Fatal Allurement

        The Judas-tree, so-called, is a remarkable plant. Its blossoms appear before its leaves, and are a most brilliant crimson. The flowers flaming forth, attract innumerable insects. The bee, for instance, in quest of honey, is drawn to it. But searching the petals for nectar, it imbibes a fatal opiate. Beneath this Judas-tree the ground is strewn with the victims of its deadly fascination.

Flicker-flick,
Above the wick.
Burned the candle flame.
Through the open window-shutter
Young Moth Miller came.
Straight he fluttered toward the yellow.
Bright, alluring thing.
And, alas, poor foolish fellow
Scorched his downy wing!

The Bible Survives Three Great Dangers

        The deathless Book has survived three great dangers: the negligence of its friends; the false systems built upon it; the warfare of those who have hated it. Ibid.

Animism

The child's religious nature, like that of primitive man, is animistic. Professor Dawson, in "The Child and His Religion," says:

       It is hard for children to resist the feeling that a summer shower comes with a sort of personal benevolence to water the dry flowers and grass. A little girl of four years illustrated this feeling on a certain occasion. There was a thunder-shower after a long dry spell. The rain was pattering on the sidewalk outside the house. The child stretched forth her hands toward the rain- drops and said: "Come, good rain, and water our plants!" Flowers and trees have individuality for most children, if not for all. Ruth's mama found her sitting among the wild geraniums, some distance from the house. "What are you doing, Ruth?" "I'm sitting by the flowers. They are lonesome and like to have me with them, don't you know?" At another time she said: "Mama, these daisies seem to look up at me and talk to me. Perhaps they want us to kiss them." On one occasion she said to her brother, who was in the act of gathering some flowers she claimed for herself, ''I don't think it nice to break off those poor flowers. They like to live just as well as you do." The boy thus chided by his sister for gathering her flowers was generally very fond of plants and trees, and felt a quite human companionship in them. He could not bear to see flowering plants hanging in a broken condition, or lying crusht upon the sidewalk. Even at the age of ten years, he would still work solicitously over flowers like the violets, bluets, and crowfoots, with evident concern for their comfort

Achievement

 The Denver Republican recently contained this brief account of a farmer working heroically on a one-man railroad, and remarked that it is typical of the individual spirit that has achieved great things in the West:

        The story of the Kansas farmer, who, with a scraper and a pair of mules, is building a fifty-mile railroad, would indicate that the supply of courageous men is not entirely exhausted.
        The farmer who is tackling this tremendous job alone and who is serenely indifferent to all the jeers of his neighbors, scorned to admit defeat when he could not interest any one with capital in the road which he deemed necessary. He went to work with such material as he had at hand and, somehow, even without seeing the man or knowing aught of his project, one can not help sharing the farmer's belief that he is to "carry the thing through."

A Little Missionary

 "I can not afford it," said John Hale, the rich farmer, when asked to give to the cause of missions.
       Harry, his wide-awake grandson, was grieved and indignant.
       "But the poor heathen," he replied; "is it not too bad they can not have churches and schoolhouses and books?"
       "What do you know about the heathen?" exclaimed the old man testily. "Do you wish me to give away my hard earnings? I tell you, I can not afford it."
       But Harry was well posted in missionary intelligence, and day after day puzzled his curly head with plans for extracting money for the noble cause from his unwilling relative. At last, seizing an opportunity when his grandfather was in a good humor over the election news, he said: "Grandfather, if you do not feel able to give money to the missionary board, will you give a potato?"
       "A potato?" ejaculated Mr. Hale, looking up from his paper.
       "Yes, sir; and land enough to plant it in, and what it produces for four years?"
       "Oh, yes!" replied the unsuspecting grandparent, settling his glasses on his calculating nose in such a way that showed he was glad to escape on such cheap terms from the lad's persecution.
       Harry planted the potato, and it rewarded him the first year by producing nine; these, the following season, became a peck; the next, seven and a half bushels, and when the fourth harvest came, lo, the potato had increased to seventy bushels. And, when sold, the amount realized was put with a glad heart into the treasury of the Lord. Even the aged farmer exclaimed: "Why, I did not feel that donation in the least ! And, Harry, I've been thinking that if there were a little missionary like you in every house, and each one got a potato, or something else as productive, for the cause, there would be quite a large sum gathered." Friend for Boys and Girls. 

  "Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand." Zechariah 4:10

Parasitism

       Some of the intruding insects that come from oak galls are not harmless. They are the ones called parasites. They live in the houses not for the sake of the protection or the food furnished by the house, but in order to eat the actual dwellers in the house. Often and often not a single real gall-insect comes out in the spring from many of the little houses, but only a little swarm, or sometimes just two or three, or even one, of these insect-devouring parasites that has eaten up the rightful owners of the house. Vernon L. Kellogg, "Insect Stories."

Manisfestation

         ''Just as creation is the revelation of God, his avowal, as a poet has said; so in the same way the external life of man, when it follows its normal development, is the translation, in signs and symbols, of what he bears at the bottom of his being. It would be easier to keep the sap from mounting, the flowers from opening, the leaves from tearing apart their coverings, than human nature from manifesting itself. It is this need that gives man his distinction as a social and communicative being.'' Charles Wagner

Christian Fellowship

       In the New York City aquarium long ago there was what was called a "happy family." In a wooden box, the bottom of which is covered with sand, there are a number of fiddler-crabs from local waters, a dozen or more climbing crabs or land-hermits from St. Kitts, and a small diamond-backed terrapin from Georgia. Although these little creatures live together happily, they were each fed on different food, and their habits and nature were by no means the same.
       The distinguishing characteristic of the Christian Church is that, though men and women are gathered from every kind of sinful past, they are transformed in their spirit by the grace of God, so that they feed upon the same spiritual food and are one in their love for Christ, who, as Paul says, "hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 

"And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.'' Acts 2:42

The Poorest Offerings

       In the middle of the summer season tails of sick cattle are principal native offerings at Saint Herbot, a small parish not far from Paris, France. The annual cattle fair brings together a great number of dealers from all parts of Brittany. Business goes on from early morning until three o'clock in the afternoon, when every one adjourns to the church and joins in the service, at which the benediction of heaven on the worshipers' heads is implored. The custom is for the breeders to cut off the tails of sick animals and lay the tails on the altar, the idea being that this ceremony will restore the sick animals to health. The tails are afterward sold and considerable money realized from the sale.

       Many people are just this way toward God. The poorest products of their life they give to God, and make themselves believe that is giving. To give the tailings of the threshing floor is to give chaff. To give the tailings of the reduction mill is to give the low-grade ore. To give the tail ends of anything is to give the poorest.

The Last Days of Autumn

 THE LAST DAYS OF AUTUMN.

Sir Walter Scott.

Autumn departs — but still his mantle's fold

Rests on the groves of noble Somerville,

Beneath a shroud of russet dropp'd with gold,

Tweed and his tributaries mingle still;

Hoarser the wind, and deeper sounds the rill,

Yet lingering notes of sylvan music swell,

The deep-toned cushat, and the redbreast shrill;

And yet some tints of summer splendor tell

When the broad sun sinks down on Ettrick's western

fell.

Autumn departs — from Gala's fields no more

Come rural sounds our kindred banks to cheer;

Blent with the stream, and gale that wafts it o'er,

No more the distant reaper's mirth we hear.

The last blithe shout hath died upon our ear,

And harvest home hath hush'd the clanging wain,

On the waste hill no forms of life appear,

Save where sad laggard of the autumnal train,

Some age-struck wanderer gleans few ears of scat-

tered grain.

Deem'st thou these sadden'd scenes have pleasure

still,

Lovest thou through Autumn's fading realms to

stray,

To see the heath-flower wither'd on the hill,

To listen to the wood's expiring lay,

To note the red leaf shivering on the spray,

To mark the last bright tints the mountain stain,

On the waste fields to trace the gleaner's way,

And moralize on mortal joy and pain? —

Oh ! if such scenes thou lov'st, scorn not the minstrel

strain!

Parasites

Society has too many members who are willing to live on the labor of others, like the shoveler duck described in this extract:

       One of the ducks has learned a convenient trick for getting his dinner. Some of the diving brotherhood who feed under water stir up a great deal that floats, and the shoveler, preferring to take his provision from
the surface, follows his diving neighbor to the feeding-place, and while the feeders below stir up the inhabitants, he swims around on the surface and catches whatever floats. Olive Thorne Miller, 'The Bird Our Brother."

Defenting The Weak

         A young lady went out with a little girl eight years old for a walk in the mountains in Pennsylvania. Becoming weary, she seated herself and beguiled the time by reading. The child was playing near. Suddenly the woman was startled by an agonized cry, and was horrified to see an eagle trying to carry the child away. She went to the rescue. When the fierce bird saw her it left the child, and with a swoop came down with terrific force on her shoulders. Then began a desperate struggle. The girl tried to drive the eagle away. As often as it was beaten off it would return with a swoop, tearing her clothes. When almost exhausted she succeeded in getting a tight hold of the eagle's head. This proved her salvation, for the eagle, in its struggle to get free, broke its neck. Covered with blood, she led the child, which was but little hurt, and dragged the eagle a mile to her home.
       If we are to share the sufferings of our Savior, we must stand ready to defend the weak and the tempted from the fierce birds of prey that swoop down upon them in this wicked world. Every day we come in contact with those who are being torn and wounded by the cruel talons of sin. To go to their rescue, and bare our shoulders to their danger, and conquer their enemies in Christ's strength, is our blessed privilege.

        If we share with Christ in suffering, we shall also share with Him in victory. "Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.'' Romans 8:17-18

The Principles of Affluence

         The structural provisions of the living organism are not built on the principle of economy. On the contrary, the super-abundance of tissues and mechanisms indicates clearly that safety is the goal of the animal organism. We may safely state that the living animal organism is provided in its structures with factors of safety at least as abundantly as any human-made machine.
       The moral drawn from these facts is that to govern the supply of tissue and energy by means of food, nature indicates for us the same principle of affluence which controls the entire construction of the animal for the safety of its life and the perpetuation of its species. In other words, we should eat not just enough to preserve life, but a good deal more. In such cases safety is more important than economy. 

 

''But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.''' Mathew 4:4

Mystery In Nature

 What determines which queen shall leave the hive with the swarm? What determines which five thousand out of fifteen thousand worker bees, all apparently similarly stimulated and excited, shall swarm out, and which ten thousand shall stay in? These are questions too hard for us to answer. We may take refuge in Maeterlinck's poetical conception of the "spirit of the hive." Let us say that the "spirit of the hive" decides these things; as well as what workers shall forage and what ones clean house; what bees shall ventilate and what make wax and build comb. Which is simply to say that we don't know what decides all these things.  - Vernon L. Kellogg, "Insect Stories."

What Does "God's Image" Mean?

       In discussing spiritual things, to be right, no one can' go beyond the word of Scripture. The Bible tells us that God gave to man a living soul. In this sense he was in the image of his Maker in his dispositions, temperament and desires, and in his obedience to the divine will; but this condition was forfeited through sin. It could only be said thereafter of those who walked uprightly before God and were inspired of him, that they were "his offspring." (Matt. 13:38; Mark 7:10. See John 12:36; Acts 13:10; Col. 3:6.) Jesus himself drew the distinction when he told the wicked scribes and Pharisees that they were the children of the evil one, and this is the actual condition of every one living in sin, unrepentant and unforgiven. Thus while in his perfect condition man was like his Maker, in a condition of sin he is no longer so, nor has he any of the spiritual attributes and qualities that belong to the perfect condition, or even of the pardoned sinner, who has the hope through Christ of reconciliation and restoration. The Bible nowhere declares that man is of himself and inherently immortal. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." When sin entered, then came physical decay and death; man's first condition was lost and with the continuance of sin, and unrepentant and unforgiven, he also forfeited spiritual immortality. Eternal life is the gift of God. Paul declares that Jesus, through .his Gospel, brought life and immortality to light for fallen man and showed the path to restoration through repentance, forgiveness and acceptance.

Paradox

         Nature is full of paradoxes. The water which drowns us as a fluent stream can be  walked upon as ice. The bullet which, when fired from a musket, carries death, will be harmless if ground to dust before being fired. The crystallized part of the oil of roses, so graceful in its fragrance - a solid at ordinary temperatures, tho readily volatile - is a compound substance, containing exactly the same elements and exactly the same proportions as the gas with which we light the streets. The tea which we daily drink with benefit and pleasure produces palpitation, nervous tremblings, and even paralysis if taken in excess; yet the peculiar organic agent called "thein," to which tea owes its quality, may be taken by itself (as thein, not as tea) without any appreciable effect. - Vyrnwy Morgan 

 Joseph Hart, the hymnist, wrote "The
Paradox," as follows:

How strange is the course that a Christian
must steer!
How perplexed is the path he must tread!
The hope of his happiness rises from fear,
And his life he receives from the dead.

His fairest pretensions must wholly be
waived,
And his best resolutions be crossed;
Nor can he expect to be perfectly saved.
Till he finds himself utterly lost.

When all this is done, and his heart is assured
Of the total remission of sins;
When his pardon is signed, and his peace is
procured,
From that moment his conflict begins.