THE GIRL HADASSAH. DR. TALMAGE PRESENTS THE MORAL OF ESTHER'S STORY. Ahasuerus, or Xexes, Probably Had a Licentious and Intemperate Court, but One Good Woman In It Was Able to Save Her People.

BROOKLYN, Oct. 7.--Rev. Dr. Talmage, who is still absent on his round the world tour, has selected as the subject of today's sermon through the press, "Hadassah," the text chosen being Esther ii, 7, "And he brought up Hadassah."

A beautiful child was born in the capital of Persia. She was an orphan and a captive, her parents having been stolen from their Israelitish home and carried to Shushan and had died, leaving their daughter poor and in a strange land.

But an Israelite who had been carried into the same captivity was attracted by the case of the orphan. He educated her in his holy religion, and under the roof of that good man this adopted child began to develop a sweetness and excel-

lency of character, if ever equaled, certainly never surpassed. Beautiful Hadassah! Could that adopted father ever spare her from his household? Her artlessness, her girlish sports, her innocence, her orphanage, had wound themselves thoroughly around his heart, just as around each parent's heart among us there are tendrils climbing and fastening and blossoming and growing stronger.

I expect he was like others who have loved ones at home--wondering sometimes if sickness will come and death and bereavement. Alas, worse than anything that the father expects happens to his adopted child! Ahasuerus, a princely scoundrel, demands that Hadassah, the fairest one in all the kingdom, become his wife. Worse than death was marriage to such a monster of iniquity. How great the change when this young woman left the home where God was worshiped and religion honored to enter a palace devoted to pride, idolatry and sensuality! "As a lamb to the slaughter!"

The Captive Queen.

Ahasuerus knew not that his wife was a Jewess. At the instigation of the infamous prime minister the king decreed that all the Jews in the land should be slain. Hadassah pleads the cause of her people, breaking through the rules of the court and presenting herself in the very face of death, crying, "If I perish, I perish!" Oh, it was a sad time among that enslaved people! They had all heard the decree concerning their death. Sorrow, gaunt and ghastly, sat in thousands of households and mothers wildly pressed their infants to their breasts as the days of massacre hastened on, praying that the same sword stroke which slew the mother might also slay the child, rosebud and bud perishing in the same blast.

But Hadassah is busy at court. The hard heart of the king is touched by her story, and although he could not re-

verse his decrees for the slaying of the Jews he sent forth an order that they should arm themselves for defense. On horseback, on mules, on dromedaries, messengers sped through the land bearing the king's dispatches, and a shout of joy went up from that enslaved people at the faint hope of success. I doubt not many a rusty blade was taken down and sharpened. Unbearded youths grew stout as giants at the thought of defend-

ing mothers and sisters. Desperation strung up cowards into heroes, and fragile women grasping their weapons swung them about the cradles, impatient for the time to strike the blow in behalf of household and country.

Triumph of the Jews.

The day of execution dawned. Government officials armed and drilled, cowed before the battle shout of the oppressed people. The cry of defeat rang back to the palaces, but above the moun-

tains of dead, above 75,000 crushed and mangled corpses, sounded by the triumph of the delivered Jews, and their enthusiasm was as when the highlanders came to the relief of Lucknow, and the English army, which stood in the very jaws of death, at the sudden hope of assistance and rescue lifted the shout above the belching cannon and the death groan of hosts, crying: "We are saved! We are saved!"

My subject affords me opportunity of illustrating what Christian character may be under the greatest disadvantage. There is no Christian now exactly what he wants to be. Your standard is much higher than anything you have attained unto. If there be any man so puffed up as to be thoroughly satisfied with the amount of excellency he has already attained, I have nothing to say to such a one, but to those who are dissatisfied with past attainments, who are toiling under disadvantages which are keeping them from being what they ought to be, I have a message from God. You each of you labor under difficulties. There is something in your temperament, in your worldly circumstances, in your calling, that acts powerfully against you. Admitting all this, I introduce you to Hadassah of the text, a noble Christian notwithstanding the most gigantic difficulties. She whom you might have expected to be one of the worst of women is one of the best.

The Pious Orphan. In the first place, our subject is an illustration of what Christian character may be under orphanage. This Bible line tells a long story about Hadassah. "Sheshad neither father nor mother." A nobleman had become her guardian, but there is no one who can take the place of a parent. Who so able at night to hear a child's prayer, or at twi-

light to chide youthful wanderings, or to soothe youthful sorrows? An individual will go through life bearing the marks of orphanage. It will require more strength, more persistence, more grace to make such a one the right kind of a Christian. He who at 46 years loses a parent must reel under the blow. Even down to old age men are

accustomed to rely upon the counsel on be powerfully influenced by the advice of parents, if they are still alive. But how much greater the bereavement when [?] early life, before the character is self reliant, and when naturally the heart is unsophisticated and easily tempted!

And yet behold what a nobility of disposition Hadassah exhibited! Though father and mother were gone, grace had triumphed over all disadvantages. Her willingness to self sacrifice, her control over the king, her humility, her faith-

ful worship of God, show her to have been one of the best of the world's Christians.

An Unhappy Childhood. There are those who did not enjoy remarkable early privileges. Perhaps, like the beautiful captive of the text, you were [?]. You [?] sorrows in your [?] heart. You [?] when you knew not what was the mother. You felt sad sometimes even on the playground.

Your father or mother did not stand in the door to welcome you when you came home from a long journey. You still feel the effect of early disadvantages, and you have sometimes offered them as a reason for your not being as thoroughly religious as you would like to be. But these excuses[?] are not sufficient. God's grace will triumph if you seek it. He knows what [?] you have fought against, and the more trial the more help. After all, there are no orphans in the world, for the great God is the Father of us all.

Again, our subject is an illustration of what religion may be under the pressure of poverty. The captivity and crushed condition of this orphan girl[?] and of the kind man who adopted her suggest a condition of poverty. Yet from the very first acquaintance we had with Hadassah we find her the same happy and contented Christian. It was only by compulsion she was afterward taken into a sphere of honor and affluence. In the humble home of Mordecai, her adopted father, she was a light that illumined every privation. [?] in almost every man's life. There comes a season of straitened circumstances, when the severest calculation and most scraping economy are necessary in order to subsistence and respectability. At the commencement of business, at the entrance upon a profession, when friends are few and the world is afraid of you, because there is a possibility of failure, many of the noblest hearts have struggled against poverty and are now struggling.

The Wear of Anxiety.

To such a heart a message of good cheer. You say it is a hard thing for you to be a Christian. This constant anxiety, this unresting calculation, wear out the buoyancy of your spirit, and al-

though you have told perhaps no one about it cannot I tell that this is the very trouble which keeps you from be-

ing what you ought to be? You have no time to think about laying up treasuries in heaven when it is a matter of great doubt whether you will be enabled to pay your next quarter's rent. You can-

not think of striving for righteousness until you can get means enough to buy an overcoat to keep out the cold. You want the bread of life, but you think you must get along without that until you can buy another barrel of flour for your wife and children. Sometimes you sit down discouraged and almost wish you were dead.

Christians in satin slippers, with their feet on damask ottoman, may scout at such a [?] of temptations, but those who themselves have been in the struggle and grip of hard misfortune appreciate the power of these evils to dissuade the soul away from religious duties. We [?] strength of the temptation, but then we point to Hadassah, her poverty equaled by her piety. Courage [?] in the battle! Hurl away your disappointment! Men of half your heart have, through Christ, been more than conquerors. In the name of God, come out of that! The religion of Christ is just what you want out there among the empty flour barrels and beside the cold hearths. You have never told any one of what a hard time you have had, but God knows it as well as you know it. Your easy times will come after awhile. Do not let your spirits break down midlife. What if your coat is thin? Run fast enough to keep warm. What if you have no lux-

uries on your table? High expectations will make your blood tingle[?] better than the best Madeira. If you cannot afford to smoke, you can afford to whistle.

But merely animal spirits are not sufficient. The power of the gospel--that is what you want to wrench despair out of the soul and put you forward into the front of the hosts incased in impenetrable armor.

Beauty and Its Perils.

Again, our subject illustrates what religion may be under the temptation of personal attractiveness. The inspired record says of the heroine of my text, "She was fair and beautiful." Her very name signified a myrtle. Yet the ad-

miration and praise and flattery of the world did not blight her humility. The simplicity of her manners and behavior equaled her extraordinary attractions. It is the same divine goodness which puts the tinge on the rose's cheek, and the whiteness into [?], and the gleam on the wave, and that put colors in the cheek, and sparkle in the eye, and maj-

esty in the forehead, and symmetry into the form, and gracefulness into the gait, but many through the very charm of their personal appearance have been destroyed. What simperings and affectations and impertinence have often been the result of that which God has sent as a blessing! Japonicas, anemones and heliotropes never swagger at the beauty which God planted in their very leaf, [?] and [?]. There are many flowers that bow down to so modestly you cannot see the color in their cheek until you lift up their head, putting your hand under their round chin. Indeed any kind of personal attractions, whether they be those of the body, the mind or the heart may become temptations to pride and arbitrariness and foolish assumption. The mythological story of a man who, seeing himself mirrored in a stream, became so enamored of his ap-

pearance that [?] of the effects illustrates the fatalities under which thousands of both sexes have fallen by the view of their own superiority. Ex-

traordinary [?] cause extraordinary temptation. Men who [?] good moral health down in the valley on the top of the mountain are seized of consumption.

Bad Home Influences. Again, our subject exhibits what religion may be under bad domestic influences. Hadassah was snatched from the godly home into which she had been adopted and introduced into the abominable associations of which wicked Ahasuerus was the center. What a whirl of blasphemy and drunkenness and licentiousness! No altar, no prayer, no Sabbath, no God! If this captive girl can be a Christian there, then it is possible to be a Christian anywhere. There are many of the best people of the world who are obliged to contend with the most adverse domestic influences, children who have grown up into the love of God under the frown of parents, and under the discouragement of bad example. Some sister of the family having professed the faith of Jesus is the subject of unbounded satire inflicted by brothers and sisters. Yes, Hadassah was not the only Christian who had a queer husband! It is no easy matter to maintain correct Christian principles when there is a companion disposed to scoff at them and to ascribe every imperfection of character to hypocrisy.

What a hard thing for one member of the family to rightly keep the Sabbath when others are disposed to make it a day of revelry, or to inculcate propriety of speech in the minds of children when there are others to offset the instructions by loose and profane utterances, or to be regularly in attendance upon church when there is more household work demanded for the Lord's day than for any secular day. Do I speak to any laboring under these blighting disadvan-

tages? My subject is full of encouragement. Vast responsibilities rest upon you.

Be the One Good Man. Be faithful, though you stand as much alone as did Lot in Sodom, or Jeremiah in Jerusalem, or Jonah in Nineveh, or Hadassah in the court of Ahasueres, There are trees which grow the best when their roots clutch among the jagged rocks, and you verily have but poor soil in which to develop but grace is a thorough husbandman and can raise a crop anywhere. Glassware is molded over the fire, and in the same way you are to be fitted as a vessel of mercy. The best timber must have on it saw and gouge and beetle. The founda-

tion stone of yours and every other house came out only under crowbar and blast. Files and wrenches and hammers belong to the church. The Christian victory will be bright just in proportion as the battle is hot. Never despair being a thorough Christian in any household which is not worse than the court of Ahasuerus.

Finally our subject illustrates what religion may be in high worldly position. The [?] we see in the Bible of Hadassah is that she has become the queen of Persia. Prepare now to see the departure of her humility and self sacrifice and religious principle. As she goes up you may expect grace to go down. It is easier to be humble in the obscure home of her adopted father than on a throne of dominion. But you misjudge this noble woman. What she was before she is now--the myrtle. Applauded for her beauty and her crown, she forgets not the cause of her suffering people, and with all simplicity of heart still remains a worshiper of the God of heaven.

Dangers In Prosperity. Noble example, followed only by a very few. I address some who, thorough the goodness of God, have risen to positions of influence in the community where you live in law, in merchandise, in medicine, in mechanics and in other useful occupations and professions. You hold an influence for good or for evil.

Let us see whether, like Hadassah, you can stand elevation. Have you as much simplicity of character as once you evidenced? Do you feel as much dependence upon God, as much your won weakness, as much your accountability for talents intrusted, or are you proud and overdemanding and ungrateful and unsympathetic and worldly and sensual and devilish? Then you have been spoiled by your success, and you shall not sit on this throne with the heroine of my text.

In the day when Hadassah shall come to the grander coronation, in the presence of Christ and the bannered hosts of the redeemed, you will be poor indeed. Oh, there are thousands of men who can easily endure to be knocked down of misfortune who are utterly destroyed if lifted up of success. Satan takes them to the top of the pinnacle of the temple and shoves them off. Their head begins to whirl, and they lose their balance and down they go.

While last autumn all through the forests there were luxuriant trees, with moderate out branch and moderate height pretending but little, there were foliage shafts that shot far up, looking down with contempt on the whole for-

est, clapping their hands in the breeze and shouting, "Aha, do you not wish you were as high up as we are?" But last week a blast let loose from the north came rushing along, and grappling the boasting oaks hurled them to the ground, and as they went down an old tree that had been singing psalms with the thun-

der a hundred summers cried out, "Pride goeth before distinction and a haughty spirit before a hall." And humble hickory and pine and chestnut that had ever said their prayers before bowed their heads as much as to say, "Amen!"

My friends, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to humble." Take from my subject encouragement. Attempt the service of God whatever your disadvantages, and whatever our lot let us seek that grace which outshone all the splendors of the palaces of Shushan.

Why Does the Beard Hasten to Be Gray?

A New Yorker not in his first youth said: "My beard is 20 years younger than my hair and looks 20 years older--that is, as you see, it is almost entire-

ly white, while there are comparatively few even gray hairs on my head. They are not in evidence, either, while the whiteness of my beard jumps to the eyes, as the French say. Will some barber or other capillary wise man answer this conundrum. Why does the beard grow white so much sooner than the hair?"--New York Sun.

A Barber's Record. A novel shaving record has been es-

tablished by a Hungarian barber. He made a bet of 100 florins that he would on a railway journey of 20 minutes from Pistiyan to Nenstadtl shave 15 men without cutting them. The bet was more than won, for he actually shaved three more men than the stipulated number.--London News.

From Different Standpoints.

He--Well, I'll say good night. She--Good morning.--New York Sun.

FAIR AUSTRALIA. DR. TALMAGE IMPRESSED BY ITS BEAUTY AND GRANDEUR. Sydney Harbor, the Magnificent Gate to a Wonderful Country--A Beautiful Picture of the Breaking Day--Sweet Voices of the Postoffice Chimes. [Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1894.]

SYDNEY, Aug. 7.--Pitched, shaken, twisted, flung, sickened, bruised, dismayed, alarmed, are some of the words which describe our feelings while crossing from New Zealand to Australia. We heard that the passage was like crossing the channel Calais from France to England, but that, instead of the hour and a half, it would be four days and a

half. It was worse than we expected and worse than usual. We had nearly six days of it. The only alleviation of the voyage was the captain, who was jolly at the time to be jolly, serious at the time to be serious and deeply religious at all times. Converted in a Presbyterian church in New Zealand, he has become a flaming evangel, preaching on board his steamer once or twice every Sabbath.

Our rough sea experience prepared us for full appreciation of one of the brightest panoramas of the land and sky that ever unrolled before mortal vi-

sion. Captain Neville said to us, "We will soon be in sight of the Australian coast, and when we approach the harbor of Sydney come up on my bridge, and I will point out to you the objects of interest." "Thank you," was our reply to the unusual invitation, for sea cap-

tains do not ordinarily like to have company on the steamer's bridge. In a few moments we climbed to the side of the captain. Great walls of rock built by the eternal God reached along the coast and stopped only wide enough apart to allow ships to enter and to keep the boisterous ocean out.

"Yonder," said the captain, "is the retreat in the rocks which in the twilight deceived the captain of the Duncan Dunbar to mistake it for the harbor and to aim for it, crashing into destruction. All on board perished save one man, who was picked up after he had floated down onto the shelving."

Safely we rode in between the two great brown pillars of Hawkesbury sandstone, and then began the revela-

tion of a harbor such as nowhere else in the wide world is to be found. The whole scene is an "Odyssey," a "Divina Commedia," an Old Testament and a New Testament of grandeur and loveliness. You cannot for a moment relax your energy of watching without

missing something which you cannot see again. The white palaces of the merchant princes of Sydney shine through the foliage of the trees. Dipping to the bay are gardens abloom in winter and lawns with an emerald like unto the fourth layer of the wall of heaven. Tropical plants and tropical flowers stand side by side with the growths of more rigorous elements.

Vineyards and orange groves, pomegranates and guavas and pineapples growing in a revelry of luxuriance.

Norfolk pines, palm, Moreton bay fig and Eucalyptus trees, stretch their scepters over the scene. Complete bewitchment of landscapes! "Steady!" cried the captain to the man at the wheel.

"Steady!" But no observer can keep very steady while watching this ever changing, ever inspiring, ever enchant-

ing scene. "Yonder is the monastery. Yonder, just coming in sight, is the admiral's house. Yonder is the university. Yonder are the houses of parliament. Yonder are the old prisons. There is the governor's residence."

Here, sweeping up close to our steamer, are launches and excursionists. Yonder are sailing boats so small they suggest fluttering sea gulls. While the area of

the harbor is said to be nine square miles, the water line of it, if followed up and down all its inlets, would be 1,200 miles. The rippling waters kiss

the beach, and the beach embraces the bay. At the next turn of our steamer's wheel more garniture of island and harbor and inlet and promontory. Oh, how the marine loveliness played "hide and seek" amid the islands! Five grim batteries pointing their Armstrong guns at us, but only in play. "Yonder," says the captain, "is a French steamer, yonder an American and yonder an Englishman."

Sydney harbor is so broad and honest that no pilot was needed to come on board. Room here for all the navies of the earth to ride in and secrete them-

selves so that they could not be found without much search. Room for the Great Easterns of the past and the Campanias of the present to wheel

without peril. Room to welcome all the centuries and generations and ages which are yet to drop anchor in its clear depths. He only belittles and be-

dwarfs and bemeans Sydney harbor who compares it to the bay of Naples or the entrance to Rio Janeiro.

God works by no model, and this harbor was of divine origination. He works with rocks and waters and skies

as easily as architects work with pencil and rule and compass, and he intended this harbor not to be a repetition of anything that had ever been done and to make it impossible for any human engineering or landscape gardening of

hydraulics to imitate. It is a winding splendor, an unfolding glory, a transcendent illustration of what omnipotence can do in the architecture of an ocean gate.

The day we entered it clouds of all hues were looking down into its mirror; beauties of all styles were walking its opaline pavement; grandeurs of all chariots were rolling across its crystal-

line highway. On the captain's bridge we stood until near enough to the whirl to see the deputation of clergymen and preeminent citizens who were waiting to come aboard to greet us, and when they thronged the cabin of the steamer and

addressed us in welcoming words we were compelled by our own feelings to reply, "Brethren and friends, after sailing against head winds and over very rough seas, it is most delightful to get into this beautiful harbor of Sydney and into the still more beautiful harbor of Christian fellowship."

But I was up before daybreak next morning looking at the harbor. The window of my room in the Australia hotel takes in the enchantment, and I watched the coming of the day into the harbor. The whole sky first took on a

pallor not sickly, but healthful, as though there were white wings from the other side shining through. Then there came coruscations, and deep indigoes, and irradiations, and sadnesses of color, and unrolling scrolls prophetic of

more light, and somber and holy gleams, and rhapsodies of advancing day, and then banners of victory over the dark-

ness. Then in this wall of heaven the gates began to swing open. It was no sudden swinging back of the panels of fire. There was no grinding of the gates on the amethystine hinges; there was no clang of bolts hurled back from the imperial portals, but a slow and gradual and overpowering movement that

made me feel there was more to come, and I wondered if I could endure the expanding vision. As I looked into the gate I saw what I described to my son afterward as a scepter, a scepter of great length and brilliance, such a scepter as no earthly emperor ever had in his throneroom. The handle of the scepter had all the colors of the prism. The edges of it were translucent. The point of it was tipped with a waving light all the time changing. Yet what a scepter!

What king would dare to handle it? What monarch would dare to lift it? But while I wondered the question was answered. The king of day, the rising sun, took hold of it, and the scepter which I had seen a few seconds before lying on the shelf of heaven was first hoisted, as though to command the hidden glories of the skies to come down, and then it was pointed to the harbor as the place of their destination, and on that sapphire of the waves both the scepter that I had seen and the crown of the king who took it were put down, and from green island to green island, and from beach to beach, and all up and down the promontories, and from sky to water, and from water to sky, it was morning in Sydney harbor.

Have you ever realized that there is only one being in the universe who can scoop out and mold and buttress and build a harbor? At Napier, New Zea-

land, where we sailed in and staid only long enough for an hour and a half's address, hundreds of thousands of dollars were expended in building a breakwater. And so at Gisborne and at different points on the Australian coast harbors have been constructed by hu-

man hands, but the storms looked at these defiant ramparts, and in the night tumbled the costly works into the Pa-

cific. Harbor building is the reserved right of the heavens. Gates of palaces and gates of fortresses may be turned out from earthly foundries or pounded together by hammers of human mechan-

ism, but an ocean gate like that near which I am now seated needs omnipotence and omniscience and infinity to plan and construct it.

No one but the Eternal knows where such a gate is needed. He sees the history of a continent before it is populated, and he only can decide where its front door ought to be hoisted and swung. Besides that the gate must correspond with the size and greatness of the main building. The door of the Madeleine church would be aboard at the front of a Quaker meeting house.

Bronze and gold would make an inappropriate entrance to a rookery. Such an entrance to Australia as Sydney har-

bor would be something for all time and eternity to jeer at if the country thus entered were not something unmeasurable for wealth, resource and grand opportunity. Had I known nothing of the history of Australia what I saw between the doorposts of this harbor and the wharf of our disembarkation would have convinced me of the present and coming opulence of this fifth continent of the world.

With such an ocean gate I am not sur-

prised that Australia is 14 times as large as France and 33 times as large as England, Scotland and Wales. It has been estimated as capable of supporting 100,-

000,000 people. All wealth of mining and agriculture and commerce and art and scenery are here. Caves larger than

the Mammoth cave of Kentucky; lakes like Como, Lucerne and Geneva; a botany so rich in flowers that Captain

Cook called one of the entrances Botany bay; whole Pennsylvanias of coal mines, discovered by a shipwrecked sail-

or in 1797, but now defying the crow-

bars of the earth to take one-half of their treasures and having enough ma-

terial to warm a continent and keep aglow the steamship furnaces of an

ocean; enough sheep pasture in the vales and on the hills to clothe with their wool whole nations. These sheep, killed and frozen in refrigerators here, are transferred in carts which are refrigera-

tors into ships which are refrigerators and carried across the seas to the refrigerators of Europe and Asia, so that while I write this letter, almost within

sound of the bleating flocks of this sheep raising country, the legs of Australian mutton hang in London markets, and the inhabitants of India are breakfasting on lamb chops brought from the banks

of Sydney harbor. One sheep paddock nearly 200 miles square!

So much of these colonies is in the tropics that they will have a capacity when fully developed to yield enough sugar to sweeten the beverages of the

earth, and raise enough tea to soothe the nerves and stimulate the conversation of the social groups of all zones, and pro-

duce enough cotton to clothe the hemis-

pheres; enough iron to be brought up from the cellar of these colonies to rail track the planet; copper and lead, sil-

ver and gold waiting for resurrection; sapphires and rubies, topaz and chryso-

beryls ready to flash and burn on the bosom of the world's beauty. Cope's creek yielded in one year 25,000 dia-

monds.

Do you say that vast regions are not arable, but a desert? Yes, but boring underneath the sand and rock discover-

ed water which is only waiting to be called up to irrigate the surface. What irrigation has done for Egypt and China and is doing for the American desert will be done for the idle acreage of Australia. It has been demonstrated

again and again that better than the rainfall it is to have water gathered into reservoirs, and so droughts and freshets are avoided, and when you want water you turn it on, and when you want it to stop you turn it off. If

you say there are not enough hills in Australia to pour down the water upon the lands, I reply by asking, Where is the power of machinery? Science and

enterprise will invent a pump that could sprout up the subterraneous and hidden rivers, lakes and oceans of Aus-

tralia. Irrigation will yet abolish the American desert, the Arabian desert, the great Sahara desert and the Australian desert. All hail to the agriculture and mining and merchandise and manufacture and art and opulence and re-

ligion of the coming generations of Australia! After awhile America, the focus of emigration from all lands, will be occupied, and then, if not before,

Australia will call the [?] of the earth who want more room and better chance and easier livelihood to pass through the same ocean gate that opened for us a few days ago, and to feel the welcome blooming from the same skies, and reaching out from the same Hawkesbury sandstone, and breathing in the balsamic atmosphere, and flashing from the depths of the same matchless harbor.

While dictating this lecture to a stenographer in Sydney and looking off upon its harbor I hear the chimes of the bells from the tower of the postoffice.

It is the only postoffice that I have ever known to be graced by such a charm of harmonies. But how appropriate for the postoffice of every city rings out, more

music or tolls more sadness than any other building. There are the piles of letters with joyful tidings and hilarious surprises and marriage announcements,

and every postoffice ought to have a chime of wedding bells. But every post-

office has piles of letters with stories of sadness and bereavement and loss and death and burial, and therefore such a

building ought to have bells to sound the knell and bells to toll the grief.

Ring on, ye bells of [?] postoffice, and sound over yonder harbor your merriment or sadness. [?] every hour that tower [?]. At each quarter hour the air is stirred with melodies, but at the close of each full hour the effect is very peculiar.

Tinkle and clash and jingle and roll go the sweet metallic voices, as much as to say, "Be cheery while the moments go by. Move as [?] as you can and let the passing moments keep step with

the sounding joy. But while you are listening, suddenly there comes in the mighty stroke of the postoffice clock in deepest and most [?] tone, let-

ting you know that one more hour of time is forever past, and it sounds sol-

emn and tremendous, as though at every stroke it said of the hour just departed "Gone! Gone! Gone!"

The deep bass of that last sound over-

powering the merry soprano that pro-

ceeded it. So the gladnesses and solemnities commingle. But perhaps I may have misinterpreted the utterances of that heavy and mighty clock in the post-

office tower. It seemed like the death knell of the hour and seemed to say, "Gone, gone!" But now that I think it over, that bell might have been in a dif-

ferent mood from what I thought, for bells have moods, and they weep, and

they laugh, and they dance, and they groan. It may be that the [?] and overpowering stroke in that tower

might have been one of invitation and that because this harbor is the ocean gate of an almost infinitude of opportunity

and the mines are waiting for more crowbars and the pastorage is wating for more flocks, and the hillsides are waiting for [?], and the pic-

turesque is waiting for more artists, and the fields are waiting for more plows,

and the printing presses are waiting for more authors, and the flora is wait-

ing for more botanists, and the skies are waiting for more astronomers, and the churches are waiting for more worshipers, and these lands are waiting for more occupants, and the harbors[?] are waiting for more [?] bell of the postoffice [?] forth a welcome word to the people of all lands, and the voyagers of all seas, saying, Come, come, come! T. DE WITT TALMAGE.

The Gold Fever.

"I was a resident of San Francisco in 1848 when the gold fever struck that part of the country," said Matthew E.

Farrell, one of the pioneers of California, "and it seemed as though all the people went wild with excitement. As

soon as it became known that gold had been discovered men hastened to sell their real estate and merchandise that they might obtain means to journey to the gold diggings. Rowboats worth $50 were sold for $500 to those wishing to sail up the [?] the Sacramento river. The price of shovels and picks jumped from $1 to $10. Stoves were rummaged for bottles, vials and brass tubes to hold the gold when found.

"In less than two months San Francisco was as if swept by a pestilence. Three-fourths of the male population had gone to the mines. Real estate

dropped fully one half in value, and the same happened to all merchandise not used in the mines. Labor rose tenfold in price. Negro waiters received $10 a

day and cooks $15, but even such wages as these could not induce the eager gold seekers to remain in the city. Nearly every one went to try his luck. Some made their fortunes, but many came back a good deal poorer than when they

started."--St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

The will of Esther Pomeroy, which has been filed for probate at Springfield, Mass., is a peculiar document. It specifies with great detail how each article of personal property is bequeathed, and even gives directions to the executor to finish quilting a bed quilt that it may be in good condition to give to a relative.

There are yet 1,000,000 acres of government land in Kansas open to settlement, not a little of which was tramped over by trappers in order to take chances on getting land in the Cherokee strip that is no better, and in many places is worse, which they had to travel farther to reach and which is very uncertain property to its possessor.

Dreamy Eyes.

"Hasn't she wonderful dreamy eyes?" "Y-a-a-s," replied Willie Wibbles, "she has indeed. Lawst evening when

I called on her she could [?] keep from goin to sleep wight in my pwesence."--Washington Star.

JOHN BROWER, Painter and Glazier. DEALER IN Lewis Bros. Pure White Lead, Lin seed 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]

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 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 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.

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.