THE DANCE OF DEATH. DR. TALMAGE FINDS A WARNING IN THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS. Dancing Might Not Be Sinful In Some Cases, but In All Ages It Has Been Associated With the Lower Forms of Dissipation.

BROOKLYN, Sept. 30.--Rev. Dr. Tal-

mage, who is still absent on his round the world tour, has selected as the subject of today's sermon through the press "The Quick Feet," the text chosen being Matthew xiv, 6, "When Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them and pleased Herod."

It is the anniversary of Herod's birth-

day. The palace is lighted. The highways leading thereto are all ablaze with the pomp of invited guests. Lords, captains, merchant princes, the mighty men of the land, are coming to mingle in the festivities. The table is spread with all the luxuries that royal purveyors can gather. The guest, white robed and anointed and perfumed, come in and sit at the table. Music! The jests evoke roars of laughter. Riddles are propounded. Repartee is indulged. Toasts are drunk. The brain is befogged. The wit

rolls on into uproar and blasphemy.

They are not satisfied yet. Turn on more light. Pour out more wine. Music. Sound all the trumpets. Clear the floor for a dance! Bring in Salome, the beautiful and accomplished princess. The door opens, and in bounds the dan-

cer. The lords are enchanted. Stand back and make room for the

brilliant gyrations! These men never saw such "poetry of motion." Their soul whirls in the reel and bounds with the bounding feet. Herod forgets crown and throne and everything but the fascinations of Salome. All the magnificence of his realm is as nothing now compared with the splendor that whirls on tiptoe before him. His body sways from side to side, corresponding with the motions of the enchantress. His soul is thrilled with the pulsations of the feet and bewitched with the taking

postures and attitudes more and more amazing. After awhile he sits in en-

chanted silence looking at the flashing,

leaping, bounding beauty, and as the dance closes and the tinkling cymbals cease to clap and the thunders of applause that shook the palace begin to abate the enchanted monarch swears to the princely performer. "Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me I will give it thee, to the half of my kingdom." Now, there was in prison at that time a minister of the gospel of the name of John the Baptist, and he had been making a great deal of trouble by preaching some very plain and honest sermons. He had denounced the sins of the king and brought down upon him the wrath of the females of the royal household. At the instigation of her mother Salome takes advantage of the extravagant promise of the king and says, "Bring me the head of John

the Baptist on a dinner plate."

The Head of John. Hark to the sound of feet outside the door and the clatter of swords! The ex-

ecutioners are returning from their aw-

ful errand. Open the door! They enter, and they present the platter to Salome.

What is on this platter? A new glass of wine to continue the uproarious mer-

riment? No. Something redder and costlier--the ghastly, bleeding head of John the Baptist, the death glare still in the eye, the locks dabbled with the gore, the features still distressed with the last agony.

This woman, who had whirled so gracefully in the dance, bends over the awful burden without a shudder. She gloats over the blood, and with as much

indifference as a waiting maid might take a tray of empty glassware out of the room after an entertainment Salome carries the dissevered head of John the Baptist, while all the banqueters shout with laughter and think it a good joke that in so easy and quick a way they have got rid of an earnest and outspoken minister of the gospel.

You will all admit, whatever you think of that style of amusement and exercise, that from many circles it has crowded out all intelligent conversation. You will also admit that it has made the condition of those who do not dance either because they do not know how or because they have not the

health to endure it or because through conscientious scruples they must decline the exercise very uncomfortable. You will also admit, all of you, that it has passed in many cases from an amusement to a dissipation, and you are easily able to understand the bewilderment of the educated Chinaman, who, standing in the brilliant circle where there was dancing going on four or five hours and the guests seemed exhausted, turned to the proprietor of the house and said, "Why don't you allow your servants to do this for you?"

The Abominable Round Dance. You are also willing to admit, whatever be your idea in regard to the amusement I am speaking of, and whatever be your idea of the old fashioned square dance, and of many of the processional romps in which I can see no evil, the round dance is administrative of evil and ought to be driven out of all respectable circles. I am by natural temperament and religious theory opposed to the position taken by all those who are horrified at playfulness on the

part of the young and who think that all questions are decided--questions of decency and morals--by the position of the feet, while, on the other hand, I can see nothing but ruin, temporal and eternal, for those who go into the dissi-

pations of social life--dissipations which have already despoiled thousands of young men and young women of all that is noble in character and useful in life.

The Old Time Dance.

Dancing is the graceful motion of the body adjusted by art to the sound and measure of musical instrument or of the human voice. All nations have danced.

The ancients thought that Castor and Pollux taught the art to the Lacedaemo-

nians. But whoever started it all climes have adopted it. In ancient times they had the festal dance, the military dance, the mediatorial dance, the bac-

chanalian dance, and queens and lords swayed to and fro in the gardens, and the rough backwoodsman with this ex-

ercise awakened the echo of the forest. There is something in the sound of lively music to evoke the movement of the hand and foot, whether cultured or un-

cultured. Passing down the street we unconsciously keep step to the sound of the brass band, while the Christian in church with his foot beats time while his soul rises upon some great harmony. While this is so in civilized lands, the red men of the forest have their scalp dances, their green corn dances, their wardances. In ancient times the exercise was so utterly and completely depraved that the church anathematized it. The old Christian fathers expressed themselves most vehe-

mently against it. St. Chrysostom says, "The feet were not given for dancing, but to walk modestly; not to leap impudently, like camels." One of the dogmas of the ancient church reads: "A dance is the devil's possession, and he that entereth into a dance entereth into his possession. As many paces as a man makes in dancing, so many paces does he make to hell." Elsewhere the old dogmas declared this: "The woman that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil, and those that answer are her clerks, and the beholders are his friends, and the music is his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the devil. For, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogsherd call one, all assemble together, so when the devil calleth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some musical instruments, presently all the dancers gather together." This indiscriminate and universal denunciation of the exercise came from the fact that it was utterly and completely depraved.

The Evil of It Today.

But we are not to discuss the customs of the olden times, but customs now. We are not to take the evidence of the ancient fathers, but our own conscience, enlightened by the word of God, is to be the standard. Oh, bring no harsh criticism upon the young! I would not drive out from their soul the hilarities of life. I do not believe that the inhabitants of ancient Wales, when they stepped to the sound of the rustic harp, went down to ruin. I believe God intended the young people to laugh and romp and play. I do not believe God would have put exuberance in the soul and exuberance in the body if he had not intended that they should in some wise exercise it and demonstrate it. If a

mother join hands with her children and cross the floor to the sound of music, I see no harm. If a group of friends cross and recross the room to the sound of

sound of a piano well played, I see no harm. If a company, all of whom are known to host and hostess as reputable, cross and recross the room to the sound of musical instrument, I see no harm. I tried for a long while to see harm in it.

I could not see any harm in it. I never shall see any harm in that. Our men need to be kept young--young for many years longer than they are kept young.

Never since my boyhood days have I had more sympathy with the innocent hilarities of life than I have now. What though we have felt heavy burdens! What though we have had to endure hard knocks! Is that any reason why we should stand in the way of those who, unstung of life's misfortunes, are full of exhilaration and glee? God bless the young! They will have to wait many a long year before they hear me say anything that would depress their ardor or clip their wings or make them believe that life is hard and cold and repulsive. IT is not. I tell them, judging from my own experience, that they will be treated a great deal better than they deserve. We have no right to grudge the innocent hilarities to the young.

Death In Dissipation.

What are the dissipations of social life today, and what are the dissipations of the ballroom? In some cities and in some places reaching all the year round; in other places only in the summer time and at the watering places. There are dissi-

pations of social life that are cutting a very wide swath with the sickle of death, and hundreds and thousands are going down under these influences, and my subject in application is as wide as Christendom. The whirlpool of social

dissipation is drawing down some of the brightest craft that ever sailed the sea--thousands and tens of thousands of the bodies and souls annually consumed in the conflagration of ribbons.

Social dissipation is the abetter of pride. It is the instigator of jealousy.

It is the sacrificial altar of health. It is the defiler of the soul. It is the avenue of lust, and it is the curse of every town on both sides of the sea. Social dissipation! It may be hard to draw the line and say that this is right on the one side and that it is wrong on the other side. It is not necessary that we do that, for God has put a throne in every man's soul, and I appeal to that throne today. When a man does wrong, he knows he does wrong, and when he does right he knows he does right, and to that throne, which Almighty God lifted in the heart of every man and woman, I appeal.

As to the physical ruin wrought by the dissipations of social life there can be no doubt. What may we expect of people who work all day and dance all night? After awhile they will be thrown on society nervous, exhausted imbeciles.

These people who indulge in the suppers and the midnight revels and then go home in the cold unwrapped of limbs will after awhile be found to have been written down in God's eter-

nal records as suicides--as much suicides as if they had taken their life with a pistol or a knife or strychnine.

Danger to Health. How many people have stepped from the ballroom into the graveyard? Con-

sumptions and swift neuralgias are close on their track. Amid many of the glit-

tering scenes of social life diseases stand right and left and balance and chain.

The breath of the sepulcher floats up through the perfume, and the froth of Death's lips bubbles up in the cham-

pagne. I am told that in some of the cities there are parents who have actually given up housekeeping and gone to boarding that they may give their time illimitably to social dissipations. I have known such cases. I have known family after family blasted in that way in one of the other cities where I preached. Father and mother turning their backs upon all quiet culture and all the amenities of home, leading forth their entire family in the wrong direction. Annihilated--worse than annihilated, for there are some things worse than annihilation. I give you the his-

tory of more than one family when I say they went on in the dissipations of social life until the father dropped into a lower style of dissipation, and after awhile the son was tossed out into society a nonentity, and after awhile the daughter eloped with a French dancing master, and after awhile the mother, getting on further and further in years, tries to hide the wrinkles, but fails in the attempt, trying all the arts of the belle--an old flirt, a poor miserable butterfly without any wings.

If there is anything on earth beautiful to me, it is an aged woman, her white locks flowing back over the wrinkled brow--locks not white with frost, as the poets say, but white with the blossoms of the tree of life, in her voice the tenderness of gracious memories, her face a benediction. As grandmother passes through the room the grandchildren pull at her dress, and she almost falls in her weakness, but she has nothing but candy or cake or a kind word for the little darlings. When she gets out of the wagon in front of the house, the whole family rush out and cry, "Grandma's come!" And when she goes away from us, never to return, there is a shadow on the table, and a shadow on the hearth, and a shadow on the heart. There is no more touching scene on earth than when grandmother sleeps the last slumber and the little child is lifted up to the casket to give the last kiss, and she says, "Goodby, grandma!" Oh, there is beauty in old age. God says so. "The hoary head is a crown of glory." Why should people decline to get old? The best things, the greatest things, I know of are aged--old mountains, old seas, old stars and old eternity. But if there is anything distressful it is to see an old woman ashamed of the fact that she is old. What with all the artificial appliances she is too much for my gravity. I laugh even in church when I see her coming. The worst looking bird on earth is a peacock when it has lost its feathers. I would not give one lock of my old mother's gray hair for 50,000 such caricatures of humanity. And if the life of a worldling, if the life of a disciple given to the world, is sad, the close of such a life is simply a tragedy. Fate of the Sybarites. Let me tell you that the dissipations of social life are despoiling the usefulness of a vast multitude of people. What do those people care about the fact that there are whole nations in sorrow and suffering and agony when they have for consideration the more impor-

tant question about the size of a glove or the tip of a cravat? Which one of them ever went out to care for the poor? Which of them do you find in the haunts of sin distrib-

uting tracts? They live on themselves, and it is very poor pasture.

Sybaris was a great city, and it once sent out 300 horsemen in battle. They had a minstrel who taught the horses of the army a great trick, and when the old minstrel played a certain tune the horses would roar and with their front feet seem to beat time to the music. Well, the old minstrel was offended with his country, and he went over to the enemy, and he said to the enemy, "You give me the mastership of the army, and I will destroy their troops when those horsemen come from Sybaris."

So they gave the old minstrel the management, and he taught all the other minstrels a certain tune. Then when the cavalry troop came up the old minstrel and all the other minstrels played a certain tune, and at the most critical moment in the battle, when the horsemen wanted to rush to the con-

flict, the horses reared and beat time to the music with their fore feet, and in disgrace and rout the enemy fled. Ah, my friends, I have seen it again and again--the minstrels of pleasure, the minstrels of dissipation, the minstrels of godless association have defeated peo-

ple in the hardest fight of life! Frivolity has lost the battle for 10,000 folk.

Oh, what a belittling process to the human mind is this everlasting question about dress, this discussion of fashion-

able infinitesimals, this group, looking askance at the glass, wondering with an infinity of earnestness how that last geranium leaf does look, this shrivel-

ing of man's moral dignity until it is not observable to the naked eye, this Spanish inquisition of a tight shoe, this binding up of an immortal soul in a

ruffle, this pitching off of an immortal nature over the rocks when God intended it for great and everlasting uplifting!

With many life is a masquerade ball, and as at such entertainment gentle-

men and ladies put on the garb of kings and queens or mountebanks or clowns, and at the close put off the disguise, so a great many pass their whole life in a mask, taking off the mask at

death. While the masquerade ball of life goes on they trip merrily over the floor, gemmed hand is stretched to the gemmed hand, and gleaming brow bends to gleaming brow. On with the dance! Flush and rustle and laughter of immeasurable merrymaking!

The Awful Change.

But after awhile the languor of death comes on the limbs and blurs the eyesight. Lights lower. Floors hollow with sepulchral echo. Music saddened into a wail. Lights lower. Now the maskers are only seen in the dim light. Now the fragrance of the flowers is like the sickening odor that comes from gar-

lands that have lain long in the vaults of cemeteries. Lights lower. Mists gather in the rom. Glasses shake as though quaked by sullen thunder. Sigh caught in the curtain. Scarf drops from the shoulder of beauty--a shroud!

Lights lower. Over the slippery boards in dance of death glide jealousies, envies, revenges, lust, despair and death.

Stench the lamp wicks almost extinguished. Torn garlands will not half cover the ulcerated feet. Choking damps. Chilliness. Feet still. Hands closed. Voices hushed. Eyes shut. Lights out.

Oh, how many of you have floated far away from God through social dissipations, and it is time you turned, for I remember that there were two vessels on the sea and in a storm. It was very, very dark, and the tweo vessels were going straight for each other, and the captains knew it not. But after awhile the man on the lookout saw the approaching ship, and he shouted, "Hard a-lar-board!" and from the other vessel the cry went up, "Hard a-larboard!" and they turned just enough to glance by and passed in safety to their harbors.

Some of you are in the storm of temptation, and you are driving on and coming toward fearful collisions unless you change your course. Hard a-larboard! Turn ye, turn ye, for "why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

Good Advice. Mrs. Dimpleton--I would like hotel life, but I am so lonesome all day while my husband is at the office. Mrs. Cheltenham--Why don't you keep house? Then you can spend your spare time in thinking what you will have for breakfast.--New York Sun. || REAL WONDERLAND. DR. TALMAGE'S ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION OF NEW ZEALAND. Good Womanhood, Grand Mountains, Beautiful Flowers and Birds--The Tragedy of "The Terraces"--A Country Full of Food For Artists and Scientists. [Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1894.] CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, July 31.--Excellent and suburb as are the women of New Zealand more good women are needed here. In most places where I have lived or traveled women are in blessed majority, and it seems that the Lord likes them better than men, because he has made more of them. There is in most places a surplus of good womanhood, and they therefore do not get full appreciation. But New Zealand is an exception. In this colony there are 50,000 less women than men. This will by circumstances be adjusted. There ought certainly to be as many women as men in every land, for every man is entitled to a good wife, and every woman is entitled to a good husband. The difficulty is that war and rum kill so many men that the man intended for the woman's lifetime partnership is apt to lie in the soldier's grave trench or in the drunkard's ditch. In the paradisaical and perfect state the womanhood equaled the manhood, for there was one of each kind. The women in New Zealand have already done well, for while in the United States and Europe the women are discussing in parlors and on the platforms how they shall get their rights at the ballot box that castle has already been stormed and taken by the women here. After awhile the brave sisterhoods in the United States and Great Britain will band together, and from the crowded parlors where so many languish in

inanition and inoccupation they will make a crusade to these parts of the earth, where their presence would be hailed and their opportunities augmented.

The theory that men must go into new countries alone and establish themselves in mines, in mechanism or merchandise and then send for their families to join them is an overdone theory. The wives and daughters and sisters had better come along with their husbands, fathers and brothers. Instead of their [sic] being a surplus of men in the colonies, there ought to be a surplus of women out of which to get the supply of maiden aunts --those guardian angels of the community who are at home in the whole circle of kindred, the confidant of the young, and the comfort of the old, and the benediction of all. Not only is there room in New Zealand for more good womanhood, but there is room for more artists and naturalists. Here are mountains 9,000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 feet high waiting for some one to take their photographs, and while most of the mountains of the earth stand stolid and statuesque and without varieties of posture some of these change their shape and altitude under volcanic suggestion, as the man in the photographic gallery as the artist's suggestion changes from side face to full face or from frown to smile, and one day a mountain turns clear round, or from standing posture sits down with heavy plunge, or a crevice opens between the cheeks of the hill--a wide open mouth, full of laughter or threat. The changes in the mountain ranges are enough to set a geologist wild with interest or send him running up and down these altitudes with crowbar to dig, or hammer to strike, or tapeline to measure. On a night in June, 1886, the mountains of Tarawera and Rotomahana, New Zealand, had a grand frolic. For many years tourists had gone

to visit the "terraces," as they were called--ancient forms of volcanic eruption.

There were stairs of pictured stones, step above step of pumice and lava, reaching from earth toward heaven, but some of the steps of the stairs 50 and 100 feet high--not so much a Jacob's ladder as an omnipotent stairway, up and down which walked all the splen-

dors and majesties and grandeurs and radiances of day and night and sunshine and tempest, of summer and winter, of decades and centuries and ages. These steps seemed to be made out of pearls, prisms, petrified hyacinth, lily and vio-

let and all laid out as with a divine geometry. Such curve, such bosses of exquisiteness, such ascents and descents, bewildering with almost supernatural glories. Masonry smoothed by invisible trowels, walls regulated by invisible plumb lines, colors put on by invisible pencils, sculpture cut by invisible chis-

els. On the night of June 9, 1886, the moon was passing into the second quar-

ter, when 10 minutes after 2 o'clock, the earth shook and mountains erupted. Standing 10, 12, 14 miles off the people felt the shock and saw the ascent of the steam column and the redhot rocks and the volcanic ash and scoria, and the smoke, looking like a vast pine tree, according to the statements of the poetic, but like an umbrella or mushroom, according to the description of the rustic.

Those who lived near the base of the hills did not survive to tell the tale of the catastrophe. The detonations were heard 250 miles away. That was a can-

nonading in which the batteries were touched off by hidden dynamics. Such a combination of wrath and splendor was never before seen in New Zealand.

It seemed as if all the hyenas of rage were snarling at all the flamingoes of beauty. The lake hissed as with ten thousand serpents when the hot bombs of the mountain dropped into it.

The malodors of burning iron oxides and magnesia and chlorine and alumina and sulphur filled all the regions ap-

proximate with suffocation, strangulation and asphyxia. Sixty miles felt the upheaval, and from Auckland, more than 180 miles away, a ship put out for the rescue of a vessel supposed to be burning at sea, the mistaken fire being that of this burning mountain. In the house of Mr. Hazard, a devout Chris-

tian man, as the ashes and trees and stone began to drop heavily on the roof a Christian daughter, believing that they must die, sat down at a cabinet or-

gan to play a piece of sacred music and the whole of the family joined in the hymn. And all save one of the family perished.

At the hotel a Mr. Bainbridge, who was on a journey round the world, call-

ed the inmates of the hotel together for prayer, and he told them they had only a few more minutes to live, and as he was passing out from the hotel the ve-

randa fell upon him and crushed him to death.

We talk about the dumb elements, but it is hard for me to believe that they are dumb, and that the fire does not feel the warmth flowing in its own veins,

and that the sighing winds have no sorrow, and that playing fountains experience no exhilaration, and that the light does not enjoy illumining the world, and that the sensitive plant does not feel your touch, and that the tree, with all its incense, does not worship.

It seems that in these paroxysms of the mountains nature must suffer.

That night nine miles of the moun-

tain changed. "Tae terraces," which had been the pride of the colonies, sank out of existence. No one but the infinite and the almighty could afford the ob-

literation of such resources of beauty and glory. The casting down of such altars and the annihilation of such temples would have been an iconoclasm that would have affronted the universe but for the fact that the Lord who made Tarawera and Rotomahana has a right

to do what he will with his own, and the terraces, already beginning to re-

form, may be richer colored and loftier and more resplendent than their predecessors.

The loss to New Zealand of these white and pink terraces is what would be the loss of the Giant's causeway to Ireland, or the loss of the pyramids to

Egypt, or the loss of Niagara falls to America. The exact physical causes of this upsetting and down tearing and mountain splitting I leave to geologists to guess about. Translating their scien-

tific accounts into easier language, it seems that the mountains were stiff in their joints from long standing and went into play. For a great while they had enjoyed no fireworks, and that night they illumined New Zealand with rockets and wheels of fire. The hills went into games of leapfrog and ball playing and flying kites and boxing and general romp. They were exhilarated with a mixture of gases--sulphur-ic, phosphoric and carbonic--and forgot all the properties that mountains usually observe. but it was not a comedy.

It was a tragedy of the mountains, and all the King Lears, and the Macbeths, and the Hamlets, and the Meg Mer-

rilies of the derangement and horror were that night on the stage, of which the belching fires were the footlights and flames hundreds of feet high were the gorgeous upholstery. Tornadoes of ashes. Furnaces seven times heated, in

which walked the Deity. Grand march of God sounded by the avalanches. The earth bombarding the heavens. Dante's "Inferno" lifted into the terrestrial.

Maniac elements tearing the clouds into tatters and grinding rocks under their heels. That night of June 9, that awful night in New Zealand, when the native settlements went down under the ashes of bursting Tarawera as completely as

Pompeii and Herculaneum under the burial of Vesuvius, seemed to play accompaniment to the words of the old book, as much revered in New Zealand as in America, an accompaniment in full diapason, an earthquake with its foot on the pedal. "The perpetual hills did bow." "The mountains skipped

like [?]." "The hills melted like wax." "[?] of the earth were [?]." "He looketh on the earth, and [?]bleth."

That downfall on the New Zealand terraces was only a conspicuous circumstance in the history of the world.

Mountains are mortal, and they write their autobiographies on leaves of stone.

All the mountains of New Zealand were nursed in cradle of earthquake by a parentage of rock and glacier, and they will have their descendants. You can-

not bury mountains unobserved. There must be black pail of smoke and dead march sounded by orchestra of elements, and thunders tolling at the passing fu-

neral of hills, and spade of fire to dig their grave, and the discharge of all heaven's artillery at their burial, and the solemn and overwhelming litany sound-

ed, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!"

You see it will be well for geologists to come to New Zealand. Ornithologists ought also to come. Last evening, al-

though it is here midwinter--New Zea-

land's July corresponding with Ameri-

ca's January, although far from being as cold--I was standing near a clump of trees which still kept all their foliage, and there were bird voices absolutely bewildering for numbers and sweetness.

If the notes of the music there rendered by the winged choir had been written on each leaf, the rendering could not have been more dulcet and resonant. It would take more room and time than I possess to describe the ornithological

riches of New Zealand. First of all, its extinct moa, whose skeleton stands in the museum of Christchurch--a wing-

less bird, or only apologies for wings, but 10 feet 7 inches high, neck like a giraffe and feet as wide as a camel's, this moa, the largest bird whose skele-

ton has ever been reticulated, its eggs the size of a small bandbox.

What the mastodon was among quadrupeds, and the ichthyosaurus was among fishes, the moa was among birds.

But among the living birds in New Zealand's aviary are the whale bird, black on the back and white on the breast--morning rising from the night; the huiz, a sacred bird of the aborig-

ines--but all birds ought to be sacred.

It has more expanse of wing and feathers on which to be beautiful; the kea, that wars on the sheep, fastening itself on the back of the live sheep and not relaxing, but pecking its way through

the wool and the flesh until the sheep is dead and the beak reaches the fat around the kidneys, for which this bird has a special appetite--a habit learned probably by pecking at the butchered sheep around the door of the shepherd's hut; the storm petrel, like a flake of

the midnight; the crested penguin; the paradise duck, its name taken from the fact that its richness of color suggests the Edenic--and birds with all wealth of feather, and curiosity of beak, and eccentricity of habit, and defense of claw, and audacity of flight, and bearing all colors--the white running into crimson, like snow melting into the fire; the blue as if some higher flight it had brushed against the heavens, or yellow as if it had nested among cowslips and buttercups, or spotted and fringed and ribboned and aflame until there are no more [?] of radiance

into which they [?]bly dip their wings. Oh, [?] the gunner to do for New Zealand, what Washington did for America? But, what I never

knew before, the native birds are dying out before the foreign birds that have been introduced, and the native flowers are dying out before the foreign flowers.

Although now New Zealand is so abundant in all styles of quadrupeds, it had not, when discovered, a single quad-

ruped except the rat, and a foreign rat having been introduced the aboriginal rat has nearly disappeared. The English grass brought here has killed the native grass. The birds of America, Europe and Asia imported here have killed the birds of New Zealand. All the earth has been ransacked and all the botanical and ichthyological and ornithological and zoological worlds have been called upon to make up the present and the future of New Zealand. Yea, come to this "wonderland," all who want to see enterprise and advancement. Daily newspapers, with scholarly men in editorial chairs and reporters capable of pumping interviews from

the most reticent and cautious and make a sphinx speak. Two thousand miles of railroad. Over 1,600 schools, with com-

pulsory education, building up intelli-

gence for the present and affording no opportunity for ignorance in the next century. Baths, thermal and chemical, miles long and capable of putting an end to rheumatisms and sciaticas and invalidisms that have defied the mineral hydropathics of the continents.

Lake Taupo, so deep that no plummet has ever touched the bottom and occupying the hollow of an extinct volcano, as a bright child might fall to sleep in the bed previously occupied by a grim giant. Yea, come to New Zealand, the naturalists, the artists and the students of men and things, and come quickly, for nothing remains here as it originally was ex-

cept the mountains, and even the moun-

tains, as on the night of June 9, 1886, when the walls of "the terraces" fell down at the blowing of the trumpets of terror, proved themselves no longer to be the "everlasting hills." T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

The Perfect Man. The right kind of man from Beersheba to Dan I sought with an infinite zest. From the end of the east my search never ceased till I came to the end of the west. He's gentle and quiet and plain in his diet and never gets mad in a crowd.

He's a tireless searched for all kinds of "vircher" and never is boastful and loud.

He's modest and sweet, and he gives up his seat if a washerwoman enters the car. If he smokes out of doors, then the smoke he outpours always comes from a 10 cent cigar.

On the great tariff bill he will never talk till you wish he would languish and die. He's in love with his wife and stays so in all his life and praises her pudding and pie.

And I sought for this man from Beersheba to Dan; I sought him from the west to the east, but I'm sorry to say that he didn't come to stay, and he's long since defunct and deceased.--Yankee Blade.

He Got the Coat.

In the justices' court in Limerick a judge once found himself in a quanda-

ry. The dispute was about a coat, and the evidence was direct and positive for both claimants. After much wran-

gling Patrick Power, one of the parties, proposed that he and his opponent should see whose name was on the coat.

This was agreed to, and after the other claimant had searched in vain for any mark Pat took the coat, and opening a corner of the lining with his penknife took out two small peas. "There, now, d'ye see that?" "Yes, but what of that?" "A dale it has to do wid it. It's me name, for shure--pea for Pat- rick and pea for Power."--Sussex Coast (England) Mercury.

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]

An Incident of the War.

On June 3, 1864, a wounded Confederate soldier in a hospital in Richmond was dictating a letter to a little

girl. "Tell my mother," said he, "that

just as I fell I saw that grand old man, General Bob Lee, and I just felt as if it was a glorious thing to die then and there."

The little girl paused in her writing

and said, "General Lee is my papa." The surprise of the poor wounded Confederate soldiers can easily be imag-ined.--Atlantic Journal.

Working Both Ways.

Truckman--Boss, I'll have to I'll have to charge you $2 fur haulin these ashes away. It's more'n two miles to the dump, and the 'thorities won't let us empty 'em this side of it. They watch as mighty close. Same Truckman (two hours later)--Cap'n, I'll have to charge you $2 fur this load of ashes. Everybody's puttin in these cement walks now and has to have fillin, and good ashes is mighty hard to git now, I tell you!--Chicago

Tribune.

The Human Voice.

One's surprise at the fact that no two

persons' voice are perfectly alike ceases when one is informed by an authority on the subject that, though there are only nine perfect tones in the human voice, there are the astounding number of 17,592,186,044,415 different sounds. Of these, 14 direct muscles produce 16,883, and 30 indirect muscles produce 173,741,823, while all in co-operation

produce the total given above.

Fifty of the older Chicago musicians, have purchased the uniforms, instruments and accouterments of the famous infantry band that attracted so much attention in the German village during the World's fair and have organized as the German military band of Chicago.

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.

W. L. DOUGLAS $3 SHOE

IS THE BEST, NO SQUEAKING.

$5. CORDOVAN, FRENCH & ENAMELLED CALF. $4. $3.50 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. DOUGLAS, BROCKTON, MASS. You can save money by purchasing by 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 style, easy fitting and wearing qualities. We have them sold every-

where 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.

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.