Newspaper Page Text
D. C Sutton, Editor and Proprietor.
REV. DR. TALMAGE.
THU BROOKLYN DIVINE'S SUN
DAY SERMON.
Subject: “Cheer For the Disheart
ened.” (Preached at Kan
sas City, Mo,i
Text: “,Vo man cart'd for my soul." —
Psalms cxlii., 4.
David, the rubicund lad. had Ixvom? t'ie
battle worn warrior. Three thousand arursl
men in pursuit of him. he had hidden in th '
cave of_ EnseUi. near the coast of the De o!
Sea. Utterly sashed out with the pursuit, a ■
you have often Gsjn worn out \\ itli the trials
of life, he sat down and cried out: “No man
oared for my soul."
If you should fall through a hatchway, or
slip from a scaffolding, or drop through a
skylight, there would lie hundreds of pcopl •
who would come saround and pic!; up your
body and carry it to your homo or to the
hospital. I saw a great crowd of p •oplc in
the street, and I asked: NY lint is 4;o matter:”
and I found out that a poor laboring man had
fallen under sunstroke; and all our eyes were
filled with tears at the thought of his dis
tracted wife and his desolate home.
AYe are all sympathetic with physical disas
ter, hut how little sympathy for spiritual
woes! There are men in this house who have
come to mid-life who have never yet been once
personally accosted about their eternal wel
fare. A great sermon dropped into an nndi
eneeof hundreds of thousands willdoits work;
hut if unis world is ever to he brought to God
it will be through little sermons preached to
private Christians, to an audience of one.
The sister's letter postmarked at the
village—the word— uttered in your
hearing, half of smiles and half of tears—the
religious postrript to a business letter—the
card left at the door when you had some kind
of trouble —the anxious look of some one
across a church aisle while an earnest sermon
was being preached, swung you into the King
dom of God, But there are hundreds of peo
pie in thi.yhouse who will take the word that
David used in the past tense, and employ it
in thapresent tense, and cry out: “No man
care-, for my soul.’’
"You feel as you go out day by day in the
tug and jostle of life that it is every man for
himself. You can endure the pressure of
commercial affairs, and would consider it al
most impertinent for any one to ask you
whether you are making or losing money.
But there have been times when you wouis
have drawn your check for thousands of dol
lars if some would only help your soul out of
its perplexities. There arc questions about
your higher destiny that ache, and distract,
and agonize you at times. Let no one sup
pose that because you are busy all day with
hardware, or drygoods, or groceries, or grain,
that your thoughts are no longer than your
yard stick, and stop at the brass headed nails
of the store counter. When you speak once
about religious things you think 5,000 times.
They call you a worldling. You are not a
worldling. Os course you are industrious
and keep busy, but you‘have had your “eyes
opened to the realities of the next world.
You are not a fool. You know better
than any one can tell. You know that a
few years at most will wind up your earthly
engagements, and that you will take resi
dence in a distant sphere where all your
business adroitness would be a superfluity.
You sometimes think till your head aches
about great religious subjects. You go down
the street with your eyes fixed on the pave
ment, oblivious of the passing multitudes,
your thoughts gone on eternal expedition.
You wonder if the Bible is true, how much of
it is literal and how much is figurative law,
if Christ he God, if there is anything like ret
ribution, if you are immortal, if a resur
rection will ever take place, what the occupa
tion of your departed kindred is, what you
will be 10,000 years from now. With a cult
ured placidity of countenance you are on
fire with agitations of soul. Oh, this solitary
anxiety of your whole lifetime! You have
sold goods to or bought them from Christian
people for ten years, anil they have never
whispered one word of spiritual counsel. You
have passed up and down the aisles of
churches with men who knew that you had
no hope of heaven, and talked about the
weather and about your physical health, and
about everything but that concerning which
you most wanted to hear them speak, viz.,
your everlasting spirit. Times without num
ber you have felt m your heart, if you have
not uttered it with y our lips: “No man cares
for my soul.”
There have been times when you were espe
cially pliable on the great subject of re
ligion. It was so, for instance, after you had
lost your property. You had a great many
letters blowing you up for being unfortunate.
You showed that there had been a concatena
tion of circumstances and that your insol
vency was no fault of yours. Your creditors
talked to you as though they would have 100
cents ou the dollar life.“Protest after
protest tumbled in on your desk. Men who
used to take your hand with both of theirs
and shake it violently, now pass you on the
street with an almost imperceptible nod. Af
ter six or eight hours of scalding basiness
anxiety you go home and you shut the door,
and throw yourself on the sofa and you feel
in a state of despair. You wish that some
one would come in and break up the gloom.
Everything seems to be against you—the
bank against you. Your creditors against
you. Your friends suddenly become criti
cal against you. All the past against you.
All the future against you. You make re
proachful outcry: “No man cares for my
soul! - ’
Thera was another occasion when all the
doors of your heart swung open for sacred :
influences. A bright light went out in y< tir I
household. Within three or four days there !
were compressed sickness, death, obsequies. i
You were so lonely that 100 people coming !
into the house did not break up the solitari-,
ness. You were almost killed with the ]
domestic calamity. A few formal, perfunc- j
tory words of consolation were uttered on the
stairs before you went to the grave: but you j
wanted some one to come and talk over the
whole matter, and recite the alleviations, and
decipher the lessons of the dark tiercavement.
No one came. Many a time you could not
sleep until 2 or li o’clock in the morning, anti
then your sleep was a troubled dream, in
which were re-enacted all the scene of sickness,
and parting, and dissolution. Oh, what days
and nights they were! No man seemed to
care for your soul.
There was another occasion when your j
heart was very susceptible. There was a great j
awakening. There were humic d- of people j
who pressed into the kingdom of God: some i
of them acquaintances, some business aaso»-i- i
ates. yes, perhaps, some members of your own I
family were baptised by sprinkling or immer
sion. Christian people thought of you, and
they called at your store, but you were out on
business. 'They stopped at, your house; you i
had gone around to spend the evening. Tne v
sent a kindly mes-age to you: somehow
by accident, you did not get it The lifelioat
of the Gospal swept through the surf and
everybody seemed to get in but you. Every- 1
thing seemed to escape you. *me touch of
personal sympathy would have pushed you
into the kingdom of God. When on commun
ion day your friends went in, and your sons
and daughters went into the church, you
buried your face in your handkerchief and
sobbed ‘■ Whvarn I left out' Everybody
seems to get saved but me. No man cares for
my soul
Hearken to a revelation I have to make it i
t
Hlic JHonf§omttg ittottitor.
is a startling statement. It will so surprise
you that I must prove it ns Igo on. Instead
of this total indifference all about you in re
gard to your soul, 1 have to tell you that
heaven, earth and hell are after your itntnor
| till spirit earth to cheat it, hell to destroy it,
heaven to redeem it. Although you may lie
a stranger to the Christians in this house,
their fa vs would glow and their hearts would
| bound if they saw yea make one step heaven
; Ward. So intricate and far reaching is this
web of sympathy that I could by one word
rouse a great many prayers in your behalf.
No one cares for your soul! Why, one signal
of distress on yoiir part would thrill thisaudi
j ence with holy excitement. If a boat in any
harlior should get in distress, l—.nthc mcnof
war, and from the sloops, from the
1 steamers the flying paddles ivoun pull to the
: rescue. And if now you would int one signal
of distress all these voyagers of eternity
would bear down toward you and bring you
relief. But no! you are like a ship* on tire
at sea. They keep the hatches down,
and the Captain is frenzied, ami he
gives orders that no one hail the passing
ships. He says: “I shall either land tnis ves
sel in Hamburg or on the bottom of the ocean,
I and 1 don't care which. Yonder is a
t ship of the White Star line passing. Yonder
] one of the National line. Yonder one of the
Inman line. But they know not there is anv
calamity happening on that one vessel. Oil!
if the captain “Would only put his trumpet to
his lip, and cry out: “ Cower your boats!
Bear down this way! We are burning upl
Fire! Fire!’ - No. No. No signal is given.
If that vessel perishes, having hailed no one,
whose fault will it bet Will it be the fault of
the ship that hid its calamity, or will it be
the fault of tile-vessels that,, passing oil the
high seas, would have been glad to furnish re
lief it it had been only asked? In other words,
my brother, if you miss heaven it will be
your own fuult.
No one cares for your soul! Why, in all the
ages there have I veil men whose entire busi
ness was soul saving. In this work Munson
went down und Jie knives of the cannibals ‘
whom he had eoi. eto save, and Robert 31c-
Cheyne preached himself to death by thirty
years of age, and John Runyan was thrown
into a dungeon in Bedfordshire, and Jehudi
Ashman endured all the malarias of the Afri
can jungle; and there are hundreds and thou
sands of Christian men and women now who
are praying, toiling, preaching, living, dying,
to save sou Is.
No one cares for your soul I Have you heard
how Christ feels about it? 1 know it was
only five or six miles from Bethlehem to
Calvary, the hirthplifre and the deathplaee
of Christ ; but who can tell how many miles
it was from the throne to the manger? How
many miles down, how many miles back
again? The place of his departure was the
focus of all splendor and pomp; all the
thrones facing his throne; his name the chorus
in every song and the inscription on every
banner; his landing place a cattle pen, mal
odorous with unwashed brutes, and dogs
growling in and out of the stable. Born
of a Weary mother who had journeyed
eighty milrs in severe unhealth that she
might find the right place for the Lord’s na
tivity—horn, not as other princes, under the
flash of a chandelier, but under a lantern
swung by a rope to the roof of the barn. In
that place Christ started to save you. Your
name, your face, your time, your eternity,
in Christ’s mind Sometimes traveling on
mule’s back to escape old Hero-Ts massacre,
sometimes attempting nervous sleep on the
chilly hillside, sometimes earning his break
fast oy the carpentry of a plow. In Quaran
tnnia the stones of the field, by their shape
and color, looking like the loaves of bread,
tantalizing his hunger. Yet all the time
keeping on after you. With drenched coat
treading the surf at Gene.ssaret. Howled after
by a bloodthirsty mob. Denounced as a
drunkard. Mourning over a doomed city,
while others shouted at the sight of the shim
mering towers. All the time coming on and
coming on to save you. Indicted as being a
traitor against government, perjured wit
nesses swearing their souls away to insure
his butchery. Flogged, spit on, slapped in
the face and then hoisted on rough lumber,
in sight of earth and heaven and hell to
purchase your eternal emancipation. From
the first infant step to the last step of man
hood on the sharp spike of Calvary a journey
for you. Oh! now he eared for your soul!
By dolorous arithmetic adil up the stable, the
wintry tempest, the midnight dampness, the
abstinence of forty days from food, the brutal
Sanhedrim, the heights of Golgotha, across
which all the hatreds of earth and all the
furies of hell charged with their bayonets, and
then dare to say again that no one cares for
your soul.
A young man might as well go off from
home and give his father and mother no inti
mation as to where he has gone, and, cross
ing the seas, sitting down in some foreign
country, cold, sick and hungry ami lonely,
saying: “My father and mother don’t care
anything about me.” Do not care anything
about him! Why, that father’s hair has
turned gray since his son went off. He has
written to all the consuls in the foreign ports,
asking about that son. Docs not the mother
care anything about him? He has broken her
heart. She has never smiled since he went
away. All day long, and almost all night,
she keeps asking: “Where is he? Where can
he I c? - ’ He is the first thought in her prayer
and the last thought in her prayer, the first
thought in the morning and the last at night.
She says: “Oh, God, bring back my boy! I
must see him again before I die. Where is
he? I must see him again before I die. “Oh,
do not his father and mother care for him?
You go away from your Heavenly Father,
and you think he does not care for you
because you will not even read the letters by
which he invites you to come back, while
all heaven is waiting, and waiting, and wait
ing for you to return. A young man said to
his father: “I am going off: I will write to
you at the end of seven years and tell you
where I am.” Many years have passed along
since that son went away, arid for years the
father has been going to the depot
in the village, on the arrival of every
train, and when he hears the whistle in the
, distance he is thrilled with excitement, and
he waits until all the passengers have come
out, and then he waits until the train has
gone 'dear out of sight again, and then he
goes home, hastening back to the next train;
and he will be at every train until that son
comes back, unless the son waits until the
father be dead. But oh. the greater patience
of God! He has been waiting for you, not
seven years, not nine years, but for some of
you, twenty years, thirty years, forty years,
fifty years—waiting, railing—waiting, railing
until nothing hut ominpotent patience could
have endured it. Oh, my brother, do not take
the sentiment of my text as your sentiment.
We do care for your soul. One Sabbath
night, years ago. in my church in Brook
lyn. a young rnan appeared at the end of the
platform and he said to me: “I have just come
off the sea.” I said: “When did you arrive? - ’
Said he: “I came into port this afternoon. I
was in a great ‘blow’ off ( ape Hatteras this
la«t, week, and I thought that I might as
well go to heaven as to hell. I
thought the ship would sink : but, sir,
I never very seriously thought about
my soul until to-night.” 1 said to him: “Do
you feel that Cbnst is able and willing to
save youT “Oh, yes,” he replied, “I do."
“V\ ell,” I said, “now are you willing to come
and tie saved by Him' “I am." he said.
“Well, will you now, in the prayer we are
about to offer, give yourself to God for time
and eternity;” “I will,” he said Then we
knelt in prayer, and after we had got
through praying, he told me that the great
transformation had taken place I could not
doubt it He is on the sea now I do not
know what other port he may gain or lose,
but I think he will gain the harbor of heaven
MT. VERNON, MONTGOMERY CO., GA., WEDNESDAY. APRIL li. 1887.
Star of peace, beam o’er the billow.
Bless the soul that sighs for Thee:
Rios; the sailor's lonely pillow,
Far, far at soa,
It was sudden conversion with him that
night. Oh, that It might bo sudden conver
sion with you to-day! God can savo you in
one moment as well as ho can in a century.
There are sudden deaths, sudden calamities,
sudden losses. Why not sudden deliverances!
God’s spirit is infinite in speed. He comes
here with omnipotent power, and he is ready
here and now, instantaneously ami forever,
to save your soul. I believe that a multitude
of you will to-day come to God. 1 fool you
are coming, and you will bring along your
families and your friends with you.
They hnvo heard in heaven already of
the step you are are about to take. The
news has been cried along the golden streets
and has rung out from the towers: “A soul
saved! A soul saved!” But there is some
one here to-day who will reject this gospel.
He will stay out of the kingdom of God luin
self. He will keen his family and his friends
out. It is a dreadful thing for a man just to
plant himself in the way of life, then keep
back bis children, keep back his companion
in life, keep back his business partners — refuse
to go into heaven himself and refuse to let
others go in.
A young mail, at the close of a religious
service, was asked to decide the matter of his
soul’s salvation. He said: "I will not do it
to-night.” \V r ell, the Christian man kept
talking with him, and ho said; “I insist that
to-night you either take God or reject Him.”
“Well,” said the young man. “if you put it
that way, I will reject Him. There, now, the
matter’s settled.” On his way home on horse
back ho knew not that a tree lia 1 fallen aslant
the road, and h > was going at full speed, and
he struck: the obstacle and dropped lifeless.
That night his Christian mother heard
the riderless horse plunging about the
barn, and. mistrusting something terrible
was the matter, she went out and came tothe
place where her son lay, and- she cried out:
“Oh. Henry! dead and not a Christian. Oh,
mvs m! my son! dead and not a Christian.
Oil. Henry! Henry! dead and not a Chris
tian.” God keeii us from such a catastrophe.
the family album.
A Mtlle Itrnl Mfe Picture Well Dmni
[From the Han Francisco Chronicle.]
Do you ever open the old album and
look over the pictures ? Well, the old
folks—your father and mother—always
look well, for, don t you know, parents
are always old-fushioned. But there’s
your aunt, with a coal sent tie bonnet
uni! hoops, and her hair pasted down
over her forehead and parted in the
middle; with a kind of jaundice com-i
plexion and bright eyes that show in’
their pupils nothing but the excited,
intense interest of trying to look into
the camera for 50 seconds without wink
ing. And you thought she was so pretty
then, and you remember as a child when
you went and told your mother you saw
her being kissed by her beau at the gar
den gate 'Then there’s her beau, who
afterward married her. He was so
handsome, don’t you know. Look at 1
him He wears a long frock coat with
lapels that curl up under his arms; he
has a flaming necktie and a shirt front
showing down to where the coat looks
as if it was tied by a string tight around
his waist. liis trousers don’t fit, and
his face is all covered with yellow
specks, and he looks ns if ho had swal
lowed a fly and he daren’t cough for
fear of spoiling the picture. Then
there’s yourself. Well, that’s not so
bad. You know you were very pretty
as a child, and you remember the dress,
and well—you’re not quite so old-fash
ioned—to yourself -as the others. And
you turn the page. There’s Fred, whom
you jilted. You look at him and your’e
glad you jilted him. He used to he so
beautifully pensive. Now he looks like
an idiot, and—well—you doubt if he
ever could have been so horrid, anyway.
Then your husband comes along and
turns the book over anti says: “Do you re
member that?” You close it on his fin
gers; it's fearful. You have an old
fashioned, shapeless black silk gown
that looks like gingham, or something
with wide sleeves and big ruffles, ana
the skirt is gracefully bunched out like
a half-exhausted balloon. And you’ve
had the picture painted, and the beauti
ful red of your cheeks has become mot
lied, a’d the neck is yellow, and the
Yair is a dirty brown color, and you’ve
got hold most awkwardly of a green
chair. And your husband wonders
what he ever could see in you, until you
show him his own picture. Then he
shuts up suddenly, like a knife don’t you
know. And the old gray-headed man
comes and takes up the book. He has
lost the taste for fashions and styles, and
only the faces speak to him. He thinks,
as he looks at this faded and yellow por
trait—it is his wife when they were
both ‘SO years younger and photographs
were not so common—she is for a mo
ment young again, and he remembers
how he stood in the corner afraid to
breathe until the cap was put on, in
case some movement of his lips might
break the spell and fri hten away the
sunlight. But he has another picture,
older than the paper photograph. It is
a daguerreotype. He keeps it to him
self. It cost him dear. It is of a young
girl in the first blush of womanhood,
and all the modern cameras in the world,
with all the most patent impiovements
and all the most embellishing effects,
can never make so beautiful a picture
for him.
TffF.V ARBITRATED.
An old tramp who had agreed to saw
wood for half an hour for his breakfast
from a Baltimore woman quit at the
seventh stick and said “Madam, I have
struck for more breakfast and less wood;
are you willing to arbitrate?” “Cer
tainly,” she replied, and she left the
case in the hands of her bull dog, who
ran the tramp half a mile and decided
that a lockout was inevitable.
“How styles have changed since I
was a girl,” said an old lady. “When I
was young we used to wear our dresses
up to the neck and gloves with only one
button. Now they wear the gloves up
to the neck and only one button on the ,
dress.”
“SUB DEO FACIO FORTITER.”
BETTER AND BRAVER.
Aye, the world is a better world to day
And a great good mother this earth of ours.
Her white tomorrows are a white stairway,
To lead us up to the star-lit flowers —
The spiral tomorrows, that one by one
Wo climb and we climb in the face of the sun.
Aye, the world is a braver world to-day!
For many a hero will bear with wrong—
Will laugh at, wrong, will turn away;
Will whistle it down the wind with n song—
Will slay the wrong with his splendid scorn;
The bravest hero that ever was Ixirn.
—Joaquin Miller.
OLD (IRIDLF.VS GHOST.
‘Why, Dunham, what’s tho matter?
How your hand trembles I Are you sick?”
“No; not exactly.”
“What ails you then? Speak out, man.
Have you been seeing a ghost?”
“To tell the truth, Maggie, I do feel
a little nervous this morning. I haven’t
made a trip these twenty years that I
dreaded like this.”
“Seen Old Gridley again?”
“Yes.” 8
“I’shawl I thought that was it.
Haven't you seen him a dozen times be
fore and nothing came it?”
“This time he had his sextant.”
All this was at the breakfast table.
Dunham was mate of the. Oro Fino, mak
ing tri-monthly trips between Portland
and San Francisco. He had sailed thirty
years, been round the world twice, been
Captain about six years, but lost his ship
and couldn’t get, another, and so was
glad to he First Mate of the Oro Fino.
Dual lain had a habit of seeing ghosts,
or, rather, a ghost, for he never saw but
one; that was old Gridley. Gridley
was mate of the vessel on which Ounhaiii
made his first trip as a ship-hoy. That
trip was Dunham’s first, hut Grid ley’s
last. Gridley had a passion for heating
ship’s boys with a rope’s end. Gridley
was taking an observation with the sex
tant. and, as the hoy was passing him
with a bucket and swab, a sudden lurch
of the ship threw him against the mate.
Gridley seized a rope's end, and was be
laboring the boy soundly when a boom,
providentially left, loose, struck him and
knocked him overboard. Ever since that,
on numerous occasions Dunham had seen
Gridley’s ghost usually with a rope’s
end, but sometimes with a sextant. He
had never been able to see any particular
fatality portended by the vision with the
rope's end. He had seen it a dozen
times; and, on some occasions, his best
lurk had seemed to follow the apparition.
Not so when the ghost with the. sextant
appeared. He had seen this only twice
—once, the night before he fell from the
foretop and broke his leg; the other time,
the night, before his ship was east away.
Last night was the third time. He had
waked up and found himself lying on his
back. The room was perfectly dark; it
was also perfectly still. Dunham could
see nothing and could hear nothing.
Nevertheless, lie felt that something or
somebody was in the room that ought to
be out of it. He also felt a draught of
cold air. Dunham was no stickler for
ventilated apartments, and had carefully
closed and locked the windows before re
tiring. Tlie air could not come from
the windows; neither could it come from
the bed-room door, for that opened into
the sitting-room just opposite to a win
dow, and if the door had been open lie
could have seen the window. Despite
his natural courage, Dunham was fright
ened. He raised himself on his elbow
very cautiously. He looked about the
room; he could see absolutely nothing.
He reached over to where Maggie, his
wife, slept—she was there. He moist
ened his linger in his mouth and held it
up. He could then sensibly feel the
draft of air corning from the foot of his
bed. He got up and struck a light.
Looking over his shoulder as he did so,
he saw, at the foot of his bed, old Gridley.
It, would do no good to shout aloud his
wife would only laugh at him. He had
often waked her up to look at the ghost,
but she professed never to see it. It
would do no good to go up to the appari
tion and try to seize it he had often
done this, and it only disappeared for an
instant to reappear in another part, of the
room. Ho he left the lamp burning and
got into bed with his eyes fixed on the
figure.
This time Gridley had his sextant, and
seemed busy bringing an imaginary sun
down to an imaginary horizon. The
operation completed, the figure turned to
the bureau and seemed to be making the
calculation. Then he turned to Dun
ham, and shook his head negatively, and
dashed the sextant to the floor. A sud
den crack startled the mate. He had
turned the lampwiek too high, and the
chimney had cracked and fallen to the
floor.
In the morning Dunham was a little
nervous. However, having taken a cup
or two of strong coffee, felt more corn
posed.
Joey Dunham, the mate’s only child, a
boy of ten years of age, almost always ac
companied his father on his trips. This
time Dunham proposed to leave hirn at
home; but the boy seemed so disap
pointed that, his father finally gave way,
and they started together down to the
steamer.
Joey was perfectly at home, and while
his father was busy, stole up into the
wheelhouse, which had incautiously been
left unlocked. The wheelman, coming
along soon after, met Joey stealing down
the steps, looking scared and guilty.
In an hour the Oro Fino was at the
mouth of the Willamette, and struck the
strong, full current of the Columbia.
Having more sea-room now, she began to
use her strength. The flames roar
through the flues; the engineer turns on
a full head of steam; the clear, sweet wa
ter of the river, cut clean and neat by the
prow, is dashed into snowy foam by the
paddles, and sinks and rises in a swell-
ing wake for half a mile to the stern.
Fishing boats and Indian canoes glide
past her like shuttles, and before you can
fairly turn to look, are tossing and rock
ing on the swell many rods behind.
A blank hull, supporting a cloud of
dingy white canvas, Is seen ahead. It is I
(he Hudson Bay Company’s store-ship,
bound for Vancouver. A flash, a cloud
of white smoke, a heavy thud, and she has
saluted the Oro Fino. A jar and a thun
der-clap that startles the old ones, and
sets the ladies to screaming, and the Oro
Fino has saluted her. Three cheers from
the stranger as the British flag runs up to
tho masthead, and three cheers ns tho
stars and stripes curl and snap in the
stiff breeze from our gaff. Now that sho
has passed, and the sun falls full on her
canvass, she seems like a great bank of
snow floating up the river.
Nearly everybody is tired of watching
her, and many have gono into the cabins
to avoid the wind which is growing
chilly, and others arc composing them
selves in twos and threes about the deck,
when a new and more thrilling episode
calls them nil to their feet again. Dun
ham and two men come tearing up tho
staireas to the quarter-deck. The bell
tinkles, and the paddles stop.
“Man overboard 1” is theory. Every
one rushes to the stern; every one scans
the boiling current. “There, I see him!”
cries one. “He’s treading water!” cries
another. Everybody can sec him now;
but by this time the tremendous mo
mentum of the vessel has left him a little
speck a quarter of a mile behind. It takes
an ago to lower tho boat. Finally it is
off —Dunham in the stern, and the sturdy
sailors bending the ash dangerously. “Can
behold out?” “Oh,yes; can’t you see him?
He’s treading water.” “No,he’s floating.”
“Anyhow, he keeps up bravely.” “How
slow the boat goes 1" “Why don’t they
pull?” In fact, the boat was cutting tho
water like a frightened lisli. Men on the
ship involuntarily bent and strained, as
though they could help in that way. The
boat nears the floating object, now only a
speck in the distance. A joyful murmur
goes up from tho ship, “lie’s saved!”
“ Oh, those strongmen!” But Dunham
sheers the boat, around, and picks up only
a hat and holds it high in the ahr. The
owner had long since sunk. By the time
the tired crew were taken on board and
the vessel under headway, it was dark.
They made Astoria by midnight, and lay
to alongside the wharf.
The wind freshened during the night,
and by morning a heavy gale, tilled with
salt spray, was driving in directly from
the sea. The pilot reported that it would
be impossible to cross the bar in such a
blow. Ho they waited. Dmilmm’s pre
sentment of bad luck had been strength
ened by the loss of the man from tho
ship, and he was more nervous and gloomy
than when he left home. Ho he took his
boy and went ashore. He went to the
house of a friend and left Joey there,
with orders to return to Portland by the
first steamer that should go up. lie also
wrote a letter to his wife a little longer
than usual, almost two pages, and a little
more affectionate than usual. He excused
himself for writing by telling her that
the bar was so bad they couldn’t cross,
and it was a little too dull to stay there
doing nothing.
By ten o’clock the squall had abated,
and by noon the pilot said he thought he
could get over the bar by taking the
nortli channel. While the firemen were
getting up steam, Dunham ran over to
his friend’s house—it was only a few
steps and bade Joey good-bye, and told
him to boa good boy and mind bis
mother, and gave him sundry other items
of good advice which I fear the young
scapegrace did not attend to closely, be
ing engaged in the very amusing game of
sec-saw with the little girl of the house. !
By three o’clock the ship was fairly
under way again. By five, she was safely
over the bar, and had put her pilot
aboard a steamer which was waiting on
the outside to enter. Tho captain, having
been up all the previous night, went to
his cabin and turned in for the night.
The passengers were all either sea-sick or
chilled by the cold wind, and had gone
to their rooms and into the cabin. The
wheelman, by orders from Dunham,
made out Cane Disappointment and Til- i
lamook Head, and took bis ranges from
them and put the ship on her course. He
had only time to do this when a fog
rolled up, so dense that even the light on
Cape Disappointment could scarcely he
seen. Dunham assured himself that the
ship was on the right course by going
into the wheel-house and looking for
himself. Having done this, and know
ing the coast perfectly, he felt pretty
safe. He was a little confused and ner
vous, however, and so he went down to
the cabin and overhauled his charts, and
read the sailing directions just as though
he had never made the trip before. He
seemed to be all right. “Bring your ves
sel in range with Cape Disappointment
and Tillamook Head, and then put her
about south by cast.” He had done this
fifty times before, and had come out all
right. To be sure that no mistake had
been made, he climbed up to the wheel
house, and quietly asked the man at the
wheel how he had got his range. He
answered promptly and satisfactorily.
Everything was according to orders. Ho
Dunham cursed his nervousness, and
walked hack to the smoke-stack.
The wind had gone down with the sun,
but a heavy sea was running, and it was
as dark as Tartarus. Dunharn paced the
deck for half an hour, then went below
to get his cloak. Being chilly, he went
up to the hurricane deck and sat with his
back to the smoke-stack. Being nervous,
he lit a cigar. Being careful, he walked
forward to see how things were moving.
He thought he heard a distant roar. He
listened, and could hear nothing. He
walked back to the smoke-stack. In ten
mimies he came forward again. He
thought he heard the roar of the surf.
He called to the man at the whiiei:
“Abbott!”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
VOL. II NO. 5.
“How does she stand?”
“Bou’ by cast, sir.”
That was all right; that was the course
Dunham had put her on.
He went to the paddle-box and signaled
the engine to stop. Theri he called a man
and had the lead thrown. “Twenty-four.
Plenty of water,” thought Durham, and
started the engine. He therf went to the
Captain's cabin and knocked. The Cap
tain did not hear the first time, and he
knocked again.
“Who’s there?”
“The mate.”
The Captain opened a port near the
head of nis berth, and asked him what
the matter was. Dunham reported. The
Captain told him it was all right; that it.
was foggy, and the roar of the surf with
such a sea on and no wind could be
heard ten miles. Durham rather thought
so, too, and went away. During this
parley, and while the mate stopped a few
minutes to look after things below, the
ship hnd made more than two miles head
way. By the time Durham got on deck
again the roar of the surf was frightful,
lie fairly screamed at the helmsman.
“Abbott!”
“Ay, ay, sir.”
“How’s her head?”
“Sou’ by east, sir.”
Amazing! Dunham ran toft* pa«
box and jerked a signal. The engine
stopped. Then he rushed to the Cap
tain’s door and called him out in the
name of the gods. Both flow on deck.
There was no mistake about it; there
were the breakers not half a mile ahead,
judging by the sound, thundering and
boiling against the shore. Dunham hail
almost run the ship’s head on shore, and
that, too, when she was holding pre
cisely the same course; by compass that
ho had put her on tifty times before.
The Captain roared: “What’s her
course?”
“Sou’ by cast, sir.”
“Put her sou’west.”
“Sou’west, sir,” echoed the tnan at the
wheel, and the wheel spun round and the
chains rattled. The Captain rushed to
the signal-bell and started the engine,
and got the ship under good steering
headway. Scarcely had she started on
her new course when a scraping sound
was heard and felt —then hump, bump,
bump, as though the ship had been lifted
up and set down hard three times; then
a crash that sent the captain and mate on
their faces, and brought the smoke
stacks crashing through the decks, and
and snapped olf the topmasts like pipe
stems. The ship had struck a sunken
rock, and began to fill at once.
Who got to shore, and how they got to
shore, matters not. It is the same old
story. The news spread on wings. Mem
came and dragged the swollen corpses of
their friends out of the surf, or dug them
out of the sand, or identified them in the
shed, or paced the beach day after day,
looking out on the remorseless sea that
sullenly clung to its dead.
The captain and the wheelman, Ab
bott, went to Portland together—Dun
ham they never found and there they
talked over the strange affair and ex
hausted all their ingenuity in vain to ac
count for the loss of fhi' ship when on
the right course on a still night. When
the wrecking-tug was ready, they went
out to the wreck. It still hung on the
rocks. The bows were high out of water.
The two men climbed up into the wheel
house. They unscrewed the eornpasss box
from its fastening and brought it on
shore. There they opened it, and lifted
up the card and needle, and there lay the
little instrument of death—a broken
knife-blade.
The handle and the rest of the blade
were in little Joey Dunham’s pocket, lb*
had tried to pry out the glass, to see what
made the card swing around so when he
held his knife by it, and in doing so had
broken the blade. He concealed bis
mischief and stole away. Argonaut.
Sleep Necessary.
The present, epoch is one which the
mind of man seems to turn to the per
formance of impossibilities, or what have
been regarded as impossibilities. Explor
ers seek to penetrate the North Pole, and
mountain climbers to scale the highest
peak of the Himalayas. Captain Webb
losses his life in seeking to swim the Ni
agars Rapids. Dr. Tanner goes forty
days, and an Italian fifty days, without
food.
The latest attempt of doing something
that nobody else lias ever done, is that,
of an Italian named Kouzani, who essayed
to go three weeks without sleeping, but
was speedily convicted of using decep
tion in making people believe that he got
along without sleep.
Whatever feats of endurance men may
accomplish, they cannot live long with
out sleeping. The victims of the Chi
nese waking torture seldom survive more
than ten days. These unfortunate men
are given all they wish to eat and drink,
but when they close their eyes they are
pierced with spears and awakened. There
Is no torture more horrible.
Men sleep under almost all conditions
of bodily and mental suffering, however.
Men condemned to death—even those
who fear their fate—generally sleep the
night before their execution. Soldiers
sleep lying upon sharp rocks, and even
while on the march.
No one knows just what sleep is. The
prevailing theory as to its nature is that
of the Physiologist Preyer, who holds
that refuse matter accumulates in the
nervous centres in such quantity as to
| bring about insensibility, which is sleep,
and which continues until the brain has
been relieved of this waste matter by its
absorption into the circulation. Byway
! of contrast to the cases of those who seek
to do without sleep, or are often unable
to obtain it,a case is recorded by Dr. Phip
son in which a young man slept thirty
two hours without waking. Youth’*
Companion.
Arabic notation was introduced into
Europe in the tenth century.