588 
THE BUBAL W1W“¥©BKIB. 
SEPT 7 
sally, the quiet'soaile, the ’perfection of gentle 
breeding were all there, undimmed and inde¬ 
structible.” 
Perhaps it is with the graces of gentleness 
and patience, forbearance and serenity as it 
is with many other things—we simply are not 
willing to pay the price we must pay to win 
them. Or perhaps we do not see quite clearly 
what that price is. Surely they are to be 
sought and cultivated, if many of us ever 
possess them. As is said of the Quakers, in 
that delightful book, “ A Quaker Girl of 
Nantucket,” “They are serene from principle 
and then from habit; ” so it must be with any 
tranquil patience we attain to. There is 
much implied in that line from the last chap¬ 
ter of the Book of Proverbs, where is painted 
as nowhere else, the ideal woman: “In her 
tongue is the law of kindness.” 
LETTERS TO A COUSIN. 
M Y DEAR COUSIN: You will pardon, 
I know, my little delay in writing to 
you, for I have been entertaining an old friend 
and reading a new book, and between the two, 
I have not had a moment to spare for you, 
dear. Possibly, I might have stolen away 
from my friend (this is whispered very softly), 
but I really could not tear myself away from 
the book. Even now, thoughts about the 
book are uppermost in my mind and I think 
I must beg your kind indulgence while 1 talk 
about it for 10 minutes. It is “ Looking Back¬ 
ward” by Edward Bellamy, that has interested 
me so deeply. I may not be the first one to 
speak of this book to you—I am very sure I 
shall not be the last. Like that much-talked- 
of book “ Robert Elsmere,” it treats of the 
universal brotherhood of mankind. The au¬ 
thor very ingeniously dates his narrative in 
the year 2,000, and gives a retrospective 
glance over the faults and vices of the nine¬ 
teenth century. In the twentieth century it 
appears that the United States Government 
has taken unto itself the full control and man¬ 
agement of all the industries of the country, 
and in return it guarantees to every 
man and woman (and woman, mark 
ye that!) an education, employment and 
a competency for life; to each one 
the same amount—even as a father divideth 
his property equally amongst his children. 
The school education begins at the age of six 
and ends at 21.* On this subject the author 
says: “No single thing is so important to 
every man as to have for neighbors intelli¬ 
gent companionable persons. There is noth¬ 
ing, therefore, which the nation can do for 
him that will enhance so much his own hap¬ 
piness as to educate his neighbors. When it 
fails to do so the value of his own education 
is reduced by half, and many of the tastes he 
has cultivated are made positive sources of 
pain.” “To put the matter in a nutshell, 
there are three main grounds on which our 
educational system rests: First, the right of 
every man to the completest education the 
Nation can give him on his own account, as 
necessary to his enjoyment of himself: second, 
the right of his fellow-citizens to have him 
educated as necessary to their enjoyment of 
his society; third, the right of the unborn to 
be guaranteed an intelligent and refined par¬ 
entage.” These thoughts are ideal thoughts, 
cousin, but who can say that they shall 
never be realized. 
Of employment he says: “All men who do 
their best do the same. A man’s endowments, 
however God-like, merely fix the measure of 
his duty. The man of great endowments who 
does not do all he might, though he may do 
more than a man of small endowments who 
does his best, is deemed a less deserving work¬ 
er than the latter, and dies a debtor to his 
fellows. The Creator sets men’s tastes for 
them by the faculties He gives them; we 
simply exact their fulfillment.” Dearest, 
did you ever hear anything more clear-cut 
and logical than that? Arguments, such as 
these are very beautiful. Pray, wait one 
moment before you denounce the ideas as al¬ 
together impracticable. 
After leaving school, each person works for 
the government three years at whatever work 
he is appointed to. At the end of that term, 
he is allowed to choose his own vocation; If 
at the end of five years, he feels that he has 
mistaken his calling, he is allowed a second 
choice; this last he must abide by until the 
age of 45, when the government retires him 
from the service. Rather young to be laid 
on the shelf, you will say. But that is not 
the idea. Being released from government 
duties, each person may work for his own 
pleasure—not to lay up gold, for there is no 
money in circulation—but to advance 
in knowledge and understanding, “ever 
onward and upward,” or to dabble 
in art and make poetry to his heart’s content 
if so disposed; for, having honorably dis¬ 
charged his duties to Uncle Sam, his income 
Is steady and secure 'year.’in and’year'out. 
There are no drones in this grand industrial 
government, all are actual producers and 
therefore the real wealth of the country is 
vastly increased. 
Of course, you will have to read the book 
for yourself to understand “ how all these 
things can be.” The plans are all very finely 
made, and could they be fulfilled, peace and 
prosperity to all would seem assured. 
According to the book, all civilized coun¬ 
tries have adopted this new form of govern¬ 
ment, so that one may travel all over the 
world on his credit cards. Here is a bit of a 
criticism on authors by a 20 th century 
woman: “Ah Dickens! you” (speaking to a 
19th century man, who has been brought to 
consciousness after 43 years’ sleep) “ admired 
him then! That is where we moderns agree 
with you. Judged by our standards, he over¬ 
tops all the writers of his age, not because his 
literary genius was highest, but because his 
great heart beat for the poor; because he 
made the cause of the victims of society his 
own, and devoted his pen to exposing its cruel¬ 
ties and shames. No man of his times did so 
much as he to turn men’s minds to the wrong 
and wretchedness of the old order of things, 
and to open their eyes to the necessity of the 
great change that was coming, although he 
himself did not clearly forsee it.” I know 
you will think I am the most sanguine person 
in the world, to even have faith enough in a 
scheme of this kind to write to you so earn¬ 
estly about it; but if the subject does not 
arouse your sympathy I may at least hope 
that it will amuse you. 
I was very much amused myself with this 
passage: “ There is actually nothing that the 
people take more interest in than the perfec¬ 
tion of the catering and cooking done for 
them, and I admit that we are a little vain 
of the success that has been attained by this 
branch of the service.” “ Actually nothing 
that the people take more interest in than 
the perfection of the catering and cooking 
done for them." Ah, me! Is this advance¬ 
ment onward and upward? No subject then, 
even when we shall have reached the millen¬ 
nium, will be of greater importance than 
cooking! Let us proceed with our canuing 
and pickling and preserving, and see who can 
make the “ beautifulest jell that never was,” 
in order that our children’s children may 
with one accord pronounce us great. This is 
the only little slip I can find in the book 
that goes to show that human nature will be 
exactly the same then as now. You have 
doubtless received letters ere this that were 
all on one subject, (love letters for instance) 
and I trust you have not found this one more 
tedious than some of them. 
Very affectionately your cousin, 
DOCIA DYKENS. 
GOLDEN GRAINS. 
B ERTIE : “ Pa, is that new Mr. Hanks an 
ice dealer?” 
Pa : “ Yes, Bertie, how did you know?” 
Bertie: “ I didn’t know, only I thought he 
was, for when the minister prayed for hot 
weather yesterday he said ‘AmenI’ awfully 
loud.”. 
Ruskins says: “Though you may have 
known clever men who were indolent, you 
never knew a great man who was so; and 
when I hear a young man spoken of as giving 
promise of great genius, the first question I 
ask about him is always: Does he work?”. 
The pious man and atheist always talk of 
religion. The one speaks of what he loves, 
the other of what he fears, says Montesquieu. 
“ Seeing we have such hope we use great 
plainness of speech.” Ministers of Christ 
have plain truths to declare to plain people, 
and should declare them with such plainness 
that those who hear them shall be left without 
excuse in case they disobey. There should be 
such simplicity of language that a child can 
understand it, and such earnestness of soul 
that all who hear the word may feel its 
power. 
Says Mr. Spurgeon: “The reformation 
banished an unknown tongue from the read¬ 
ing-desk; we need another to banish it from 
the pulpit. The language of half our pulpits 
ought to be bound hand and foot, and with a 
millstone about its neck cast into the sea; it is 
poisoning the ‘ wells of English undefiled,’ 
and, worse still, it is alienating the working- 
classes from public worship.”. 
Build a full, firm fence of faith 
All aoout to day: 
Fill It In with useful works, 
And within It slay. 
Look not through the sheltering bars, 
Anxious for to-morrow; 
God will help whatever comes, 
Be It Joy or sorrow. 
The Independent says Bthat.life, in the 
union of an individual, personal and immor¬ 
tal spirit with an animal and mortal body, is 
an insolvable problem. The severance of this 
union that takes place at death, is a problem 
of equal mystery. We cannot penetrate to 
the interior depths of either, and must hence 
content ourselves with our own ignorance.... 
The fact that the good or evil which one 
does while living may long survive him in the 
results thereof, and thus make him a blessing 
or a curse to the world after he has personally 
left it, ought to operate upon every man as a 
powerful motive. Ic is a great and startling 
fact attached to the economy of our present 
existence, and immensely augments our re¬ 
sponsibility. 
Every man, says Dr. Hanaford, has an 
“inalienable right” to a supply of 25 cubic 
feet of pure air each minute, that his blood 
may be reasonably purified, while the man, 
or monster who voluntarily so contaminates 
it by tobacco smoke that it is unfit for bis 
legitimate use, is a usurper, a practical ty¬ 
rant, and should be treated as such. No man 
has any better right to rob me of the pure air 
which the Creator has granted me than he has 
to steal my pocket-book, since the air is one 
of the necessaries of health and life . 
CONDUCTED BY MRS. AGNES E. M. CARMAN. 
EXTRACTS FROM SUNDAY-EVENING 
TALKS AT THE RURAL GROUNDS. 
I N the fourth chapter of Proverbs, the 18 th 
verse, I find these lines: “The path of 
the just is as a shiDiDg light that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day.” 
What I have to say is perhaps my own 
creed in part. The path of the just, I under¬ 
stand to be the experience or life of a good 
man. This was written before Christ came, 
and when the term Christian was unknown: 
faithful followers of God were then spoken of 
as just, righteous or upright in all their ways. 
If 1 use the term Christian instead of just 
man, it will be because the term is more fami¬ 
liar to u«, and suggests the same idea mere 
fully to our minds. The Christian life, then, is 
compared to an increasing glory of light. On 
a cloudless morning, if awake while it is yet 
dark, and watching for the morning, we 
would see how the light shines more and more 
to the perfect day. It is so dark just before 
dawn on a moonless night that to one uncer¬ 
tain of the time daybreak seems hours away, 
but a faint light or rather a little lessening of 
the darkness soon becomes perceptible; then 
it deepens to a gleam in the East, spreads to¬ 
ward the zenith, and slowly begins to briDg 
out the objects around the watcher; but this 
early light often brings with it a sense of chill 
and desolation. The glory of the stars pales, 
and there is no joy in the heavens or on the 
earth; but the light soon deepens; the sky be¬ 
gins to flush with lovely color, and as the 
watcher begins to feel the glow of the new 
day, the sun’s rays strike the earth and bring 
out a joyous sense of life in every living 
thing. In an hour it is perfect day, and the 
sun is doing his mighty work in silent faith¬ 
fulness. 
There are 365 mornings in a year; there 
may be 90 years in a life-time, ana no two of 
all the 32,850 mornings dawn in just the same 
guise; but there is never a morning when the 
deep darkness suddenly becomes brilliant noon 
with no transition time. 
So with the Christian life in the history of 
the church and in the lives of individuals. 
Perhaps our Christian life here is only the 
hour of the dawD, and the whole perfect day 
lies beyond in the country where we are told, 
“ there is no night there.” 
If the Christian life were like the blazing of 
a torch when once lighted, the light could 
never increase and could not touch and 
quicken other lives more than a torch can 
hasten the circulation of the sap in tree and 
plant. It could not store up, by its shining, 
food and fuel and clothing in the earth and 
on the earth for the needs of the creai uros it 
shone upon. If our lives are but torches, 
what iucrease of power have we to look for¬ 
ward to ? The Bible is called a lamp, but the 
soul it illumines is compared to the shining 
light that shines more and more unto the per¬ 
fect day. 
The heaven promised the Christian has glo¬ 
ries, Paul tells us, which “ eye bath not seen 
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man the things God hath prepared 
for them that love him;” and a little further 
on, in the same letter, he says: “ But the 
natural man receiveth not the things of God;” 
showing that we are to be changed and fitted 
to enjoy the promised heaven. 
To become purified and strengthened in 
every faculty must be in itself a great and 
never-failing joy; and to be placed where the 
ear, attuned to harmony, will hear rarer mu¬ 
sic than we can imagine; where the sense of 
beauty, intensified and deepened, will see 
fairer sights, and the mind can follow un¬ 
broken chains of living thought—all this will 
be a part of the perfect day, and all this will 
be reached by transitions from our feeblest 
beginnings here, through every intermediate 
step. 
Christ described the Kingdom of God “ as 
if a man should cast seed into the ground and 
it should spring up and grow he knoweth not 
how—first the blade, then the ear, then the 
full corn in the ear.” Paul spoke of “ babes 
in Christ whom he fed with milk and not 
with meat, because they were not able to 
bear it.” 
If, then, we grow in grace instead of becom¬ 
ing full-grown and perfect at once, what is 
our guide? For growth means constant 
change, and change means new experiences 
and many uncertainties. Is our conscience, 
our sense of right and wrong, a safe guide? 
It is certainly a guide we must follow, for we 
sin wilfully when we refuse to do what we 
believe is our duty, but we may sin and yet 
follow faithfully our conscience. Look at 
the life of Paul. He first appears in Bible 
history standing by and consenting while 
Stephen, a Christian (the first Christian mar 
tyr) is stoned to death. Then we hear of him 
through his own confession as zealously per¬ 
secuting this new sect. He says: “Beyond 
measure I persecuted the Church of God and 
wasted it.” And in his defense before King 
Agrippa when imprisoned himself for Christ’s 
cause: “I thought verily with myself that 
I ought to do many things contrary to 
the name of Jesus of Nazereth.” But when it 
was revealed to him that Jesus was the prom¬ 
ised Messiah, the son of God, he did not cling 
to his old belief because conscience had guid¬ 
ed him then, but he gave his conscience a new 
command, whereupon he says: “I was not 
disobedient unto the heavenly vision.” Con¬ 
science then holds us to our purposes; reckon 
must be our guide. 
Were the intricate, delicate web ot the brain 
and its reasoning made only for those who 
disregard the voice of conscience? No, and 
God who wove the minute and marvelously 
sensitive filaments of the brain, will illumine 
its powers. James in his letter to the early 
Christian Jews wrote: “If any of you lack 
wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all 
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall 
be given him.” 
This gift of wisdom comes slowly, not in 
one great flash of dazzling light; but surely, 
and as we need it, if we “ ask in faith, noth¬ 
ing wavering.” Conscience, then, we must 
obey, but we will find our sense of right 
changing, growing better and truer if we re¬ 
member that the conscience must be given 
new commands with every new ray of light 
that comes into our souls as we come nearer 
and nearer to the perfect day. We must look 
to a thousand sources for helps for our reason 
—our own past experience, the experience of 
friends, the experience that has been written 
out for us in good books now and in the past, 
especially the experiences given in the Bible 
carefully preserved for us and inspired by 
God’s truth. But wherever we look for helps 
we must ask God to illumine the reason he 
has given us that we may follow a conscience 
leading us in the right way, toward the yield¬ 
ing in our lives, of the fruits of God’s Spirit, 
which are these: “Love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek¬ 
ness and temperance.” 
Do your housework quietly—it is less tire¬ 
some—and remember that the quiet worker 
accomplishes the most. 
A FEW WORDS ABOUT VISITING. 
DORA HARVEY VROOMAN. 
W HEN 1 was a very young girl, just 
“coming out,” an old Quaker lady, a 
friend of the family, said to me: 
“Let me give tuee a little advice. When I 
was a girl my mother used to say to me, ‘An¬ 
nie, thee must never be the first to go to a 
DftimUattWUjei gnUmitfittfl. 
# Ben Baby was sIck, we gave Her Castcna 
When she was a Child, she cried for Castorla 
When she became Miss, she clung to Castorla 
When she had Children she gave them Castor* 
