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the nebula in all directions from it, possible changes in the nebula preparatory to its formation, its identity of spectrum with the nebula, are indications in this direction. There are besides two or three cases on record where variable stars have thus been associated with nebulæ.

There are in all probability no new stars ever seen in the sky. There are plenty of stars which vary in brightness, some between very wide limits. They may pass out of sight at one time, and at another be bright enough to be seen at noonday, as was Tycho Brahe's star in 1572. They may vary fitfully, as in the star in Corona Borealis in 1866, which suddenly generated a vast amount of burning hydrogen and came up to the second magnitude; may go up and down with undeviating regularity like Algol, which with a period of a little less than three days, known beforehand to the minute, goes through its changes.

It is not impossible that these stars which seem to us to be fitful in their variations may have really a long period, and differ from Algol only in this. Thus there are records of stars appearing in the same quarter of the heavens in 1582, 1264 and 945, and the present year has been mentioned for the next appearance. Some fanciful speculators have also suggested that the Star of Bethlehem was one of its returns, and that we will soon look on the star in the East which drew the Shepherds in the days of Herod.

The Andromeda star is, therefore, not an unique phenomenon. For some unknown reason, one of the components of the nebula has been vastly increased in brightness, raised from perhaps the 14th to the 7th magnitude, which involves an increase in light of about 600 fold. Whether it has been a great outburst, such as we see daily on the sun on a small scale, which has bathed the star in flame and brightened up its whole surface, we cannot tell. The spectroscopic evidence is not conclusive on this point. Whatever the cause it acted suddenly, reaching its greatest intensity in a few days at the most, and since it has been slowly dying away.

ISAAC SHARPLESS.

TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF HOME LIFE.

WE
We have reached, Elnathan and I, a point where

we can pause and look about us. Though not old, we have attained an age where, already, when we visit the beautiful God's acre of our native town, the familiar names upon the headstones increase year by year; and as we walk about there we say to each other “Did you know he was gone?" or "I had forgotten she had been called,-so young too," and then, as we look again, we see that it was not so young after all, but that it is only we who have forgotten how we are aging, and how the companions of our youth have aged also, or already passed away. Looking back, this autumn afternoon, through all these housekeeping years, how softened, yet how radiant becomes the picture with its mingled light and shadow. There were the days when the struggle to do so much with so little seemed useless to be kept up any longer. There were the days when sick

ness became a familiar visitant, when the grim shadow of death hung over the household, but happily always passed us by. We have not grown rich; no mechanic with a family to support does that, but we have constituted a happy household of loving hearts. Our story is only that of thousands of other families, the heads of which fill our workshops and factories, and make up the bone and sinew of our cities and villages, while the wives and mothers toil just as hard to make the homes bright and comfortable. There is no reason why any young man and woman, blessed with health and employment, should not keep house comfortably on the wages usually paid to mechanics.

"All the world loves a lover," and old married people, like Elnathan and I, have still enough sentiment left in our hearts to bless and welcome every young couple starting a home in our midst. But, my dears, before commencing your venture, be sure you love each other so devotedly that no pressure of poverty, no deprivation or self-denial, made necessary by your limited means, can ever make you grow cold or fault-finding toward each other, for nothing but the utmost trust and confidence in each other will carry you through. It will be a veritable bearing of each other's burdens. The housework will be hard, the going without things you need will be hard, the care of children will be exacting and wearing to the last degree; but all these may be borne, nay, more, may be met, and overcome, for each other's sake. But, oh! the woeful failures I have seen, the cases where the wife, young and undisciplined, chafed and fretted under the inevitable burdens that she had assumed, voluntarily it is true, but with no conception of their real gravity and magnitude, still wishing for the freedom and admiration of her girlhood days, feeling the care of children an intolerable burden; or the husband, equally undisciplined, entirely unfit to maintain the honor and dignity essential to the head of a household, seeing no reason why he should curb the expenses or habits he had indulged in before marriage. Then indifference has turned into recrimination, to be followed by separation, and two lives have been marred and ruined; fortunate, indeed, if there are no little ones to be quarreled over, or left to the mercy of relatives or strangers.

These things ought not to be. We, who have borne the burden and heat of the day, who have built up homes and trained up children, have a right to protest and advise. Nay, we have more, we have a duty to do. We should so encourage these young aspirants for matrimony and housekeeping, we should so show them by our being and doing the beauty of true living, that they will think there is nothing else worth striving and toiling for.

After all, we have only to work one day at a time. And while the long vista of years in which our children are growing up seems interminable, while it seems as if they would never be trained to what we wish them to be, yet one day's labor, one hour's loving guidance is all we need give at a time; and love makes it easy.

I have been greatly humbled and saddened, sometimes, when a young wife or mother, especially the

last, has come to me and said "It is always pleasant here; tell me how you do it," or "Laddie is always good, and gentle, and obedient. How have you made him so?”

Then, indeed, I see my shortcomings and errors, the failures and mistakes I have made, and I can only say "My dear, there is no secret. It is only by giving yourself. And if you love your home and your child as I think you love them, or you would not be so anxious, you will naturally give yourself, and in doing that the rest will come. Nothing else will do it; not money, nor position, nor learning, will answer, but only that old, old story, as old as life itself, that

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'Love shall still be lord of all.' -H. ANNETTE POOLE, in Good Housekeeping.

TEMPERANCE, LICENSE, PLEDGE.

FRANCES E. WILLARD, in her address delivered

in this city during the celebration of the Rush centenary, called attention to the changes these words have undergone. She said, in substance, a hundred years ago they were all in current use, but having different meanings from those worked into them by a century of specific agitation. Temperance, to Dr. Rush, meant moderation in all things; to us it means total abstinence from alcoholic stimulants as a beverage, and the pledge is a promise to give up, not the abuse of a good thing, but the use of a bad thing. As defined by Webster, the "pledge" pledge" means the drinking of another's health, and its use is illustrated by Cowley's line.

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"Pledge me, my friend, and drink till thou art wise," Thus the word was at first purely convivial, and to pledge" was to drink first, in token that a poisonous draught was not being offered, and to pass the cup with the sword hand, in token that the "pledger" had no present intention of stabbing the "pledgee."

Even the first temperance society, founded in 1808, went no further than to impose a 25-cent fine for drinking, and a 50-cent fine for being drunk, but the slow march of experiment and steady logic of failure educated us up from the sieve-like instrument of the past to the present “ironclad " pledge which "holds water" and nothing more.

Now take the word "License." It was once used in a sense almost purely restrictive. The first" Act" is dated 1552, and begins thus: "An act for keepers of ale-houses to be bound in recognizances and giving the justices power to close all ale-houses in each town or towns as they shall think meet and convenient." But three centuries of experience have so revolutionized the meaning of the word, that its restrictive sense is lost, and temperance men see in the license system a national compact with iniquity, while saloon keepers look upon their license as a permit to sell, which gives them a legal status, and by making the government a partner in the proceeds of their sales, makes them respectable men of business. Thus in the development of the temperance reform, the personal question, "How much may I drink?" has always been but one-half the equation, to be off-set by the legal question, "How much may you sell?"

Hence unlimited drinking had its natural and philosophic off-set, unlimited sale; moderate drinking had license, or an unsuccessful effort at moderated sale, while we have now, as the final analysis, no drinking, off-set by no permit to sell.

SWARTHMORE.

AN interesting paper was read before the students and others, on Fourth-day evening of last week, by Ellis Yarnall, of Haverford, on Eminent Literary Men and their Works.

On Sixth-dy evening of this week, Prof. R. E. Thompson, of the University of Pennsylvania, lectures at the college, on the subject of Protection.

President Magill is engaged at West Chester, this (Seventh-day) evening, to deliver his lecture on The Value of a College Education.

A private note from Swarthmore, on the 15th, says: "Elizabeth Lloyd spoke most acceptably at the meeting this morning, explaining clearly the difference between 'Conscience' and the 'Inner Light,' and how the steady growth of the latter may be promoted. The meeting was one of unusual solemnity and profit."

NEWS AND OTHER GLEANINGS.

—An international exhibition of subjects appertaining to navigation, manufactures, and commerce, is to be held in Liverpool next year. The inauguration is expected to take place in May, and the exhibition is to remain open for six months.

-The Danish expedition to the east coast of Greenland, under the command of Captain Holm, arrived at Copenhagen about ten days ago, after an absence of 29 months, during which it reached the latitude of 66 degrees 8 minutes, being several miles higher than the most northern point attained by Nordenskjöld's expedition in 1883. Captain Holm considers it now placed beyond doubt that there are no remains along the Greenland east coast of any former Scandinavian expeditions.

-For the prevention of the spread of fires in large establishments, Professor Silvanus P. Thomson, of Finsbury Technical College, recently suggested to large and wealthy English firms the expediency of fitting up such premises as mills and warehouses with automatic sprinklers and distributors of water, now almost universal in similar buildings in New England and other parts of North America.

-A chestnut tree on the farm of David Welch in Sutton, (Mass.) is estimated to be 300 years old, and it has this season yielded a good crop of nuts. It is 100 feet high, its bark is two or three inches thick, many of its limbs are nine feet in circumference, and one foot from the ground it is 33 feet in circumference. At the foot of the tree there is a spring.

-A Tolono (Ill.) correspondent writes to the Sun: The great orchards in central Illinois are rapidly going to decay. Two years ago the export of apples from Champaign county alone exceeded 50,000 bushels, to say nothing of the immense quantities of pears and cherries. This year the apple crop is less than half enough for home consumption. The past two winters have killed more than 60 per cent. of the pear trees. Orchardists say that if the coming winter is as severe as the last two, there will not be a healthy apple or pear tree left in this part of the state. Very few of the orchards will be replanted.”

-The original manuscripts of the lectures delivered by William Harvey before the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1616 and the following years, discovered a few years ago in the British Museum, are to be published in a fac-simile reproduction, with an interleaved transcript made by Mr. J. S. Scott, of the British Museum.

-An average of 100 persons have been killed by lightning annually in France during the past fifty years, out of a yearly average of about 2500 people struck.

-The further examination of the recently discovered papyri at Vienna has led to the discovery of an interesting and valuable fragment of Homer's "Odyssey." This copy dates from the second century. Hitherto these papyri

were not known to contain more of Homer than some fragments of the "Iliad. " Another still more interesting discovery is that of a strip of Arabian paper dating from the ninth century, and containing a woodcut with ornaments and initials. This relic shows that the art of wood-cutting was probably of Arabian origin, or that it was, at all events, known to the Arabs in the ninth century.

-The system carried out in Vienna for educating girls is certainly worthy of notice. They are kept at their studies until they are fifteen years of age. They then go through a course of teaching in the pantry and the kitchen, under some member of the family, or sometimes under trained cooks for a year or two years. Thus they learn to do everything themselves, and to know the value of things long before they commence housekeeping on their own account; and though they may never be required to cook a dinner, they become independent of cooks and servants. The Austrian women are most affectionate wives and mothers. They are as accomplished and learned as any English governess.

-A circulating library for blind people was opened in New York City about two weeks ago. A charter was granted last July to an association organized by five blind ladies for the purpose of establishing a circulating library and reading-room for the blind of this city. The idea was conceived by Miss Flora E. Rogers, now the president of the society. This lady was made blind from the effects of the Roman fever, and keenly felt for the misery of those who were unable to procure more than the barest means of existence. There are about 1,500 blind persons in New York, and 500 more in the adjoining cities, most of whom are poor. Books for the blind are costly. The librarian states that as a blind young man took away one of the books he remarked: "You can have no idea how terrible it is to be forever alone with one's thoughts."-N. Y. Tribune.

CURRENT EVENTS.

A VERY destructive fire at Galveston, Texas, on the 13th, burned a large part of the city, including 568 dwellings. The loss is placed at two and half millions, one-eighth of the taxable valuation of the city.

LOUIS RIEL, the Canadian insurgent, was hanged at Regina, in the Northwest Territory, on the 16th. The event created much excitement and bitterness among the French Canadian population, especially in Quebec and Montreal.

WAR began between Servia and Bulgaria on the 14th, a declaration of war having been issued by King Milan, (Servia), on that day. Several bloody contests took place on the following day, the Servian troops being on the march to capture Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. Up to the time of this writing the advantage has been with them. The importance of this war is greatly increased by the probability that it will draw in the larger European nations and cause a general rupture,

AMONG recent deaths have been H. B. Claflin, a New York merchant, on the 14th, aged 74; and ex-Senator William Sharon, of California, on the 13th, aged 65.

SMALL-POX continues in Montreal, but shows some decrease. The number of deaths for the week ending on the 13th instant was 235, against 304 during the preceding week.

In order to prevent the closing of the Zoölogical Garden, Philadelphia, funds are being raised by general su bscrip. tion to pay off its floating debt, and provide for probable deficits in its running expenses. The total needed is about $12,000.

THE deaths in this city last week numbered 315, which was 19 less than during the previous week, and 79 less than during the corresponding period last year.

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BARGAINS AT FRIENDS' BOOK STORE. THE store of Friends' Book Association has been removed to the S. W. Corner of Fifteenth and Race streets, and is offering the balance of stock remaining at the old stand, 1020 Arch street, at fifty per cent, discount. They have to vacate the premises on or before the 1st of Twelfth month, and but a few days remain for this rare opportunity to purchase bargains in a great variety of books, stationery, etc. Whatever remains unsold at the expiration of the month will be sent off to auction.

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The Intelligencer and Journal

will be sent one year, with any one of the periodicals named below, for the amount stated.

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*** Persons wishing other periodicals than those named above should write us, and we will name prices. *** Where several periodicals in the list are wanted, find the net price of each, (if ordered through us), by subtracting $2.50 from the rate given "for both."

*** Where our subscribers have already paid up for the INTELLIGENCER AND JOURNAL, or for any reason do not now wish to remit for it, they can have the periodicals above at the net rate.

THE INTELLIGENCER AND JOURNAL,

921 ARCH ST., PHILADELPHIA.

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Express on week-days, 3.20, 4.35, 5.00, 5.45, 6.50, 7.30, 8.20, 8.30, 11 and 11.15 a.m. (Limited Express 1.14 and 4.50 p.m.), 12.44, 3, 4,

STRAWBRIDGE & CLOTHIER

Exhibit at all times a most extensive and comprehensive assortment of every description of

DRY GOODS.

The stock includes Silks, Dress Goods, Trimmings, Hosiery and Underwear, Gloves, House-Furnishing Goods, Ready-Made Dresses and Wraps, and everything that may be needed either for dress or for house-furnishing purposes. It is believed that unusual inducements are offered, as the stock is among the largest in the American market, and the prices are guaranteed to be uniformly as low as elsewhere on similar qualities of goods.

6, 6, 6.30, 7.10, 7.40 and 9.16 p.m. and 12.01 night. On Sundays, N. W. COR. 8TH & MARKET STS.,

5,

3.20, 4.35, 5, 5.45, 8.30 a.m., 12.44, 4 (Limited Express, 4.50),

6.30, 7.10 and 7.40 p.m. and 12.01 night.

For Brooklyn, N. Y., all through trains connect at Jersey City with boats of "Brooklyn Annex," affording direct transfer to Fulton Street, avoiding double ferriage and journey across New York City.

Express for Boston, without change, 6.30 p.m. daily. For Sea Girt, Spring Lake, Ocean Beach, Ocean Grove, Asbury Park and Long Branch, 8.00 and 11.30 a.m., 2.44, 3.30 and 4 p.m. on week-days. Saturdays only, 5 p.m. Sundays, 8 a.m. (does not stop at Ocean Grove and Asbury Park). For Freehold, 5 p.m., week-days.

Daily except Sunday: Express for Easton, Delaware Water Gap, Scranton and Binghamton, 8.00 a.m., 12.01 noon and 6.00 p.m. For Scranton and Water Gap, 4.00 p.m. FROM KENSINGTON STATION, FRONT AND NORRIS STS. For New York, 6.50, 7.40, 8.30, 10.10 and 11.15 a.m., 12.05, 2.10, 3.15, 4.55, 5.35, 6.10 and 11 p.m. on week-days. On Sundays, 8.25 8.m.

Daily except Sunday: Express for Easton, Delaware Water Gap, Scranton and Binghamton, 7.40 a.m., 12.05 noon and 5.35 p.m. For Scranton and Water Gap, 3.15 p.m.

FROM MARKET STREET WHARF. Express for New York, via Camden and Trenton, 9.00 a.m. on week-days.

Express for Long Braneh and intermediate stations, 8.30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Sundays, 7.30 a.m.

Trains for Trenton, connecting for New York, 6.20, 7.30, 10.30 a.m., 12 noon, 2.30, 3.30, 4.30, 5.30 and 7.00 p.m. On Sundays, 6.45 p.m.

PHILADELPHIA, WILMINGTON AND BALTIMORE

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Wedding Invitations.

FRIENDS' MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES.

College and Class Invitations, Fine Stationery.

FRIENDS' BOOK ASSOCIATION,

S. W. Gor. 15th and Race Sts., Philadelphia.

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