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THE MONROE ADVERTISER, PUBLISHED EVERT TUESDAY. FORSYTH, - - GEORGIA The Pennsylvania Railroad Company dses 6,000 tons of coal a day on its vari ous lines, and is the largest consumer of •oft coal in the country. It is now ex perimenting with natural gas as a fuel for its engines, and proposes, if the plan Should prove to be feasible, to use gas on all the engines ruuning into Pitts burg. __________ The Acting Commissioner of Agricul ture, in reply to a resolution of the House making inquiries concerning stocks of corn and wheat in this and other countries, the demands of con sumption, and the prospects of produc tion throughout the world, has trans mitted an exhaustive compilation of sta tistics by the statistician of the Depart ment of Agriculture. The tables show that the world's product of wheat in 1885 was 2,110,000,000 bushels, the re quirements of consumption 2,165,000,- 000 bushels, presenting a deficiency of 55,000,000 bu-hels, drawn from the pre vious year’s surplus of 125,000,000 bush els. They find the product of Europe a medium, those of Tndia and Australia large, and a heavy icdu< tioa in the United States. For the supply of the coming year, the crops of Australia, India and South America already har vested are probably about 32,000,000 bushels less than those of last year, while those of the Tnitcd State? promise fully 100,000,000 bushels more than the harvest of 1885. The wheat in the United States on May 1, last, wss 104,000,000 bushels, against 152,000,000 in 1885. The crop of (orn in 1885-86 was 1,617,000,000 bushels, the stock 687,000,000 bushels, and the exportation, 42,000,000 j bushela. The estimated a< reage of winter wheat now growing is 24,727,087; spring wheat, 11,800,000; total, 36,527,087.- The Stockholder. ________' • The estate of the Vanderbilt family is estimated at about $200,.000,000; that of the Astors at nearly as much, and that of A. T. Stewart from $70,000,000 to $75,000,000. Jay Gould's wealth is set down in round numbers at $100,000,000 and Rockefeller’s at $35,000,000. The property belonging to the estates of the rich Californians—Hopkins,Mills, Flood, Fair, Sharon,O’Brien,Mackay and Hunt ington—will reach, it is thought, some $250,000,000 more, making in all $855,- 000,000. Even this enormous sum is not supposed to equal the combined wealth of all the members of the Rothchilds. The richest man in Great Britain is the Duke of Westminster, whose income is rated at a guinea (twenty-one shillings) a minute, or about $2,700,000 a year, derived almost entirely from real estate in the mulct of t.nnrlon The late Wil iam H. Vanderbilt is said to have had an income at least three times as large. There arc, however, more Englishmen than Americans with incomes of $1,000,- 000 or thereabouts. England is prodigi ously wealthy uis well as extremely poor), and her wenlth is the accumulation of hundreds of years, and is growing now at the rate of $600,000,000 annually, the net profits of all her industrial and commercial enterprises. At the present rate of increase, she will have accumu lated in twenty five years fifteen thou sands of millions additional capital. No wonder interest is low there, and that her capitalists arc constantly seeking in vestments throughout civilization. The accumulation of money, however, has been even greater in this country, where the rate of inter? st has diminished in ten years far more than in any part of Eu rope. Elections on the other side arc far les costly now than in the ante-reform days. One memorable election in the West Hiding of 3 orkshire cost Lord Fitz.wil liam $‘.230,000. and the defeated rival house of Wortley, Lord Wharncliffe, SIOO,OOO. Fox's famous election for Westminster east $1*33,000. The elec tions in Galway and Mayo, in the west of Ireland, which lasted over weeks, cost the contestants generally at least $30,- 000, and in nearly every instance their estates, loaded with encumbrances thus contracted, passed out of their families. The voters, many of them brought from mountain li mes at long distances from the seat of the election, had virtually to tight their way in hordes to the polls. Ihe candidates, on their part, had usu ally to tight two or three duels as a nec cessary accompaniment. On one occasion the celebrated t'olouel Martin, on being asked who was likely to win a certain election, wrote back: ‘'The survivor." The last of the Martin family,his daugh ter, died just after landing in ISSO, at the Union Place (present Morton House) Hotel. The liquor saloous. styled ou the other side public houses, instead of being closed as here on election days, were all kept open at the candidates' ex pense. A S pure Fleming, who success fully opposed Lord Palmerston for Hampshire, in reply to a long address of that Minister, got up and said: "Ido not know anything about the subjects on which the noble lord has spok n. I only know that 1 have ordered all the public houses in Hampshire to be opened, and they w ill l e kept open at my expense until the close of the polls." The ballot was the principal instrument in doing away with those old lively electioneer ing times. The expenses are now limited by law to $3,000 at the outside and in many c; sc; to lc.-s. and need not exceed s*23o or $:00. The candidate is obliges to make returns of the exact amoun .x --p end el The expenditure of many of the l.ish M. P.s at the last el etion did not exceed $230. Mr. Labouchcrc’s re turn at No t’ amptou w as ouiy $l3O. pProm th Chicago l.nljrr. OLIVIA; OB, THE DOCTOR’S TWO LOVES. BY THE AUTHOR OF " TKt Second Mrs. Tillotson-Never Forgotten," Etc., Etc. ICHAPTEK XLll—Continued.'] “No. 19 Bellringer street!” we repeated, in one breath. “Yes, gentlemen, that is the address,” said the clerk, closing the book. “Shall I write it down for you? Mrs. Wilkinson was the party who should have paid our commission; as yon peiceive, a premium was required instead of a salary given. Wo feel pretty sure the young lady went to the school, bat Mrs. Wilkinson denies it, and it is not worth our while to pursue our olaim in law. ” “Can you describe the young ladv?” I in quired. “Well, no. We have such hosts of young ladies here. But she was pretty, decidedly pretty; she made that impression upon me, at least. We are too busy to take particu lar notice, but I should know her again if she came in. I think she would have been hfere again before this if she had not got that engagement.” ‘Do you know where the school is?” I asked. “No. Mrs. Wilkinson was the party,” he aaid. “We had nothing to do with it, ex cept to send any ladies to her who thought it worth their while. That was all." As we could obtain no further informa tion, we went away, and paced up and down the tolerably quiet street, deep in consultation. That we should have need for great caution, and as much craftiness aB we both possessed, iu pursuing our in quiries at No. 19 Bellringer street, was quite evident. Who could be this unknown Mrs. Wilkinson? Was it possible that she might prove to be Mrs. Foster herself? At any rate it would not do for either of us to present ourselves there in quest of Miss Ellen Martineau. It was finally settled be tween us that Johanna should be intrusted with the diplomatic enterprise. There was not much chance that Mrs. Foster would know her by sight, though she had been in Guernsey, and it would excite less notice for a lady to be inquiring after Olivia. We immediately turned our steps toward Han over street, where we found her and Julia seated at some fancy work iu their somber drawing-room. Julia received me with a little embarrass ment, but conquered it sufficiently to give me a warm pressure of the hand, and to whisper in my ear that Johanna had told her everything. Unluckily, Johanna her self know nothing of our discovery the night before. I kept Julia’s hand in mine, and looked steadily into her eyes. “My dear Julia,” I said, “we bring strange news. We have reason to believe that Olivia is not dead, but that something underhand is going on, which we cannot yet make out. ” Julia’s face grew crimson, but I would not let her draw her hand away from my clasp. I held it the more firmly, and, as Jack was busy talking to Johanna, I con tinued speaking to her in a lowered tone. “My dear,” I said, “you have been as true, and faithful, and generous a friend as any man ever had. But this must not go on, for your own sake. You fancied you loved me, because every one about us wished it to be so; but I cannot let you waste your life on me. Speak to me ex actly as your brother. Do you believe you could be really happy with Captaiu Carey?” “Arthur is so good,” she murmured, “and he is so fond of me.” I had never heard her call him Arthur before. The elder members of our Guern sey circle called him by his Christian name, but to us younger ones he had always been Cupiatn Cuioy. Jujio’s use of ii was mere eloquent than many phrases. She had grown into the habit of calling him fa miliarly by it. “Then, Julia,” I said, “whit folly it womld be for you to sacrifice yourself to a false notion of faithfulness! I cculd not accept such a sacrifice. Think no more of me or my happiness. ” “But my poor aunt was so anxious for you to have a home of your own,” she said, 6obbing, “and Ido love you dearly. Now, you will never marry, I know you will not, if you cau have neither Olivia nor me for your wife.” “Very likely,” I answered, trying to laugh away her agitation; “I shall be in love with two married women instead. How shock ing that will sound in Guernsey! But I’m not afraid that Captaiu Carey will forbid me his house. ” “How little we thought!” exclaimed Julia. I knew* very well what her mind had gone back to—the days when she aud I and my mother were furnishing and settling the house that would now become Captain Ca rey’s home. “Then it is all nettled,” I said, “and 1 shall wiite to him by to-night's post, invit ing him back again—that is, if he really left you last night.” “Yes,” she replied; “he would not stay a day longer.” Her face had grown calm as we talked together. A scarcely perceptible smile was lurking about her lips, as if she rejoiced that her suspense was over. There was something very like a pang in the idea of another filling the place I had once fully occupied iu her heart; but the pain was un worthy of me. I drove it away by throw ing myself heart and soul into*the'mystery which hung over the fate of Olivia. "We have hit upon a splendid plan,” said Jack. “Miss Carey will take Simmons’cab to Bellringer street, and reach the house about the same time as I visit Foster. That is for me to be at hand if she-should need any protection, you know. I shall stav up stairs with Foster till I hear the cab drive off again, and it will wait for me at the corner of Dawson street. Then we will come direct here and tell you everything at once. Of course Miss Dobree will wish to hear it all. ” “Cannot I go with Johanna?” she asked. “No,” I said hastily; “it is very probable Mrs. 1 oster knows you by sight, though she is less likely to know Johanna. I fanev Mrs. Wilkinson will turn out to be Mrs. Foster herself. Yet why they should spirit Olivia away into a French school, and pre tend that she is dead, I cannot see.” Nor could any one of the others see the j reason. But as the morning was fast wan ing away, and both Jack and I were busy, we were compelled to close the discussion, and, with our minds preoccupied to a frightful extern, make those calls upon our patients, which were supposed to be in each case full of anxious and particular thought for the ailments we were attempt ing to alleviate. i pen meeting again for a few minutes at luncheon we made a slight change in our plan, for we found a note from Foster awaiting me, in which he requested me to visit him in the future, instead of Doctor John Senior, as he felt more confidence in i my knowledge of his malady, CHAPTER XLIIT. MAKTIN DOBKEK'S PUEDGF. I followed Simmons' cab up Bellringer street aud watched Johanna alight and en ter the house. The door was scarcely closed upon her when I rang, and asked the slat ternly drudge of a servant if I could see Mr. t oster. She asked me to go up to the parlor on the second floor, and 1 went j a one, with little expectation of finding Mrs. Foster there, unless Johanna was there also, in which case I was to appear as 1 a stranger to her. The parlor looked poorer and shabbier by daylight than at night. There was not a single element of comfort in it. The *■ rta ' l U ; U J rags a’ out a window be r mea with soot and smoke. The only cc.sy m tor j.r.s the one o cupied by Foster, j 1 - looked as shabby and worn as ! •ne ; . _Th e cuSs and collar of hisjshiri j ~*ow a_ nis long and lank; and his skin had a sallow, unwholesome tint. The diamond ring up on his finger was altogether out of keeping with his threadbare coat, buttoned up to the chin, as if there were no waistcoat be neath it. From head to foot he looked a broken-down, seedy fellow, yet still pre serving some lingering traces' of the gen tleman. This was Olivia's husband' A good deal to my surprise I saw Mrs. Foster sitting quietly at a table drawn close to the window, very busily writing— en grossing, as I could see, for some misera ble pittance a page. She must have had some considerable practice iu the work, for it was done well, and her pen ran quickly over the paper. A second chair left empty °PP2, sue to ner uowea mat rosier iwu been engaged at the same task before he heard my step on the stairs. He looked weary, and I could not help feeling some thing akin to pity for him. I did not know that they had come down as low as that. “I did not expect you before night,” he said testily. a I like to have some idea W'hen my medical attendant is coming.” “I was obliged to come now,” I an swered, offering no other apology. The man irritated me more than any other per son that had ever come across me. There wag something perverse and splenetic in every word he uttered and every expression upon his face. “I do not like your partner,” he said; ■‘don’t send him again. He knows nothing about his business.” He spoke with all the haughtiness of a millionaire to a country practitioner. I could hardly refrain from smiling as I thought of Jack’s disgust and indignation. “As for that, ” I replied, “most probably neither of us will visit you again. Doctor Lowry will return to-morrow, and you will be in his hands once more.” “No!" he cried, with a passionate urgency in his tone; “no, Martin Dobree; yon said if any man in London could cure me it was yourself. I canuot leave myself in any other hands. I demand from you the ful fillment of your words. If what you said is true you can no more leave me to the care of another physician than you could leave a fellow-creature to drown without doing your utmost to save him. I refuse to be given up to Doctor Low ry. ” “But it is by no means a parallel case,” I argued; “you were under his treatment be fore, and I have no reason whatever to doubt his skill. Why should you feel safer in my hands than in his?” “Well!” he said, with a sneer, “if Olivia were alive 1 dare scarcely have trusted you, could I? But you have nothing to gain by my death, you know; and I have so much faith in you, in year skill, and your hUH\ and your conscientiousness—if there be any such qualities in the world—that I place myself unfalteringly under your pro fessional care. Shake hands upon it, Mar tin Dobree." In spite of my repugnance I could not resist taking his offered hand. His eyes were fastened upon me with something of the fabled fascination of a serpent’s. I knew instinctively that he would have the power, and use it, of probing every wound he might suspect in me to the quick. Yet he interested me; and there was something about him not entirely repellant to me. Above all, for Olivia’s sake, should we find her still living, I was anxious to study his character. It might happen, as it does sometimes, that my honor and straightfor wardness would prove a match for his crafty shrewdness and cunning. “There,” he said exultantly, “Martin Do bree pledges himself to cure me. Carrie, .rou are the witness of it. If I die he has been my assassin as surely as if he had plunged a stiletto into me.” “Nonsense!” I answered; “it is not in my power to heal or destroy. I simply pledge myself to use every means I know of for your recovery. ” “Which comes to the same thing,” he re plied; “for, mark you, I will be the most careful patient you ever had. There should be no chance for you even if Olivia were alive.” Always harping on that one string! Was it nothing more than a love of torturing somo one that made him thone words? Or did he wish to drive home more deeply the conviction that she was indeed dead? “Have you communicated the intelligence of her death to her trustee in Australia?” I { asked. No; why should I?" he said; “iio good j would come of it to me. Why should ] trouble myself about it?” “Nor to your step-sister?” I added. 1 “To Mrs. Dobree?” he rejoined; “no, it does not signify a straw' to her either. She j holds herself aloof from me now, confound | her! You are not ou very good terms with her yourself, I believe?” The cab was still standing at the door, , and I could not leave before it drove away | or I should have made my visit a short ; one. Mrs. Foster was glancing through | the window from time to time, evidently on the watch to see the visitor depart. Would j she recognize Johanna? She had stayed | some W'eeks in Guernsey; and Jo j hanua w T as a fine, stately looking woman, not c cable among strangers. I must do I something to get her away from her post of j observation. “Mis. Foster,” I said, and her eves sparkled at the sound of her name, “I should be exceedingly obliged to you il ycu will give me another sight of those papers you showed to me the last time I was here. ” She was away for a few minutes, and 1 heard the cab drive off before she returned. That was the chief point gained. When the papers were in my hand I just glanced at them and that was all. “Have you any idea where they came from?” I asked. “There is the London post-mark on the envelope,” answered Foster. “Show it to him, Carrie. There is nothing to be learned from that.” “No,” I said, comparing the handwriting on the envelope with that of the letter, and finding them the same. “Well, good-by. I cannot often pay you as long a visit as this.” I hurried off quickly to the corner ot Dawson street, where Johanna was waiting for me. She looked exceedingly contented when I took my seat beside her in the cab. “Well, Mar;in,” she said, “you need suf fer no more anxiety. Olivia'has gone as English teacher in an excellent French school, where the lady is thoroughly ac quainted with English ways and comforts. This is the prospectus of the establish ment. You see there are ‘extensive grounds for recreation, and the comforts of a cheer fully happy home, the domestic arrange ments being on a thoroughly liberal scale.’ Here is also a photographic view of the place: a charming villa, vou see. in th best French style. The lady's husband is an avocat; and everything is taught by professors—cosmography and pedagogy, and other studies of which we never heard when I was a girl. Olivia is to stay there twelve months, and in return for her serv ices will take lessons from professors at tending the establishment Your mind may be quite at ease now.” “But where is the place?” I inquired. “Oh! it is in Normandy—Noireau,” she said-—“quite out of the range of railways and tourists. There will be no danger of any one finding her out there; and you kuow she has changed her name altogether this time. ” “Did ycu discover that Olivia and Ellen M rtineau are the same persons?” I asked. “No, I did not,” she a .swered; “I thought you were sure of that ” But I was not sure of it; neither could Jack be sure. He puzzled himself in trv ing to give a satisfactory description of his Ellen Martineau; but every an-wer he gave to my eager questions plunged us into greater uncertainty. He was not sure of the color either of her hair or eyes, and made blundering guesses at her height. The chief proof we had of Olivia’s identity was the drunken claim made upon Ellen Martineau by Foster a month after he had received convincing proof that she was dead. What was I to believe? It was running too great a risk to make my further inquiries at No. 19 Bellringer street. Mrs. Wilkinson was the landlady ox ui6 loagmg-nouse, ana sne nna toia Johanna that Madame Peirier boarded with her when she was in London. But she might begin to talk to her other lodgers if her own cariosity were excited; and once more my desire to fathom the mystery hanging about Olivia might plunge her into fresh difficulties, should it reach the ears of Foster or his wife. “I must satisfy myself about her safety now,” I 6aid. “Only put yourself in my place, Jack. How can I rest till I know more abotit Olivia?” “1 do put myself in your place,” he an swered. “What do you say to having a run down to this place in Ba?se Normandy and seeing for yourself whether Miss Ellen Martineau is your Olivia?” “How can 1?” I asked, attempting to hang back from the suggestion. It was a busy time with us. The season was in full roll, and our most aristocratic patients were in town. The easterly winds were bringing in their usual harvest of bronchitis and diphtheria. If I went Jack's hands would be more than full. Had these things come to perplex us only two months earlier I could have taken a holiday with a clear conscience. “Dad will jump at the chance of coming back for a week,” replied Jack; “he is bored to death down at Fulham. Go you must, for my sake, old fellow. You are good for nothing as long as you’re so down in the mouth. I shall be glad to be rid of you. ” We shook hands upon that as warmly as if he had paid me the most flattering com pjimunfa. CHAPTER XLIV. NOIREAU. In this way it came to pass that two evenings later I was crossing the Chan nel to Havre, and found myself about five o’clock iu the afternoon of the next day at Falaise. It was the terminus of the railway in that direction; and a very ancient conveyance, bearing the name of La Petite Vitesse, was in waiting to carry on any travelers who were vent uresome enough to explore the regions beyond. There was space inside for six passen gers, but it smelt too musty and was too full of the fumes of bad tobacco for me; and I very much preferred sitting beside the driver, a red-faced, smooth cheeked Norman, habited in a blue blouse, who could crack his long whip with almost the skill of a Parisian om nibus-driver. We were friends in a trice, for my patois was almost identi cal with his own, and he could not be lieve his own ears that he was talking with an Englishman. “La Petite Vitesse” bore out its name admirably if it were meant tfc. indicate exceeding slowness. W T e never ad vanced beyond a slow trot, and at the slightest hint of rising ground the trot slackened into a walk, and eventually subsided into a crawl. I3v these means the distance we traversed was made to seem tremendous, and the drowsy jin gle of the collar-bells, intimating that progress was being accomplished, add ed to the delusion. But the fresh, sweet air, blowing over leagues of fields and meadows, untainted with a breath of smoke, gave me a delicious tingling in the veins. I had not felt such a glow of exhilaration since that bright morning when I had crossed the chan nel to Sark to ask Olivia to become mine. The sun sank below the distant hori zon, with the trees showing clearly against it, for the atmosphere was as transparent as crystal; and the light of the stars that came out one by one al most cast a defined shadow upon our path from the poplar trees standing in long straight rows in the hedges. If I found Olivia at the end of that star-lit path my f rla ) jfr“‘ia SH7 it-wajili be eqrn pleted. Yet if t*f<Srn?l her, what then? I should see her for a few minutes in the dull salon of a school, perhaps with some watchful, spying Frenchwoman present. I should simply satisfy my self that she was living. There could be nothing more between us. I dared not tell her how dear she was to me or ask her if she ever thought of me in her loneliness and friendlessness. I began about this time to wish that I had brought Johanna with me, who could have taken her in her arms and kissed and comforted her. Why had I not thought of that before ? As we proceeded at our delusive pace along the last stage of our journey I began to sound the driver, cautiously wheeling about the object of my excursion into those remote regions. I had tramped through Normandv and Brittany three or four times, but 'there had been no inducement to visit Noi reau, which resembled a Lancashire cotton town, and I had never been there. “There are not many English at Noireau?” I remarked suggestively. “Not one,” he replied; “not one at this moment. There was one little English mam’zelle—peste!—a very pretty little English girl, who was voy aging precisely like you, m’sieur, some months ago. There was a little child with her, and the two were quite alone. They are very intrepid, are the English mam’zelles. She did not know a word of our language. But that was droll, m’sieur! A Erench demoiselle would never voyage like that.” (TO BE CONTINUED.) Two Snow Stories. Speaking of lying, says the San Fran cisco Pont, every old Californian remem bers Captain Jim Baker, immortalized by John Phoenix as “Truthful Jeems.” His habits of exaggeration were so notorious that San Franciscans prided themselves on possessing in him the cham; ion of the world iu t! at line. But one day an Eng glish tea captain came he;e who had achieved a brilliant reputation a ; a liar, and the sea c apt ins thin in port brought the two together at a dinner at Martin’s old restaurant on Commercial street. When the wine was flowing freely the conspirators proceeded to draw out their guests. “I presume you have seen some very severe snow storms iu your travels! ' ‘aid one, addres-ing the English Captain. “Ye-, sir,” he replied; “I have seen the snow fifty feet deep on a level ex tending over miles of country up in Siberia." “And yo i must have seen some pretty severe snow storms yourself, Ca jta u Jim:’’ said another.” “Well, Ishould say so.” replied Truth ful. “In 1H3!) I v.:s going over the Siena Nevada with a pack train, and wl cn w • had nearly reached the summit it s arted in to snow, and I’ll sv. ar that it fell at the rate of an inch a minute." “How long did it continue, Captain Jim?” “Three days and nights, sir.” No Trade in Fire-Escapes, “Did you sell any fire-escapes in Bos ton?” asked the proprietor of his travel* ing salesman who has just come in. “Xaw,” was the di-gusted repiv. “No! Why not?” “You sent me to the wrong men,” “Why, they are all old friends of mine.” “Maybe they are. but every one of them was a Universalist. and I packed up my samples and left."— Tid-Biti. DR, TALMAGES’ SERMON, IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE HOME. (Preached at Grim-by, Canada.) Text: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my do 1; where thou uie-t, will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, anil more also, if aught bat death part thee and me.’’—Ruth i., In and IT. Famine in Judah. Upon fields distin guished for fertility the blight came, and at the door of princely abodes want knocked. Turning his back upon his house anil bis lands, Llime!e.h took his wife. Naomi and his two sons and started for the land of Moab in search of bread. Getting into Moab, his two sons married ido'aters —Ruth the name of one. Orpah the name of the other. Great calamiti-s came upon that household. Elimeleeh died and his two sous, leaving Naomi, the wife, and the two daugh ters-in-law. Poor Naomi! iu a strange land and her husband and two sous dead. She must go back to Judah. She canuot stand it in a place where everything reminded her of her sorrow. Just as now, sometimes you see persons moviug from one house to anoth er, or from one city to another, and you can not understand it until you find out that it is because there were associations with a cer tain place that they could no longer bear. Naomi must start for the land of Judah; but how shall she get th ‘re? Between Moab and the place where she would like to go there are deserts; there are wild beasts ranging the wilderness; there are savages going up and down, and there is the awful Dead Sea. Well, you say, she came over the read once, she can do so again. Ah! when she came over the road before she had the strong arms of her husband and her two sous to defend her; now they are all gone. The hour of parting has come, and Naomi must be sepa rated from her two daughters-in law. Ruth and Orpah. They were tenderly attached, these three m turners. They had bent over the same sick bed; they had moved in the same funeral procession; they had wept over the same grave. There the three mourners stand talking. Naomi thinks of the time when she left Ju dah, with a prince for her companion. Then they all think of the marriage festivals when Naomi’s two sons were united to these women, who have now exchanged the wreath of the bride for the veil of the mourner. Naomi s'arts for the land of Judah, and Ruth and Orpah resolve to go a little way along with her. They have gone but a short dis tance when Naomi turns around and says to her daughters-in-law; “Go back. There may be days of brightness yet for you in your native land. 1 can t bear to take you away from your home and the homes of your kindred. I am old and troubled. Go not along with me. The Lord deal gently with you as ye have dealt with the dead aud with me.” But they persisted in going, and so the three traveled on until after awhile Naomi turns around again aud begs them to go back. Orpah takes the suggestion, and after a sad parting gee? away; but Ruth, grand and glorious Ruth, turns her back upon her home. She says: “I can’t bear to let that old mother go alone. It is my duty to go with her.” And throwing her arms around weeping Na omi, she pours out her soul in the tenderness and pathos and Christian eloquence of my text: “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for hither thou goest, I will go; and whither thou lodg est, I w r ill lodge; thy people shall be my peo ple, and thy God my Gcd; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. ” Five choices made Ruth in that text, and five choices must wo all make, if we ever want to get to heaven. I. In the first place, if we want to become Christians, we must, like Ruth in the text, choose the Christian’s God. Beautiful Ruth looked up into the wrinkled face of Naomi and said: “Thy God shall be my God.” You see it was a change of gods. Naomi's God was Jehovah; Ruth’s God was Chemosh, the divinity of the Moabites, whom she had wor shiped under the symbol of a black star. Now she comes out from that black-starred divinity, an l takes the Lord in whom there is no darkness at all; the silver-starred divin ity to whom the met* or pointed down in Bethlehem, the sunshiny God, of whom the psalmist wrote: “The Lord God is a sun.’ And so, my friends, if we want to become Christians, we must change gods. This world :s the Chemosh to most people. It is a black-starred god. It can heal no wounds. It can wipe away no sorrows. It can pay no debts. It can save no undying soul. It is a great cheat, so many thousand miles in diameter an 1 so many thousand miles in circumference. If I should put this audience under oath, one half of them would swear that this world is a liar. It is a bank which makes large adver tisement of w hat it has in ihe vaults and of the dividends that it declares, and tells us that if we want happiness, all we have got to do is to come to that bank and apply for it. In the hour of need, we go to that bank to get happiness, and we find that the vaults are empty, and all reliabilities have ab sconded aud we are swindled out of every thing. O thou bla -k-starred Chimosh, how man} - are burning in: euse at thy shrine! Now, Ruth turned away fron this god Chemosh, and she took Naomi’s God. Who was that? The God that made the world and put you in it. The God that fashioned the heaven and filled it with blissful inhabitants. The God whose lifetime study it has bean to make you and all his creatures happy. The God who watched us in childhood, and led us through the gauntlet of infantile distresses, feeding us when we were hungry, pillowing us when we were somnolent, and sending his only Son to wash away our pollution with the tears and blood of his own eye and heart, and offering to be our everlasting rest, comfort, and ec stasy. A loving God. A sympathetic God. A great-hearted God, An all-encom passing God. A God who fling? himself on this world in a very- abandonment of ever lasting affection. The clouds, the veil of his face. The sea, the aquarium of his palace. The stars, the dew-drops on his lawn. The God of Hannah’s prayer and Esther's conse cration, aud Mary’s broken heart, and Ruth’s loving and bereft spirit. Oh, choose ye be tween Chemosh and Jehovah ! The one ser vice is pain and disappointment; the other ser vice is brightness and life. I have tried both. I chose the service of Gcd because I was ashamed to do otherwise. I felt it would be imbecile for me to <"hoose Chi mosh above Jehovah. “Oh, happy- day that fixed my ihoice Oh Thee, my Saviour, and my God! Well may- this glowing heart rejoice, And tell its rapture all abroad. “Oh, happy bond that seals my vows To Him v, ho merits all my love! Let cheerful anthems fill His house, While to His sacred throne I mo e. “High heaven, that heard the solemn ,ow, That vow renewed shall daily hear; Till in life's latest hour I bow, And bless in death a bon l so dear,” 11. Again, if we want t > be Christians like Ruth in the tect, we must take the Christ au's path. “Where thou goest Iw i 1 go," cried out the beautiful Moabitess to Naomi, the mother-in-law. Langcrous prom ise that There were deserts to be crossed. There were ja kals that came down through the wilderness. Tnere were bandits. There was the Dead sea. Naomi . avs: “Ruth, you must go back. You are too delicate to take this journey. _ You will give out in the first five miles. \ou cannot go. \ou have not the physical stamina or the moral courage to go with me. ’ Ruth responds: ‘ Mother I am going anyhow. If I stay in this land I will be overborne of the i lolaters; if Igo aiong with 30U, I shall serve Hod. Hive me that buudle. Let me carry it. lam with you, mother, anyhow.” 0 " aut to serve Goi mast du 5 s did.crymg out: * ‘Where thou goest 1 T IU g °, ,* Sev T e / 7 ind tht ‘ D -a 1 Sea. Afoot or borsebartc. If there be ri ers to ford, we nu*;t ford the n. If there be mountains to scale, we must scale them. If there be ene mies to fight we must fight them. It re mires grit and plu -k to get from M ab to Judah Oh how many Christian there are win can be dn erteil from the path by a quiver of the lip. -nH ve of , scor °- They do not surrender to but they bend to it. And if in a company there be those who tell unclean stones, tney will go so far as to tell some thing on the margin between the pure and the impure. And if there be those who swear in the rcorn and use the rough word “damn, they will g 0 so far as the word darn, and look over the fence wishing they but as to any detect hk? '• [° g° the whole road of all that 1, right, they nave not the grace to do it. Th-v hove not in all their body as much courage as Ruth had in her little finger On. my friends let us start for heaven and go clear through: In the river that runs bv tce gate o. the city we shall wash off all our bruises. When Dr. Chalmers printed his astronomical discourses, they were read in tiie haylofts, in the fields, in the garrets, aud in the palaces, l-ecause they advocate 1 the idea that the stars were inhabited. Oh, hewer! does not vour soul thrill with the thought that there 'is another world beauti fully inhabited? Nay. more, that you by the grace of God may become one of its glorious citizens? 111. Aga n I remark, if we want to become Christians, like Ruth in the text, we must choose the Christian habitation. “I* here thou lodgest, will I lodge,” crie 1 Ruth to Naomi. Bhe knew that wherever Naomi stopped, whether it were hove! or mausion, there would be a Christian home, and she wanted to be in it. What do I mean by a Christian home? I mean a home in whi.’h th e Bible is the chief boek; a home in which the family kneel in prayer; a home in which father aud mother are practical Christians; a home in which on Sabbath, from sunr.se to sunset, there is profitable converse and cheer ful song and suggestions of a better world. Whether the wall be frescoed or not, or only a ceiling of implaned rafters; whether mar ble lions are couchant at the front entrance, or a plain latch is lifted by- a tow-string, that home is the ante-chamber of heaven. A man never gets over having lived in such a home. It holds you in an eternal grip. Though your parents may have been gone forty years, the tears of penitence and gladness that were wept at the family altar still glit ter in your memory. Nay, do you not now feel hot and warm on your hands, the tears which that mother shed thirty years ago, when, one cold winter night, she came and wrapped you up in the bed and prayed for your welfare here and for your everlasting welfare before the throne ? O ye who are to set up your own home, see that it-be a Christian home! Let Jesus make the wine at that wedding. A home without God is an awful place, there are so many perils to threaten it, and God himself i? so bitterly against it; but “the Lord emrampeth around about the inhabitation of the just. What a grand thing it is to have God stand guard at that door, and the Lord Jesus the family physician; and the wings of angels the canopy over the pillow.aud the Lord of Glory a perpetual guest. You say it is im portaut that the wife anil mother be a Christian. I say to you it is just as important that the hus band and father be a Christian. Yet how many clever men there are who say: “My wife doe? all the religion of my house. lam a worldly man; but 1 have confidence in her, and I think she will bring the whole fam ily up all right.” It will not do, my brother. The fact that you are not a Christian has more influence on your family than the fact that your wife is a Chris ian. Your children will say: “Father’s a very good man; he is not a Christian, and if he can risk the future, I can risk the future.” O father and husband! join your wife on the road to heaven, aud at night gather your family at the altar. Do you say: “I can t pray. lam a man of few words and I don’t Think I could put half a doyen sentences together in such a prayer.” Y’ou can pray; you can. If your child were down with scarlet fever, and the next hour were to decide it? recovery or its death, you would pray iu sobs and groans and paroxysms of earnestness. Ye?, you can pray-. When the eternal life of your household may depend upon your supplication, let your knees limber and go down, but, if you still insist that you cannot compose a prayer, then buy or bor row a prayer book of the Episcopal church, aud gather your family, and put your prayer book on a chair and kneel down before it, and in the solemn and hushed presence of God gather up all your sorrows and tempta tions and sins, aud cry out: “Good Lord, de liver us.” IV. Again I remark: If we want to be come Christians, like Ruth in the text, we must choose Christian associations. “Thy people shall be my people,” cried out Ruth to Naomi. “The folks you associate with I want to associate with. They will come aud see me, and I will go aud see them. I want to move in the highest of all circles, the circle of God’s elect; and therefore, mother, lam going back with you to the land of Judah.” Do you who are seeking after God—and I suppose there are many such in this pres ence—do you who are seeking after God prefer Christian society to worldly society ? “No,” you say, “I prefer the world’s mirth, and the world’s laughter, and the world’s innuendo, and the world's paraphernalia.” Well, this is a free country, and you shall have the right of choice; but let me tell you that the pure?t mirth, and the most untrammeled glee.and the greatest resilience of soul are in side Christian companionship, aud not out side of it. I have tried both styles of com panionship—the companionship of the world and the companionship of Christ, and I know by experience. 1 have been now- so long in the sunsniny experience and society of Christian people, that w-hen I am compelled to go for a little while amid intense worldly society I feel depressed. It is like going out of a June garden into an icehouse. Men never know fully how to laugh until they become Christians. The world’s laughter has a jerk of dissatisfa tion at the end; but w hen a man is consecrated to God, aud he is all right for the world to come, then when he laughs, body, mind and soul crackle. Let a group of ministers of th? gospel, galhered from all denominations of Christian-, be to gether in a dining hall, or in a social circle, and you know they are proverbially joeuud, O, ye unconverted people! I know not how you ian stand it down in that moping, bil ious, saturnine, worldly association. Come up into the sunlight of Christian so iety those people for whom all things are working right now,and will work right forever. I tefi you that the sweetest japonicas grow in the Lord’s ga;den; that the largest grape? are from the vinevards of Canaan: that the most sparkling floods break forth from the Rock of Ages. Do not too much pity this Ruth of my text, for she is going to be ome joint owner of the great harvest fields of Boa-. V. Once more: If we want to become Christians, we must, like Ruth in the text, choose the Christian's death anl burial. She exclaimed: “Where thou die ?t will I die, aud there will I be buried. ’ I think we all, when leaving this w-orld, would like to be sur rounded by Christian influences. Y’ou wou’d not like to have your dying pillow surrounded by caricaturists aud punsters and w-ine bibbers. How would you like to have John Leech come with h s London pic torials and Christopher North with his loose fun, and Tom Hoed with his rhyming joke?, when you are dying? No! No! No! Let me have a Christian nur. e in my last sickness. Lit me have a Christian physician to administer the meliciue. Let it tea Christ an wife, or jarent, or child, that watches the going out of the tidis of my mortal existen e. Let Christian men corne into tue l oom and read of the illuminated valley and the extinguishment of grie F , and drown the hoarse blasts of death with the strains of "Mt. Pisgah” and “St. Martin.” In our last moment we w;ll all be children. Baid Dr. Guthr.e, the famous Scotch < lergy ruan, when dying: “Sing me a bairn's hymn.” Yes, we will all be children then. In that hour the world will stand confounded aro nd us. Our friends may cry over us; tears will not help us. They may look sad: what we want is radiation in the last moment— thinking it will help them die. In our last moment we wai t that bread which came down from Heaven. Who will Rive it to us ? Oh, we want Chris tian people in the room, so that if our Lope begins to struggle they may say: “Courage, brother! all is well! Courage!” In that expiring moment I want to hear the old songs we u ed to sing in church and prayer meetings. In that last moment I want to hear the voice of some Christian friend pleading that the sins and shortcomings of my life may be forgiven, and the doors of heaven may be opened before my entranced spirit. “Come sing to me of heaven, When fm about to die: Sing songs of holy ecstasy, To waft my soul on high.” 3 es. Christian people on either side of the bed, and the Christian people at-thefoot of the b i • - binstian people to close my eyes, Christian people to rarrv me out, "and Christian people t < look after those whom I leave behind, and Christ an people to re- b u r me a little while after lam gone. w here thou diest, will I die. and there will I ba burie 1.” Sometimes an ypitaph covers up more than it expresses. \\ alking through Greenwood Cemetery I have sometimes seen an inscrip tion which impressed me how hard the sculptor and friends were trying to make out a good story in stone. I saw from the in scription that the man or woman buried th?re hal d:ed without hope. The ins ription told me the man was a member of Congress, or a bank President or some prominent citizen, but said nothing about his soul’s des tmy. The body is nothing. The soul! The soul! And here by this inscription I see_that this man was born in 1800 and died in 1875. Seventy-five years on earth, and no Christian hope! Oh, if in all the cemeteries of your city the graves of those who have gone out of this world unprepared should sigh on the wind, who would have the nerve to drive through such a place? If all those who have gone out of this world uup>repjared could come bak to-day and float through the air,telling the story of tlieir discomfiture this audience would fall flat on its face, ask ing to be rescued from the avalanche of hor ror. My hearers, do you wonder that this Ruth of my text made the Cnristian's choice and closed it with the ancient form of imprecation upon her own soul, if she ever forsook Naomi “ The Lord do so to me, and more also, ff aught but death part thee and me.” They were to live together. Come the jackals come the bandits, roll on Dead Sea! My bearers, would you not like to be with your Christian friends forever? Have there not gone out persons from vour household whom you would like to spend eternity with? They were mild, and loving, and gentle, and beau tiful, while here. Y’ou have no idea that the joys of heaven have made them worse Choose their Christ, and you may have their heaven. They went in washel through the blood of the Lamb, and you must havp the same glorious ablution.’ With holy violence I put my hands on you to-day to push you on toward the’ immediate choice of this only Saviour. Have him you must, or perish world without end. Elect this moment as the one of contrition and transport. Oh, give one intense, earnest, be lieving, lcviug gaze into the wounds opened for your eternal salvation! Some of you I confront for the first and the last time until the judgment, and thea we shall meet. Will you be ready ? The Editor Receives a Call. A chronic loafer, who thinks he right to bother people and render as idle as himself, walked into the Tele gram office recently. He wanted to see the editor. Ke saw the editor. “Nice day,” said the visitor. “Pretty warm,” replied the editor. “Warm enough for you?’’ said the visitor. A look of disgust on the face of tha editor. “How are yougettin’ along?” said the visitor. “Very well, thank you,” said the edi tor. Pause. “Guess it’ll rain 'fore night,” sad the visitor. “Probably,” said the editor. Full stop. “How’s all the folks?” [asked the vis itor. “Well, thank you.” replied the editor. Another pause. “Hotter’n ’twas yesterday, I believe,” said the visitor. “Very likely.” said the editor. “Need a good shower now to cool the air,” said the visitor. “Y r -e-s,” said the editor. “What’s new?” asked the visitor. “Nothing special,” replied the editor. Avery long pause. “Believe it’s gettin’cooler,by George,” said the visitor. “Shouldn't wonder,” replied the edi tor. “I’ll be blamed if I don't believe I'd freeze to death if I stayed here much longer,” said the visitor. “Quite likely,” replied the editor. And then the visitor coolly vamoosed, and the editor, “hot in the collar,” re sumed his pencil.— Cincinnati Telegram. An Unpleasant Reflection. City Dor:—“Good gracious! how sun burnt I have got since I have been in the ( ountry. I shall actually be ashamed to meet my friends again.”— JadjC. Chips of the Boston Block. A lady who was not feeling very was importuned by her little son with questions which she answered too sharply to suit Young Aracr ca, when he ejacu lated: “Goodness! what is the matter with you? I hope you're not going to have one of your bilious turns.” Another lad who was learning his Sun day-school les on with the words: “Con sider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that—” here the boy paused, forgetting the next word, and then proceeded wth a pronounced voice : “Sullivan in all his glory was not like one of these.”— lio.it on Iraceller. Costume for a Mountain Climber. — Fli'gende Blaetter . The Circus. Little Johnny, age five, was greatly taken with the circus-posters, and begged his papa to take him to the circus. He could get no promise from him, how ever, until, making a last beseeching ap peal on circus day, his father replied: “Well. .Johnny, we will go down street and see the tents.” Johnny walked along with his father, looking very dubious indeed at such a scanty privil ge, until, glancing up, he remarked: “Papa, I’d much rather see the con tents.”