FROM THE SOUTH SEA. DR. TALMAGE SENDS A LESSON FROM FAR AUSTRALIA.

The Way of Christ With a Publican and Sinner--Too Often Are Officials Tempted Above What They Are Able to Bear. BROOKLYN, Sept. 23.--Rev. Dr. Talmage, who is now preparing to leave Australia for India on his round the world tour, has selected as the subject for today's sermon through the press "The Tax Collector's Conversion," the text being taken from Luke xix, 9, "This day is salvation come to this house."

Zaccheus was a politician and a tax-gatherer. He had an honest calling, but the opportunity for "stealings" was so

large the temptation was too much for him. The Bible says he "was a sinner" --that is, in the public sense. How many fine men have been ruined by official position! It is an awful thing for any man to seek office under government unless his principles of integrity are deeply fixed. Many a man upright in an insignificant position has made shipwreck in a great one. As far as I can tell, in the city of Jericho this Zaccheus belonged to what might be called the "ring." They had things their own way, successfully avoiding exposure, if by no other way perhaps by hiring somebody to break in and steal the vouchers. Notwithstanding his bad reputation there were streaks of good about him, as there are about almost every man. Gold is found in quartz, and sometimes in a very small percentage.

The Thronging to See Jesus. Jesus was coming to town. The people turned out en masse to see him. Here he comes, the Lord of glory, on foot, dust covered and road weary, limping along the way, carrying the griefs and woes of the world. He looks to be 60 years of age, when he is only about 30. Zaccheus was a short man and could not see over the people's heads while standing on the ground, so he got up into a sycamore tree that swung its arm clear over the road. Jesus advanced amid the wild excitement of the surging crowd. The most honorable and popular men of the city are looking on and trying to gain his attention. Jesus, instead of regarding them, looks up at the little man in the tree and says: "Zaccheus, come down. I am going home with you." Everybody was disgusted to think that Christ would go home with

so dishonorable a man.

I see Christ entering the front door of the house of Zacchens. The king of heaven and earth sits down, and as he looks around on the place and the family he pronounces the benediction of the text, "This day is salvation come to this

house."

Zaccheus had mounted the sycamore tree out of mere inquisitiveness. He wanted to see how this stranger looked --the color of his eyes, the length of his hair, the contour of his features, the height of his stature. "Come down," said Christ.

Idle Curiosity.

And so many people in this day get up into the tree of curiosity or speculation to see Christ. They ask a thousand queer questions about his divinity, about God's sovereignty and the eternal decrees. They speculate and criticise and hang onto the outside limb of a great sycamore, but they must come down from that if they want to be saved. We cannot be saved as philosophers, but as little children. You cannot go to heaven by way of Athens, but by way of Bethlehem. Why be perplexed about the way sin came into the world when the great question is how we shall get sin driven out of our hearts. How many spend their time in criticism and religious speculation! They take the rose of Sharon or the lilly of the valley, pull out the anther, scatter the corolla and say, "Is that the beautiful flower of religion that you are talking about?" No flower is beautiful after you have torn it all to pieces. The path to heaven is so plain that a fool need not make any mistake about it, and yet men stop and cavil. Suppose that, going toward the Pacific slope, I had resolved that I would stop until I could kill all the grizzly bears and the panthers on either side of the way. I would never have got to the Pacific coast. When I went out to hunt the grizzly bear, the grizzly bear would have come out to hunt me. Here is a plain road to heaven. Men say they will not take a step on it until they can make game of all the theories that bark and growl at them from the thickets. They forget the fact that, as they go out to hunt the theory, the theory comes out to hunt them, and so they perish.

Must Become as a Little Child. We must receive the kingdom of heaven in simplicity. William Pennington was one of the wisest men of this country--a governor of his own state and afterward speaker of the house of representatives--yet when God called him to be a Christian he went in and sat down among some children who were applying for church membership, and he said to his pastor, "Talk to me just as you do to these children, for I know nothing about it." There is no need of bothering ourselves about mysteries when there are so many things that are plain.

Dr. Ludlow, my professor in the theological seminary, taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. While putting a variety of questions to him that were perplexing he turned upon me, somewhat in sternness, but more in love, and said, "Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things that you don't." We tear our hands on the spines of the cactus instead of feasting our eye on its tropical bloom. A great company of people now sit swinging themselves on the sycamore tree of their pride, and I cry to you: "Zaccheus, come down! Come down out of your pride, out of your inquisitiveness, out of your speculation. You cannot ride into the gate of heaven with coach and four, postilion ahead and lackey behind. 'Ex-

cept ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.' God has chosen the weak tidings of the world to confound the mighty. Zaccheus, come down, come down!"

What Zaccheus Did.

I notice that this taxgatherer accompanied his surrender to Christ with the restoration of propriety that did not belong to him. He says, "If I have taken anything by false accusation, I restore fourfold"--that is, if I have taxed any man for $10,000 when he had only $5,000 worth of property and put in my own pocket the tax for the last $5,000, I will restore to him fourfold. If I took from him $10, I will give him $40. If I took from him $40, I will give him $160.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been sent to Washington during the past few years as "confidence money." I suppose that money was sent by men who wanted to be Christians, but found they could not until they made restitution. There is no need of our trying to come to Christ as long as we keep fraud-

ulently a dollar or a farthing in our possession that belongs to another. Suppose you have not money enough to pay your debts and for the sake of defrauding your creditors you put your property in your wife's name. You might cry until the day of judgment for pardon, but you would not get it without first making restitution. In times of prosperity it is right, against a rainy day, to assign property to your wife, but if, in time of perplexity and for the sake of defrauding your creditors, you make such assignment you become a culprit before God, and you may as well stop praying until you have made restitution. Or suppose one man loans another money on bond or mortgage, with the understanding that the mortgage can lie quiet for several years, but as soon as the mortgage is given commences foreclosure--the sheriff mounts the auction block, and the property at half price and is a thief and a robber. Until he makes restitu-

tion there is no mercy for him.

There Must Be Restitution.

You say: "I cannot make restitution. The parties whom I swindled are gone."

Then I say, "Take the money up to the American Bible society and consecrate it to God." Zaccheus was wise when he disgorged his unrighteous gains, and it was his first step in the right direction. The way being clear, Christ walked into the house of Zaccheus. He becomes a different man; his wife a different woman; the children are different. Oh, it makes a great change in any house when Christ comes into it! How many beautiful homes are represented among

you! There are pictures on the wall, there is music in the drawing room, and

luxuries in the wardrobe, and a full supply in the pantry. Even if you were half asleep, there is one word with which I could wake you and thrill you through and through, and that word is "home!" There are also houses of suffering represented in which there are neither pictures nor wardrobe nor adnorment--only one room, and a plain cot, or a bunk in a corner. Yet it is the place where your loved ones dwell, and your whole nature tingles with satisfaction when you think of it and call it home. Though the world may scoff at us and pursue us, and all the day we be tossed about, at the eventide we sail into the harbor of home. Though there be no rest for us in the busy world, and we go trudging about, bearing burdens that well nigh crush us, there is a refuge, and it hath an easy chair in which we may sit, and a lounge where we may lie, and a serenity of peace in which we may repose, and the refuge is home. The English soldiers, sitting on the walls around Sevastopol, one night heard a company of musicians playing "Home, Sweet Home," and it is said that the whole army broke out in sobs and wailing, so great was their homesickness. God pity the poor, miserable wretch who has no

home.

If Christ Came to Your House. Now, suppose Christ should come into your house. First the wife and the mother would feel his presence. Religion almost always begins there. It is easier for women to become Christians than for us men. They do not fight so against God. If woman tempted man originally away from holiness, now she tempts him back. She may not make any fuss about it, but somehow everybody in the house knows that there is a change in the wife and mother. She chides the children more gently. Her

face sometimes lights up with an unearthly glow. She goes into some unoccupied room for a little while, and the husband goes not after her, nor asks

why she was there. He knows without asking that she has been praying. The husband notices that her face is brighter than on the day when, years ago, they stood at the marriage altar, and he knows that Jesus has been putting upon her brow a wreath sweeter than the orange blossoms. She puts the children to bed, not satisfied with the formal prayer that they once offered, but she lingers now and tells them of Jesus who blessed little children and of the good place where they all hope to be at last. And then she kisses them good night with something that the child feels to be a heavenly benediction--something that shall hold onto the boy after he has become a man of 40 or 50 years of age, for there is something in a good, loving, Christian mother's kiss that 50 years cannot wipe off the cheek.

His Troubled Conscience.

Now the husband is distressed and annoyed and almost vexed. If she would only speak to him, he would "blow her up." He does not like to say anything about it, but he knows that she has a hope that he has not and a peace that he has not. He knows that, dying as he now is, he cannot go to the same place. He cannot stand it any longer. Some Sunday night, as they sit in the church side by side, the floods of his soul break forth. He wants to pray, but does not know how. He hides his face lest some of his worldly friends see him, but God's spirit arouses him, melts him, overwhelms him. And they go home, husband and wife, in silence until they get to their room, when he cries out, "Oh, pray for me!" And they kneel down. They cannot speak. The words will not come. But God does not want any words. He looks down and answers sob and groan and outgushing tenderness. That night they do not sleep any for talking of all the years wasted and of that Saviour who ceased not to call. Before morning they have laid their plans for a new life. Morn-

ing comes. Father and mother descend from the bedroom. The children do not know what is the matter. They never saw father with a Bible in his hand be-

fore. He says, "Come, children; I want you all to sit down while we read and pray." The children look at each other and are almost disposed to laugh, but they see their parents are in deep earnest. It is a short chapter that the father reads. He is a good reader at other times, but now he does not get on much. He sees so much to linger on. His voice trembles. Everything is so strangely now to him. They kneel--that is, the father and mother do, but the children come down one by one. They do not know that they must. It is some time before they all get down. The sentences are broken. The phrases are a little ungrammatical.

The prayer begins abruptly and ends abruptly; but, as far as I can understand what they mean, it is about this: "O Saviour, help us! We do not know how to pray. Teach us. We cannot live any longer in the way we have been living. We start today for Heaven. Help us to take these children along with us. Forgive us for all the past. Strengthen us for all the future, and when the journey is over take us where Jesus is and where the little babe is that we lost. Amen!" It ended very abruptly, but the angels came out and leaned so far over to listen they would have fallen off the battlement but for a stroke of their wings and cried: "Hark, hark! Behold, he prays!"

The Christian Home. That night there is a rap at the bedroom door. "Who is there?" cries the father. It is the oldest child. "What is the matter? Are you sick?" "No; I want to be saved." Only a little while, and all the children are brought into the kingdom of God. And there is great joy in the house. Years pass on. The telegraph goes click, click! What is the news flying over the country? "Come home. Father is dying!" The children all gather. Some come in the last train. Some, too late for the train, take a carriage across the country. They stand around the dying bed of the father. The oldest son upholds the mother and says: "Don't cry, mother. I will take care of you." The parting blessing is given. No long admonition, for he has, through years, been saying to his children all he had to say to them. It is a plain "goodby!" and the remark, "I know you will all be kind to your mother," and all is over.

Life's duty done, as sinks the clay, Light from the load, the spirit flies, While heaven and earth combine to say How bless'd the righteous when he dies.

A whole family saved forever! If the deluge come, they are all in the ark--father, mother, sons, daughters. Together on earth, together in heaven. What makes it so? Explain it. Zaccheus one day took Jesus home with him. That is all. Salvation came to that house.

What sound is it I hear tonight? It is Jesus knocking at the door of your house.

Behold a stranger at the door! He gently knocks--has knocked before.

If you looked out of your window and saw me going up your front steps, you would not wait, but go yourself to open the door. Will you keep Jesus standing on the outside, his locks wet with the dews of the night? This day is salvation come to thy house. The great want of your house is not a new carpet or costlier pictures or richer furniture. It is Jesus!

Work For the Children.

Up to 40 years men work for themselves, after that for their children. Now, what do you propose to leave them. Nothing but dollars? Alas, what

an inheritance! It is more likely to be a curse than a blessing. Your own com-

mon sense and observation tell you that money, without the divine blessing, is a

curse. You must soon leave your chil-

dren. Your shoulders are not so strong

as they were, and you know that they will soon have to carry their own burdens. Your eyesight is not so clear as once. They will soon have to pick out their own way. Your arm is not so mighty as once. They will soon have to fight their own battles.

Oh, let it not be told on judgment day that you let your family start without the only safeguard--the religion of

Christ. Give yourself no rest until your children are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. Your son does just as you do. He tries to walk like you and to talk like you. The daughter imitates the mother. Alas, if father and mother miss heaven, the children will! Oh, let Jesus come into your house. Do not bolt the hall door, or the parlor door, or the kitchen door, or the bedroom door against him. Above all, do not bolt your heart. Build your altar tonight. Take the family Bible lying on the parlor table. Call together as many of your family

as may be awake. Read a chapter, and

then, if you can think of nothing else

besides the Lord's Prayer, say that.

That will do. Heaven will have begun in your house. You can put your head on your pillow, feeling that, whether you wake up in this world or the next, all si well. In that great, ponderous book of the judgment, where are recorded all the important events of the earth, you will read at last the statement that

this was the day when salvation came into your house. Oh, Zaccheus, come down, come down! Jesus is passing by!

Life In Colombia. A man and his wife and child, with three servants and three mules, can live in Colombia and pay all expenses, including maize and sugar cane for the beasts, for £10 a month. En revanche, bedroom candles are 2½ pence each and petroleum 3s. 6d. a gallon, and it must be admitted that clothing is an awful price. White drill, linen and brown holland can be got at very big prices. Good calico there is none, and the print is like paper. Boats are well nigh unattainable luxuries, and a pair of canvas shoes for a 2-year-old boy cost 4 shillings. However, as it really does not matter what one wears in this most unsophisticated region, the want of fash-

ionable attire is not so awful as it might be.

The latest mode in bonnets, par ex-

ample, is a thing with which we have absolutely no concern. Nothing is ever

seen here but sugar loaf hats made of the very finest straw. The sight of a

lady on her travels is startling to the

uninitiated. Imagine her seated on a small mule, with a long, flowing habit,

put on over the dress, her head and

body covered with a large sheet for the sake of coolness, merely the head showing; a sugar loaf hat, and a small parasol as the crowning effect of elegance.--Gentleman's Magazine.

Where Love Grows Perfect.

Some celebrated man who saw a little clearer than others once said, "The fear of looking like a fool has prevented many a man acting like a hero."

This unworthy fear, which consists largely of self conceit and self consciousness, is the great vice to be eliminated in growing

from the heart out. There is nothing but love which can utterly overpower it. It is

that love which is a love to God and a love to our fellow men, and which, growing greater and greater in the heart,

finally casts out self conscious fear, as well as every other baser thing. Where love grows perfect there is room for nothing else.

FAIR NEW ZEALAND. A LAND WHERE MURDER ONCE WAS RIFE A PARADISE TODAY. Dr. Talmage Holds Up to View the Two Pictures--Maoris Indulged In Murder as a Pastime--Their Battle Grounds Now Beautiful Gardens and Magnificent Cities. [Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1894.]

DUNEDIN, New Zealand, July 28.--What the Indians are to America the Maoris are to New Zealand. These aborigines are dying out very rapidly, but you see them in all the upper por-

tions of New Zealand. All this country was once theirs, and they would have

kept it, but from whaling ships the foreigners alighted to furnish enough

rum and vices of all sorts to kill the

Maoris. They are said to be a superior race of savages, but the nobility of them I fail to see. Their faces are plowed up, not with age, but by tattooing which they suppose pictorializes and beautifies. Sharp shells scooped out these furrows

of the countenance. Their greatest fun

was massacre. When some of them

adopted Christianity, they received the Old Testament, but rejected the New Testament. They liked the war scenes of the Old, but not the peace of the

New. On occasions they made cartridges

of the New Testament. When they could not eat all their enemies, they

preserved them in tin cans and sent them as delicate presents to their

friends. The ship Boyd, bound for England, put in at one of the New Zealand harbors, and all on board were slain

and eaten except a woman and three

children, who hid away, the only sur-

vivors to tell the story.

Of course all ships knew that if they were wrecked on these shores they would become a part of the diet of the people. Two of their chiefs taken to London in 1820 aroused much interest, and they were loaded with presents of all sorts, but before starting for home these recipients exchanged the presents for muskets, with which they drove back and destroyed the neighboring tribes who could not afford muskets. Some of these savages went so far as to lend clubs and powder and knives to their enemies that lively fighting might be kept up. On one occasion they refused to capture the trains carrying food and ammunition to the opposing forces, and when the chief of the Maoris was asked the cause of this he replied, "Why, you fool, if we had captured their ammunition and food, how could they have fought?" One of the missionaries says that he held a religious service at a place between two fighting tribes, and from both tribes the audience was

made up on Sunday, but on Monday

they resumed their old fight. If they had had plainly put to them the first question of the catechism, "What is the chief end of man?" their reply, if frankly made, would have been, "The chief end of man is to make an end of

him."

De Quincey wrote an essay on "Murder as a Fine Art," but to the Maoris murder was a pastime. Assassination was for ages their gladdest recreation. Massacre was their sport. It was to them what the tennis court and croquet ground and baseball are to many moderns. No hunter ever enjoyed shooting reedbirds or fetching down a roebuck, no fisherman better liked throwing a fly and watching a spotted trout rise and snap it, than did these Maoris the slaughter of a man. Give beef or mutton to others, but the appetite of the Maori wanted something human in the

bill of fare.

Many of the Maoris may be good and kind and noble, but their ancestors were without nobility of nature unless laziness and heartlessness and revenge and malevolence be noble. What an appetite they must have had for soup of human bones, for white man on toast and for spare rib of missionary! We search New Zealand in vain from top of North island to foot of South island to find among the Maoris anything more noble than seen in the American Indian seated by a bridle path of the Rocky mountains, wrapped in a filthy blanket, hair combed once in 40 years, waiting for a cowboy to toss him a rusty cent. These Maoris were the impersonation of cruelty and diabolism. It was to them rare sport when they could take an enemy and scalp the skin from the bottom of the feet--if you can apply to the lower extremities the word usually applied to the upper extremities--and make the victim walk on a rough place, and the shriek of pain would make those noble savages laugh till you could hear them half a mile away. Sometimes they would, in order to have fresh meat, cut the flesh from their victim just as they needed it by nice tidbits and day after day. Back of Gisborne, New Zealand, to make a fine peroration of their accomplishments, they killed all the men, women and children so that the authors might not be charged with lack of thor-

oughness.

They tell the most enormous stories of the bravery of their ancestors. These ancestors, they say, killed the two great warriors at Waterloo--Wellington and Napoleon--and the tribe believe it too. Within a few days one of their chiefs was buried amid wild scenes of lamentation, and after the body was put in the ground the chief's hat and blanket and umbrella were thrown in after him, and then many of the tribe leaped upon the grave with howls and dancing. Not satisfied with deeds of cruelty while living, these noble Maoris in olden time expected their wives to strangle themselves, and while twisting the flax for the rope the sister of the dead chief is reported by a recent writer as looking up at the moon and saying: It is well with thee, O moon! You return from death, Spreading your light on the little waves. Men say "Behold, the moon reappears!" But the dead of this world return no more, Grief and pain spring up to my heart as from a fountain. I hasten to death for relief. Oh, that all might eat those numerous sooth-sayers Who could not foretell his death! Oh, that I might eat the governor, For his was the war! One of the most terrible things in all the country of the Maoris is their law of Tapu. If any one breaks that, he must die. When a thing is said to be Tapu, no one must use or employ it. For instance, a man gave a slave a knife. Forthwith that knife became Tapu, yet some one dared with that knife to cut the bread for the chief's mother, and the man who used the knife for that purpose was butchered. That whimsicality of Tapu has left its victims all up and down New Zealand. The fact is that barbarians are so repulsive in every form that there is nothing admirable about them, and the only thing to do is by the influence of Christian civilization to extirpate them, and they are going, and for the most part have already gone. Cannibalism in New Zea-

land is dead. The funeral pyres in India have been extinguished. The Juggernaut has been put aside as a curiosity for travelers to look at. Instead of the cruelties that once cursed these lands I find our glorious Christianity

dominant--all over New Zealand the highest culture, the grandest churches, the best schools and a citizenship than which the world holds nothing nobler. I hereby report to the American lecturers that New Zealand is a grand place for their useful work. Only two or three English and one American lecturer have ever trod these platforms. But the opportunity to hero is illimitable. Not in all the round earth are there more alert, responsive or electric audiences. They are quicker than American or European assemblages to take everything said on platform or in pulpit. They call out all there is in a speaker of instruction or entertainment. And the church and the world have yet to find out that audiences for the most part decide whether sermons or lectures shall be good or poor. Stolid and unresponsive audiences make stolid and stupid speakers. Wendell Phillips, one of the monarchs of the platform, told me something very remarkable concerning himself while we were standing in a Boston book store and he was chiding me for not appearing at Ann Arbor, Mich., from which place he had just returned, and where I had tried to get a few days before, but was hindered by snowbanks, and my offer of $250 for the use of a locomotive had been declined. Mr. Phillips said that the audience in one of the eastern states nearly killed him. He said: "I stood for nearly an hour without seeing or hearing anything by which I could judge of the effect of what I had said. If they had only hissed or applauded, I do not care which, I could have gone on with some comfort." Mr. Phillips surprised me by this statement as to the effect wrought upon him

by a phlegmatic assemblage. The audiences decide the fate of the sermons or lecturers. A half dozen men

might, if they wished to engage in so

mean a business, take a contract to break down any speaker, if they would

sit right before him, gape, take out their watches and cough with mouth wide open and then suddenly go sound asleep. An eloquent American preacher, standing before me in a former pulpit, delivered the first half of his sermon with great power, and his words had wings,

and his countenance was aflame with

holy enthusiasm, when suddenly his wings of thought and utterance drop-

ped, and he stammered on his way and got entangled in metaphor and lost his thread of discourse and failed to prove that which he said at the start he would

prove and then sat down. While the congregation were singing the last hymn he said: "Who is that distinguished looking gentleman right in front of the pulpit? The sight of his somnolency and lack of interest completely upset me."

"Oh," I said, "that is the Hon. Mr.

So-and-so, one of the ablest men of the nation, and he was deeply interested in all you said. He is not asleep, but is suffering from weak eyes and is compelled to keep them shut while listening." The uninteresting appearance of the auditor had overthrown a "master

of assemblies."

I say to the men who preach and lecture, come to New Zealand. But should ministers ever lecture? Ought they not always preach? My answer is that the intelligent lecture hall is half way to the church, and I notice that men who have been hating the church and all the sacred things, if they come and hear one lecture, are sure to come and hear him preach. Besides that there are important things to be said, and things that must be said, which are more appropriate to lecture hall than to pulpit. The three mightiest agencies for making the world better are the pulpit, printing press and platform. Side by side may they always stand in the battle for righteousness. But for them the Indian's warwhoop would yet be sounding in America and on the Atlantic coast, the morning meal of human flesh would still be going on in New Zealand, and the Ganges would still be horrible with infanticide. Let all the nations reconstruct their notions of New Zealand. I write this at Dunedin, imposing in its architecture, picturesque in its surroundings, unbounded in its hospitality and another Edinburgh, after which, I understand, it is named, Dun-Edin being the Gaelic for the northern capital of intelligence. The Scotch founded it, and what the Scotch do they do well. They believe in something, and it is almost always something good that they believe in. High toned morality characterizes everything that they do or touch; solidity, breadth, massiveness and religiosity are the types of the men and cities and nations they build. No country is well started that has not felt the influence of the Scotch, with their brawny arms and high cheek bones.

The seaport of this place is called Chalmers Port, named after, I have no doubt, Thomas Chalmers, the greatest of Scotchmen unless it was John Knox, and the largest church in this place, where I preached last night, is Knox church, called, I have no doubt, after the man who at Holywood made a queen tremble. Here I am in the midwinter of this colony, for July here corresponds with our American January, but there are no such severities of frost or snow latitudes. The grass is at this moment a bright emerald; the gardens are in glorious flower. From the top of the North island of New Zealand to the foot of the South island the colony is a bewitchment of interest. For 120 miles ever and anon geysers send up their steam curling on the air. The glaciers, the romantic lakes, the drives, the wooded summits, the mountain peaks, the escarpment of the hills, the fertile fields, the falling waters, the hot springs, the flora with its infinitude of camellias and its small heaven of ferns, the sunrise and sunsets, and, above all, the people, with cordiality and heartiness, independent of all weather circumstances, make New Zealand 500 miles of invitation to the inhabitant of other zones to come here, whether for health or pleasure or livelihood or worship.

What uplifted altars of basalt! What blue domes of sky! What bright lavers of river! What baptism of gentle shower! What incense of morning mist! What doxology of sea on both beaches! What a temple of beauty and glory and joy and divine aspiration in New Zealand! T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

TRAGEDY AND COMEDY. What's a New York Reporter Found Out on His Strange Assignment. It was Sunday evening, about 9 by the clock, and the usual calm of that one night in the week brooded over the Press office. A stranger entered. Hesitatingly

he thrust forth a little pack of grimy cards written on with ink and rapidly said: "Gentlemen, I'm a writer of jokes. I've got some here I want to sell. I'm desperately hard up. It's a horrible"--

The little man stopped short.

"Are you a professional jo--ah--humorist?" asked a reporter.

"Yes, sir," said the stranger. "At any rate, I was a month ago. Now I don't know what I am." He spoke the last sentence with a half groan.

Then the visitor continued: "Seven years ago I was employed as a railway clerk. I had a little turn for writing 'funny' paragraphs. So I left railroading. I've written jokes and paragraphs and verses for nearly every paper there is in town. Sometimes I made $50 a week and sometimes double that amount.

But since the new year began I haven't earned a $10 bill. I have a wife. Well, we've been pretty nigh starvation, and the landlady wanted to put us out for not paying our rent only yesterday. Oh, Lord, this is what I've come to! Yes, yes; I saw that you gentlemen looked at my shirt. I know my degradation, and you needn't be afraid of hurting my feel-

ings. There aren't enough left to be hurt."

The reporter sent him to the night city editor. That gentlemen [sic] dived into his pocket and produced a shining half dollar. The entire staff contributed, and a small amount of money was realized. The reporter who had first talked to the stranger was assigned to go up to the little man's home and do what was best with the money. As if dazed, the man in the flannel shirt followed him.

A short walk brought them to his home. Strewn over the sidewalk lay the scant household goods of the family of two. The reporter interviewed the landlady, while the little man sat down in one of his own chairs outside with a blank look on his face. "That couple," the burly landlady was meanwhile saying. "Why, they're the most worthless lot around. They haven't paid for a month, and tonight I just put their things out in the street. The wife? Oh, she was taken sick or something, and they carried her to the hospital in an

ambulance."

To the hospital the reporter rushed, leaving the husband still sitting in a chair on the walk. The house surgeon came to the door. "This case from 35 D---- street?" he asked. "Dead; died 10 minutes ago. Cause--malnutrition and lack of care together with exposure. In plain English," cheerfully explained the doctor, "that is starvation. Look at the book if you like." Then the reporter broke the news to the bereaved husband and returned to the office.--New York Press.

A Cure For Rheumatism.

A well known member of the bee-

keeping fraternity has been lecturing in

Northumberland on that particular form

of small industry to which he has devoted himself, and in the course of his address he dwelt not merely on the financial but the hygienic advantages of bee culture. He informed his audience that he was the father of twelve children, all living, and ascribed this fact to the liberal use of honey as an article of diet, adding that he gets a good deal more money from the local doctor for honey than the doctor gets from him for medi-

cine.

More than that, he has derived another personal advantage from keeping bees in his complete freedom from rheumatism, from which he previously suffered, and has no doubt that this pleasing immunity is entirely due to the beneficial influence of bee stings. We have heard of people flagellating themselves with nettles, but the beauty of the bee culture is that there is no necessity for any exertion on the part of the patient.--West-

ern (England) Gazette.

Princess and Shoemaker.

On one occasion at Bournemouth Princess Maud went into a shoe shore and purchased a pair of rubbers, or, as the English call them, "galoches." The storekeeper was a little abrupt, and as the rubbers were inexpensive he declined to send them home. The princess accordingly carried the parcel herself, but within a few minutes she was met by one of her suit in search of her, and the dismay of the churlish tradesman when he heard who his customer had been can well be imagined. He had, however, the cool impertinence to place the royal arms with the crest of the Prince of Wales' feathers above the shop window and inscribed in large letters on the plate glass, "Patronized by Her Royal Highness the Princess Maud." This so disgusted her little highness that she had a special injunction served on the man, which re-

sulted in his taking the arms, etc., down.--London Letter.

JOHN BROWER, Painter and Glazier.

DEALER IN Lewis Bros. Pure White Lead, Linseed Oil and Colors. First Quality Hard Oil and Varnishes. Roberts' Fire and Water Proof Paints.

Pure Metallic Paints for Tin and Shingle Roofs (and no other should be used where rain water is caught for family use). All brands of Ready Mixed Paints. Window Glass of all kinds and patterns. Reference given. STORE ON ASBURY AVE OCEAN CITY N. J.

GILBERT & LAKE, House and Sign Painters. RESIDENCE: 450 West Avenue, OCEAN CITY, N. J. Jobbing promptly attended to. Estimates cheerfully given. Guarantee to do first-class work and use the best material. Orders left at Wm. Lake's office, corner Sixth and Asbury avenue, will receive prompt attention. C. THOMAS, NO. 108 MARKET STREET, PHILADELPHIA. HEADQUARTERS OF SOUTH JERSEY FOR FINE FAMILY GROCERIES. ALWAYS THE FRESHEST AND BEST TO BE FOUND IN THE MARKET. Full Flavored Teas, Choice Brands of Coffee, Sugars of all Grades, Canned Fruits, Pickles, Spices, Raisins, Dried Beef, Butter and Lard. Hams of Best Quality, Weighed when Purchased by Customers. No Loss in Weight Charged to Purchasers. Stop in and make selections from the best, largest and freshest stock in Philadelphia. Orders by mail promptly attended to and goods delivered free of charge at any railroad or steamboat in the city. LOW PRICES. Satisfaction Gauranteed. [sic]

Comments of a Sick Urchin.

Little Leslie, 7 years old, the quintes-

sence of affectionate sweetness, was sick one day when he said to his mother, "Mamma, I don't make myself sick. "I

know it, my dear. It is God's will." "Then why didn't God make me well?" "He will, in his own time," answered the little mother. "I reckon he's tending to some other business," rejoined Leslie.--New Or-

leans Picayune.

By a recent law New York policemen have their pay raised $200. The salaries of the policemen in the first grade shall not be less than $1,400 a year; in the second grade, $1,300; the third grade, $1,250; the fourth grade, $1,150, and the fifth grade, $1,000.

W. L. DOUGLASS $3 SHOE IS THE BEST. NO SQUEAKING. $5 CORDOVAN, FRENCH & ENAMELLED CALF. $4. $5.50 FINE CALF & KANGAROO. $3.50 POLICE, 3 SOLES. $2.50 $2. WORKINGMENS EXTRA FINE. $2. $1.75 BOYS' SCHOOL SHOES. LADIES $3. $2.50 $2. $1.75 BEST DONGOLA. SEND FOR CATALOGUE. W. L. DOUGLASS, BROCKTON, MASS. You can save money by purchasing W. L. Douglas Shoes. Because, we are the largest manufacturers of advertised shoes in the world, and guarantee the value by stamping the name and price on the bottom, which protects you against high prices and the middleman's profits. Our shoes equal custom work in every style, easy fitting and wearing qualities. We have them sold everywhere at lower prices for the value given than any other make. Take no substitute. If your dealer cannot supply you, we can. Sold by Dealer, whose name will shortly appear. Agent wanted, apply at once.

OCEAN CITY. A Moral Seaside Resort. Not Excelled as a Health Restorer. Finest facilities for FISHING, Sailing, gunning, etc. The Liquor Traffic and its kindred evils are forever prohibited by deed. Every lover of Temperance and Morals should combine to help us. Water Supply, Railroad, Steamboats, And all other Modern Conveniences.

Thousands of lots for sale at various prices, located in all parts of the city. For information apply to E. B. LAKE, Secretary, Ocean City Asso'n, SIXTH ST. & ASBURY AVE.