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The Guardian.

VOL. XXXII.

Editorial Notes.

AUGUST, 1881.

SINCE January, 1863 the GUARDIAN has been published by the Publishing Concern of the Reformed Church, of which Dr. S. R. Fisher was the busi

ness manager. From that time the business interests of our magazine have been in his charge. It is due to his memory, and, we feel confident, very pleasant to our readers to adorn this number of the GUARDIAN with an excellent likeness of one who, from its first number in 1850, to the day of his death served its interests with unabated zeal, and bestowed upon it the wealth of his sterling friendship.

USUALLY when an eminent public man dies, his departure is reported by the newspapers with suitable, and often very unsuitable, eulogies of his life and labors. Foreign and home papers have spoken in unmeasured terms of Benedek, the venerable Austrian Marshal, and of Beaconsfield, the great British statesman. Very little has the American press had to say about good Dr. J. B. Wichern, who albeit not a man of blood, achieved greater victories than either of these men. He died on April 7, in the 73d year of his age. Born in Hamburg, where his father practiced law, he saw much of the sin and sorrow usually found in large cities. Before he had completed his University studies, he felt himself called to works of charity and social reform. The prisons of Europe were then packed with criminals who were born in sin and trained in Vice from their childhood. With a bleeding heart he wandered about among the neglected and lowly. He said: "About this time a little unknown child came to me in the open street, and

NO. 8.

with out-stretched hands, and begging face, and many tears, tried to kiss the hand that had never done it a benefit, and cried,Come with me, come with me and see for yourself."" The memory of that child haunted him ever afterward. He must do something; he did do much for the waifs of Germany. The prisons cannot save them. They work at the wrong end. Begin with the child and you will not have the He started and conducted a "free Sundayprisoner. How should he begin? school," with the hope of rescuing the perishing poor children here. Poor in money but rich in faith he later began his charitable work at an old dilapidated farm-house, three miles from Hamburg. Hither he brought the vagrant children. of large cities. He grouped them together in families, with a capable person at the head of each. At first a plain, cheap house was built, chiefly by the vagrants; then a second. Later more, until the institution has grown into quite a village, with all the belongings of a diversified home life. The whole is called the "Rauhe Haus "-the Rough House-from the coarse, unpolished original old farm-house in which he began. Or more likely from Ruge, the name of the original owner, which later was chauged into Rauhe-or "Rauhe Haus." To this reformatory Wichern devoted fifty years of his grand life. It has made his name the synonym of charitable reform.

People from all lands, have traversed continents and oceans to visit this wonderful fountain of healing. Brace says in his "Home Life in Germany:" "The friend of man searching anxiously for what man has done for his suffering fellows, may look far in both continents before he finds an institution so benevolent, so practical, and so truly Christian as the Hamburg Rough House." In

due time the authorities of Prussia discovered his invaluable capacity and character. During many years he was a member of the Consistorialrath, and had the chief supervision of reformatory institutions and of the prisons of Prussia. For more than a quarter of a century he was the convener or chairman of its Home Missionary Board. But nearest his heart always lay the mission and people of the "Rauhe Haus." Here was his home. Here he had seen many poor children of sin received and regenerated. Here he lived, here he died, and here he lies buried. And here, around his grave, and under the superintending guidance of his son. whom he trained for this work, the Rauhe Haus goes on glorifying God in the rescuing and educating of poor vagrant children, and preparing them for usefulness in this world, and for a blissful immortality in the world to come.

Wichern's life made itself felt, especially in this department, throughout the civilized world. Directly or indirectly he was instrumental in founding many kindred institutions. Through his public addresses and writings he called the attention of Europe to the deep and wide-spread social depravity of the laboring classes, and thereby started influences which led to the establishing of Homes which shall bless the world for centuries to come. Many of his scholars have been educated for this work, others are engaged in the ministry, or as teachers and mechanics in different parts of the world. He made it a point to teach all a trade or profession, whereby they could earn an honest livelihood and be useful to others. His memory will be gratefully cherished by thousands whom he helped to save, many of whom he had never seen in the flesh.

THOMAS CARLYLE wrote a hand not unlike Sanscrit. The printers who could decipher his copy must have possessed mental qualities little inferior to himself. How any one, wholly ignorant of the man who wrote it, could make T. Carlyle out of the name lying before us we can not divine. The illegibility of Thaddeus Stevens' hand-writing was proverbial, and that of Horace Greeley

used to be compared to the tracks produced by a fly which had just escaped out of an inkstand, and daubed the paper by dragging its heavy inky feet over it. But judging from Carlyle's autograph we take him to be without a peer as a scrawler among men of note. An expert thus describes his hand-writing : "Eccentric and spiteful-looking little flourishes dart about his manuscript in various odd ways. Some are intended to represent the 'i' dot, though far removed from the parent stem, while others, commenced as a cross to the 't' suddenly recoil in an absurd fashion, as if attempting a caligraphical somersault, and in so doing, occasionally cancel the entire word whence they sprang. Some letters slope one way and some another; some are halt, maimed, or crippled; while many are unequal in height, form,style, and everything else."

OUR English cousins, like the most of ordinary mortals, excel in discovering motes in the eyes of people of other nations, whilst they are blind to the beams in their own eyes. An influential English journal says that John B. Gough speaks in a sort of nasal tone; indeed it is of the opinion that the nasal twang is a natural defect among American speakers. Our readers will agree with us that few public speakers are more free from this twang than Gough. Were we disposed to go mote-hunting among the average class of public speakers in England, we could readily show how unwise it is for them to throw stones at other people while they are living in glass houses.

Persons who have attended the meetings of Parliament, and the services of Anglican churches must remember how, even their great statesmen, hawk, hem and haw in their utterance, however faultless and weighty their composition may be. And in the profession of no country have we found the nasal twang so prevalent as in the pulpit of Great Britain. Hymns, prayers, sermons and announcements read in one and the same key, and in the same monotonous, whining, singsong tone of voice. Even so great an authority as their own Gladstone, says:

66

are all

An effective cultivation of the great office of preaching is perhaps the most

a certain amount or proportion a year is to be given, it is best to apportion that among the weeks and months, and pay it in installments. By this plan the matter is kept before our minds during the year, and helps to cultivate an interest in, and a sympathy with the objects to which we contribute.

crying want of the Church of England, and vocal expression and articulation are an important and essential part of it." We grant that in America, too, we might profit by the lesson of the great premier. Many a well-disciplined and richly-furnished mind fails to impress others simply for want of a pleasing expression. A clear and distinct artic- A missionary declined to receive from ulation, a well-modulated voice, modu- a Karen a rupee for a whole year, inlated to suitably express the various stead of the pice a week which the other sentiments spoken, will enable a man of native Christians were giving. To be ordinary scholarship, like Gough, to sure, fifty-two pice would not make a sway a large audience at will. In very rupee, and the treasury would be fuller few colleges of this country are students if the rupee were accepted. But the taught to read and speak well. Whilst donor would not be as much blessed. it is well enough to teach them a know- "Don't you know," said the missionary, ledge of the dead languages, they ought" that a door-hinge, if opened only once by all means be taught the correct and a year, soon comes to creaking. Open instructive use of the living languages-often, no creaking; give often, no croakespecially of the unrivalled German and ing." English tongues.

One-fourth of the income of the Basle Mission, which sustains 115 missionaries WHEN God's people in Old Testa-gathered 13,245 church members, is in India, Africa and China, and has ment times withheld the customary derived from a penny a week, contritithes and offerings the prophets called buted by 120,000 persons. These colit robbery. What shall we call the lections were begun in 1855, and have withholding of suitable offerings to God amounted to $1.156,145. In 1879 they under the New Testament dispensation? A certain Bishop of the Episcopal were $53,000. Church recently complained that many congregations will spend $100 for flowers at their Easter service, whilst their Easter offering for the cause of Christ amounts to a few paltry dollars. How many wealthy persons who claim to be Christians would be glad to escape from giving a dollar to God, and in the end giving a dollar to God, and in the end only do give it at best because it is screwed out of them through stormy appeals. Some people withhold what is due to God because they are not making as much money as formerly, or have lost a little in some investment. Like a certain man who said he had laid up two shillings, one for himself and one for the Lord; but that the one he had intended for the Lord had been lost in an unfortunate speculation.

BIBLE beneficence is a habit; it must be cultivated. It is not safe to leave the amount and the time to chance or random impulses. With calm and prayerful deliberation we must decide how much it would be proper for us to give to God as His faithful stewards. If

AN EMINENT American divine, when a young man, was introduced to Patrick Henry. The Virginia patriot took him kindly by the hand and said: "Be sure, my son, and remember that the best men always make themselves." By which he meant to say that personal exertion, and solid, manly work alone That with assure permanent success.

you

the best parents, best fortune, best
teachers young people must in the end
fail without earnest, persevering work.
The teacher can tell you how and what
to study, but you yourself, and not he,
must do the studying. The harder
work. The oak or pine standing in an
work the stronger you will get to do the
exposed place, grows in strength and
toughness of fibre from resisting the
storms that sweep over it. The more
determinately and faithfully you per-
form your duty the stronger you get to
do it. Success is not the result of intu-
ition or of inspiration, but of toil. The
great impromptu efforts of Webster
were only seemingly so. Many thought

that his debate with Hayne in the without the slightest perception of their United States Senate was purely im- excellence. promptu. He had carefully investigated the whole subject of the public lands several years before for another purpose. His preparation was never needed for what it was intended. He said: "I had my notes tucked away in a pigeon hole, and when Hayne made that attack upon me and upon New England, I was already posted, and only had to take down my notes and refresh my memory. In other words, if Hayne had tried to make a speech to fit my notes, he could not have hit it better. No man is inspired with the occasion."Yes, Mary, we have lost a deal by our I never was.'

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DR. JOHNSON once said to a fine

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"GODLINESS is profitable unto all things." Years ago an aged couple lived near London. They enjoyed a calm, comfortable evening of life. The old lady, being somewhat worldly, when asked by a certain minister for a thankoffering to the cause of Christ, pretended that they had, in a temporal point of view, lost by leading a religious life. "Have we not, Thomas?" she asked, turning to her husband. After a long and solemn pause, the old man replied:

religion. I have lost a deal by my religion. Before I got religion I had an old slouched hat, a patched old coat, and mended shoes and stockings; but tleman just returned from Italy, and I have lost them long ago. And, Mary, who, like many tourists of our own day, you know that, poor as I was, I had a seemed to pride himself in having with you; and that you know I lost. habit of getting drunk, and quarrelling "done" Italy, without learning anything about it: "Sir, some men will And then I had a burdened conscience learn more in the Hampstead stage thousand guilty feelings and fears; but and a wicked heart; and then I had ten than others in the tour of Europe." Many observant people learn more in all are lost, completely lost, and like a and around their own little home than millstone cast into the deepest sea. others by travelling over half the globe. And, Mary, you have been a loser too, Good Matthias Claudius touches off the though not so great a loser as myself. quibbling wiseacres of his day in his in- Before we got religion, Mary, you had imitable, quaint style, as follows: got a washing-tray, in which you washed "Philosophers say that philosophy alone for a living; and God Almighty blessed can tell us whether there be a God, and your industry; but since we got religion who He is, and without it, no one can you have lost your washing-tray. And have a thought of God. It is true, you had got a gown and bonnet, much

this is only the opinion of the masters of learning. No one can truthfully charge me with being a philosopher; but I never walk through a forest with out thoughtfully meditating as to who makes the trees grow, and then I feel soft yet distinct impressions of an unknown Presence, and I will wager that I then think of God, with joyful reverence and awe."

Especially in this season of the year the kind and skilful hand of our heavenly Father scatters thousands of specimens of His divine handiwork around us, which in their wondrous perfection of form, and varied beauty, far excel anything that the genius of man, and the great masters in art have produced. Yet how many move about blindly through this world crowded with the beautiful works of God around them,

the worse for the wear, though they
were all
had to wear,
you
but you have
lost them long ago. And you had many
an aching heart concerning me, at
times, but those you happily have lost.
And I could even wish that you had
lost as much as I have lost, and even
more, for what we lose by our religion,
Mary, will be our eternal gain." After
this sermon, the two old people grate-
fully pressed a rich gift into the minis-
ter's hand.

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