YEAR 84, NO. 248 AL TERARY MAN AS PRACTICAL. REFORMER The International Sunday-8chool Lesson For October 28th Is "Ezra's Return From Babylon."--Ezra 8:15-36, 7 By William T. Ellis. Now that it has grown so notably the fashion for literary men to enter the sphere of practical politics and reform, it is especially suggestive to study the career of a mare distin. guished literary man thafi they all, Xho lived half a century before the beginning of the Chriftian era. This {fameus author bore the name of Ezra, and he might have lived the con- genial life of a bookish recluse amid the prosperity of Babylon. Instead, he chose the distasteful hurly-burly of administrative. work sacrificing him- he considere d the great- ed fo' Pantie in Oh, od ( ron history, and which of late years the spade has been digging up from be- neath the arid soil of Mesopotamia. Ezra came to a place of power by sheer native force, He had a vision- ary's dreams, and an executive's prac- tical abilities, His administrative capacity transformer his dreams into political realities. A Nation in the Furnace. 4 "All ships look stately except the ofie upon which you ride," says the yroverb. It is hard to pgreeive the importance and meaning of one's own age. Even, in the tremendous days of the present, some persons are heed- less of their import. So the Jews, who lived through the period of the exjle into Babylon did not understand the big meaning of it all. That it was a national furnace for the purification of the Jews is better understood now than then. The individual experi- ences of misery, of temporal prosper- ity, and Bf safety under the protection of the law of Babylonia, were all that the average Jews got out of the exile. There: are Chinese in plenty who are troubled by the unsettled state of their land at the present time, but who cannot at all see that their nation is passing through its greatest crisis The extraordinary unsettling of -Am- erican thought in our day means to some persons that war is a disturber. They are blind to the larger interpre- tation of their times. This crisis of the Jewish exiles consisted of the three deportations to Babylonia, the period of sojourn there, and the three returns--the first, already studied, the second under Ezra at a peripd gighty years later, and then the third under Nehemiah, By Desert Ways. The thought of travel in the desert appeals to every lover of the pistur: | i EXPERIENCE, THE esque and the adveriturous. Just as a caravan of camels on the sky line is a thing of rare beauty and stateliness, but common and unpleasant when seen close at hand, so these desert journeyings are made attractive by distance The exiles could tell you that the camels are infested with ver- min, and that there is no beast of burden which so racks its rider. These same Jews who had left comfortable homes in Babylonia, could tell of the choking misery .of dust and sand storms; of the dirt, barrenness, and discomfort of. caravan life. They could paint with many a graphic ges- ture the torrid heat of the desert at this timé of the year. To the spectator they were doubt- less' as interesting as the caravans which one may see to-day. I have watched the Persian pilgrims travel across this Mesopotamian desert; some on camel back, some of the chil. dren in panniers swung at each side of the beasts of burden; some on don- keys, the rich on horses, some on foot. The speed of the journey is the cam- el's pace--about three miles an hour. Probably then, as now, the camels were decorated With blue shells and musical bells. A devout' Jew seeing thé cavallhde set out from Babylon, would watch it from the heights, just as | watched an expedition set out across the desert from old Asshur, Did their imaginations foretell the testing times they" were to have by the way, ard the regretful thoughts they would send back to the fat land of Babylonia? - Literary, But Business-like. It is the visionary who sways the minds of kings, and it was Ezra, the scribe, who secured the favor of Ar- taxerxes for the return for some sev- enteen hundred exiles tg Jerusalem, He won the good will of the govern- ment and secured immunity from tax- ationhy the way, and the promise of help from local officials as well. In gifts the 'pilgrims' /bore with them Some aggregating more than two mil- lion dollars in American currency. That best business methods are thoroughly comsistent with high ideal- ism, was shown by Ezra's conduct with respect to this treasure. He had every shekel of it carefully weigh- ed at the begining of the journey, the responsibility accurately distributed and L#xact reckoning at the end.' That sort of system should charpicterize every religious and philanthropic organization: Ev- ery churéhgnan in a position of 'trust |.should demand regular. and general rh TEACHER : "As occasion has required, the Catholig Telegraph has endeavor- ed to protect its readers from the demoralizing influence of indecent theatrical performances. From time to tigne we have published the "White List" of plays, compiled by atre Movement." demn thé immoral films of the 'movies' of the burlésque houses. But, as We have felt called the legders in "The Catholic The- pon time and again to con- ki the indecent exhibitions we /have neyer hesitated in con- demning the bad, it 'has always given us pleasure to commend the ¢ good "For this reason we feel grati ence," the morality play. "visited this city in years. leaves his boyhood home to go out cess in the tarbulent ways of life, heaft, an innocent mind, a soul i poses. Soon he meets temptation young man when he leaves the pifotecting shelter of his parental roof to take his place in the busy succumbs to the allurements of sense of better things by heari back to his mind tender recoll hood home. He turns from h ageously begins life anew, wi footsteps. "It is impossible to appreciated. The characters vices, and are named accordig fron the opening of the first ¢ The scenery is the acm lent order. The sym d serves to bring out in a | to tenness of the primrose p within." arts of trade and commerce. vice until he finds himself on the very brink of crime and the lowest radation, when he is recalled to a ig the words of a hymn, which brings ytions of his dear mother and his boy- pr toilies. retraces his steps, and cour- ve, are and it is told in a way that ie to be able to praise "Experi- fi This -- is one of the best that has It shows the adventures of "Youth," who finto the great world and win suc- e begins his journey with a pure spired with high and noble pur- , the temptations that beset every He hope and ambition guiding his the play; it must be sesn to be personifications of virtues and The is really fascinating, the ce in rapt attention de until the close of the tenth and )t stage setting, and the adting is of of the play is simply wonderful, manner the lesson that the t Striking une dod gex fruit, fair Without, rot. Editorial in The! Catholic Telegraph (Cincinnath), Thu! Buraday, Stptembur 3m, 1018. er __ miNosrox N, QNTARI 0, THURSDAY. OCTOBER 25, 25, 1917 auditing of his accounts. The model business administration of every com- munity might most properly be that of the best religious organization; The other side of Ezra's character rame out when the questions of ask- ing' for guard arose He had repre- sented Jehovah as the ruler of na- tions, able toNift up and to cast down. His fine sense of fitness of things, and his zealsfat the honor of Jehovah, would not permit him to ask for an escort from, the king: He took "all proper precautions, and then trusted the Lord, which is true courage A Reform Gone Wrong. It seems but a little time before hat the main body of exiles had en- d Jerusalem with mingled grief jubilation; the sound of rejoicing iv the laying of the foundations of the temple seemed still to be linker- ing in the dir. The eestacy of that occasion was fairly delirious, but, lo! Ezra finds little trace of it all. There has been a huge slump somewhere. Dreams have given way to "pragti- cal" measures. A tragedy has slowly heen enacted, like unto that witnessed in our own times, when a young man who might have become a great poet, a great preacher, of a great reformer, deteriorates into. a mere 'millionaire. Jerusalem had insured its prosperity at the cost 'of its message. Is there any worse calamity in life than to lose one's "gleam"? Thous- ands of high-souled young men and women are thus gradually becomin blind and deaf to the ideals whic had once been as life and death to them. They have, perhaps, master- ed fortune, but they have lost their soul's loftiest possession. Even So these returned Jews had found it good business to make alliances with the heathen. ' What a descent from the first sincerity of their purposes, when they had refused help from their contaminated brethren in building. As it is so often the case with the "practical man," his shortsightedness leads him to steps which réally defeat his purposes. Had these Jews scan- ned a larger horizon, they would have recalled that they were voluntarily adopting the method which an ancient Assyrian conqueror had used to de- stroy the national integrity of the Jews, They were taking heathen wives and thus losipg their identity as a nation, The tendency to conform to one's environment and associates is as com- mon a temptation as mortal meets. Ask the old resident in the East what he has seen befall newcomers. World- Hneéss always sits seductively at the door of the churchrand usually she is invited inside. %Be ye not conform- eds but be 'ye transformed," is the word for all chosen people. Some one says that the church is in the world, which is her privilege; but when the world gets into the church, that is her peril. Cleaning Up the Town. An 'evangelist has come to town, Why is this? Did we not have an evangelist last year? Is another re- vival necessary? Alas, and alas, so it is. There are few churches or com- munities that do not need frequent re- viving. Jerusalem, which within the memory of living men had witnessed a great religious celebration, was now sorely in need of another spiritual ex- perience. She was in such bad case that it took all the couragé of this man of books to meet the emergency. . Ezra had a grip upon the law. hat was his characteristic. He was not the sort of evangelist whose stock in trade is sentimental stories and shop- worn pious phraseology. Emotional appeal§ would not do for Jerusalem, so Ezra laid down the Mw, the stern and irrevocable law of Jehovah which the lapsed city was violating. Sugar or Salt? . Some folks can't see why piety does fiot atone for Tawlessness. oates- ville attempted to justify herself in the eyes of the world by pointing to her special religiousness. . The world said, "Prove it by cottvictin the criminals in your midst." But Coates- ville had not religion enough for that. In this extraordinarily perverted and dangerous separation between reli- ness and loyalty to law lies a foo peril of our modern times. The Tor observed their temple ritual, but they kept heathen wives. Ezra un- derstood that his mission was not to be sugar, to make himself agrecable to people, but to be salt, io purify and preserve society. So he drove the terrors of the law into their conscious ness until something like an epidemic of fear and remorse seized them. His note was borrowed by Sam Jones, who was forever urging people to "Quit your meanness. The sentimentalist would say that Ezras' demand that these Jews should relinquish their wives involved a hard- ship. So it did. Likewise it is al- ways.a h ip when the thief is de- ived of his his income. It is a worse Rardship, however, to his od he is sent to jail. ity, ates havoc in quarters; yet a arch is wo all that it WAS. BAZAINE A TRAITGR? opmnb------ Surrender of Metz Was: Never Fully Explained. Francois Achille Bazainc was born near Paris in 1811. D:termining in youth to seek the bubble reputation in the cannon's mouth, he entered the army. - Being the scion of a wealthy family, he could have read- ily begun to carve gut his career with an offices sword, but he elected to begin with the musket of a private soldier and earn promotion by effi- cient service in the ranks. With such a rit ft was easy for him to win promotion, and almost before he knew it he was a general. He per- formed distinguished services in both the Crimean and Algorian wars, and when the unbappy Maximillian was establishing himself in Mexico, Bazaine, in command of the French troops, conquered and held that country for the fll-starrsd Austrian prince. After the earfy disaster of Sedan in the FraveosPrussian war all France looked to wsazaine to save jt from the oncoming Teutons. His name was upon every. lip. The fate of a nation was In the palm of his hand. While the eyes of his counirymen were upon him, Bazuioc wade a move that. caused all France to stand agape. Retiring with his vast army into idetz, he made only a feeble resistance, which allowed the Germans to survound the city and bottle him up ina siege; and there- after his defense of Metz showed a weakness that struck terror to the heart of France, Bazaine had with him 180,00¢ mén, including 6,000 officers, 143 generals, three field mar- shals, and bundreds of pieces of heavy artillery, and the city was de- fended by a modern fortress that seemed impregnable, Yet on October 27, 1870, before making half a figat, Bazaine surrendered the ontire city and this enfire force to the Prus- sians. He was at. once branded as a traitor who bad sold his country to the hated enemy. As evidence tv the contrary, he declared that his army had been starving and unfit to fight and that he had made a report to the French Government to that effect; but there was no record of such a report, The most charitable view that any Frenchman took.of the catastrophe was that Bazaine was grossly incom- pétent. But this theory could not harmonize with his past record. Brought before a court-martial on the charge of treason, Bazaine was convicted and sentenced to be shot, but his old colleague, Marshal Mac- Mahon, when elected. president of France, took. pity on him, com=iut- ing his sentence to twenty years' im- prisonment. Bazaine now treated France to an- other mystery. and another sensation. He. was found missing from his eell, and the news was sent abroad that he had escaped through the assistance of his faithful Mexican wife, but the escape eould not have been- effected without the connivance of some one powerful in the Government. He fled: to Spain and after there escaping as- sassination died suddenly in 1888. His purpose in surrendering Mets will ever remain one of the secrets of European history." Napoleon's Divorce. Napoleon's divorce, a civil act of the empire, was pronounced before the grand council held in the Tuiler- ies on December 15, 1800, and the next day the senate confirmed it.' To | remove all religious scruples, the court of the bishop of Paris met and pronounced the marriage with Josephine null, this action being | taken on January 14, 1810, The civil 'marriage of Bonaparté and Maria Louisa of Austria, ril 1, 1810, was witnessed by the "college of cardinals, save only two who were too infirm to be brought to Paris. The attitude of the church was mani- fest at the religious marriage. Not a cardinal was present, although they said that their absence was an empty form due only to the circumstannes that Pius VII. had not. approved the divorce. * Cobourg Gained 423, hy Cobourg, Oct. 25.--According to ihe assessor's figures, the population of the town of-Cobourg shows an in- crease of about 400 for this year. Last it was 4,547, This year it : That | it costs. | | 's 1 } teel aneasy.till-I heard from SOIPDOI ISIE PPODOCOS IROL Sir Charles 'Was § Dreamer SoettrtIte ra ttnty Pleo LADY in Toronto who knew Sir Charles Tupper ell tells how deeply interested he was in dreams and ap- paritiens, in all the absorbing ques- tions of psychical rescarch. Once in crossing the Atlantic with him she and a friend releived a norvous shock one evening, when Sir Charles came into the cabin where they were seated and told them that he had seen a strange face at the porthole. Unlike John Greenleaf Whittier, who longed to sce some doar ghost walk in and sit down beside him, when he was alone, they had no hankering after such an experience. -Although Sir Charles' bitterest political oppon- ents claimed that, when he was play- ing the fascinating game of politics, he was of imagination all cempaet, and Souly give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, very few sus- pected that he was a sympathetic stucent of the engrossing questions which were being investigated in a scientific way by societies of psychi- cal research, After completing his medical studies in Scotland Dr. Tupper and a friend made an excursion into England before returning -to- Can- ada. In passing a gipsy encampment they decided to have their fortunes told. As the gipsy girl looked into the hand of the young Canadian doc- tor she told him that he had come from a long way across the waters. She then proceeded to read his past life as if from a book; but she could not tell him much about the future, The impression which this fore tune-telling gipsy made upon him is one of the first hints which we get in 'he life of Sir Charles that he was susceptible to anything of this kind, If she could have told the future as easily as she read the past what an improbable story of marvel- lous achievements in the consolida- tion and development of a great country he would have heard that day, for as Sir Wilfrid Laurier testi- fled long afterwards there no one who gave more of his heart and soul-to the work of Confederation than Dr. Tupper. One of the which Sir Charles could never forget came to him when crossing to Brit ain a good many years after the in- cident at the gipsy encam nt. He deramed that a Halifax la. e to hing 'and told him that his wife was dangerously ill. "The dream was 80 real," he says, 'that I wrote it. down with the date. When I reached Liy- the dream and the date, and saying I was ashamed of being 80 disturbed by a dream, as she had never had any serious illness, but that I should She- 'wrote te-me the same day from Hali- fax, and our letters crossed in, mid- ocean, telling me that on the night in question she had taken dangerous- ly ill and that the lady who appear- ed to me in my dream had stayed with her all night." At another time much later in life Sir 'Charles went to Paris, leaving Lady Tupper in England. He dream- ed one night that she was very ill So sure was he that there was some- thing in his dream that he returned to England the next day and found | that his fears were too well- grounded. Another of Sir Charles' dreams which he often referred to relates to 'the unveiling of Nicholas Flood Davin's monument at Ottawa, July 1st, 1903. "I dreamed the night. be- fore that when I unveiled Mr. Davin's statue he was a black man who put out his hand to shake hands with me, and that I fell down in a fit." When Sir Charles unveiled the statue he was so surprised to find that it was bronze instead of white marble that he forgot a quotation from Bul- wer Lytton which he intended to make. His dream of the night before must have flashed through his m OH and led him to fear that the b: statue might make an effort to oi hands with him. "It must have been a great shock which led Sir Charles to forget anything, for he had a mar- vellously retentive memory. When he was 84 years old he "and his granddaughter began the study of Italian together at Rome, and in an remarkéible dreams | erpool I wrote to my wife telling her | i Special Agents Fit Reform Clothing Ee A, I. A Select Line of Overcoatings in Stock Inspection Invited Crawford¢Walsh Tailors. Princess and Bagot Streets. Patriotic concerts at our store all week. Come in and rest and have an hour of music. . Come in and learn what Music's Re-Creation is. | Come in and listen to NEW EDISON|[ The Po ROGRATA WITH A SOUL of which the New York Tribune said: "Edison snares the soul of music." THE J. M. GREENE MUSIC CO., LTD. Princess and Sydenham Streets. - Yarker, Napanee, 2.30 P.M. LEAVE FOR hourg Hope, Ohare and T Forfar, Deweron ville, Trenton, Brighton, Colborne, ral Dwyer Hill, Richmond = Jneviiie; Biocos Tweed: Gncem Bannockburn. P= PURE PICKLING VINEGAR AND SPICES. THOMPSON'S GROCERY. Phone 387. 294 Princess St. EIR SYSTEM LOCAL BRANCH TIME TABLE In effect Sept. opt. 30th, 1017. Trains will leave. Ang and arrive at Oity Depot, Foot of Johnson Street, Direct route to Hamilton alo, tickets all other aiormation, apply to, J. Hanley, Ageltioy or all ocean steamship p 'ines. pep day and night a ------------_ [I Peansenger Service Montreal sid Lond: gn iy wi iy fo jos ooh pa {sents or Si te Rirest Fast. Toronte IMPROVED TRAIN SERVICE ! TO AND FROM KINGSTON to, Belle: | : © 4.40 PM. ARRIVE FROM Oronto, Tyroune, Smile nd Ot- Ere o and pe Sir C and, as is the case of old Taylor, thé sailor preacher of ton, no doubt Sir Charles blessed the Sir Charles i Moscow, fnaville, Stoes and For Deseronto, nsecon, Weilingte lon, Be Enter, ive, Tom Ere worth, Reservitions, Literature and Information, apply to Tickets, J. E. IVEY, STATION AGT. or M. G. DUNN, CITY AGT. Or write A. L. Fairbairn, G.P.A., €§ King St. E., Toronto, iE MAYBE BUYING MATCHES | Never Struck You As Beings An lameitant