Newspaper Page Text
REV. HR. TALMAGE.
TH E IIKOOKUYN DIVINES SUN
DAY SKKMON.
Subject: “The Deer Hunt."
Text: “»4s the hart panteth after the
water brooks, so pantet h my soul after Thee ,
O G 'd.” —Psalm, xlii. 1.
David, who must sometime have seen a
deer hunt, points us here to a hunted stag
making for the water. The fascinating
animal called tin my text the hart, is the
same animal that in .‘-acred and profane
literature is called the stag, the roebuck, the
hind, the gazelle, the reindeer. In Central
Syr a in Bi t >le times there Mere whole p sture
fields of them, as Solomon suggests when he
says: “1 charge you by the hinds of the
field.". Their antlers jutted from the long
grass as .they lay down. No hunter
who has been long in “John Brown's
ti ark,” will wonder that in the Bible they
" ere class -d among clean animals, for the
dews, th" showers, the lakes washed them as
e!< at as the sky When Jacob, the patriarch,
longed for venison. E-au shot and
brought home a roebuck. Isaiah corn
par- the sprightliness of the restored
cripple of millennial time to the long
an i quick jump of* the stag, saying:
“1 h lame shall leap as the hart.” Solo
mon expressed his disgust at a hunter
who having shot a deer is too lazy*
to cook it, saying: “The slothful
man roastetli not that which he took in
hunting." But one day D ivid, while far
from the Home from which he had been
driven, and -itting near the door of a lonely
cave where he had lodged, and on (Jie banks
of a pond or river, hears a pack of hounds in
swift pursuit. B ‘cause of the previous silence
of r e forest the clangor startles him. and he
savs t-j himself: “i wonder what thosi dogs
are after.” Then there is a crackling
in the brushwood, and the loud breath
fogl f some rushing wonder of the wools,
and Uie enters of a deer rend th i leaves
of the thicket, and by an instinct
which all hunters recogniz?, plunges into a
pond or lake or river to cool its thirst, a(pl
at the same time by its ca.; aeitv for swifter
and longer swimming, to get away from the
foaming harriers. David says to himself:
“Aha, that is myself! Haul after me. Ab- i
salom after me, enemies without number
after me, I am chased, their bloody muzzles
at my heels, barking at mv good name,
balking after my body*, barking after my J
soul. Oh. the hounds, the hounds. But :
look there. - ' says David, “that reindeer
has splash- d into the water. It puts its hot
lips an! nostrils int.o the coo' wave that
washes t e lathered Hanks, and it swims away
from the fiery canines, and it is free at last.
Oh, th f; I might find in the deep, wide iake !
of God’s mercy and consolation escape from i
my pursuers! Oh. for the wat -rs of life and
re< ue! As the hai t panteth after the water
broo s. so panteth iny soul after i'hee, O
God.”
I have just come from the Adirondacks and
th ■ breath of the balsam and spruco and
pne is still on me. The Adirondacks are
now i opulous with hunters, and the deer are
beit g slain by the score. Talking a few days
ago wit h a hunter, I thought I would like to
sec whether my text was accurate in its al
lusion. nd as 1 heard the cloys baying a little
wa v ofT and supposed they were on the track
of a re ndeer, I said to the hunter in rough
corduroy: “Do the deer always
make for the water when they are
pursued!” He said: “O, yes, Mister, you
see they are a hot and thirsty* animal, and
th. v no v where the water is.and when they*
Ip nr din er in the distance they lift their
an - f rs and snuff the breeze and start for the
Rie (jiiet, or Loon or Saranac; and we get
inio our cedar sh II boa* or stand by the
‘runway’with rifle leaded ready to blaze
awav. 1 My friends, that is one reason why
I 1 !,e the Bible so much—its allusions
are so true to nature. Its partridges
are m real partridges, its ostriches
real ostriches, and its reindeer real
reindeer. Ido not wonder that thisant'ered
glory of the text makes the ■ inter’s eye
sparkle and his cheek glow and his respira
tion quieken. To say nothing of its useful
ness, although it is the most useful of all
gam its flesh delicious, its skin turned into
human apparel, its sinews fashioned into bow
strin s, its antlers putting handles on cut
lerv. and the shavings of its horns, us“d as a
restorative, taken from the name of the hart
arid called hartshorn. Put putting aside its
usefulness, this endian 1 ing creature seem 3
made out of gracefulness and elasticity.
It 1 at an eye. with a liquid brightness as if
gathered up from a hundred lakes of sunset!
The horns, a coronal branching into every
possible curve, and after it seems done, ad
vancing into other projections of exquisite
ness, a tree of poflished bone, uplifted in pride,
or swung down for awful combat. It is veloci
ty embodied. Timidity impersonated. Theen
chantnie tof the woods. Eve lustrous in life
and pathetic ;n death. The splen lid animal
a complete rhythm of muscle and bone, and
color and attitude, and locomotion, whether
couched in the grass among th > shadows, or
a living bo’t shot through the forest, or
turr. n at bay t > attack the bounds, or rear
ing or its la'-t fall under the buckshot of the
trapper. It is a splendid appearance that
the pa o’er’s pencil fails to s' etch, and only
a hunter’s dream on a pillow of hem
lock at the foot of St. Regis is
able to p'eture. "When twenty miles from
any settlement it conies down at eventide to
the lake's edge to drink among the lily pods, j
and. with its sharp-edged hoof, shatters the
crvstal of 1 ong Lake, it is very pieturt sque, I
But onlv when, after miles of pursuit, with
heaving sides and lo'ling tongue, and eyes
sw oming in death the stag leaps from the j
Ciilf in o Upper .Saranac, can yon realize
how much David had suffered from his j
troub es.and how much he wanted God when
he expressed himself in the words of the text:
“As the hart panteth aft r the water brooks,
so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.”
Well, now, let all those who have coming
after them the lean hounds of poverty, or the
black hounds of persecution, or the spotted
hounds of vicissitude, or the pale hounds of
death, or who are in any wise pursued, fly to
the wide, deep, glorious lake of divine solace
and r scue. Ihe most of the men and women
whom I happen to know,at different times, if
not now, have had trouble after theta, sharp
muz ltd troub Vs, swift troubles, all
devour.ng troubles. Many of you have
mate the mistake of trying to fight
them. Somebody meanly attacked you,
and you attacked them; they depreciated
you, you depreciated them; or they over
reached you in a bargain, and you tried, in
"Vt all street parlance, to get a corn r on them;
or yon have ha l a bereavement, and instead
Of being submissive, you are lighting that
bereavement; you charge on the doctors who
failed to effect a cure; or you charge on care
lessness of th" railroad company through
which the accident occurred: or vou are a
chronic invalid, and you fret and
worry and sco'd and wonder why
you cannot be well like others,
and you angrily charge on the neuralgia or
the laryngitis or the ague or the sick he ii
ache. The fact is you are a deer at bay. In
stead of running to the waters of divine con
solation, and slaking your thirst and cooling
your liody and soul in the good cheer of the
Go-pel, and swimming away into mighty
deeps of God's love, you are fighting a whole
kennel of „ harriers. A few days ago
I saw in the Adirondacks a dog ly
ing across the road, and he seemed un
able to get up, and I said to some
hunters near by: “What is the matter with
thatdogP’ They answered: “A deer hurt
him.” And I saw that he had a great swolien
pa 'v and a battered head, showing where the
antlers struck him. And the probability is
that some of you might give a mighty clip to
your pursuers, you might damage their busi
ness. ou in ght worry them into ill-health,
you might hurt them as much as they have
burr you, but, after all, it is not worth
w.ii.e. You only have hurt a hound.
Better be off for the Upper Saranac,
into which the mountains of Hod’s eternal
strength look down and moor their shadows
As for your physical disorders, the worst
strychnine you can take is fretfuiness,and the
best medicine is religion. I know people who
were only a little disordered,yet have fretted
themselves into complete valetudmarinism,
while others put their trust in God and
name up from the *' v “ , iow of
death, and have lived comfortably tvventv
! five years with only one lung. A man w itli
I one lung, but God with him, is beticr off
j than a godless man with two lungs, torn:-
1 of you have been for a long time sailing
around Cape Fear when you ought to have
i been sailing around t a]K> Good Hope. Do
not turn back but go ahead. The deer will
j accomplish more with its swift feet than
with its horns.
I saw whole chains of lakes in the Adiron
dacks, and from one height you can sea
• thirty, and there are said to be over eight
| hundred in the great wilderness. Bo near
are they to each other that your mountain
guide picks up and carries the boat from
j lake to lake, the small distance between them
for that reason being called a “carry.”
And the realm of God’s word is
one long chain of bright refreshing lakes;
: each promise a lake, a very short carry
l between them, and though for ages
: the pursued have been drinking but of them,
I the\- are full up to the top of the green
banks, and the name David describes them,
and they seem so near together that in three
I different places he speaks of them as as a
continuous river, saying: “There is a river
the stream whereof shall make glad the city
I ot God;” “Thou shall make them drink of
the rivers of thy pleasures;” “Thou greatly
! enrichest it with the river of God which is
j full of water,”
But many of you have turned your back
I on that supply, and confront your trouble,
| and you are sour d with your circumstances,
and you are rtgntmg so -iety, and you are
lighting a pursuing world, and troubles in
! stead of driving you into the cool lake of
heavenly comfort, have made you stop and
turn round and lower your head, and it is
simply antler against tooth. I do
not blame you. Probably under
the same circumstances I would
have done worse. But you are all wrong.
Vou need to do as the reindeer does in Feb
ruary and March—it sheds its horns. The
Rabbinical writers allude to this resignation
of antlers by the stag yiien they say of a
man who ventures his money in risky enter
prises, he has hung it on the stag’s horns; and
a proverb in the far East tells a man who has
foolishly lost his fortune to go and find where
the deer shed her horns. My brother, quit
the antagonism of your circumstances, quit
misanthropy, quit .complaint, quit pitching
into your pursuers; be as wise as, next
spring, will t o all the reindeer of the Adiron
dacks. Shed your horns.
hut very many of you who are wronged of \
the world—and if in any assembly between
Bandy Hook, New York, and Golden Gate,
Ban Francisco, it were asked that all those
that had been sometimes badly treated
should raise both their hands, and
full response should be made, there would
be twice as many hands lifted as per- j
sons present—l say many of you would
declare: “We have always done the best we
could and tried to be useful, and why we
should become the victims of malignment,
or invalidism, or mishap, is inscrutable.”
Why do you not know that the finer a deer,
and the more elegant its proportions, and the
more beautiful its bearing, the more anxious
the hunters and the hounds are to capture it.
Had that roebuck a ragged fur and broken
bools and an obliterated eye and a limping
gait the hunters would have said: “Pshaw!
don’t let us waste our ammunition on a sick
deer. ” And the hounds w’ould have given a
few sniffs of the track and darted off in an
other direction for better game. But when
they see a deer with antlers lifted in
mighty challenge to earth and sky, and I
the sleek hide looks as if it had been smoothed j
by invisible hands, and the fat sides enclose
the richest pasture that could be nibbled
Irorn the bank of rills so clear they seem to
lia4e dropped out of heaven, and the stamp
of its foots defies tho jack-shooting lantern
and the rifle, the horn, and the
round,' that deer they wiil have if they
niu j» needs break their neck in the rapids.
Bo ir there were no noble stuff in your make
up, ;f you were a bifurcated nothing, if you
were a lorforn failure, you would be allowed
to go un listurbed; but the fact that the whole
pack is in full cry after you is proof positive
that you are splendid game and worth
capturing. Therefore, sarcasm draws
on you its “finest bead.” Therefore the
world goes running for you with its best
Maynard breech-loader. Highest compli
ment is it to your talent, or your virtue, or
your u efulness. Yon will be assailed in
proportion to your great achievements. The
best and the mightiest being that the world
ever saw, lad set after him all the
hounds, terrestrial and diabolic and
they lapped his blood after Cal
varean massacre. The world paid noth
ing to its Redeemer but a bramble and a
cross. Many who have done their best to
make the world better have had such a rough
time of it that all their pleasure is in antici
pation of the next world, and thy would
express their own feelings in th**'words i
or the Baroness of 'Nairn at the close of her
long life:
“Would you be young again?
So Would not J;
1 One tear of memory given;
Onward I’ll hie;
Life's dark wave forded o'er,
All but at rest on shore,
Say, woind you plunge once more,
With home so nign? »
“If you might, would you now
Retrace your w ty?
Wander through stormy wilds,
Faint and astray?
Night a gloomy watches fled,
Morning all beaming red.
Hope’s smile around us shed.
Heavenward, away!”
Yes; for some people in this world there
seems no let up. They are pursued from
vouch to manhood, and from manhood into
old age. Very distinguished are Lord
Stafford’s hounds, an 1 tjueeu Victoria pays
eight thonsand, five hundred dollars per year
to her Master of Buckhounds. But all of
them put together do not equal in number,
or speed, or power to hunt down, the great
kennel of hounds of which Bin and Trouble
ure owner and master.
But what is a relief for all those pursuits
oJ trouble, and annoyance, and pain, and be
reavement? My t. xt gives it to you in a
word of three letters, but each letter is a char
iot if you would triumph, or a throne if you
want ; o be crowned, or a lake if you would
slake your thirst—yea, a chain of three letters
—G-o-d, the On" for whom David longed, and
the One whom David found. You might as
well meet a stag whi h, after its sixth mile
of running at -the topmost sited through
thicket and gorge, and u ith the breath of
the dogs on its heels, has come in full sight of
Scroon Lake and tried to cool its projecting
and blistered tongue with a drop of dew from
blade of grass, as to attempt to satisfy
an immortal sqj.il, when flying from trouble
and sin, with anything less deep, and
high, and broad, and immense, and infinite,
and eternal than God. His comfort, why it
embossoms all distress. His arm. it wrenches
off all bondage. His hand, it wipes away all
tears. His Christly atonement, it makes us
all right with the past, aud all right with the
future, and all right with God, all right with
man and all right forever. Lamirtin6
tells us that King Nimrod said
to his three sons: “Here are three vases, and
one is of clay, another of amlier. another of
gold. Choose now which you will have.”
The eldest son, having tli - first choice, chose
the vase <ii gold, on which was written the
word “empire,” and when opened it was
found to cc. ataiu human blood. Thu
second son, making the next choice,
chose the vase of amber, inscribed
with the word “glory,” and when
opened it contained the ashes of those who
were once called great. The third son took
the vase of clay, and opening it, found it
empty, but on the bottom of it was inscribed
the name of God. King Nimrod asked his
courtiers which vase they thought weighed
the most. The avaricious men of his court
said the vase of gold. The poets said the one
of amlier. But the wisest men said the empty
vase, because one letter of the name of God
outweighed a universe.
For Him 1 thirst; for His grace I beg: on
His promise I build my a!L Without Him I
c m not be happy. I have tried the world,
ar.d it does well enough as far as it goes, but
it is too uncertain a world, too evanescent a
world. lam not a prejudiced witness. I
have nothing against this world. 1 have been
| on" of the most fortunate, or, to use a
more Christian word, one of the most
1 blessed of men, blessed in my parents, blessed
in the place of my nativity, blessed in mv
health, blessed in my field of work, bio-sed
i in my natural temperament, blessed in my
family, blessed in my opportunities, blessed
in a comfortable livelihood, blessed in the
hope that my soul will go to Heaven through
the pardoning mercy of God and my
body, unless it be lost nt s a or cremate! in
some conflagration, will lie down in the gar
d ns of Greenwood among my kindred and
friends, some alreadv gone and others to
come after me. Life to many has been a
disappointment, but to me it lias been a
pleasant surprise, and yet I declare that if I
did not feel that God was my friend and ever
present help, I should be wretched and ter
ror struck. But I wai t more of Him. I
lihve thought over this text, and preached
this sermon to myself until with all the
aroused energies of my body, mind and
soul. I can cry out: “As the hart panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my sou!
after Thee, O God.”
Through Jesus Christ make this God your
God and you can withstan l anything and
everything, and that which affrights others
-will inspire-yon. .As in time of earth make
when an old Christian woman was asked
whether she waa scared, answered:
“No, I am glad that 1 have a God
who can shake the world,” or as
in a financial panic, when a Christian
merchant was aske l if he did not fear he
would break, answered: “Yes, I shall break
wln n the fiftieth Psalm breaks in the fiftieth
verse; ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver thee and thou shall glorify
Me.’ ” O Christian men and women, pursued
of annoyances and exasperations, remember
that this hunt, whether a still hunt or a hunt
in full cry, will soon be over. If ever a
whelp looks ashamed and ready to slink out
of sight it is when in the Adirondacks a
deer by one long, tremendous plunge into
Big Tupper Lake gets away from him. The
disappointed canine swims in a little way
but, defeated, swims out again auil
cringes with humiliate! yawn at
the feet of his master. And how
abashed and ashamed will all your earthly
troubles he when you have dashed into the
river from under the throne of God, and the
heights and depths of heaven are between
you an 1 your" pursuers. We are told
in Revelation, and 15th: “With
out are dogs,” by ‘ which I conclude
there is a whole kennel of hounds out
side the gate of heaven, or, as when a
master goes in a door, his dog lies on the
steps waiting lor him to come out, so the
troubles of this life may follow us to the
shining door, but they cannot get in. “With
out are doss!” I have seen dogs, and owned
dogs, that I would not be chagrined to see in
the heavenly city. Some of the grand old
watch dogs who are the constabulary of
the homes in solitary places, and for years
have been the only protection of wife and
child; some of the shepherd dogs that drive
back the wolves and bark away the flocks
from going too near tho precipice; and some
of the dogs whose neck and paw Land
seer, the painter, has made im
mortal, would not find me shut
ting them out from the gate of shining
pearl. Some of those old St. Bernard dogs
that have lifted perishing travelers out of
the Alpine snow; the dog that John Brown,
the Scotch e-sayist, saw ready to spring at
the surgeon lest, in removing the cancer, he
too much hurt the poor woman whom the
dog felt bound to protect; and dogs
that we caressed in our childhood
days, or that in later time laid down on the
rug in apparent sympathy when our homes
were desolated. 1 say, if some soul entering
heaven should happen to leave the gate a jar
and these faithful creatures should quietly
walk in, it would not at all disturb iny
heaven. But all those human or brutal
hounds that have chased and torn and lacer
ated the world: yea, all that now bite or
worry or tear to pieces, shall be
prohibited “Without are dogs!’’ Noplace
there for harsh critics or back biters or de
spoilers of the reputation of others. Down
with you to the kennels of darkness and de
spair! The heart has reached the eternal
Mater brooks, and the panting of the long
cha e is quieted in still pastures, and "Th-re
shall be nothing to hurt or destroy in all
God's holy mount.”
Oh, when some of you get there it will be
like what a farmer tells of when he was push
ing his canoe far up North in the winter and
amid the ice-floes, and a hundred miles, as
he thought, from any other human beings.
He was staruvl one day as he heard a
stepping on the ice, and he cocked
the rifle ready to meet anything that
came near. He found a man, barefooted and
insane from long exposure, approaching him.
Taking him into his canoe and kindling tires
to warm him, ho restored him and found out
where he had Jived, and took him
to his home, and found all the
village in great excitement. A hundred men
were searching for this lost man, and his
family and friends rushed out to meet him;
and, as had been agreed, at his first appear
ance bells were rung, and guns discharged,
and banquets spread, and the rescuer loaded
with presents. UYII, when some of you step
out of this where you have been
chilled and torn and sometimes lost amid
the icebergs, into the warm greetings of
all the villages of the glorified, and your
friends rush out to give you a welcoming
kiss, the news that there is another sou! for
ever saved will call the caterers of heaven
to spread the banquet, and the bell men to
lay hold of the rope in the tower, and while
the chalices click at the feast, and the bells
clang from the towers, it will be a scene so
upliiting I pray God I may be there
to take part in the ce estial merriment And
now do you not think the prayer in Solo
mon’s song, where he compared Christ to a
reindeer coming down in the night to pasture
on the plains, would make an exquisitely ap
propriate peroration to my sermon: “Until
the day break and the shadows flee away,
be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the
mountains of Bether. ”
A Natural Vinegar TVell,
A phenomenon which is greatly puz
zling chemists of Vincennes, Ind., and
which will be brought to the notice of
scientists, is the discovery of a vinegar
well which was made on Saturday last on
the farm of S. W. Williams, two miles
east of Vincennes. Workmen were en
gaged in digging for water and had
sunk the hole to a depth of thirty feet,
when,as they supposed, they struck the
water, which began to filter in and filled
the well to the depth of four feet. Wish
ing to dig still deeper a pump was pro
cured aud the supposed water drawn
out. Noticing that it had a peculiar
odor, resembling that of decayed apples,
one of the workmen tasted the liquid and
found it extremely sour, tasting exactly
like vinegar. Tliq pump was worked foi
over three hours, Mr. Williams think
ing that the peouliar fluid was merely
water impregnated with some surface
matter, but tho flow of the liquid con
tinued, the fluid being as clear as water
and becoming, after being exposed to the
air a short time, even more sour than
when first taken from the earth. Sam
ples of it were shown to two druggists,
who, after tasting it, pronounced the
new find pure vinegar, which had been
clarified by some means. The well is
walled in with brick, and Mr. Williams
is preparing to have the queer dis
covery thoroughly investigated.
Not Wholly a Superstition.
Mr; Slimdiet—“Before going for your
trunks, Mr. Newboarder, you might a 3
well sit down to dinner. 1 will have an
extra plate put on. Of course, I did not
expect you to-day.” ,
Mr. Newboarder —“How 4®any board
ers have you, Mrs. Slimdiet?”
“Twelve. You will make the thir
teenth."
* ‘Thirteen at table 1 I will wait until
supper time. I fear if the thirteen of us
sat down to table one of us would die.
You have only arranged for twelve, you
say?”
“Why? What would the thirteenth
die of?”
“Starvation!”
TOE NATIONAL MUSEUM.
ITS AT?CRITECTITIIE, ITS ARRANGE
ML-ENTS, ITS CLASSIFICATION.
A Groat Building at Washiw ;ton-
I4i versified Contents of the Cases
In the Various Divisions.
The National Museum at Washington,
as it is now organized, da e 3 no farther
back than the Centennial Exhibit on.
Beyond that time it was a thing of shreds
and politics, a sort of national lumber
room in the custody of the Smithsonian
Institution, into which every adventur
ous and public spirited Yankee might
deposit whatever curiosity came into his
hands.
This was not to the liking of Profes
sor Joseph Henry, and without opportu
nity to make it otherwise but little at
tention was given to the museum until
the Centennial Exhibition presented an
opportunity to systematize the collec
tion, give it direction and in this way in
timated what the oiiioers desired it
should become.
The success of the Government ex
hibit was a stimulus not only to our own
people, but moved almost all the rov
ernments exhibiting at the Centennial to
off r valuable gifts and curiosities. These
were gladly accepted. This increase of
material made necessary some steps for
storage if not for exhibition purposes.
Accordingly Congress appropriated
$2 >O,OOO for the erection of a fireproof
building, which every one will remem
ber was used in its unfinished stale £or a
ball room at the inauguration of Presi
dent Garfield.
The new museum makes one of the
group of buddings of which the Smith
sonian is now the venerable centre. The
architecture of the museum is peculiar,
and is not impressive except in ex ent.
Its adaptation, however, to the demands
of a museum is perfect. The ground
jdan is a Creek cross with a central ro
tunda, the four main halls being 101 feet
by sixty-two feet. Courts of the same
height as the naves occupy the angles
made by the naves, and outside of both
naves and courts are a series of eight ex
hibition rooms lighted by large, round,
arched windows. At the corners pavil
ions rise to three stories and are used for
offices.
Within the arrangement is significant.
There is absolutely no solid masonry ex
cept the out-ide walls. The divisions
which have been alluded to are made by
a senes of arches resting on pillows
eight feet eight inches wide and twenty
seven feet high, these again resting on
pillars four feet four inches at the ba<e.
These lines of partitions are filled in with
exhibition cases. The cases are of iron
and mahogany, made as slight as possi
ble and stand unfastened to the flo >r.
These cases, of which one is adjusted
into e.ery arch, add greatly to the ap
pearance of the interior. Many are made
transparent, each side being filled in with
thick piates of Fren h glass, which give
no reflections. They are insect-proof,
and so set that no moldings can accumu
late dust. Each case is fastened with
Yale locks, and in addition an electric
wire connects with the superintendent’s
room.
With the exception of the Zoological
Department, which had been long
under way, the museum has been re
cently built up. The present plan is a
philosophical arrangement into classes
which will include everything that per
tains to the universe. The first division
relates to man under the three depart
ments of biology, ethnography and man
as an individual. These divisions are
further explained by skulls, bones and
chemical components under biology and
the casts of various sizes under ethno
graphy. Here are also to be found the
Gatlin collection of Indian portraits, and
here should be found the second series
of Catlin paintings of less aitistie value
but of gi eater ethnographical value, as
they contain portraits and records of
customs, rites and games of Indian tribes
such as the Mandans, now extinct. In
the third division—representative men
—are busts, portraits, medals, coins,
manuscripts, relics, hieroglyphics and
everything pertaining to the subject
The second grand division considers
the earth under every form, the sub
heads being Astronomy, Geography,
Geology and the History of Exploration.
The next class is devoted to the natural
resources of the earth, the two sub
divisions being Botany and Zoology.
The museum is particularly rich in both
of these departments. The zoological
.collection long since ceased to be a col
lection of curiosities. Its extent and
arrangement have made it what Professor
Henry always intended it should be—a
resource for special students, and nothing
is now lacking to this end,
The fourth class is the Industries.
The?e are sub-divided into Quarrying
and Mining, which are represented by
pictures, a collection- of resins, gums,
barks, herbs and fishing, hunting and
field industries. In the me hods of
fishing no country can show such material
as ours. The fishing exhibit at ,the
London Fishery Exhibition was the
astonishment of Europe. Even the
Americans who visited the Fisheries wera
spellbound by the home display.
The fifth class, E., is known as the
elaborative industries. This is subdi
vided into raw materials, agents, imple
ments, processes and products. Into
this class enter textile fabrics, looms and
work in clay. But a more complete and
more interesting exposition is that of
Class F., classified as “ultimate pro
ducts,” in which are included the ce
ramic objects, tapestries and the line col
lection of native potteries. Conspicuous
among these is the pottery of the Zuni
Indians. This same cla-s also includes
architecture, heating, ventilation, furni
ture, fuels, foods, drugs and even curi
osities. Four concluding classes embraces
the “Social Relations of Man,” “/The
Physi al Condition of Man,” “Intellect
ual Condition of Man,” “Moral Condi
tion of Man.” The minor details of
these divisions are innumerable. I'nder
the first come the mails and telegraph,
weapons, badges and flags. Under the
second, surgery, hospitals, physical
culture, etc. Under the third we have
drama, art, literature, science and
amusements. Under the fourth are
found matters pertaining to the benevo
lent and reformatory institutions, relig
ious systems, etc.— -New York Graphic .
A New York paper reports that the
elm leaf worm has made its appearance
again this year, destroying the foliage
en the elms in the parks, and on the high
ways in the vicinity of the metropolis.
HOI SE1IOLI) AFFAIRS. .
Drying 1 Lace Curtains.
The easiest way to dry lace curtains
after washing them is take a dry, sunny
day, fasten them to the line by one edge
with clothes pins only a few inches
apart; then gently pull and stretch them
until dry. If quilts are folded or rolled
tightly after washing, than beaten with
a rolling pin or potato masher, it light
ens up the cotton and makes them t earn
soft and new. Stair carpets should have
a strip of thicK paper placed und r them
over the edge of every stair (which is
where they liist wear out) to le sen th«
friction of the carpet against the boards
beneath. Strips of old bed quilts put
under a stair carpet deaden the sound of
footsteps besides making the carpet
wear longer. It is a good plan to sli !e
them along each time they are put down,
so that the hardest wear may not come in
the same places.— Prairie Fanner.
How to Pluck Poultry.
I have known persons on market flay,
says a writer in the Journal' of Ilorli-uU
tore, to go out and kill twelve or fifteen
fowls, aud to bring them into a room
whero there would be half a dozen
women and boys pulling a few feathers
at a time, between their thumb and fore
finger, to prevent tearing them. Now,
for the beuefit of such, i wiil give our
plan:—Hang the fowl by the feet by a
small cord; then, with a small knife,
give one cut across the upper jaay, op
posite the corners of the mouth; after
the blood has stopped running a stream
place the point of the knife in the
groove in the upper part of the mouth,
run the blade into the back part of the
head, which will cause a twitching of
the muscles. Now is your time, for
every leather yields as if by magic, and
there is no danger of tearing the most
tender chick. Before he attempts to flap
you can have him as bare as the day he
came out of the egg.
Brushing Children’s Hair.
Frequent and thorough brushing of
the hairis extremely desirable. It not
only improves .temporarily the appear
ance of a child, but tends at the same
time to keep the scalp in a healthy
condition. It stimulates the growth of
the hair, and prevents it from becoming
dry and harsh. Care should be exercised
in selecting a thick, soft brush, and due
attention paid to the manner in which it
is used. There is a right way and a
wrong way of doing many things, and
in brushing the hair the latter is too
frequently employed. The mother or
nurse who assumes this important duty
muse take plenty of time and give her
undivided attention to it. if the opera
tion be performed hastily or t arelesslv
the child soon learns to dread it; while
on the other hand, if it is always asso
ciated with a few p easant words,a short
fairy tale or something of the kind, the
operation will give pleasure to both of
the parties concerned, and the beneficial
resuits will soon become apparent. A
comb is an implement of doubtful utility
in the nursery’, and certainly one which
is capable of doing as much harm as
good. For parting the hair a coarse
comb with blunt, rounded teeth may be
used; but for dealing with the inevita
ble snarls which so often appear in the
best regulated locks, a brush, supple
mentel by gentle fingers, should only be
used. Under no consideration should a
comb l>e allowed to come in contact with
the delicate sc dp of a child, and the use
of a fine-toothed instillment of torture,
such as was formerly in vogue, ought in
this enlightened age to be relegated
from the nursery to a chamber of hor
rors—Babyhood.
Keel pcs.
Sponge Pudding. —Two eggs, three
fourths of a cup each of butter, flour
and sugar; beat the butter to a cream
and add the sugar, eggs and flour; bake
in cups and servo with sauce.
Potato B'sn i ts. —One-half pound of
flour, one-fourth of a pound o; boih d
potatoes rubbed through a sieve, a pinch
of salt, three teaspoons of baking
powder, three-fourths of a cup of butter,
flour to make a dough; roll out and cut
into shape.
B toiled Kidneys. Split them
through lengthwise and run an iron
skewer through them to keep them flat;
pepper and broil over a clear fire. They
should be lightly done. Serve on a very
hot dish. Sprinkle them with salt and
put a bit of butter on each.
Cohn and Tomatoes. -*Shave the corn
from the cob; peel and slice some toma
toes. Put alternate layers of corn and
tomatoes in a baking dish, sprinkling
each layer with salt, pepper, butter, a
little sugar and a few bits of minced
onions. Cover with line crumbs, salted
and peppered, with bits of butter here
and there. Cover and bake until it is
boiling hot, then brown lightly.
Apples with Jeli.y. —Bare and core
one dozen apples; putin enough water
to cover them and let stew until they
look as if they would break; take them
out of the water and into the latter put
one and one-half pounds of sugar; let
this come to a boil; put in the apples and
let them stew until done through and
clear; remove apples again and into the
syrup slice one large lemon; add one
ounce of gelatine dissolved in a pint of
cold water; let all mix well and come to
a boil; then pour upon the apples. Serve
cold with cream.
Potato Rolls. —A quart of flour
sifted with a teaspoon of salt; four eggs
beaten light; a tablespoon of lard,
melted; half a- yeast cake dissolved in
warm water; a heaping cupful of pota
toes, mashed soft and beaten light with
half a cup of warm milk; one cup of
lukewarm milk: one teaspoon of sugar;
mix the lard with the sugar and pota
toes; make a hole in the middle of the
flour; pour*m the milk, mashed potato,
Yeast and eggs; knead well and set to
rise over night. Fat ly the next morning
knead again, make into rolls: put close
together in a pan and let rise for an hour.
Bake in a steady oven and serve hot.
Chinese Coin.
A large number are engaged in mold
ing, casting, and fini-liing the “cash”
used as coin all over China—Mexican dol
lars aud Sycee silver being used in large
transactions. The ca-ffi are made from
an alloy of copper and zinc, nearly the
same as the well known Muntz metal;
and it takes about one thousand of them
to answer as change for a dollar, so
minute and low do prices run in this
country, of which I will only give one
instance. The fare for crossing the ferry
on the Peiho was only two cash, or on®,
fifth of a cemt. — Scientific American.
POPULAR SCIENCE.
Jr-
The direct action of steam at 212
degrees is sufficient to destroy all germs.
Chloroform may be detected in the
lungs of animals four weeks after death.
According to the naturalists, wasps
remember the locality of their nests just
niuety-six hours.
Waste silk has been shown to be the
most efle dive non-conductive covering
for steam pipes. The price is high, but
the demand is very great.
There has been invented for the use of
the trumpeters in the French army an
instrument which at will can be turned
so as to throw the sounds backward.
A human subject without collar bones
-has been, met within &__SL 1 miin dia.
seeting-room. This structure is that of
most of the vertebrates, such as lions,
bears, etc.
Without taking into account the small
variations due to refraction, etc., the
days and nights are always of equal
length at all points on the equator. With
out regard to the position of the ecliptic.
The atmosphere on the English Channel
was recently rarefied to such a degree
that ob ect3* between thirty aud forty
miles from Dover and Folkestone could
clearly be distinguished with the naked
eye.
Tests of various kinds of coal have
shown that only coke is -a sufficiently
good electric conductor to be used as
an earth collection for lightning rods.
Specimens of anthracite and bituminous
coal and char, oal were mostly lacking
in conductivity.
A natural soap well has been discovered
near Buffalo Gap, Dakota. The soap is
skimmed from a boiling spring and
hardens by exposure to the air. It is a
mixture of borax, alkali and oil. The
quality is excellent, and the supply is
believed to be inexhaustible.
A remarkable strip of the new South
American railroad, from Buenos Ayres to
the Andes, is probably th longest tan
gent in the world, extending fill miles
without a curve. It is further notable
as having no bridge in the entire dis
tance, aud no cut or fill exceeding about
a yard iu depth or height.
A new method of weather prediction
has been by a French phy
sicist. He has observed that the scintil
lations of stars increase before' many
storms, indicating disturbance of the
upper a mosphere hours b fore the
meteorological instr ;ments show any
change. The fiercer the storm, the
more is the strength of the scintiilations
increased.
Eighteen years ago, when the air
brake was, it required eighteen seconds
to apply it to a train 2t)00 feet long.
Four years later the time was reduced
to four seconds. Becent experiments
with the air-brake on freight trains
show that it can be applied to every car
in a train of that length running at the
rate of forty miles an hour, aud that
this train can he stopped within 500
feet, or one-fourth its own length, and
all this without any serious jostling.
When the first electric telegraph was
established the speed of transmission
was from four to five words a minute
with the five needle instruments; in 1849
the average rate for newspaper messages
was seventeen words a minute; the pres
ent pace of the electric telegraph be
tween London and Dublin, where the
Wheatstone instrument is employed,
reaches 403 words; and thus what was
regarded as miraculous sixty years ago
has multiplied a hundred fold in half a
century.
Primitive “Woman’s Island.”
A little way north of Cozumel'and
about six miles from the Mexican coast
is Isla Mujeres (woman’s island), which
is only about six miles long by half a
mile wide. Seme of Cortez's soldiers
went ashore there and found four tern*
pies in the town, the idols in which rep
resented female figures of colossal size—
hence its name.
I wish I could picture to you, exclaims
a writer in the Philadelphia Record , the
singular beauty ot this bit of land en
compassed by the blue green waters of
the gulf. Imagine a small sandy beach,
with a rocky coast on either side. Man
grove and cocoanut trees grow to the
water’s edge, except where broken by
tiny "clearings, surrounding the palm
leaf hut of some lonely fisherman. We
approached the nearest clearing, and
found a sun-dried Indian squatted under
an arbor thatched with palm, busily re
pairing an old net, while his wife and
half-grown boys were weaving new ones
from risal hemp. It was intensely hot,
and millions of sand flies made life in
tolerable. The family we had raided
charitably gave us a hammock to rest
in, a leaf of palm with which to defend
ourselves, a fresh-picked cocoanut and a
drink of tepid water from the near-by
spring. Thus refreshed, we lay at ease
and looked about us. Near the shore were
immense flocks of seabirds perched on
the piles of a turtle inclosure, and over
head hovered a cloud of snow-white
ibises. All along the beach were strewn
the rotting carcasses of turtles, covered
with swarms of liies.
Turtle catching is quite a business
here. Three kinds abound in these
waters—the Cahuamo, whose eggs serve
for food, and which is useful besides
only for its oil; the Tortuga, of which
the meat as well as the eggs are eaten,
which also produces oil, and whose shell
is worth twenty-five cents per pound,
and the Rare, whose shells sell for $8
per pound. The airy casa of our host
was hung inside with a miscellaneous
collection of old nets, sails and other ad
juncts of his profession. i nder the
eaves were ranged a row of oil jars and
bundles of turtle shells tied up ready
for shipment to the markets of Cam
peche and Progresso. From the rafters
depended strings of turtles’ eggs and
other parts that serve for food and oil,
some of them yet warm and quivering,
the sight, as well as the smell, being by
no means conducive to cultivating a taste
for the delicacy.
Remarkable Memory ot a Savage
Dr. Moffat, the distinguished African
missionary and father-in-law of Dr
Livingstone, once preached a long ser
mon to a, crowd of natives. Shortly af
ter he had finished he saw a number of
Africans gather about a simple minded
young savage. He went to them and
discovered that the savage was preaching
his sermon over again. Not only was
he reproducing the precise words, but
imitating the manner and gestures of tne
white preacher. Rehoboth Sunday
Herald .