Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

BEY. DR. TALMAGE. THE BROOKLYN DIVINE’S SUN« DAY SERMON. Subject: “ The Literature of the Dust.” Text: ‘‘Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground." —John viii., 6.' A Mohammedan mosque stands now where once stood Herod’s temple, the scene of my text. Kolomon’s temple had stood there, but Nebuchadnezzar thundered it down. Zoro babel’s temple had stood there, but that had been prostrated. Now we take our places in a temple that Herod built because he was fond of great architecture and he wanted the preceding temples to seem insignificant. Put eight or ten cathedrals together and they would not equal that structure. It covered nineteen acres. There were marble pillars supporting roofs of ceder and silver tables on which stood golden cups, and thero were carvings exquisite and inscriptions resplen dent, glittering balustrados and ornamented gateways. The building of this temple kept fyn thousand workmen busy forty six years. In that stupendous pile of pomp and mag nificence sat Christ, and a 1 sterling throng stood about him, when a wild disturbance took place. A group of men are pulling and flushing along a woman who has committed the worst crime against society. When they have brought her in front of Christ, they ask that He sentence her to death by stoning. They are a critical, merci less, disingenuous crowd. They want to get Christ into controversy and public reprehension. If He say: “Let her die,” they will charge Him with cruelty. If He let her go, they will charge Him with being in complicity with wickedness. Whichever way He does, they would howl at Him. Then occurs a scene which has not been sufficiently regarded. He leaves the lounge or bench on which He was sitting and goes down on one knee, or both knees, and with the forefinger of His right hand He begins to write in the dust of the floor, word after word. But they were not to be diverted or hindered. They kept on demanding that He settle this case of transgression until He looked up and tt’d them that they might themselves begin thewoman’s assassination, if the complainant whobad never done anything wrong him self would open the fire. “Go ahead, but be sure that the man who flings the first missile is immaculate.” Then He resumed writing with His fmger in the dust cf the floor, word after word. Instead of looking over His shoulder to see what He had written the scoundrels skulked away. Finally, the whole place is clear of pur suers, antagonists and plaintiffs, and when Christ has finished this strange chirography In the dust. He loo’:s up and finds the woman all alone. The prisoner is the only one of the court; room left, the judges, the police, the prosecuting attorneys having cleared out. Christ is victor, and He says to the woman: “Where are the prosecutors in this case? Are they all gone? Then I dis charge you; go and sin no more.” I have al ways wondered what Christ wrote on thr ground. For do you realize that is the o. v time that He ever wrote at all? I know ,uat Eusebius says that Christ once wrote a letter to Abgarus, the King of Edessa, but there is no good evidence of such a correspondence. The wisest being the world ever saw and the one who had more to say than any one who ever lived, never writing a book or a chapter, or a page or a paragraph, or a word on parch ment. Nothing but this literature of the dust, and one sweep of a brush or one breath of a wind obliterated that forever. Among all the rolls of the volumes of the first library founded at Thebes there was not one scroll of Christ. Among the seven hundred thousand books of the A'exandrian library, which by the infamous decree of Caliph Omar were used as fuel to heat the four thousand baths of the city, not one sentence had Christ, penned. Among all the infinitude of volumes now standing in the libraries of Edinburgh, the British Museum, or Berlin or Vienna, or the learned repositories of all nations, not one word written directly by the finger of Christ! All thnt ho ever wrote he wrote in dust, uncertain, shifting, van ishing dust. AJy text says He stooped down and wrote on tlie ground. Standing straight up a man might write on the ground with a staff, but if with bis fingers he would write in the dust, he must bend clear over. Aye, he must get at least on one knee or he cannot write on the ground. Be not surprised that He stooped down. His whole life was a stooping down. Stooping down from castle to barn. Stoopiug down from celestial homage to mobocratic jeer. From residence abort the stars to where a star5 tar had to fall to designate His landing place. Tom heaven’s front door to the world’s back gate. From writing in round and silvered letters of constellation and galaxy on the blue scroll of heaven, to writing on the ground in the dust, which the feet of the crowd had left in Herod’s temple. If in January you have ever stepped out of a prince’s conservatory that had Mexican cactus and magno lias in full bloom, into the outside air ten de grees below zero, you may get some idea of Christ's change of atmosphere from celestial to terrestrial. How many heavens there are I know not, but there are at least three, for Paul was “caught up into the third heaven.” Christ came down from highest heaven to the second heaven, and down from second heaven to first heaven, down swifter than meteors eve'r fell, down amidst stellar spen dors that Himself eclipsed, down through clouds, through atmospheres, through appall ing space, down to where there was no lower depth. From being waited on at the ban quet of the skies to the broiling of fish for His own breakfast on the hanks ot the lake. From emb’azoned chariots of eternity to the saddle of a mule’s back. The homage ; cherubic, seraphic, arehangelic, to the paying of sixty-two and a half cents of tax to C.csar. From the deathless country to a tomb built to hide human dissolution. The uplifted wave of Galilee was high, but He had to come down before, with His feet, He could tou h it, and the whirlwind that rose above the billow was higher yet, but He had to come down before', with His lip. He could kiss it -info quiet. Bethlehem a stooping down. Nazareth a stooning down. Death between two burglars a stooping down. Yes, it was in consonance with humiliations that l ad gone before and with self abnega tions that came after, when on that memor able day in Herod’s temple He stooped down and wrote on the ground. Whether the words He was writing were in Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew, I cannot say, for He knew ail those languages. But He is still stooping down and with His finger writ ing on the ground; in the winter in letters of crystals, in the spring in letters of flowers, in summer in golden letters of harvest, in autumn in letters of fire on fall -n leaves. How it would sweeten up and en rich and emblazon this world could we see Christ’s cnligraphy all over it. This world was not flung out into space thousands of years ago and then left to look out for it self. It is still under the divine care. Christ never for a half second takes His hand off of it, or it would soon be a ship wrecked world, a defunct world, an obsolete world, an abandoned world, a dead world. “Let there be light” was said at the begin ning. And Christ stands under the wintry skies and says: Let there be snowflakes to en rich the earth: and under the clouds of spring and says: Come ye blossoms and make re dolent the orchards, and in September, dips the branches into the vat of beautiful co-ors and swings them in the hazv air No whim of mine is this. “Without Him was not anything made that was rnada ctlllß j writing on the ground. If w e could see His hand in all the passing seasons Bnow it would illumine the world. All verdure and foilage would be in allegoric, and again we would hear Hun say as of old. “Consider the Idles of the field how they grow” and we would not hear the whistle of a quad or the cawing of a raven or the roundelay of a v ‘ ro "", thresher, without saying: Bebo d the fowls of the air, they gather not into narns. yet your Heavenly Father feedeth theniand a Dominic hen of the barnyard could l it cluck for her brood, yet we would hear Christ saying as of old: “How often would I have gathered thv children together, even as a hen gathered her chickens under her wings;” and through the redolent hedges we would hear Christ, saying: “I am the rose of Sharon;” we could not dip the seasoning from the salt cellar without think ing of the Divine suggestion: “Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, it is fit for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.” Let us wake up from our stupidity and take the whole world as a para' le. Then if with gun amt pack of hounds we start off before daw n and see the morning coming down o f the hills to meet us. we would cry out with the evangelist: “The day spring from on high hath visited us;” or caught in a snowstorm while struggling home, eyebrows and beard and apparel all covered with the whirl ing flakes, we would cry out with David: “Wash me and I shall be whiter than sno In a picture gallerv of Europe, there is on the ceiling an exquisite fresco, but people having to look straight up. it wearied and dizzied them, and bent their necks almost be yond endurance, so a great looking-glass was put near the floor and now visitors onlv need to look easily down into this mir ror and they see the fresco at their feet. And so much of all the heaven of God’s truth is reflected in this world as in a mirror, and the things that are above are copied by things all around us. What right have wo to throw away one of God’s Bibles, ave, the first Bible He ever gave the race? We talk about the Old Testament and the New Testiment, but the oldest Testa ment contains the lessons of the natural world. Some people like the New Testament so well they discard the Old Testament. Shall we like the New Testament and the Old Testament so well as to depreciate the oldest; namely, that which was written before Moses was put afloat on the boat of leaves which was calked with asphaltum: or reject the Genesis and the Revelation that were written centuries l ofore Adam lost a rib and gained a wife? No, no; when Deity stoops down and writes on the ground, let us real it. I would have no less appreciation of the Bible on paper that comes out of the paper mill, but _ I would urge appreciation of the Bible im the grass, the Bible in the sand hill, the Bible in the geranium, the Bible in the asphodel, the Bible in the dust. Some one asked an ancient king whether he had seen the eclipse of the sun. “No.” said he. "I have so much to do on earth, I have no time to look at heaven.' 1 And if our faculties were all awake in the study of God, we would not have time to go much further than the first grass blade. I have no fear that natural religion will ever contradict what we call revealed religion. I have no sympathy with the foi'owers of Aristotle, who after the telescope was in vented. wou’d not look through it, lest it contradict some of the th ’orie.s of their great master. I shall be glad to put against one lid of the Bible the microscope, and against the other lid of the Bible the telescope. But when Christ stooped down and wrote on the ground, what did He write? The Pharisees did not stop to examine. The cowards, whipped of their own conscience;, fled pell inell. Nothing will flav a man like an aroused conscience. Dr. S evens, in his “History of Methodism,” says that when Rev. Benjamin Abbott of olden times was preaching, he exclaimed: “For aught I know there may be a murderer in this house,” and a man rose in the assemblage and started for the door and bawled aloud, confessing to a murder he had committed fifteen years before. And no wonder these Pharisees, reminded of their sins, took to their heels. But what did Christ write on the ground? The Bible does not state. Yet, as Christ never wrote anything except that onre. you cannot blame us for wanting to know what He really did write. But lam certain He wrote nothing trivial, or nothing unimportant. And will you allow me to say that I think I know what He wrote on the ground? I judge from the circumstances. He might have written other things, but kneeling there in the temple, surrounded by a pack o( hypocrites, who were a self appointed con stabulary, and having in His presence a per secuted woman who evidently was very peni tent for her sins. I am sure He wrote two words both of them graphic and tre mendous and reverberating. And the one word was hypocrisy and tho other word was forgiveness. From the way these Pharisees and scribes vacated the premises and got out into tho fresh air, as Christ, with just one ironical sentence, unmasked them, I krlow they were first class hypocrites. It was then as it is now. The more faults and inconsistencies people have of their own, the more severe and cen sorious are they about the faults of others Here they are—twenty stout men arrest ing and arraigning one weak woman, Magnificent business to be engaged irf. They wanted the fun of seeing her faint away un der a heavy judicial sentence from Christ, and then after she had been taken outside the city and fastened &t the foot of the prec ipice, the Scribes and Pharisees wanted the satisfaction of each coming and dropping s big stone on her head, for that was the style of capital punishment that they asked for. Some people have taken the responsibilitv of saying that Christ never laughed. But 1 think as He saw those men drop every thing, chagrined, mortified, exposed and go out quicker than they came in, Ht must have laughed. At any rate, it makes me laugh to read of it. All of these liber tines, dramatizing indignation against im purity. Blind bats lecturing on optics. A flock of crows on their way up from a car cass, denouncing carrion. Yes, 1 think that one word written on the ground that day by the finger of Christ was the awful word of hypocrisy. But lam sure there was another word in that dust. From her entire manner I am sure that arraigned woman was repentant, She made no apology, and Christ in no wise belittled her sin But her supplicatory behavior and her tear: moved Him, and when He stooped down tc write on the ground. He wrote that mighty, that imperial word, forgiveness. When on Sinai God wrote the law, Ho wrote it with finger of lightning om table of stone, each word cut as by a chisel into the hard granite surface. But when He writes the offense of this woman He writes it in the dust so that it can be easily run be 1 out, and when she repents of it, oh. He was a merciful Christ! I was reading of a legend that is told in the far East about Hin. He was walking through the streets of a city and He saw a crowd around a dead dog. And one man said: “Whac a loath some object is that dog!” “Yes,” said another, “his ears are mauled and bleeding.” “Yes,” said another, “even his hide would pot be of any use to the tanner.” “Yes,” Said another, “the odor of his carcass is dread ful.” Then Christ, standing there, said ‘•But pearls cannot equal the whiteness of His teeth.” Then the people, moved by the idea that any one could find anything pleasant concerning a dead dog, said: “Why, this must be Jesus of Naza reth.” Reproved and convicted they went away. Surely this legend of Christ is good snough to be true. Kindness in all His words and ways and habits. Forgive ness. Word of "eleven letters, and some of •hem thrones, and some of them palm branches. Better have Christ write close our names that one word, though He write it in dust, than to have our »ame cut Into monumental granite with the letters that he storms of a thousand years cannot oblit ;rat?. Bishop Babington had a book of only three leaves. The first leaf was black, the tecond leaf red, the third leaf white. The i flack leaf suggested sin: the red leaf atone nent; the white leaf purifi ation. That is die whole story. God will abundantly jardon. I must not forget to s«; that as Christ, flopping down, with His finger wrote on the iround, it is evident that His sympathies are with this penitent woman, and that He has ao sympathy with her hypocritical pursuers, lust opposite to that is the world's habit. Why didn’t these unclean Pharisees bring jne of their'own number to Christ for ex ! joriation and capital punishment? No, no; I they overlook that in a man which they \ iamnate in a woman. And so the world has Dad for offending women scourges and jbiurgatiou. and for iust one offense she he comes an outcast, while for men whose lives have been sodoinic for twenty years, the world swings opens its doors of brilliant welcome, and they may sit in legislatures and senates and parliaments or on thrones. Unlike the Christ of my text, the world writes a plan’s misdemeanor in dust, but chisels a woman’s offense with greßt capitals upon in pffaceahle marble. For foreign lords and princes, whose names cannot even be mentioned in respectable circles abroad, because they are walk ing lazarettos of abomination, our American princesses of fortune * ait. and at the first beck sail out with them into the blackness of darkness forever. And in what are called higher circles of society there is now not only their imitation of foreign dress and foreign manners, but an imitation of foreign iissoluteness. I like an Englishman and 1 like an American, but the sickest creature on ?arth is an American playing tho English man. Society n eds to be reconstructed on this subject. Treat them alike, masculine grime and feminine crime. If you cut the ane in granite, cut them both in granite, [f you write the one in dust, write the ather in dust. No. no, says tho world, let woman go down and let man go up. What is that t hear plashing into tho East River at midnight, and then there is a gurgle as of strangulation, and all is still. Never mind. It is onlv a woman too discouraged to live. Let the mills of the cruel world grind right on. But while I of Christ of the text, His stooping down writing in the dust, do not think I underrate the literature of the dust. It is the most solemn and tremendous of all literature. It is the greatest ot ail libraries. W 1 en Layard exhumed Nineveh he was only opening the door of its mighty dust. The excavations of Pompeii have only been the unclasp ing of the lids of a volume of a nation’s dust. When Admiral Farragut and his friends, a few years ago, visited that resurrected city, the house of Ralbo, who had been one of its ch ef citizens in its prosperous days, was opened and a tab’e was spread in that house which eighteen hundred and ten years has been buried by volcanic eruption, and Farra gut and h'S guests walked over the exquisite mosaics and under the beautiful fresco, and it almost seemed like being enter tained by those who eighteen centuries ago had turned to dust. Oh._ this mighty literature of the dust. Where are the remains of Sennacherib and Attila and Epamimondas and Tamerlane and Tro jan and Philip of Maeedon and Julius IJmsar? Dust! Where arc the heroes who fought on both sides at Ch rronea. at Hastings, at Marathon, at Cressy, of the 110,- 500 men who fought at Agincourt, of the >50,000 men who faced death at Jena, of the 100,000 whoso armor glittered in the sun at Wragram, of the 1,0 )0,000 men under Darius at Arbella, of the 2,041,030 men under Xerxes at Thermopylae? Dust! Where are the guests who danced the floors Df the Alhambra, or the Persian palaces of Ahasuerus? Dust! Where are the musicians who played and the orators who spoke, and the sculptors who chiseled. and the archi tects who built in all tho centuries ex cept our own? Dust! The greatest library of the world, that which has the widest shelves and the longest ais’es and the most multitudinous volumes and the vastest wealth, is the underground library. It is the royal library, the con tinental library, the hemispheric library, the planetary librarv. the library of k>'« dust. Aul all these librarv cases will be opened, and all these scrolls unrolled and all these volumes unclasped and ns easily as in your library or mine we take up a book, blow tho dust off of it, and turn over its pages, so easily will the Lor l of t’ie Resurrection j >ick up out of this library of dust every volume of human life anil open it and read it and display it. And the volume will be rebound, to b set in the roval li brary of the King’s palace, or in the prison library of the self destroyed. Oh, this mighty literature of the dust! It is not so wonderful after all that Christ chose, instead of an inkstand, the impressionable san 1 on the floor of an ancient temple, and, instead Df a hard pen, put forth His forefinger with the same kind of nerve, an 1 inuscD, and bone, and flesh, as that which makes up our own forefinger, and wrota the awful doom of hypocrisy and full and complete foregive ness for repentant sinners, even the worst. And now 1 can believe that which I read, how that a mother kept burning a candle n the window every night for ten years, and one night very late a poor waif of the street entered. The aged woman said to her: “Sit down by the fire,” and the stranger said: “Why do you keep that light in the win dow:” The aged woman said: “That is to light my wayward daughter when she returns. Since she went away ten years ago my hair has turned white. Folks blame me for worrying about her, but you see I am her mother, and sometimes, half a dozen times a night, I open the door and look out into the darkness and cry: ‘Lizzie! Lizzie!’ But I must not tell you any more about my trouble, for I guess, from the way you cry, you have trouble enough of your own. TTliv, how cold and sick you seem: Ob, my: can "it be? Yes, you are Lizzie, my own lost child. Thank God that you are home again!” And what a time of rejoicing there was in that house that night! Anil Christ again stooped down. and in the ashes of that hearth. now lighted up not more by the great blazing logs than by the joy of a reunited household, wrote the same liberating words that He had written more than eighteen hundred years ago in the dust o ; the Jerusalem temple. Forgiveness! A word broad enough and high enough to let jxass through it all the armies of heaven, a million abreast, on white horses, nostril to nostril, flank to flank. Romance of a Raeehor- e. The career of the celebrated thorough bred stallion Billet, who died in Ken tucky recently, is full of romance, and in its way quite as much a matter for the nove.ist’s pen as that of the far famed Go lolpliin Arabian. Billet ran as a two-year-old about nine teen times in England, and won very few of his races. As a three-year old he was thought fit only fur hurdle racing, and for that purpose was given to a young sporting man who at the present moment is earning a precarious living in New York us a horse dealer. Break ing down on the eve of a big race, Billet was thought to be fit only for the sham bles or whatever he might briug in the Liverpool docks. Purchased there for a song, he was brought to America and was ictually hawked about the streets looking for a purchaser. By some stroke of destiny lie fell into the hands of a Western breeder, and first attracted at tention as the sire of Voltnrno, a noted long distance performer about ten years ago. Messrs. Bowen, Clay and Woodford, of Paris, Ky., were just then looking for a stallion to put at the head of their liun nymede. They purchased Billet f«,r ; 5,- 000,000, and though the m ires at this stud were young and unknown, their produce to Billet at once began to win many of tlie two-year stakes. Miss Woodford’s career in 1883, when she was a three-year-old, supplemented by her unbeaten career in 1884, established Billet as one of the leading sires of the country. Elias Laurence, Barnes, Sir Dixon, Raeelaud, Belviderc. The Lion ess and others have earned great fame for their sire, once thought worthless. —Few Yorfc Journal. The horse of a doctor at Dover, Mo., though thirty-six y nrs old, is strong and lively and performs very good ser vice. BUDGET OE FUN. HUMOROUS SKETCHES FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. She Scored One—She Felt Wretched About It—The Other String to the Bow-Tough —Etc., Etc. Quoth he: “You are my life, dear girl, Consent my wife to be.” ‘I cannot, George,” she quick returned, “The law forbids, you see.” “The law forbids!” he gasped. “Yes, George,” She playfully replied, “If you should take ‘your life,’ of course, You’d be a suicide.” Yonkers Gazette. She Felt, Wretched About It. Mrs. Gushington—“Why, Julia, what makes you look so down-hearted?” Julia—“My servant has left me, and my poor old mother, who is just barely recovered from an attack of rheumatism, is compelled to do all the housework.” — Siftings. The Other String to the Bow. Mrs. Smallsalary—“l don’tseehow wo arc going to keep the children warm this winter, Alfred.” Mr. Smallsalary—“Well, I suppose we can afford a fire part of the time, and part of the time we can take turns spank ing them.”— Burlington Free Press. Tough! Mr. Long Waiting (the tailor) —“I would like very much to see Mr. Ba boony. An important matter of busi ness, you know ” Mr. Baboony’s Man —"I'm very sorry, sir, but Mr. Baboony’s busily hengaged, sir, and can’t be seen. He's a studying, sir, which coat he shall wear to the club to-day, and it’d be ruin to me if I hin terrupted him, sir!”— Siftings. A Faithful Heart. Tumblethwaite had proposed and been accepted, and as he slipped the engage ment ring upon her finger, he said trem ulously : “Barling, you will always wear it upon this linger, won't you?” and the girl with a shy glance of love, replied: “Always, George, always—when I am with you.’ - — Life. Otherwise He Was Safe. Hooligan—“So ye do bees teelin’ me thet Brannigan was murthered be bur glars?” Mooney—“Yis, be jabbers, it’s a fact.” Hooligan—“An’ did they get his money ?” Mooney—“Niveracent. Sure he had it hid safe, an’ barrin’ losin’ his life Brannigan kim out wid a whole shkin.” —American. No Danger Of Its Spreading. Gus Snoterly—“These Chinese must go.” Charlie Knickerbocker—“ What have they been doing now ?” “I have been reading how they make it a sacred rite to pay every cent they owe before the beginning of the new year. Suppose they introduce that cus tom in this country “What if they do? no danger of its spreading.”— Siftings. Sing Par Away. “What shall I asked, they had persuadt d sit the piano stool in the saloon. jp “Drifting,” said one. “When the Tide Comes In,” sawr an other. “Sailing,” proposed a third. “Oh, sing ‘Far Away,’ suggested the iraseible old gentkmm on the back lettee. The Ocean. How to Li am German. “If you want to learn German,” said Mr. Leo Hirscb,State printer, “I can tell you how to do so in twenty-four hours. ” “Well, tell us,” said his auditors in chorus and with increased interest. “Just take the whole German lan guage,” said Mr. Hirsth, slowly,soberly, ind with emphasis; “divide it into twenty-four parts, and learn one part every hour in the day.”— Columbus Dii vatch. A Dear Little Name. Mrs. Slick (to caller) —“This is my little four-year-old Johnny, Mrs. llob lon.” Mrs. Hobson (gushingly)—“lndeed, why bless your sweet little heart come and kiss me. Oh, what a delightful little kiss and what a nice little breath! Can you tell me your dear little name?” Johnny—“lethin, ith Johnny Wat routh Wathingtou Harrithon Thlick.”— Epoch. Rejuvenated. “Did you ever notice that the con fectioner’s name is on these cookies?” queried Waggley. “No.” “Well, it is, and there’s only one thing lacking about it.” “What’s that?” “A date.” And then the landlady, after dinner, took ’em out on the back stoop and sandpapered ’em. Detroit Free l*ress. At tlie Table in Two Acts “Ma, may I speak.” “You know that you are forbidden to talk at table, my dear,” “t an’t I just say one thing?” “No, Pepi! \\ hen papa has finished his paper, then you may talk.” Papa lays down his paper after break fast and asks: “Well, Pepi, what did you want to say ?” "I wanted to say that the water is run ning in the bath-room, and the tub is leaking over like everything.”— Time. An Kasy One. “Fapa,” sweetly lisped little Helio gabalus, “what relation are the children of first cousins to one another?” “Second cousins, of course,” replied Agrippinus. “Nop. Guess again.” “Thev certainly are.” “Nop.” “What relation are they,then, marty?’ “Brothers and sisters, of course.” Agrippinus studied fully five minutes before he found the combination. —Sm Eranusco Examiner. A Crushing Blow. ( “May I look through your waste Ussket?” inquired the young man, enter ing timidly. “Certainly,” said the editor. “What do you want to find?” “A little poem on ‘Mortality’ that I sent in yesterday.” ‘ ‘My dear sir. that poem was accepted and will appear to-morrow. I will draw you a check for $25, and I assure you )> But he spoke to life’ess ears. The youug man had fallen to the floor. The shock had killed him. Chicago Tribune. Mercantile Confidence. “Jimplecute & Co. have failed,” said the confidential clerk of Hardscrabble & Hardscrabble to the senior partner. “Well, they don’t owe us anything, do they?” asked the senior partner. “No; as nearly as I can find out they have failed at their own expense.” “Bah!” said the senior partner, in dis gust, “that is not a failure at all. That is the work of dunderheads, sir. Do not degrade the word ‘failure’ by applying it to a mere unbusinesslike smash-up. I am surprised at you, Mr. Longmeter.” Tlie Real Estate Boom Had Passed. “Joshua,” said a fanner, who lived a few miles from a Western town, in con versation with his son, “where do you think we had better plant our potatoes next spring?” “I don't know, father. I hadn’t thought of it. How would the land down by the creek do?” “Down by the creek!” repeated the oldman, scornfully. “We'il plant them at the corner of ItOtli and Gay streets, lot six, block 317, Jenkins’s addition to the City of Swamp Hollow.” — Merchant' Traveler. The Judge Sighed. A short time after tho jury had retired from a Chicago criminal court room, the bailiff was startled by a furious uoise in the jury room. “I'ou needn't kick in there,” he cried, “for we don’t intend to let you out till you are ready with your verdict. This is au important case.” “For heaven’s sake let us out,” one of the jurymen shouted. “Have you got a \erdict?” “No, but ” “Then you can’t come out.” “I tell you that ” “And I tell you that you are not com ing out.” The noise within became more furious, the cries became loud and distressing. The bailiff at length open the door. The jurymen rushed out, followed by a dense volume of smoke. The room was on fire. When the judge heard of the jury’3 narrow escape, he sighed sadly. He had had much experience with ju ries, so much, indeed, that he has had the bailiff’s salary reduced.— Arkansas Trav eler. The New Reporter Gets Solid. It was the new reporter who had come m, covered with perspiration and dust, as the la3tform went to press. “Did it take you alt day to do that park water works detail,’’snarled the city | editor. “S-sht speak low,” whispered the ; new “special” in the C. E.’sear. “Got on to an Al suicide out in the park — S defalcation, probably.’' “Great Casar! and we Lave gone to | press,” gasped the editor; “the after ; noon papers will get a be.it on us to morrow.” “Not much !’’chuck led the reporter; “I knew I couldn’t get here in time for the last edition, so I just queered the find.” “What do you mean?” “Why, I dragged the body into the bushes and covered it up with grass and things. A bloodhound couldn’t find it. To morrow we will develop the claim and give ’em a two-column sensation.” With tears in his eyes the city editor arose and fell upon his subordinate’s neck. “You are an honor to the profes sion,” he sobbed: “I’ll see that your salary is increased $2 a month. I will, by jingo!”— inion Printer. A Big Bug and a Small Potato. Ex-Attorney General Palmer is fond of a joke, and he isn’t put out a bit if the joke is on him, just so it is funny. He dresses very neatly and is not given to jewelry except in the matter of scarf pins, and an adornment of this character once led to a remark about him lhat set all Wilkesbarre to laughing. He had purchased a very handsome pin in the shape of a bug, w hich was of rather loud size and pretty conspicuous. It looked like an exaggerated potato bug. His friends guyed him considerably about it, and that scarfpin became the talk of the town. One day a prominent German saloon keeper passed mr. Palmer as the latter stood at his office door, looked out the corner of his eye at the scarfpin and smiled. Instantly the attorney, in his quick, sharp way, sa < : 4p “Well. Duchy, what’s the matter with I you? What are you laughing at?” “Oh, nodings, Mr. Balrner?” “Yes you were. You were laughing at this scarfpin. What’s the matter with it?” “I guess it’s all right, Mr. Balrner.” “Well, look at it and see. Is there anything the matter with it? Examine it.” The German drew nigh, carefully scanned the r>in, looked it over gravely, and was about to turn aWay, when Mr. Palmer said: “Well, what's the matter with that bug scarfpin? What do you think?” “Veil, Mr. Balrner,’ said the Germar. j “I don’d know but vat I think I never before saw so big a bug on so schmall a potato,” and be walked off with a queer : grin on his face. The remark struck Mr. Palmer as being exceeding funny, and he told it to some of his friends.— Harrisburg {Penn.) Telegraph. Alaska has a coast line of 4000 miles, and its climate varies greatly according to location. In the S.tk i district there are from 1! 0 to 275 rainy days in the year. January, February and June are the pleasantest months. Of all the beet sugar factories yet in stituted in the United States none is now in operation except one in California,and this one, it is reported, is largely en gaged in refining Sandwich Island cane sugar. Mr. Backgammon (who is giving a small lunch to some Washington friends, to the chief musician) —“Strike up the ‘Pirates’ Chorus’ now. Professor. They’re just going into the dining room.”— lime. HOUSEHOLD AFFAIRS. To Tell the Ago of Egga. We recommend the following process for finding out the age of eggs, and disi tinguishing those that are fresh fronj those that are not. This method is based upon the decrease in the density of eggs as the grow old: Dissolve two ounces of kitchen salt in a pint of water. When a fresh laid egg is placed in this solution it will descend to the bottom of the vessel, while one that his been laid on the day previous will not quite reach the bottom. If the egg be three days old it will swim in the liquid, and if it be more than three days old it will float on the surface, and pro ject above the latter more and more in proportion as it is older. —The Hen. Home Maile Bread. I make my bread about 0 o’clock r. M. in winter, not so early in summer. I take three pints of flour in a pan (which I keep for the purpose), one large table spoon of salt and one small one of lard, and then add about three pints of quite warm water, perhaps a little more. 1 then make a smooth batter siid add one compressed yeast caKe (dissolved in a little warm water), then knead, but not any more than is necessary. I leave mine real soft, because it is not as light when kneaded too stiff. After kneading, set in a warm place over night. In the morning put in tins and let stand about half an nour to rise. Then bake in a moderate oven an hour, if the oven is too hot the bread will burn before it bakes through. Do not knead the dough when you put ia the tins. Just cut it out of tho pan and make into loaves of the size you wish. Wrap the bread up well when taken from the oven, to keep it from drying. —New York Press. Window Gardening. Hardy bulbs can be relied on for flow ering. Hyacinths are among the most desirable for window culture. They re quire free, dry and somewhat rich soil, and may be set singly in very small pots, er in groups of three or more in pots ot proportionate size. In planting make a cavity in the earth half the depth of the bulb, bury lightly, then press firmly down till it is nearly covered. The Dutch va rieties have large flowers, red, white, blue or yellow; the single are larger and richer than the double. The easiest grown are the white Homan. Its flowers are single and somewhat smaller than the Dutch; this is a profuse bloomer and sweetly fragrant. Tulips in all single varieties are good for house culture, and lavishly repay the little care they de mand. The great variety of colors, in tense brilliancy and lovely shading make them a delight to all eyeS. White naicissus, bearing small cup-shaped clusters of flowers, deliciously fragrant, is valuable for winter blooming, as also are the doable Roman and colored sorts. Anemone fulgens is the best anemone, bearing a multitude of rich Vermillion blossoms. The fcliage of all this class is very ornamental. —Sturdy Oak. How to Roast Meats. Good beef should have a bright red color, not too dark, dry and tender to the touch, fat and with a smooth open grain. In roasting meats one of the principal points is to have it as juicy as possible. Wash the meat in cold water, wipe dry, singe with a hot iron, then place in a dripping pan; cover the top with a layer of suet one-half inch thick; add drippings to the pan until one inch deep, the pan should be at least four inches deep; place in a hot oven and slightly increase the heat until done; allow thirty minutes for first pound and fifteen minutes for each additional pound. When done remove to a hot plate. Add one cup of hot water to the pan, after draining oil the drippings, let boil two or three minutes; then thicken with one tablespoonful of but ter mixed v/ith one of flour; add white pepper and salt to taste. Mushrooms, oysters, chopped pickles or any flavor can be added to this gravy. Another way is to wash, place in dripping pan, add one cup of hot water and place at once in a hot oven, turn often until nicely browned on all sides; remove to a hot platter, pour the drippings off, add one cup of sweet milk, let boil one minute, thicken with one tablespoonful of flour and one of butter, let boil one or two minutes, then add salt, white pepper and cinnamon. It is then ready to serve. A French way of roastiDg beef is to take a sirloin roast, mix salt, pepper, cinnanom and cloves together, then with a uarrow-bladed knife make incisions about one inch deep on all sides of the meat; put a little of the spice in each with a small slice of garlic. Boast according to the directions given above. —Detroit Free J'ress. Recipes. Mutton Pie.— Cold mutton, the more the better, thin slices of raw potatoes enough to fid up the baking dish, onions, salt and pepper to suit the taste; cover with pastry and bake. Auple Tapioca Pudding. —Soak over night one cup of tapicca in six cups of water. Next morning add one cup of sugar, one egg, and beat well together. Then pare, core and chop fine six or more apples, and stir with the tapioca in a pudding dish, and bake slowly. Anise Seed Cake. —To one and a half cups of sugar and one cup of butter beaten to a cream, add four well-beaten eggs, three cups of flour mixed with two teaspoons of yeast powder, and half a cup of well pickled anise seeds. Add a little milk and essence. Bake in small tins. Creamed Potatoes, —Cut. cold boiled potatoes into cubes or thin Slices. Put them in a shallow pan, cover with miik, and cook until the potatoes have ab sorbed nearly all the milk. To one pint of potatoes add a tablespoon of butter, half a saitspoon of pepper and a littlq chopped parsley. Beep Stock. —Take a knuckle of beef and separate the beef from the bones, cutting it into small pieces; break the bones also, red add a uart cf water to each pound of meat; when it begins to boil remove the scum, being careful to do this as often as it rises; set the soup kettle where it will simmer for rive or six hours, or until the substance of the meat is thoroughly extracted, then add salt su iicient to season it; sk m out the meat, strain out the liquid and put it away to cool aud for the fat to rise; when entirely cold remove the fat and there will remain a firm gelatinous mass which can be used for soups, gravies, etc.