approaching the colonel, asked if he was the commanding officer.
"Ugh!" snorted "Old Gabe," as he was affectionately called, "what do you want?"
"I am a humble servant of the Lord endeavoring to save the souls of the unfortunate. I have just left the camp of the —th Massachusetts, where I was instrumental in leading eight men into paths of righteousness."
"Adjutant," thundered Colonel Bouck, after a moment's pause, "detail ten men for baptism. No Massachusetts regiment shall beat mine for piety." (Text.)
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Formation Versus Reformation—See Economy in Work. Former Days—See Crime in Former Days. FORMER LIFE, CONSCIOUSNESS OF Our brains are inherited from our ancestors. Why, then, may it not be that the human brain is a palimpsest, containing more or less faded, yet recoverable records, not only of our entire past life, but of the lives of our ancestors to the remotest periods? Pythagoras profest a distinct recollection of his former lives; the writer of this knows two educated men who have lived before in the persons of rather more famous individuals than their present representatives; Lumen, in Flammarion's "Stories," finds that his soul had passed through many previous conditions. Indeed, the idea of transmigration, which is a poetic forecast of the more scientific doctrine here enunciated, is a very familiar one. Coleridge, in his boyhood one day was proceeding through the Strand, stretching out his arms as if swimming, when a passer-by, feeling a hand at his coat-tail, turned rudely round and seized him as a pickpocket. Coleridge denied the charge, and confest that he had forgotten his whereabouts in the impression that he was Leander swimming across the Hellespont—a wretched street-*lamp being transformed by his imagination into the signal-light of the beautiful priestess of Sestos.—American Notes and Queries.
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Forms—See Spirit and Form.
Forms, Value of—See Experience a
Hard Teacher.
Fortitude—See Endurance of Pain.
FORWARD
At dawn it called, "Go forward without fear!
All paths are open; choose ye, glad and free."
Through morning's toilsome climb it urged the plea,
"Nay, halt not, tho the path ye chose grow dear."
At noon it spake aloud, "Make smooth the way
For other feet. Bend to thy task, tho weight
Of sorrow press thee. Others dower, tho fate
Deny thy secret wish." Through later day
It warns, "Climb on! Heights woo! The waning light
Bids haste! Yet scorn not those who lag behind,
Confused by lengthening rays that clear thy sight,
These, too, have striv'n all day their way to find."
At eve, when flaming sunset fades, O hear
Dawn's echoing call, "Go forward without
fear."
—Anna Garlin Spencer.
(1140)
Forward Look, A—See Prevision.
FORWARD, PRESSING
In a poem, "The Second Mile," by Dr. Oakley E. Van Slyke, occurs the following verse:
Be mine, dear Lord, to think not what I must,
But of the power bequeathed to me in trust.
Be mine, I pray, to go the second mile,
Do better than I need to all the while.
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FOUNDATIONS
All northern Italy from Genoa to Venice
was shaken not long ago by a great earth-*quake
shock. The seismic disturbances continued
at intervals during several days.
The people were terror-stricken, fearing the
worst. It was significant that while the
shock was severely felt on both sides of the
Adriatic, it was scarcely perceptible in
Venice, due probably to the fact that much
care, forethought and skill had been exercised
in laying the city's foundations. Every
building of importance is supported by piles
driven from sixty to one hundred feet into
the mud of the lagoons.
In character building our only safety lies in sure foundation. (Text.)
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