TWELVE WIDE GATES. REV. DR. TALMAGE ON THE ENTRANCES TO HEAVEN.

He Preaches to a Mighty Throng at the Great Academy of Music In New York. His Subject, "The Gates of Heaven." NEW YORK, April 7.--The bright spring weather has brought still larger crowds to the Sunday afternoon services conducted by Rev. Dr. Talmage. He took for his subject today "The Gates of Heaven," the text being Revelation xxi, 13, "On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; on the west three gates." The Cashmere gate of Delhi, where converged a heroism that makes one's nerves tingle, the Lucknow gate, still dented and scarred with sepoy bombardment, the Madeline gate with its emblazonry in bronze, the hundred gates of Thebes, the wonder of centuries, all go out of sight before the gates of my

text.

Our subject speaks of a great metropolis, the existence of which many have doubted. Standing on the wharf and looking off upon the harbor and seeing the merchantmen coming up the bay, the flags of foreign nations streaming from the topgallants, you immediately make up your mind that those vessels come from foreign ports, and you say, "That is from Hamburg, and that is from Marseilles, and that is from Southampton, and that is from Havana," and your supposition is accurate. But from the city of which I am now speaking no weather beaten merchantmen or frigates with scarred bulkhead have ever come. There has been a vast emigration into that city, but no emigration from it, so far as our natural vision can

descry.

"There is no such city," says the undevout astronomer. "I have stood in high towers with a mighty telescope and have swept the heavens, and I have seen spots on the sun and caverns in the moon, but no towers have ever risen on my vision, no palaces, no temples, no shining streets, no massive wall. There is no such city." Even very good people tell me that heaven is not a material organism, but a grand spiritual fact, and that the Bible descriptions of it are in all cases to be taken figuratively. I bring in reply to this what Christ said, and he ought to know, "I go to pre-pare"--not a theory, not a principle, not a sentiment, but "I go to prepare a place for you." The resurrected body implies this. If my foot is to be reformed from the dust, it must have something to tread on. If my hand is to be reconstructed, it must have something to handle. If my eye, hearing having gone out in death, is to be rekindled, I must have something to gaze on. Your adverse theory seems to imply that the resurrected body is to be hung on nothing, or to walk in air, or to float amid the intangibles. You may say if there be material organisms then a soul in heaven will be cramped and hindered in its enjoyments, but I answer, Did not Adam and Eve have plenty of room in the garden of Eden? Although only a few miles would have described the circumference of that place, they had ample room. And do you not suppose that God, in the immensities, can build a place large enough to give the whole race room, even though there be material organisms? The Prospect. Herschel looked into the heavens. As a Swiss guide puts his Alpine stock between the glaciers and crosses over from crag to crag, so Herschel planted his telescope between the worlds and glided from star to star until he could announce to us that we live in a part of the universe but sparsely strewn with worlds, and he peers out into immensity until he finds a region no larger than our solar system in which there are 50,000 worlds moving. And Professor Lang says that by a philosophic reasoning there must be somewhere a world where there is no darkness, but everlasting sunshine, so that I do not know but that it is simply because we have no telescope powerful enough that we cannot see into the land where there is no darkness at all and catch a glimpse of the burnished pinnacles. As a conquering army marching on to take a city comes at nightfall to the crest of a mountain from which, in the midst of the landscape, they see the castles they are to capture and rein in their war charges and halt to take a good look before they pitch their tents for the night, so now, coming as we do on this mountain top of prospect, I command this regiment of God to rein in their thoughts and halt, and before they pitch their tents for the night take one good, long look at the gates of the great city. "On the east, three gates; on the north, three gates; on the south, three gates, and on the west three gates."

In the first place, I want to examine the architecture of those gates. Proprietors of large estates are very apt to have an ornamental gateway. Sometimes they spring an arch of masonry, the posts of the gate flanked with lions in statuary, the bronze gate a representation of intertwining foliage, bird haunted, until the hand of architectural genius drops exhausted, all its life frozen into stone. Gates of wood and iron and stone guarded nearly all the old cities. Moslems have inscribed upon their gateways inscriptions from the Koran of the Mohammedan. There have been a great many fine gateways, but Christ sets his hand to the work and for the upper city swung a gate such as no eye ever gazed on, untouched of inspiration. With the nail of his own cross he cut into its wonderful traceries stories of past suffering and of gladness to come. There is no wood or stone or bronze in that gate, but from top to base and from side to side it is all of pearl. Not one piece picked up from Ceylon banks, and another piece from the Persian gulf, and another from the island of Margarette, but one solid pearl picked up from the place of everlasting light by heavenly hands and hoisted and swung amid the shouting of angels. The glories of alabaster vase and porphyry pillar fade out before this gateway. It puts out the spark of feldspar and diamond. You know how one little precious stone on your finger will flush under the gaslight. But, oh! the brightness when the great gate of heaven swings, struck through and dripping with the light of eternal noonday.

Gate of Pearl.

Julius Caesar paid 125,000 crowns for one pearl. The government of Portu-

gal boasted of having a pearl larger than a pear. Cleopatra and Philip II dazzled the world's vision with precious stones.

But gather all those together and lift them and add to them all the wealth of the pearl fisheries and set them in the panel of one door and it does not equal

this magnificent gateway. An almighty hand hewed this, swung this, polished this. Against this gateway, on the one side, clash all the splendors of earthly

beauty. Against this gate on the other side beat the surges of eternal glory. Oh, the gate, the gate! It strikes an infinite charm through every one that passes it. One step this side of the gate and we are paupers. One step the other side of the gate and we are kings. The pilgrim of earth going through sees in the one huge pearl of all his earthly tears in crystal. Oh, gate of light, gate of pearl, gate of heaven for our weary souls at last swing open!

When shall these eyes thy heaven built walls And pearly gates behold: Thy bulwarks with salvation strong And streets of shining gold?

Oh, heaven is not a dull place!

Heaven is not a contracted place. Heaven is not a stupid place. "I saw the 12 gates, and they were 12 pearls."

In the second place I want you to count the number of these gates. Imperial parks and lordly manors are apt to

have one expensive gateway, and the others are ordinary, but look around at

these entrances to heaven and count them. One, two, three, four, five, six,

seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Hear it, all the earth and all the heavens! Twelve gates!

Hard on Sectarianism.

I admit this is rather hard on sharp sectarianisms! If a Presbyterian is bigoted, he brings his Westminster assem-

bly catechism, and he makes a gateway out of that, and he says to the world, "You go through there or stay out." If a member of the Reformed church is bigoted, he makes a gate out of the Heidelberg catechism, and he says, "You go through there or stay out!" If a Methodist is bigoted, he plants two posts, and he says, "Now, you crowd in between those two posts or stay out." Or perhaps an Episcopalian may say: "Here is a liturgy out of which I mean to make a gate. Go through it or stay out," or a Baptist may say: "Here is a water gate. You go through that, or you must stay out," and so in all our churches and in all our denominations there are men who make one gate for themselves and then demand that the whole world go through it. I abhor this contractedness in religious views. O small souled man, when did God give you the contract for making gates? I tell you plainly I will not go in that gate. I will go in at any one of the 12 gates I choose. Here is a man who says,

"I can more easily and more closely ap-

proach God through a prayer book."

I say, "My brother, then use the prayer book." Here is a man who says, "I believe there is only one mode of baptism, and that is immersion." Then I say, "Let me plunge you." Anyhow, I say, away with the gate of rough panel and rotten posts and rusted latch, when there are 12 gates and they are 12 pearls. The fact is that a great many of the churches in this day are being doctrined to death. They have been trying to find out all about God's decrees, and they want to know who are elected to be saved and who are reprobated to be damned, and they are keeping on discussing that subject when there are millions of souls who need to have the truth put straight at them. They sit counting the number of teeth in the jawbone with which Sampson slew the Philistines. They sit on the beach and see a vessel going to pieces in the offing, and instead of getting into a boat and pulling away for the wreck, they sit discussing the different styles of oarlocks. God intended us to know some things and intended us not to know others. I have heard scores of sermons explanatory of God's decrees, but came away more perplexed than when I went. The only result of such discussion is a great fog. Here are two truths which are to conquer the world: Man, a sinner; Christ, a Saviour. Any man who adopts those two theories in his religious belief shall have my right hand in warm grip of Christian brotherhood.

Empty-Handed.

A man comes down to a river in time of freshet. He wants to get across. He has to swim. What does he do? The first thing is to put off his heavy apparel and drop everything he has in his hands. He must go empty handed if he is going to the other bank. And I tell you when we have come down to the river of death and find it swift and raging we will have to put off all our sectarianism and lay down all our cumbrous creed and empty handed put out for the other shore. "What," say you, "would you resolve all the Christian church into one kind of church? Would you make all Christendom worship in the same way, by the same forms?" Oh, no. You might as well decide that all people shall eat the same kind of food without reference to appetite or wear the same kind of apparel without reference to the shape of their body. Your ancestry, your temperament, your surroundings, will decide whether you go in this or that church and adopt this or that church polity. One church will best get one man to heaven and another church another man. I do not care which one of the gates you go through if you only go through one of the 12 gates that Jesus lifted. Well, now I see all the redeemed of earth coming up toward heaven. Do you think they will all get in? Yes. Gate the first; the Moravians come up; they believed in the Lord Jesus; they pass through. Gate the second, the Quakers come up; they have received the inward light; they have trusted in the Lord; they pass through. Gate the third, the Lutherans come up; they had the same grace that made Luther what he was, and they pass through. Gate the fourth, the Baptists pass through. Gate the fifth, Free Will Baptits pass through. Gate the sixth, the Reformed church passes through. Gate the seventh, the Congregationalists pass through. Gate the eighth, the German Reformed church passes through. Gate the ninth, the Methodists pass through. Gate the tenth, the Sabbatarians pass through. Gate the eleventh, the Church of the Disciples pass through. Gate the twelfth, the Presbyterians pass through. But there are a great part of other denominations who must come in, and great multitudes who connected themselves with no visible church, but felt the power of godliness in their heart and showed it in their life. Where is their gate? Will you shut all the remaining host out of the city? No. They may come in at our gate. Hosts of God, if you cannot get admission through any other entrance, come in at the twelfth gate. Now they mingle before the throne. Looking up at the one hundred and forty four thousand, you cannot tell which gate they came in. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one glassy sea, one doxology, one triumph, one heaven! "Why, Luther, how did you get in?" "I came through the third gate." "Crammer, how did you get in?" "I came through the eighth gate." "Adoniram Judson, how did you get through?" "I came through the seventh gate." "Hugh McKail, the martyr, how did you get through?" "I came through the twelfth gate." Glory to God, 12 gates, but one heaven! Points of the Compass. In the third place, notice the points of the compass toward which these gates look. They are not on one side, or on two sides, or on three sides, but on four sides. This is no fancy of mine, but a distinct announcement. On the north three gates, on the south three gates, on the east three gates, on the west three gates. What does that mean? Why, it means that all nationalities are included, and it does not make any difference from what quarter of the earth a man comes up; if his heart is right, there is a gate open before him. On the north three gates. That means mercy for Lapland and Siberia and Norway and Sweden. On the south three gates. That means pardon for Hindostan and Algiers and Ethiopia. On the east three gates. That means salvation for China and Japan and Borneo. On the west three gates. That means redemption for America. It does not make any difference how dark skinned or how pale faced men may be, they will find a gate right before them. Those plucked bananas under a tropical sun. These shot across Russian snows behind reindeer. From Mexican plateau, from Roman campania, from Chinese teafield, from Holland dike, from Scotch highlands they come, they come. Heaven is not a monopoly for a few precious souls. It is not a Windsor castle, built only for royal families. It is not a small town with small population, but John saw it, and he noticed that an angel was measuring it, and he measured it this way, and then he measured it that way, and whichever way he measured it it was 1,500 miles, so that Babylon and Tyre and Nineveh and St. Petersburg and Canton and Peking and Paris and London and New York and all the dead cities of the past and all the living cities of the present added together would not equal the census of that great metropolis.

Walking along a street you can, by the contour of the dress or of the face, guess where a man comes from. You say: "That is a Frenchman; that is a Norwegian; that is an American." But the gates that gather in the righteous will bring them in irrespective of nationality. Foreigners sometimes get homesick. Some of the tenderest and most pathetic stories have been told of those who left their native clime and longed for it until they died. But the Swiss, coming to the high residence of heaven, will not long any more for the Alps, standing amid the eternal hills. The Russian will not long any more for the luxuriant harvest field he left now that he hears the hum and the rustle of the harvests of everlasting light. The royal ones from earth will not long to go back again to the earthly court now that they stand in the palaces of the sun. Those who once lived among the groves of spice and oranges will not long to return now that they stand under the trees of life that bear 12 manner of fruit.

Pouring Through In Throngs. While I speak an everlasting throng is pouring through the gates. They are going up from Senegambia, from Patagonia, from Madras, from Hongkong. "What," you say, "do you introduce all the heathen into glory?" I tell you the fact is that a majority of the people of those climes die in infancy, and the infants all go straight into everlasting life, and so the vast majority of those who die in China and India, the vast majority who die in Africa, go straight into the skies--they die in infancy. One hundred and sixty generations have been born since the world was created, and so I estimate that there must be 15,000,000,000 children in glory. If at a concern 2,000 children sing, your soul is raptured within you. Oh, the transport when 15,000,000,000 little ones stand up in white before the throne of God, their chant drowning out all the stupendous harmonies of Dusseldorf and Leipsic. Pour in through the 12 gates. Oh, ye redeemed, banner lifted, rank after rank, saved battalion after saved battalion, until all the city of God shall hear the tramp, tramp! Crowd all the 12 gates. Room yet. Room on the thrones. Room in the mansions. Room on the river bank. Let the trumpet of invitation he sounded he sounded until all earth's mountains hear the shrill blast and the glens echo it. Let the missionaries tell it in pagoda and colporteurs sound it across the western prairies. Shout it to the Laplander on his swift sled. Hallo it to the Bedouin careering across the desert. News, news! A glorious heaven and 12 gates to get into it! Hear it, O you think blooded nations of eternal winter--on the north three gates! Hear it, O you bronzed inhabitants panting under equatorial heats--on the south three gates! But I notice when John saw these gates they were open--wide open. They will not always be so. After awhile heaven will have gathered up all its intended population and the children of God will have come home. Every crown taken. Every harp struck. Every throne mounted. All the glories of the universe harvested in the great garner. And heaven being made up, of course the gates will be shut. Russia in, and the second gate shut. Italy in, and the third gate shut. Egypt in, and the fourth gate shut. Spain in, and the fifth gate shut. France in, and the sixth gate shut. England in, and the seventh gate shut. Norway in, and the eighth gate shut. Switzerland in, and the ninth gate shut. Hindustan in, and the tenth gate shut. Siberia in and the eleventh gate shut. All these gates are closed but one! Now, let America go in with all the islands of the sea and all the other nations that have called on God. The captives all freed. The harvests all gathered. The nations all saved. The flashing splendor of this last pearl begins to move on its hinges. Let two mighty angels put their shoulders to the gate and heave it to with silvery clang. It is done! It thunders! The twelfth gate shut! Open and Wide. Once more I want to show you the gatekeepers. There is one angel at each one of those gates. You say that is right. Of course it is. You know that no earthly palace or another fortress would be safe without a sentry pacing up and down by night and by day, and if there were no defenses before heaven, and the doors set wide open with no one to guard them, all the vicious of earth would go up after awhile, and all the abandoned of hell would go up after awhile, and heaven, instead of being a world of light and joy and peace and blessedness, would be a world of darkness and horror. So I am glad to tell you that, while these 12 gates stand open to let a great multitude in, there are 12 angels to keep some people out. Robespierre cannot go through there, nor Hildebrand, nor Nero, nor any of the debauched of the earth who have not repented of their wickedness. If one of these nefarious men who despised that should come to the gate, one of the keepers would put his hand on his shoulder and push him into outer darkness. There is no place in that land for thieves and liars and whoremongers and defrauders, and all those who disgraced their race and fought against their God. If a miser should get in there, he would pull up the golden pavement. If a house burner

should get in there, he would set fire to

the mansions. If the libertines should get

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in there, he would whisper his abomina-

tions standing on the white coral of the seabeach. Only those who are blood washed and prayer lipped will get through. Oh, my brother, if you should at last come up to one of the gates and try to get through, and you had not a pass written by the crushed hand of the son of God, the gatekeeper would, with one glance, wither you forever.

There will be a password at the gate of heaven. Do you know what that password is? Here comes a crowd of souls up to the gate, and they say: "Let me in; let me in. I was very useful on earth. I endowed colleges, I built churches and was famous for my charities, and having done so many wonderful things for the world I come up to get my reward. A voice from within says, "I never knew you." Another great crowd comes up, and they try to get through. They say, "We were highly honored on earth, and the world bowwest very lowly before us. We were honored on earth, and now we come up to get our honor in heaven." And a voice from within says, "I never knew you." Another crowd advances and says, "We were very moral people on earth, very moral indeed, and we come up to get appropriate recognition." A voice answers, "I never knew you."

The Entrance Fee. After awhile I see another throng approach the gate, and one seems to be spokesman for all the rest, although their voices ever and anon cry, "Amen, amen!" This one stands at the gate and says: "Let me in. I was a wanderer from God. I deserved to die. I have come up to this place, not because I deserve it, but because I have heard that there is a saving power in the blood of Jesus." The gatekeeper says, "That is the password, 'Jesus, Jesus!'" And they go in and surround the throne, and the cry is, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive blessing and riches and honor and glory and power, world without end!" I stand here this hour to invite you into any one of the 12 gates. I tell you now that unless your heart is changed by the grace of God you cannot get in. I do not care where you come from, or who your father was, or what your brilliant surroundings--unless you repent of your sin and take Christ for your divine Saviour you cannot get in. Are you willing, then, this moment, just where you are, to kneel down and cry to the Lord Almighty for his deliverance? You want to get in, do you not? Oh, you have some good friends there. This last year there was some one who went out from your home into that blessed place. They did not have any trouble getting through the gates, did they? No, they knew the blessed password, and, coming up, they said, "Jesus!" and the cry was, "Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates, and let them come in." Oh, when heaven is all done and the troops of God shout the castle taken, how grand it will be if you and I are among them! Blessed are they who enter in through the gates into the city.

MAKING WILLS. Typewritten Testaments Are Not Held In High Esteem by Lawyers. Some comment has been caused in legal circles by the fact that the will of the late J. Hood Wright, disposing of an estate of over $5,000,000, is typewritten. The will occupies more than ten pages of typewritten matter and is loosely bound together by a silk cord. It appears that the highest form of legal practice in the matter of wills is that these documents, no matter how long, should all be written by hand This is not merely the survival of an old form still adhered to in spite of the greater legibility of typewriting. The opinion of lawyers who practice in the surrogate's court and have to do with the disposition of great estates is that the writing of a will affords added protection against fraud. It is said that while it would be a comparatively easy matter to imitate typewriting and introduce a bogus sheet somewhere in the body of the document if it ran over several pages, yet that this could not be easily be done when all the matter was written by hand. In the latter case not only would the handwriting of the genuine document have to be imitated, which imitation would in itself be forgery and a crime, but the ink and paper would also have to be imitated. There are only a few varieties of typewriter paper, and the inks used on typewriters do not number more than a dozen. J. Hood Wright was an active member of the firm of Drexel, Morgan & Co. and accustomed to large business transactions. His counsel was one of the best known firms of lawyers in this city, under whose advice, it is presumed, he acted when drawing his will. At the same time the files of the surrogate's office show that the will of William H. Vanderbilt, disposing of an estate of over $200,000,000, was typewritten, occupying many sheets of paper. It would undoubtedly be an added protection against frauds in wills if these documents, when on separate sheets, could be bound together and sealed in such a way that one sheet could not be removed and another substituted. The law does not make such a provision, however, and wills of all kinds have been probated in this county. One will, which was long a curiosity in the surrogate's office, was written in pencil on the inside of a German primer. Another will, which was probated recently in this county, was between two sheets of glass, while many wills disposing of large fortunes have been accepted, although written altogether in pencil. It is a matter of frequent occurrence for wills to be offered for probate, many of them leaving immense sums of money, where the testator did not know how to sign his or her name and made a "mark," or cross. That "goes" before the surrogate just as well as the signature which is signed with a flourish, providing the document is properly witnessed and otherwise complies with the requirements of the law.--New York World.

CHICAGO'S APOSTOLIC NEWSBOY. One of the Curiosities Left Over From the Big Exposition. Probably 500,000 people know him by sight. Certainly not 500 know his name, but anywhere he would be a marked man. He looks like old pictures of the apostles. His long black hair hangs about his neck in locks which curl at the ends. His beard is like a fringe about his olive colored, oval face. His eyes are large and lustrous. He quotes Scripture with the air of a prophet. He lives in the cheap temperance hotel and saves exactly the same amount of money every day of his life.

He is one of the curiosities left over from the World's fair. When the great

exhibition was at its height, he drifted into the city. He came from Kentucky, but neither whisky nor fast horses had the slightest attraction for him. The first day he struck Chicago he became a newsboy. His peculiar dress, his awkward manners and his strange personal appearance made him at once the object of the sharp wit and the rough jokes of the little arabs whose business it is to sell papers on the streets. But Willie, as they call him in derision, met all their attacks with a calmness which was disarming. When they upset him and spilled his papers, he got up and gently reproved them by quoting a verse from the Bible. When they put lumps of ice down his back, he shook them out of his trousers leg and bade them "do unto others as they would have others do unto them." Gradually he won their respect. They have rough but strict rules of honesty among themselves, and they found Willie was always ready to live up to the very letter of the law. A penny's change either way was a matter of grave concern for Willie. The smaller boys found a friend in Willie. He was willing to take their part on every occasion, and his long black hair was waved in the thickest of many a hard fought fight in Newspaper alley, but always he played the part of a peacemaker and smote only that the right might prevail. At the same time Willie is not slow to look after his own interests. The first day after his adventures as a newsboy in in a great city Willie took his stand at the corner of State and Madison streets, and there he has stood every day, in spite of winds and weather, sickness and repeated attacks of other boys who had come to regard that crowded corner as their particular property. Their first plan was to fairly surround Willie with small and shrill voiced boys, who drowned his deep bellow with their treble yells and cut off every possible customer by darting between him and the strange long haired vender.

But the small boys found Willie immovable. He had come there to sell papers, anad sell papers he would though all the newsboys in Chicago should try to prevent him. If he could not make himself heard above their uproar he could keep quiet. So early in the engagement he spiked their guns in that direction, and so for months Willie has not called his papers. He simply stands like an oriental figure on the busy corner, holding up a copy of the paper before the eyes of every passerby.

It is said of him that he never "gets stuck" on his papers, because he never goes home until the last one is sold; that he lives on exactly the same amount of money every day, and that he has never sworn or told a lie in his life, in all of which particularts it may be observed that his apolistic appearance is borne out.--Chicago Tribune.

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Who Is the "Best Man" In Congress?

Who is the best man in congress physically? That was the question a group

of gentlemen were discussing in a snug

corner at Page's, the inquiry being apro-

apropos of some recent attempts at fisticuffs on the floor of the house. Nobody could answer with certainty, though it was regarded as a pretty sure thing that among 356 men there were quite a number who would be able to give a good account of themselves in a scrapping match. One gentleman remarked that Mr. Boutelle of Maine was the possessor of a superb physique, and another said that Champ Clark of Missouri had been known to lift 1,250 dead weight, though that was some years ago. "I have an idea," said Mr. Louis R. Edwards, "that Representative George W. Ray of Norwich, N. Y. is among the very best men in the present congress. He is one of the most powerful men physically I ever knew, and his muscles are like steel. He has the advantage of a superb constitution, the result of country breeding, having passed his youthful days on a farm. I saw four men tackle him once, with the intention of doing him up, whereupon Hay lit on the quartet and thrashed every one of them till they begged for mercy. I would be sorry for any one man that would try conclusions with him in a rough and tumble fight."--Washington Post.

The Writing of "Ben-Hur."

General Lew Wallace in his lecture on "Ben-Hur" recounts some facts in connection with the writing of that famous novel. At the time he wrote the story General Wallace had never visited the Holy Land, and under the circumstances his accurate pictures are little short of martyrdoms. All the information

he had was obtained from personal acquaintances who had traveled through

Palestine and from reading the writings of other authors. A large map was before him as he wrote, and he constantly had to draw on his imagination, but in this respect he was always fortunate and never made a blunder in his descrip-

tions. In fact, the Palestine of "Ben Hur" is generally regarded as authoritative, and General Wallace relates with keen relish how a younger author wrote

a story, the scene of which was laid in the Holy Land, and stole all his descriptions bodily from "Ben Hur." General Wallace says that his hardest task in writing this book was to find a hero. His favorite passage in the story is the scene of Ben Hur's [?] describes the miracles of Christ. General Wallace believes that true art is dis-

played in this passage [?] in the famous [?] regarded as the strongest passage of the book.

Interesting to Parents.

Mothers of puny and delicate babies need need not despair. The excessively weak

condition of Voltaire prevented his be-

ing baptized for several months after he was born. Perhaps he protested at that early age! Newton was so small and frail at his birth that his life was despaired of. He lived, however, like Voltaire to the age of 85. Jean Jacques Rousseau says: "Come into the world sick and [?]. Up to the age of 5 the life of De Thou, the historian (born 1553), hung by a slender thread. Fontenelle, whose mental faculties remained unimpaired to the end of his long life -- he died within a month after being a centenarian-- was so delicate in his infancy that he was not allowed to be taken out into the open air. Walter Scott was an invalid before the age of 2. His right leg being partly paralyzed, the poor fellow had to support himself on a crutch. After being sent to the hill country with his father he came back strong and active. And Victor Hugo has told us in his how delicate he was from his birth, and what anxious [?] him two [?].--[?]

A [?] Vagrant. "Ex[?] of work want [?]." "How [?]" "Tw[?]." "H[?]" M[?]. I must [?] and I [?] --[?]

What [?]. There [?]. It [?] popular [?]. It [?].--[?]

Napoleon's Genius In War.

The conquered Milanese were by a magical touch provided with a provisional government, ready, after the tardy assent of the director, to be

changed into the Transpadane republic,

under French protection. Every detail of

administration, every official and his

functions, came under Bonaparte's direction. He knew the land and its re-

sources, the people and their capacities,

the mutual relations of the surrounding

states and the idiosyncrasies of their rulers. Such laborious analysis as his

dispatches display, such grasp both of outline and detail, such absence of confusion and clearness of vision, such lack

of hesitance and definition of plan,

seem to prove that either a hero or a demon is again on earth.

All the capacity this marched hitherto shown, great at [sic] it was, sinks into insignificance when compared with the Olympian powers he now displays and

will continue to display for years to

come. His sinews are iron, his nerves

are steel, his eyes need no sleep and his

brain no rest. What a captured Hungarian veteran said of him at Lodi is as true of his political activity as of his military restlessness: "He knows nothing of the regular rules of war. He is sometimes on our front, sometimes on the flank, sometimes in the rear. There is no supporting such a gross violation of rules." His sense and his reason

were indeed untrammeled by human

limitations. They worked on front, rear and flank, often simultaneously and always without confusion.--Professor

Sloan's "Life of Napoleon" in Century.

Value of a Railroad. The chief engineer in charge of the first line of the Mexican [?] Railway met by a [?] what seemed a danger [?] opposition to the road. After the [?] of the road from [?] of the "conductor" [?] pack and [?] the local carrying [?] until at length [?] hand [?] and [?] that [?]. The [?].--New York Sun.

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