Greeks invented the giant Atlas, the Hindus contrived a huge turtle to bear the world upon its patient back. What sustained the giant or the monster, the ancient mind inquired not. To make everything out of anything and believe with implicit faith in his own creations was the happy faculty of early man, not entirely fallen from possession in these days of all-questioning. The first Egyptians knew that the heavens and the earth were formed by the breaking of the cosmic egg, an idea suggested by the resemblance of the skies to the half of an eggshell. That is as poetic and more agreeable than the Norse idea of a giant dashed to pieces to make earth, water, and starry firmament. The Mexican legend as to the creation of man resembles the Hebraic, clay and the breath of life admitted. But the North American Indians explain the mixt nature of man by declaring that the daughter of the Great Spirit, living in the wigwam, Mount Shasta, stole forth one day, was seized by a patriarchal grizzly, who took her home and wedded her to his son. Man was the result of this union. As a punishment for the sacrilege in contaminating the race of the Great Spirit grizzlies were deprived the power of speech and made to wander ever after on all fours.—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
(590)
Cosmopolitanism—See Americanism, True.
Cosmopolitanism in Education—See
Education by Travel.
Cost of Disease—See Health and
Science.
COST RECKONED
When your child throws away a piece of
bread, make him pick it up again and tell
him the history of that piece of bread. Tell
him what has been requisite that that bread
might exist. Tell him of the toils of the
plowman and of the sower, under the sky,
inclement and changeful; the obscure bursting
of the seed in the ground, the long sleep
under the snow, the awakening in the spring,
when the green life along the furrows makes
its orisons to the sun, source of life. Describe
the hope of the farmer when the corn
puts forth its ears, and his anguish when the
storm rises on the horizon. Do not forget
the harvester who wields his scythe in the
dog-day heat, and that poor prisoner of the
cities, pledged to nocturnal toil in overheated
cellars, the baker. (Text.)—Charles Wagner,
"The Gospel of Life."
(591)
COST, THE
In the Newark, N. J., public library is a
statue of Benjamin Franklin carved in
Carrara marble. It embodies an incident in
his life. When a lad he bought a whistle
from a playmate, giving all the coppers he
possest for it. He whistled all over the
house, until his brothers and sisters told
him he had paid too much for the whistle,
laughing at him until he cried from mortification
and chagrin.
Franklin was not the first nor the
last to pay too much for the whistle.
Music is not the only thing that may
come at too high a price.
(592)
COUNTENANCE, GRACE IN THE
The face of the veteran missionary, John
G. Paton, was itself an inspiration to the
beholder and a revelation to the triumphs of
the grace of God in the man. Once when
Principal Story was introducing him to an
audience, he casually remarked that much of
Doctor Paton's life had been spent among
savages and cannibals, and many a time he
had been in danger of being killed and
eaten, but had escaped unscathed. "But,"
added Principal Story, "I do not wonder,
for had I been one of those cannibals, one
look at that benignant face would have been
enough to make me a vegetarian for the rest
of my days." (Text.)
(593)
Counterfeiters—See Criminals, Tracing.
COUNTRY ADVANTAGES
Only forty-seven per cent of our population
of working age reside in the country
districts; they furnish fifty-seven per cent
of our successful men, while the cities, with
twenty per cent of the population, furnish
seventeen per cent.
(594)
COUNTRY, A NEW
A Chinese lived in Yokohama some twelve
years ago. He was a house-painter by occupation,
and went about wearing a very much
bedaubed suit of clothes, caked here and
there with white and green and yellow. He
was a Christian and attended church regularly.
When the leader said, "Let any one
pray who will," John never failed to take
part. The gladness of his soul spoke itself
forth in a kind of Cantonned Japanese, the
