BY THEIR FRUITS.

Above the clash of counter creeds,
These gospel accents swell :
Whoever doeth righteous deeds
Hath read his Bible well.

Like blossoms of the fragrant spring
Are adoration's vows:
The tree that pleases God will bring
Fair fruitage on its boughs.

The holy church is that wherein
The golden rule controls :

The soul is surely saved from sin
That lives for other souls.

-Selected.

CHRISTIANITY AND POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.

Washington Gladden, in an article on this subject, in the Century Magazine, for First month, expresses the following which it is well for all who have the improvement of the Public Morals at heart to consider:

"Amusement, like education and religion is a real need of human beings-not so deep or vital a need as education or religion, but a real and constant need, and a need of the higher nature as well as of the lower; an interest that closely concerns their characters; and it is almost as great a mistake to leave it to take care of itself, and to be furnished mainly by those who wish to make money out of it, and who have no higher motive, as it would be to leave education or religion to be cared for in that

way.

LOCAL INFORMATION.

STANFORD QUARTERLY MEETING, held the 6th of this month at Crum Elbow, Dutchess Co., N. Y., was not largely attended, but was a season of interest and of satisfactory mingling. We were cheered by the presence of some members of the Yearly Meeting's Visiting Committee, and others who came to sit with After an impressive silence R. S. H. arose with the words, "The light of the body is the eye, if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light, but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness," which was the prelude to a short but interesting sermon.

us.

J. C. S. followed with an earnest discourse on worship, and before the partition was closed R. S. H. was favored to again address the meeting, in a pithy, instructive manner.

The business usually presented at this time was transacted, with the addition of the appointment by men Friends of a Quarterly Meeting Temperance Committee, which when announced to the Women's Meeting was received with much unity of expression, and a committee named to act with men Friends when work in that direction presents. S.

EAST JORDAN EXECUTIVE MEETING OF FRIENDS, is located at Penrose, Whiteside Co., Illinois, seven miles north of the city of Sterling. It has a membership of between forty and fifty, though with but ten or eleven adult members within a radius of five or six miles, and perhaps as many more between six and ten miles distant. Owing to age or ill health nearly all of the latter circle are prevented from attending meeting except in the best of weather.

Of those within the smaller circle, most, if not all are frequent in attendance, thoroughly attached to our Society, and active and influential in their neighborhoods.

They have no minister and few attenders outside the membership, perhaps ten to twenty would cover the range of attendance in the absence of some unusual attraction. During the summer months they have one of the largest and most effective First-day schools in Illinois Yearly Meeting, averaging during the last summer, I think over fifty, and including as regular scholars many children of other denomi nations, some from the neighborhood of schools of their own. As I met the Friends composing this Meeting in their homes, in house gatherings for worship, and at their meeting places, and felt their lively interest in better things, their attachment to our principles, and the influence they exerted as individuals, on the morals and general status of their neighborhood, I queried why they should feel discouraged, why their meetings should be so small, and why it needs be that as an organization they should slowly but surely die.

It is time that we begin to comprehend the idea that this is one of the great interests of human life which Christianity must claim and control-one of the kingdoms of the world which, according to the prophecy, are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. When these words are quoted, the thoughts of disciples are apt to fly off to Burmah, and Siam and Timbuctoo; these are the king. doms of the world that are to be Christianized. Doubtless they are; but the text ought to mean more than this. It should signify that all the wide realms of human thought and action are to be brought under the sway of the King of righteousness; that the kingdom of industry, and the kingdom of traffic, and the kingdom of politics, and the kingdom of amusement, are all to be made subject to His law; that all these great interests of men are to be brought under the empire of Christian ideas and Christian forces; that instead of standing aloof from them and reproving and upbraiding them. Christianity is to enter into them and pervade them and transform them by its own vital energy. The duty of the Church with respect to popular amuse ments is not done when it has lifted up its warning against the abuses that grow out of them, and laid down its law of temperance and moderation in their use. It has a positive function to fulfill in furnishing diversions that shall be attractive, and at the same time pure and wholesome. This cannot be done by the churches as churches, but it can be done by men and women into whom they breathe their spirit, and The meeting scarcely keeps its own, and in ordiwhom they fill with their intelligence and good-nary course must diminish by death and removals. will." It does not fail for want of faithfulness upon the part

The First-day school thrives, gathers in far more than their own membership, and through its temperance and other work is lifting the moral and intellectual standard of the community to a very perceptible degree.

of most of its members into all the duties usually expected of them, but does it not in common with many others, fail for want of change in management and some work beyond semi-annual reports to its Quarterly Meeting and the selection of its officials? Work that will emphasize its faith, and which being seen, will cause others to glorify their Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 5-16.) Around this meeting are many intelligent people without a place of worship and with the weakened sectarian prejudices of these days, the meeting-house ought to be filled with the members and neighbors who have no other place of worship, as there is no lack of respect for the men and women whose faith produces such upright and

useful lives.

THE LIBRARY.

We have before us the "Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia." We look with deep interest on the progress of this important work, hoping it will never want for any good thing. We must find rooni for the accompanying appeal, which comes to us from one of the Board of Managers:

The Woman's Hospital and Nurse Training School of Philadelphia again appeal to the sympathies of their friends for aid in carrying on the good work to which they are dedicated. On former occasions they have never asked in vain, and trust that those who have known of their benefits will again remember them at a time when they are so much in need.

nation Day, when the Managers will be present to receive money, groceries, china, clothing, old linen nation Day, when the Managers will be present to and muslin, or in fact anything that can be made of use in the Hospital or for the large family within its walls.

The 25th of Second month has been named as Do

Twelfth month 14th, 1884.

J. P. D.

AMONG the works introduced into Friends' Library (Fifteenth and Race streets), on Second month 11th, were:

While fully recognizing that there is no sure The Hospital is full to its utmost capacity, owing foundation except in a regenerated heart, is there in part to the severity of the winter and the inability not something that can be done to arouse interest, of women to receive proper care in their own homes. spread knowledge and deepen conviction, so that hearts a long list of applicants are waiting for admission. To The Nurse Training School has been increased, and may be enlightened and regenerated, and the zeal of those who have been ministered to in a time of sufferearly days renewed? As I experienced the warm ing, by a good trained nurse, we need say but little of fellowship of these Friends, noted their attachment to the nurses of the Training School of the Woman's society and willingness to do all that duty seemed to Hospital. require, the suggestion arose and was presented to some of them, that for the instruction of many who would doubtless gladly attend, and for the increased interest of the members themselves, ome competent reader should, after fifteen or twenty minutes of the usual silence, read in their order on successive or stated days, the well endorsed essays of John J. Cornell, giving an outline of our faith and testimonies, the readings to be followed by a period of silence, unless broken by proper expression, as allowed in our meetings for worship. Might not such reading increase that religious craving that leads to conviction of soul and a coming to the Inward guide? Will not a return to the methods, zeal and principles that obtained in the days of Fox and Penn produce like results now, and prevent the increasing life manifest in many directions among us from being lost in a too long wandering in the wilderness of dead customs and traditions. While holding closely to principles, let us hold lightly to forms, that we may feel and heed the impulses of the life that is ever new and always regenerating in its effect. Chicago, Second mo. 9th, 1885.

J. W. P. KNOWLEDGE must precede thought, and that time is well spent which is employed in learning where and how readily to find, wisely to appropriate, and effectually to use, as occasion may require, the accumulated, duly sifted and organized learning of the ages. But there comes a time when we need deliberate meditation; when we realize that knowledge without thought is only splendid ignorance, and that the time spent in thinking is the soul's breathingtime; that one of the nearest approaches to death is to be without meditation upon subjects from which we can draw food for the soul. Dante's favorite "Think that to day will never dawn again!" and he defined the lost to be those who could no longer think. To him who has a body strong and active, a mind ready and receptive, a heart warm and happy, and a soul alert with noble discontent," all Isles are Fortunate and Blessed, all Capes are of Good Hope.-Unity.

motto was,

Melville's "In the Lena Delta."
Cable's "Creoles of Louisiana.'
Living English Poets.

Mason's "Personal Traits of British Poets."
Woodbury's "Life of Edgar Allen Poe."
Morse's "Thomas Jefferson."
Rawlinson's "Egypt and Babylon."
Markham's "Sea Fathers.' ""

The Child's Book of Language. Graded Lessons and Blanks for the Natural Development of Language. By J. H. Swakney, Boston. Appleton & Co., New York. We greatly admire this series of elementary lessons in the use of language, believing that they furnish the means by the help of which almost all teachers can proceed to teach the art of English composition with satisfaction to both pupil and teacher.

There are three series, of four numbers each, and we would like to call the attention of teachers and of school committees to them. Practical use in the school will soon determine their value.

The Messages of the Books; being Discourses and Notes on the Books of the New Testament. By F. W. Farrar. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.-In this work, Farrar, Canon of Westminster, gives to the world the results of a careful consecutive study of the twenty-nine treatises which make up the New Testament.

Farrar is always a delightful writer, and from his breadth and teniperance particularly acceptable to those who wish to instruct the young. He has seen so much misapplication of Scripture texts, from an entire misunderstanding of their sense, that he has deemed it right to make this effort to present each book historically, disentangling them from misinterpretation which has from time to time befallen alinost every memorable sentence of the Bible. The author says:

leths which have been bandied about in current controversies

It is no exaggeration to say that the majority of the shibbo

are applied in senses entirely apart from those in which they

were intended by the original writers. Such texts are associated in most minds with meanings which have assiduously been read into them, but which they really do not contain. A volume of the saddest import, and of the most solemn warning, might be written on the calamities which have ensued in age after age of civil and ecclesiastical history from systematic perversions of Holy Writ. The surest way to cure such evils in the present, and obviate such disasters in the future, is the

study of Scripture as a whole, and the consideration of each part of it in relation to the age and conditions under which it was written. "I am convinced," says Goethe, "that the beauty of the Bible increases in proportion as it is understood, that is to say, in proportion as we consider and perceive that each word which we take generally has had a peculiar, special and directly individual application in accordance with given circumstances of place and time.”

The course of affairs in the Senate during the present week is involved in considerable doubt. WednesThe New Era. Vol. 1. No. 1.-There is now on day will be devoted to the counting of the Electoral our editorial table this initial number of a new votes. The Pensions Appropriation bill will probably monthly journal with this title. It is published in be taken up to-morrow and passed. The Indian, Chicago, Ill., and comes before us with a series of ex-Army and Agricultural Appropriation bills are in the cellent papers in the interest of Woman's Suffrage. hands of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, The first article is a warm, glowing_tribute to Lucre- and may be reported in time for action upon one or tia Mott, from the pen of Elizabeth Boynton Harbert. two of them before the end of the week. She commences with an enthusiastic claim to a very high place for this grand woman in her country's records of her noblest and her best. She cites many particulars of the great life of Lucretia Mott, very few of which are new to any of our readers, but all of which we can read with ever deepening joy that such a record as hers is to go down to future times-a beacon light for faithful testimony bearers to the latest days. One who stood reverently and tearfully by her open coffin, said, fittingly, of her:

The best proof of her soundness in the faith was her faithfulness; the best evidence that she had the Spirit is that she brought forth the fiuits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.

We wish all success to this work—success commen

surate with its merit.

The Sub-Primary School Society. This pamphlet is the Report for 1884 of the Free Kindergartens, by means of which it is hoped to raise the least favored of the children of Philadelphia to holier and happier lives than their parents have known. Good men and good women have joined hands for this work of real Christianity, till now there are twenty-eight good Kindergartens in working order for the purpose of making the next generation," according to Froebel's aspiration, God's children." We are entirely in sympathy with this noble work of love.

The Concord School of Philosophy.-The Progranime of this interesting Summer School (now approaching its seventh year) may interest some of our readers.

Its next session will open on Seventh month 20th, 1885, and the general topic is to be, "Goethe and Modern Science," considered under two main heads: I. Goethe's Genius and Works; II. Is Pantheism the Legitimate Outcome of Modern Science?

The aim of the Faculty has been to bring together a few of those persons who, in America, have pursued, or desire to pursue, the paths of speculative philosophy; to encourage these students and professors to communicate with each other what they have learned and meditated; and to illustrate, by a constant reference to poetry and the higher literature, those ideas which philosophy presents. The design was modest, and in no ambitious sense a public one; nor have the Faculty been persuaded, by the attention their experiment has aroused, to diverge from the natural and simple path first chosen. The first purpose of the School is conversation on serious topicsthe lectures serving mainly as a text for discussion, while dispute and polemical debate are avoided.

What is sought in the discussions at Concord is not an absolute unity of opinion, but a general agreement in the manner of viewing philosophic truth and applying it to the problems of life.

Any desiring information, may apply to Frank B. Sanborne, Concord, Mass.

The unfinished business is the anti-silver coinage bill, and several Senators have prepared speeches upon it. If the measure be not set aside by other than appropriation bills, there is a prospect that it may be disposed of before the end of the week. The silver men, who at first threatened to prevent action upon this bill, now claim to have strength enough to strike out the feature which looks to stopping the coinage of the standard dollar, and so have less reason to postpone action. If shorn of this, its most important feature, the bill will simply provide for the retirement and recoinage of the trade dollar.

experienced for a number of years, has just ceased. The Quebec, Second mo. 11.-The most severe snow storm weather is cold, and there are snow drifts in the city nine feet deep. All trains are delayed, and some of the branch roads are entirely blocked.

Toronto, 2d mo. 11.—The weather throughout Ontario to-day was intensely cold. The temperature ranged from 15° to 40° below zero.

has raged here since the 2d mo. 7. The roads are all Kincardine, Ont., 2d mo. 11.-A terrific snow storm blocked, and traffic on the southern extension of the Wellington, Grey and Bruce Railroad is suspended.

Hamilton, Ont., 2d mo. 11.-Lake Ontario is frozen for a distance of ten miles from the shore, and the ice is strong enough for team traffic. Such a thing is unprecedented.

Two great blocks of tin ore from Dakota occupied the table Monday evening at the meeting of the Academy of Sciences in Columbia College. Professor E. G. Bailey talked on the tin deposits of the Black Hills. Three per cent. of the ore," he said, was yielded in block tin of the purest kind. A superior quality was not to be found in the European mines. In the last thirty-four years, the United States have consumed tin ware worth $224,000,000, 95 per cent. of which has been iron. With the development of the Black Hill mines, the coating of tin could be made much heavier on tinware and still sell cheaper than it does now, Solid tinware might be used, and even tin water-pipes, from which the sanitary effect would certainly be better. In the tin obtained by washing from streams is found great quantities of garnets, so numerous that several wagon-loads of earth have frequently yielded a full sized wash-tub full of fine garnets.'

On the 12th, the Army Appropriation bill was passed by the U. S. Senate.

A terrible fire in the Insane Department of Philadelphia Almshouse occurred on the night of the 12th