CHRISTTHE VILLAGE LAD
What Kind of a Boy Was
Christ?
Dr.Twlmage Discourses on the Boy
hood Days of the Giver of
All Good The Bible
Account.
Brookkyn, N. Y.—A vast concourse
•f people, filling a:i the available places,
joined in the opening doxology at Brook
lyn Tabernacle this morning. The pas
tor, the Rev. T. l)e Witt Talmsge, D. I).,
expounded the passage in John about the
unwritten works of Christ, which the
world itself could not have contained.
The subject of Dr. Talmage’s sermon
wm “Christ the Village Lad.” lie took
for his text Luke ii, 40: "And the child
grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled
with wisdom; and the grace of G>h\ was
upon him.” The preacher said:
About Christ as a village lad I speak.
There is for the most part a silence more
than eighteen centuries long about Christ
between infancy and manhood. What kind
of a boy was he? Was he a genuine boy
at all, or did there settle upon him from
the start all the intensities of martyrdom?
We have from this subject only a little
guessing, u few surmises, and here and
there an unimportant “perhaps.” Con
cerning what bounded that boyhood on
both sides we have whole libraries of
books and whole galleries of canvas and
sculpture. Before the infant Christ in
Mary’s arms, or taking his first sleep in
the rough outhouse, all the painterß bow,
and we have I*aul Veronese’s “Holy
Family” and Perugino’s “Nativity” and
Angelico da Fiesole’s “Infant Christ”
and Ruben’s “Adoration of the Magi”
and Tintoret’s “Adoration of the Maei”
ana Cnirlandojo’s “Adoration of lb"
Magi” and Raphael’s “Madonna” and
Orcagna’s “Madonna” and Murillo's
“Madonna” and Madonnas by all the
shells of painting in all lights and shades
and with ail styles of attractive feature
and impressive surroundings, but pen
and pencil and chisel have, with few ex
ceptions, passed by Christ the village
lad. Vet by three conjoined evidences I
think we can come to as accurate an idea
of what Christ waß as a boy as we can of
what Christ was as a man.
First, we have the brief Bible account.
Then we have the prolonged account of
what Christ was at #0 years of age. Now
you have only to minify that account
somewhat and you find what ho was at
10 years of age. Temperaments never
change. A sanguine temperament never
becomes a pnlegraatic temperament. A
nervous temperament never becomes a
lymphatic temperament. Religion
changes one s affections and ambitions,
but it is the same old temperament acting
in a different direction. As Christ had
no religious change, he was as a lad what
he was as a man, only not on so large a
Beale. When all tradition and all art and
all history represent him as a blonde with
golden hair I know he was in boyhood a
blonde.
We have, beside, an uninspired book
that was for the first three or four cen
turies after Christ's appearance received
by many as inspired and which gives a
prolonged account of Christ s boyhood.
Borne of t may be true, most of it may
be true, none of it may be true. It may
be partly built on facts, or by the passage
of age some real facts may liuve been
distorted. But because a book is rot di
vinely inspired we are not therefore to
conclude that there are not true things in
it. Prescott's “Conquest of Mexico”
was not inspired, but we believe it, al
though it may contain mistakes. Macau-
History of England” was not in
spired. but we believe it, although it may
have been marred with many errors.
The so called apocryphal gospel in which
the boyhood of Christ is dwelt upon I do
nor believe to be divinely inspired, and
yet it may present facts worthy of con
aidoration. Because it represents the
boy Christ as performing miracles
some have overthrown that whole
apocryphal book. But what
right have you to say that
Christ did not perform miracles at 10
years of age as well as at 30? He was in
boyhood as certainly divine as in man
hood. Then while a lad he must have
had the power to work miracles, whether
he did or did not work them. When,
having reached manhood, Christ turned
water into wine that was said to be the
beginning of miracles. But that may
mean that it was the beginning of that
series of manhood miracles. In a word,
I think that the New Testament is only
a small transcript of what Jesus did
and said. Indeed, the Bible declares
positively that if all Christ did and said
were written the world would not con
tained the book*. Ho we are at liberty
to believe or reject those parts of the
apocryphal gospel which say that when
the boy Christ with his mother passed a
band of thieves he told his mother that
two of them, Dumachus and Titus by
name, would be the two thieves who
afterwards would expire on the crosses
beside him. Was that more wonderful
than some of Christ’s manhood prophe
sies? Or the uninspired story that the
boy Christ made a fountain spring from
the roots of a sycamore tree so that his
mother washed his coat in the stream
—was that more unbelievable than the
manhood miracle that changed common
water into a marriage beverage? Or the
uninspired story that two sick children
were recovered by bathing in the water
where Christ had washed? Was tnat
more wonderful than the manhood
miracle by which the woman twelve
years a complete invalid should have
been made straight by touch ng the
fringe of Christ’s coat
In other words, while I do not believe
that any of the so-called apocr>phal
new testament is inspired, I believe much
of it is true; just as I believe 1,000 books,
none of which are divinely inspired.
Much of it was just like Christ. Just as
certain as the man Christ was the most of
the tim<* getting men out of troubie, I
think that the boy Christ was the most
of thu time getting boys out of trouble.
I have declared to you this day a boys’
Christ. And.the world wantssucha one.
He did net sit around wooing over what
was to be, or what was From the way
in which natural objects enwreathed
Lhemstive? into hii sermons after he had
become a man I conclude there was not a
rock or a hill or a cavern or a tree for
miles arouud that he was not familiar
with in childhood. He had cautiously
felt bis way down into the caves and had
with lithe and agile limb gained a pcise
on many a high tree top. His boyhood
was passed among grand scenery as most
all the great natures have passed eurly
life among the mountains. They may
live now on the flats, but they have
passed the receptive days of ladhood
among the hills. Among the mountains
of New Hampshire or the mountains of
Virginia or the mountains of Kentucky
or the mountains of Switzerland or Italy
or Austria or Scotland or mountains of
the world’s thrilling biographies began.
Our Lord’s boyhood was passed in a
neighborhood 1,200 feet above the level
of the oea and surrounded by mountains
500 or 00Q feet still higher. Before it could
shine on the village where this boy slept
the sun had to climb far enough up ts
look over the hills that held their heads
far aloft. From yonder height his eye at
out* sweep took in the mighty scoop of
the valleys and with another sweep took
in the Mediterranean sea, and you hear
the grandeur of the cliffs and the surge of
the great waters in bis matchless sermon
ology. One day I see that divine boy,
the wind flurrying his hair over his sun
browned forehead, standing on a hill top
looking off upon Lake Tiberias, on whicn
at one time according to profane history
are, not four hundred four thousand
ships. Authors have taken pains to say
that Christ was not affected by these
surroundings, and that he from within
lived outward and independent of cir
cumstances. So far from that being true,
he was the most sensitive being that ever
walked the face of the earth, and if a
pale invalid’s weak finger could not
touch his robe without strength going
out from him, these mountains and seas
could not have touched his eye without
irradiating his entire nature with their
magnificence. I warrant that he had
mounted and explored all the fifteen hills
around Nazareth, among them Hermon
with its crystal coronet of perpetual
snow, and Carmel and Tabor and Gilboa,
and they all had their sublime echo in
after time from the Olivetic pulpit.
And then it was not uncultivated
greudeur. These hills carried in their
arms or on their hacks gardens, groves,
orchards, terraces, vineyards, cactus,
sycamores. These outbranching foliages
did not have to wait for the floods before
their silence was broken, for through
them and over them and in circles round
them and in under them were pelicans,
were thrushes, were sparrows, were
nightingales, were larks, were quails,
were blackbirds, were partridges, were
bu’buls. Yonder the white Hocks of
sheep snowed down over the pasture
lands. And yonder the brook rehearses
to the pebbles its adventures down the
rocky shelving, Yonder arc the oriental
homes, the housewife with pitcher on the
shoulder entering the door, and down the
lawn in front children reveling among
the fiaming flora. And all this spring
and song and grass and sunshine and
shadow woven into the most exquisite
nature that ever breathed or wept or
sune or suffered. Through studying the
sky between the hills Christ had noticed
the weather feigns, and that a crimson
sky at night meant dry weather next day,
and that a crimson sky in the morning
meant wet weather before night. And
how beautiL. 'y he made use of it in
after years u' ue drove down upon the
pestiferous Pnarisee and Sadducee by
crying out: “When it is evening ye say
i", wi 1 be fair weather, for the sky is red,
and in the morning it will be foul
weather today, for the sky is red and
lowering. Oye hypocrites, ye can dis
cern the face of the sky, but can ye not
discern the signs of the times.” By day,
as every boy has done he watched the
barnyard fowl at sight overswinging
hawk cluck her chickens under wing,
and in after years he said: “O, Jerusa
lem, Jerusalem! How often would I
have gathered thee as a hen gathercth
her chickens under her wing!” By night
he had noticed his mother by the plain
candle light which, as ever and anon
it was snuffed and the removed wick
put down on the candlestick, beamed
brightly through all the family sitting
room as his mother was mending his
garments that had been torn during the
day’s wanderings among the rocks or
bushes, and years afterwards it all came
out in the simile of the greatest sermon
ever preached: “Neither do men light
a candle and put it under a bushel but in
a candlestick and it giveth light to all
who are in the house. Let your light so
shine.” Some time when his mother in
the autumn took out the clothes that had
been put away for the summer he noticed
how the moth miller flew out and the
coat dropped apart ruined and useless,
and so twenty years after he enjoined:
“Lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven where neither moth nor rust can
corrupt.” Liis boyhood spent among
birds and flowers they all caroled and
bloomed again fifteen years after as he
cried out: “Behold the fowls of the air.”
“Consider the lilies.” A great storm one
day during Christ's boyhood blackened
the heavens and angered the rivers.
Perhaps standing in thie door of the car
penter's shop he watched it gathering
louder and wilder until two cyclones, one
sweeping down from Mount Tabor and
the other from Mount Carmel, met in the
valley of Esdraelon and two houses are
caught in the fury and crash goes the one
and triumphant stands the other, and he
noticed that one had shifting sand for a
foundation and the other an eternal rock
for basis, and twenty years after he built
the whole scene into a peroration of flood
and whirlwind that seized bis audience
and lifted them into the heights of sub
limity with the two great arms of pathos
and terror, which sublime words I render,
askin/ you ns far as possible to forget
that you ever heard them before: “Who
soever heareth these sayings of mine, and
doeth them. I will liken him unto a wise
man, which built his house upon a rock,
and the rain descended, and the floods
came, and the winds blew, and beat upon
that house; and it fell not; for it was
founded upon a rock. And every one
that heareth these sayings of mine, and
doeth them not, shall be likened unto a
foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand; and the rain dt sc ended, and the
floods came, and the winds blew, and
beat upon that house; and it fell; and
great was the fall of it.”
Yes, from the naturalness, the sim
plicity, the freshness of his parables and
similes and metaphors in manhood dis
course, I know that he had been a boy of
the fields, and had bathed in the streams
and had heard the nightingale's call, and
broken through the lowery hedge and
looked out of the embrasures of the fort
ress. and drank from the wells, and
chased the butterflies, which travelers
say have always been one of the flitting
beauties of that landscape, and talked
with the 6trange people from Damascus
and Egypt and Sapphorieand Syria, who
in caravans or on foot passed through his
neighborhood, the dogs barking at their
approach at sundown As afterward he
was a perfect man, in tne time of which
I speak he was a perfect boy. with the
spring of a boy's foot, the sparkle of a
boy’s eye, the rebound of a boy's life,
and just the opposite of those juveniles
who Bit around morbid and unela6tic, old
men at 10. I warrant he was able to take
his own part and to take the part of
others. In that village of Nazareth I
am certain there was what is found in ail
the neighborhoods of the earth, that ter
ror of children, the hujly, who seems
born to strike, to punch, to bruise, to
overpower the less muEcular and robust.
The Christ who afterward in no limited
terms denounced hypocrite and Pharisee,
I warrant, never let such juvenile villains
impose upon less vigorous childhood and
yet go unscathed and undefended. At 10
y ears he was in sympathy with the under
lings, as he was at 30 and 33. I want no
further inspired or uninspired informa
tion to persuade me that he was a splen
did boy, a radiant boy, the grandest,
holiest, mightiest boy of all the ages.
Hence I commend him as a boy’s Christ.
What multitudes between 10 and 15 years
have found him out as the one just suited
by his own personal experience to help
any boy.
Let the world look out how it treads
on a boy, for that very moment it treads
on Christ. Y’ou strike a boy, you strike
Christ; you insult a boy, you insult
Christ. It is an awful and infinite mis
take to come as far as manhood without
a Christ when here is a boy Christ. That
was one reason, I suppose, that Jonathan
Edwards, afterwards the greatest Ameri
can logician and preacher of his time,
became a Christian at 7 years of age; and
Robert Hall, who afterwards shook
Christendom with his sacred eloquence,
became a Christian at 12 years of age;
and Isaac Watts, who divided with
Charles Wesley the dominion of holy
song, became a Christian at 9 years ol
age. and if in any large religious assem
blage it were asked that all the men and
women who learned to love Christ before
they were 15 years of age would please
lift their right hand, there would be
enough hands lifted to wave a corona
tion. What is true in a religious sense is
true in a secular sense. Themistocles
amazed his school fellows with talents
which in after years made the world
stare. Isaac Newton, the boy, by driv
ing pegs in the side of a house to mark
the decline of the sun, evidenced a dis
position towards the experiments which
afterwards showed the nations how the
worlds swing. Robert Stephenson, the
boy, with his kite on the commons ex
perimented with electric currents and
prophesied work which should yet maae
him immortal. “Get out of my way!’
saida rough man to a boy, “get out of
my way’ what are you good for, any
how?” The boy answered: “They
make men out of such things as we are.”
Hear it, fathers, mothers! hear it, philan
thropists and patriots; hear it. all the
young! The temporal and eternal destiny
of the most of the inhabitants of this
earth is decided before 14 years of age.
Behold the Nazareth Christ, the village
Christ, the country Christ, the boy Christ.
But having shown you the divine lad
in the fields. I must show you him in the
mechanic’s shop. Joseph, his father,
died very early, immediately after the
famous trip to the temple, and this lad
not only to support himself but support
his mother, and what that is some of you
know. There is a royal race of boys on
earth now doing the same royal thing.
They wear no crown. They have no
purple robe adroop from their shoulders.
The plain chair on which they sit is as
much unlike a throne as anything you
can imagine. But God knows what they
are doing and through what sacrifice
they go, and through all eternity God
will keep paying them for their filial
behavior. They shall get full measure of
reward, the measure pressed down,
shaken together and running over. They
have their example in this boy Christ
taking care of his mother. He had been
taught the carpenter’s trade by his
futher. The boy had done the plainer
work at the shop while his father had
put on the finishing touches of the work.
The boy also cleared away the chips and
blocks and shavings. He helped hold
the different pieces of work while the
father joined them. In our day we have
all kinds of mechanics and the work is
divided up among them. But to be a
carpenter in Cnrist's boyhood days
meant to make plows, yokes, shovtds,
wagons, tables, chairs, sofas, houses and
almost everything that was made. For
tunate was it that the boy had learned
the trade, for, when the head of the
family dies, it is a grand thing to have
the child able to take care
of himself and help take care
of others. Now that Joseph,
his father, is dead and the responsibility
of family support comes down on this
boy, I hear from morning to night his
hammer pounding, his saw vacillating,
his ax descending, his gimlets boring,
and standing amid the dust and debris of
the shop I find the perspiration gathering
on his temples and notice the fatigue of
his arm, and as he stops a moment to
rest I see him panting, his hand on his
side, from the exhaustion. Now he goes
forth in the morning loaded with imple
ments of work heavier than any modern
kit of tools. Under the tropical sun he
swelters. Lifting, pulling, adjusting,
cleaving, splitting all day long. At
nightfall he goes home to the plain sup
per provided bv his mother and sits down
too tired to talk. Work! work! work!
You cannot tell Christ anything now
about blistered hands or aching ankles or
bruised fingers or stiff joints or rising iu
the morning as tired as when you laid
down. VVhilayeta boy he knew it all,
he felt it all, he suffered it all. The boy
carpenter! The boy wagon maker! The
boy bouse builder! O Christ, we have
seen thee when full grown iu Pilate’s
police court room, w'e* have seen thee
when full grown thou wert assassinated
on Golgotha, but, O Christ, let all the
wear}’ artisans ami mechanics of the
earth see thee while yet undersized and
with the undeveloped strength of juven*
escence trying to take thy father'* p ace
;n gaining the livelihood for the family.
But, having seen Christ the boy of the
fields and the boy in the mechanic’s shop,
I show you a more marvelous scene,
Christ, the smoothed browed lad among
long bearded, white haired, high fore
headed ecclesiastics of the temple.
Hundreds of thousands of strsngers had
come to Jerusalem to keep a religious
festival. After the hospitable homes
were crowded with visitors, the tents
were spread all around the city to shelter
immense throngs of strangers. It was
very easy among the vast throngs com
ng and going to lose a child. More than
2,000,000 people have been known t«
gather at Jerusalem for that national
feast. You must not think of those re
gions as sparsely settled. The ancient
historian Josephus says there were in
Gallilee 200 cities, the smallest of them
containing 15,000 people. No wonder
that amid the crowds at the time spoken
of Jesus the bey was lost. His parents
knowing that he was mature enough and
agile enough to take care of himself, are
on their way home witnout any anxiety
supposing thht their bov is coming with
some of the groups. But after awhile
they suspect is lost and with flushed cheek
and a terrorized look they rush this way
and th«*’, saying: “Have you seen any
thing of the boy? He is 12 years of age
of fair co’vrlevcr*. and has nlue eyes and
auburn Lair. Lave you teen him since
we left tie city?” Back they
go in hot haste, in and out the streets, in
and out the private houses and among
tne surrounding hills For three days
they search ami inquire, wondering if he
Las been trampled under foot of some of
the throngs or has ventured on the cliffs
or fallen off a precipice, bend through
all the streets and lar.es of the city
and among all the surrounding hills that
most dismal sound, “A lost child! a lost
child! And io. after three years they
discover him in the great temple seated
among the mightiest religionists of all
the world. The walls of no other build
ing ever looked down ou swh a scene.
A child 12 yta-s old surrounded by sep
tuagenarians, he asking Vns own questions
and answering theirs. Let me Introduce
you to tome of these eeciesiustu s. This
;s the great Rabbin Simeon! This is the
veneraole Hillel! This is the famous
Bhammai! These are the sons of the dis
tinguished Betirah. What caa this lt
year lad teach them, or what questions
can he ask worthy their cogitation t Ah,
the first time in all their lives these re
ligionists have found their match and
more than their match. Though so
young he knew all about that famous
temple under whose roof they held that
most wonderful discussion of all history.
He knew the meaning of every altar, of
every sacrifice, of every golden candle
stick, of every embroidered curtain, of
every crumb of shew bread, of every
drop of oil in that saired edifice. He
knew ail about God. He knew all about
man. He knew all about heaven, for he
came from it. He knew all worlds, for
they were only the sparkling morning
dewdrops on the lawn in front of his
heavenly palace. Put these seven Bible
words in a wreath of empl f.sis: “Both
hearing them and asking them ques
tions.”
I am not so much interested in the
questions they asKed him as in the ques
tions he asked them. He asked the
questions not to get information from
the doctors, for he knew it hut
to humble them by showing them the
height and depth and length and breadth
of their own ignorance. While the
radiant boy thrusts these self-conceited
philosophers with the interrogation
point, they put the fretinger of the right
hand to the temple as though to start
their thoughts into more vigor, and then
they would look upward and then they
would wrinkle their brows and then by
absolute silence or in positive words con
fess their incapacity to answer the inter
rogatory. With any one of a hundred
questions about theology, about philoso
phy, aboui astronomy, about time, about
eternity, he may have balked them, dis
concerted them, tiung them flat. Behold
the boy Christ asking questions and
listen when your child asks questions.
He has the right to ask them. The more
he asks the better. Alas for the stupid
ity of the child without inquisitive
ness! It is Christlike to ask questions.
Answer them if you can. Do not
say: “I can’t be bothered now.” It
is your place to be bothered with
questions. If you «»re not able to answer,
surrender and confess your incapacity, as
I have no doubt did Rabbin Simeon and
Hillel and Shammai and the sons of Be
tirah when that splendid boy, sitting or
standing there with a garment reaching
from neck to ankle, and girdled at the
waist, put them to their wit’s end. It is
no disgrace to say: “I don’t know.”
The learned doctors who environed Christ
that day in the temple did not know or
they would not have asked him any ques
tions. The only being in the universe
who never needs to say “I do not know”
is the Lord Almighty. The fact that they
did not know sent Keppler and Cuvier
and Columbus and Humboldt and Hers
chel and Morse and Bir William Hamil
ton and all the other of the world’s
mightiest natures into their life long ex
plorations Telescope and microscope
and stethoscope and electric battery and
all the scientific apparatus of all the ages
are only questions asked at the door of
mystery. Behold this Nazarene lad ask
ing questions, giving everlasting dignity
to earnest interrogation.
But while I see the old theologians
standing around the boy Christ I urn im
pressed as never before with that what
theology most wants is more of childish
simplicity. The world and the church
have built up immense systems of theol
ogy. Half of them try to tell what God
thought, what God planned, what God
did 500,000,000 years before the small
star on which we live was created. I
have had many a sound sleep under ser
mons about the decrees of God and the
eternal generation of the Bon and dis
courses showing who Melchisedek wasn’t,
and I give a fair warning that if any
minister ever begins a sermou on such a
subject in my presence I will put my
head dowu on the pew in front and go
into the deepest slumber I can reach.
Wicked waste of time, this trying to
sca’e the unscalable and fathom the un
fathomable whi;e the nations want ths
bread of life and to be told how they can
get rid of their sins and their sorrows.
Why should you and I perplex ourselves
about the decrees of God? Mind your
own business and God will take care of
his. In the conduct of the universe I
think he will somehow manage to get
along with us. If you want to love and
serve God, and be good and useful and
get to heaven, I warrant that nothing
which occurred eight hundred quintillion
x oars ago will hinder you a minute. It
Is not the decrees of God that do us
any ha-m, it is our own
decrees of sin and folly. You
need not go «nv further back in hist >ry
than about 1,85® years. You see, this is
the year 1889. Christ died about 33
years of age. You subtract 33 from
1889 and that makes it only 1,858 years.
That is as far back as you need to go.
Something occurred on that day under an
eclipsed sun that se'.s us all forever free
if with our whole heart and life we ac
cept the tremendous proffer. Do not let
the Presbyterian church, or the Metho
dist church, or the Lutheran church, or
the Baptist church, or any of the other
evangcl cal churches, spend any time in
trying to fix up old creeds, ail of them
imperfect, as everything man does is
imperfect. I move a new creed for all
the evangelical churches of Christendom,
only three articles in the creed and no
need of any more. If I had all the con
secrated people of all denominations of
the earth on one great plain, and I had a
voice loud enough to put it to a vote,
that creed of three articles would be
adopted with a unanimous vote and a
thunderinc aye that would make the
earth quake and the heavens ring with
hosannas. This is the creed I propose
for all Christendom:
Article First—“ God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son that
whosoever believeth in him should not
perish but have everlasting life.”
Article Becond—‘‘This is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners, even the chief.”
Article Third —“Worthy is the L&mh
that was slain to receive blessing and
riches and honor and glory and power,
world without end. Amen.”
But you go to tinkering up your old
creeds and patching and splicing and in
terlining and annexing and subtracting
and adding and explaining and you wil
lose time and make yourself a target for
earth and hell to shoot at. Let us have
creeds not fashioneu out of human in
genuities, but out of scriptural phraseol
ogy, and all the guns of bombardment
blazing from all the portholes of infidel
ity and perdition will not in 1,000 years
knock off the church of God a splinter as
big as a cambric needle. What is moat
needed now is that we gather all our the
ologies around the boy in the temple, the
elaborations around the simplicities and
the profundities around the charities, the
octogenarian of scholastic research
around the unwrinkled cheek of 12-year
juvenescence. ‘‘Except you become as a
little child you can in no wise enter the
kingdom;” and except you become as a
little child you cannot understand the
Christian religion. The best thing that
Kabbin Simeon and Hillel and Shammai
and the sons of Betirah ever did was in
the temple, to bend over the lad who,
first made ruddy of cheek by the breath
of the Judaean hills and on his way to
the mechanic's shop where he was soon
to be the support of his bereaved mother,
stopped long enough to grapple with tke
venerable dialectarians of the orient,
“both hearing them and asking them
questions.” Some referring to Christ
have exclaimed ecce deus! Behold the
God. Others have exclaimed ecce homo
Behold the man. But today in conclusion
of my subject I cry, ecce adolescems! Be
ad d the boy.
HE HUS TED HIS POOR ARM
Poor Old Unde Itonndpaanch’a
Funny Experience on a Car.
Uncle Roundpaunch (that isn’t bis
name, but it will do) is more than middle
aged and very near sighted, say 6 the ban
Francisco Examiner, but his heart is
young, evea if his right foot is swollen,
and his chestnut curls ar* infrequent.
Uncle Kowndpaunch was on his way to
pay a three days’ visit to a friend at ban
Kafael.
It was evening when he crossed the
bay, and the cars were no better lighted
than they usually are. Uncle Round
paunch seated himself besida a plump
female form, the face of which was
heavily veiled. Soon the old gentleman’s
arm was extended along the back of the
seat. It touched the lady who shrunk
away.
I meant no offense, miss," said he,
in a fatherly tone, “but mv arm has been
broken, and I cannot let it hang down
without great min."
She nod d lue acceptanc? of the apol
ogy. and tiey rode on in silence. But
tnat broken arm kept getting closer and
closer, until at last it reposed very
snugly around the lady’s waist. After
the first shnnkiug she made no resist
ance, but kept her face averted.
His friend awaited him at the station.
As Uncle Kounupaunch helped the lady
from the car his friend spoke to her.
“Well, Mary, did you order those po
tatoes?”
It was his friend’s colored houskeeper,
ami she leered at poor Uncle Hound
pauch during the whole three daya of his
visit.
A Bishop's “Koga«" Coin,
Pall Mall Gazette: Dr. Billing, bishop
of Bedford, tells an amusing story about
an East End church collection. It ap
pears that the bishop had been preach
ing to a very poor congregation, and that
when the plate was handed around,
moved with compassion, he contributed
a sovereign to it. While disrobing in
the vestry he inquired of one of the
church wardens what sort of a collection
there had been. “Better than usual,
thank your lordship,” was the reply;
“we have got several silver coins and a
quantity of copper. There is a sovereign,
also, but that of course is a bogus one.”
The bishop held his peace, but must
have felt slightly chagrined at the mis
carriage of his liberality. Later he
ventured to inquire of the other church
warden what the collection had
amounted to. “Seventeen and eight
pence halfpenny—much better than
usual,” was the answer cheerfully given.
The prelate does not divulge whether or
no he pocketed his modesty, and con
fessed that tome acquaintance with the
golden coin enabled nira to vouch for its
genuineness.
Wild Hogs.
Providence Journa': These hog 3 are
the tiercest creatures in the wilds of Flor
ida, and when assailed boldly attack any
thing from a cougar to an alligator. They
display none of the fear of the saurian
which their domestic congeners d#, and
though they avoid bis cavernous mouth
as much as possible, yet they will n«t
hesitate a moment to charge him on dry
land, and the probability is that not a
shred of him, except the hide KDd skull,
is visible bail an hour afterward.
Thcty an- by hr the moat dangerous
foo h hunter can encounter in the wilder
dcss, because if he takes to a tree toey
are sure to range themselves around its
base and remain there for hour*, or until
compelled by hunger to start in search *f
pabulum. Even the old tuskers seem
loathe to leave, and grunt their rage and
champ their foaming jaws at the fugitive,
while their malicious little eyes fairly
•nap with expressions of ferocity.
Out In s backwoods town of Indiana last
week the sheriff left the court room for din
ner, forgetting all about hie prisoner, who
afterward leisurely walked off, and has sot
Uice been captured.
DEFERRED JUSTICE TO MRS. JOB.
A Worn nr. Who l)e*»*rvct» h Hotter IMacn In
lli«t ory Thau Sh«* linn Ev<*r Occupied,
Job was a wonderfully afflicted man*
but as partial compensation for it, he
has had the sympathy of the human
race for 4,000 years. But it has not
been so with Job’s wife. Nobody has
*ver spoken a kind word of her. On
the contrary, she has been held up for
forty centuries as a horrible example.
But for all that we arc confident the
poor woman deserves a better place in
history than she has ever accented. If
she was eour-tempered she had enough
to give an acid tinge to her disposition,
if he was made to drink the dregs frovp
a bitter cup, and it is possible that sh*
bore her troubles with about as muck
equanimity as the average woma|
would do.
In the first place, she was suddenly
reduced from luxury to penury. Any
unfortunate woman who lias suffered
this ordeal knows just tlx frame of
mind poor Mrs. Job was in.
In the next place, she was bereft of
her children. There is no grief so
burdensome as that which fulls upon a
mother’s heart when the grave hides
her children from sight.
In addition to this accumulation of
sorrows, slie was left with an invalid
husband nu her bauds. Job was
covered with boils, uud experience has
taught us that there is no more exas
perating patient than a man with a boil
on him. There are wives, and good
wives, too, in this Christian Jaml of
ours whose lives have been made most
miserable for days and weeks at a
time by a husband and one boil. Just
think then what this poor woman had
to endure with a husband with perhaps
from r *oo to 1,000 boils on hun! Is it
any wonder that the woman en
couraged her husband to terminate his
existence? The only wonder is that
she didn’t cut her own throat in des
pair.
But these were not all the troubles
that Job’s wife bad to bear. Her hus
band’s friends came on a visit to him
and tooK possession of the house;
for six weeks at a time. Other women,
too, have had to endure the same
affliction, and they can easily account
for Mrs. Job’s exhibition of had tem
per. Job got worried with the three
visitors himself, and yet he didn’t have
to wait on them, to clean up their
rooms, to wipe the tobacco juice from
the parlor carpet every day, to sweep
out the mud they carried in on their
boots, and to submit to a thousand and
one annoyances that a male visitor
gives the housekeeper.
It is about time that somebody was
raising a voice in defense of Job’s wife
and saying a kind word for the poor
woman, who for 4,000 years has
suffered the slings of unjust criticism
in uncomplaining silence.
There are a great many Job’s wives
in the world to-day; we meet them
every day. They may not have hus
bands with boils on their bodies, but
they have husbands who go to the club
of evening*. They have husbands
who are selfish enough to devote all
their time to business and pleasure
without consuleriug that a portion of
that time of right belongs to the woman,
the charm of whose existence is his
companionship. The Job’s wives of
to-day are the women who are bur
dened with the cares and sorrows of
this life and who get no sympathy.
And their name is logiou.— Ladies'
liuuu. Companion.
A Snoring Wife.
A correspondent of the Lancet makes
ii humiliating appeal to the medical
profession to tell him what lie. is to do
with a lady patient on whom he lias
been bestowing fruitless cate aud at*
tctitiou for tuo last twenty years.
'l'his lady is an inveterate and incor
rigible suorer. Her husband lias cou
tided to the medical man that the
snoring is “much worse lately.” and
that, whereas his helpmeet was wont
to let him oil with only three or four
hours of torture, she now “suorcs all
night, and can be heard all over the
iiou.se.” Moreover, she frequently
wakes herself with ihe noise live or
six limes in one night, and it is rare
tout her husband can get t«> sleep till
3or 4 o’clock. \Yaether she lies high
or low makes no difference —she can
sleep and snore at any time in a few
minutes, aud to aggravate the case
she has lately taken to yawning a great
deal.
Two Shocking Conundrums.
Until a few nights ago I thought
that the worst conundrum ever perpe
trated was that William Black, in the
“Stivinge Adventures of a Houseboat, 1
makes his spirited American heroine.
Fuggy Hosslyn, propound to shocked
English people. “Why' was Gen-
Wolseley the most extraordinary Gen
eral in the world?” she a*ks. aud then
replies, while the staid English folk
are dumbfounded. “Because he not
only took Of.iro. but Damietta.” The
night I found one to beat this I was
riding in a grip-car behind a ladv and
gentleman who I discovered were
coming from a session of a reading
club. They got to talking conun
drums, and the lady posed the escort.
“What is the difference.” she asked,
“between the Eiffel lower and Quceu
Elizabeth? “Give, it up,” s ii«l he,
after thinking while the car ran six
blocks. “Why,” said the lady, “ouu
is a wonder and the other was a
Tudor.*’ 't. Loui.i inocruL
A Failure.
Mrs. Smith (at t,.e theatre) —I don’t
think that woman is muca of an ac
tresa.
Mr. Smith—Why not, mv dear?
Mis. Smith—Sue has be* u married
for two years and has not t applied
lor a d. voice. Ti/fit.
—Mrs. Retta McKee, who was found la the
Madison county, Indians, asylum, has been
returned to Clinton county, Ohio, to answer
the charge cf having stiffen ten horses and
other property.
—The story that the electric light on the
Eiffel tower “makes ail Parts as light as day 1
was originated by a hots liar. Ten tho isand
electric lights would not accent-.in !\h it end
A physician says that the “spring of the
year cranks,” who All themselves up at this
season with herb teas and bitters and blood
purifiers, are more numerous than usual*