- forted her and encouraged her and aided
her, she appeared in the beautiful and celestial form of her true nature, followed them ever after with outstretched arms, lavished upon them her gifts, and filled their homes with happiness and wealth.—Horace Porter.
(2632)
RECORD, KEEPING THE
In "Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones," appears the following:
Start an engine from New York to San
Francisco, and there is attached to its side
a little piece of mechanism which indicates
the number of miles it has traveled, the
stoppages it has made, and how long it
stopt at each station; and if you want to
know the record of the journey you need
not ask the engineer a word. The little
piece of mechanism on the side of the engine
tells you its record.
In the same way the thoughts, deeds,
and progress of a soul are self-registering.
(Text.)
(2633)
RECORD, LIVING
The tympanum of the ear will vibrate no
longer when the music or the clamor that
arrested and aroused it has subsided into
silence. But that invisible yet living spirit,
which watches through the eye, and harkens
through the ear, and which takes instant note
of whatever surrounds it, has caught the
sight and the sound now vanished, and it will
keep them forever. It writes its records, not
as the Roman laws were written, first on
wood, then on brass, and afterward on ivory;
but at once on a tablet more impressible than
wood, more vivid than brass, more precious
than ivory, and more imperishable than
either.—Richard S. Storrs.
(2634)
We are all writing our lives' histories here, as if with one of these "manifold writers," a black blank page beneath the flimsy sheet on which we write; but presently the black page will be taken away, and the writing will stand out plain on the page behind that we did not see. Life is the filmy unsubstantial page on which our pen rests; the black page is death; and the page beneath is that indelible transcript of our earthly actions, which we shall find waiting for us to read, with shame and confusion of face, or with humble joy, in another world—Alexander McLaren.
(2635)
Recovery, Difficulty of—See Maturity, Sins of.
Recovery, Instant—See Diabolical Possession.
Recuperation—See Nature's Recuperative
Powers.
Redeemed by Song—See Wanderer's
Return.
REDEMPTION FROM EVIL
Our forefathers sat in despair before yellow
fevers, black deaths, sweating-sicknesses,
cholera, and similar pestilences, but science
is now gradually feeling its way to the
minute and obscure causes of epidemic diseases,
and year by year we draw closer to
the time when it may probably put into our
hands the means not only of arresting these
epidemics, but of stamping them out altogether.
The physician has become familiar
with the bacteria; and with ceaseless patience
he tracks down the mischief to its origin and
birth. The scientist anticipates the time
when the whole range of zymotic disease
will be conquered. Will any call this foolish
dreaming, and argue that because these sad
scourges have always been they always will
be? Such a pessimist is unworthy of the
privilege of living in this glorious age. It is
a delightful and legitimate hope that the
race may yet master all its physical foes.
But if these physical evils are to be subdued, is not that moral evil, which is the root of all other evils, to be subdued also? Christ came to assure us of this, and the absolute casting out of the demon is the sign of the glorious truth.—W. L. Watkinson, "The Transfigured Sackcloth."
(2636)
Reductio ad Absurdum—See Art Unappreciated.
REENFORCEMENT FROM WITHOUT
Many a man who, standing alone, fails in fruitfulness, might reenforce his powers by availing himself of the help of others, much as this pear-tree was reenforced:
An ingenious plan to save a dying pear-tree
was adopted in the gardens of L. M.
Chase, of Boston. The mice had girded the
tree so that it seemed bound to die. Mr.
Chase planted four small trees around it,
and close to it, cut off the tops, pointed the
ends, and, making incisions in the bark of
the pear, bent the small trees, and grafted
