as they could alone, and noticing that some "washing rite" was enjoined upon the believers in the Jesus doctrine, they met to discuss how they should follow it out and thus fulfil all righteousness. They prayed over it for a time, and at last decided that each should go to his own home and reverently should wash himself in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. (Text.)
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BARBARISM
The missionaries to the Dyaks of Borneo,
in making their calls not infrequently are
seated in a position of honor in a native hut
underneath a huge cluster of skulls, the war
trophy of the head-hunting Dyaks. Rev. H.
L. E. Luering writes in the London Christian that the natives believe that the courage of the slain enemy enters his victor's soul if the head of the dead man is in his possession. So the heads are cut off and placed in loose rattan receptacles and smoked over a slow fire, and polished and strung up like great bunches of grapes, and guarded with a jealousy greater than is accorded any other possession. They represent just so much of the owner's self—his own soul—and to lose a head would deprive him of just so much strength and courage.
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The late Bishop Taylor, of Africa, narrated the following in the Missionary Review of the World: I saw a woman who had been accused of witchcraft and condemned to death by exposure to ferocious ants. She was bound to a big ant-hill ten or fifteen feet high. The victim usually dies in two days, but this woman endured it for five days and was then driven away because "she was too hard to kill." She crawled in a terrible condition to the mission station—the most pitiful sight the missionary had ever beheld. After months of careful nursing she recovered, and this woman, so terribly scarred and disfigured, was converted at one of my meetings.
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See Cruel Greed. BARGAIN DISCOUNTENANCED It was proposed to the Duke of Wellington to purchase a certain farm in the neighborhood of his estate at Strathfieldsaye. He assented. When the transfer was completed, his steward, who had made the purchase, congratulated him upon having made a great bargain, as the seller was in difficulties, and forced to part with his farm. "What do you mean by a bargain?" asked the Duke. The steward replied, "It was valued at £5,500, and we got it for £4,000." "In that case," said the Duke, "you will please to carry the extra £1,500 to the late owner, and never talk to me of cheap land again."
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BARGAIN-MAKING A former queen of Spain once rode out in the country, when the driver of the royal carriage became lost and spent two hours vainly trying to find the way. The queen and the infanta were somewhat alarmed. All at once they came upon an old wood-cutter, who, with a bunch of fagots upon his back, gathered laboriously from the stunted bushes to be found here and there, had sunk down to the ground, evidently for a moment's rest. "Ho, my good man!" the driver of the royal carriage called out. "Will you tell us the road to Madrid?" "No," said the wood-cutter, "I will not, except on one condition." "What's that?" "That you take me in and carry me back to the city." The coachman declined to do this. "Very well, then; find the road yourself," said the wood-cutter. The queen here intervened. She ordered the coachman to let the man tie his fagot at the back of the coach, and to take him upon the driver's seat and drive him home. The man tied his rough fagot at the back of the royal coach, mounted the box, and the road to Madrid was soon found. When the royal carriage entered the city in this queer state, there was a great sensation, as the people readily recognized the equipage. The wood-cutter sat proudly on the box. When his quarter was reached, he got down and unfastened his fagot. The queen put her head out of the door. "Go to the royal palace to-morrow," she said, "and your service will be rewarded." The old man, suddenly perceiving whose passenger he had been, was overcome with humiliation. He stood bowing, rubbing his cap between his hands, and uttering exclamations of astonishment until the carriage was out of sight.—The Christian Register.
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