weather is variable. If the insect elongates its thread it is a sign of fine calm weather, the duration of which may be judged of by the length to which the threads are let out. If the spider remains inactive it is a sign of rain; but if, on the contrary, it keeps at work during the rain the latter will not last long, and will be followed by fine weather. Other observations have taught that the spider makes changes in its web every twenty-four hours, and that if such changes are made in the evening, just before sunset, the night will be clear and beautiful.—La Nature.
(1580)
Indifference—See Ballot, A Duty.
Indifference to Strangers—See Confidence.
INDIFFERENCE TO THE GOOD
Zion's Herald prints this significant poem:
People tell the story yet,
With the pathos of regret,
How along the streets one day,
Unawares from far away,
Angels passed with gifts for need,
And no mortal gave them heed.
They had cheer for those who weep,
They had light for shadows deep,
Balm for broken hearts they bore,
Rest, deep rest, a boundless store;
But the people, so they say,
Went the old blind human way,—
Fed the quack and hailed the clown
When the angels came to town.
It has been and will be so:
Angels come and angels go,
Opportunity and Light,
'Twixt the morning and the night,
With their messages divine
To your little world and mine.
And we wonder why we heard
Not a whisper of their word,
Caught no glimpse of finer grace
In the passing form and face;
That our ears were dull as stones
To the thrill of spirit tones,
And we looked not up, but down,
When the angels came to town.
(1581)
INDIFFERENTISM
A German professor of theology is reported
to have said in lecturing to his students
on the existence of God, that while the
doctrine, no doubt, was an important one,
it was so difficult and perplexed that it was
not advisable to take too certain a position
upon it, as many were disposed to do. There
were those, he remarked, who were wont in
the most unqualified way to affirm that there
was a God. There were others who, with
equal immoderation, committed themselves
to the opposite proposition—that there was
no God. The philosophical mind, he added,
will look for the truth somewhere between
these extremes.—Joseph H. Twichell.
(1582)
INDIVIDUAL INFLUENCE
I met, the other day, a learned judge who
told me that for more than twenty years he
had met every winter, in his own library,
once a week, a club of his neighbors, men
and women, who came, and came gladly,
that he might guide them in the study of
history. "And all those people," said he,
laughing—there are three or four hundred
of them now, scattered over the world—"they
all know what to read, and how to read it."
You see that village is another place because
that one man lived there.—Edward Everett
Hale.
(1583)
Individual Initiative—See Need, Meeting Children's.
Individual, Seeking the—See Personal
Evangelism.
Individual Value—See Collective Labor.
INDIVIDUAL, VALUE OF THE
This fine verse is from Canon Farrar:
"I am only one,
But I am one.
I can not do everything,
But I can do something,
What I can do
I ought to do
And what I ought to do
By the grace of God I will do." (Text.)
(1584)
Individualism—See Initiative.
INDIVIDUALISM, EXCESSIVE
Haydon, the painter, was an ill-used man;
but it was purely his own fault. He would
paint high art when people did not want
it—would paint acres of hooked-nosed
Romans, and bore the public with Dentatus,
Scipio and Co., when they wanted something
else. He was like a man taking beautiful
pebbles to market when people wanted
eggs, and telling that they ought not to want
eggs, because they led to carnality and had
