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October 18, 1911. ] THE P
ter friends after that than Sam and he. Sam
thinks justice had not been done Mr. Jones.
If the boys had treated him honestly and
" aboveboard," he would have been a good man
to deal with. It was their conduct which
soured and made him suspicious. I do not
know how that is. I only know that Sain
Fisher finds in Mr. Jones a kind master and a
faithful friend.?Scotch Tract.
CONRAD AND THE STORK.
Norway has a village in which there is a figure
of a stork carved on the church and over
many of the houses. This is the beautiful story
they tell:
In that village once there lived a little lad
named Conrad and his widowed mother. Every
summer a stork came near the house and built
its nest near by. Little Conrad and his mother
were very kind to the stork. They fed it and
petted it so that it got to know them, and would
come whenever Conrad whistled to feed out of
ins Hand. JBvery spring they watched for it,
and when it came it seemed as glad to see them
as they were to welcome it. Spring and summer
chased each other till Conrad had grown
to be a young man. Then he said he would go
to sea and make money enough to come back
and keep his mother in her old age. So he
went to be a sailor and set out for a distant
land. All went well for many weeks, but one
day when they were near the coast of Africa a
number of cruel pirates swarmed around and
took possession of the ship and put the sailors
in chains, and afterwards sold them as slaves.
Weeks went by. The widow began to be
afraid about her boy, it was so long since they
had heard from him. Ships had come and
gone, and brought no tidings of him. At last
they gave up all hope of seeing him again, and
mourned him as drowned, and all the village
pitied the lonely mother in her grief. As for
her, the only thing that seemed to interest her
at all was the stork as it came each year. For
Conrad's sake she welcomed it and fed it until
the autumn came, and it flew away to the sunny
South.
Now it happened that one day as poor Conrad
toiled away at his dreary work in somu
lonely place, a stork came flying close to him,
wheeling about him in great delight. In a
moment the scene flashed upon him of his home
and his mother, and their yearly visitor.
Scarcely knowing what he did, he whistled as
he used to do to call the bird long ago. To his
delight the stork came close to him, as if to be
fed. Conrad lifted up his heart to God, and
with tears gave thanks that so dear an old
friend should have found him there. Day
after day he saved what he could from his
wretched meal for the .ioy of calling the bird to
feed at his hand. But Conrad's heart, crrew sad
again as the time came for the bird to fly away
to the North.
Was it going to his mother's cottage T Was
the nest there still that he remembered so well ?
Was there any to welcome it now, and any to
feed itt Then it occurred to him: "Why, this
bird may help me to get away from this vile
place." He managed to write on a scrap of
paper a line or two, telling where he was, and
that he was a slave, and then tied it firmly
around the bird's leg.
The spring came again, and with it the stork.
The old widow*8 eyes lit upon it as it came, reminding
her of her lost boy, and tenderly she
welcomed it and fed it. As it took the food
from her hand she caught sight of this strange
letter tied at its leg. Curiously removing it,
think of her joy when she fonnd that it was
from her son! Forth with the tidings she ran
to the minister of the little parish to tell him of
&E8BYTERIAN OF THE SO
the news. It quickly spread through the village.
They must send and redeem Conrad,
was wnat everybody said. The next Sunday
morning the people brought their money to the
church, and each gave what he could for the
widow's son. Then one was sent to the king to
lay the case before him, and to get a ship of
war from him that the pirates dare not touch.
It took a long time in those days to send to
Africa, and there to recover Conrad from his
slavery. But before the stork had flown, the
bells of the village church had rung, and all the
people rejoiced with great joy, for the widow's
son was redeemed, and was safely at home again
in his mother's cottage.?Our Dumb Animals.
nuw TU JtSJS A 1LLNG.
It is told of Philip, of Macedon, that a poor
old woman came to his palace many times in vain
to ask redress for wrongs that had been done.
After many attempts, she at last obtained an
audience with the king only to be rebuffed by
him, as she had been by his attendants.
4' I am not at leisure to hear you,'' he replied,
abruptly when she began her story.
"No?" was her exclamation; "then you are
not at leisure to be king."
This view of the matter quite confounded the
king. A few moments he thought upon it in
silence. Then he told the woman to go on with
her case; heard her to the end, and then gave
order that those who had wronged her should be.
punished, and restitution made to her. And
ever after this he made it a point to listen to all
applications brought before him, repeating to
his couriers, who objected to his troubling himself,
the lesson that poor woman had taught him
?that if he was not at leisure to hear the plea of
his humblest subject, he was not at leisure to be
king.
Such a king is Jesus. He is always ready to
hear the petition of his humblest child; yea, and
of every sinner who comes to him for help. He
has said, "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do."
A RECEIPT FOR A PARTY.
Dorothy, with radiant eyes and Hushed
cheeks, a very June rose of a girl, stood waiting
the family's verdict. It was her first real
party. Of course, she had been to parties all
her life, but never before to one where they
had an orchestra and city caterers and florists.
"You may each," Dorothy declared, "give
me a piece of advice."
"Hold up your head and remember that
you're as big as anybody." That was Jack, of
course.
"Do be careful of your sash when you sit
down." Vera urged. Just have a hannv time
that's all," mother said with such undisguised
pride in her face that Abby Ann hastened to
add a wholesome bitter. Abby Ann had been
with the family all her life, and had privileges.
"Pretty is as pretty does," she warned.
"You just mind that, Dorothy."
But grandmother amended it instantly.
"Party is that party does. You'll find plenty
of times to remember that, too, dear."
The carriage came then and the little June
rose was put into it, and for the next two hours
had no time to thinh. Then came a change, a
few minutes when it happened that Dorothy
felt very queer and "left-out."
Of course, some girls had been left out all the,
evening, but she had not thought about it be- *
fore. Then suddenly grandmother's words
came to her: "Party is that party does." If
the party did not come to her she would make
a party herself.
Rhe walked across to the next lonesome girl
and said a word or two to her, and then they
0 T H (991) 7
went to the next and the next, till there were
fin lnnnltr nnno nntr 1 i i_ *
wuvi; wuto olij mure, uui u Dig merry
group. And suddenly Dorothy, in the midst
of her fun, made a great discovery.
"Why, it's you, and not things that make
the party!"
When Dorothy was twenty-four she married.
It was a happy marriage, but there were ten
years when things had to be carefully contrived
in the little home and luxuries were
bravely denied. Yet somehow they had many
good times in the small house. One day
Dorothy heard the matter discussed between
her little daughter and a neighbor's child.
"You don't have anything but cambric tea
and gingerbread at your dolls' parties, and
Lena Tolman has frosted cake, but I like yours
best. Some way your mother always acts as if
it's a party, and Lena's doesn't."
"My mother says it's the way you feel inside,
not what you eat, that makes a party,"
Dorothy's daughter reDlied.
And Dorothy, overhearing, smiled to herself.
"Party is that party does," she murmured.?
Youth's Companion.
LUTHER'S REBUKE.
Luther tells a story of how his wife once effectually
rebuked him for giving way to despondency;
and the lesson is one that should
come home very close to our own hearts.
"At cne time," writes that wonderful man
'' I was sorely vexed and tried by my own sinfulness,
by the wickedness of the world, and by the
dangers that beset the church. One morning I
saw my wife dressed in mourning. Surprised
I asked her who had died. '1 Do you not know ?''
she replied, "God in Heaven is dead." "How
can you talk such nonsense, Katie?" I said.
"How can God die?" "Why He is immortal,
and will live through all eternity." "Is that
really true?" she asked. "Of course," I said,
still not perceiving what she was aiming at: How
can you doubt it? As surely as there is a God
in Heaven, so sure is it that He can never die."
"And yet," she said, "though you do not doubt
that, yet you are so hopeless and discouraged."
Then I observed what a wise woman my wife
was, and mastered my sadness."
A BIRD'S CURIOSITY.
n ^ r% a T-* ?i - -
x ruieasur v*uy a. jsaney, a member of the faculty
of the Geneseo State Normal School, relates
a little incident which might be doubted were
it not for the fact that he has the proof to show
for the story. Mr. Bailey was on Temple Hill
with his camera attempting to get a picture of a
horned lark. The lark evidently thought that
Mr. Bailey was providing it with a bird house,
as it hopped on to the camera, back into the
trees, and then back on the camera again.
The bird repeated this performance several
times, refusing to remain in the tree long enough
to be snapped. Finally Mr. Bailey left the camera
where he had located it, went and got another
camera, and when he returned he secured
a spienaia picture or the bird perched on camera
No-1. Curiosity got the best of the bird, and the
result was a novel picture.?Rochester Herald.
A TEACHING CHURCH.
The idea of an "ecclesia docens" (a teaching
church) is fast disappearing from the Protestant
world. Its place has been taken by a very bustling,
small talking, social organization known as
the "institutional church," which is really a
very complex business enterprise. Its minister
must he a man capable of doing almost everything
but preach. The church is all machinery,
and the main question is, how to get up steam
enough to make it go. Everybody is working at
something, and for an outsider it is difficult to
discover what it is all about.?New York Post.