Chapter 52

As I passed down through India I saw two little rice-fields side by side. One was green and growing; the other was dead and dry. I looked for the cause. The great lake was full of water. There was no lack there. Into the one the living water was flowing, for the channel was open. The other was choked. Brother, is your life green and growing, fruitful and joyful, or barren and dry because the channel is choked?—G. S. Eddy, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.

(1787)

LIFE A CYCLE

An old man who was just one hundred and three years of age, recently died in Chester, England. Not long before his death he tried to get out of bed, and they said to him: “Father, where do you want to go? What do you want to do?” He answered, “Father is calling me to breakfast.” He repeated it two or three times—“Father is calling me to breakfast.” The old man had become a child again. He was in his little trundle-bed again hearing his father’s voice up the stairway calling him to come to breakfast.

So when we have traveled around the circle of life, we get into the childhood of our old age, and hear the voices of the friends of our youth, which is one of the evidences of the belief that we shall hear those voices again. We would not thus recall them nor remember them if we were not to hear them again.

(1788)

LIFE, A DEVOTED

Florence Nightingale, heroine of the Crimean War Nursing Service, as a child at Lea Hurst, was accustomed to minister to the sick poor, and it so happened that the clergyman of the parish was a man of considerable medical skill. Curiously enough, it was an animal that first turned her thoughts to nursing—the dog of her father’s shepherd. Poor Cap’s leg was thought to have been broken and he was about to be destroyed, when the girl, under the clergyman’s direction, prepared a simple hot compress and soon had the delight of seeing her patient convalescent. The fame of this exploit spread abroad, and many an animal was brought to her to be healed; perhaps that was why she always advocated that sick people should have dumb pets about them if possible. As she grew older, the little girl who had instinctively bandaged her broken dolls in the most professional manner was allowed to attend to the wounds and ailments of real people, and this at a time when ambulance classes were unheard of, and when the only sick nurses available were ignorant and untrained women. Miss Florence did not find the ordinary life of a girl in society appealed to her. With characteristic decision she gave it up and spent the next few years in visiting hospitals in England, Ireland and Scotland. It is easy to see now that the great want of those days was trained women nurses, but it required exceptional intelligence—indeed, we might almost say, a touch of genius, to see it then in the late forties. The question was how to supply the need; characteristically again, Miss Nightingale began with herself. In 1851 she entered the Society of Sisters of Mercy, a Protestant institution at Kaiserverth on the Rhine, for training deaconesses or nursing sisters. Here she thoroughly qualified herself as a nurse, and on her return to London she devoted much time and money to the Governesses’ Sanatorium in Harley Street.The autumn of 1854 saw the beginning of the enterprise for which all this time she had been unconsciously preparing herself. The country was being horrified by the tidings which continually came home of the appalling mismanagement of the military hospitals in the Crimea. Our gallant soldiers were dying by hundreds for lack of the simplest and most elementary nursing. It seemed, as religious people say, a clear “call” to this country squire’s daughter, and that very evening she wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert (afterward Lord Herbert of Lea), the Secretary at War, and sketched her plan. At the very same time Mr. Herbert himself was writing to her to ask if she would organize and take out a company of nurses and the two letters crossed in the post. In October, 1854, Miss Nightingale started for the East with thirty-eight nurses in her command, some of whom were naturally nuns. The day after her arrival came the wounded from Balaklava, quickly followed by six hundred wounded from Inkerman andin a few months she had ten thousand poor fellows under her care. She did much more than organize; she would traverse at night, her little lamp in her hand, the four miles of crowded hospital wards and Longfellow’s famous lines are no poetic fiction, many a dying man turned to kiss her shadow as it fell.Miss Florence Nightingale was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, the coveted distinction formerly reserved exclusively for men. She received the freedom of the City of London in 1908 and was a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.—Belfast (Ireland)Telegram.

The autumn of 1854 saw the beginning of the enterprise for which all this time she had been unconsciously preparing herself. The country was being horrified by the tidings which continually came home of the appalling mismanagement of the military hospitals in the Crimea. Our gallant soldiers were dying by hundreds for lack of the simplest and most elementary nursing. It seemed, as religious people say, a clear “call” to this country squire’s daughter, and that very evening she wrote to Mr. Sidney Herbert (afterward Lord Herbert of Lea), the Secretary at War, and sketched her plan. At the very same time Mr. Herbert himself was writing to her to ask if she would organize and take out a company of nurses and the two letters crossed in the post. In October, 1854, Miss Nightingale started for the East with thirty-eight nurses in her command, some of whom were naturally nuns. The day after her arrival came the wounded from Balaklava, quickly followed by six hundred wounded from Inkerman andin a few months she had ten thousand poor fellows under her care. She did much more than organize; she would traverse at night, her little lamp in her hand, the four miles of crowded hospital wards and Longfellow’s famous lines are no poetic fiction, many a dying man turned to kiss her shadow as it fell.

Miss Florence Nightingale was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit, the coveted distinction formerly reserved exclusively for men. She received the freedom of the City of London in 1908 and was a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.—Belfast (Ireland)Telegram.

(1789)

LIFE, A NOBLE

I have seen at midnight the gleaming headlight of a giant locomotive, rushing onward through the darkness, heedless of danger and uncertainty, and I have thought the spectacle grand. I have seen the light come over the eastern hills in glory, driving the lazy darkness, like mist before a sea-born gale, till leaf and tree and blade of grass sparkled as myriad diamonds in the morning rays, and I have thought that it was grand. I have seen the lightning leap at midnight athwart the storm-swept sky, shivering over chaotic clouds, ’mid howling winds, till cloud and darkness and the shadow-haunted earth flashed into midday splendor, and I have known that it was grand. But the grandest thing, next to the radiance that flows from the Almighty’s throne, is the light of a noble and beautiful life, shining in benediction upon the destines of men, and finding its home in the bosom of the everlasting God.—John Temple Graves.

(1790)

LIFE A TREE

A Scandinavian allegory represents human life as a tree, the “Igdrasil,” or the tree of existence, whose roots grow deep down in the soil of mystery; the trunk reaches above the clouds; its branches spread out over the globe. At the foot of it sit the Past, the Present and the Future, watering the roots. Its boughs spread out through all lands and all time; every leaf of the tree is a biography, every fiber a word, a thought or a deed; its boughs are the histories of nations; the rustle of it is the noise of human existence onward from of old; it grows amid the howling of the hurricane; it is the great tree of humanity.

(1791)

LIFE A VOYAGE

Into this world we come like ships,Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,For fortune fair or fatal.—Thomas Hood.

Into this world we come like ships,

Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,

For fortune fair or fatal.

—Thomas Hood.

O Neptune! You may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will; but whatever happens I shall keep my rudder true.—Seneca’s“Pilot.”

O Neptune! You may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will; but whatever happens I shall keep my rudder true.

—Seneca’s“Pilot.”

Lowly faithful, banish fear,Right onward sail unharmed;The port, well worth the voyage, is near,And every wave is charmed.—R. W. Emerson.

Lowly faithful, banish fear,

Right onward sail unharmed;

The port, well worth the voyage, is near,

And every wave is charmed.

—R. W. Emerson.

Thou hast embarked; thou hast made the voyage; thou art come to shore; now land! (Text.)—Marcus Aurelius.

Thou hast embarked; thou hast made the voyage; thou art come to shore; now land! (Text.)

—Marcus Aurelius.

(1792)

Life and Faith United—SeeReligion Allaying Fear.

LIFE, APPRECIATION OF

Many who carelessly declare this life to be of no desirable value discover how strongly they hold to it if by chance they seem in danger of losing it. Thus Rev. Asa Bullard writes:

My father had a blacksmith-shop; and sometimes when not called away on professional duties, he would do little jobs in his shop in the evening. One evening, when I was a little boy, I asked him to let me go with him and see him make nails.He said I would get sleepy and cry to come back. I thought I shouldn’t; and so was permitted to go with him. He fixt me a nice seat on the forge, where I could see him blow the bellows, heat the nail-rod red hot, and then hammer out the nails. It was real fun to watch him for some time.By and by I began to grow tired and sleepy; and then I wished I was back at the house and in bed; but I did not dare to say anything about it. At length father looked up, and seeing that I was very sleepy and ready to cry, he asked:“What is the matter, Asa?”I said: “I wish I was never made!”Father drew the hot nail-rod out of the fire and raised it as tho he was going to strike me, when I exclaimed:“I don’t want to be killed, now I am made!” Then, with a hearty laugh, he took me home to mother.—“Incidents in a Busy Life.”

He said I would get sleepy and cry to come back. I thought I shouldn’t; and so was permitted to go with him. He fixt me a nice seat on the forge, where I could see him blow the bellows, heat the nail-rod red hot, and then hammer out the nails. It was real fun to watch him for some time.

By and by I began to grow tired and sleepy; and then I wished I was back at the house and in bed; but I did not dare to say anything about it. At length father looked up, and seeing that I was very sleepy and ready to cry, he asked:

“What is the matter, Asa?”

I said: “I wish I was never made!”

Father drew the hot nail-rod out of the fire and raised it as tho he was going to strike me, when I exclaimed:

“I don’t want to be killed, now I am made!” Then, with a hearty laugh, he took me home to mother.—“Incidents in a Busy Life.”

(1793)

Life as Testimony—SeeNative Converts.

Life, Brevity of—SeeBrevity of Life.

LIFE CHEAP

Mard Bird, in “Persian Women and Their Creed,” tells the following:

A Persian Haji’s baby had convulsions and the parents brought it to the Mohammedan village teacher, who said the child was possest, and the only remedy for her disease was for them to buy a prayer of the exact length of the child, and strap it on her back. The child was so long that the cost of the prayer was five dollars, and the parents decided that a girl baby was not worth that much and took her home to die.

(1794)

LIFE, CLINGING TO

They used to tell during the Civil War of a colonel who was ordered to assault a position which his regiment, when they had advanced far enough to get a good look at it, saw to be so impossible that they fell back and became immovable. Whereupon (so the story ran) the colonel, who took the same sense of the situation that his command did, yet must do his duty, called out in an ostensibly pleading and fervid voice: “Oh, don’t give it up so! Forward again! Forward! Charge! Great heavens, men, do you want to live forever?”—Joseph H. Twichell.

(1795)

LIFE, CONTINUED

A few years ago I was walking along the shore of the Susquehanna River, in Harrisburg, Pa., accompanied by the little boy of my friend, Dr. Hill. Night was fast closing down over the earth, when the little fellow looked up and said: “Brother Shannon, where does the river go to, when the night comes on?” I saw at once that the question was big with the wonder and mystery of a child’s mind. He had just come from his own home; he saw men and women going home; he saw the birds flying to their homes in the trees, and he wondered if the river had a home, too. Of course, I could have answered that the river has its home in the sea, but I said: “My child, the river flows on just the same through the night as through the day.” And men say: “Where does the soul go to when the night of death comes on?” The Master says: “It goes on just the same, thrilled with my joy, united with my destiny, and deathless in my life!”—F. F. Shannon.

(1796)

LIFE, DESIRE FOR LONG

The enchanters of China promised the emperors of that country to find an elixir of long life that should efface the irreparable inroad of years. The astrologers and necromancers of the Middle Ages flattered themselves to have discovered the fountain of youth, in which a person had merely to bathe in order to recover his youth. All such dreams were long ago dispelled by the progress of science. Yet, in the heart of most men, there is such a desire to prolong their stay upon the earth that the art of living for a long time has not ceased to impassion a large number of persons who would be willing to endure all the evils of an indefinitely prolonged old age. We have several times had proof of this mania, which Dean Swift has so wittily stigmatized in his second voyage of Gulliver by showing in what a state of abjection the mortals of Laputa lived—those unfortunates who were condemned to survive their own selves through the loss of memory of what they had been. One of the perpetual secretaries of the Academy of Sciences has written a volume to prove that man should consider himself young up to eighty years of age. A noble Venetian named Cornaro spent twenty years in a scale-pan in order to ascertain what alimentary regimen was best adapted to him. We have known old men who, having learned that Mr. Chevreul had never drank anything but water, took the resolution to abstain wholly from wine, hoping in this way to exceed a hundred years. Fortunately, a rag-gatherer, who had reached the same age as the celebrated academician, spared them this sacrifice, by informing his confrére in longevity that he had never drank anything but wine.—La Science Illustrée.

(1797)

Life, Fecundity of—SeePropagation, Prolific.

LIFE, FEEDING THE

The Mississippi River, which empties its wealth of waters into the Gulf of Mexico, is fed by the Missouri, the Ohio, the Tennessee, the Red River, and indirectly the Allegheny and Monongahela, and the Yellowstone and the Platte. The Amazon River drains an area of two and a half million square miles, or the waters of more than a third of all the South American continent. The River Nile is almost equally enriched by tributaries.

But no river is more fed by confluent currents than is that of a life which draws to itself all resources of knowledge and grace. (Text.)

(1798)

LIFE FROM DEATH

Clinton Scollard, inThe Outlook, draws a lesson from the new-fallen snow:

The evanescent wonder of the snowIs round about us, and as in a cloud—A vestiture inviolate—we walk.Earth seems bereft of song and shorn of sun,A cloistral world. Even the lyric throatOf the rapt brook is like a pulse-beat faint.The wood—white architrave on architrave—Is as a temple where the lips of prayerTremble upon the verge of utterance.Hush! In the heart of this great gulf of sleep,This void abysmal, may we not divineThe inscrutable Presence clothed about with dreams,The immaculate Vision that is death yet life,For out of death comes life: the twain are one! (Text.)

The evanescent wonder of the snow

Is round about us, and as in a cloud—

A vestiture inviolate—we walk.

Earth seems bereft of song and shorn of sun,

A cloistral world. Even the lyric throat

Of the rapt brook is like a pulse-beat faint.

The wood—white architrave on architrave—

Is as a temple where the lips of prayer

Tremble upon the verge of utterance.

Hush! In the heart of this great gulf of sleep,

This void abysmal, may we not divine

The inscrutable Presence clothed about with dreams,

The immaculate Vision that is death yet life,

For out of death comes life: the twain are one! (Text.)

(1799)

Life, Inward—SeeCharacter More than Clothing.

LIFE LEARNED FROM DEATH

Prof. G. Currie Martin draws this suggestive picture:

In the gallery at The Hague there hangs a wonderful picture by Rembrandt. When the visitor first looks at it the horror that it inspires seems too great to be borne, for there, in the very forefront of the canvas, so that the spectator imagines he could touch it, is the grim and ghastly form of a corpse lying livid and rigid upon the dissecting-table. To add still further to the sense of shrinking it evokes, the scalpel of the surgeon has been thrust into the flesh, and he is laying bare the muscles of the arm. But if the visitor has only patience and courage for a moment to overcome the first sense of repulsion, he will find that he goes away from an examination of the picture thinking no longer of death and its terror, but of life and its power. For the skill of the artist is shown in so presenting the great and eternal contrast between death and life that the latter triumphs. Above the figure of the corpse are grouped the faces of the great scientists and physicians who, as they listen to the words of the lecturer, are drinking in the new-found knowledge that is to make them the conquerors of disease, and those portraits are so wonderfully painted that the spectator finds himself ever afterward thinking of the power of life that they manifest and of the greatness of human knowledge that has wrested the secrets from death itself which make life more powerful and safe. (Text.)

(1800)

Life-line, A—SeeIngenuity.

LIFE-LINE HYMN

A speaker at one of Evan Roberts’ remarkable revival services in Wales, was telling of a “vision” he had had, and of a voice which exhorted him to “Throw out the life-line,” when instantly the listeners sang the whole hymn together.Mr. Ufford, the author of the lines, once sang them at a watch-service in California, and there he told how theElsie Smithwas lost on Cape Cod in 1902, showing the very life-line that saved sixteen lives from the sea, and by chance one of the number was present at the service.From a room, in a building hired for religious services in a Pennsylvania city, and where a series of revival meetings was being held, rang out, one night, the hymn, “Throw out the life-line,” in the hearing, next door, of a convivial card-party. It was a sweet female voice, followed in the chorus by other and louder voices chiming in. The result was the merriment ceased as one of the members of the card-party remarked: “If what they’re saying is right, then we’re wrong,” and the revelers broke up. An ex-member of that party is now an editor of a great city daily, and his fellows are all filling positions of responsibility. The life-line pulled them ashore.In a Massachusetts city, twenty years ago, this hymn won to Christ a man who is now a prosperous manufacturer.At a special service held at Gibraltar for the survivors of an emigrant ship that went ashore there during a storm, this hymn was sung with telling effect.The story of that life-line is long enough and strong enough to tie up a large bundle of results wrought by it.

Mr. Ufford, the author of the lines, once sang them at a watch-service in California, and there he told how theElsie Smithwas lost on Cape Cod in 1902, showing the very life-line that saved sixteen lives from the sea, and by chance one of the number was present at the service.

From a room, in a building hired for religious services in a Pennsylvania city, and where a series of revival meetings was being held, rang out, one night, the hymn, “Throw out the life-line,” in the hearing, next door, of a convivial card-party. It was a sweet female voice, followed in the chorus by other and louder voices chiming in. The result was the merriment ceased as one of the members of the card-party remarked: “If what they’re saying is right, then we’re wrong,” and the revelers broke up. An ex-member of that party is now an editor of a great city daily, and his fellows are all filling positions of responsibility. The life-line pulled them ashore.

In a Massachusetts city, twenty years ago, this hymn won to Christ a man who is now a prosperous manufacturer.

At a special service held at Gibraltar for the survivors of an emigrant ship that went ashore there during a storm, this hymn was sung with telling effect.

The story of that life-line is long enough and strong enough to tie up a large bundle of results wrought by it.

(1801)

Life-material—SeeMaterial for a Great Life.

LIFE, NEW, FROM GOD

In London there dwells a man interested in rare and exotic plants. A friend who had been in the Amazon brought him home a rare tree. In the winter he keeps it in the hothouse, but when summer comes, he carries it into his garden. So beautiful is the bloom that he gave garden-parties that men might behold the wondrous flower. One summer’s day he noticed a strange thing that set his pulses throbbing—a singular fruit had begun to set. Sending for an expert, they took counsel together. They knew that this was the only tree of the kind in Paris, and they could not understand from whence had come the pollen that had fertilized the plant. At length they published the story in the papers, and that story brought the explanation. A merchant wrote that years before he had brought to Marseilles a young plant from the Amazon. The pollen of that tree nearly four hundred miles away had been carried on the wings of the wind over hill and vale, and found out the blossom that awaited its coming.And not otherwise is it with the soul. Because it is in His likeness, it shares with Him in those attributes named reason, wisdom, goodness, holiness and love. The soul waits. Without God it can do nothing. Its life is from afar. Expectant and full of longing, it hungers and thirsts, and desires His coming. That repentant youth, lying in the desert, with a stone for his pillow, waits, and then the light comes from God.—N. D. Hillis.

And not otherwise is it with the soul. Because it is in His likeness, it shares with Him in those attributes named reason, wisdom, goodness, holiness and love. The soul waits. Without God it can do nothing. Its life is from afar. Expectant and full of longing, it hungers and thirsts, and desires His coming. That repentant youth, lying in the desert, with a stone for his pillow, waits, and then the light comes from God.—N. D. Hillis.

(1802)

LIFE, ORIGIN OF

The old philosophers who held that all things originated in the sea were not far out of the way, if we are to believe some of the latest biological theories or speculations. That organic evolution began with marine creatures, Haeckel told us long ago. That sea-water is a particularly sympathetic medium for vital processes, has more lately been shown by Loeb in his experiments on the fertilization of the eggs of certain marine creatures. M. René Quinton, of the Laboratory of Pathologic Physiology of the College de France, has published a book, entitled “Sea-water as an Organic Medium,” in which he asserts that as the cell itself has persisted in living organisms, being practically the same in the human body as in our earliest marine predecessors, so the conditions of its life closely reproduce those of primordial times. The cell in our own bodies is bathed in a fluid that closely resembles sea-water in chemical composition and that approximates in temperature to that of the ocean when life first appeared in it. (Text.)

(1803)

LIFE, PASSION FOR

Ponce de Leon searched Florida for the spring of the elixir of life; thousands of alchemists have attempted to concoct it; innumerable patent medicines in every drugstore testify to the universal effort to prolong earthly existence; a miser will fling away his last piece of gold to save his life; lawyers will battle to the last device of law to save a client from execution if only to prolong his existence in a prison; and tho Bacon says “there is no passion so mean as that it can not mate and master the fear of death,” he was speaking only of sudden and occasional passions. The rule is that passion to live outmasters all other passions.

What a word then is this of Jesus when He says, “I came that they might have life.”

(1804)

LIFE, PERSISTENCE OF

A spring of air never loses its elasticity; but it never gains an energy which it had not at first. Tho prest a thousand years under incumbent weights, the instant they are removed it reassumes its original volume; but it gathers no more from the long repose. But the life in the seed tends constantly toward development, into the stalk, the blossom and the fruit. As long as the seed remains perfect and vital, this tendency remains, inhering in it; so that three thousand years after it was shaken from the wheat-ear on the Nile, if planted it develops and brings forth fruit in English gardens.—Richard S. Storrs.

(1805)

Life Pictures—SeeRealism.

LIFE PROLONGED

“In the city of New York alone there are 150,000 people living to-day who would be dead if the mortality of fifty years ago still prevailed,” says a writer inThe Booklover’s Magazine. “Popular opinion has scarcely yet come to realize what medical science has been doing in late years. People sicken and die, think the laity, and the efforts of the physician are just as futile as before the recent discoveries about which so much is said. This idea is, however, erroneous. I will venture to say there is scarcely an adultliving to-day who has not experienced or will not experience an actual prolongation of life due to discoveries of the last fifty years.”

(1806)

LIFE PURPOSE

A story is told of Rubens that during his sojourn as ambassador to the Court of Philip in Spain, he was detected at work upon a painting by a courtier, who, not knowing much about his true fame, exclaimed in surprize, “What! does an ambassador to his Catholic Majesty amuse himself with painting pictures?” “No,” replied Rubens, “the painter sometimes amuses himself with diplomacy.”

The serious business of life is the producing of a good character; all else is pastime. (Text.)

(1807)

These noble ambitions for a true life are put in verse by H. H. Barston:

To face each day of lifeNor flinch from any task;To front the moment’s strifeAnd only courage ask.To be a man unawedBy aught but heaven’s command;Tho men revile or plaud,To take a stand—and stand.To fill my life with toil,With God’s free air and light;To shun the things that spoil,That hasten age and night;To sweat beneath my hod,Nor ask a better giftFrom self or man or GodThan will and strength to lift.To keep my spirit sweetTho head and hand be tired;Each brother man to greet,Nor leave him uninspired;To keep my spirit fedOn God unceasingly,That none may lack his breadWho walk this way with me. (Text.)

To face each day of life

Nor flinch from any task;

To front the moment’s strife

And only courage ask.

To be a man unawed

By aught but heaven’s command;

Tho men revile or plaud,

To take a stand—and stand.

To fill my life with toil,With God’s free air and light;To shun the things that spoil,That hasten age and night;To sweat beneath my hod,Nor ask a better giftFrom self or man or GodThan will and strength to lift.

To fill my life with toil,

With God’s free air and light;

To shun the things that spoil,

That hasten age and night;

To sweat beneath my hod,

Nor ask a better gift

From self or man or God

Than will and strength to lift.

To keep my spirit sweetTho head and hand be tired;Each brother man to greet,Nor leave him uninspired;To keep my spirit fedOn God unceasingly,That none may lack his breadWho walk this way with me. (Text.)

To keep my spirit sweet

Tho head and hand be tired;

Each brother man to greet,

Nor leave him uninspired;

To keep my spirit fed

On God unceasingly,

That none may lack his bread

Who walk this way with me. (Text.)

(1808)

LIFE RECRUDESCENT

Edith M. Thomas is the author of the lines below, found in theCanadian Presbyterian:

The apple-tree said,“You think I’m dead,”“Because I have never a leaf to show,Because I stoop,And my branches droop,And the dull, gray mosses over me grow;But I’m alive in trunk and shoot,The buds of next MayI fold away,But I pity the withered grass at my root.”“You think I’m dead,”The quick grass said,“Because I have parted with stem and blade,But under the groundI’m safe and sound,With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.I’m all alive and ready to shootShould the spring of the yearCome dancing here,But I pity the flower without branch or root.”“You think I’m dead,”A soft voice said,“Because not a branch or root I own.I never have diedBut close I hideIn a plump seed that the wind has sown,Patient I wait through the long winter hours.You will see me again,I shall laugh at you thenOut of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”

The apple-tree said,

“You think I’m dead,”

“Because I have never a leaf to show,

Because I stoop,

And my branches droop,

And the dull, gray mosses over me grow;

But I’m alive in trunk and shoot,

The buds of next May

I fold away,

But I pity the withered grass at my root.”

“You think I’m dead,”The quick grass said,“Because I have parted with stem and blade,But under the groundI’m safe and sound,With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.I’m all alive and ready to shootShould the spring of the yearCome dancing here,But I pity the flower without branch or root.”

“You think I’m dead,”

The quick grass said,

“Because I have parted with stem and blade,

But under the ground

I’m safe and sound,

With the snow’s thick blanket over me laid.

I’m all alive and ready to shoot

Should the spring of the year

Come dancing here,

But I pity the flower without branch or root.”

“You think I’m dead,”A soft voice said,“Because not a branch or root I own.I never have diedBut close I hideIn a plump seed that the wind has sown,Patient I wait through the long winter hours.You will see me again,I shall laugh at you thenOut of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”

“You think I’m dead,”

A soft voice said,

“Because not a branch or root I own.

I never have died

But close I hide

In a plump seed that the wind has sown,

Patient I wait through the long winter hours.

You will see me again,

I shall laugh at you then

Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers.”

(1809)

LIFE, RESPONSE OF

The touch of God upon men is not answered unless the soul be spiritually alive:

The sun shines down upon the dead twig that has fallen from the tree. All his rich and marvelous powers are exerted. He wraps it about with his mighty arms. He kisses it and bathes it in tides of summer warmth, and smiles upon it and beckons it to come—but it lies there a dead twig to the last. But a vine has peeped through the soil. The sun discovers it and whispers the secrets of the sky to its tiny quivering leaves, and out go the filmy tendrils, and up and up goes the loving plant, climbing the golden trellis of the sunbeam toward its lover, the sun.—John K. Willey.

(1810)

LIFE-SAVING

Every man should try to be as alert and well prepared for helping and saving men as the steamers here described:

All Pacific mail-steamers are carefully protected by a rigid practise in fire and life-saving drills. At the tap of the bell, the crew spring to their places by boat and raft; each officer, with a pistol hung by his side, takes his station; and the precision and quickness with which it is all accompanied inspire the beholder with very comfortable feelings.The life-drill is practised in case some one should fall overboard. Certain members of the crew are assigned to this duty, ready at any moment to throw out life-lines, buoys that strike a light when they hit the water, or man the emergency lifeboat that is kept in position to be lowered instantly.—Marshall P. Wilder, “Smiling ’Round the World.”

The life-drill is practised in case some one should fall overboard. Certain members of the crew are assigned to this duty, ready at any moment to throw out life-lines, buoys that strike a light when they hit the water, or man the emergency lifeboat that is kept in position to be lowered instantly.—Marshall P. Wilder, “Smiling ’Round the World.”

(1811)

SeeKnowledge Applied.

Life-saving Attachment—SeeEconomy of Energy.

LIFE-SAVING BY WIRELESS

The former sound linerKentuckyis at the bottom of the Atlantic at lat. 32.10, long. 76.30, which is more than a hundred miles off the South Carolina coast, south of Cape Hatteras. Her captain and crew of forty-six men are on their way to Key West on board the Mallory linerAlamo. It was the fourth rescue by wireless since that method of communication at sea has been in use. Called by the international distress signal, theAlamoreached the sinking vessel just as the electricity died and but an hour before she sank.In the meantime her distress calls, heard throughout Atlantic coast waters and sent by W. G. Maginnis, wireless operator, had started speeding toward her the United States Government battleshipLouisiana, on a speed trial in the vicinity, the cruiserBirminghamand the revenue cuttersYamacrawandSeminole.When 150 miles off Sandy Hook, at the very outset of her long journey, she sprang a leak. By working hard at the pumps Captain Moore managed to get her into Newport News with sixteen inches of water in her hold. She was repaired and certified safe and sound by the United States inspector there and Lloyds. Luckily, this little wooden ship, packed tight with coal, had been installed with wireless before she left. The international distress call, S. O. S., set the sound waves jumping all over the coast and the Atlantic. The United States Government received the message at the same time that every sea-captain on the ocean got it. TheAlamo, bound for Key West, got it at 11:30 and headed dead for the source at once. Later this came through the air:“We are sinking. Our lat. is 32 deg. 10 min.; long., 76 deg. 30 min.“Kentucky.”TheAlamowas sixty-five miles off. She had made the run by 3:50 o’clock, when theKentuckyappeared in sight.The boat was sinking rapidly and in half a gale the work of transferring the crew of theKentuckyby lifeboat was accomplished. As the last man was taken off only the superstructure was visible above the water.

In the meantime her distress calls, heard throughout Atlantic coast waters and sent by W. G. Maginnis, wireless operator, had started speeding toward her the United States Government battleshipLouisiana, on a speed trial in the vicinity, the cruiserBirminghamand the revenue cuttersYamacrawandSeminole.

When 150 miles off Sandy Hook, at the very outset of her long journey, she sprang a leak. By working hard at the pumps Captain Moore managed to get her into Newport News with sixteen inches of water in her hold. She was repaired and certified safe and sound by the United States inspector there and Lloyds. Luckily, this little wooden ship, packed tight with coal, had been installed with wireless before she left. The international distress call, S. O. S., set the sound waves jumping all over the coast and the Atlantic. The United States Government received the message at the same time that every sea-captain on the ocean got it. TheAlamo, bound for Key West, got it at 11:30 and headed dead for the source at once. Later this came through the air:

“We are sinking. Our lat. is 32 deg. 10 min.; long., 76 deg. 30 min.

“Kentucky.”

TheAlamowas sixty-five miles off. She had made the run by 3:50 o’clock, when theKentuckyappeared in sight.

The boat was sinking rapidly and in half a gale the work of transferring the crew of theKentuckyby lifeboat was accomplished. As the last man was taken off only the superstructure was visible above the water.

(1812)

LIFE, SELF-PROPAGATING

The yeast-plant is so small that it can be seen only under the microscope. Each yeast-plant consists of a closed sack or cell, containing a jelly-like liquid named “protoplasm.” Under the microscope the yeast-plant is seen to change in form. Sometimes little swellings grow out, like knobs on a potato, and these will by and by separate themselves from the parent and become other yeast-plants. It is alive and growing.

“What we need,” said McLeod, “is not life, (from galvanism), but the life of life”—Jesus himself. (Text.)

(1813)

LIFE, SOURCE OF MAN’S

The goddess of the Greek mythology springs from the crest of the curling sea. The spirit of poetic and legendary lore is born of moonbeams playing upon fountains. The glittering elf of the household story leaps up on the shaft of the quivering flame. The meteor is invoked, or the morning-star, to give birth to new spirits; the sunset-sheen on distant hills is imagined to become incorporate in them; or the west wind, toying over banks of flowers, to drop their delicate life from its wings. But when God forms the life, in each conscious soul, and fills this with its strange and unsearchable powers, he creates it by a ministry diverse from all these, and as distantly removed as it is possible to conceive from its own unique nature, and its height of prerogative. He creates it by the ministry of these fleshly forms, which are authors, under Him, of a life that transcends them; a life not limited as theyare by space, not subject as they are to material assaults, and not dependent as they are on shelter or on food.—Richard S. Storrs.

(1814)

LIFE, SPENDING

A good life is never lost. It yields cumulative results. This rime expresses the truth:

A life spent with a purpose grandHas simply not been “spent”;It’s really an investment, andWill yield a large per cent. (Text.)

A life spent with a purpose grand

Has simply not been “spent”;

It’s really an investment, and

Will yield a large per cent. (Text.)

(1815)

LIFE, THE SIMPLE

Washington loved the simple life of home and countryside, of friend and neighbor, of master and servant. “To make and sell a little flour annually,” he wrote, “to repair houses going fast to ruin, to build one for the security of my papers of a public nature, will constitute employment for the few years I have to remain on this terrestrial globe.” But he was still ready for the summons of duty, whether it was to put his shoulder to the wheel of a stranger’s broken-down carriage on the roadside, to serve on the petty jury of his country, or to accept command of the army preparing to meet the French. Washington would never have identified effective citizenship with prominence. The citizen who was never mentioned in the news-letters might be quite as great as the general and President. At Ipswich, Mass., on one occasion, Mr. Cleaveland, the minister of the town, was presented to him. As he approached, hat in hand, Washington said, “Put on your hat, parson, and I will shake hands with you.” “I can not wear my hat in your presence, general,” said the minister, “when I think of what you have done for this country.” “You did as much as I,” said Washington. “No, no,” protested the parson. “Yes,” said Washington, “you did what you could, and I have done no more.”—A. MacColl,Northwestern Christian Advocate.

(1816)

Life, The Whole, the Test of Character—SeeCharacter, Unseen Places in.

LIFE, THE WINGED

The story is told of how the birds received their wings. Created originally without wings, they hopped about, until one day God said to them: “You are beautiful and hop finely and sing sweetly, but I want you to fly. Let me give you wings.” At first they refused, saying that wings would be weights. Besides, they liked to hop. But at length they consented to receive wings and flew.

(1817)

LIFE, USES OF

In this world we have but brief glimpses of the best and brightest things. Sunset splendors linger but a little while; spring blossoms are scattered by the winds while we watch their unfolding; and autumn leaves soon fade and fall and dissolve into forest mold; the dull landscape glows for a time with supernal splendor, giving us a foretaste of the glory that shall be revealed; the wind passes over it and it is gone. For the leaves there are other and higher uses than to enrobe the branches with autumnal tints. They live and die to serve God in the mysterious economy of life. It is so with human destiny; our noblest achievements seem to perish in a day, but no life of faithful service can be lost in the consummation of God’s plan.—The Living Church.

(1818)

LIFE AS AN ART

These verses are from a poem by John Kendrick Bangs inThe Century:

He’d never heard of Phidias,He’d never heard of Byron;His tastes were not fastidious,His soul was not aspirin’:But he could tell you what the birds were whisp’ring in the trees,And he could find sweet music in the sounding of the seas,And he could joy in wintry snows,And summer’s sunny weather,And tell you all the names of thoseWho frolic in the heather.He nothing knew of sciences,Of art, or eke of letters;Nor of those strange appliancesThat fill the world with debtors:But happiness he knew right well; he knew from A to ZThe art of filling life with song, and others’ souls with glee;And he could joy in day and night,Heart full of pure thanksgiving—I am not sure he was not rightIn using life for living.

He’d never heard of Phidias,

He’d never heard of Byron;

His tastes were not fastidious,

His soul was not aspirin’:

But he could tell you what the birds were whisp’ring in the trees,

And he could find sweet music in the sounding of the seas,

And he could joy in wintry snows,

And summer’s sunny weather,

And tell you all the names of those

Who frolic in the heather.

He nothing knew of sciences,Of art, or eke of letters;Nor of those strange appliancesThat fill the world with debtors:But happiness he knew right well; he knew from A to ZThe art of filling life with song, and others’ souls with glee;And he could joy in day and night,Heart full of pure thanksgiving—I am not sure he was not rightIn using life for living.

He nothing knew of sciences,

Of art, or eke of letters;

Nor of those strange appliances

That fill the world with debtors:

But happiness he knew right well; he knew from A to Z

The art of filling life with song, and others’ souls with glee;

And he could joy in day and night,

Heart full of pure thanksgiving—

I am not sure he was not right

In using life for living.

(1819)

LIFE, VALUE OF

There is a suggestive and saddening passage in Miss Ellen Terry’s recent “Reminiscences.” The great actress was talkingto Sir Henry Irving, her old comrade on the stage, as he lay ill. “Do you ever think, as I do sometimes, what have you got out of life?” asked Miss Terry. “What have I got out of it?” said Irving, stroking his chin and smiling slightly, “Let me see—well, a good cigar, a good glass of wine, good friends.”

And that summary satisfies many another. The pathetic futility of it all! Material things vanish, and then what remains? Life should be more rewarding than this. (Text.)

(1820)

LIFE, VENERATION FOR

Powhatan Bouldin’s “Home Reminiscences” has a story which shows John Randolph’s peculiar veneration for growing things. The incident is related by a friend of Randolph’s nephew:

When I was a boy I visited at Roanoke. The house was completely environed by trees and underwood, and seemed to be in a dense virgin forest. Mr. Randolph would not permit even a switch to be cut near the house.Without being aware of this, one day I committed a serious trespass. My friend Tudor and I were roving about, when I, perceiving a straight young hickory about an inch thick, felled it. Tudor said that his uncle would be very angry, so I immediately went and informed him what I had ignorantly done, and exprest my regret. Mr. Randolph took the stick and looked pensively at it as if commiserating its fate. Then, gazing at me, he said:“I would not have done this for fifty Spanish-milled dollars!”I had seventy-five cents and had entertained some idea of offering it, but when I heard about the fifty dollars I was afraid of insulting him by such meager compensation.“Did you want this for a cane?” asked Mr. Randolph. “No, sir.” “No, you are not old enough to need a cane. Did you want it for any particular purpose?” “No, sir. I only saw that it was a pretty stick and thought I’d cut it.” “We can be justified in taking animal life to furnish food or to remove a hurtful object. We can not be justified in taking even vegetable life without some useful object in view. Now, God Almighty planted this thing, and you have killed it without any adequate object. It would have grown into a large nut-tree and furnished food for many squirrels. I hope and believe you will never do so again.” “Never, sir, never!” I cried.He put the stick into a corner, and I escaped to Tudor. It was some time before I could cut a switch or fishing-rod without feeling I was doing some sort of violence to the vegetable kingdom.

Without being aware of this, one day I committed a serious trespass. My friend Tudor and I were roving about, when I, perceiving a straight young hickory about an inch thick, felled it. Tudor said that his uncle would be very angry, so I immediately went and informed him what I had ignorantly done, and exprest my regret. Mr. Randolph took the stick and looked pensively at it as if commiserating its fate. Then, gazing at me, he said:

“I would not have done this for fifty Spanish-milled dollars!”

I had seventy-five cents and had entertained some idea of offering it, but when I heard about the fifty dollars I was afraid of insulting him by such meager compensation.

“Did you want this for a cane?” asked Mr. Randolph. “No, sir.” “No, you are not old enough to need a cane. Did you want it for any particular purpose?” “No, sir. I only saw that it was a pretty stick and thought I’d cut it.” “We can be justified in taking animal life to furnish food or to remove a hurtful object. We can not be justified in taking even vegetable life without some useful object in view. Now, God Almighty planted this thing, and you have killed it without any adequate object. It would have grown into a large nut-tree and furnished food for many squirrels. I hope and believe you will never do so again.” “Never, sir, never!” I cried.

He put the stick into a corner, and I escaped to Tudor. It was some time before I could cut a switch or fishing-rod without feeling I was doing some sort of violence to the vegetable kingdom.

(1821)

Life versus Business—SeeReligion versus Business.

LIFE VERSUS CHURCH

The manner in which Wesley by his zeal was pushed outside of the Church of England limits is told thus by the Rev. W. H. Fitchett:

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