G

On the 30th of August, 1833, the Emancipation Act passed the House of Lords. It was declared that all children under six years old should be free on the 1st of August, 1834; that all other slaves should be registered as apprenticed laborers and be compelled to labor for their owners for a few years—the time was shortened soon after. Antigua alone has the honor of having said, “We will have no apprentices; all shall be free.”Meanwhile in all the islands dismal prophecies were made by the planters of rapine and ruin and negro risings; but the missionaries were busy teaching the poor blacks how to receive the coming boon of freedom. The eve of that momentous day, the 1st of August, was kept by the slave population of Antigua as a watch-night in church and chapel. They had been advised to await the midnight hour on their knees with prayers and hymns of gratitude. So, at the first stroke of midnight in the island of Antigua, all fell upon their knees, and nothing was heard but the slow booming of the cathedral bell, save here and there an hysteric sob from some overwrought slave-girl. The final stroke sounded through the clear air, and still the immense crowd kept silence, as tho they could not realize that they had become free. Then a strange thing happened: One awful peal of thunder rattled and crashed from pole to pole, and flash upon flash of lightning seemed to put out the feeble lights of cathedral, church and chapel.God had spoken! The kneeling crowds sprang to their feet with a shout of joy; they laughed, they cried, they tossed brown arms abroad, and embraced one another in wild and passionate emotion; then they remembered God once more and prayed aloud.—Edward Gilliatt, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

Meanwhile in all the islands dismal prophecies were made by the planters of rapine and ruin and negro risings; but the missionaries were busy teaching the poor blacks how to receive the coming boon of freedom. The eve of that momentous day, the 1st of August, was kept by the slave population of Antigua as a watch-night in church and chapel. They had been advised to await the midnight hour on their knees with prayers and hymns of gratitude. So, at the first stroke of midnight in the island of Antigua, all fell upon their knees, and nothing was heard but the slow booming of the cathedral bell, save here and there an hysteric sob from some overwrought slave-girl. The final stroke sounded through the clear air, and still the immense crowd kept silence, as tho they could not realize that they had become free. Then a strange thing happened: One awful peal of thunder rattled and crashed from pole to pole, and flash upon flash of lightning seemed to put out the feeble lights of cathedral, church and chapel.

God had spoken! The kneeling crowds sprang to their feet with a shout of joy; they laughed, they cried, they tossed brown arms abroad, and embraced one another in wild and passionate emotion; then they remembered God once more and prayed aloud.—Edward Gilliatt, “Heroes of Modern Crusades.”

(1150)

FREEDOM OF SOUL

What a remarkable invention is the airship! In it are wrapt almost boundless possibilities for good or evil. The Christian bound on his sacred mission may yet be able to use the viewless air for his highway, transport himself through its soundless solitudes, hundreds of miles before the dawning. He may transport himself with ease from place to place and behold all the marvels of creation on earth, having cut loose from gravitation and being free in the infinite ocean of starlight and sunlight.The ideal of man is perfect freedom of the soul. (Text.)

The ideal of man is perfect freedom of the soul. (Text.)

(1151)

FREEDOM OR SLAVERY

I was in conversation with a man a few days ago, and we were talking with reference to evil propensities and signing pledges and forming firm resolutions to quit bad habits. He said, “I won’t sign a pledge because I won’t sign away my liberty.” I asked him what liberty he meant, and he said: “Liberty to do as I please.” I said to him, “That is not liberty. Any man that does as he pleases, independent of physical, moral and divine law, is a miserable slave.”—U. S. Shrimp,Church Advocate.

(1152)

Freedom, Religious—SeeLiberty, Individual.

Freedom, The Appeal of—SeeEarnestness.

FREEDOM THROUGH DRILL

R. H. Haweis gives an experience that would be good for all learners:

He (Oury) taught me Rode’s Air in G—that beautiful melody which has been, withits well-known variations, thepièce de résistanceof so many generations of violinists and soprani. I was drilled in every note, the bowing was rigidly fixt for me, the whole piece was marked, bar by bar, with slur,pandf,rall.andcrescendo. I was not allowed to depart a hair’s breadth from rule. When I could do this easily and accurately, Oury surprized me one day by saying:“Now you can play it as you like; you need not attend to a single mark!”“How so?” I said.“Don’t you see,” he said, “the marks don’t signify: that is only one way of playing it. If you have any music in you, you can play it in a dozen other ways. Now, I will make it equally good,” and he took the violin and played it through, reversing as nearly as possible all thep’sandf’s, “bowing” the slur and slurring the “bow,” and it sounded just as well. I never forgot that lesson.

“Now you can play it as you like; you need not attend to a single mark!”

“How so?” I said.

“Don’t you see,” he said, “the marks don’t signify: that is only one way of playing it. If you have any music in you, you can play it in a dozen other ways. Now, I will make it equally good,” and he took the violin and played it through, reversing as nearly as possible all thep’sandf’s, “bowing” the slur and slurring the “bow,” and it sounded just as well. I never forgot that lesson.

(1153)

Free Will—SeeWill, The.

FRICTION DISSIPATING FORCE

An English writer says:

Three or four years ago an attempt was made to supersede the water-carts of London by laying down on each side of the road a horizontal pipe, perforated with a row of holes opening toward the horse-way. The water was to be turned on, and from these holes it was to jet out to the middle of the road from each side, and thus water it all. I watched the experiment made near the Bank of England.Instead of spouting across the road from all these holes, as it should have done from any one of them, it merely dribbled; the reason being that, in order to supply them all, the water must run through the whole of the long pipe with considerable velocity, and the viscosity and friction to be overcome in doing this nearly exhausted the whole force of water-head pressure. Many other similar blunders have been made by those who have sought to convey water-power to a distance by means of a pipe of such diameter as should demand a rapid flow through a long pipe.

Instead of spouting across the road from all these holes, as it should have done from any one of them, it merely dribbled; the reason being that, in order to supply them all, the water must run through the whole of the long pipe with considerable velocity, and the viscosity and friction to be overcome in doing this nearly exhausted the whole force of water-head pressure. Many other similar blunders have been made by those who have sought to convey water-power to a distance by means of a pipe of such diameter as should demand a rapid flow through a long pipe.

This is a clear illustration of friction dissipating force. How much life force needed for constructive works of righteousness is wasted by mere friction.

(1154)

FRIEND, A TRUE

At a “home” in the country which the children of the slums are allowed to visit for a short time in the summer, the following incident occurred. A party of about one hundred youngsters was returning to the city. The attendant noticed that one of the girls, Rosie, was walking rather clumsily. This is the way the New YorkTribunetells the story:

When the attendant heard a chorus of gibes all aimed at little Rosie, she saw that the girl was wearing a pair of shoes of large size. Then the attendant remembered that Rosie had had a new pair of shoes, and the little girl was asked about it.“Well,” said Rosie, “you see, the shoes ain’t mine. They’re Katie’s. I know they’re awful big, but her mama ain’t had any work lately, so she couldn’t buy her a new pair. She just gave her own shoes to Katie.“Katie felt awful bad about it, and cried all the way to the station. The girls all laughed at her. I just lent her my new ones and took hers.“You see, teacher,” said Rosie, raising her eyes to the attendant’s face, “Katie’s my friend.”

“Well,” said Rosie, “you see, the shoes ain’t mine. They’re Katie’s. I know they’re awful big, but her mama ain’t had any work lately, so she couldn’t buy her a new pair. She just gave her own shoes to Katie.

“Katie felt awful bad about it, and cried all the way to the station. The girls all laughed at her. I just lent her my new ones and took hers.

“You see, teacher,” said Rosie, raising her eyes to the attendant’s face, “Katie’s my friend.”

(1155)

Friend, The, of Animals—SeeKindness, The Power of.

FRIEND, THE ORPHAN’S

Margaret Gaffney was given the name of the “Orphans’ Friend.” She was an orphan left to the care of Welsh people who were very poor. Charity was the very spring of her being. Having lost her husband, her childless heart caused her to enter the Paydros Orphan Asylum, for which she solicited stores, wheeling them herself in a wheelbarrow when she had no other means of conveyance. She built another orphan asylum, and started a dairy to help its support. Later she established a bakery. She would not indulge herself in anything unnecessary because there “was so much suffering in the world.” New Orleans owes to this poor, ignorant woman her three largest homes for children, which are for orphans, black or white, irrespective of denomination. When the Fourth Louisiana Regiment was taken captive to New Orleans, Margaret went to the fort with a load of bread, and when ordered to halt, she replied, “Whatfor?” When challenged, she jumped out of the wagon, grabbed the sentinel in her arms, and forcibly set him out of her path, and amid the cheers of the men, entered the fort with her baskets of bread. Whenever the Mississippi overflowed, her boat, loaded with bread, went daily to the submerged districts, feeding the needy. This poor woman was followed to her grave by the entire municipal government, merchants, professional men, and the children of eleven orphan asylums, who uncovered their heads to Margaret, the first woman in this country to be honored by the erection of a marble statue to her memory.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1156)

FRIEND, THE SYMPATHETIC

Angels are good companions for a crisis, but for every-day use the warm, touchable, sympathetic friend is as necessary as oxygen to the blood.—Camden M. Cobern.

(1157)

FRIEND, VALUE OF A

“What is the secret of your life?” asked Mrs. Browning of Charles Kingsley; “tell me, that I may make mine beautiful, too.” He replied, “I had a friend.” Somewhere in her “Middlemarch,” George Eliot puts it well: “There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having a sort of baptism and consecration; they bind us over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become the worst kind of sacrilege, which tears down the invisible altar of trust.”—William C. Gannett.

(1158)

FRIENDLINESS

It is related of Alexander the Great, that he won the hearts of his soldiers by calling them “his fellow footmen.” And of Aristotle, the better to instruct his hearers, that he read not to them—as other philosophers used to do—from a lofty seat, but walking and talking with them familiarly, as with friends, in Apollo’s porch; so he made them great philosophers. (Text.)

(1159)

Friends and Foes Meet—SeeAmity After War.

Friends Cancelling Debt—SeeKindness.

FRIENDS, CHOICE OF

The following poem was written by His Majesty Mutsuhito, the Emperor of Japan, for the students at the Peeresses’ School of Tokyo. It is translated by Arthur Lloyd:

The water placed in goblet, bowl or cupChanges its form to its receptacle;And so our plastic souls take various shapesAnd characters of good or ill, to fitThe good or evil in the friends we choose.Therefore, be ever careful in your choice of friends,And let your special love be given to thoseWhose strength of character may prove the whip,That drives you ever to fair wisdom’s goal.(Text.)—The Independent.

The water placed in goblet, bowl or cup

Changes its form to its receptacle;

And so our plastic souls take various shapes

And characters of good or ill, to fit

The good or evil in the friends we choose.

Therefore, be ever careful in your choice of friends,

And let your special love be given to those

Whose strength of character may prove the whip,

That drives you ever to fair wisdom’s goal.(Text.)

—The Independent.

(1160)

Friends in Heaven—SeeHeaven, Friends in.

FRIENDS, KEEPING

Somebody once asked the famous Roman Atticus how he managed to keep his friends up to the end of his life. His simple reply was, “I never expected anything from them.”

It is difficult, no doubt to maintain during outbursts of passion the serene indulgence peculiar to friendship, but without attaining to the state of Atticus, who expected nothing, where the desire to give much dominates a soul, the sting of wounded vanity would not be felt in the flesh, for wounded vanity would change its object, making it a matter of pride to give, and not receive.—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1161)

FRIENDSHIP

John Macy says inThe Atlantic Monthly:

Poe lived, worked, and died in such intellectual solitude that Griswold could write immediately after his death that he left few friends. Tho at the height of his career in New York, “between the appearance of ‘The Raven’ and the time when poverty and illness claimed him irrevocably, he appears as a lion in gatherings of the literati, yet it is asserted that among them his only affectionate friends were two or three women.”

No brilliant fame can atone for the lack of true friendships.

(1162)

A young man who had left home to enter business, and who had only a single acquaintancein the town where he was newly employed, was arrested upon the charge of stealing a pocketbook containing $1,000 from the desk of a man whom he had called upon in a business way the previous day. He was in a desperate plight, for circumstances were strongly against him. The man stated that he had the pocketbook just a few minutes before the young man came in, and upon looking for it immediately afterward, it was gone, and nobody else had been in the room. The young man’s only hope was in the establishment of a previous good character, and he had no one to whom he could at the moment apply. Not knowing what to do he sent for his single acquaintance, and told him of his predicament and the circumstances of the whole affair, and said, “Of course, you have only my word that I did not take the pocketbook, but it is the truth.” His acquaintance looked at him critically for a few minutes, and then said, “No, I don’t believe you did take it, and I am going to stand by you in this, and see that you are cleared.” The new acquaintance immediately gave bail, and told him to go back to work, and say nothing. Then he sent to the home of the boy, and arranged to have some influential men of the place come on at his own expense to testify to the character of his friend, and upon the day of trial, secured his honorable discharge. When asked why he did all this he replied, “Why, I am your friend.” This was his idea of the meaning of a friend.—James T. White, “Character Lessons.”

(1163)

SeeKindness.

Friendship and Peace—SeePeace Pact.

FRIENDSHIP, CONCEPTIONS OF

The Greek idea of friendship is represented by the figure of a girl, with uncovered head; one hand on her heart, the other resting on an elm struck by a thunderbolt, and about which a vine, heavy with grapes, is entwined. Her dress was high and close fitting, her attitude chaste. The Roman conception of friendship was more complicated and modern. The girl’s dress was cutá la vierge, her head crowned with myrtle and pomegranate flowers; she held in her hand two hearts enchained. On the fringe of her tunic was written, “Life and death”; on her forehead were the words, “Summer and winter.” With her right hand she pointed to her left side; exposed over heart and on it was written, “From far and near.”—Dora Melegari, “Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy.”

(1164)

FRIENDSHIP, PERFECT

William Anderson tells us what true friendship is in this poem:

True friendship is a perfect, priceless gem.Its greatest glory is its flawlessness.My friends must give to me, as I to them,Their best or nothing—I’ll accept no less.I want the perfect music, or no song;I want the perfect love, or none at all;Right is not right when coupled with a wrong;Sweet is not sweet when touched with taint of gall.

True friendship is a perfect, priceless gem.Its greatest glory is its flawlessness.My friends must give to me, as I to them,Their best or nothing—I’ll accept no less.

True friendship is a perfect, priceless gem.

Its greatest glory is its flawlessness.

My friends must give to me, as I to them,

Their best or nothing—I’ll accept no less.

I want the perfect music, or no song;I want the perfect love, or none at all;Right is not right when coupled with a wrong;Sweet is not sweet when touched with taint of gall.

I want the perfect music, or no song;

I want the perfect love, or none at all;

Right is not right when coupled with a wrong;

Sweet is not sweet when touched with taint of gall.

(1165)

FRIENDSHIP, SELFISH

The motives of some men in cultivating friendships may be compared to that of the foxes mentioned below:

To see a fox get round the farmer’s dogs, in order to make friends with them, is one of the most astonishing revelations of character. Usually the dogs seem hardly to know at first what to make of his advances, but the fox is pretty certain to succeed in bringing him to his side in the end, and after that they may be seen playing together day after day.—Witmer StoneandWilliam Everett Cram, “American Animals.”

(1166)

FRIGHT

One of the numerous incidents connected with the Sicilian earthquake was the escape of an artilleryman named Gashane Valente at Messina which was remarkable. A tidal-wave swept him from inside the barracks out to sea, where a fishing boat rescued him. He was landed near Messina, and ran without stopping eleven hours, reaching Acireale, fifty-five miles away. Terror gave him the necessary endurance.

(1167)

Frowns—SeeSmiles and Frowns.

Fructification, Spiritual—SeeLife, New, from God.

FRUIT AND SOIL

A choice variety of plum was purchased and set out in a certain garden. When the tree came to maturity, to the keen disappointment of the owner, there was no fruit on its branches. Investigation showed that the fault was not in the tree. The landin which it was planted proved to be barren and lacking in proper nourishment.A tree growing in poor soil can not bear, because it requires all the strength it can extract from the soil to barely sustain its life. It takes all the virtue there is in the soil to support the head and foliage so that the fruit is literally starved out.

A tree growing in poor soil can not bear, because it requires all the strength it can extract from the soil to barely sustain its life. It takes all the virtue there is in the soil to support the head and foliage so that the fruit is literally starved out.

There are church-members who branch into Christian profession but who are rooted in the world. Such will bring forth nothing but leaves. (Text.)

(1168)

FRUIT-BEARING

Suppose the tree should say: “My roots are strong, my boughs elastic and tough, firm against the stroke of wind and storm. Look at my bark, how smooth and fresh; and where is there a tree whose tides of sap are fuller or richer? What leaves, too, are these that I have woven out of the threads of sun and soil! Little wonder that the birds build nests in my branches, while the cattle find shade beneath my boughs.” Well, this is a good argument—for an apple-tree—but a poor one for a man. The hungry farmer-boy does not leap the fence on his way to the apple-tree looking for apple-sap or apple-boughs or apple-leaves—he is looking for apples. And God has built this world, not for the root moralities that support man. Industry is good—it is good not to lie and not to steal, and not to kill and not to perjure, but these beginnings are fundamental only, the man must go on from the leaf to the fruit. The fruit is truth in the inner parts, justice, measured by God’s standard, and mercy that tempers justice, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith that trusts, and will not be confounded. (Text.)—N. D. Hillis.

(1169)

FRUIT LIKE THE TREE

Tho I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and tho I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. In so giving and so doing, I would be acting merely in a way analogous to the jackdaw that would expect to be turned into a peacock by sticking a few peacock’s feathers into its black coat. This maneuver would not convert the jackdaw into a peacock; it would be still a jackdaw even after it had covered itself all over with peacock’s feathers. Let it first turn, if possible, into a peacock, and then peacock’s feathers will grow naturally upon it; its black coat will then soon be radically changed. To adopt the simile of our Lord, first make the tree good, and then its fruit will be good; you can not produce heaven’s fruit until the tree be first planted in heaven.—Alexander Miller, “Heaven and Hell Here.”

(1170)

FRUITFULNESS

The chayote is in many particulars the most remarkable plant in the vegetable kingdom. It is entirely immune from fungi, and is the only plant known which insects do not attack. Altho it bears fruit, it is a vine. Its growth is surprizingly rapid. It is a perennial and clambers about, clings to and covers fence, barn, tallest tree—anything. It will often bear as many as five hundred fruits, some of them weighing no less than three pounds. It blossoms and ripens fruit every month in the year. It is palatable and nutritious. Its flowers are rich in nectar and a prolific source of honey. (Text.)

(1171)

Fruits, First—SeeFirst Fruits.

FULFILMENT DISAPPOINTING

It is the way with all ambitions not to satisfy when they are achieved. Here is a poem by Grantland Rice teaching this truth:

The little boy smiled in his sleep that night,As he wandered to Twilight Town;And his face lit up with a heavenly lightThrough the shadows that drifted down;But he woke next morning with tear-stained eyeIn the light of the gray dawn’s gleam,And out from the stillness we heard him cry,“I’ve lost my dream—my dream!”And he told us then, in his childish way,Of the wonderful dream he’d known,He had wandered away from the land of playTo the distant Land of the Grown;He had won his share of the fame and fightIn the struggle and toil of men;And he sobbed and sighed in the breaking light,“I want my dream again!”As the years passed by the little boy grewTill he came to the Land of the Grown;And the dream of his early youth came true—The dream that he thought had flown;Yet once again he smiled in his sleep—Smiled on till the gray dawn’s gleamWhen those near by might have heard him weep:“I want my dream—my dream!”For he dreamed of the yesterdays of youth,And the smile on a mother’s face;A hearth of old-time faith and truthIn the light of an old home place;He had won his share of the fame and fightIn the struggle and toil of men—Yet he sobbed and sighed, in the breaking light:“I want my dream again!”—The Tennesseean.

The little boy smiled in his sleep that night,

As he wandered to Twilight Town;

And his face lit up with a heavenly light

Through the shadows that drifted down;

But he woke next morning with tear-stained eye

In the light of the gray dawn’s gleam,

And out from the stillness we heard him cry,

“I’ve lost my dream—my dream!”

And he told us then, in his childish way,Of the wonderful dream he’d known,He had wandered away from the land of playTo the distant Land of the Grown;He had won his share of the fame and fightIn the struggle and toil of men;And he sobbed and sighed in the breaking light,“I want my dream again!”

And he told us then, in his childish way,

Of the wonderful dream he’d known,

He had wandered away from the land of play

To the distant Land of the Grown;

He had won his share of the fame and fight

In the struggle and toil of men;

And he sobbed and sighed in the breaking light,

“I want my dream again!”

As the years passed by the little boy grewTill he came to the Land of the Grown;And the dream of his early youth came true—The dream that he thought had flown;Yet once again he smiled in his sleep—Smiled on till the gray dawn’s gleamWhen those near by might have heard him weep:“I want my dream—my dream!”

As the years passed by the little boy grew

Till he came to the Land of the Grown;

And the dream of his early youth came true—

The dream that he thought had flown;

Yet once again he smiled in his sleep—

Smiled on till the gray dawn’s gleam

When those near by might have heard him weep:

“I want my dream—my dream!”

For he dreamed of the yesterdays of youth,And the smile on a mother’s face;A hearth of old-time faith and truthIn the light of an old home place;He had won his share of the fame and fightIn the struggle and toil of men—Yet he sobbed and sighed, in the breaking light:“I want my dream again!”—The Tennesseean.

For he dreamed of the yesterdays of youth,

And the smile on a mother’s face;

A hearth of old-time faith and truth

In the light of an old home place;

He had won his share of the fame and fight

In the struggle and toil of men—

Yet he sobbed and sighed, in the breaking light:

“I want my dream again!”

—The Tennesseean.

(1172)

FULNESS, CHRIST’S

The late Charles Cuthbert Hall said:

I recall the wonder and delight with which I saw the ocean tide come up the Bay of Fundy and fill the empty river-bed. Through the hours of the ebb, the Nova Scotian rivers dwindled and shrank within their banks. Broad and barren reaches of sand exposed themselves; ships listed heavily on their sides, deserted by the feeble stream trickling in mid-channel. Then came the tide up the Bay of Fundy, up from the abundance of the unfathomable sea. You could hear it coming with a distant sound of motion and life and unmeasured power. You could see it coming, with a pure white girdle of foam, that looked in sunlight like a zone of fire. It entered the river-bed; it filled the empty channel as one fills a pitcher at the fountain; it covered the barren sands with motion and sparkling life; it lifted the heavy ships, gave back to them their rights of buoyancy, set them free upon the broad water-way of world-wide opportunity; it changed the very face of the land from sadness and apathy and dulness to animation and color and glittering activity. So Christ comes into empty human lives, and fills them with His fulness, which is the very fulness of God. The difference between a life without Christ and a life with Christ is the difference between ebb and flood: the one is growing emptier, the other is growing fuller.

(1173)

FUNCTIONS AND GIFTS IN THE EAST

The function in the non-Christian world must be regarded, because there etiquette and propriety are on dress parade. Presents are another difficulty. Be sure to look into this matter, and do not think that you are doing all that is required when you send a present. You have to be very particular about the number of presents, about the manner in which they are wrapt, about their proper delivering, etc. Receiving gifts is quite as serious a problem to the person who desires to rank as polite, as is the making of presents.—H. P. Beach, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

(1174)

FUNDAMENTALS

Every life is dominated by a fundamental note, good or bad. All its overtones will ultimately correspond.

The wires strung from pole to pole are set into oscillation by the wind, somewhat as the strings of a violin are set into vibration by the bow. In skilful hands the violin bow can be made to bring forth from the string one powerful fundamental note and several overtones of higher pitch, but in perfect harmony with the fundamental. But the wind is a very skilful performer, and brings forth at the same time not only the deepest fundamental bass note of the wire, but a great variety of overtones, both harmonious and discordant. In fact, the many wires strung overhead, from pole to pole, constitute splendid Eolian harps.—Telephony.

(1175)

SeeVital Faiths.

FURY INCREASING STRENGTH

The almost superhuman pluck of certain prize-fighting animals—bulldogs and badgers, for instance—may in reality be founded on a temporary insensibility to pain, and the evident advantages of that negative endowment suggest its development by the agency of natural selection. Individuals gifted with that faculty of emotional anesthesia were less likely to succumb to the terrors of a life-and-death struggle, and therefore more apt to prevail in that struggle for existence which in a state of nature is implied by the frequent necessity of contesting the physical superiority of sexual rivals or alien antagonists. The invigorating tendency of certain passions may have been developed in a similar manner. The formidable and, indeed, quite abnormal strength of infuriated man is so well known that even an athlete will hesitate to try conclusions with an adversary under the influence of raging passions, and in such moments fury-inspired vigor has often accomplished feats which afterward surprizedeven the hero of the exploit. “The saints do help a man in a desperate plight,” said an old Creole planter, who had rescued his family from the attack of a brutal negro. The same strength-sustaining influence of fury may explain the almost miraculous victories of small bodies of desperate men over large armies of better-armed foes, as in the three murderous battles which the rustic avengers of John Huss gained against the ironclad legions of his enemies, or in that still less expected defeat of an entire Russian army by a few hundred followers of the hero-prophet Shamyl. Religious frenzy has often produced a similar effect, and on any other theory only a miracle could explain the almost constant victories of the Saracens, who, in spite of determined resistance of millions of better disciplined and physically superior opponents, succeeded in less than a century in extending their empire from the Ganges to the Bay of Biscay.—Felix Oswald,The Open Court.

(1176)

FUTURE DISCOVERIES

In view of the marvelous discoveries which the last half century has witnessed no one can doubt that there is quite as much that is marvelous to come. The dweller on the planet in the year 2000 will undoubtedly look back on these times with a good deal of the same feeling that we of the present day have for those who lived in the days of the stage-coach and the weekly mail; and it is quite likely that the philosopher of that period will speak of ours as “the good old times.” But however that may be, and whatever the advance they have made in our condition, we may be sure that they will find all their improvements as necessary to existence as we now find the telegraph and railroad and electric. If they have established intercommunication between the planets, they will be just as dependent on those new features as we are on the latest appliances of our civilization. And if the air line to Jupiter should break down in such a way as to cripple the Mars cut-off or the branch to Saturn, the public will be just as much hindered and embarrassed as we are by a wire-disabling blizzard in the commercial metropolis or a fire in a central telegraph office.—DetroitFree Press.

(1177)

Future, Forcasting the—SeePrevision.

FUTURE LIFE

I trace the river, swelling out by degrees from the spring to a rill, from the rill to a brook, from the brook to a mill-stream, from the stream to a river, taking into itself all minor tributaries, and rolling on with a current that bears the ship and the steamboat with the easiest majesty, still cleaving its way through meadow and hill, through forest and mountain, untroubled toward the sea. Shall I believe, then, that when that river has rounded a promontory, beyond which, as yet, I can not follow it, it is all at once dissolved into mist? or emptied into a cavern so deep and obscure that no trace of the stream reappears upon the earth? Nay, but I know—tho I have not seen the end, it is as certain to me as if already my vision embraced it—that that river flows on continuous to the ocean, and mingles its wave with all the waters that gird the globe, and are drawn into the skies!And so I know that the great soul of man, aspiring from its birth to a nobler development, still matching its companions, still surpassing its circumstances, with ideas within it which no present can unfold, and with a deep self-centered force, to which the body is only an accident, will still go on when this body has decayed, and be only nobler and princelier in each power when mingling with that illustrious concourse of intelligent and pure beings who already have been gathered in the courts of the future! It were to reverse and violently over-ride every palpable probability, to deny or to doubt this! (Text.)—Richard S. Storrs.

And so I know that the great soul of man, aspiring from its birth to a nobler development, still matching its companions, still surpassing its circumstances, with ideas within it which no present can unfold, and with a deep self-centered force, to which the body is only an accident, will still go on when this body has decayed, and be only nobler and princelier in each power when mingling with that illustrious concourse of intelligent and pure beings who already have been gathered in the courts of the future! It were to reverse and violently over-ride every palpable probability, to deny or to doubt this! (Text.)—Richard S. Storrs.

(1178)

Sometime—dear hands shall clasp our own once more,And hearts that touched our hearts long years beforeShall come to meet us in the morning land;And then, at last, our souls shall understandHow, tho He hid His meaning from our sight,Yet God was always true and always right;And how, tho smiles were often changed for tears,Along this tangled pathway of the years,Yet only so these lives of yours and mineHave caught the likeness of the life divine. (Text.)

Sometime—dear hands shall clasp our own once more,

And hearts that touched our hearts long years before

Shall come to meet us in the morning land;

And then, at last, our souls shall understand

How, tho He hid His meaning from our sight,

Yet God was always true and always right;

And how, tho smiles were often changed for tears,

Along this tangled pathway of the years,

Yet only so these lives of yours and mine

Have caught the likeness of the life divine. (Text.)

(1179)

Future Life, Pledge of—SeeLife a Cycle.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

The field of mental effort is not measurable, and so far as we know, is unlimited. To fix its bounds would be to set an arbitrarylimit to the progress of the human race. In science, art, literature—in all that exalts and embellishes life—the space yet available for progress comes as near infinitude as anything we are capable of conceiving. To one who stands in a valley, the horizon is near; let him climb a hill, and his view is expanded. When he attains a greater height the prospect appears still wider. The inventive genius of the world is rising higher and higher every day. Its prospect never appeared so utterly boundless as now. All that has been achieved, all the grand conquests that are recorded, are but an atom in the balance weighed when brought against the possibilities of the future.—The Inventive Age.

(1180)

FUTURE REUNION

Richard Watson Gilder is the author of this:

Call me not dead when I, indeed, have goneInto the company of the ever-livingHigh and most glorious poets! Let thanksgivingRather be made. Say, “He at last hath won”Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,Music and song and light of immortal faces;To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.To-morrow (who can say) Shakespeare may pass—And our lost friend just catch one syllableOf that three-centuried wit that kept so well—Or Milton, or Dante, looking on the grassThinking of Beatrice, and listening stillTo chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill.

Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone

Into the company of the ever-living

High and most glorious poets! Let thanksgiving

Rather be made. Say, “He at last hath won”

Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,

Music and song and light of immortal faces;

To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,

He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.

To-morrow (who can say) Shakespeare may pass—

And our lost friend just catch one syllable

Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well—

Or Milton, or Dante, looking on the grass

Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still

To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill.

(1181)

FUTURE, THE

Ethel Ashton writes of the value of the things not yet in view:

Beyond the forms and the faces I see ineffable things,Above the cry of the children I hear the beating of wings;Gracing the graves of the weary are blossoms that never were blown,And over the whole of knowledge stands all that shall yet be known.The city is not my prison—the world can not stay me there;For whole wide earth and its beauty there’s beauty beyond compare.The wealth of the wind-blown music, the gold of the sun are mine.In light of the light men see not—in sight of the things divine.For truer than all that is written is all that has not been told.The yet unlived and unliving are truer than all the old.The fairest is still the furthest; the life that has yet to beHolds ever the past and present—itself the soul of the three.—The Outlook(London).

Beyond the forms and the faces I see ineffable things,

Above the cry of the children I hear the beating of wings;

Gracing the graves of the weary are blossoms that never were blown,

And over the whole of knowledge stands all that shall yet be known.

The city is not my prison—the world can not stay me there;For whole wide earth and its beauty there’s beauty beyond compare.The wealth of the wind-blown music, the gold of the sun are mine.In light of the light men see not—in sight of the things divine.

The city is not my prison—the world can not stay me there;

For whole wide earth and its beauty there’s beauty beyond compare.

The wealth of the wind-blown music, the gold of the sun are mine.

In light of the light men see not—in sight of the things divine.

For truer than all that is written is all that has not been told.The yet unlived and unliving are truer than all the old.The fairest is still the furthest; the life that has yet to beHolds ever the past and present—itself the soul of the three.—The Outlook(London).

For truer than all that is written is all that has not been told.

The yet unlived and unliving are truer than all the old.

The fairest is still the furthest; the life that has yet to be

Holds ever the past and present—itself the soul of the three.

—The Outlook(London).

(1182)

Future Uncertain—SeeTo-morrow, Uncertainty of.

FUTURE WELFARE

A nation may now become educated; a people may now be safe against poverty or famine; the world is even now probably past the critical point and sure of unintermitted future progress. We may be allowed to hope that later generations may continue to see an interminable succession of advances, made by coming men of science and by learned engineers and mechanics that shall continually add to the sum of human happiness in this world, and make it continually easier to prepare for a better world and a brighter. Who knows but that the telescope, the spectroscope, and other as yet uninvented instruments may aid us in this by revealing the secrets of other and more perfect lives in other and more advanced worlds than ours, despite the head-shaking of those who know most of the probabilities? Who can say that the life of the race may not be made in a few generations, by this ever-accelerating progress of which the century has seen but the beginning, a true millennial introduction into the unseen universe and the glorious life that every man, Christian or skeptic, optimist, or pessimist, would gladly hope for and believe possible? (Text.)—R. H. Thurston,North American Review.

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GAIN THROUGH LOSS

Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes:

I will not doubt, tho sorrows fall like rain,And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;I shall believe the heights for which I striveAre only reached by anguish and by pain;And tho I groan and tremble with my crosses,I yet shall see, through my severest losses,The greater gain. (Text)

I will not doubt, tho sorrows fall like rain,

And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;

I shall believe the heights for which I strive

Are only reached by anguish and by pain;

And tho I groan and tremble with my crosses,

I yet shall see, through my severest losses,

The greater gain. (Text)

(1184)

Gain and Loss—SeeFast Living.

GAIT AND CHARACTER

The firm foot is the ordinary type in men. A firm walk is a sign of self-control as well as of power. When the shoe thickens so obstinately that the foot can not bend it, and when the walker does not care what noise he makes, the firmness and power are developing to a degree that may inconvenience weaker or more sensitive folk. The weak foot is the more common. The stand suggests a knock-kneed body and a mind not strong enough to make the best of life—one might almost say, altogether a knock-kneed character that is always stepping crooked and going its way with an uncertain gait.—Cassell’s Family Magazine.

(1185)

Gait of Criminals—SeeCriminals, Gait of.

GAMBLING

The chaplain in charge of the penitentiaries in Kings County, N. Y., states that one-half of all the young men whose careers he has investigated show that the race-track and its attendant evils were the beginning of their downward course. The records of the evil and criminal courts, are replete with similar testimony. Bankrupts, women who risk their married happiness, clerks, pilfering from the till, embezzlers, forgers, defaulters, suicides, show how, to quote a victim who stole and then lost at one time $10,000 at the races, “that betting is the devil’s own joke,” and there are many full-sized victims.—S. Parkes Cadman.

(1186)

SeeJuvenile Court Experience.

GAMBLING AS RELIGIOUS DUTY

One of the three great annual Hindu festivals is in memory of the occasion when three of the Hindu gods sat down to gamble. Krishna, the guileful god, won. This festival is celebrated by universal gambling. Indeed, the people believe that unless they gamble at this time, they will be born as rats, or take some other undesirable form in the next life.After the festival is over, thousands of families have to start life again from the very bottom without a stick of furniture, as all has been lost at gambling.

After the festival is over, thousands of families have to start life again from the very bottom without a stick of furniture, as all has been lost at gambling.

(1187)

Gambling, Some Results of—SeeJuvenile Court Experience.

GAME OF GREED

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