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REV. DR. TALMAGE.
tH E BROOKLYN DIVINE’S
SUNDAY SERMON.
gnbjcct; “The Fragrance of the
Gospel.”
Text: "All thy garments smell of myrrh,
and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory pal
aces."— Psalms xlv., 8.
Among the grand adornments of the city
of Pal is is the Church of Notre Dame, with
its great towers, and elaborated rose
winduws, and sculpturing of the last judg
ment, with the trumpeting ange s and rising
dead; its battlements of quarterfoil; its
sacristy, with ribbod ceiling and statues
of saints. But there was nothing in all that
building which more vividly appealed to my
plain republican tastes, than the costly
vestments which laid in oaken presses,
robes that had been embroidered with gold,
and been worn by popes and archbishops
on great occasions. There was a robe that
bad been worn by Pius VII. at the crowning
of the first Napoleon. There was also a vest
ment that had been worn at the baptism of
Napoleon 11. As our guide opened the
oa ; ; en presses and brought out these
vestments of fabulous cost, and lifted
them up, the fragrance of the pungent aro
matics in which they had been preserved,
fi led the place with a sweetness that was al
most oppressive. Nothing that had been done
In stone more vividly impressed me than the e
things that had been done in cloth, and em
broidery.and perfume, But to-day 1 open the
drawer of this text, and I look upon the
kingly robes of Christ, and as I lift them,
flashing with eternal jewels, the whole house
is filled with the aroma of these garments,
which “smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,
out of the ivory palaces.”
In my text the King steps forth. His robes
rustle and blaze as He advances. His pomp
and power and glory overmaster the specta
tor. More brilliant is He than Queen V ashti.
moving amid the Persian Princes; thar
Marie Antoinette on the day when Louis
XVI. put upon her the necklace of eight
hundred diamonds: than Anne Boleyn, the
day when Henry VIII. welcomed her to his
palace; all beauty and all pomp forgotten,
while wo stand in the presence of this im
perial glory, King of Zion, King of earth,
King of Heaven, King lorever! His gar
ments not worn out, not dust-bed
raggled; but radiant, an 1 jeweled,
and redolent. It seems as if they
must have been pressed a hundred years
amid the flowers of heaven. The wardrobe
from which they have been taken must have
been sweet with clusters of camphire and
frankincense, and all manner of precious
wood. Do you not inhale the odors? Ay,ay.
They “smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia,
out of the ivory palaces.”
Your first curiosity is to know why the
robes of Christ are odorous with myrrh. *
This was a bright-leafed Abyssinian plant. ,
It was trifoliated. The Greeks, Egpytians, j
Romans and Jews bought and sold it at
a high price. Tne first present
that was ever given to Christ was a
sprig of myrrh, thrown on his infantile bed
in Bethlehem, and the last gift that Christ
ever had was myrrh pressed into the cup of
his crucifixion. The natives would take a
rtono and bruise the tree, and then
it would exude a gum that would
saturate all the ground beneath. This gum
was used for purpose? of merchandise. One
piece of it, no larger than a chestnut, would
whelm a whole room with odors. It was put
in closets, in chests, in drawers, in rooms,
and its perfume adhered almost intermin
ably to anything that was anywhere near
it. So when in my text 1 read that Christ’s
•garments smell of myrrh, I immediately
conclude the exquisite sweetness of Jesus. I
know that to many Ho is only like any his
torical person; another John Howard;
another philanthropic Oberlin; another Con
fucius; a grand subject for a painting; a
heroic theme for a poem; a beautiful
form for a statue; but to those who have
heard His voice, and felt His pardon, and re
ceived His benediction, He is music, and
fight, and warmth, and thrill, and eternal
fragrance. Sweet as a friend slicking to
you when all else betray. Lifting you up
while others try to push y-ou down. Not
60 much like morning-glories, that bloom
only when the sun is coming up, nor like
“four clocks.” that bloom only when the sun
is going down, but like myrrh, perpetually
aromatic—the same morning, noon and night
—yesterday, to day, forover. _ It seems as if
w» cannot wear Him out. We put on Him
all our burdens, and attlict Him with all
our griefs, and set Him foremost in all our
battles, and yet He is ready to lift, and to
sympathize, and to help. We have so im
posed upon Him that one would think in
eternal affront He would quit our soul; and
yet to-day He addresses us with the same
tenderness, dawns upon us with the same
smile, pities us with the same compassion.
There is no name like His for us. It is
more imperial than Caesar's, more musical
than Beethoven's, more conquering than
Charlemagne’s, more eloquent than Cicero’s.
Itthrobs with alllife. It weeps with all pathos.
It groans with ail pain. It stoops with
all condescension. It breathes with all
perfume. Who like Jesus to set a broken
bone, to pity a homeless orphan, to nurse a
sick man, to take a prodigal back without
any scolding, to illumine a cemetery all
plowed with graves, to make a Queen unto
God out of the lost woman of the street, to
catch the tears of human sorrow in a
lachrymatory that shall never be broken?
Who has such an eye to see our need, such a
lip to kiss away our sorrow, such a hand to
snatch us out of the fire, such a foot to
trample our enemies,such a heart to embrace
all our necessities? I struggle for soma
metaphor with which to express Him. He is
not like the bursting forth of a full or
chestra; that is too loud. He is not like
the sea whi n lashed to rave by the tempest'
Shat is too boisterous. He fs not like tbs
mountain, its brow wreathed with the
lightnings; that is too solitary. Give us
» softer type, a gentler comparison.
We have seemed to see Him with our
eyes, and to hear Him with our ears, and to
touch Him with our hands. Oh, that to-day
He might appear to some other one of our
five senses 1 Ay. the nostril shall discover
His presence. He comes upon us like spice
gales from heaven. Yea, His garments smell
of pungent, lasting and all pervasive myrrh.
Oh, that you all knew His sweetness. How
soon you would turn from vour novels. If
the philosopher leaped out of his bath
In a frenzy of joy and clapped
his hands, and ru3iied through the
streets, because he had found the solution of
* mathematical problem, how will y*u feel
leaping from the fountain of a Saviour’s
mercy and pardon, washed, clean, and made
white as snow, when the question has beep
solved; “How can rny soul be saved?” Naked,
fro-t-bitten, storm-lashed soul, let Jesus this
hour throw around thee the “garments that
smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of
the ivory palaces.”
Y our second curiosity is to know why the
fobes of Jesus are odorous with aloes. There
some difference of opinion about where
these aloes grow, what :3 the color of the
flower, what is the particular appearance of
the herb. Suffice it for you and me to know
that aioes mean bitterness the world
over, and when Christ comes with garments
hearing that particular odor, they suggest to
me the bitterness of a Saviour’s sufferings.
” ere there ever such nights as Jesus lived
through— nights on the mountains, Dights ou
the sea, nights in the desert? Who ever had
a hard reception as Jesus had? A hos
telry the first, an unjust trial in oyer ana
terminer another, a foul mouthed, yelling
mob the la t. Was tiiere a space on His
back as wide as your two fingers where He
was not whipped? Was there a space on His
brow an inch square where He was not cut
of the briers? When the spike struck at the
instep, did ,t no t go clear through to the
hollow of the foot? Oh, long, deep, bitter
Pdgrirnage. Aloes! Aloes!
John leaned his head on Christ, but who
md Christ lean on? Five thousand men ted
b y the Haviour; who fed Jesus? The sym
pathy of a Saviours heart going out to tl *
mper and the adulteress; but wtao.eootheu
Cnrist? Denied both cradle and de.itn
pod. He had a fit place neither to be
t**™ nor to die. A poor babel A
poor U'l! A poor youngman! Not so in ;eti
as u tap rto cheer his dying hours, Even
tao candle of tio sun snu.fad out. Oh, was
it not all aloes; Ad our sins, sorrows, be
reavements, loss s. and all too agonies of
earth and hell picked up as in one clus
ter an l squeezed into one cup, and that
pressed to His lipj, until * the acrid,
nauseating, bitter dr.ihgho was swallowed
With a distorted countenance, and a shudder
from he a i to loot, and a gurg ing strangula
tion. Aloes! Aloes 1 iSoching but aloes.
Ah this lor Himself; All this to get the
fame in the world of being a martyr; All
this in the spirit of stubbornness, because he
did not l.ke Cesar? No! no! All this because
He wanted to pluck you and me from hell.
Because lie wanted to raise you and me to
Heaven. Because we were lost and He
wanted us found. Because we were blind
and He wanted us to see. Because we were
serfs and He wanted us manumitted. Oh, ye
in whose cup of .life the saccharine has pre
dominated; oh, ye who have had bright and
sparkling beverages, how do you feel toward
Him who in your stead, and to purchase
your disenthral latent, took the aloes, the un
savoryfcloes, the bitter aloes?
Your third curiosity is to know why these
garments of Christ are odorous with cassia.
This was a plant that grew in India and the i
adjoining islands. You do not care to hear I
what kind of a flower it had or wnat kind of 1
a stalk. It is enough for me to tell you that |
it was used medicinally. In that 1
land and in that age, where they i
knew but little about pharmacy, cassia was
used to arrest many forms of disease. So j
when in my text we find Christ coming with i
garments that smell of cassia, it suggests to ;
me the healing and curative power of the
Son of God. “Oh,” j'ou say,“now you have j
a superfluous idea. We are not sick. Why
do we want cassia? We are athletic.
Our respiration is perfect. Our limbs are
lithe, an l in these cool days we feel we could
bound like the roe. ” I beg to differ, my I
brother, from you. None of you cau be
better in physical health than I am, and yet I j
must say ws arc ail sick. I have taken the
diagnosis of your case, and have ex
amined all the best authorities on the sub
ject, and I have come now to tell you that
you are full of wounds and bruises and
putrefying sores which have not been bound
up, or mollified with ointment. The maras
mus of sin is on us—the palsy, the dropsy, the
leprosy. The man that is expiring to-night
on Fulton street—the allopathic and homoeo
pathic doctors having given him up, and his S
friends now standing around to take his last
words—is no more certainly dying as to his ■
body than you and I are dying unless we
have taken the medicine from God’s apothe
cary. All the leaves of this Bible are
only so many prescriptions from the Di
vine Physician, written," not in Latin,like the
prescriptions of earthly physicians, but writ
ten in plain English, so that a man, though a
fool, need not err therein. Thank God that
the Saviour’s garments smell of cassia.
Suppose a man were sick, and there was a
phial on his mantel piece with medicine ha
knew w ould cure him, and he refused to taka
it. what would you say of him? He is a
suicide. And what do you say of that man
who. sick in sin, has the healing medicine of
Hod's grace offered him, and refuses to take
it? If he dies he is a suicide. People
talk as though God took a man and led him 1
out to darkness and death, as though He
brought him up to the cliffs and then pushed
him off. Oh, no. When a man is lost it is
not because God pushes him olf; it is because
he jumps off. In olden times a suicide was
buried at the cross roads, and the peo
ple were accustomed to throw stones upon
his grave. Ho it seems to me there may 1*
in this house a man who is destroying his
own soul, and as though the angels of
God were here to bury him at the
point where the roads of life and death cross
each other, throwing upon the grave the
broken law and a great pile of misimproved
privileges, so that those going may look at
the fearful mound, and learn what a suicide
it is when an immortal soul, for which Jesus
died, puts itself out of the way.
When Christ trod this planet with 'foot of
flesh,, the people rushed after Him—people
who were sick, anil those who, being so sick
they could not walk, were brought by their
friends. Here I see a mother holding up her
little child and saying: “Cure this croup, Lord
Jesus. Cure this scarlet fever.” And others
saying: “Cure this ophthalmia. Give ease and
rest to this spinal distress. Straighten this
club-foot.” Christ made every house where
He stooped a dispensary. Ido not believe
that in the nineteen centuries that have gone
by since His heart has got hard. I feel ihat
we can come now with all our wounds of soul
and get His benediction. O Jesus, here we
are. We want healing. We want sight.
We want health. We want life. The
whole need not a physician, but they that
are sick. Blessed be God that Jesus Christ
comes through this assemblage now, His
“garments smelling of myrrh”—that means
fragrance—“and ifloes”—they mean bitter
sacrificial memories—“and cassia’’—that
means medicine and cure; and according to
my text, He comes “out of the ivory
palaces.”
You know, or if you do cot know I will
tell you now, that some of the palaces of
olden time were adorned with ivory.
Ahab and Solomon had their homes fur
nished with it. The tusks of African and
Asiatic elephants wer#t>visted mto all man
ners of shapes, and there were s.airs of ivory,
and chair 3 of ivory, and tables of i vory, and
floors of ivory, and pillars of ivory, and
windows off ivory, and fountains that
dropped into basins of ivory, and rooms
that had ceilings of ivory. Oh, white and
overmastering beauty. (Jresn tree branenes
sweeping the white curbs. Tapestry trailing
the snowy floors. Brackets of light flashing
on the lustrous surroundings. Silvery music
rippling to the beach of the arches. Ihe
mere thought of it almost stuns my brain,
and you say:
“Oh, if I could only have walked over such
floors! If I could have thrown myself in
such a chair! If I could havo heankthe drip
and dash of those fountains!” You shall
have something better than that if you
only let Christ introduce yon. From that
place He came, and to that place He proposes
to transport you, for His “garments smell
of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the
ivory palaces.”
Oh. what a place heaven must be! Jhe
Tuileries of the* French, the Windsor Castle
of the English, the Spanish Alhambra, the
Russian Kremlin are dungeons compared with
itl Not so many castles on either side the
Rhine as on both sides of the river of Go i the
ivory palaces! One for the angels, insuffer
ably bright, winged, fire-eyed, tempest
charioted; one for the martyrs, with blood
red robes, from under the altar: one for the
King, the steps of His palace the crowns of
the church militant; one for the singers, who
lead the one hundred and forty and four
thousand; one for you ransomed from sin;
one for me, plucked "from the burning. Oh,
the ivory palaces!
To-day it seems to me as if the windows of
those palaces were illumined for some great
victory, and I look and see climbing the
stairs of ivory, and walking on floors of
ivory, and looking from the windows of
ivory, some whom we knew and loved on
earth Yes. I know them. There are father
and mother, not eighty-two years and seven
ty nine years, as when they left u?, but
blithe and young as when on their marriage
lay. And tiiere are brothers and sisters, mer
rier than when we used to romp across the
meadows together. The cough gone. The can
cer cured. The erysipelas healed. The heart
break over. Oh, how fair they are in.the ivory
palaces! And your dear little children that
went out from you—Christ did not let oneot
them drop as He lifted them. He did not
wrench one of them from you. No. They
went as from one they loved well to One whom
tbev loved better. If I should take your
little child and press its soft face
a -ainst iny rough cheek, I might keep it a
little while; but when you, the mother, came
along, it would struggle to go with you. And
so vou stood holding your dying child when
Jesus passed by in the room, and the little
one sprang out to greet Him. That is alt
Your Christian .lead did not go down into
tie dust and the gravel and the
mud. Though it rained ali that funeral day,
and the water came up to the wheel’s hub as
you drove out to the cemetery, it made no
difference to them, for they stepped from
the home here to the home there, right into
tho ivory palacm All is well with them.
All is welL . • .
it ■ not a d. ad weight that you UTt
when you carrv a Christian out. Jesus makes
the bed up soft with velvet promises, and
Ha says: “Put her aown here very gently.
Put that head, which will nover ache again,
on this pillow of hallelujahs. Send up word
that the procession is coming. Ring the i ells.
Ring! Open your gates, ye ivory palaces!”
And so your loved ones are there. They are
just as certainly there, having died in Cnrist,
as that you ara here. There is only one thing
more they want. Indeed, there is one thing
in heaven they have not got. They
want it What is it? Your company.
But, oh, my brother, unless you change
your tack you cannot reach that harbor.
You mi rht as well take the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad, expecting in that direction to
reach Toronto, as to go on in the way some
of you are going and yet expect to reach the
ivory palaces. Your loved ono3 are looking
out or the windows of Heaven now, and
yet you seem to turn your back
upon them. You do not seem to
know the sound of their voices as
well as you used to, or to ba moved by the
sight of their dear faces. Call louder, ye de
parted ones. Call louder from the ivory
palaces. When I thjnk of that place, and
think of my entering it, I feel awkward; I
feel a 3 sometimes when I have been exposed
to the weather, and my shoes have been be
mired.andmy coat is soiled,and my hair is dis
heveled, ami I stop in front of some flue resi
dence where I have an errand. I feel not fit
to go in as I am and sit among polished guests.
So some of us feel about heaven. We need to be
washed—we need to be rehabilitated before we
go into the ivory palaces. Eternal God, let the
surges of Thy pardoning mercy roll over us.
I want not only to wash my hands and my
feet, but, like some skilled diver, standing
on the pier-head, who leaps into the waves
and come 3 up at a far-distant point from
where ho went in. so I want to go down an d
so I want to come up. O Jesus, wash me
in the waves of Thy salvation.
And here I ask you to solve a mystery that
has been oppressing me for thirty years. I
have asked it of doctors of divinity who have
been studying theology half a century, and
they have given me no satisfactory
answer. I have turned over all the
books in my library, but got no solution to
the question, and to-day I come and ask you
for an explanation. By what logic was
Christ induced to exchange the ivory palaces
of heaven for the crucifixion agonies of earth!
1 shall take the first thousand million years
in heaven to study out that problem.
Meanwhile and now, taking it as the tender
est and mightiest of all facts that
Christ did come, that He came with the
spikes in His feet, came with thorns in His
brow, came with spears in nis heart,to save
you afld to save me. “God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everiasting life.” O Christ,
whelm this audience with Thy compassion.
Mow diem down like summer grain with the
harvesting sickle of Thy grace. Ride 'trough
to-day the conqueror, Thy garments smelling
“of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the
ivory palaces.”
O, sinner, fling everything else away and
take Christ! Take Him now, not to-morrow.
During the night following this very day
there may be an excitement in your dwelling,
and a tremulous pouring out of drops from
an unsteady and affrighted hand, and befon
to-morrow morning your chance may b«
gone.
He Was an Old Sailor.
“Can’t a feller wait for liis ship ?" said
a man with red eyes and seedy clothes,
as he steadied himself against one of the
stone posts on the sea-wall along the
Battery. He addressed a policeman
who was watching him closely. “Can’t
he wait till his ship is ready to pull
out?”
“Yes,” said the officer in a tone as if
it depended on circumstances.
“Can’t he linger where the waves dash
high, till the tide is right to li’ist his
ship over the breakwater ?”
“Yes, if he’s-quiet about it.”
. “Can’t the captain of a big eight-mast
ship with two bow-sticks on her rest in
your park till they send the starboard
schooner to take him off ?”
“You are a captain of a vessel, then?”
“Yesser, that’s it. See her tied up
over there toward that ’ere big statute.
See the masts on her, and the fo’castle
sticking up ’n the air like a church
steeple? That’s my ship. I’m goin’ on
t’ her jess as soon as they come to take
me off in the bulkhead. Lemmy rest
in your park till they pull up here to
this stone side-walk with the for'ard
bulkhead.”
“All right;—but you mnst’nt holler.”
“Nary yell—’taint the way of seafarin’
men. I’ve follered the gea for forty
years, podner. As soon as they row me
out in the lighter we will weigh the
anchor, and if she seems to be ’bout the
right heft we’ll sail away to Greenland’s
icy mouut’ins and India’s coral sands.
We’ll h’ist the rest of the musts and sail
away past Coney Island and Cubv and
all them places while the stormy petrel
and the albacrossers and flyin’ lish dash
around ns. Ev’ry morning, podner,
we’ll weigh the anchor to see if it’s gain
in’ any.”
“How long did you say you had been
a sailor?” asked the officer.
“I’ve trod tho deck for forty years.
Give me a wet sheet and a flowin’ sea
and a wind that follers fa t, and if the
rest of the led clothes are moderately
dry and the piller comfortable and there
chit nomuskeeters, I can sleep till break
fast is ready every time. I remember
once when l was sailing my good ship
off the coa t of Giberaltor with the tropics
all around us, picking at us and looking
cross, and one day there come by one of
them blizzards, which is the terror of
the hardy navigator in those regions
where they have the equator and all
such things. ‘Boll up them sails be
hind there!” says I in thunderin’ tones.
‘Splice the main-top royal-gallant rope;
fold up the mizzen spanker and put it
in the closet; pull in the inain-mast ’fore
it gets wet; furl the barometer, box up
tho compass and heave overboard the
log and lighten the ship a little; lower
the hold down tho hatchways before
“Come, that will do—move on !”
“In jess a minute I was standin’ by
the larboard side and then I walks over
to port, and
“Move on I”
“- Then I goes along for’ard of the
flyin’ jibboom, and
“Oit t" — IV. T. Tribune.
f u "
A monument to Shakspere, designed,
executed and present 'd by Lord Ronald
Gower, was recently unveiled at Strat
ford-on-Avon. It consists of a life-size
figure of the poet on a pedestal, about
which are placed on projecting bases
representations of four of the poet's
chief characterizations—Hamlet, Lady
Macbeth, Falstaff and Prince Hal.
Hamlet is seated; with a dejected ex
pression of visage, musing over Yorick’s
skull. Falstaff is also seated, an empty
wine cup is in the left hand, the right
beiug raised, with the forefinger extend
ed. Lady Macl>eth is represented rub
bing her hands to remove the indelible
blood-stains. The faoe is hard and
cruel, but a shadow of remorse is to be
remarked in it. Prinoe Hall is trying
om his fatliMr’s srown.
k TURTLE WHIPS A BEAR
A NOVEL AND EXCITING BATTLE
ON A FLORIDA BEACH.
Biff BJnok Bear Attacks a Mon
ster Turtle, and Gets the Worst
of the Cpinbai.
A recent issue of the St. Louis Globe-
Democrat says:
The schooner Mabel F., Captain Zeka
Dickerson, came into Charlotte Harbor,
Fla., ou Saturday, with a load of huge
loggerhead turtles and fish. The turtles
were monsters, several of them measur
ing over nine feet from end to end, over
the shell, and five to seven across. Such
ones will weigh from TOCIto 1000 pounds
each, and it is no child’s play to capture
them. Several of the crew had severe
wounds on their hands, caused by tho
sharp claws with which the turtle s flip
pers are armed,and one sailor wa3 mourn
ing the 10-s of his thumb, which ho
lost by fooling with one of the captives.
The mate, Jim Wheelan, and a sailor
named Dan Bryan had the unusual luck
of witnessing a fight between a big black
bear and a monster turtle. It occurred
at Key Mina. The schooner was at anchor
on the inside shore, while the men went
across the island, half a mile or so, and
secured turtles on the gulf shore. The
second night these two, by some choice,
wandered down to the end of the island.
While going along cautiously they heard
a confused sound some way ahead, as if
some kind of a fight was going on. A
deal of thrashing about was audible,
and a sort of roar or grunt that sounded
like a bear was heard. Pushing forward
they soon rounded a sharp turn that the
beach made, and the cause of the rumpus
was before them. At first they could not
tell what it was, but saw that two big
forms were struggling together and
lighting furiously. From the grunts
they knew that a bear was one of the
combatants.
Cautiously and silently they came up
nearer and to their groat surprise they
perceived that the fight was between a
huge loggerhead turtle and a big, shaggy
black bear. From their positions it
would seem that the bear had sprung on
the turtle a 9 it was retreating to water,
and had tried to overturn it. In some
way it had stepped in front turtle,
and the latter, thrusting its head out,had
quietly seized one of bruin's hind legs
and held on. At this the bear roared
loudly and pawed furiously at the
turtle’s back, trying to fore e him over on
his back. This the turtle resisted with
all his strength and weight, settling
down close to the ground whenever the
bear made an extra effort, and then, as
the latter related his efforts, the turtle
would suddenly start up and endeavor
to get nearer the water, keeping his firm
hold of the bear’s leg all the while. This
move would arouse bruin’s ire again, and
the fierce contest would be renewed with
increased fury. The bear’s disengaged
hind leg plowed the sand deeply as he
endeavored to stop the turtle's progress
watervvard, while his fore paws clawed
loggerhead madly, vainly trying to find
some vulnerable spot; for, judging by
his angry growling and the desperate
efforts lie made to release his leg from
the reptile’s grip, the turtle was holding
on for keeps.
By a sudden push and a powerful
muscular effort of his head and paws
bruin managed to get the turtle half-set,
one side being raised a foot or so. Pur
suing his advantage he seized one of the
turtle’s big flippers in his jaws, and the
snap that followed showed that bruin
felt that things were evening up. The
old loggerhead plainly Odn’t like this
change of tactics, for its free flippers
moved like the fan of a threshing ma
chine. Its big body plunged from side
to side, while it scattered the sand in
showers all around as it tried to throw
off its b‘g antagonist. The bear was
dragged around considerably by the
turtle’s movements, and the pain in his
imprisoned leg evidently put him in very
bad humor. He kept chewing the turtle’s
flipper and endeavoring to get the latter
overthrown. The old turtle worked
around and finally got in a stroke with
its sharp claw that badly ripped the bear’s
under side. This infuriated bruin so
much that he let go his grip on his anla
gonisist’s flipper, and reaching his head
uown, tried to free his hind leg. But he
made a bad mistake, and the fighting
mad loggerhead quickly improved his
opportunity. As bruin’s nose came
within reach he let go the leg, and quick
as a flash fastened his iron grip on the
bear's jaw.
The boys say that then ensued a
circus. The bear was thoroughly taken
by surprise, and he roared lustily with
pain and rage. The turtle pushed on
and dragged his unwilling captive along.
The latter saw his danger and felt it,
too, for thcy'were so near the water’s
edge that the waves splashed over them.
The combat continued at this point for
several seconds; it was plainly to be seen
that both were p r etty well tuckered out,
and either would have been willing to
cry quits. But neither dared let go.
The loggerhead dragged him along and
finally had hita in water knee-deep.
Here he had things more his own way.
The waves coming in dashed the bear
about so that he maintained his footing
with difficulty. He frantically danced
about, endeavoring to get free, and
using his terrible claws all he could, but
the turtle’s coat of mail proved impene
trable. Bruin’s strength now began to
fail, and his big foe took advantage of
every relaxation of his efforts to escape.
Slowly the turtle worked his way out
into deeper water, his flippers helping
him wonderfully in his native element.
A shelving rock or slide was soon
gained, and there the last struggle
took place. The turtle, half covered
with water, was raised time and again a
foot or so by the frantic struggles of
the partially drowned bear, whose head
was kept under the water longer each
time. It was plainly to be seen now
that the bear was doomed. After a
few minutes longer of the struggle, as
the bear rested a moment, the turtle
plunged off into deep water, dragging
his prey under. As the bear went down
his hind legs kicked convulsively, but
in a very feeble way.. The wa chers of
this ferocious encounter waited for an
hour, to see it the body of the bear
would be released, but nothing came up.
The next day, however, the fragments
of the beast wa-hed ashore, mutilated
»ud cut all to pieces.
Three young Japanese men are now in
the office of the Supervising Architect
of the Treasury at Washington studying
drawing.
WORDS OF WISDOM.
Laziness grows on people.
Let us ever glory in something.
Experience keeps a dear school.
To all mortals is given a tongue.
Contraction animates conversation.
Let us bewaie of losing our enthusiasm.
He who eats the meat let him pick the
hone.
Don’t give advice, unless you wish to
be hurt.
Man’s honor wears armor, aud carries
a mace.
Man is an enigma from his birth to
his death.
Only when society is established can
wrong exist.
Dogs wag their tails not so much at
you as at their bread.
It is the duty of every person to do
some good in the world.
Well doing, however rough and thorny
at first, surely leads to pleasant places.
Wrong doing is a road that may open
fair, but it leads to trouble and danger.
Brood not upon misfortunes. If you
must take the bitter pills do not chew
them.
The willow which bends to the tempest
often escapes better than the oak which
resists. «
Tho more business a man has to do tho
more he is able to accomplish, for he
learns to economize his time.
The darkness of death is like the even
ing twilight; it makes all objects ap
pear more lovely to the dying.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver
andthegver; and adulation is not of
more service to the people than to the
king.
Ease must be impracticable to the
envious; they lie under a double mis
fortune ; common calamities and common
blessings fall heavily upon them.
Misunderstanding and inattention
create more uneasiness in the world than
deception and artifice, or, at least, their
consequences are more universal.
American Wars.
Since Columbus first discovered this
country, 396 years ago, sixteen wars
have raged in vihat are now the United
States or been waged by this Govern
ment. They were the Dutch war ol
1655, King Phillip’s war of 1675, King
William’s war of 1680, Queen Anne’s
war of 1713, the French and Indian war,
1757; the Revolution, 1775; the Indian
war, 1760; the Barbary war, 1803; the
Tecumseh wav, 1811; the war of 1812;
the war on the Algerian pirates in 1815,
the first Seminole war in 1817, the second
• Seminole war in 1835, the Black Hawk
war of 1832, the Mexican, 1846, and the
Civil war, 1861.
The duration and cost of the four great
wars were: Revolutionary, seven years,
$135,103,500; 1812, two and a half years,
$107,159,000; Mexican, two years, $66-,
000,000, and the Civil war, four years,
over $“,000,000,000, or a total cost of
nearly three and a half billion. In the
Revolutionary war the number of Amer
can troops engaged was 231,791, and in
the Civil war the Northern soldiers num
bered 2,688,523.
There have been also so-called re
bellions or attempts to overthrow the
Gover.Jnent. The first was in 1.82,
when some officers of the Federal army
tried to consolidate the thirteen States
into one and confer supreme powei
on Washington. The second was in
1787, j|lled “Shay’s Insurrection,” in
Massachusetts. The third was in 1894,
popularly called “Tho Whisky Insur
rection of Pennsylvania.” The fourth
instance was in 1814, by the Hartford
Convention Federalists. The fifth, on
which occasion the different sections ol
the U nion came into collison, was in
1»20, under the administration of Presi
dent Monroe, and occurred on the ques
tion of the admission of Missouri into
the U nion. The sixth was a collision
between the Legislature of Georgia and
the Federal Government in regard to
certain lands given by the latter to the
Creek Indians. The seventh was in
1820 with the Cherokees in Georgia. The
eighth was the memorable nullifying
ordinance of South Carolina in 1832.
The ninth was in 1842, and occurred in
Rhode Island between the Suffrage As
sociation and the State authorities. The
tenth was iu 1836, on the part of the
Mormons, who resisted the Federal au
thority. —Detroit Free Press.
Ainu Prayers For the Sick.
When very sick, an Ainu man (the
woman may not pray at all) will call
upon the fire-goddess, who is reckoned a
, great purifier, thus: “Abe kamui, Yeko
ingara w.i en kore” (“O fire-goddess,
condescend to look upon me.’’) Upon
the approach of death, the master will
lie close to the fire on his own side of
the hearth, partly for the sake of the
warmth, but probably in a measure foi
any possible benefit to be gained from
propinquity to the realm of the fire-god
dess. Then the village chief and elders,
and the sick man’s friends, all come to
see him; the men to pray and “drink to
the gods,” while the w-omen weep and
wail in rather a noisy fashion, since they
are denied the comforts of religion.
There are times when the patience of the
praying men becomes exhausted if no
favorable answer is given to their peti
tions. Mr. Batchelor tells of one death
scene which he witnessed when two men
were praying to the goddess of fire and
another toward the sun rising through
the eastern window ; while a fourth was
looking toward the northeast corner of
the hut (which corresponds in a measure
to the latrine of Japanese houses) and
swearing most vehemently at all the gods,
something after this lashion: “iou
fools! why don’t you pay some attention
to us? Can’t you see that this man is in
great danger? Here we’ve been praying
and praying for him, and yet he doesn’t
get well. What’4 the matter? Are you
deaf? Can’t you hear us?” —Popular
Science Monthly.
An aged widower got married recently
for the fourth tim», notwithstanding
that he had a house full of grown-up
children. While the marriage ceremony
was being performed one of the guests,
hearing soLw in the next room, asked
oue of the children tv ho it w.s. “lhats
j 1 mily.” was the reply, “-he always
; howls when papa gets married again.”
t-uriou'-ly enough, after the purchaser
paid for his gun, he said he would
like to have It charged.
THE STORY OF AN EXILE.
PATHETIC EXPERIENCE OF A RUS
SIAN BANISHED TO SIBERIA- <
A Man of Fine Attainments Doomed
to Perpetual Banishment— Hi*
Wife’s Sad Fate.
The following from the Century is on®
I of the most touching stories that Mr.
j Kennan has yet told of the fate of Sibe-
I rian exiles: “To me, perhaps, the most
attractive and sympathetic of the Tomsk
exiles was the Kusaiau author, J exil
Yolkhofski, who wa9 banished to Siberia
for life in 1878, upon the charge of ‘be
longing to a society that intends, at &
more or less remote time in the future, to
overthrow the existing form of Govern
ment.’ He was about thirty-eight years
of age at the time I made his acquaint
ance, and was a man of cultivated mind,
warm heart- and high aspirations.
He knew English well, was famil
iar with American history and
literature, aud had, I believe
translated into Russian many of the
poems of Longfellow. He spoke to me
with great admiration, I remember, of j
Longfellow's ‘Arsenal at Springfield, 1
and recited it to me aloud. He was one
of the most winning and lovable men
that it has ever been my good fortune.to'
know; but his life had been a terrible
tragedy. His health had been shattered 1
by long imprisonment in the fortress of
Petropavlovsk; his hair was prematurely]
white; anc wheu his face was in repose
there seemed to be an expression of .pro
found melancholy iu his dark brown eyes.j
I became iuliuiuielj’aCqUailiteu Vvitu uiul
and very warmly attached to him: andj
when I bade him good-bye for the last
time on my return from Eastern Siberia!
in 1886, he put h's arms around me and 1
kissed me, and said, ‘George Ivanovitch,!
please don’t forget us! In bidding you
good bye, I feel as if something were
going out of mv life that would never
again come into it.’
“Since my return to America I have
heard from Mr. Yolkhofski only once.
He wrote me last winter a
sad and touching letter, in which he in
formed me of the death of his Wife by.
suicide. He himself had been thrown
out of employment by the suppression of
the liberal Tomsk newspaper, the Siberian
Gazette ; and his wife, whom I remember
os a pale, delicate, sad-faced woman,
twenty-live or thirty years of age, had
tried to help him support their family of
young children by giving private lessons
and by taking in sewing. Anxiety and
overwork had finally broken down her
health; she had become an invalid, and
in a morbid state of mind, brought on
by unhappiness and disease, she reasoned
herself into the belief that she was an
incumbrance, rather than a help, to her
husband and her children, and that they
would ultimately be better oil if she were
dead. A little more than a year ago she
put an end to her unhappy life by shoot
ing herself through the head with a
pistol. Her husband was devotedly
attached to her; and her death,
under such circumstances and in such
a way, was a terrible blow to him. In
his letter to me he referred to a copy of
James Russell Lowell’s poems that I had
caused to be sent to him, and said that
in reading ‘After the Burial’ he vividly
realized lor the first time that grief is of
no nationality; the lines, although writ
ten by a bereaved American, expressed
the deepest thoughts and feelings of a
bereaved Russian. He sent me with hi*
letter a small, worn, leather match-box,
which had been given by Prince Pierre
Krapotkin to his exiled brother Alex
ander; which the latter had left to Volk
hofski; and which Yolkhofski had'in
turn presented to his wife a short time
before her death. He hoped, he said,
that, it would have some vaiue to me, on]
account of its association with the live#
of four political offenders, all of whom I
had known. One of them was a refugee
in London, another was an exile in
Tomsk, and two had escaped the juris
diction of the Russian Government by
taking their own lives.
“1 tried to read Volkholski’s letter
aloud to my wife; but as I recalled the
high character and lovable personality
of the writer, and imagined what this last
blow of fate must have been to such a
man—in exile, in broken health, and with
a family of helpless children dependent
upon him—the written Lnes vanished in
a mist of tears, and with a choking in my
throat I put the letter and the little
match-box away.
“The Tsar may whiten the hair of such
men as Felix Yolkhofski in the silent
bomb-proof ca emates of the fortress,
and he may send them in gray convict
overcoats to Siberia; but a time will come
in the providence of God, when their
names will stand higher than his on the
roll of history, and when the record of
their lives and sufferings will be a sour. •
of heroic inspiration to all Russians who
love liberty aud their country.”
B ggest Flagstones Ever Quarried.
Everybody who has been able to see
the mansions built by the late William
H. Vanderbilt for himself and his two
daughters, with their families, knows
that the structures occupy the whole
hifth avenue front between Fifty-first
and Fifty-second streets, New Y’ork Uitv,
and most visitors have noticed the
enormous stones which form the side
walk. 't hese blocks of granite reach
from curb to area rail, and are propor
tionately w ; de. The city home of Mrs.
Willie Vanderbilt is on the corner just
across Fifty-second street, and it is more
ornamental with its carved granite, than
the larger piles of brown stone. But the
300 feet of sidewalk boideriug the
two sides of the prem ses was com
po-ed of flags not remarkably big, al
though rather better than the Filth
avenue average. The whimsical youDg
matron did not choose that her
sister-in-law neighbors should be better
off than she, eveu in what they tread on
in transit betwixt portal and carriage.
Therefore, she has ordered her sidewalk
torn away and replaced by the biggest
flagstones ever quarried. They will be
about twenty feet square each and a foot
and a half thick. The difficulty of get
ting out such tremendous blocks, and the
;ost of transportation, will make the
price rather more than SIOOO apiece by
ihe time they are laid. To real ze the
extravagance one has only to think that
;he money paid for every one of these
stones would build a pretty house in the
country or buy a considerable farm.
Nevertheless, as not less tL vn ninety-six
per cent, of this outlay in for labor, isn’t
it better for many poor people that this
very rich person should want that kind
of a sidewalk? — limes-Democrat.