AND SERMON Songs of the Home in the Home, "Sermons in Stones, and Good In Everything." THE BENEDICTION. We stood before him with bended heads In the hush of the Sabbath with one accord, "And now may you grow in grace," he said, The music echoed from dome and wall, "Grow in grace "-how the echoes rang "And in knowledge and love, O Christ, of thee," O Master, thou with a voice so winning, That down on our hearts thy light may shine. When knowledge of thee shall be richest treasure And our lives shall grow to their grandest measure THE DRAMA OF HUMAN LIFE. In the processes of human life-the life we live and the life we see-there is discernible a significance which grows more impressive, more solemn, more inspiring, just as we learn to read it intelligently. What a wonderful drama is this play of human lives -this perpetual tragedy and comedy, of which some slight and faint transcript finds expression in the pages of poet and novelist! We needs must continually see and feel something of it, but we are apt to miss its best significance. What fastens our attention most in our experience, or in what we sympathetically watch in others, is the element of enjoyment or suffering, pain and pleasure are so very, very real! We ache, and we are sorry for another's ache; we are joyous, and glad in another's joy. And there it often stops with us. But all the while something is working under the pain and pleasure. Character is being made or marred. Yonder man bleeds, and you sigh for him-ah! but a hero is being molded there.George S. Merriam, in "The Chief End of Man." CHRISTIAN WORSHIP. It is no doubt true that we are all free to worship or not to worship, to avail ourselves of the services of religion, or to let them and their influence drop absolutely out of our lives. No one can challenge our liberty in this respect. We live in a free country, and our attachment to this church or to that, or our indifference to all churches, is voluntary. We are not going to be compelled to respect our religious duties. We are not to be scolded into regard for common usage. That policy may work with children, but not with self-respecting men and women. And yet let us recognize the fact, fairly and squarely, that this is only one aspect of the matter, and that not the most important. It has nothing to do with our sense of obligation to God, and to Jesus Christ, and to the best interests of humanity. We cannot argue ourselves out of that. No casuistry or self-will can lighten or remove our responsibility here. If young people withdraw entirely from religious association, and banish worship from their lives, if they choose to live as if God were not, and as if Jesus Christ had no claims upon their love and service, if they cut themselves adrift from the movements which have hitherto been the greatest sources of blessing to mankind, if at the bidding of pleasure, or expediency, or a mere lazy habit, they go out into a spiritual wilderness, there is nothing to prevent them from doing so. But perhaps it is well that they should understand that the exercise of such liberty carries with it consequences which they have no power to control. They are still accountable to him who said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," and who indicated what form among others this love was to take, when he also said, "God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Such commands may be broken, and all the deepest needs of life may be set aside, but not with impunity. The penalty which no human hand may inflict descends all the same in unsatisfied desire, in an aching void which nothing earthly can fill, and a deadening sensibility to the Ever-present and the Ever-near.-Rev. John Cuckson, in “Faith and Fellowship." ETERNAL DAY. No sickness there No weary wasting of the frame away, No fearful shrinking from the midnight air, No wild and cheerless vision of despair; No tearful eye, no broken heart is there! Care has no home Within that realm of ceaseless praise and song, Is never spread athwart celestial skies; Its chilling dews upon the tender frame; O'er mournful recollections have to weep- Or blasted bud, celestial gardens know; REVELATION THROUGH NATURE. The universe is a reflector of divine adornment, and is everywhere garnished with gems. We are invited to admire its beauty, inhale its fragrance, adore its symmetry and color, and through them to share in the depth and overflow of Deific goodness. Emerson says, “God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe." Nature may always be trusted, for natural laws are divine methods. Each successive season is a benediction in changed form. When Spring awakens a quickening impulse of life, and bursts the bars of wintry frost, she transforms the face of Nature, and clothes it with a charm of fresh life and beauty. Every seed and bulb has within it a promise of the Resurrection. Every flower is a suggestion, and each unfolding leaf an expression of exuberant life, which everywhere manifests the divine redundancy. Nature's ministry soothes and heals human infelicities. She fits herself into man's angular spaces; smoothes and rounds out his broken and imperfect outlines, and like a grand orchestral accompaniment, supports and harmonizes his uncertain operations. "To him who in the love of Nature holds A various language; for his gayer hours And healing sympathy, that steals away What responsive soul can witness the splendor of a glorious sunset without being lifted out of the lower self, and inspired by its unearthly richness? Who can study the masses of fleecy cloud-form, piled like Alps upon Alps, refulgent with the rays of the setting orb, and not feel a suggestion of the power by which the Sun of righteousness illumines the mists and fogs of man's deeper nature? The purity of Nature appeals to all that is pure in humanity. She softens her angles, repairs her rents, carpets her bare spaces, covers her excrescences, and sweetens all taint and corruptions. She embroiders her rocks with mosses and lichens, and her running brooks are crystalline in their purity until they are made turbid by man's artifice. Her chemistries rectify all decay, and transmute and sanctify all deformity. Her many voices in a diapason of praise are forever rendering tribute to their Author, and thereby interpreting His love and beneficence to the. children of men. His constancy is typified by every blossoming rose, and every violet of the wood teaches a lesson of childlike trust and faith. The hills and mountains are symbols of His strength and majesty He is the substance of all things. "In Thee enfolded, gathered, comprehended, As holds the sea her waves-Thou hold'st us all." -Henry Wood, in God's Image in Man. * * SAY A KIND WORD. As you jog along life's road, Joys and sorrows you will find; But there's one thing I would have Each and all to bear in mindIt will sweeten your own way, It may save some brother-man, It is this, and only this: "Say a kind word when you can." It may not be yours to give Wealth to those who needy are- ♦ Just as sweet a place is filled By the daisy as the star. Time and strength you may not have In your life's allotted span For great things-but yet you may "Say a kind word when you can." After sailing a certain distance the dredges are brought in one by one and dumped on the culling board, where the contents are assorted; the small crabs are thrown overboard, the winkles and starfish thrown one side for fertilizers, and the scallops shoveled into the hold. Thirty bushels a day is a fair catch for a boat, while fifty bushels is considered to be a good day's work. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING ECLECTIC SOMETHING ABOUT SCALLOPS. The only portion of these handsome bivalves that is edible is the adductor muscle, which closes the shell and corresponds to the "hard part" in the oyster, often miscalled the "eye"; the rest of the animal, being very soft, is called the rim by the fishermen. The scallop abounds in nice varieties on the coast of Maine, and the little village of New Suffolk, on Great Peconic Bay, which divides the eastern end of Long Island into two long peninsulars, lives mainly from the scallop fisheries, which begin in September and end about May 1, and are only interfered with by the freezing of the bay or by floating ice, for the hardy fishermen seldom mind the weather unless a gale should interfere with the management of the boats, which are small sloops of five to fifteen tons burden and are managed by two men-one at the tiller and the other at the dredges. They use from one to six dredges, according to the size of the boat. The scallop fleet of New Suffolk comprises twenty-six . boats, and some few others of a smaller class occasionally join in the work. About seventy men do the catching and carting, while twenty men, thirty women and eighty children open and prepare the catch for market; and as the population of the place is only 275, it may be truly said that all grocer, postmaster and stage driver-live from the catching of scallops. Children stop on their way home from school and open a few quarts, and mothers often rock the cradle with one foot while standing on the other at work in the shops. Greenport, Sag Harbor and other places on Long Island do much in this line of work, and tons of scallops come to New York from Rhode Island and other waters east of New York. The dredge is similar to that used for oysters, consisting of an iron frame about three feet long by half as high, to which the bag is fastened; the latter, holding a bushel and a half, is made of chain where it drags the bottom, and of twine on the top portion. The dredges are used in from three to thirty feet of water from the windward side of the boat, with a length of line varying with the depth and also with the speed, the line being shortened when the wind is light, to prevent anchoring the boat, and if the wind is very light the number of dredges must be lessened. Two other species are found on our Atlantic coast, both rare south of Cape Cod, one of which is common on the coast of Maine, is extensively fished for, and is very large. The species now under consideration is rare north of Cape Cod and extends as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. In summer it is found among the eel grass, where it breeds, and in the autumn comes into the shallow water to feed. It moves by swimming in a dancing manner by suddenly closing its shells and ejecting the water and then taking in more. This is a beautiful sight in an aquarium, where they dance about like castanets played by an invisible hand. They are often seen in great schools, moving along, and when the tide is with them they sometimes go half a mile before dropping to the bottom. The scallop can see quite well, being furnished with a row of thirty or more beautiful blue eyes in the outer edge of the mantle of each side, the eyes increasing in number with the growth of the animal. This mantle is the "rim" of the fisherman, and with the gills and a very flabby stomach, is about all of the scallop, except the great adductor muscle before mentioned. This muscle leaves no mark in the shells, such as is seen in the shells of the oyster and quahaug or hard clam. The shells of the scallop are unequal, the lower one being more convex and lighter in color than the other, and in opening them the dark side is held uppermost by a right-handed man because it brings the "meat," which is not in the center, in the proper place for speedy work; a left-handed person, of course, requires the deep, white side up. The openers, or "shuckers," as they would be called in Baltimore and the South, stand in a row in front of the benches and drop the shells through a hole in the barrel, toss the meats in a square box holding two quarts, and the rims into another place, and they become very expert at this in time. Men and women open from fifteen to eighteen gallons a day, and children often open three or four gallons after school. Fried with bacon is the most popular way this mollusk is served, although it is occasionally broiled or stewed, and in New York restaurants the order, "Fry half and half," is often given, which means oysters and scallops, or it is sometimes "A fry, half scallops," for "a fry" is supposed to mean oysters alone. It is only some forty years since the scallop has been known in the markets and became an object of pursuit by the fisherman. Scallops are generally believed to live but a few years, many fishermen limiting them to only two, but this is a difficult matter to determine. They spawn in May in the bays of Long Island, perhaps in June. also; the young attach to the eel grass, and in August will measure three-quarters of an inch across the shell. The next year they are about the size of an American silver dollar, and are too small for the use of some persons and for market. They are thrown on the beach at Cold Spring Harbor and along the north shore of Long Island by the winter winds and freeze in great numbers, and a frozen scallop never recovers life as some mollusks are said to do. In this harbor there is often a good set of scallops on the grass, but their weight usually breaks the grass and they are drifted out into Long Island Sound to stock other grounds, and it is only once in several years that there is anything like a scallop crop in harbor, and when the season is called good the local demand takes them all, and none reach the market.-Popular Science Monthly. NOTABLE NOTHINGS PICKED UP IN THE FAMILY LIVING ROOM, AFTER THE PUB Club Women and the Home. Club women ought to be the best of home makers. Every member ought to study household economics and so perfect herself in managing a household that no one will be able to say, club life unfits woman for home duties." Every member ought to be in touch with the latest scientific teachings in regard to food and home equipments, and encourage for the table talk of the family facts of interest in regard to the food spread before them, rather than fault-finding over the preparation of it. It is surprising how ignorant most people are of things that appear daily on their tables. If you disbelieve this statement, interview the family as to places and methods of producing coffee, sugar, tapioca, cornstarch, rice, condensed milk, bananas, mandarins, oil, etc., not forgetting the habits of fish and oysters.-Our Club Outlook. Cellars and Health. In towns and in the country alike it is the dark corners, the neglected and little-used places in a house which most frequently contribute to its unhealthfulness, and in ways which are the more insidious because so often unsuspected. In this respect the cellars of many houses have much to answer for, for as a rule they are dark and damp, with no direct rays from the sun to kill the mephitic gases which always seek these low levels, and no ventilation to disperse them, even where the cellars themselves are not made the repositories of cast-off rubbish and vegetable refuse. The warning, therefore, cannot be too often given to look to it that the cellar is not neglected. Its ceiling and walls should be plastered and whitewashed where possible, to keep them dry and clean, and the occupants should prevent their cellars from becoming places where rubbish may be shot. The floors should be well paved or cemented to keep out emanations from the soil, and, where practicable, they should be ventilated by keeping open, in dry weather, windows or doors communicating with the outside air. They act slowly, but none the less surely. Frequently they are not noticed at all, although damp and moldy cellars have undoubtedly done much to undermine the health of many families. This cellar air is taken up through the rooms of a house gradually and in small doses at a time, produces an upward current every time the cellar door is opened, and neglect in regard to this matter is sure to entail serious consequences, because the real reason is so often overlooked.-Philadelphia North American. Beware the Thin Banana. When you are buying bananas never purchase the long, thin ones unless you want fruit which will pucker your mouth. No matter how well ripened these thin bananas may appear to be, they will always be found both sour and acrid. This is because the bunch which contained them was picked too soon. The banana grows fastest at first in length. When it has reached its full development in that direction, it suddenly begins to swell, and in a few days will double in girth. It is at the end of this time that it begins to ripen naturally, and the effort of the banana importer is to have the fruit gathered at the last possible moment, and yet before the ripening has progressed even enough to tinge the bright green of the fruit with yellow. A difference of twenty-four hours on the trees at this time will make a difference in the weight of the fruit of, perhaps, twenty-five per cent., and all the difference in its final flavor, between a puckery sour and the sweetness and smoothness which are characteristic of the ripe fruit. To get the bananas to our market in good condition requires fast steamers, which must be provided with ventilation and other means of keeping the fruit from ripening too fast in the hold. Much of the finest fruit does ripen in the few days of passage, and this is sold to hucksters for street sale.-New York Sun. Worth Repeating. Removing a splinter from a suffering hand may not be a nice and pleasant subject, but home surgery may sometimes give some one a feeling of heartfelt joy. The sufferer who illustrates the matter on this occasion was a carpenter. He was working at his trade at an institution over which the sisters of the Roman Catholic church presided. One day he broke off an ugly splinter in his hand and could not get it out. He went home at the close of the day's work feeling no annoyance from the wound, but by the next morning the hand was in a serious condition and so painful that working was an impossibility. On his way to the doctor's, the carpenter stopped to tell the sisters why he must delay his work. "Let me see what I can do with your hand before you go to the doctor," said one of the sisters. The man demurred. "Yes," said the sister, with gentle insistence, "it will do no harm, anyway." She quickly filled within an inch or so of the top a rather widemouthed bottle with steaming hot water, and as she held it, another sister pressed the inflamed part of the injured hand gently down over the opening. Such a peculiar sensation! It seemed to the man that his whole hand was being drawn with great force into the bottle. He would have taken it away, but the sister was holding it gently but firmly. Then there was a feeling of relief; it seemed as if the inside of that hand had become liquid and was pouring its unpleasant contents into the bottle. That was almost exactly what was happening, and with the liquid went the offending splinter. The hand was bathed and bandaged, and the carpenter continued his work without further inconvenience.-New York Times. About Winter Flannels. With the "putting on" of winter flannels, the annual battle royal for their preservation in their natural size begins with the laundress, and "line upon line, precept upon precept" becomes the order of wash day. Emphasize the fact that the dust should always be shaken from flannels before washing. Put in a tub of warm suds, to which a tablespoonful of borax or two tablespoonfuls of household ammonia has been added. Use the best quality of laundry soap, but do not rub directly on the flannels, nor the flannels on a board. Never use yellow soap, on account of the resin. Squeeze in the hands, sousing frequently, and rubbing specially bad spots in the hand. Wring lightly, without twisting, into another tub of weaker suds, being careful to maintain the same temperature to avoid shrinkage. Rinse well and put into a third water, clear, but still of the same temperature. If you like a little bluing, it may be added to this water. Wring as dry as possible without twisting, and dry as quickly as possible in the open air, never allowing them to freeze. Before quite dry, take in, fold, and roll in a clean cloth, and iron soon with a moderately hot iron, depending mostly upon a good deal of pressure. For colored flannels have fresh warm suds, that no lint may adhere to them. Thus treated, flannels will remain soft, elastic, and of normal size. About the Finger Nails. It has been computed that the average growth of the finger nail is one thirty-second of an inch per week, or a little more than an inch and a half in a year. The growth, however, depends to a great extent upon the rate of nutrition, and during periods of sickness it is undoubtedly retarded. It is understood to be faster in summer than in winter, and differs for different fingers, being most rapid in the middle finger, and slowest in the thumb and little finger. RUMBS FROM EVERYBODY'S TABLE, SWEPT UP AND CAREFULLY PRESERVED. Griddle Cakes. Delicious pancakes are made from two eggs beaten light, two cups of sweet milk, a pinch of salt and one of sugar, with enough sifted flour beaten into it to make a thin, smooth batter. These should be fried a crisp brown, and arranged on a plate with jam spread between each. They should be served hot with thick cream, which is better if whipped. This makes a delicious dessert. This same batter, made a trifle heavier, can be used for apple cakes. The apples should be sliced very thin and fine or chopped up and mixed with a little sugar in the bat. ter. If fried a crisp brown and served with butter and sugar they are delicious. Unsweetened apple sauce may also be used. As this is the apple season, such cakes are excellent just now. Buttermilk may be used instead of sweet milk, but a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a little warm water should be stirred into the batter just before baking the cakes. Rich buttermilk makes delicious batter cakes, but soda is always necessary to sweeten it. Sour cream may also be used in the same way. Cornmeal griddle cakes are very good for a change. And, by the way, it is best to have different kinds of cakes every day or the family may tire of them. Take two cupfuls of fine cornmeal, one heaping tablespoonful of white flour and a pinch of salt. Beat one egg up lightly and add two and one-half cupfuls of sour cream, milk or buttermilk, into which has been beaten a teaspoonful of baking soda. Mix all together and fry in small cakes. Serve with sirup. Canned corn in pancakes is very good. Mix a cupful of canned corn in a batter as for the apple cakes. Mash it a little first with a spoon or the potato masher. For another change use rice. Rice cakes are favorites with many people. Boil the rice in slightly salted water until the grains are full and soft, yet not cooked into a mush. Mix it with milk, salt, a pinch of sugar and enough flour to hold it together when baked. These cakes are necessarily thick, and require a little longer to bake than the others. Serve with jelly, jam or preserves, and if a little cream is added so much the better. Another time make graham cakes, using two-thirds graham and one-third wheat flour. Oatmeal, also, makes wholesome and appetizing batter cakes, used in the same proportion as graham flour. Sausage cakes are liked by many, and should be tried for a change. The sausage meat should be very fine, and may be cooked or uncooked. It should be thor |