it now! Don't linger by the way, do it now! You'll lose if you delay, do it now! If the other fellows wait, or postpone until it's late, you hit up a faster gait—do it now!—Intelligencer.
(2208)
Numbers, Courage of—See Cowardice.
Numbers Without Meaning—See Bigness.
Nurse, Florence Nightingale as a—See
Life, A Devoted.
NUTRIMENT OF THE SOUL
Last summer I went to an agricultural
college. I had been under the delusion that
black clods turned to strawberries, and that
red clay ripened apples and wheat shocks.
One day the professor handed me a large
microscope to study two blades of corn,
growing in a little pot of earth. Now there
was something lacking in the soil. The little
stock was yellow, sickly, and come to the
moment of death. It throbbed a little, but
the pulse beat low. What was the matter?
All it needed was nitrogen. Nitrogen? Why
there were billions of tons of nitrogen in
the air, forty miles thick. When a man has
pneumonia he dies, not because there are not
billions of tons of oxygen above him, but
because he can not absorb the oxygen. The
soil could not help the dying corn plant. The
rain could not help it—poor little plant that
pants and pants, because it can not get that
invisible nourishment in nitrogen. So we
took a little liquor that held a few nodules
from a nitrogenous alfalfa root, and poured
it about the dying blade of corn. In a
single hour the pulse began to beat true and
firm; another morning came and the sickly
yellow had changed to green. In a week the
corn was growing like a weed. Out in the
field were two acres of corn, sown broadcast.
One acre was in the starved soil and
yielded nine hundred pounds of fodder; the
other acre yielded over ten thousand pounds,
through that rich invisible food.
Not otherwise is it with the soul.—N. D. Hillis.
(2209)
NUTRITION, PROPER
"With the exception of carbon, the food
of plants comes from the soil and it is dissolved
in the soil water. If the soil does
not contain food enough, the plant can not
grow well, even tho they have everything else
they need. The ideal soil must have sufficient
plant food in a form that can dissolve
in water to supply the needs of crops grown
on it."
There must be religious nutriment in the soil of education and training in order to proper moral growth. (Text.)
(2210)
O
OASES
Among the African deserts are some fertile
spots. They are occasioned by springs which
arise in little dells and moisten the ground
for some distance around them. They are
islands of verdure and beauty and refreshing
in an ocean of desolation. Some of them
are very extensive and contain a considerable
population. One of these is called the Great
Oasis, consisting of a chain of fertile tracts
of about a hundred miles in length. Another
is the Oasis of Siwah, which has a population
of eight thousand souls.
Is not life dotted with just such oases
that gladden the desert expanse that
surrounds so many pilgrims of earth?
(Text.)
(2211)
OATHS
The primary idea of taking an oath is that
we call upon the Deity to bear witness to
the sincerity or truth of what we assert,
and so, as it were, register our oath in
heaven. When Abraham, for example, raised
his hands to heaven while swearing an oath
to the King of Sodom, he pointed to the
supposed residence of the Creator. Afterward,
when men set up inferior deities of
their own, they appealed to the material
images of symbols that represented them,
whenever an oath was administered. The
most usual form of swearing among the
ancients was, however, by touching the altar
of the gods. Other rites, such as libations,
the burning of incense and sacrifices accompanied
the touching of the altar. Demos-
