[A]Here and elsewhere I use italic letters to spell a Greek word; doing so because it is quite possible that many intelligent and inquiring readers who may look to me, as to a fellow-student, for a little help, may be unacquainted with the Greek alphabet, and the force of its various characters. We are obliged to use this letter in Russian and Sanskrit; why not in Greek? As to that however there is one notable and often recurring difficulty in the use of an alien alphabet: the shorteis one letter,epsilon, and the longeanother,eta(pronouncedaytah). The sound and value of the latter is that of the French or Italiane; that is the name sound of Englisha, without the slightesound, with which we close it. This sound—the longe(ora)—I have endeavored to indicate by using for it a Roman letter. Strictness would demand other like indications of sound which must be passed by with this allusion.[B]And so I find it turning to a Latin grammar for schools published in 1871. I do not refer to grammars like Madvig’s.[C]See Max Müller, “Science of Language,” vol. ii, pp. 468-472.[D]Monier Williams’ Sanskrit Grammar, p. 70.
[A]Here and elsewhere I use italic letters to spell a Greek word; doing so because it is quite possible that many intelligent and inquiring readers who may look to me, as to a fellow-student, for a little help, may be unacquainted with the Greek alphabet, and the force of its various characters. We are obliged to use this letter in Russian and Sanskrit; why not in Greek? As to that however there is one notable and often recurring difficulty in the use of an alien alphabet: the shorteis one letter,epsilon, and the longeanother,eta(pronouncedaytah). The sound and value of the latter is that of the French or Italiane; that is the name sound of Englisha, without the slightesound, with which we close it. This sound—the longe(ora)—I have endeavored to indicate by using for it a Roman letter. Strictness would demand other like indications of sound which must be passed by with this allusion.
[A]Here and elsewhere I use italic letters to spell a Greek word; doing so because it is quite possible that many intelligent and inquiring readers who may look to me, as to a fellow-student, for a little help, may be unacquainted with the Greek alphabet, and the force of its various characters. We are obliged to use this letter in Russian and Sanskrit; why not in Greek? As to that however there is one notable and often recurring difficulty in the use of an alien alphabet: the shorteis one letter,epsilon, and the longeanother,eta(pronouncedaytah). The sound and value of the latter is that of the French or Italiane; that is the name sound of Englisha, without the slightesound, with which we close it. This sound—the longe(ora)—I have endeavored to indicate by using for it a Roman letter. Strictness would demand other like indications of sound which must be passed by with this allusion.
[B]And so I find it turning to a Latin grammar for schools published in 1871. I do not refer to grammars like Madvig’s.
[B]And so I find it turning to a Latin grammar for schools published in 1871. I do not refer to grammars like Madvig’s.
[C]See Max Müller, “Science of Language,” vol. ii, pp. 468-472.
[C]See Max Müller, “Science of Language,” vol. ii, pp. 468-472.
[D]Monier Williams’ Sanskrit Grammar, p. 70.
[D]Monier Williams’ Sanskrit Grammar, p. 70.
BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.
A glance at the map of our earth at once reveals the preponderance of water. Three-fourths of its surface is covered by the ocean, and if we divide the globe into northeastern and southwestern halves, one of the hemispheres will consist almost entirely of water. Yet there was a time when the ocean was still more extensive and covered islands and continents; even the loftiest mountain peaks were beneath the sea. We shall presently see how important an agency water became in moulding the earth and making it habitable for man. The lakes and rivers also constitute no small part of many lands, and even in the air, invisible streams are ever flowing, for “all the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come thither they return again.” The summer’s heat is the power, and the air its instrument, by which vapors, fogs, clouds and rain are lifted and borne back to the mountains and again scattered over the plains.
WATER SEEKING ITS LEVEL.
WATER SEEKING ITS LEVEL.
In the divine hand water has been used as the material with which to shape the earth, even as a workman employs his files, emery and diamond dust to shape the objects upon which he labors. At first the earth was characterized by one dead level—a wide, desolate, fire-scarred plain; then the mountains were upheaved, the depths were broken up, and, no longer resting in their quiet beds, everywhere rolled down the slopes, and by mere attrition, wore away the firm rocks and bore the material into the plains below; all valleys have thus been made. Some are still in process of formation. Far out in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Indian Ocean, the Mississippi and the Ganges are pouring their sediment and building future continents. Sometimes, where the volume of water was great, or the mountains steep, mighty gorges were carved out, like the river-bed below Niagara, the tremendous cuts of the Congo, or the awful cañons of the Colorado, some of which are five thousand feet in depth. Ceaseless waves beat upon the shore, powdered the rocks, and made the soft beaches; tides ebbed and flowed, and slowly wrought their changes. In addition to thewearingaction of the water, which arises from the smoothness of its molecules, and the slight cohesion of its particles, thereby causing ceaseless motion, it possesses a wonderful solvent power. Solution arises from the fact that the adhesion between a liquid and a solid is greater than the cohesion between the molecules of the solid; whenever this is the case the latter will be dissolved. If water is heated, this action will be intensified; such was its condition in the early geologic ages, and this explains the extraordinary rapidity with which rocks were then dissolved. Beautiful grottoes were formed like that of Antiparos, vast caverns, such as those along the coasts of Scotland, the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, and the Wyandotte of Indiana. It is a curious paradox which appears in this story of world-building that the New World was really the oldest in process of formation, and that the tallest mountains were the latest upheaved.
WATER TRANSMITS POWER EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
WATER TRANSMITS POWER EQUALLY IN ALL DIRECTIONS.
If we will stop and remember for a moment how often the painter and poet dwell uponvarietyin landscapes, we shall appreciate more fully the artistic work of water. We have already seen that by dissolving the rocks, the way was prepared for all verdure, and not less truly did it round the hills and carve the gorges, as well as smooth the outlines, which add so much to nature’s charms. Nor is this all. In the running brook, the sparkling cascade, the white foam of the cataract, the deep blue of the sea, the matchless variety and beauty of the clouds, we may behold the grandest exhibitions of color and form. There is endless variation in the tint, light and shade of water, owing to many causes. That this is true one will easily see in studying Church’s “Icebergs,” a picture of wonderful color and beauty, although one would scarcely expect these qualities in such a subject. Time would fail to describe the numberless forms of beauty displayed by water; it glitters in the dewdrop, shimmers in the wave, rounds the cheek of beauty, colors the rose, and paints the rainbow on the arching sky.
Water was early made to labor for man. Of the various forms of energy which he employs, animal, steam, electricity, wind, water, the last is probably the most inexpensive. It is a singular fact that all national progress and efficiency have depended largely upon proximity of water. Seas, indenting bays, sounds, rivers early bore the commerce of the world, andformed the medium for interchange of ideas, inventions, arts and literature. The little peninsulas of Italy and Greece, with their broken coast-line, developed a hardy race of seamen, who penetrated to the remotest parts of the then known world. The story of the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece is one of the earliest, as it is one of the most beautiful traditions of antiquity.
CAPILLARY ATTRACTION—WATER AND QUICKSILVER.
CAPILLARY ATTRACTION—WATER AND QUICKSILVER.
Look at that sturdy little island in the north Atlantic, whose people have so utilized the ocean that “she has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous strain of the martial airs of England.” We build many hopes for the prosperity of our own country upon the fact of our extensive coast-line, which gives us one mile of shore-line to every one hundred and four square miles of surface, while that of Europe, which is far more favored in this respect than any other division of the world, has only one mile of coast for every two hundred and twenty-four square miles of surface. Water furnishes the most convenient and mobile instrument for applying gravity. As it flows on its way to the sea, everywhere it is made to turn the thousand busy wheels of industry, so that it used to be said that every pound of water in the Blackstone and Merrimac rivers did a pound of work before it reached the sea. The physical property of water which makes it in this connection so useful is, that it presses equally in all directions; it can therefore be adjusted with great ease to the sinuosities of tubes, water-wheels and kindred appliances. We also use it as a convenient power for obtaining pressure by means of the hydrostatic press.
THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS—PRESSING COTTON.
THE HYDROSTATIC PRESS—PRESSING COTTON.
This depends upon the principle that water transmits force equally in all directions; therefore, strange as it may appear, we meet the paradox that a little water will accomplish as much as a great quantity. Thus, if a slender upright tube be connected with the bottom of a large tank the water will stand at the same height in both, and consequently the trifling amount of water in the tube supports and balances the vast amount in the tank. Suppose the area of the tube were as one to ten thousand. Now, if we should apply the force of one pound on the surface of the water in the tube, an uplifting force of one pound would be communicated to every equal area of a piston resting upon the surface of the water in the tank; so it is evident that with the pressure of one pound we might raise ten thousand pounds.
There are few more interesting proofs that “Peace hath her victories, no less renowned than war,” than that found in the completion of the Erie Canal, whereby a path was made for the vast agricultural products of the west to the metropolis, and thence to all countries.
Re-read the story of that magnificent commemoration of human genius and effort, when, in New York harbor, Governor DeWitt Clinton joined in perpetual wedlock the lake and the sea.
An interesting illustration of the upward pressure of water in seeking its level may often be seen in the dry docks of our great seaport cities, where old ocean is frequently compelled to do heavy work for man by lifting his ships out of water. A vessel is on the shoals; after the storm has subsided a great number of empty air-tight casks are sunk around the ship and fastened to it. The gradual pushing of the water lifting against the casks slowly raises the vessel until she floats.
SHOWING AN ORDINARY PUMP.
SHOWING AN ORDINARY PUMP.
Allusion has already been made to the erosive action of water. Every day observation will furnish us examples of this. The pebbles beneath our feet have been rounded and polished by this lapidary. The most beautiful specimens of its handiwork, however, are to be found in crystallization. Snow exhibits many lovely forms. If the flakes are caught on any dark surface we shall readily see that they are fashioned with great symmetry, starlike in form, on the plan of six diverging rays. There is an endless variety formed by additions made to these primaries. Not less beautiful are many of the forms of ice. The Mer-de-Glace of the Alps is pronounced by Prof. Tyndall one of nature’s most resplendent pieces of handiwork. If we may judge from all descriptions, the lofty spires and glittering sides of an iceberg furnish a spectacle sublime and terrible. The vast ice fields of the North, in spite of all their desolation, possess a mysterious charm.
The most favorable condition for the crystallization of any substance is its solution in water. It will thus appear that water is one great source of that marvelous beauty of form which we find in the mineral world. This process of nature may readily be repeated by dissolving alum, sugar, and similar substances, and crystallizing them on glass, or a string placed in the solution, and allowed to remain undisturbed. Bouquets of crystallized grasses are made in this way, often being colored afterward.
Almost all mineral substances can be crystallized, and some of the finest observations of the microscopist are made upon these objects.
Among the most interesting phenomena produced are those of polarized light, and many important deductions in medicine and chemistry are derived therefrom.
Solids are not the only substances which water is capable of taking to itself. Gases are also absorbed by it. A pint of water under one pressure of the atmosphere will absorb one pint of carbonic acid. It will take seven hundred pints of ammonia gas. This power of absorption belonging to water is of the greatest importance to agriculture. As the rain descends it frees the air from noxious gases, and carries them to the earth, where they are distributed to the rootlets of the plants; in this instance that which is death to the animal is life to the plant; it also rises in all vegetation, from cell to cell, by what is known as endosmosis. It moves freely through the porous earth by capillary attraction, the interstices of the earth really constituting a system of tubing through which the liquids freely circulate. When the earth becomes compact and hard the water can not so freely move through it; if the weather is dry, then follows another important result—the air, which always bears with it more or less moisture, especially in hot weather, can not pass through the soil and bring to the roots its gift of nutrition. Any one can perform the following experiment: Walk into the garden some morning when the season is dry and hot. You will often notice that the garden walk looks damp, while the spot that you hoed the day before, perhaps, seems dry, but if you will dig down a little way into each you will find that the loosened earth where you had worked, is moist, while the former is, below the surface, quite dry. Hence a practical inference of much value—the importance of frequently hoeing and loosening the earth, to facilitate the growth of plants, especially when the season is dry. The philosophy of this is, that the air freely passing through the loosened earth becomes cooled, and the moisture it contains is condensed, and remains to nourish the plant. A curious illustration of this fact is found in the prolific growth of watermelons, which are raised with the greatest success in dry sand, which is often so hot on the surface as to be painful to the hand; and yet a hundred pounds of watermelon contain ninety-eight pounds of water. The agricultural value of a country depends as much upon its water supply as upon the excellence of its soil. Here again we find one of the grandest endowments of “our heritage.” This is a land of sweet and abundant waters. Even those portions once considered worthless have been made of immense value by irrigation. Through our pastures flow crystal streams for the advantage of the dairy, as the production of good butter depends as much upon pure water as it does upon sweet grasses.
MANY FORMS OF SIPHONS.
MANY FORMS OF SIPHONS.
Glance over one of the broad corn-fields of the West. What a wonderful contrivance is each stalk for gathering sunlight and moisture! Water constitutes eighty per cent. of that vast growth! The forces of the sunbeam, which are locked up in it, will be surrendered during the coming winter, to sustain and invigorate man and beast. Take two large goblets, one of which is nearly filled with water. Place on it a piece of card-board, through which a hole has been made, pass through the opening the roots of any growing plant, like a spray of bergamot. Cover the plant with the other goblet; in a few moments the inner surface of the upper goblet will be covered with moisture, showing that the roots have absorbed and the stomata or pores of the leaves have exhaled the moisture. In every land drouth is synonymous with want and famine. With glad festivals the Egyptians greet the rising of the Nile. The seven lean years of Joseph’s time were years of drouth. If M. De Lesseps should carry out his mighty project of overflowing the Sahara with the waters of the Mediterranean, that desert may yet bud and blossom like the rose. Growth is intimately connected with climate, and the latter depends not a little upon proximity to water. The beautiful lake region of the United States would be almost uninhabitable were it not for the gentle influence of these inland seas. They cool the air in summer and warm it in winter, thus forming a great equalizing influence and preventing extremes of temperature.
Few things are more interesting and suggestive of a kind Providence than the plan by which water is supplied to the human family by underground currents, where it is kept cool in summer, and prevented from freezing in the winter. Natural pipeage is found almost everywhere in the earth, consisting of a layer of sand or gravel found between layers of clay or rock, which are practically impervious to water.
Where the upper layer is wanting springs appear. They often gush from the foot of the hills, but not unfrequently we find them on lofty summits. Human skill has sought for these hidden streams at great depths by means of Artesian wells, some of which are two thousand feet deep. It is claimed that the Chinese used them two thousand years ago for procuring gas and salt water. There is a famous Artesian well at Grenelle, Paris, which yields six hundred and fifty-six gallons of water per minute, while two of these wells in Chicago discharge four hundred and thirty-two thousand gallons a day. As Chicago is situated on a level prairie, this water must come from the high hills of Rock River, a hundred miles away. The water coming from these great depths is warm, one proof of the heated condition of the interior of the earth.
Horticulturists have in some places conducted this heated water by underground pipes through their gardens, and thus produced a semi-tropical vegetation.
Human contrivances for lifting water to higher elevations are various. Archimedes invented a screw for this purpose. The siphon, the chain pump, the ordinary lifting pump, the force pump, and some other inventions are applied to do this work. It would be a profitable exercise to study out the philosophyof these water lifters. You can also make them for yourself. The illustration of the forms of siphons and their various uses, for example, as given in this article, will well repay careful study.
SHOWING THAT PRESSURE DEPENDS UPON DEPTH.
SHOWING THAT PRESSURE DEPENDS UPON DEPTH.
Another way in which water acts as a friend to man, is in its hygienic effects. Think of the numberless uses of ice in summer, and how grateful to the fevered lips is ice! The invalid seeks in summer the cool sea breeze, freighted with its finely divided and stimulating salts and mineral vapors. In winter the genial atmosphere of Florida or the Gulf will fan the patient’s faded cheek. Or perhaps some health resort may be sought where there are mingled with the waters valuable medicinal restoratives. Vermont has the greatest number of these, but they are found at Sharon, Avon, Clifton, and Saratoga; while the hot springs of Arkansas have a great reputation, and who knows but what in some of the wonderful bath fountains of the West we may yet find what Ponce de Leon sought, the elixir which should transform old age into blooming youth. The latest new idea in medical practice is the hot water cure, which consists in drinking an indefinite amount of hot water whenever opportunity makes it possible. Public fountains are good temperance lectures.
SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE OF ARTESIAN WELLS.
SHOWING THE PRINCIPLE OF ARTESIAN WELLS.
One must travel in oriental lands, however, to learn all the sweet and beautiful significance of that one word, Water, which is so often used in the Bible as the best symbol of God’s abounding mercy.
Note.—The cuts in this article are from “Elements of Physics,” by Prof. A. P. Gage, the richest contribution to experimental philosophy printed in many years. Teachers as well as students will find it full of valuable suggestions.
Note.—The cuts in this article are from “Elements of Physics,” by Prof. A. P. Gage, the richest contribution to experimental philosophy printed in many years. Teachers as well as students will find it full of valuable suggestions.
SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
We read of Payson, that his mind, at times, almost lost sense of the external world, in the ineffable thoughts of God’s glory, which rolled like a sea of light around him, at the throne of grace.
We read of Cowper, that, in one of the few lucid hours of his religious life, such was the experience of God’s presence which he enjoyed in prayer, that, as he tells us, he thought he should have died with joy, if special strength had not been imparted to him to bear the disclosure.
We read of one of the Tennents, that on one occasion, when he was engaged in secret devotion, so overpowering was the revelation of God which opened upon his soul, and with the augmenting intensity of effulgence as he prayed, that at length he recoiled from the intolerable joy as from a pain, and besought God to withhold from him further manifestations of his glory. He said, “Shall thy servantseethee and live?”
We read of the “sweet hours” which Edwards enjoyed “on the banks of Hudson’s River, in secret converse with God,” and hear his own description of the inward sense of Christ which at times came into his heart, and which he “knows not how to express otherwise than by a calm, sweet abstraction of soul from all the concerns of this world; and sometimes a kind of vision … of being alone in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, and rapt and swallowed up in God.”
We read of such instances of the fruits of prayer, in the blessedness of the suppliant, and are we not reminded by them of the transfiguration of our Lord, of whom we read, “As he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening?” Who of us is not oppressed by the contrast between such an experience and his own? Does not the cry of the patriarch come unbidden to our lips, “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him?”
The scriptural examples of prayer have, most of them, an unutterable intensity. They are pictures ofstruggles, in which more of suppressed desire is hinted than that which is expressed. Recall the wrestling of Jacob: “I will not let thee go except thou bless me;” and the “panting” and “pouring out of soul” of David: “I wail day and night; my throat is dried: … I wait for my God;” and the importunity of the Syro-Phœnician woman, with her “Yes, Lord, yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs;” and the persistency of Bartimeus, crying out, “the more a great deal,” “Have mercy on me;” and the strong crying and tears of our Lord, “If it be possible—if it be possible!” There is no easiness of desire here. The scriptural examples of prayer, also, are clear as light in their objects of thought. Even those which are calm and sweet, like the Lord’s prayer, have few and sharply-defined subjects of devotion. They are not discursive and voluminous, like many uninspired forms of supplication. They do not range over everything at once. They have no vague expressions; they are crystalline; a child need not read them a second time to understand them. As uttered by their authors, they were in no antiquated phraseology; they were in the fresh forms of a living speech. They were, and were meant to be, the channels of living thoughts and living hearts.—Phelps.
It is the highest stage of manhood to have no wish, no thought, no desire, but Christ—to feel that to die were bliss if it were for Christ—that to live in penury, and woe, and scorn, contempt, and misery, were sweet for Christ. To feel that it matters nothing what becomes of one’s self, so that our Master is but exalted—to feel that though like a sear leaf, we are blown in the blast, we are quite careless whither we are going, so long as we feel that the Master’s hand is guiding us according to his will; or rather, to feel that though like the diamond, we must be exercised with sharp tools, yet we care not how sharply we may be cut, so that we may be made brilliants toadornhiscrown. If any of us have attained to this sweet feeling of self-annihilation, we shall look up to Christ as if he were the sun, and we shall say within ourselves, “O Lord, I see thy beams; I feel myself to be—not a beam from thee—but darkness, swallowed up in thy light. The most I ask is, that thou wouldst live in me—that the life I live in the flesh may not be my life, but thy life in me; that I may say with emphasis, as Paul did, ‘For me to live is Christ.’” A man who has attained this high position has indeed “entered into rest.” To him the praise or the censure of men is alike contemptible, for he has learned to look upon the one as unworthy of his pursuit, and the other as beneath his regard. He is no longer vulnerable since he has in himself no separate sensitiveness, but has united his whole being with the cause and person of the Redeemer. As long as there is a particle of selfishness remaining in us, it will mar our sweet enjoyment of Christ; and until we get a complete riddance of it, our joy will never be unmixed with grief. We must dig at the roots of our selfishness to find the worm which eats our happiness. The soul of the believer will always pant for this serene condition of passive surrender, and will not content itself until it has thoroughly plunged itself into the sea of divine love. Its normal condition is that of complete dedication, and it esteems every deviation from such a state as a plague-mark and a breaking forth of disease. Here, in the lowest valley of self-renunciation, the believer walks upon a very pinnacle of exaltation; bowing himself, he knows that he is rising immeasurably high when he is sinking into nothing, and, falling flat upon his face, he feels that he is thus mounting to the highest elevation of moral grandeur.
It is the ambition of most men to absorb others into their own life, that they may shine more brightly by the stolen rays of other lights; but it is the Christian’s highest aspiration to be absorbed into another, and lose himself in the glories of his Sovereign and Savior. Proud men hope that the names of others shall but be remembered as single words in their own long titles of honor; but loving children of God long for nothing more than to see their own names used as letters in the bright records of the doings of the Wonderful, the Counselor.—Spurgeon.
The peace of Christ, then, was the fruit of the combinedtoilandtrust, in the one case diffusing itself from the center of his active life, in the other from his passive emotions; enabling him in the one case todo thingstranquilly, in the other tosee thingstranquilly. Two things only can make life go wrong and painfully with us; when we suffer or suspect misdirection and feebleness in the energies of love and duty within us or in the providence of the world without us; bringing, in the one case, the lassitude of an unsatisfied and discordant nature; in the other the melancholy of hopeless views. From these Christ delivers us by a summons to mingled toil and trust. And herein does his peace differ from that which “the world giveth”—that its prime essential is not ease, but strife; not self-indulgence, but self-sacrifice; not acquiescence in evil for the sake of quiet, but conflict with it for the sake of God; not, in short, a prudent accommodation of the mind to the world, but a resolute subjugation of the world to the best conceptions of the mind. Amply has the promise to leave behind him such a peace been since fulfilled. It was fulfilled to the apostles who first received it, and has been realized again by a succession of faithful men to whom they have delivered it.
The word “peace” denotes the absence of war and conflict; a condition free from the restlessness of fruitless desire, the forebodings of anxiety, the stings of eternity.… The first impulse of “the natural man” is, to seek peace by mending his external condition; to quiet desire by increase of ease; to banish anxiety by increase of wealth; to guard against hostility by making himself too strong for it; to build up his life into a future of security and a palace of comfort, where he may softly lie, though tempests beat and rain descends. The spirit of Christianity casts away at once this whole theory of peace; declares it the most chimerical of dreams, and proclaims it impossible even to make this kind of reconciliation between the soul and the life wherein it acts. As well might the athlete demand a victory without a foe. To the noblest faculties of the soul, rest is disease and torture. The understanding is commissioned to grapple with ignorance, the conscience to confront the powers of moral evil, the affections to labor for the wretched and oppressed; nor shall any peace be found till these, which reproach and fret us in our most elaborate ease, put forth an incessant and satisfying energy; till instead of conciliating the world, we vanquish it; and rather than sit still, in the sickness of luxury, for it to amuse our perceptions, we precipitate ourselves upon it to mould it into a new creation. Attempt to make all smooth and pleasant without, and you thereby create the most corroding of anxieties, and stimulate the most insatiable of appetites within. But let there be harmony within, let no clamors of self drown the voice which is entitled to authority there, let us set forth on the mission of duty, resolved to live for it alone, to close with every resistance that obstructs it, and march through every field that awaits it, and in the consciousness of immortal power, the sense of ill will vanish; and the peace of God well nigh extinguish the sufferings of the man. “In the world we may have tribulation; in Christ we shall have peace.”—James Martineau.
God is love; he who does not love him does not know him; for how can we know love without loving?… God who made all things in fact creates us anew every moment. It did not follow necessarily that because we were yesterday, we should exist to-day; we might cease to be, we might relapse into the nothingness from whence we came, if the same all-powerful hand who called us from it did not still sustain us. We are nothing in ourselves; we are only what God has made us to be, and that only while it pleases him. He has only to withdraw the hand which supports us in order to replunge us into the abyss of our nothingness, as a stone which one holds in the air falls from its own weight, as soon as the hand is unclosed which supports it. Thus do we hold existence only as the continual gift of God.…
It is not to know thee, oh God, to regard thee only as an all-powerful being who gives laws to all nature, and who has created everything which we see, it is only to know a part of thy being, it is not to know that which is most wonderful and most affecting to thy rational offspring. That which transports and melts my soul is to know that thou art the God of my heart. Thou doest there thy good pleasure.… Oh God! man does not know thee, he knows not who thou art. “The light shines in the midst of the darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.” It is through thee that we live, that we think, that we enjoy the pleasures of life, and we forget him from whom we receive all these things.
Universal light! it is through thee alone that we see anything. Sun of the soul, who dost shine more brightly than the material sun! seeing nothing except through thee we see not thee thyself. It is thou who givest all things, to the stars their light, to the fountains their waters and their courses, to the earth its plants, to the fruits their flavor, to all nature its riches and its beauty, to man health, reason, virtue, thou givest all, thou doest all, thou rulest over all; I see only thee, all other things vanish as a shadow before him who has once seen thee. But alas! he who has not seen thee, has seen nothing, he has passed his life in the illusion of a dream; he is as if he were not more unhappy still, for as we learn from thy word, it were better for him if he had not been born.
For myself I ever find thee within me. It is thee who workestwith me in all the good I do. I have felt a thousand times that I could not of myself conquer my passions, overcome my habits, subdue my pride, follow my reason, or continue to will what I have once willed. It is thou who gavest me this will, who preservest it pure; without thee I am like a reed, agitated by the wind. Thou hast given me courage, uprightness, and all the good emotions which I experience. Thou hast created within me a new heart which desires thy justice, and thirsts for thy eternal truth. I leave myself in thy hands; it is enough for me to fulfill thy all-beneficent designs, and in nothing to resist thy good pleasure, for which I was created. Command, forbid, what willest thou that I should do? What that I should do? Lifted up, cast down, comforted, left to suffer, employed in thy service, or useless to every one, I still adore thee, ever yielding my will, I say with Mary, “Be it unto me according to thy word.”—Fénelon.
Remember what St. Paul saith, “Our life is hid with Christ in God.” … Five cordial observations are couched therein. First, that God sets a high price and valuation on the souls of his servants, in that he is pleased to hide them; none will hide toys and trifles, but what is counted a treasure. Secondly, the word hide, as a relative, imports that some seek after our souls, being none other than Satan himself, that roaring lion, who goes about seeking whom he may devour. But the best is, let him seek, and seek, and seek, till all his malice be weary (if that be possible), we can not be hurt by him whilst we are hid in God. Thirdly, grant Satan find us there, he can not fetch us thence; our souls are bound in the bundle of life, with the Lord our God. So that, be it spoken with reverence, God must first be stormed with force or fraud, before the soul of a saint sinner, hid in him, can be surprised. Fourthly, we see the reason why so many are at a loss, in the agony of a wounded conscience, concerning their spiritual estate: for they look for their life in a wrong place, namely, to find it in their own piety, purity, and inherent righteousness. But though they seek, and search, and dig, and dive never so deep, all in vain. For though Adam’s life was hid in himself, and he intrusted with the keeping of his own integrity, yet, since Christ’s coming, all the original evidences of our salvation are kept in a higher office, namely, hidden in God himself. Lastly, as our English proverb saith, “He that hid can find;” so God (to whom belongs the issues from death) can infallibly find out that soul that is hidden in him, though it may seem, when dying, even to labor to lose itself in a fit of despair.…
Surely as Joseph and Mary conceived that they had lost Christ in a crowd and sought him three days sorrowing, till at last they found him, beyond their expectation, safe and sound, sitting in the temple; so many pensive parents, solicitous for the souls of their children, have even given them up for gone, and lamented them lost (because dying without visible comfort), and yet, in due time, shall find them, to their joy and comfort, safely possessed of honor and happiness, in the midst of the heavenly temple and church triumphant in glory.—Fuller.
Selected from J. P. Mahaffy’s “Old Greek Life.”
All Greek property was divided both according to its use, and also according to its nature. If it was such as merely produced enjoyment to the owner it was called idle; if it was directly profitable, it was called useful or fruitful. But this distinction is less often mentioned than that intovisibleandinvisibleproperty, which nearly corresponded to our division intorealandpersonalproperty. But the Greeks included ready money, lodged at a banker’s, as a part of real property. Its principal kind, however, was of course landed property, as well as town houses, country farms, and sometimes mining property held under perpetual lease from the state. Of all these public accounts were kept, and when special taxes were required they were paid on this kind of property and according to this estimate. Personal or invisible property consisted of all movables, such as furniture, factories, changes of raiment, cattle, and above all slaves, who were employed in trades as well as in household work. In days of war and of heavy taxing it was common for the Greeks to “make away with” their property, which then meant, not to spend it, but to make it invisible property, that is, invisible to the state, and therefore not taxable.
At every epoch of Greek history land was considered the best and the most important kind of wealth, and the landholder enjoyed privileges and rights not allowed to other men, however rich. This arose from the early form of Greek society. It is clear in Homer that the nobles possess the greater part of the land as their private property, and much of even the kings’ wealth was made up of estates. These were also presented to public benefactors and other distinguished persons. What land was possessed by the common people can only be judged from Hesiod, who describes what we should call tenant farming—the occupying of small pieces of land in poverty, without telling us whether it was freehold or rented from the nobles. It was probably the former, at least in Bœotia, where we can imagine the rough slopes unoccupied of old as they now are, or covered with trees. These farms could be held by any one who had the perseverance to clear and till them. In later days, when aristocracies prevailed, they also took for themselves the lands, so much so that at Syracuse and elsewhere they were called “the land-sharers” as opposed to laborers and tradespeople. In some states, such as Sparta, it was said that the nobles, or conquering race, divided the land so as to leave the greater portion in equal lots for themselves to be worked by their slaves or dependants, and a smaller portion to the former owners, who were obliged to pay a rent to the state. But of course no such equality of lots, if ever carried out, could last. In all states we find the perpetual complaint that property had come into the hands of a few, while the many were starving. The Athenians met this complaint by allotting the lands of islands and coasts which they conquered among their poorer citizens, who retained their rights at Athens while holding their foreign possessions.
Land was either bare or arable land, or planted with trees. There were also stony mountain pastures. In historical days, all these lands were either let by the state on leases, usually for ever (as was especially the case with mines), or were similarly let by political and religious corporations, or were worked by private owners for their own benefit by means of stewards and slaves. Such country farms are often mentioned in lists of property by the orators. The main produce has already been described. We have no means of fixing the value of landed property in Greece, as we generally hear of prices without being told of the amount of land in question. But the low average of the actual prices mentioned in Attica points to a great subdivision of such property.
As was before observed, the older Greek houses built in narrow irregular streets were of little value, being very plain and without any ornament. Leotychides, who was king of Sparta in B. C. 500, could not contain his wonder at a ceiling paneledin wood, which he saw at Corinth, and Demosthenes tells us that the houses of the most celebrated Athenians at the same period were so modest as to be in no way different from those of their neighbors. Such houses, which remained the ordinary fashion all through Greek history, were of course not very valuable, and we hear of one worth only three minæ (about $60 of our money), of another at Eleusis worth five, and Demosthenes speaks of what he calls a little house worth seven (about $140). But we know that Alcibiades and other fashionable men of his time began to decorate their houses with paintings—a fashion which became quite common at Tanagra later on; this and other improvements raised the price of some houses to forty or fifty minæ, and the rich banker, Pasion, possessed one which was let in lodgings and which was rated at one hundred.
All these prices are very low when compared with our standard, and can only be explained by the fact that at Athens, which was probably the most crowded and the dearest place in Greece, the circuit of the walls was greater than that required for the houses, so that there was always building ground to spare. It appears that Athenian citizens did not invest more than the fifth part of their property in dwelling houses, unless they kept them for letting out. The ordinary rent of country houses in Attica was from eight to eight and three-quarters per cent. of the total value, which is about the same that a builder now expects for the money he invests in houses. But when we reflect that the ordinary rate of interest was not five per cent. as among us, but twelve, we have another proof that houses and house-rent were cheap in Greece. But we should also remember the fact that as most of the day was spent abroad, the house was by no means so important as it is in our colder and harsher climate.
As to the other kinds of real property, that which we know most about, and which was perhaps the most important, was mining property. There were gold and silver mines in many parts of Greece, of which those of Thasos (gold) and Laurium (silver) are the best known. Both these were probably discovered by the Phœnicians. We are told that the Athenian state used to let the right of mining on leases for ever, for a fine at the outset, of which we can not tell the amount, and a rent of four per cent. on the profit. The shafts in pits were thus divided into lots, and the holder of the lease could sell it, or borrow money upon it, just as upon any other real property. Owing to the fixed yearly rent or tax upon the produce of the mine, the occasional taxes were not levied on this kind of property. There were officers appointed to watch the working of the mines and see that the rent was honestly paid, just as we have government officers constantly supervising distilleries, in order to see the taxes properly paid. The produce of the mines of Laurium was a great source of wealth to Athens; just as the gold mines of Thrace were an important gain to Philip of Macedon. This was especially the case, because they were worked not by free labor, which is subject to strikes and the raising of wages, but by slaves bought and hired out for that purpose.
By far the most important part of personal property was the possession of slaves and of ready money. There is indeed some doubt among Greek writers about the classing of the latter, and generally we find the money left by a citizen in bank counted as a part of his real property in the law courts. There can be no doubt that gold and silver were very scarce in Greece up to the time of the Persian wars, the first large quantities being presents from the Lydian and other Asiatic kings. Even in later days great fortunes were not frequent, and the Greeks always kept much of their wealth invested in slaves and in vessels of gold and silver or plate, as we should call it. These latter are always specially mentioned in inventories of property, and the ready money seems always a small fraction of the full value in these lists. States, on the other hand, kept large reserve funds of ready money, because of this general scarcity of it among private citizens, and the difficulty of borrowing it during a sudden crisis. Accordingly the ordinary rate of interest obtained on money was twelve per cent., which was of course greatly increased when the investment was risky. Thus it was very common to lend money to a ship-owner in order to enable him to lay in a cargo, and carry it to a foreign port. But as the money was lost if the ship foundered the lender expected twenty-five or thirty per cent. in case of its safe return. We are told that most of the trade in the Piræus was carried on in this way. Investments on the security of landed property, or of an established trade, were, of course, safer, and therefore made at a lower rate of interest.
The oldest banks in Greece had been the temples, in which all manner of valuables were deposited for safety. The priests had also been in the habit of lending money, especially to states, upon public security. But in later days we find banking, especially at Athens, altogether a matter of private speculation. Originally, the table of a money-changer was a banking office, and there accounts were kept in books by careful and regular entries. These private bankers often failed, and such failure was politely calledrearranging his table. There was once an Athenian banker called Pasion, who had been originally a slave, but who received the freedom of the city, and was enrolled in one of the most importantdemes, because his bank had stood firm when all the rest failed, and he had thus sustained the public credit. We are told that letters from his house gave a man credit when traveling through all the Greek waters, as all the merchants had dealings with him, and he doubtless issued circular notes, like those of Coutts’s and other English banks, for the benefit of travelers.
Of the coinage of money I will speak hereafter. Though the Phœnicians, especially at Carthage, had invented the use of token money, like our notes, such a device was, as a rule, unknown to the Greeks, who did not advance beyond the use of formal bonds for the payment of money. We are told however that the people of Byzantium used iron money in this way.
It is difficult for us to put ourselves in the place of the ancients as regards slaves. They were looked upon strictly as part of the chattels of the house, on a level rather with horses and oxen than with human beings. No Greek philosopher, however humane, had the least idea of objecting to slavery in itself, which was, Aristotle thought, quite necessary and natural in all society; but there were Greeks who objected to other Greeks being enslaved and thought that only barbarians should be degraded to this condition. Hence, any Greek general who sold his prisoners of war as slaves, was not indeed thought guilty of any crime or injustice, but was sometimes considered to have acted harshly. Still a vast number of Greeks who might have been brought up in luxury and refinement, were doomed to this misfortune, in early days, by the kidnapping of pirates, as Homer often tells us; in later, through the many fierce civil wars; in both, by being taken up as foundlings, since the exposing of children was common, and most states allowed the finder to bring up such infants as his slaves. Frequently the men of captured cities were massacred, but in almost all cases the women and children were sold into slavery. There were some parts of Greece, such as Laconia and Thessaly, in which old conquered nations were enslaved under the conditions of what we call serfdom. They were attached to the land of their master, and supported themselves by it, paying him a very large rent out of the produce. These serfs, called by many names,helotsat Sparta,penestæin Thessaly,clarotæin Crete, were also obliged in most places to attend their masters as light-armed soldiers in war. That they were subject to much injustice and oppression is clear from the fact that they repeatedly made fierce and dangerous insurrections, and a writer on the Athenian state significantly complains that such was the license allowed at Athens to slaves,that they actually went about dressed almost like free men, and showed neither fear nor cringing when met in the streets.
Still, though slaves were on the whole better treated at Athens than elsewhere, they were always liable to torture in case their evidence was required, as it was common for the accused to offer his slaves’ evidence if he was suspected of concealing any facts which they knew, and they were not believed without torture. So also the respectable and pious Nicias let them out by thousands to be worked in the Laurian silver mines, where the poisonous smoke and the hardships were such that half the price of the slave was paid yearly by the contractor who hired them—in other words, if they lived three years Nicias received one and a half times the value of his slaves. The contractor was also obliged to restore them the samein number, no regard being had of the individual slave. Again, we find women slaves deliberately employed by their masters in the worst kinds of traffic. The general price of slaves was not high, and seems to have averaged about two minæ (under $40); even in the case of special accomplishments it did not often exceed ten minæ. They wore a tunic with one sleeve, and a fur cap, in fact the dress of the lower class country people.
The most important domestic animal in Greece, as in the rest of Europe, was the horse. Among the Homeric nobles, who went both to war and to travel in chariots, the use of horses was very great, and one Trojan chief is said to have possessed a drove of three thousand. And yet their carts were drawn by mules. In later days, the use of chariots in war and carriages in traveling almost disappeared from Greece, and was practiced only in Asia Minor. I suppose this was owing to the scarcity and bad state of the roads. Cavalry and pack horses were used instead, and the cavalry of most Greek states was very trifling. The Athenians, for example, had no cavalry at all at Marathon; and at Platæa none which could even protect foragers from the Persians, as the Thessalians were not on the Greek side. The Lacedæmonians had no cavalry at all before the year 424 B. C. Thus horses (except in Thessaly and a few other places) were only kept for cavalry purposes, and also for such displays as the Olympic games and the state processions in religious festivals. At Athens to keep horses and to drive four-in-hand (in public contests only) was a proof of either great wealth or great extravagance. The knights or cavalry were of the richest class, and only kept one horse each as a state duty. We know that the very cheapest price for a bad horse was three minæ—that is to say, more than the average for a good slave, though not in itself a large sum. Twelve minæ seems about the average price for an ordinary horse. The enormous and perfectly exceptional sum of thirteen talents is said to have been paid for Alexander’s horse “Bucephalus.” This name was one used of a special breed calledox-headed, from their short and broad head and neck, and which were celebrated in Thessaly. Other good breeds came from Sicyon, Cyrene, and Sicily.
For draught purposes and for traveling with packs, much greater use was made of mules and donkeys, especially of the former, as is still the case all over Greece. We have no certain knowledge as to the prices given for these animals. The history of the use of oxen is, on the other hand, much better known. In Homeric times, and before the use of coined money, prices were fixed by the number of oxen a thing would cost, and this old practice is preserved in the Latin wordpecunia(frompecus) for money, and in the Englishfee.
But according as men, and with them farming, increased, so much land was withdrawn from pasture that few more oxen were kept than what were wanted for field work and for sacrifices. Beef was thought heavy diet, except in Bœotia; and cow’s milk was never much liked by the Greeks. In out-of-the-way parts of Greece, such as Eubœa and Epirus, there were still large herds, and this was also the case about Orchomenus; but in general we hear that hides and even cattle were imported from the Black Sea and from Cyrene. The price of an ox at Athens in Solon’s time is said to have been five drachmæ (one dollar), though much more was sometimes given. This was not so much on account of the plenty or cheapness of oxen, as owing to the scarcity of coined money all through Greece. Accordingly about the year 400 B. C. we find the price greatly increased, and ranging from fifty to eighty drachmæ. An ox fit for a prize at games was valued at one hundred ($15.50).
We are told that in Solon’s days an ox was worth five sheep, but probably in later days the difference was greater, for while oxen became scarce, the feeding of sheep and goats must at all times have been a very common employment throughout Greece. Even in the present day, the traveler can see that from a country for the most part Alpine, with steep ravines and cliffs and wild upland pastures, unfit for culture and difficult of access, no other profit could ever be derived. But now, in the day of its desolation, shepherds with their flocks of sheep and goats have invaded many rich districts, once the scene of good and prosperous agriculture.
The old Greek peasant dressed in sheepskins, made clothes of the wool, used the milk for cheese and the lambs for feasting and sacrifice. We hear of no importing of wool into Greece, but find that the Ionian colonies in Asia Minor, such as Miletus and Laodicea, were most celebrated for fine woolen garments, which they made of the wool of the flocks of Mysia and Phrygia. Many districts all over Greece were also famed for their woolen stuffs, so much so that the woolen cloaks of Pallene were given as prizes to victors in some of the local games. Perhaps Arcadia has remained the least changed part of Greece in this and in other respects. Even now the shepherds go up in summer with great flocks to the snowy heights of Cyllene, and live like Swiss peasants inchâletsduring the hot weather. In winter they come down to the warm pastures of Argos and Corinth, where a tent of skins under an old olive tree affords them sufficient shelter, with a hedged-in inclosure protected by fierce dogs for their flocks. Such inclosures and even stalls are mentioned in Homer.
The price of a sheep at Athens in the fourth century B. C. seems to have varied from ten to twenty drachmæ, its chief value being the quality of the wool. There is nothing very special known about goats, which were kept, as they now are, very much in the same way as sheep, and their hair used for making ropes and coarse stuffs.
In the same way we know little of pigs beyond that their hides were used for rough coats, and that Homer’s heroes were very fond of pork. We hear of large droves being kept in the mountainous parts of Arcadia, Laconia, and Ætolia, where they fed on the acorns in the oak woods. Fowls were not a usual article of diet, and are therefore not prominent in our accounts of Greek property. The cock is spoken of as a Persian bird, the pheasant as a Colchian, and peacocks were an object of curiosity at Athens in Pericles’ day. The culture of bees, on the other hand, was of great importance, as it took the place of the sugar plantations of our day—all sweetmeats being flavored with honey.
It seems certain that the greatest part of the wealth of the Greeks consisted in these out-of-door possessions, which were managed by slave stewards and shepherds for their masters, if they lived in the city. There is reason to think that they neither laid up much money in banks, nor kept any great treasures in the way of changes of raiment, like the Orientals, nor in furniture and works of art, like the Romans and moderns. But owing to the many wars and invasions, this agricultural wealth was precarious, and liable to sudden destruction. House property, again, which in walled towns was pretty safe, is from its own nature perishable. Private wealth therefore was not great on the average, and the splendid monuments of Greek art in its best days were all the result of public spirit, and not of private enterprise or bounty. A fortune of $250,000 in all kinds of property is the extreme limit we know of, and is spoken of much as $250,000,000 would be now-a-days.
The early inhabitants of Greece, and of the islands in the beautiful Ægean, were an active race, sprightly, and highly imaginative. Though, as yet, uncultured and unaided, their vivid conceptions of things natural and supernatural, visible and invisible, found expression inlegendsthat embodied their often crude ideas. After some progress in civilization, and the introduction of letters, these were perfected and embellished by men of poetic genius, to whom we are indebted for many a charming story. Are these stories true? Perhaps not, yet they are true types of the intelligence and thought of the men of that age and country.
Much is unreal. But, if to us with the diviner light, after centuries of progress, and habits of thought so different, some things appear childish, and others inexplicable if not absurdly false, we will not hastily condemn what we fail to understand. Modern writers have done much to remove from our common heritage of mythical tradition what seemed repulsive in it; while they preserve for us the exquisite poetry that breathes especially in Homeric lines, and will survive the most destructive criticism.
The facts and problems of the visible universe have engaged the attention of thoughtful men in all ages. The outer sensuous world exists. Whence came it, and how? The early Greeks had, it seems, no idea of creation, or of an intelligent creator, yet felt bound to account to themselves for what they saw.
According to the most common account, the world, with all its solid, tangible things, was formed from chaos—and by chaos was meant, so far as appears, not a shapeless confused mass of things in any way objective to the senses, but merely space, a dark illimitable void wherein dwelt utter nothingness. As to how the world proceeded thence, there was little agreement. The most popular view is that, in some unaccountable manner, Gea (the earth) issued from the vast womb of chaos. The process once begun the development was surprisingly rapid. Tartarus, the abyss below, immediately severed itself. Eros (the love that forms and binds all things) sprung into existence. Gea then begot, of herself, Uranus (heaven), the mountains, and Pontus (the sea).
Their notions of the structure of the universe are a slight advance on their ideas of its origin. These give their coloring to many of their narratives.
“The Greek poets believed the earth to be flat and circular—their own country occupying the middle of it, the central point being either Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods, or Delphi, so famous for its oracle.” Those in the more remote parts, and having never seen the sacred mountain, supposed its summit quite in the heavens, and occupied by superior beings. Those who were nearer knew better, but fancied the gods, or immortals, often came down and frequented its grand solitudes, holding their councils, or having their pleasures apart from men.
The circular disc of the earth was crossed from east to west and divided into two equal parts by the “sea,” as they called the Mediterranean, and its continuation, the Euxine.
Around the earth flowed the “River Ocean,” its course being from south to north on the western, and in a contrary direction on the eastern side. It flowed in a steady, equable current, as was supposed, unvexed by storm or tempest. The sea and all the rivers on earth received their waters from it.
The northern portion of the earth they supposed inhabited by a happy race named Hyperboreans, dwelling in blissful bowers, and perpetual spring beyond the lofty mountains whose caverns were believed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north-wind, which chilled the people of Hellas (Greece). Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare. Moore has given us the “Song of a Hyperborean,” beginning—