sing! that you may remain so,” and to the weakly, “Sing, that you may become strong.”—Boston Musical Herald.

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Singing Stays Panic—See Self-restraint.

SINGLENESS OF PURPOSE

The engineers of Nicholas I showed him their map of a crooked railway line from St. Petersburg to Moscow, explaining that it curved this way and that to take in this and that important interest or city, but the Czar took a ruler and drew a straight line between his two capitals, saying: “Build me that road.”

The secret of the Czar’s engineering was simply a single purpose to join the old and new capitals of his empire. The engineers thought of one great interest this way, and another that way; but the Czar had no interests but the one. That may have been poor business, but it was good military engineering, and had it continued in Russian military autocratic government, the Japanese, in the late war, would have had harder work.—Franklin Noble, “Sermons in Illustration.”

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Sisterhood—See Graciousness in Women.

SIZE, COMPARATIVE

Many a man who looks large in small surroundings, is dwarfed to a pigmy when placed among his superiors:

Since the Statue of Liberty was erected the scale of almost everything material has changed, especially in New York, so that the colossus does not look even large now. It was all very well for the Colossus of Rhodes to straddle the harbor entrance, looking down on the tiny sailing craft, and pigmy buildings of its day; it could not look otherwise than grandiose; but it would have been swallowed up and lost among the sky-scrapers and mammoth ocean-liners of twentieth-century New York, with its huge bridges, lofty towers, and all-around bigness. Nothing counts in a work of art but quality.—Boston Transcript.

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See Comparative, The.

SIZE NOT POWER

John Stuart Mill gives us a wonderful contrast between man’s brief day and the enduring ages of Neptune, yet Neptune is a frozen clod, whirling on in eternal ice and darkness. A little ball of ice can not laugh nor love nor sing nor curse nor faint nor die; neither can a big ball of ice named Neptune. It is man alone who is great, as the regent under God. The contrast between the insignificance of man and the greatness of nature is based on the fallacy that bulk is greatness. The truth is that bulk is bulk, and concerns rocks and clods. Size is not power. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(2967)

Skill—See Headwork.

Skill by Experience—See Precautions.

Skill Solving a Problem—See Character Conditioned by the Physical.

SKILL WITH TENDERNESS

Years ago, in Central New York, lived a Dr. Delamater, a noted surgeon. It was before the days of anesthetics. A woman patient consulted him, and after examination he told her, with tears in his eyes, that a painful and dangerous operation was necessary. “Proceed,” said the woman. The surgeon’s success was complete. “Weren’t you afraid when you saw the surgeon affected so?” she was asked later. “No,” she said, “that was what helped me. Those tears assured me that the doctor was as tender-hearted as he was skilful. I could trust such a man.” (Text.)

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SKY, THE

In landscape-painting the sky, it is said, is the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment; just as the sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything. This led John Constable to say that “the landscape-painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids.” He says he was advised to consider his sky as “a white sheet thrown behind the objects.” He claims that the skies have what he calls a natural history in the changes that they show. As West once told him: “Always remember, sir, that light and shade never stand still,” adding: “In your skies always aim at brightness ... even the darkest effects there should be brightness. Your darks should look like the darks of silver, not of lead or of slate.” It was the fault in the skies that led to the rejection of Constable’s picture, “Flatford Mill,” by the Royal Academy.

How much life depends upon its skies.

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SLACKNESS

Mr. C. E. Russell, in Hampton’s Magazine, gives some experiences of Dr. H. H. Hart, of Chicago, member of the National Prison Association. One time he went to an Illinois jail in a small rural town, and asked to see the sheriff:

It appeared that the sheriff was visiting in another part of the county. Doctor Hart asked for the jailer. The jailer was absent, attending a funeral. Was any officer within range? Oh, yes, there was a deputy sheriff somewhere about. After diligent search, Doctor Hart succeeded in running down the deputy sheriff, and announced that he had come to inspect the jail.

The deputy sheriff said he would get the key. He felt in one pocket after another, and at last announced, with some trace of annoyance, that he could not find the key. For a moment he stood silent and meditating, until at last a bright thought seemed to occur to him. “Wait a moment,” he said, and disappeared into the barn. Presently he returned with another man.

“This is one of the prisoners,” said the deputy. “I guess he has the key.”

Accordingly, the prisoner dug the key out of a pocket and ushered Doctor Hart into the prison.

On another occasion Doctor Hart visited a jail, and found it apparently deserted. He could discover no sheriff, no jailer, no deputy. A man was sweeping the sidewalk, and of him Doctor Hart asked for news of the county officers. The man shook his head.

“I guess I’m the only prisoner here. The sheriff and the jailer have gone out into the country on a picnic.”

“What are you in for?”

“Oh, for murder,” said the man, nonchalantly, and resumed his sweeping.

Incredible as it may seem, this man was telling the truth, and not long afterward he was tried and found guilty.

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SLANDER

Against slander there is no defense. It starts with a word, with a nod, with a shrug, with a look, with a smile. It is pestilence walking in darkness, spreading contagion far and wide, which the most wary traveler can not avoid; it is the heart-searching dagger of the dark assassin; it is the poisoned arrow whose wounds are incurable; it is the mortal sting of the deadly adder, murder its employment, innocence its prey, and ruin its sport.—Catholic Telegraph.

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SLANDER IRREPARABLE

The man who breaks into my dwelling, or meets me on the public road and robs me of my property, does me injury. He stops me on the way to wealth, strips me of my hard-earned savings, involves me in difficulty, and brings my family to penury and want. But he does me an injury that can be repaired. Industry and economy may again bring me into circumstances of ease and affluence. The man who, coming at the midnight hour, fires my dwelling, does me an injury—he burns my roof, my pillow, my raiment, my very shelter from the storm and tempest; but he does me an injury that can be repaired. The storm may indeed beat upon me, and chilling blasts assail me, but Charity will receive me into her dwelling, will give me food to eat, and raiment to put on; will timely assist me, raising a new roof over the ashes of the old, and I shall again sit by my own fireside, and taste the sweets of friendship and of home. But the man who circulates false reports concerning my character, who exposes every act of my life which may be represented to my disadvantage, who goes first to this, then to that individual, tells them he is very tender of my reputation, enjoins upon them the strictest secrecy, and then fills their ears with hearsays and rumors, and, what is worse, leaves them to dwell upon the hints and suggestions of his own busy imagination—the man who thus “filches from me my good name,” does me an injury which neither industry, nor charity, nor time itself can repair.—Catholic Telegraph.

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SLAVE FOR THE GOSPEL’S SAKE

On the wall of a church in Algiers is a memorial tablet, inscribed with the name of Devereaux Spratt. Born in England, he, in 1641, with 119 other persons, the passengers and crew on board an English ship, were captured by Algerine pirates and sold into slavery. Having tasted of the salvation of Jesus Christ, he soon began laboring for the salvation of others, and many were brought to know and acknowledge the Lord. After some time, his family, being influential, persuaded the English Government to interfere on behalf of these poor captives, and the dey of Algiers granted to Mr. Spratt his liberty. But those among whom he had labored sorrowed so bitterly as they thought of losing him from among them, and the bonds which held him to them were so strong and tender, that he actually declined the offer of freedom, gave up home and friends, and consented to abide in lifelong bondage, that he, being a slave, might make others free. Thus, for the sake of emancipating the souls of others, he lived and died an Algerine slave. (Text.)

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SLAVE TRADE, ATROCITIES OF

Slaves of both sexes in South Africa were chained together in pairs, many being mere skeletons from the misery, want, and fatigue of their march. In some the fetters had, by their constant action, worn through the lacerated flesh to the bare bone, the ulcerated wound having become the resort of myriads of flies. One captain had thrust his slaves between decks and closed the hatches for the night. When morning came fifty of the poor wretches were found to have been suffocated. The captain swore at the untimely loss, had the bodies thrown into the river, and went on shore to buy more negroes to complete his cargo.

As the summary of the facts recorded, it may be stated that:

Of 1,000 victims to the slave trade, one-half perished in the seizure, march and detention 500

Of 500 embarked on the transports, one-fourth, or 25 per cent, died in the middle passage 125

Of the remaining 375 landed, 20 per cent died soon after 75

Of 1,000 slaves, total loss 700

So that the annual loss to South Africa in its inhabitants was 500,000.—Edward Gilliatt, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

(2974)

Slavery Abolished—See Freedom, Gratitude for.

SLAVERY ENDED

In 1834 the children of the Jamaica slaves were freed, but at midnight of July 31, 1838, a general proclamation of emancipation went into effect and every adult slave in Jamaica became a free man. In anticipation of this event, William Knibb, the evangelist, gathered together the ten thousand slaves on that island for a prayer and praise meeting, and when the first stroke of the midnight bell pealed out, William Knibb shouted, “The monster is dying!” When the second stroke came, he said “dying”—after the third stroke he again said “dying,” and when the twelfth stroke struck he said “The monster is dead—let us bury him.” They had ready an immense coffin, into which they cast the whips, the branding-irons, the handcuffs and fetters, the slave garments and all the memorials of their slavery—and screwed down the lid. They let the coffin down into a twelve-foot deep grave, and, covering it over, they buried out of sight all the memorials of their past life of bondage.

(2975)

SLAVES NOT HEROES

When Louis XIV, in order to check what he perceived to be the growing supremacy of England upon the seas, determined to establish a navy, he sent for his great minister Colbert, and said to him, “I wish a navy—how can I create it?” Colbert replied, “Make as many galley-slaves as you can.” Thereupon every Huguenot who refused to doff his bonnet on the street as the King passed by, every boy of seventeen who could give no account of himself, every vagrant without an occupation, was seized, convicted and sent to the galleys. Could a navy of heroes be made of galley-slaves? The history of the Anglo-Saxon race says “No.”—Hampton L. Carson.

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SLAVES OF PLEASURE

Philanthropists in prison cells, missionaries to the Fiji Islanders, people doing rescue work in the worst sections of great cities, Livingstone in Africa, all these, through zeal, can work till midnight to save lost men, but the votary of pleasure will toil on up and down a waxed floor till daylight, until the head reels and the whole heart is sick. In his “Confessions” Tolstoi says that for ten years he went from banquet to banquet, drinking rich wines, feasting, following his tailor, concocting flatteries, lies, sleeping by day and dissipating at night, and he adds, “My observation is that no galley-slave or apostle like Paul has to toil as hard as a society man and a society woman,” and both have lost their beauty, their happiness and their health before the life course is half run. So pleasure makes its disciples become galley-slaves. But pleasure promised a velvet path, air heavy with roses, the wine and nectar of Venus and Bacchus. Pleasure promised perfumed bowers, days of happiness, nights of laughter and song. But pleasure is a deceiver. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(2977)

Sleeping in Church—See Self-blame.

SLOWNESS

“A snail’s pace,” hitherto a remarkably indefinite phrase, has at last been exactly defined, thanks to the experimental philosophers of the Terre Haute Polytechnic. After putting half a dozen of them through their paces, and making all necessary differentiations, it was ascertained that a snail can travel exactly a mile in fourteen days. Hence, it will be seen that it is about nip and tuck between the snail and the boy when you send the latter to a grocery past a vacant lot where the other boys are engaged in a game of baseball.—Cincinnati Enquirer.

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SMALL ANNOYANCES

James Drummond, in “Parables and Pictures,” says:

We have heard of a battle against cannibals gained by the use of tacks. They had taken possession of a whaling vessel and bound the man who was left in care of it. The crew, on returning, saw the situation, and scattered tacks upon the deck of the vessel, which penetrated the bare feet of the savages, and sent them howling into the sea. They were ready to meet lance and sword, but they could not overcome the tacks on the floor. We brace ourselves up against great calamities. The little tacks of life, scattered along our way, are hard to bear.

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SMALL BEGINNINGS

“Despise not the day of small things.” “Great oaks from little acorns grow.”

A boy used to crush flowers to get their color, and painted the white side of his father’s cottage in Tyrol with all sorts of pictures, which the mountaineer gazed at as wonderful. He was the great artist, Titian.

An old painter watched a little fellow who amused himself making drawing of his pots and brushes, easel and tools, and said, “That boy will beat me some day.” So he did, for he was Michelangelo.

(2980)

Small Duties—See Helpfulness.

SMALL EVILS HARDEST TO BEAR

Gerald Gould expresses in verse a sentiment that many will indorse:

(2981)

Smallness and Bigness Compared—See Destructiveness.

Smiles—See Love’s Carefulness; Trouble.

SMILES AND FROWNS

We would all be willing to help in the pleasant task described in these verses:

(2982)

SMILING

In Brooklyn, two young women undertook to band together a smile club. In this club’s membership may be included every one, everywhere, who is willing to pledge as many smiles as possible to make life generally happier. Here are some of the things required of members: “Radiate! Smile! Shine like a little sun! Begin each day anew, and begin it by smiling until you are in a good humor. Think only of the things you wish to possess or of what you desire to become, for thoughts are things. Have faith and your wishes will come true. Smile! And keep on smiling, and you will find that the happiness you have always been seeking is within yourself. Express this happiness.” Surely no objection can be offered to the organizing of clubs of this sort, tho we need not necessarily join one to acquire and practise the smiling habit. It may be said of smile clubs and smiles, the more the merrier. As a popular post-card puts it: “Smile a while, and while you smile another smiles, and soon there are miles and miles of smiles because you smile.” Grouches could not exist if every one was smiling. It’s worth trying for a few days anyhow, just to see how well it works.

(2983)

Snob versus Gentleman—See Gentility, False Standard of.

SNOBBERY

A countryman had been to the city and went home brimful of news. “You ’member the Smiths?” he asked his wife, “the Silver Crik Smiths, them as got rich on the’r gran’feyther’s money.” Yes, she remembered them. “I seen ’em. They’re way up; live in a gran’ house on a street they call a thavenoo. They ride in a double kerridge, and have no end of money.” She said she s’posed as much. “But, ’Mandy, you wouldn’t want ter change places with her; I see her a minnit, and I didn’t hev the heart to speak t’her. She’s bin humbled right down to the dust. She’s as blind as a bat.” Blind! She guessed not. “But she is. Fust, she didn’t know me, me that’s rid down hill and played tag with her when she warn’t knee-high to a turkey. Then, ’Mandy, tho her eyes was wide open, she went right along the streets, all drest up in her fine clothes, and a leetle mite of a dog was leading her along. He was tied to a streeng, and she had hold of t’other end of the streeng. Now, ’Mandy, how’d you like to be her?”—Detroit Free Press.

(2984)

SNOBBERY REBUKED

Social standing is not always a sign of moral worth, as the following story suggests:

“The late Francis Murphy,” said a Pittsburg man, “perhaps the greatest temperance reformer our country has ever seen, hated snobbishness hardly less than drunkenness. At a dinner in Pittsburg I once heard him rebuke, with a little anecdote, a snobbish millionaire.

“He said there was a rich and snobbish English woman living in the country. Her husband put himself up for a political place, and in order to help his campaign along the woman gave a garden party to which every voter for miles around was invited.

“Among the humble guests was a very independent grocer. The grocer made himself quite at home. No duke’s manner could have been easier and freer. Indeed, the man’s total lack of subservience angered his hostess extremely, so that in the end, thinking to take him down a peg, she said to him significantly:

“‘You know, Mr. Greens, in London, shopkeepers don’t go into the best society.’

“The grocer looked at her, and nodded and smiled.

“They don’t here, either, ma’am,’ he said.” (Text.)

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SOCIAL CHRISTIANITY

In other days when people did not have matches they were sometimes obliged to go to the neighbors for fire, if their own blaze went out. Usually a bunch of large knots were laid on the coals at night and then covered over with ashes until morning. But if the knots failed to burn, then the oldest child was usually sent to the neighbors with an iron kettle to borrow fire. Happy to be of use, the child soon returned with a kettleful of bright coals and a blazing knot on top.

No man can live at his best who leads a solitary life. Without the fellowship of others, like an isolated coal he soon ceases to glow and burn. Very few can remain for a long time in a white heat of enthusiasm. The flames die down, the warmth disappears unless the fires are kept replenished. Brainard’s prayer was “O that I could be a flame of fire in the service of my God.” (Text.)

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See Christianity, Social.

Social Faults—See Difficulties, Social.

SOCIAL INSTINCTS IN BIRDS

On one occasion Mr. Leander Keyser’s several cages of birds were moved from one porch to another on the other side of the house. The jay’s cage, being too big for the new quarters, was left behind, when at once the bird began to express his dissatisfaction and loneliness. All day he rushed about his cage, calling in the most pitiful way. The next morning he was no more reconciled, and showed so plainly by every look and motion his unhappiness that a place was made for him near the others. The moment he saw them he gave a cry of delight, his calls ceased, he chirped and twittered, and was his happy self again.—Olive Thorne Miller, “The Bird Our Brother.”

(2987)

SOCIAL INTERDEPENDENCE

There was once a rich man who lived in a certain village. The people were pleased to have this man of influence among them. The only fault that they found with him was that he was selfish. It did not trouble him if his neighbors were poor or sick or out of work or in trouble. What was that to him? It only added to his position of superiority. He could import his edibles. He could hire foreign labor. But one day a family was stricken with a contagious disease induced by their poverty and poor food. The village was quarantined. He went to a gardener for vegetables but the cut worms had made the garden fail. He went to the poultry-dealer for eggs, but his hens were not laying well. He went to the farmer for fruit, but the drought had injured his vines. Then the rich man began to realize the relation between himself and his fellow man. If trouble came to his neighbor, he could not escape its blight. It was then that he became truly humble and began to love his neighbor as himself.

It is as true in our moral and spiritual life as it is in our physical life. The sin that blasts our neighbor’s character will sooner or later cast its shadow upon us, live we ever so blameless. No one can live his life apart from his neighbors. (Text.)

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SOCIAL PROGRESS

“The farmers’ telephone was a boon during heavy and unprecedented snows,” says The Electrical World and Engineer, “and many interesting uses are reported in New York State in places where many roads were blocked with drifts over ten feet deep. Hemmed in so that they could not see a neighbor for weeks, farmers have been able to converse with their friends and thus keep in touch with the world.” (Text.)

(2989)

See Economic Motives.

SOCIAL RELIGION

Only the selfish man could wish to go to heaven alone. The door of life is always closed to the man who is not helping some other man on his journey.

A priest had a striking dream. He dreamed he had ascended the ladder that reached from earth to heaven. Expectantly he knocked upon the door. Some one responded, and demanded, “Who is there?” Proudly the priest called his name. “Who is with you?” came the reply. “No one,” answered the priest; “I am alone.” “Sorry,” said the angel, “but we are instructed never to open these gates for a single individual.” And, crestfallen and disappointed, he descended to earth.

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SOCIAL STRENGTH

A constant struggle is going on in nature, and those animals best adapted to their conditions will be the ones to survive and transmit their superior characteristics to subsequent generations. This is natural selection. This same law governed man in his early history, and in almost the same way as it governs the brute kingdom. From the time that the tribal relation is established among men the struggle for existence ceases to be one of individuals and becomes one of tribes. It little profits an individual to be strong if he belongs to a weak tribe; it little profits a tribe to be composed of strong individuals if they fail to work in harmony with each other. Natural selection will still preserve the strongest, but it will be the strongest tribe. It is mutual trust, fidelity, honesty, concert in action, patriotism, disregard of death, that form the sinews of the nation, personal strength becoming a subordinate factor. Wolves hunt in companies, and together fearlessly attack animals which would easily master them separately. Insects live in communities and tho individually they are weak, by concert of action they make themselves formidable to the strongest of animals. But the central feature of the teaching of Christ was the law of love. It constantly appears in His words—now clothed in one parable now in another. The new command given to man was to love his enemy, to do good to them that hated him, to help the weak, to pardon the erring, to resist evil, and to give to him that asked. Henceforth it was to be the peacemaker who should be blest, and he who wished to be greatest was to be servant of all.—H. W. Conn, Methodist Review.

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See Unity, Strength in.

SOCIAL TRAITS IN CHILDREN

Pedagogs tell us that the plays of children under seven or eight are noncompetitive and noncooperative. Kindergarten children play side by side or in pairs, rarely spontaneously in groups. They are gregarious rather than social. The plays between the ages of seven and twelve are social, cooperative and competitive games, but each child usually plays for himself. After twelve group games with opposing sides are more popular, and finally tend to crowd out all others.

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SOCIAL VANITY

I read in a Paris paper an interesting account of a reception that some of our distinguished friends passing the season in Newport gave to a chimpanzee. Of course, it was mortifying to an American to have it known by Europeans that my compatriots were prepared to confess in that practical way to their belief in the evolution theory, and to have it understood in the cultivated centers of English and Continental life that over here people of advertised refinement could drop into such close relations of social reciprocity without either the Newport gentlemen and ladies or the chimpanzee feeling themselves insulted by the contact. But that first feeling, which of course was one of loathing, not for the chimpanzee, but for his companions, soon gave place to one which I am sure was more just and wholesome, this, namely, a pathetic realization of the horrid sense of emptiness which people must be suffering under to be willing to fill up the vacuum with material of such an abominably unhuman type; like a man so agonizingly hungry that he had rather fill himself with carrion than go to bed supperless, and not only that, but reduced to such an extreme point of inanition as even to acquire an appetite for carrion.—Charles H. Parkhurst.

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SOCIETY IS MAN’S PLACE

The man of the city closes his house, forgets his office and goes away. He has a suit of store clothes on him and two linen collars in his handbag, but for the rest he carries the garb of the vagabond, and getting into this as quick as he can he buries his face in the pine-needles and lets the wind and rain beat down on his uncovered head and untrimmed beard. And the weeks pass; and then happens the stranger thing. Through the music of the forest and the harmonies of the falling waters, he hears, at first, far away and hardly audible, then ever nearer and clearer, the voice of the city he deserted, and to his manhood’s spirit that voice speaks with a charm which overcomes the woodland’s spell and in another day he is back again, back in the old street, to the old work, to the ever dear old city. And once more keeping step with the vast army of toilers, he knows that not in solitude, but in society, is character made, and more, that not nature, but human nature, is God’s best handiwork.—T. C. McClelland.

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Soil—See Fruit and Soil.

SOLACE OF THE SEA

The following paragraph is the conclusion of James G. Blaine’s eulogy of President Garfield, and forms one of the finest passages of English prose:

Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will. Within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices, with wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders, on its far sails whitening in the morning light, on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun, on the red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon, on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning, which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that, in the silence of the receding world, he heard the great wave breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.

(2995)

Solar Energy—See Energy; Utilization.

SOLDIER, A TRUE

In the midst of a hot engagement, Napoleon asked one of his aides about the battle. “Sire,” said he, “this battle is lost, but,” pointing with his sword to the sun still an hour high, “there is still time enough to win another.”

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Soldier’s Dying Sentiments—See Essentials.

SOLIDARITY

Smith’s family in Brooklyn went on short allowance, the oldest son was taken out of college, the two daughters gave up their music-teacher, there was no summer vacation. They explained that Smith had lost thirty-six thousand dollars on R. & P. stock. Smith knew that he had lost this money because he was ten minutes late in getting a receipt from the directors.