Elia Peattie articles from Omaha World-Herald

A CASE OF LOVE.

It was not duty that made him do it. It was not even the necessity of earning his daily bread. It was love. No one could think it anything else. No one in the tenement knew anything about his past history. He had only just come from Germany, and he had brought his birds with him. There were eighty of them, all singers. When the sun first got at the cages in the morning there was such a clangor of sweet sounds as aroused every other inmate of the tenement, and so far from soothing their savage breasts, converted them into veritable savages.

But no one doubted that it was a case of love. For Henry Strange cared for nothing but his birds. The neighbors seeing him at the window noticed that he never had even the companionship of a pipe. He never had a book or paper in his hand. He made no friends. He was content. His one passion fed him. Day and night he was satisfied to live there among his birds. to which he devoted his whole life/ That it was not duty that made him care for them was evident from the fact as the birds. while he cleaned their cages, and put the water and seed in the little troughs. And a person does not sing when he is merely doing his duty. And though the birds represented bread and butter, he parted from them with reluctance, and appeared not to court custom in any way.

He was a wonderful looking little old man. It was difficult to see how so many wrinkles could be got on one human face. The skin bore a resemblance to those engravings which it used to be the delight of artists to turn out, covered with delicate, yet indelible cross lines.

Above his crisp, white curls set a skull cap of faded maroon velvet, which looked as if it had seen constant wear since first those locks lost the brown luster of their earlier days. His eyes were so bright and brown and beadlike that it was difficult to believe he had not taken them from the heads of some of his pets. His voice was a falsetto, broken a little in quality, but shrilly sweet like the tones of his canaries.

This one bare room in which he lived was his only apartment. It was on the ground floor of the tenement, and had originally been built for a little cigar and news stand for the accommodation of the ladies and gentlemen above stairs. But a difference of opinion between Mrs. O'Flarity, who lived in the third story back, and the young man who had kept the cigars, caused the police to interfere. The unfeeling creditors of the young plan had then stepped in. and the consequences were that the store was empty just when Henry Strange landed with his eighty canaries. A tiny stove, an iron cut, with some gray blankets upon it, a cupboard which held his bird feed and the little boxes of gravel for them, and some chairs composed the furnishings. There were no curtains at the windows, but this does not matter. For the birds were not embarrassed at being looked at while they made their toilets, and Henry Strange seemed to confine his toilet to taking off his skull cap when he went to bed, and putting it on in the morning.

His birds had the peculiarity of being all of a bright and extraordinary yellow. One day Madam Schillenhoffer, who kept the bread shop near and to whom the old man went for his rolls, ventured to ask him how it was that these birds were so much more beautiful than caged canaries ordinarily were. And it was then that the recluse for the first time broke out loquacity.

He was just going out with his rolls in a little paper bag when she asked the question, but he stopped immediately and turned his sharp, little eyes on her: He came back into the counter.

"Mme. Schillenhoffer has noticed that?" he said in his own tongue. "Not many notice. Or they think it is merely because I keep the birds clean. They are mistaken. For fifty years have I raised canaries. All these I have are from the first two birds that my mother gave to me when I left her home. She also was fond of canaries. Ah! those birds sang! Every bird my mother looked at became a good singer. So I used to tell her. But I noticed that they were not beautiful as to plumage. And I see there is a reason. Because nature originally made them very bright on the breast and about the wings. So I set me to thinking of the reason of it. And it came to me how among men and women none cared to be beautiful unless two things were possessed by them. The first of these things is liberty. The second is love. I noticed how the maids and how the young men attired themselves before marriage, and during the honeymoon. And I said this is a law of nature. It is impossible to improve on nature. I said each spring I will let my birds together. They shall take their choice of innies. They shall have love. Madam will see the drift of my philosophy. It is very simple. Every bird and beast and man wants the right of selection. Each individual living thing knows better than anyone else what is necessary to him for his own happiness. This is a very great country because it recognizes that every man has alright to the pursuit of happiness. Once I read that ever in Germany. Then I said I will go thither. I like a country where it is accorded to each man to follow his own happiness to my birds. It is necessary to say to you what happened. Never did birds sing so marvelously. Madam can imagine for herself. There were contests of song. It was the males who sang. It was the females who made the selection - contrary to the custom among humans. It is very pretty - the way the birds have. And the females, who love color. take those which have the brightest glow on the breast and the tenderest tint on the back. And I noticed that those who had no white feathers at all on the back and no brown ones on the breast were the most admired. So I plucked the foreign colored feathers from the birds so colored that they might not let favor in the sight of their little lovers, or have those tints there at hatching time. And thus it came that my bords have grown to be all of the yellow, bright as a flower newly washed in rain. Only the females on the wing have bits of brown-not dull of tint, but very bright. In all the world, madam, there are no birds as bright as these, except those back among the sea breezes on the islands where the birds build their own nests, and know nothing about bars. Madame has great intelligence to perceive so much concerning my birds. If it should please madam to visit my room I will show her and her husband my birds. "

He walked down the street, Madam Schillenhoffer noticed, with a quicker stop than ever before. He was happy. Some one had appreciated his birds. It was the next Sunday that she accepted the invitation, and went. Until 10 madam said in the shop to give hot bread to the languid neighbors, who, tired out with a week of work in the terrible city, were late in their rising. Then in her new white gown, which swelled her ample figure to astonishing proportions, she took Karl with her and made her way to the apartments of Henry Strange. Now Karl, although he was the husband of madam, was several years younger and a number of inches shorter. He had a washed-out appearance such as bakers who cook by steam are apt to have, and whom he appeared without his apron, he wore a lost and baffled expression. Once when he and madam went to Germany to see their people it had been necessary for him to take some [sprons?] with him, and at night when he had retired to his room he but there on for a while, just to provide against homesickness.

Karl was very happy at going out with madam. He noticed how much larger she was then the women they passed as they went along the street, and wondered if envy was gnawing at their vitals. And he did not in the least mind when once the wind flirted madam's starched draperies over him, and tangled him up in this voluminous then.

Madam was graciousness itself when they reached Henry Strange's . The old man had evidently made one of his rare toilets, for he had on a clean shirt. and his maroon velvet: cap had been brushed. When he opened the door a canary was sitting exactly on the top of his cap something as the eaglet sits on the brow of the American republic when she is carved in stone and stands upon a pedestal. The birds were having their Sunday morning hymn. It was deafening. Madam has to screech her salutation. Karl was speechless. He was used to talking in a whisper. But the keeper of the canaries stopped that din. He turned to them and abjured them in passionate and not particularly polite German to stop their infernal chatter. But the birds took no offense at all, and, after a few protesting pipes kept as still as it were night.

"They know very well," said Henry Strange, shaking hands with his visitors, "that they will be punished if they do not mind." He shook his little-old head toward the cages. But this appeared to have no effect at all upon the canaries, who were busy in their household affairs. The doors of the cages were all open, yet not very many of them were about the room.

"They know their homes." Henry said looking at them affectionately. "They never make a mistake and get the key in the wrong rock."

Madam was delighted with everything. She perked at the birds with her fingers. She asked Henry who it was that scrubbed his floor for him. She was interested to know that he cleaned the cage every morning, and that he boiled them on the stove once a week.

"My birds die only from old age," said Henry. "I myself die only from old age disease we know not. It is books that make disease. It is with using the brain that men get sick. Not to think--that is to be well. I and my birds have no brains to speak of. We would rather sing than think. It is more natural. One is not unhappy when one does not think."

Henry treated his visitors to a sour wine and then they asked to hear the birds sing again before they departed. 'Twas then that madame and the bleached Karl saw a sight they never forgot. The old man leaned forward over the little deal table till his length was fairly stretched upon it. Before him hung the cages in two neat rows, suspended from hooks in the ceiling. His birdlike eyes seemed to narrow and almost close till they sent out only one sharp ray. Then he began to sing in an inarticulate falsetto. The song was capricious. Now a high note and now a low one, without rythm; now a modulated fall of melody, and now a sharp entanglement of minor sounds. Suddenly in every cage there was ecstasy. A fiery excitement seemed to pervade these tiny breasts. The wings fluttered tremulously, as if with an excess of emotion, and from every throat there burst a song of rapturous spontaneity.

Madam stood with her hands on her great hips, panting with delight, and when she turned to at Karl, the tears were running down his milk-colored face.

It was two days after this that a man came to old Henry Strange and gave him a paper. It was in English. Henry was not interested. It was the morning on which he boiled his cages. The birds were all over the room, and they flew upon the burly form of the stranger and picked at him with their sharp bills. The man did not like the sensation. He shook them off roughly and said something to Henry in an irritated voice. Henry did not pay any attention. He petted the birds that had been ill treated and tore up the paper.

That was how it came about that a few days later, when a policeman came to the door and ordered Henry to come with him, that the old man was entirely unprepared for any of the events which followed. In the country where Henry had come from the police were so much more frequent visitors that he felt no surprise at his visit. He got in the patrol wagon without hesitation in his mind was some dim idea that he was being summoned to give an account of his citizenship. He thought perhaps he ought to have procured passports before he left his country.He tried to think what documents he had that would establish his identity. But above all he hoped that he would not be kept so long that the cages would get empty. It was a horribly hot day. The air was full of moisture, and the dead, sickening heat weighed upon Henry till he felt himself fainting. There was a pain in the top of his head, so dull and heavy that several times he put up his hand to make sure there was no weight there beyond the hat which he wore, He did not know when the journey ended. He was only conscious through dull hours of a terrible pain in the head, and some one placing ice there now and then.

When the hour came for calling the old man into the court room to explain why he had not ceased to make a nuisance of himself after the notice and gave him that news, it was found that he was not able to speak. So he was given into the care of a physician and kept in his cell with ice at his head.

Meanwhile a day came and went back in the tenement, and the birds flew in and out of their cages discontentedly. They drank up all the water in their little troughs. The day was so hot they drank much more than usual. Then they are the seeds and in time took to the hulls they had disdainfully thrown away at first. They got out of their cages and looked everywhere for their missing protector. Some of them hunted under the table. They looked in the cupboard, they ran their little bills everywhere about the room, and investigated the smallest crevice. They gave out the cry, which they used as a note of distress and which never before had been disregarded. Someway, after a time, they found it impossible to sing, and spoke to each other about it. They looked again and again in their empty water troughs id wonderment. They agreed together that such a thing was never heard of. The old maroon cap hung on a hall and they perched on this and pecked at it. But they all knew it was empty. So when morning came again they sang but little - just a few feeble pipes, not enough to disturb any one. The printer upstairs, who had just got lu from his work by daylight, and whose rest had so often been broken by their clamor, turned contentedly and remarked to himself that at last that old fool with the birds had been made to move out. And none too soon. It was two weeks since he had been reported as a nuisance to the tenement.

The women in the tenement noticed that the old man was absent when they went nut to do their morning marketing. And they recollected then that they had not seen him the night before. They could see the birds drooping in their cages. No one could help noticing their silence. Then the mother of the printer who had made the complaint said that he had been taken away the night before and that she was glad of it, and that, for her part, she didn't care to go in and set those birds to screeching till her son John got up, for he was almost worn to a shadow already from having his sleep broken. And the other women wondered if they had a right to break in the door. And some of them had sick babies and were not concerned about birds. and others had too many sorrows of their own to care about the troubles of a pack of canaries and so it chanced that another day went and the birds, sick and panting, lay at the bottom of their cages, with their little blue lids drawn over their fast dimming eyes.

Now, by the time the second morning had arrived Madam Schilenhoffer began to wonder if Henry Strange had taken his custom to some other bake shop. After thinking the matter over she concluded that this could not be the case and that he was ill. So she put Karl in charge while she made her way to the rooms.

There, through the hot fly-specked windows, she saw the gasping canaries, their languid little wings hanging inert, their bills open-the saddest little company of unfortunates imaginable, and the place which had been such a carnival of song as silent as death itself.

Madam Schillenhoffer was not the woman to care anything about law. Over in Germany, when she was younger, she had been - but never mind that. Here in America it is not necessary to say what one has been in other days. She got a stone and broke in the window, and put her hand in and raised the sash, and put her hand in and raised the sash, and she would have done the same if there had been a hundred police there. Hah! Police! Madam could kill them. Why, once Unter den Linden, when 10,000 men and women-but again, why mention these things? Madam had never forgotten why she so hastily come to America. But she kept still about it.

One inside, she threw up every window, it didn't make much difference. The air without was almost as sitting as that within. But she got at the water faucet and filled those troughs, and lifted bird after bird up to drink, and put water on their pretty tufted heads, and so after a time of unceasing labor got them up on their legs, though they were still a company of very dull and silent birds.

The fate of her old friend she could not guess, so she trudged back and forth through a good part of the day, with the sweat rolling off her face, and her bare arms dripping moisture, carrying the birds to the bakery. Once a policeman asked what she was doing. Then she remembered this day. Under den Linden. She thought to right old wrongs. And when she got through talking the policeman was at a neighboring soda water fountain wondering why he didn't know enough to mind his own business. So the birds were happy once more, though they looked in vain for the maroon cap, and the queer bird-like face underneath. They had lost one of their own kin. And the most influential of them. It was not their master, but the president of their happy commonwealth who was gone. But for all of that they sang so that madam had to lean away over the counter to find out what her customers wanted.

Henry Strange came back to consciousness with only one thought. His bridal His poor pretty fellows of the yellow breasts! Their shrill expostulations rung constantly in the sars of his imagination. He did not know his offense. He asked in vain to have his imprisonment explained. He said he had no ill will against the president. He had made no criticisms upon the government. He therefore could not see why he was strained. In court it was told how the summons had been served, and how he had ordered the man who served it out of the house, and then ignored it, and continued to keep the noisy birds which had made themselves a nuisance in a quiet neighborhood. So they fined him $50. Henry might have paid it, but he did not understand. The pain had come back in his head since he got in the court room. And the appeal of his birds was ringing discordantly there. So he was "sent up" to work out his hue. And other days and nights came, and the cries of the birds grew louder and louder in his ears. He could not eat, thinking of their empty seed baskets. At last he tried singing to them in the old fashion to see if they would not be happy again, so that the cries of pain with which they tormented him would cease. But though he essayed the old clear notes, leaping from third to fifth, with sharp melody, trilling out gurgling stroams of music no answer came. Only always, always those shrill notes. Then silence! Henry wondered if they were all dead-these the finest of the birds-these birds raised according to philosophy-these matchless things!

Madam Shillenhoffer read the next day of the death of Henry Strange at the "Island," from sunstroke. She threw her arms around Karl's neck and wept while he staggered under her weight. Then they went in together and told the birds.

And they answered with eighty happy songs.

"He loved you! He loved you! You heartless little things." cried madam. And she went over to Henry's room and got the old maroon cap and hung it near the cages. And soon as ever the birds saw it they came out and chattered at it, and crowded each other to pick at it. And then madam laid her head down among all the hot buns and wept more than ever, and cried:

"And I'm sure you loved him, too. After all, you loved him." Elia W. Peattie.

SUBJECTED BY DOGS. A Chicago Husband's Cruel Mode of Keeping His Wife at Home.

Chicago, Ill., April 2. - A more horrible tale of cruelty was never told in a divorce court than the one related in a bill that Mrs. Anna Reeger died today against her husband, Gustave Heeger. The couple were married in 1890. She paid the rent, bought the furniture and gave him the money to buy, his wedding clothes and pay the clergyman. He did no work, and forced her to beg on the streets. When she returned he took the money for drink, and when she could give him no more, Heeger set his ferocious dog upon the woman, the beast tearing her clothes to shreds, and lacerating her limbs in a frightful manner.

Before she married Heeger she had saved some money. Heeger she had saved some money. Heeger got possession of her savings, and after squandering the board, pawned her clothes. One day he threw a big bible in her face, and flung a cloth covered with pins, which stuck in her cheeks. When they moved, Heeger got another dog, and by means of the two fierce beasts, kept his wife in miserable subjection. When she persisted in going to church Heeger would lock her in a dark room and fill the apartment with smoke.

THAT BROOKLYN BOMB. It Was Evidently Not Exploded With Murderous Intent.

Brooklyn N.Y. April 2-The police authorities do not think the bomb which caused such a sensation among the residents of the fashionable locality in this city at midnight, was exploded with malicious latent. There is every indication, however, that the explosive used in the construction of the bomb was either nitroglycerine or dynamite. The action was downward and the cobble stone upon which the noisy agent rested was shattered and pulverized.

The perpetrator of the outrage is supposed to be a man who called at a number of houses in the neighborhood on a beginning mission at a late hour last night. He said he was not a convict, and the [moagre?] description which can be obtained by the police and describes the man as of medium size and build, and middle age. This man may have committed the outrage in a spirit of revenge, but did not probably mean to kill anyone. Nearly every window for two or three blocks is shattered. Nobody, however, was injured, except Mr. Becknagle.

THE ARKANSAS STYLE. An Attempted Criminal Assault Punished by Winchester Rifles.

Little Rock, Ark. April 2.-Thursday morning Charles Stuart, aged 20 years attempted to assault the 11-year-old daughter of Rev. J.W. Guina, who lives near Dixty in Perry county. The girl's screams frightened him and he failed to accomplish his purpose. The neighbors organized a posse and started in pursuit of Stuart. They overtook him early yesterday morning near Perryville, and a desperate fight ensued. Stuart fired twenty shots from his Winchester into the party, wounding no less than half a dozen of them.

George Powell, one of the posse, fire at Stuart with a 50-caliber Winchester. The ball struck Stuart in the right breast, and passed through his body. He fell to the ground, and was carried in a wagon to Perryville, where he was locked up.

There was considerable talk last night about lynching Stuart, but the mob was prevented from carrying out their plans by a physician, who declared that the wounded man was so dangerously hurt that it was impossible for him to live until morning.

Electric Bitters. This remedy is becoming so well known and so popular as in need no special mention. All who have used Electric Bitters sing the same song of praise. A purer medicine does not exist, and it is guaranteed to do all that is claimed. Electric Bitters will cure all diseases of the Liver and Kidney's: will remove Pimples, Boils, Salt Rheum and other affections caused by impure blood: will drive Malaria from the system and prevent as well as cure all Malarist Fevers. For cure of Headache, Constipation and Indigestion try Electric Bitter bottle at Goodman Drug Co's drug store.

TIPPED A CAR OVER. Blue Springs, Neb., April 2-A violent wind storm, accompanied by rain, hail, thunder and lightning, struck this place Thursday night. Sidewalks were scattered, barns overthrown, a tin roof taken off and other demonstrations made of the force of the wind. Though the weather has cleared, the wind commenced through Friday with but slight [abatement?] and telegraph wires were prostrated. The street car running from Blue Springs to Wymore was tipped over all the bridge crossing the Burlington & Missouri track and only the raining saved it from going down about thirty feet. One lady passenger was slightly built.

A RATIONAL CHRISTIAN

A Vigorous Thinker and a Christian Gentleman in the Best Sense.

[Ecma?] Extracts From the Writing of the Late Gilbert C. Monell - His Work and Influence in Omaha.

"All study of science is based upon the idea that we can learn more; but nearly all dogmas of a spiritual kind are based upon the spiritual idea of perfect knowledge - at least so far as the dogma is concerned."

These are the words in which an old citizen of Omaha defined the difference between the scientific search after the useful and the good and the religious search after the same desirable things.

"Any theological creed," he maintained, "formulated by a human device is not necessarily religion, nor are we bound to accept is as a standard of faith or rule of life, unless it expresses our intelligent belief. There were people here once who, when they heard or read such expressions as this, said this man was an atheist. But an atheist does not love God, and this man said: "If we know but little, our faith will be limited and simple; if we know more, our religion and our responsibilities will be of a higher grade; but, however much we may learn, we can never harm religion by learning all there is to be known of truth."

By which it will be seen that he loves truth. And no one can sincerely love truth without loving God.

He who wrote this was Gilbert Chichester Monell, and he was a physician in this city, well known to all who have lived here long. He has been dead several years.

It is one of the greatest tragedies of life that so many foolish men put their thoughts into words, and that so many good men die without having preserved one of their convictions in such form that it will be of any use to other men.

Life is a series of experiments, And most of the experiments are failures. Therefore, the conscientious writing of a man who lived nobly serves the same purpose that a beacon does. It teaches one when to make for the open sea.

Perhaps Dr. Monell might have objected to the title of rationalist, because to some that conveys an idea that christianity is renounced. (Although it must be confessed that a poor estimate is placed upon christianity when it is assumed that it cannot hold its own in a mind which is given to rational modes of thinking.) If Dr. Monell is termed a rational Christian, possibly a term will be used which will most nearly describe that fearless yet reverential thought with which his mind approached all things connected with the Deity. The following long extract from his volume called "The Creation and the Scripture" will express in part the earnest simplicity of his belief:

"Theology is yet confounded with religion, and men are still debarred from church privileges for heresy, though leading a righteous life. The pulpit still sneers at the science it does not understand, and misrepresents the religion of scientific men it cannot persecute in the flesh. This is done in the face of fact that the study of science does not encourage infidelity or unbelief, and in the face of a long array of men eminent in science who have been [warm?] supporters of christianity. It may be that intellectual development tends to explode theological absurdities, but it is not true that science has ever sought to lessen the distance between right and wrong, or render [?] less sinful and odious, but establishes with more and more certainty that a right life is obedience to God. Caste in India and elsewhere has heretofore been an almost impassable barrier to the introduction of christianity, but when the locomotive and the railway carriage entered the land, and the [Parsee?] must walk or ride beside a meaner brother, he soon found a text allowing him to ride without pollution. When water was introduced into Calculia the proud Brahmin would not drink from the hydrant to which the lower class had access; but when he saw the only alternative was to drink the foul water of the River Hoogly, he soon found a license to drink the pure water of the hydrant without realizing, as we do, that the first blow was then struck on the entering wedge that was to break-up caste. Thus the introduction of steam, the telegraph and other triumphs of science are prompt missionaries of Christian qualities where other agencies have failed. Thus science at least prepares the way for religious light, and in a few years the Bible of the missionary, instead of the miserable Pundit, will have a controlling influence. Let it be clearly understood that science is not religion, but that it furnishes an ever-widening foundation upon which is outside of and beyond us, and works for righteousness, clearly proving that there should be no barrier to intellectual development this side of heaven's perfections."

This is a full illustration of the view he held of the relations between science and religion. They suggest those of Draper. Whether he was influenced by Draper or not I cannot say. But what finally became his convictions appear to be the fine result of a life of studious and beautiful thought, in which the attitude of the mind was always inquiring and never dogmatic. Surrounded by the influences of the orthodox Protestant church he appears to have been aggressive only when he fought against the arrogant attitude it held toward men who accepted without inquiry any scheme of philosophy or receipt of salvation.

"A religion," he says, "that involves our eternal existence should not be determined by doubtful speculation or tabooed by too sacred or further investigation."

This which follows has even a stronger hint of his irritation concerning this attitude of the church.

"Men organized as a church may show more religion than the unorganized messes outside of such bodies, but this gives the church no authority to adopt a shibboleth of membership and forbid all access to Christ except by its use as a password."

To the liberal minded it may seem as if Dr. Monell had here said something superfluous, because among the liberal minded it is so generally admitted that the churches hold only a small part of those who try to make the most of the life that God has lent them. But he who has much attended church will remember many occasions upon which clergymen have, with a great show magnanimity, admitted that there might be without the pale a few who would enter heaven. But - they have always solemnly warned their listeners - the true way to do was to openly acknowledge Christ by becoming one of his flock. And they never suspect the stupendous egotism of the easy assumption that His flock is composed of those who are speaking.

There are many to whom religion can never be a rite. It must be a communion. Prayer meetings are to them a profanation. They would no sooner pray before others, than they would declare to the mortal object of their dearest love, all those emotions which are so instinctively hidden from the world. The badly frescoed roof of a meeting house [?] the vision that in lifting the eyes to God would encounter nothing but the stare. The interposition of another man's ideas between the soul and God is a degrading interruption, and puts a leaden weight upon the wings of the devotion which would soar through the great Silence to that beneficient Unknown which loving faith has named the God.

Dr. Monell seems to have felt this- and he is the first man I ever chanced to meet- in flesh or in books- who feels as I have always felt about prayer place first I heard men and women kindly directing the Creator how to run the universe, and fled the prayer meeting with checks burning at the intolerable impudence toward Divinity. Indeed, I think I have never heard a prayer offered in public yet which did not state a case for God, and then in effect tell him he could draw his conclusions as to what ought to be done. Remember this flippancy is mine. Dr. Monell is never flippant. He was too cultivated and too earnest [?] man. He seems to have been striking with the tense hands of a liberator at the chains of superstition on the wrists of his follows. Talking about enchantments Christian and pagan, he says: "The modern pagan has there enchantments still, and relies on their use as hopefully and trustfully as modern christians do on their formal prayers, long orations, and pious platitudes, though the pagan does not know that he thus violates the teaching of Jesus. The teachings of Jesus were so precise as to the equal and universal application of God's laws to material things that is is hard to understand how intelligent minds can believe that mere mortal prayer can change or arrest the operation of a law of all creation, and instituted for all time, in order to accommodate man's fallen estate and temporary desire. The teaching of Jesus is so precise in confining prayer to the closet as a personal communion with God, and forbidding it as public worship in the synagogue as well as in the street to be seen of men, that it is hard for true reverence to understand how ministers can make a merit of long prayers in the pulpit, and how other professors do not merit the rebuke of Jesus to the Pharisees for thus assuming a personal influence with God which would render a prayer more effectual from their lips than from the lips of a publican."

But though Dr. Monell does not lack in emphasis, he quite understands the point of view of other men, and he is patient even with determined ignorance. He tries to see, without heat, the aspects of each case. Concerning Darwin, he says: "If we have once forced upon our intelligence a law of life to [?] Darwin believes he has the clue, we must openly deny allegiance to the Maker, or else we must admit our personal responsibility more practically than we do now; for it is only by so doing that we can preserve our bodies pure, as temples of God, and make habits of body, as well as emotions of mind, an essential part of practical religion. Thus parents, instead of transmitting to their children anger, pride and self-indulgence, would seek to transmit the better qualities, and thus render it easier to train them to love, temperance and virtue. Whether Darwin's doctrine be true to the fullest extent or not, enough has been established to teach us more than we ever understood before, how children suffer unnecessarily for a parent's fault, and how, without implicating the justice or tender mercy of God. He visits the sins of the fathers upon the children. If teachers of religion and Christian parents, instead of sneering at Darwin, would inform themselves of just what he does teach, they would find enough which, if well enforced from the pulpit and well obeyed in the new, would soon not only improve bodily health and happiness and promote spiritual religion. Let a parent fully realize by proper knowledge that a sin of the soul, when indulged. modifies and degrades his physical structure, and that the brain itself and every molecule of the body is thus made a partaker of sin, and if he is not worse than a heathen, he will correct bad habits of mind as well as body, instead of transmitting them to the children."

A man has a right to think what he chooses of Darwin, and not be frightened out of his opinions by the easy sneers of those who imagine that J. Darwin's theories interfere with the truths taught in the bible. Mr. Newton was once also thought to advance a theory which was opposed to the teachings of the bible. But this theory was true. It is now looked upon in a very different way even by those who first insist that a truth must agree with the bible before they accept the truth, whatever it may be. The nebular hypothesis was once also considered as not in accord [?] bible teachings. This is not urged in substantiation of the correctness of Mr. Darwin's theories, but only to argue that many persons are reluctant to accept a new scientific theory or discovery lest it conflict with the teachings of the book they most reverence.

It is a pleasure to note the care with which Dr. Monell denies materialism.

"Spiritual conceptions," he says, "may be based upon material facts, but this does not constitute materialism a judge of spiritual experience, nor does any scientist, so far as I know, pretend that scientific knowledge should judge or oppose the faith of anyone in that spiritual experience which is based upon the unseen and the invisible. Science only affirms that such emotional belief should not be a standard to determine or discredit scientific accuracy in the study of natural laws; neither should such emotional experience be accepted as authority to the faith of others. The knowledge of scientific facts and the application of that knowledge to our daily duties is quite a different matter from a spiritual experience here and a spiritual faith as to the hereafter. The two are independent of each other, yet, by working in harmony, the culture of one will always aid the culture of the other."

It is not easy for a man to cast off the hereditary influences of religious thought, and Dr. Monell is shaking himself free from the superstitions that must have been to a mind like his weights upon the wings of an eagle, accomplished something which could not have been done without much pain. But notice that however much he inveighs against theology, he preaches always religion in its profoundest and most elevating significance. There is no cringing in his religion. It is the knowledge that accept with exaltation the lease of life, and makes of living on of the exquisite arts. Neither the sky above nor the ground beneath may hold a secret which it is not man's right and joy to learn and use. To look God in the face and thank him for life--that is his idea of religion. To learn to care for the body which is the consummate form of mechanism and beauty--that his idea of reverence.

He says: "This knowledge of natural law, especially as applied to our bodily life, is the real stronghold of a healthy spiritual life. By educating our senses, controlling our desires, and conforming our habits to the laws of nature, our bodily senses and our erratic passions will be easier maintained in a normal condition and co-operate with God is a willing and joyful service, instead of lashing us to an indulgence only restrained by fear of punishment. Service to God thus becomes a joy and rejoicing instead of a [pepsi?] pressure here to escape a worse [penairy?] hereafter. It is to enter heaven with open-armed welcome instead of escaping hell by the skin of the teeth."

He resents with bitterness the interference of the church between God and the soul which, anxious to adopt itself to holy living. [?] hampered with tedious technicalities and forms.

"Even the sacraments," he says, "given by Christ as a free gift from God, are forbidden except as followed by a self-constituted authority and often by self-elected officers who thus constitute themselves arbiters of God's grace and judges of men's souls.

The spectacle of an intelligent man or woman applying for permission to make an open profession of faith and to honor God in proper ordinances, being held back while the application is being discussed, and then such applicant being compelled to go before church officers often unfit for such an office, and there to be catechized, voted upon and finally adjudged as to the soul's inner experience,, is a spectacle more befitting the days of Torquemada and the inquisition than the nineteenth century of [?] and councils."

A little farther down the same page are these words: "Christ says, 'Come unto me, all ye that are weary, and I will give you rest.' Theology says, 'Come and be examined, and if worthy, I will give you rest.' "

A large part of the book is a plea for tolerance toward the heathen. Dr. Monell does not believe in what he terms "splenetic sniffs" at men of other faiths than ours. He has the greatness to perceive that God is running the universe, and not a small part of the globe habituated by Christians. He says: "We can learn lessons from every prominent religion of the past if we will attach sufficient importance to them to study them with scientific accuracy and impartiality."

This book is so full of things such as these, so simple and true, yet seldom degenerating into platitudes, that to begin the reading of it is to continue with the zest which one might feel if he were listening to the conversation of a man of extended experience, profound reverence and a vision that could get at Truth through the [?] of traditions. The manuscript was found among his effects after his death, and edited by two person, who loved him, one a man, and the other a woman, one of kin, and one not so, but both of whom had received much of the best part of their spiritual inspiration from this gentle and courageous philosopher, who had the power to face a fact without flinching, and to always sustain his optimism.

The following is proof of this: "The elements of truth and goodness have ever been flowing as a living stream through the whole history of the world, and ever deepening and widening. Let us not by narrow-mindedness obstruct its onward flow. The idea we form of God being based only upon our intellectual nature and conceptions, we cannot personify a god beyond what we are able to conceive and idealize. To be fitted for the full reception of the holy spirit, the intellect of man must be developed to comprehend God's revelation in his works, and to study and understand his laws as revealed for our benefit. Observation of natural laws must develops a god behind them, but only scientific study of nature will reveal higher and more refined ideas. Not that science alone can define the spiritual nature of deity or personify His person, for our natures are both spiritual and material, and any harmonious or proper idea of a Divine Being can only be based on material knowledge spiritually applied, or, as Christ expressed it, by the spirit of truth applying to our hearts the knowledge obtained by instruction. It is thus by advanced intelligence the God we worship has been disabused of almost fiendish attributes; the bible we revere as the lamp to our feet and the light to our path has ceased to sanction horrible doctrines."

"A Christian, above all others, should develop his mind, as the controlling element of his being, not only for his own benefit, but that he may increase his religious influence among men, and add to the general stock of truth for the benefit of his successors, or, as Solomon aptly expresses it, increase wisdom. "

It will be noticed that he was a man absolutely without affectation in his expression. He cared only to say the thing he wished to say so that it would be understood aright. His language has the simplicity that is to be found only in a man whose words have no more vanity in them than his clothes. One clothes an idea with dignity, the other clothes his body with appropriateness. But he is superior to both. They are his possessions. They do not in any way control him. To be thus judicious, temperate in thought, yet daring, modest, yet determined in aspiration, full of fancy, yet not the slave of it, pure, optimistic and trustful, is to be a man who has conquered life while he lives it and death when he encounters it. Both are his servitors. Life and death are the joint purveyors to him of his immortality. ELIA W. PEATTIE.

A ROMANCE OF THEOSOPHY. Manifestations Which an Ardent Believer Says He Witnessed.

New York Times: After forty years of study in the realms of occultism, J. R. Perry of Wilkesbarre witnessed a series of wonderful phenomena during a visit to this city, within the last fortnight.

Mr. Perry relates what is known among theosophists, that not long before her death Mme. Blavatsky appointed as her successor in the work of which see had been so long the acknowledged head Henry B. Foulke of Philadelphia. Mr. Foulke for many years had been a student of theosophy and a traveler in Europe and India in search of the knowledge of occult truths. Mme. Blavatsky promised him the approval and guidance of the mysterious powers who had directed her own work on earth, assuring him also of her personal co-operation from the unseen realms. Mr. Foulke, as the condition of his acceptance of this appointment, required unquestionable manifestations of the power of Mme. Blavatsky to fulfill her promises. He requested that her master should precipitate her portrait upon canvas, indicating also his own propinquity, after the manner which theosophists claim often to have witnessed.

In the parlors of Mme. Eugenie Beate, the Philadelphia psychic, through whose occult powers many pictures of the departed are said to have been made. Mr. Perry declares that he witnessed the fulfillment of Mr. Foulke's demands. Several canvases had been for some time prepared and waiting for the desired precipitation. When Mr. Perry entered Mme. Beste's parlor she showed him three canvases which had nothing on them. He placed them on a chair, with the face side to the wall. The canvasses, and upon one of them found a correct and beautiful portrait f Mme. Blavatsky.

The next morning, according to Mr. Perry, while he, Mme. Beste and Mrs. Kase were looking at the portrait, he saw in the upper left-hand corner of the background the gradual appearance of a face and head, and finally clean-cut figure. "There was the white-robed form of Mme. Blavatsky, sitting," says Mr. Perry, "with all expression of quiet repose upon her countenance, and her marvelously beautiful hands gracefully folded. Upon the window sill sits a Hindu idol, an exact picture of one belonging to Mr. Foulke, which was taken by him to England some years ago and loaned to the madame. Below the window are shelves containing books, with the initials I. D. and S. D., no doubt intended to refer to the volumes she has written, "Isis Unveiled" and 'Secret Doctrine."

"Thus had the request of the chosen one been literally compiled with, under such conditions that no one can accuse Mr. Foulke of any complicity or duplicity in its production, as he was not present and was an utter stranger to myself until I met him the following day, after he had been sent for to look at the marvelous precipitation."

Henry H. Foulke had already given up his large real estate business in Walnut street in order to follow what he felt to be higher aims of life in the pursuit and dissemination of occult knowledge. He now believes that he has the backing of the masters who stood behind Madame Blavatsky in her work. To confirm him in this belief he has received what he doubts not are precipitated letters from the masters themselves. Mr. Foulke will soon go to India to prosecute the work of theosophy.

THREW THE CHICKENS OUT. But They Returned as Fast as They Were Ejected.

Dr. Sol. C. Martin, jr., of Argonaut rowing club [faine?], told an interesting incident of an experience of his, says the St. Louis Republican, while traveling in in California some years ago.

"We were stranded in 'Frisco," said the doctor, "dead broke and ashamed to write home. Things became desperate with us, and at last I decided to 'shake' the other fellows and strike out for myself. I secured passage on one of the steamships running between 'Frisco and some of the small places along the cost, for the price of my watch, which I sold.

"Arriving at a small mining and timber town I secured a position as waiter at the Metropolitan hotel, the only hotel in the camp, an imposing frame structure. The landlord employed me at $10 a week, and charged me $15 a week for board. The night of my arrival myself and a German named Fritz, who was in the same boat with me, were stowed away in an old kitchen, or shed, which had not been used for some time. About midnight I was awakened by Fritz, who was swearing softly to himself.

"A moment later I discovered the cause of his annoyance. He had found the room to be the roosting place of the fowls, and was busily engaged throwing friended chickens and ducks out of the window. After he had been engaged in this manner for some fifteen minutes, and the place seemingly as full of fowls as ever, I thought to examine into the cause.

"On looking out of the window where Fritz was throwing the fowls I saw there was an opening for them to enter just below the window, with a plank for them to walk up wide enough for two fowls. Up [?] plank in procession, two by two, came the fowls Fritz was throwing out. As fast as they were ejected they re-entered. We gave up trying to clear the room that night, you may be sure, and the next morning we decamped."

LIFE.

Yet a little while, Yet a little way. We shall reap, and rest and smile All the day, Up! let's trudge another mile.

-ROSETTI

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

A ROMANCE OF THE SUPERNATURAL.

By Mrs. Elia W. Peattie

It may have been a week later, or a month- I have no means of knowing- when I again came to a "consciousness of life. I listened for the groans, the cries of the fighting and dying men, and the tumult of the waters. But no such sound came to my ears. There was no sound, in fact, except the dull buzzing of bees, languorously inviting me to slumber.

The room in which I lay was the one I had been accustomed to since I lived in the house of De Vega, but the twilight and the sound of those buzzing wings in the sun told me that it had been darkened by artificial means.

The dull hours passed and no one came to disturb me. I had no wants, I suffered no pain. Now and then I took a draught from the pitcher which stood near me, swathed in wet cloths, to keep the water cool. I felt no impatience, for it took me a long time to remember all that had happened and all that I had feared. It was even some time before I remembered what I feared for my love. When at last that stinging though did come I leaped from the bed and called aloud. My head felt strange and light, but I had no pain, and I managed to reach the press where my clothes were kept. A minute later the doorway were pushed back and Bryan entered.

For a moment I did not know him. His face presented to me a baffling paradox. It was younger and handsome than I had ever seen it before, and yet it wore a look of profound melancholy-and something more-perhaps it was despair. For a moment I could not think where I had seen anything like it. Then I recollected that marble runner which stood within the door of Opaka's house, with his beautiful young face turned toward the sun, yet clouded with an unquenchable distress.

"Bryan," I cried, and I put force enough into my words to make them a shout, though they seemed to come from my lips with faintness. "Tell me how it ended. Tell me what has become of-of-" For some reason, the name which was so familiar and dear could not be spoken. I chocked over it, and felt my throat fill up. Bryan moved toward me with that elastic step, and putting his strong arm around me, led me back to the couch. I sunk on it and gazed up at him, my eyes I am sure, pleading for the information for which I dared not ask again.

My friend straightened himself and looked down at me. That fine body of his seemed to protest some way against its strength. Those powerful shoulders stoped under the weight of a sorrow. All the sick soul [word] him cried out palpably against the detested physical vigor which kept that soul in the encasement it had grown to loathe. I realized this as fully then, before he spoke a word, as I did afterward when I knew all.

"We were defeated," he said, "Bridges is dead, and he made me go back to the Girl and take her word of how it happened. Our cause was lost and that black priest sits grinning in the statehouse this moment, planning a punishment for us."

He knew he was not telling me what I most wanted to know. He saw my helpless, suffering anger in my eyes. And yet he went on:

"Our friends died by the score, Shadwin-those splendid fellows-and the sour followers of the priest met with victory everywhere. There seemed to be a fatality in it." I could stand no more. A wave of terror swept over me and turned me into a mad man.

"Bryan," I shrieked hoarsely, "I can wait no longer, I can stand no more! Tell me"

"I will tell you," shrieked back Bryan, hardly more sane than myself. "She is dead. They dragged her from her home. I followed with the rest. She was taken to that hideous plane, and struggled up the words of that fowl flower with her sweet hands, and put her lips-her dear lips, Shadiwn-to that deadly syrup, and then the leaves writhed up, and her white body was within. She did not cry out. I saw nothing more. But believe me, Shadwin, if I suffered for myself, I suffered more for you"

That was all he said. And I had the courage to ask no more. We sat together for hours in silence, brooding. At night he gave me a book, a strange and antique palimpsest of parchment, originally the monkish record of uncouth miracles, but written over in ancient Spanish by the hand of my dead love. The faded brown ink of the original was barely visible beneath the fresh markings of the purple mangrove stains in which Opaka had written her fancies.

I dare not say what madness might have followed for me, but it turned out; fortunately enough, under the circumstances, that as soon as my recovery from my winds was learned of, we were summoned to the state house. We knew very well what that meant.

"There is only one thing for it." I said to Shadwin, "and that is escape. I care little enough for life now. God knows, but I will not die at the hands of these savages."

"Escape is impossible," Bryan protested. "Do you imagine for a moment that we would be able to find our way back through that interminable slough. And now, how hard would we die! Fancy, if you can, with these staunch bodies what the torments of starvation would be! Health rioting in us, and we starving! No man living was ever subjected to torture such as that. No fable of sufferings, not even that of Prometheus, can equal it. I dare not try to return. Neither of us knows where lies that mysterious path by which we entered this accursed island."

The sky was a melting blue. It seemed to hang over the mountain and valley caressingly. The air was luscious with the scent of orange blossoms. Birds, silent, but of exquisite plumage, swept down slowly on the flowering trees. The scene was fair as paradise. It might have been a deathless paradise if death had not been introduced by the barbarity of man. But because death came in that way, because it represented revenge and hate and unholy love, the paradise became accursed.

Bryan was right in calling it so, and yet I knew that was not what Opaka would have thought.

"The uses of sin," Opaka used to say, "are apparent only to the wise. It is sin which makes innocence. It is sin which makes heaven possible."

We were sitting together in the garden, in one of those melancholy bowers that cypresses can make when the moss and the vines droop from them.

"There is something creeping under that bush," I said to Bryan, "and I think it is a serpent. Move cautiously. Rise, but not suddenly."

The sounds which had attracted my attention ceased but I felt there was something breathing near me, and arming myself with a stick, I pried into the thicket. And I found something. It was Sin, thinner than I had seen him before, and with a mournful look in his pretty animal eyes. I dragged him out with some roughness, and setting him on his feet, shook him till his tough little test clattered in his head.

"Are you a serpent that you crawl on your belly?" cried I angrily, speaking in his tongue. "Men of the Tiger tribe walk erect before other men. If you are a Tiger and not a snake, speak out! Where have you been for these long days? What do you know listening and creeping like a coward?"

The sharply bronze head drooped on his breast, but pride made the slight body rigid. A negro of this age would not have twisted and fawned and sulked. But a young hawk could not have been fiercer and more haughty than Sin. When he did raise his head his eyes met mine with a stare that would have done credit to an English prince.

"I know where lies the road through the swamp. I will lead you to the hammock land of the Tigers. I will be the guide of my white brothers to the Big Cypress swamp." He grew in height as he spoke. I could not tell whether my admiration or my amusement predominated.

"Do you mean what you say, little brother?" cried Bryan. "Can you really take us through the swamp? Remember it is many suns' journey."

"A Tiger," replied Sin, "never forgets the way over which he has once walked. I can guide you in safety. Will you come?"

"We will come, replied Bryan, mournfully, "this very night."

I could say nothing. Now, that the opportunity offered I hesitated to leave the spot where I had found the joy of life. That joy seemed still to encompass me. The intoxication of Opaka's love lingered with me. Yet my reason told me it was but death to stay. And I was no morbid creature. I did not desire death, even though the sweetest part of my life was gone.

Bryan and I went together, at dusk, through quiet ways, to Opaka's house. The beautiful court, where the marble runner lifted his longing face, stood silent. The fountain was not playing. The pool lay in the shadow. I went for a moment to the room where I had spent those hours of poignant suffering and exquisite delight with Opaka. The couch with its purple coverlet was disturbed, and it bore the imprint of my dear love's form. On the chair lay a long white mantle which she wore often on the street. A pair of quill-trimmed moccasins rested near. I picked them up and kissed them. No servants were to be found, though I wandered over the house and through the garden; but I did find, weeping by a magnolia bush, one of the little maiden's who used to follow in Opaka's train.

"For whom do you weep?" I asked.

"For the Lady Opaka, who was my friend," she answered sobbing.

"Let me kiss your hands," I said. "For I also weep for her."

She put up her hands, and I kissed them on the palms, I saw they were red as if they had been stained with blood. For a moment I drew back from them. Then cried:

"Are you not called the Oriole?"

"It is my name."

"You know that my companion is dead-he whom we called Bridges? I do not know what name you called him by."

She lifted up a pair of mournful and beautiful eyes.

"I know that he is dead. He died for the Lady Opaka. I weep also for him."

I made no answer. Bryan and I walked away together.

"He was a merry fellow--was Bridges. It was hard to think that he should have had to become so terribly serious at last."

"But he never was serious," interposed Bryan. "When he found that death faced him, he looked quite as merry as we have seen him many a time since we met him first, 'I want to do the proper thing' he said, 'I want to send my love to somebody, It ought to be to the Oriole. She was my last love. But somehow, my heart goes back to the Girl. I get in such a habit of loving the Girl, that it was hard to break it off. You know where she lives and who she is. If ever you get out of this land of mysteries to place where men die when they get through

TEA GOWN, BALL DRESS AND HOME COSTUME. At the right is a lilac crepon tea gown with pointed yoke of white velvet embroidered in gold. At the left is a home dress of old rose costume. Down the front there is a fold of the material with chocolate-colored buttons. In the center is a mauve silk crepon evening gown with a line of mink fur and prune bows.

OF EMERSON, THE GIANT

Mrs. Peattie Defends the Literary Memory of the Philosopher of Concord. His Words Are Not Unchristian and His Teachings Are Uplifting to All Mankind.

The Earnest Tribute of a Follower-another Phase of "The Secular in the School."

Never did I more sincerely congratulate myself upon the secular policy of our public schools, than the other day when in reading an article by the Rev. John Williams, I was made to realize that did our schools sense to be secular. One of the writers, whose books would be expunged from the curriculum, was Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mr. Williams, in talking concerning text books, says:

"Given as text books, Emerson, Fiske, Huxley, Tyndal, Hegel, etc., and teachers more or less in sympathy with them and the high school is already anti-Christian, and a large proportion of his pupils perverted, at the cost of a Christian -public, taxed to maintain it."

To set about proving the none of these gentlemen would pervert the youthful mind would be a task far too large for my knowledge and too extensive for my space. I remember great words from all of these writers. But it may be that some of them have spoken foolishly. I have not read all of their books. Life is short and books are many. One may read, but a few. And it is best-I have Emerson's word for it-to read those which will help one quickest to an understanding of the course of the world, and of the development of thought. Among those of whom I have read something is Emerson. He has made dark days bright for me, he has taught me how to find the beauty in common life, he has preached to me of the greatest commandment of all. His has lifted me up, when I might have sunken. Sweet as rain after drought have been his words after the idle clamor of the many. In my opinion, the greater single misfortune could befall the public schools than to have the words of the modern philosopher taken away from the students of the high school.

When the term "anti-christian" is applied in such a community as this, it is meant, I take it, as an opprobrious epithet. When it is used by such a scholar as the Rev. John Williams, the Christian public-which is not necessarily the well-read public takes alarm and steels itself against the man denounced by this title. No man is so great that he cannot be injured. To be impervious to injury is to be God. And it seems to me that Emerson is injured when a very influential and much trusted man like John Williams deprecates his influence, and warns the people that he is likely to pervert the youth.

One stands perplexed in entering upon the rebuttal of such a statement as this - so utterly beyond fact is it - so egregiously inconsistent with the truth. Those books which we have read with as much tenderness as if the words there written were the emanations of our own hearts-those. Words urging us to study to reverence, to unselfishness, to honesty and to peace-those yards perverters? It is like saying that truth is hateful or flowers a pest, or the faces of our children unwelcome to our eyes.

It may be that Mr. Williams gathered his impression that Emerson was anti-Christian from the stern denunciation of pretense and worldliness in the church, of which Mr. Emerson sometimes delivered himself. I am bound to say that I have heard Mr. Williams express similar sentiments. It seems particularly unfair that this poet should have been misrepresented by priest "when the priest always received so high an estimate from the poet - Concerning this Emerson says: "It is certain that it is the effect of conversation with the beauty of the soul, to beget a desire and need to impart to others the same knowledge and love. If utterance is denied, the thought hes a burden on the man. Always the seer is a sayer. Somehow his dream is told. Somehow he publishes it with solemn joy. Sometimes with chisel on stone; sometimes in towers and aisles of granite his soul's worship is [bulided?]; sometimes in anthems of Indellite music; but clearest and most permanent in words.

"The man enamored of this excellency becomes the priest or post. The office is coeval with the world. But observe the condition, the spiritual limitation of the office. The spirit only can teach. Not any profanity man, not guy sensual, not any Har, not any slave [can leucix?], but only he who can give who has he only can create who is. The man on whom the soul descends through whom the som speaks can teach. Courage piety, love, wisdom can teach, and every man can open his door to these angels, and they shall bring him the gift of tongues. To this holy office you propose to devote yourself. I wish you may feet your call in throbs of desire and hope. The office is the first in the world.

It is quite true that the quarrels with the set terms, historical and ecclesiastical by which vulgarity and Christ. He wearies to the soul of the form when means nothing to those who observe it. He is full of disgust at those who mumble words, and lead lives which give the lie to their professions. He says boldy what he thinks not afraid of misinterpretation - too tuit of truth to care for policy. here is the sort of think upon when some people base their misconception of his religious ideas: "In this contemplating Jesus, we become very sensible of the best defect of historical Christianity. Historical Christianity has fallen into the error that corrupts all attempts to communicate religion. As it appears to us, and as it has appeared for ages, it is not the doctrine of the soul, but an exaggerating of the personal the positive the ritual, it has dwelt, it dwells with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus the soul known no persons It invites every man to expand to the full circle of this universe and will have no preferences but those of spontaneous love. But by this eastern monarchy of a Christianity, which envelopes fear bave built the friend of a man is made the injurer of man. The manner in which his name is surrounded with expressions which were once the salties of admiration and love, but are now petrified, into officials titles, kills all generous sympathy and liking. All who hear me feel that the language which describes Christ to Europe and America is not the style of friendship and enthusiasm to a good and noble heart, but is appropriated and formal - paints a demi-god as the orientals or the Greeks would describe Osiris or Apollo. Accept the injurious impositions of our early catechetical instruction, and even honesty and self-denial were but splendid sins, if they did not wear the Christian name. One would rather be.

A pagan suckled in a creed outworth than to be defrauded of his manly right in coming into natures and [hiding?], not names and places, not land and foreclosed and monopolized. You shall not be a man even. You shall not own the world; you shall not dare and live after the initiate beauty which heaven and earth reflect to you in all lovely forms, but you must subordinate your nature to Christ's nature; you must accept our interpretations, and take his portrait as the vulgar paint it.

"That is always best which gives me to myself. The sublime is excited in me by the giant stoical doctrine. Obey thyself. That which shows God in me fortifies me. That which shows God out of fire, makes me a wart and a wen. There is no longer a necessary reason for lay being. Already the long shadows of oblivion creep over me. and I shall decease forever." These are, I think, the utterances most treasurable to the church which Emerson over uttered. And "if that be treason make the most of it"! It looks to me like honesty. Out of conviction such as that character is [bulied?] citizenship is maintained. It does not shark its responsibility nor aim at selfish salvation. It is the language of honor of truth.

In matters not theological, but simply religious, Emerson is a guide whom one would place above most [moderns?]. The dignity which he refuses into life gives is almost a heroic cast, and the young man or woman who rends him understandingly must needs be filled with reverence for the work of God. He perceives why he must do the best to develop his brain and beautify his body and refute his soul. He perceives above all other things, how he can never escape from his relation to his neighbor. Anyone with a prehensile mind, who would follow the directions he gives in his famous essay on books, would find himself fitted to meet with serenity any sorrow which the world might bring him. Vulgarity and he would be an ocean apart. Gentleness and courage could not fail to be his attributes. He celebrates the education of man. He says: "Let us make our education brave and preventive. Politics is an afterwork, a poor patching. We are always a little late. The evil is done. the law is passed and we began the uphill agitation for repeal of that which we ought to [?] prevented the [enacting?]. We shall one day learn to supersede politics by education. What we call root-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance is only medicating the symptoms. We must begin higher up, namely, in education."

He gives lessons in fine manners. He educates his readers in what well-mannered men do.

"I wish cities could teach their best lesson-of quiet manners. It is the [folble?] especially of American youth - pretension. The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business tone avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly. promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables bugs his fact. He calls his employment for evil tongues their sharpest weapon. "

Emerson talks of mobility in youth, and seems always to be writing to some strong young man or woman who will hitch his wagon to a star.

"A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants. How can you mind diet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the [figure?] you make in company or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think how paltry are the machinery and the workers.

Not that he depreciates concentration or industry. But he does not believe in recognizing obstacles. He instructs one how to make an act of living.

"A man is a beggar who lives only to be useful, and, however he may serve as a pin or a rivet in the social machine, cannot be said to have arrived at self-possession. I suffer every day from the want of perception of beauty in people. They do not know the charm with which all moments and subjects can be embellished, the charm of manners, self-command, of benevolence. Repose and cheerfulness are the badge of the gentleman - repose in energy. The Greek battle pieces are calm, the heroes, to whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect, as we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed. A cheerful, intelligent face is the end of the culture, and success enough. For it indicates the purpose of nature and wisdom attained.

No one could be a poltroon and follow the teaching of this paraclete. Listen to this: "We wish to learn philosophy by rote, and play at heroism. But the wiser God says, Take the shame, the poverty and the penal aptitude that belong to truth speaking. Try the rough water as well as the smooth. Rough water can teach qualities worth knowing. When the state is unquiet, personal qualities are more than ever decisive. Fear not a revolution which will constrain you to live five years in one. Don't be so tender at making an enemy now and then. Be willing to go to Coventry sometimes, and let the populace bestow on you their coldest contempts."

He helps the young to hero worship. He wants them to have ideals. He is not afraid of beautiful illusions - so long as they are not delusions.

Beauty, truth and goodness are not absolute, they spring eternal in the breast of man; they are as indigenous in Massachusetts as, in Tuscany or the Isles of Greece. And that eternal spirit, whose triple face they are, molds from them forever for his mortal child, images to remind him of the infinite and fair."

If ever man preached the potency of earnest work, Emerson did. He talks to no [juler?]. He cannot conceive of a man without a message, a business and an obligation. He believes in the expansion of the human. He does not confuse the inadequacy of man with the dispensations of God. He does not encourage a man to think that providence is responsible for his shiftlessness his treachery or his failure.

"Ah!" said a brave painter to me, if a man has failed, you will find he has dreamed instead of working. there is no way to success in our art, but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad all day, every day. "

Emerson touches us all up with a friendly criticism. We never know when we are going to be hit. He says for example, and this touches many of us:

"Though a man cannot return onto his mother's womb, and be born with new amounts of vivacity, yet there are two economies which are the best succedanes which the case admits. The first is the stopping off decisively our miscellaneous activity, and contracting our force on one or a few points, as the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle onto a sheaf of twigs.

"Enlarge not thy destiny, said the oracle; endeavor not to do more than is given thee in charge. The one prudence in life is concentration; the one evil is dissipation and it makes no difference whether our dissipations are coarse or fine. Property and its cares, friends and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting. Everything is good which takes away one's plaything more. and drives us to add one stroke of faithful work. You must elect your work; you must take what your brain can and drop all the rest."

This is the man, then, who is a perverter of youth! The man whose books menace our students!

Do we not take shame, remembering how gross and material our ambitions are; remembering how greedy we are, how oblivious of our eyes best good or of the good of others; remembering poor language and impoverished thought: remembering poor development of perceptions and sensibilities, that we should look down upon this man, in our stiff Puritanism, or Episcopacy, shutting him away from us, though he comes bearing a torch that might illuminate our dark? How might we grow in grace and beauty if we were to sit at his feet and learn! How might the narrow hearts of us grow! How might the ice in us melt, touched with divine warmth!

Shall Christianity forbid all goodness and knowledge except that embodied in itself? Will it call all wisdom secular except that included in the gospels? There is nothing secular but sin."

Oh dear God! Thou who madest the world and all that in it is, who madest stars and dust of stars and "the wind that blows between the worlds," let us have humility nor deem we hold monopoly of truth in each spark of brightness and of beauty of reverence and of joy, may we not see a spark of there! Help us to remember that the souls of men were made for the glory of God not for the gentile, not for Christendom, not for twenty centuries.

Many there are who thrill with a knowledge of thee. Many there are who bear a message which men may pause to hear. Keep down the arrogant assumption, keep down the exclusive pride, [?] the narrow definition. Break down the barriers that hinder our outlook. If they be superstitions, or fears or selfish hopes of personal salvation, or vaulty of intellect or formal scholarship then let them go. Between the and a may nothing stand! Through finer either than that we breathe, may the eyes of our souls penetrate to thee, as the eyes of the body rejoice in the sun! If looking so, all of us can see thee, with imperfect mortal gaze who shall carp because we see thee differently? Who shalt not know this to be but the faulty trick of human eye? Or with though even love us less because we do not put know what name to call thee by? Help us, in mercy to build high the temple of truth, and decorate in fittingly. Let us not doom it to ignoble size because the stones offered are not cut to our personal liking, or in imitation of the one we shaped with reverential hands! For the temple is to be immeasurable. And all the nations of earth shall add to the grandeur of it. And hands we counted humblest shall lay on it transparent quartz and onyx, veined with purple and with while. Elia W. Peattie.

The Snow Leopard. (A Blue Large Feline Animal From the Snow Bound Himalayas.

The ounce, or snow leopard, is one of the rarest and beautiful animals of the feline family. The London zoological gardens have just secured zoo those animals. It was one of the few interesting beasts lacking in the wonderful London collection.

The snow leopard inhabits the mountainous districts of Central Asia one of the most inaccessible and least explored parts of the globe. The fine animal now at the gardens came from the Western Himalayas. He was captured when young by the retainers of Thakir Debl, chieftain of Gundia, in Labania and sent as a present to Mrs. MacKay of Kullu. She brought him up as a household pet and this year presented him to zoological gardens. He is now six feet long.

The snow leopard has markings similar to the ordinary leopard, but the fur on the stomach and chest is entirely white. In the other places where the fur of the ordinary leopard is yellow, it is nearly white in the snow leopard. the fur is very long and silky. The animal is also adorned with a tail of great length and beauty, according to the World.

The white leopard is indeed a dandy among leopards. The expression of his magnificent eyes shows that he appreciates his own physical qualities. He puts forth proudly his fine white chest and its long wavy hair, and he carries his tail with as much grace as a well-built young woman the train of her ball dress.

He is strong and swift and an excellent sportsman in his native places. But in spite of his muscular strength, he is very delicate. He only thrives in mountain air, the climate of the Indian seaports have invariably been fatal to those specimens which it has been attempted to ship to Europe.

The snow leopard lives by preference at a height of 9,000 feet on the borders of the snows in the Himalayas and Tibet. He catches and eats wild sheep and goats.

The cunning or astute bassoris (Bassaria Astuia) is a relative of the racoon. A bassaris is among the recent additions to the London gardens. The expression of his face is sufficient to justify the adjective applied to him. Besides all his family are noted for cunning.

The astuic bassaria is round in Texas. California and Northern Mexico. He is about as large as a small domestic cat but more slender. He has a long cylindrical tall of white. Striped with seven or eight distinct black rings. This is one of his most remarkable features. He has a very pointed nose, well whiskered, and large bright eyes.

The bassaria is very fond of a nice bird, and shows great skills in getting one when he wants it. A wood near a well-filled poultry yard is the happiest combination he knows of.

Great Names Namesakes. Charleston News and Courier: All the grandsons of Charles Dickens, it is stated are named Charles. It is a great mistake. That is as far as they will ever get. The great men and the successful small men of the world all have now names. Genius shines in one place, like a lightning bug and then goes out to appear somewhere else. It does not run in the family. Most great and good, and wise men would be much pained to see themselves in the third generation. Start a boy with an unknown name like Napoleon Bonaparte, or Rider Haggard, or Jay Gould, or Rudyard Kipling, or Waldo Emerson, or Will Cumback or Robert Burns or Bret Harte or Richard Croker, or something of that kind, and he will rise to eminence. Name him after somebody who has already attained eminence and he will sink into oblivion from that instant.

The Power Of The Courts. Indianapolis Journal: "We are likely to have a tornado in two or three days," said the weather man to his assistant. "You'd better run down to the courts and get an injunction."

"Do what?"

"Get an injunction. Isn't that what injunctions are for--to restrain the lawless elements?"

If his job had not been a federal one the assistant would have resigned.

Some Summer Rhythm, Naturally.

When in her little bathing suit Along the beach she walked. The effect was quite electrical And not a few were abroked. -Detroit Tribune.

Transparent. She took all sorts of concoctions To make her complexion clear, Till everybody saw through her, Whereat she desisted, poor dour. -Exchange.

On The Beach. In to bathe the maiden goeth, And no dread of danger showeth, For her simple nature knoweth Naught of woe; But anon she's shoreward springing With her screams the air is ringing, For a horrid is clinging To her toe. -Boston Budget.

Down By The Sea. Down by the son, The melody Of ocean sweeps the beach. Until The bill At the h[?] Gets clear beyond his reach -Detroit Free Press.

A Frequent Thorn. Among life's thorns, alas, we find In all too frequent growth. The girl who neither sings nor plays And thinks she does them both. -Buffalo Courier.

It Is Missed. When the heat's intense and there is no ease 'Neath the sky's too torrid arch, How we miss the east wind's cooling breeze That we kicked against last March. -Boston Traveler.

Save Time. When o'er and o'er he said "goodnight" 'Twas one of cupid's larks She murmured "Willie, dear you might Save time with ditto marks. -Washington Star.

Autumn Gay. Autumn gay will soon be here With scenes which stir the poet's soul. And also make him wonder where He'll get the cash to pay for coal. -Buffalo Courier.

MRS. PEATTIE ON LYNCHING

The Blot on the Name of Civilization and Why it is There.

Something Concerning the Young Negro Woman Who Is Agitating England Against America.

A Graphic Description of One of The Incidents, Which Cause the Lynching of Southern Negroes.

Mrs. Allie C. Willard, the sister-in-law of Miss Frances Willard writes from England to the World-Herald, in a perturbed state of mind concerning the agitation of Miss Ida B. Wells. Miss Wells is a colored woman, who, despairing of finding any redress in this country for such of her race as are lynched for their wrong-doing. Instead of being properly tried by law, has gone to England to arouse public sentiment there. Carried away by the subject, and by the bitterness which she naturally enough facts, she indulges in some severe reflections upon this country, and upon its most cherished heroes, particularly Lincoln. At least, so Mrs. Willard complains. She has also assailed or reproached Miss Willard for her lack of sympathy with the cause of the negro. And she has been guilty of ingratitude for the sacrifice made by abolitionist heroes and by soldiers of the civil war who gave all they had to give for the independent of the slave.

One would be in a much better position to criticize Miss Wells if one had heard her address. Mrs. Willard's accounts of her exaggerations and misrepresentations may be colored to an extent by her resentment at the reproach leveled at her beloved sister-in-law, and by the natural irritation of an American at having her country abused among foreigners.

But on the other hand, is it not true that we hang, roll, burn and shoot negroes who break the law, and that when a negro commits an offense we are more inclined to lynch than to try him by law?

If so, why should, we resent having it told?

There is never any use in trying to conceal the truth. Truth is like water and flows through the tiniest cracks. It will make itself visible somehow.

If we lynch negroes and maintain that we have a right to lynch them, why should we object to having Miss Wells say so? Why should not England and the whole world know it?

And could anyone reasonably suppose that Miss Wells could talk upon this subject calmly, or that she would not represent us as monsters? It would not be in human nature to do otherwise.

To defend herself against the charge of Ingritufr she very naturally attacks our motives and the motives of the men who led us in the civil conflict. and she says very truly that Lincoln was not in favor of emancipation. that is true. He fought to preserve the federation of the states of the union, and it is with [reinotance?] that he signed the emancipation papers, feeling that he was disturbing property rights, and that he was precipitating men into a problem hardly less distressing than slavery, Miss Wells says negroes are socially ostracised; that they have none of them been elected to high office since 1876; that even when they fought as soldiers in the civil war they were not treated as well as white soldiers. Miss Wells is mistaken about there having been no negro elected to congress or other high place since 1876. But as for the other facts, they are probably true. There is no denying the social ostracism of the negro. There is not a first-class hotel or a first-class theater in this country where they would be admitted to equal privileges with other guests. There is not a drawing-room in this country-where they come commonly as the friends of the family although in church, or political, or educational work they may occasionally be associated with those of social position.

Mrs. Willard is very deeply moved because the men of the north have been pulled cowards, and because Lincoln has been assailed. But it is no arrangement of Lincoln in the uncompromising and immediate delivery of the slaves. Nor is there any occasion for northerners to fret because they are called cowards some of them are. A great many of them are moral cowards, and id race questions they are apt to be narrow, arrogant and un-Christian. Since they are so, why should not England know it? We have really no right to resent Miss Wells' endeavors to get the English to protect the blacks, since it was but a little time ago that many of us were advocating an attack upon Russia by all Christendom, for the purpose of forcing her to respect the lives of her jews, her peasants and her convicts. If we have been as culpable, must we not face the mortification of being similarly criticized? If we have a cancer in the national breast, denying his existence will not keep the poison from our blood.

It is just possible that Mrs. Willard may feel some undefined irritation at feeling one of the scorned receiving honors from the influential. For that Miss Wells has been made much of it shown by Mrs. Willard's own letter. Speaking of Miss Wells, she says:

"She comes endorsed by Fredrick Douglass, and has been received by many of the high and some of the best in England. She is in with the leading London papers, such as the Daily News, really the government organ the Sun, T.P. O Connor's paper, and the like. The Chronicle has given her one column and one of its big leaders; the Echo has written her up, also the Westminister Gazette and many other strong and influential papers. Among the people she has interested is the Rev. Joseph Parker of the City Temple, the tragedian of the pulpit. She has come at a time itself opportune for all the big annual May meetings, has been received by many of them, been heard and got resolutions passed, etc. Dined and [fenated?], as inclosed clippings will indicate. Her books reviewed and pictures published.

"Now this would be all right if she were honorable, honest and truthful, if loyal to country or party. But she has no good word for her country, and says some dreadful things, and inters others even worse. She is as sly as an Indian in her speech, and wicked as a tiger. She is rather fine looking, a good speaker, calm and possessed, and has learned her role well. It is still hard to understand, though, by what means she secures so many honors, seemingly without effort.

Miss Wells' published material, however, does not justify the accusation that she is shy or tigerish. Here is a communication written by her to the editor of the Daily Chronicle London:

Sir: Every moment of my time has been so fully occupied since Governor Northern's letter was published that I have not before been able to reply to his charges that my statements are false. Your leader and Dr. Clifford's splendid letter have pointed out that it is not my statements alone, but the reports in the American newspapers, which reveal the lawlessness of the United States. I have only given the negro side of these stories. I have cuttings of lynchings running back six years, which were taken from the columns of the American dallies. This news has been furnished by the Associated Press. Only one newspaper in the United States has kept record of these lynchings of reported and compiled statistics therefrom, The Chicago Tribune has made it a feature the first day of every year to publish a list of the yearly record of murder, suicide, railway accident lynching etc. This it has done for the last ten years and in keeping with its custom on the first day of January 1804 was published the complete lynching record for 1809. The list occupied almost two columns and beginning with January 1, 1898, the date, name, rate, accusation and place of lynching were given for every day in the year that a lynching took place. The Tribune and the Associated Press are edited and owned by white men.

"Governor Northern says: There is not a community or a government of similar extent into which your paper goes, that is more law abiding and peaceful than the people of the state over which I have the honor to preside. The authority which I quote, above shows that Georgia lynched fifteen negroes last year. Two of these were charged with "rape" three with alleged rape, one with attempted rape, one with turning state's evidence, one with assault and battery, and seven with murder. the People of Georgia have never denied any part of this record. The state of Georgia's lynching record for 1892 was seventeen persons and for this present year, up to May 1, three negroes have been lynched in Georgia. This is all during Governor Northen's administration, and beyond a few letters, and a word or two in denunciation of lynching in general, to deceive the outside public. nothing has been done by the chief executive of Georgia to stop lynching. Several of these lynchings took place in broad daylight, and Governor Northen has done nothing to protect prisoners or punish lynchers. More than 100 negroes have been lynched in this manner in different parts of the state since he became its governor. If his neighbor, Governor Tillman of South Carolina, could invoke the military power of his state to enforce the liquor laws surely as much might be done to protect human life, but Governor Northen has not a single instance of this kind to his credit Indeed, there passed through Liverpool in March fifty negroes who came direct Atlantis en route to Liberia They said they were willing to brave African fever, the jungle, anything to secure freedom and protection of the law, which they were denied in Georgia, They said there were hundreds in Atlantis, who would come if they had only money to pay their passage.

"Outside agitation has done some good even in the south, when the governor of the great state of Georgia comes forward to defend her. It is the truest kindness to him and his state to point out that if they would have the world's good opinion and support they must put down lawlessness with a firm hand, that general denial in face of all facts will not be accepted. Governor Northen did not tell you that he signed a bill against lynching last winter which passed the state legislator. The bill provides that it shall be a misdemeanor for any sheriff to fall to protect the life of a prisoner, and a felony to take part in any attempt to mob a prisoner of the law! To my way of thinking nothing could be more vividly portray all I have claimed than the wording of the above law. It recognizes that sheriffs have aided and abetted mobs, and that the state considers it a misdemeanor for them so to do.

"London June B. Ida B. Wells."

The truth is, Mrs. Willard, we do burn, shoot and hang negroes who break the law. It is a terrible thing to have the world know this, but it is not so bad a thing as that we should do it.

And then-as to the cause!

Permit me to tell of one typical case.

The brother of a dear friend of mine lives in the south, on the Suwanee river. He has cultivated his plantation there for many years- it is all he has in the world and has raised his family of boys and girls there. His wife has been dead for many years and the older girls have done the housework and cared for the younger children. It is a very free delightful life they lead and so much attached it to are they that life in cities has little attraction for them, and when they have visited relatives in cities they have pined for the beautiful, wild home on the Suwanee. The planter has always been a friend of the negro, and has written some and worked much for the mitigation of the negro convict, especially those employed in the phosphate mines.

Last summer, one of the daughters being ill, two of her sisters were sent on horseback to the nearest town, which is several miles distant for medicine. The father slayed in the house to care for the sick girl, and his youngest daughter, a bonny thing 11 years of age was sent out to pick some berries for tea. She tied on her little sun bonnet, took her pall and went out.

She was never seen alive again.

Tea time came, the girls returned from the town, and Mary was called. "She did not come. A search was begun. No one doubted much what the result would be. There had been two tragedies to the same country, which indicated very truly what the terrified sisters had to expect. And they found what they expected - only 200 feet from the house over among the scrub palmettos, besides a log. The little brown eyes had been cut out with a knife. The pretty white throat was cut so that the head barely hung to the body. The sweet body was otherwise mutilated. And by the side of the body was the print of a huge naked foot--the foot of a giant.

Two negroes were arrested. A crowd gathered the next morning that numbered hundreds, and that grew as the day went on. Men and women came, and tied their horses to the oaks, and participated in the great trial which was conducted there. Four clergymen were present. The father hired an attorney to question and defend the negroes under arrest. By the evidence of white men, and by his own evidence, one negro was acquitted. The other was proved to be near the place of the murder at the hour of its occurrence. His foot was fitted into the print beside the body and found to correspond in every particular. and finally the bloody clothes he had worn were found hidden in the house.

Even then the men delayed.

"Let him live an hour," the father said. "Give him a chance to repent. Let him confess, and die telling truth." He asked the clergymen to pray for him. They refused. he asked the attorney if there was any possible chance that a mistake had been made. The attorney told him not to make a fool of himself.

The men and women built a pyre of dry branches. But the father would not let them burn him alive.

"Do what you like with the body," he said. "But I will not let you burn him alive."

They put a rope around the man's neck. He begged for another hour and said he would confess if they would give it to him. they consented. He made a confession and one hour later, as the minute hand marked the sixtieth second, they drew the rope up over the bough of a tree. When they took him down there were thirty bullet holes in him. They laid his body-it was almost seven feet tall, and the head was like that of a chimpanzee-upon the dry boughs, and it burned until it was but bones and ashes.

There, in language that tells the whole revolting, hideous, brutal truths are the facts of this typical case. The negro showed himself a brute - like some monster of the African forest, born to waste and kill and tear. And he was treated like such a brute. No gorilla, or wild boar, or wolf could have been treated worse.

It is almost useless to expect that anyone could suffer as that family suffered and not be forever injured. Neither the heart nor the brain, and perhaps, not even the body could ever again be quite as normal as they had been. Merely to read the tale it is enough to destroy one's sleep. And it would be a shame to write it is it were not the tremendous line of defense must be offered to justify the least degree the manner in which revenge is taken upon the negroes.

But even this will not justify it. Nothing justified the taking of human life.

But, all the same, any man, no matter how temperate in his passions, would under any circumstances such as I have portrayed, go out to hunt the death the wild beast who had entered his home and wrought there a friend's ruin.

So stands the case. And Miss Wells has her point of view-and no wonder. And those who share the other side have theirs, and no wonder. It's a condition which must be faced, and which cannot be denied. And the world will know it.

There is a war between the races. This war does not extend to every member of each race. Some negroes and some white men and women are good friends. And perhaps the friendship will grow. But meantime the outlook is discouraging. Even the working men, combining, fighting and working to keep their just rights from being taken from them have refused the admission of negroes to the American Railway union. They believe that the earner has rights that ought to be respected by the employer. But they have not yet discovered that the negro has any social rights that his fellow laborer is bound to respect.

So we grind each other! So we crash! So the greeds meet like opposing floods. And in the fury of their meeting men go down.

There is no use of trying to find the right in this war of races. There is no right. There is no right. There is nothing but wrong. Espouse no side. Neither side is worthy of espousal. It is an episode of history that one contemplates with horrified eyes. Elia W. Peattie.

A Summer Breeze. A tiny willful summer breeze Went roving through the fluids and trees He started in the early morn When day was yet but newly born And wondered through the livelong day Ever playful on his way. He roughed the feathers of a bird Whose morning song no more was heard, For quickly he began to prim To get himself once more in trim. He blew against a [lindou?] bee Who flying homeward heavily, Was made to take a wider flight Before at home he could slight. The petals of a lovely flow's He scattered in a pretty show'r. Then dipped his zephyr fingers in a brooklet with its merry din, That through a wood as damp and cool Flowed onward to a mossy pool. He changed the em'rald poplar tree To shining silver fair to see And swung a bird's nest to and fro That held threw eggs as white as snow, He left a field and wood and down, And blew into the busy town Where soon he raised the dust in clouds And sifted it among the crowds. A person's window has crept in, The sermon's leaves he gave a spin, Then out again he flew straightaway Bent only on his fun and play. A church door open, up the aisle He pushed his way in playful style And lifted up a bride's white vail And kissed the bride all fair and pale. Across a new born infant's face He crept with fond and hung ring pace And loitered for a moment in The dimples in his cheek and chin. Through corridors where marbles gleam And riches weave a golden dream Through huts, where poverty is found And shadows fall with depths profound, He traversed 'till the night began With darkness all the world to span; Then wearily he homeward flew All damp with softly falling dew And in a moonflow's opened wide He laid him down, and gently died. W. Heed Dunboy.

The natives at Colen and Panama were lately discovered in a fairly sharp scheme to rib the steamship company. The transfer of bales and packages of Indis rubber over the isthmus is always large in volume after, the arrival of steamers from Peru and Mexico. Then there are constant arrivals from Columbia and Nicaragua as well as local receipts from within a few miles of Colon. These, piled on the docks, make a large aggregate and at favorable opportunity a bale or two would be dropped overboard, and as rubber naturally, will float, it was comparatively an easy matter to pilot the booty to a point whence it could be readily landed and disposed of by a "fence." As a bale weighs from 100 to 200 pounds, the haul was a good one to the native. The loss could not be discovered until after the steamer reached New York, and it bothered American detectives for months, until the leak was finally located.

THE HERMIT OF SOUTH OMAHA. Down in the green freshness and beauty of Syndicate park there is a little cave or dugout that shelters a strange personage. He is a short man with stooping shoulders and has long hair of a reddish brown color and a tangled beard of the same hue. His face is tapped until it resembles parchment, and with the old clothes all stained, he makes a study in brown that is rather picturesque. Amidst all this brown the only thing that has life and color are his eyes of blue that seem ever restlessly looking for some unseen-object.

"Old Charlie," for that is the only name he is known by, is a tinker by trade. Every day he comes forth from the park carrying his little furnace and tools and makes a tour of the streets, looking for tinware to mend. He has become a familiar figure to the housewives and he receives many a little job of work. Day after day he trudges on, heeding not the taunts of the boys whose delight it is to torment him on account of his uncouth appearance.

After the day's work is done, he creeps slowly down through the trees in the park until he reaches his cave hidden by the branches of alder bushes, and swings himself down and is lost to sight. Here he shouts out the world from his toys and his sorrows, no jeering boys come high him, and no sound from the busy world disturbs him as he dreams his dreams and lives over again the past. And who can tell what his thoughts may be, there alone in the damp earth? He seldom says anything about himself, but once in a while the longing to tell some one of his sorrows becomes too great, and then he tells story. It is but a simple tale, old as human nature itself. He tells how that in a land far across the sea he loved a beautiful girl. He worshiped her with all the ardor of his young soul, and it seemed that he could hardly live except when he was in her presence.

She was his promised bride, and he had made all plans for coming to this country as soon as they were married. But alas, for his high hopes. Just one short month before the day set for the wedding he received a letter from her, stating that she would never see him again. She was going away with a man she loved better. She begged him to forgive her. He was found lying in his rooms some time after by his mother, with the fatal letter crushed in his hands. He was ill for many days with a brain fever, and when the fever was gone a great change had taken place in him. He was no longer the happy lad as of old, but was the prematurely aged man that we see today.

They said that he was insane, slightly demented and perhaps, they were right. Who can tell? He soon left the old home in the land [?] the sea and drifted hither and thither over this broad land. And at last he came to South Omaha and took up his home and the beauties of our little park. Sometimes he is driven by thoughts of the past to the cup and there for awhile his poor, muddled brain forgets the miserable past.

And then he will go reeling down to his home the forlornness looking mortal that ever walked. He says that he has relatives who are wealthy, but they will have nothing to do with him. Perhaps they do not like his eccentric ways.

Old Charlie, old in sorrow but not in years, lives on, shut up within himself. Some say he is queer and think he is insane, but who of us have not felt the same desire to flee from the world and all its hollowness and mockery and be alone with self and God? If only we might sometimes go away and let ourselves down into a cave and there dream our dreams and fight out battles and conquer ourselves, then there might be more happiness than we see how.

We build a ladder of our hopes And climb high up tow'rd heaven. Not soon the rude shocks of this earth Its frail supports have risen. And back we fall all bruised and torn And few again have braveness To rear once more the golden stairs And climb high up to greatness W. Reed Dunroy.