market-basket home for me yesterday; why do you think he did it?" "To teach you the difference between a real gentleman and a snob," was the caustic reply. If some of these modern aristocrats who consider labor degrading had gone into the carpenter-shop of Joseph about A.D. 28 or 29, and seen a young man named Jesus at work there, they would have decided at once that he was no gentleman. If they had gone into the rooms of Aquilla at Corinth, a few years later, and seen Paul sewing on tents ("For he abode with them and wrought," Acts 7:3), they would have despised him because his hands ministered to his necessities. They would not have gone into the synagog next Sabbath to hear that tent-maker preach. No, indeed! Now, can a standard of gentility that excludes Hon. John Marshall, Apostle Paul, and our adorable Savior be a true one?—Obadiah Oldschool, The Interior.
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Gentle Auxiliaries.—See Handiwork of Nature.
Gentleman versus Snob—See Gentility,
False Standards of.
Gentlemanliness.—See Kindness.
Genuineness, Tests of—See Tests.
Germs, Moral.—See Sin, Subtlety of.
GESTURES AND USE OF HANDS IN THE EAST
As we (missionaries) talk in the street, or
in chapels, we begin to gesture. Remember
that many gestures have well-known and
disreputable meanings. For instance, I have
been holding my hand behind my back as
I have been speaking to you. It is a most
offensive thing in some countries to hold
your hand behind your back. An African
missionary was just about concluding difficult
negotiations with a chief, when he
closed his eyes and placed his hands over
them. Instantly chief and subjects alike
arose in wrath and nothing further could
be done with them. That use of the hand
had lost the missionary all that he had
gained. The Westerner, in Kipling's phrase,
is always hustling. He must get to a place
just as quickly as possible, but in getting
there he offends propriety. He ought not
to walk rapidly; he is not a letter-carrier nor
a coolie. Why does he not walk as a gentleman
should?—H. P. Beach, "Student
Volunteer Movement," 1906.
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GETTING AND GIVING
In South America grows a species of the
palm known there as "the rain-tree." It is
so called because of its remarkable power
of abstracting moisture from the atmosphere
and dropping it in copious and refreshing
dew on the earth around it. In this way it
makes an oasis of luxuriant vegetation where
it flourishes.
Is not that the ideal life that gets and
gives; that draws the good only to
communicate it to others, so blessing the
world with moral verdure and fruitfulness?
(Text.)
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See Conservation.
Ghosts, Discredited.—See Reality
versus Illusion.
GIANTS
A scheme to produce moral and spiritual giants would be of more value to the world than the following:
Some time since Count Alfred de Pierrecourt
left a legacy of $2,000,000 to his native
city of Rouen to pay the expense of the
propagation of giants. The will was contested
by his heirs, who naturally enough did
not see the necessity of having giants on the
earth in these days, particularly when they
were to be bred, raised, fed and clothed at
their personal expense. The courts, however,
sustained the will to the extent of
endowing the Brobdingnagian experimenters
with a quarter of the estate, so that an institution
has been established with an endowment
of $500,000, under the supervision
of the municipality, for the culture of giants
and the production of monstrosities. The
trustees are to search the four corners of
the globe for men and women of large
stature, and are to pair them off in couples
and place them in the homes on a farm
near Rouen. (Text.)
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GIANTS AND DWARFS
It is of more consequence whether we are giants or whether we are dwarfs in our moral and intellectual stature, than whether our physical stature is great or small:
Pliny mentions the giant Gobbara, who
was nine feet nine inches, and two other
giants, Poison and Secundilla, who were
half a foot taller; Garopius tells of a young
