paper from the fiber obtained from pine stumps, thousands of which may be had in the immediate neighborhood.
The old pine stumps are useless. They
are only the remains of past possibility
and power. Their hope for future usefulness
seems gone. Yet there is a new
and better future for them, a greater
possibility than ever known before. So
in the realm of human lives a character
that seems to be ruined is often reclaimed
to useful living.
(2794)
S
SABBATH-BREAKING REBUKED
I remember on one occasion, when an immense
quantity of freight was to be brought
from New York to Boston, they undertook
to run on the Sabbath day. They came up
with a large load of cotton, and on coming
near to M a bale got afire, and there were
not hands enough to roll it off. They then
drove to M and rang the bells, and the
people came down to the number of three
hundred. "Help us," said the railway people,
"to put out the fire." "No; you have no
business to run that train on the Sabbath."
They then sent up to one of the directors
and said: "If you speak a word, these
men will bring us water; there is property
being destroyed." "I voted in the board of
directors," he replied, "against this running
on the Sabbath, and if you burn the whole
freight, I will not raise a finger." And the
two carloads of cotton were destroyed. The
company had to pay for them—but they ran
no more trains on the Sabbath. (Text.)—John
B. Gough.
(2795)
Sabbath Desecration—See Punctiliousness.
SABBATH DESECRATION GRADUAL
The desecration of the temple in Jerusalem
did not spring up full-statured in a day. The
court of the Gentiles was a spacious place,
having an area of fourteen acres. Round its
four sides there ran a colonnade with four
rows of marble pillars and a roof of costly
cedar. Many things were needed in the
sacrifices of the temple, and what place
more convenient for the buying of them than
this great, spacious court? One day, I
imagine, a man stept inside with a cage of
pigeons. A bird so small and sweet-voiced
as a dove could not hurt the sacred place!
By and by a man with a sheep to sell led
it in. A sheep is the most innocent of all
animals. No harm could come to God or
man from the presence of a sheep. Still
later the man with a steer to sell brought
him in. "I have as much right here as you
have," he said to the man with the sheep and
the man with the pigeons, and soon there
were a dozen steers. That is the way it all
happened. The abuse grew up so gradually
that nobody observed it, and before men
knew it the sacredness of the place was gone.
Just so does the desecration of the day of
rest take place in great cities. One man
steps into the temple of rest, saying: "Let
me sing you a little song." His voice is
sweet and the song is pretty, and what is
so beautiful and innocent as a song? And
a man outside hearing this song inside the
temple says: "I think I'll come in and sing,
too." His voice is harsh and his song is a
different kind of a song, but in he comes,
and who is wise enough to draw the line and
say this song is proper, that song will never
do? And while these two men are singing,
another man who can not sing at all, and
who can only use his feet, decides that he,
too, has a right to exercise his gifts inside
the temple, and in he comes, and after him
a dozen others, and after them a hundred
others, some bringing doves, some sheep,
some steers, until the whole day is trampled
into sordidness and one of the most precious
of all the privileges of man has been wrested
from him.—Charles E. Jefferson.
(2796)
SABBATH, OBSERVING THE
In northern Canada Mr. Evans, the apostle
to the Indians there, induced a large number
to become Christians, and said to them,
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it
holy." At this time all the furs were carried
by brigades of Indians, and the exchange
cargo taken away by them. The Indians had
been in the habit of traveling seven days a
