worth in military life, and they are worth just as much large matter to be disposed of in the ward of a single and no more in the civil department of the govern-hospital, and, as there is so much at stake, both parties ment. Either the diploma of such a school, or the ought to be well agreed as to the fairness of the ex certificate of a board of examiners, themselves beyond periment. the reach of political considerations, should be required of every man who seeks an office under the federal government. Without a reform in the civil service, we cannot hope for any improvement in the political morals of the country. The present system of elections and appointments stands squarely in the way of all reform. So long as office is regarded as party property and spoil, our politics and our political men must remain corrupt. The whole system is vicious, root and branch; and the grand difficulty of reformation rests in the fact that the men whom we call upon to institute it are indebted for their office mainly to the system itself. They do not dare to institute a reformation which would weaken their power to carry out their own selfish ends, and execute the promises they have made to others. There is, therefore, not a man in Congress who votes against civil service reform who will not bear careful watching. Prayers and Pills. It is to be remembered, to begin with, that a proposition of this kind could not possibly come from man who, conscious of his own unworthiness, and humbly subordinating his will to that of God, expres ses his earnest desires in prayer. No Christian and no body of Christians-not even "the whole body of the faithful"-would consent to have the question of God's providential interference in human affairs decided for the world by the strength of their hold upon the Almighty arm, through the medium of their prayers. The experiment would be preposterous, and almost blasphemously presumptuous. No body of reverent Christian physicians would engage in such a competition. With all the fair seeming of the proposition, it is evidently impossible to be acted upon. The issue is tremendous. The whole question of the supernatural in human affairs, and the whole question of Christianity based upon it, would be involved in that issue; and every Christian would shrink in terror from the presumption that the power of his poor petitions was relied upon to decide so vital a matter. So, if the experiment were tried, it would be instituted and executed by men who believe neither in prayer nor Providence, and who would conduct it with reference to their own ends. The world would not trast them, and the world ought not to trust them. But supposing the physicians were equally divided between Christian and unchristian, and that the two bodies were placed in watch of each other: would it be altogether fair to give the ward or hospital subjected to the experiment any medical treatment whatever? Physicians make mistakes sometimes, and thwart the God of nature, who happens at the same time to be the God of Providence. Evidently a A SINGULAR article, containing an unprecedented proposition, appeared in the July Contemporary Review, entitled: "The Prayer for the Sick: Hints towards a serious attempt to estimate its value." Prof. Tyndall regarded it as of sufficient importance to claim from him a word of introduction. He thinks it quite desirable to have clearer notions than we now possess of the action of "Providence" in physical affairs. The proposition of the writer is to establish a scientific, experimental test of the power of prayer in the healing of the sick. He asks: "that one single ward, or hospital, under the care of first-rate physicians and surgeons" (including Sir Henry Thomp-hospital without, would offer a fairer chance for exson, we presume the reputed author of the proposition),"containing certain numbers of persons afflicted with those diseases which have been best studied, and of which the mortality rates are best known, whether the diseases are those which are treated by medical or by surgical remedies, should be, during a period of not less, say, than three or five years, made the object of special prayer by the whole body of the faithful, and that, at the end of that time, the mortality rates should be compared with the past rates, and also with that of other leading hospitals, similarly well managed, during the same period." | Prof. Tyndall, in his introduction, says: "Two opposing parties here confront each other -the one affirming the habitual intrusion of supernatural power, in answer to the petitions of men; the other questioning, if not denying, any such intrusion." It seems, therefore, that the whole question of Providence and prayer is to be decided by this experiment, and it will also be seen that Christianity itself will thus be placed on trial. This is rather a periment than one with, physicians. Then, if the result were not on the side of the skeptics, would they admit that the God of Providence cured the patients in answer to prayer, or would they claim that the unaided power of nature was the healing agent? Who knows, in this world of medical empiricism, whether the great obstacle to the efficacy of the prayers of the faithful is not the medical profession itself? And who knows that Providence does not withhold its cures that the world may learn, in the long years, that it is best to do without the medical profession altogether? We take it for granted that the writer of the strange proposition we are considering belongs to what is denominated "the regular profession." Now if there is anything thoroughly well known among the people, it is that "the regular profession" object to any system of treatment not 'regular," and doubt the reality of any cure not wrought by "regular" means. Is there any medical society that would permit its members to co-operate with irregular measures like those which this man proposes? Would not this be equivalent to a consultation with Providence-a practitioner not recognized by the societies generally? Is prayer regarded as an article of the materia medica? Is not this whole proposition grossly irregular, and does it not become the profession to set upon this writer who thus proposes to compromise his position and make an example of him? If not, then we have a proposition. to make which is entirely practicable. It is one in which a great multitude of people would be much interested. Let us institute an experiment to see what system of medicine Providence favors. Our doctor of the Contemporary Review is utterly imprac-| ticable, but he manifests a disposition to try experiments, and shows a healthy fearlessness of professional proscription. We propose, therefore, that a hospital be run three years by the regular profession, then three years by, say, the hydropathists, and then three years by the homoeopathists. Let each body of practitioners have the benefit not only of the "general prayer," or prayer for "all men," but of special prayer. Thus the moral effect of the use of material remedies would be secured to all, and we should learn what system of medicine Providence favors, or the one which interferes least with its laws. Here now is something entirely practical, and there are many people interested in the decision of this question where one is seriously in doubt about the other. The world is immensely, nay vitally, concerned in the decision to be arrived at through an experiment like this? Shall we have it? We rather think not. We should really like to know which system of medical treatment the God of Providence or the God of Nature favors. Christendom must give up its Christianity or believe in prayer-prayer for the sick-prayer for the well. It will not consent that that system of religion on which is based the highest civilization of the world shall be decided for or against by the power of its prayers over Providence. No candid man would ever ask, and no sane man expect, it to do so. So we will leave the scientist to his Nature and the Christian to his Providence in the practical and most desirable experiment which we propose. Let us get at the truth. If it is not “irregular" to try an experiment with Providence, it ought not to be irregular to try one with less considerable personages. But that would put the medical profession on trial, which is so much more important an institution than Christianity that it will not be considered for a moment. The Outsiders. WE recently heard a preacher say, quite impressively, that often, when preaching to his own people, and looking down upon their multitudinous, up-turned faces, he saw another audience of indefinitely vast proportions beyond the sound of his voice-the great multitude that cannot hear and that will not come within his reach. He was haunted, he said, while feeding his own flock, with a vision of the gaunt faces that stood and stared in the unapproachable and unapproaching distance. We suppose there is not one earnest preacher in this great city who is not often moved in the same way, and who will not be sympa thetically touched by this representation of the great masses with whom, and with whose needs, he finds it impossible to place himself in helpful relations. How to reach with Christian truth and influence the poor, the degraded, the unbelieving, the vicious, the careless, who never cross the threshold of a church or hear the sound of a preacher's voice, is still a problem unsolved. To the poor the Gospel is not preached as it ought to be, and as it must be, before the hopes and expectations of the Christian world are realized. There have been some observations made in the city of Boston which are suggestive of methods that deserve a trial. It seems to be proved that there is a mass of men and women who will not enter a church; and it is notorious that the largest audiences that have been gathered to hear preaching in our cities have found themselves in theaters and halls and operahouses. It seems to be proved, also, that even free seats in churches will not attract those whom we wish to reach. They will not enter a church. Exactly why, we think they would find it difficult to tell, but such is the fact, and we have it to deal with, in the wisest way we can. Preaching has been held in Music Hall, Boston, for some years, as also in Tremont Temple. The Boston Theater, too, has been occasionally used. Whenever a really popular preacher appears at either of these audience-rooms the house will be filled, and observation has shown that all three of these places of popular amusement may be filled on a single Sunday evening, without interfering, apparently, with the size of the audiences in the churches. Observation has further shown that a single popular preacher, going from one of these places to the other, will not take with him more than a hundred of his previous audience. That is-the audience that assembles to hear preaching at Music Hall will not go to the Boston Theater, and the audience of the Theater will not show itself in Tremont Temple. These buildings are so near to each other that this fact cannot be explained on the ground that they accommodate different localities. All Boston may We are just as easily go to one house as the other. therefore led to the conviction that people will go to hear preaching where they are in the habit of going to be amused, and where they feel particularly at home. They associate these houses with their intellectual and emotional pleasures, and are glad to spend their Sunday evenings in them. Of course it is impossible for us to say how far the rule that prevails in Boston will apply to New York; but human nature is pretty much the same every. where, as well as human need. If it be true that good. preachers will fill the theaters of New York during the long Sunday evenings of the season now already upon us, the policy and duty of the Christian are very few of them who would not respond to an appeal based upon the universal need on one hand, and universal charity on the other. The Power of the Affirmative. citizens of New York is laid out and defined to them. Of course it will be necessary that the movement thus suggested should sail under the broadest Christian colors-that no sectarian hand should be at the helm, and no sectarian port aimed at. What is needed is to bring the people whom we wish to benefit under the influence of Christian motives of conduct; to elevate their aims and purify their characters; to bear to them the balm of Christian comforts and consolations in the hard lives they have to lead, and to show to them that we have no selfish or sectarian schemes to advance. If they will listen to the Chapins, let them have the Chapins; if to the Collyers, let them have the Collyers; if to the Storrses and Beechers and Tyngs, let them have these, and their worthy confrères. Of one thing we may rest assured that the audiences which will gather into a theater will accept no man who is simply the mouthpiece of a creed. They will listen to no man who does not come before them free, with the love of God and the love of man dominant in his heart, with good brains in his head, a thorough knowledge of human nature, and a tongue that can talk. What these people need to learn more than anything else is the uses and applications of Christianity to their every-day life and conduct. They need to have the life and work of Christ exhibited to them, and the rule of Christ explained and enforced. They need to be lifted out of animalism and unbelief into spiritu-sponds: "I do not believe what you believe," or "I ality and faith; and there is not an earnest, gifted man, of any Christian persuasion, who cannot do them good. If the Christian churches of New York cannot meet on common ground, and unite in a work like this, they will at least find in that fact the reason why they are so limited in their influence; and if the Young Men's Christian Association cannot accomplish the work, let us have an Old Men's Association that will. If it be said that money cannot be raised for so great an expenditure, we reply that money can be raised for any charity in New York that the people have faith in. A single newspaper has raised $20,000 with comparative ease for the ministry of pleasure, comfort, and health to the poor children of the city during the past summer; and if the enterprise we propose, viz. to throw open every theater in the city during the next four months for public worship, and furnish it with a first-rate Christian preacher, were to be presented to the rich men of the city, properly planned and indorsed, the whole sum needed could be secured in twenty-four hours. There is no good thing that New York beneficence will not do, if it is appealed to on broad, catholic, Christian ground. It may be difficult to raise money for church-building, or to carry on the various denominational enterprises of the city, but this is a different matter altogether. It would appeal alike to those who have no church connections and those who have. There is not a man among all our millionaires who does not know that influences like that which we propose are in the interest of public order, economy, and safety, and there THE power of positive ideas and the power of the positive affirmation and promulgation of them move the world. Breath is wasted in nothing more lavishly than in negations and denials. It is not necessary for truth to worry itself, even if a lie can run a league while it is putting on its boots. Let it run, and get out of breath, and get out of the way. A man who spends his days in arresting and knocking down lies and liars will have no time left for speaking the truth. There is nothing more damaging to a man's reputa tion than his admission that it needs defending when attacked. Great sensitiveness to assault, on the part of any cause, is an unmistakable sign of weakness. A strong man and a strong cause need only to live an affirmative life, devoting no attention whatever to enemies, to win their way, and to trample beneath their feet all the obstacles that malice, or jealousy, or selfishness throws before them. The man who can say strongly and earnestly "I believe," has not only a vital and valuable possession, but he has a permanent source of inspiration within himself, and a permanent influence over others. The man who re deny what you believe," has no possession, and no influence except a personal one. In nothing is this principle better exemplified and illustrated than in the strifes of political parties. The party that adopts a group of positive ideas, and shapes a positive policy upon them, and boldly and consist. ently affirms and promulgates both ideas and policy, has an immense advantage over one which undertakes to operate upon a capital of negations. The history of American politics is full of confirmations of this truth. No party has ever had more than a temporary success that based its action simply on a denial of a set of positive ideas held by its opponent. The popular mind demands something positive-something that really possesses breath and being-to which it may yield its allegiance. There is no vitalizing and organic power in simple opposition and negation. Earnest, straightforward affirmation has a power in itself, independent of what it affirms, greater than negation when associated with all the influences it can engage. The Author of Christianity understood this matter. His system of religion was to be preached, proclaimed, promulgated. Its friends were not to win their triumphs by denying the denials of infidelity, but by persistently affirming, explaining and applying the truth. With this system of truth in his hands-so pure, so beneficent, so far-reaching in its results upon human character, happiness, and destiny-the Christian teacher commands the position. Infidelity and denial can make no permanent headway against faith, unless faith stop to bandy words with them. That is precisely what they would like, and what would give them an importance and an influence which they can win in no other way. Why should an impregnable fortress exchange shots with a passing schooner? Silence would be a better defense than a salvo, and deprive the schooner of the privilege of being reported in the newspapers. The world whirls toward the sun, and never stops to parley with the east wind. The great river, checked by a dam, quietly piles up its waters, buries the dam, and, rolling over it, grasps the occasion for a new exhibition of its positive power and beauty. The rip-rap shuts an ocean door, but the ocean has a million doors through which it may pour its tides. Stopping to deny denials is as profitless as stopping to deny truths. It is consenting to leave an affirmative for a negative position, which is a removal to the weak side. So a man who has really anything positive in him has nothing to do but persistently to work and live it out. If he is a politician or a statesman, or a reformer or a literary man, he can make himself felt most as a power in the world, and be securest of ultimate recognition, by living a boldly affirmative life, and doing thoroughly that which it is in him to do, regardless of assault, detraction and misconstruction. The enemies of any man who suffers himself to be annoyed by them will be certain to keep him busy. The world has never discovered anything nutritious in a negation, and the men of faith and conviction will always find a multitude eager for the food they bear. Men will continue to drink from the brooks and refuse to eat the stones that obstruct them. Even error itself in an affirmative form is a thousand times more powerful than when it appears as a denial of a truth. THE OLD CABINET. STANDING on the main deck of the ferry-boat, near the shore end, and facing the stream that flows up the ferry-bridge, boatward, is a middle-aged man in a greasy-gray suit and soiled neck-tie, and with a bronzed, weather-beaten face, over which you may notice a slight shadow of sadness. It might seem at first a queer uncomfortable place for the quiet little man to persist in keeping his station. You might think it remarkable that he does not get crushed under the hoofs and wheels that come scrambling and sliding around him; you might wonder that he does not take refuge in that part of the steamer in irony devoted to Gentlemen, or on the other side, called with still subtler and sharper humor, the Ladies' Cabin. You might wonder, I say, if you did not know, that he is the Man of Destiny; if you did not observe that not a driver drives aboard without taking his direction from him. A glance of the eye, a nod of the head; a beckon of the finger, a swing of the hand, and the wagon passes this side or that to the right or to the left. There is a singular fascination for me about this man of the imperious gesture. Every day I stand and watch him till the two long passage-ways which stretch one on each side of the engine-room are quite full; till there is no more room inside of the chains, -and the boat pushes off on its voyage to the other shore. It is the voyage of life, I say to myself, and my little man in the greasy-gray suit is the Chance that meets us when we come aboard, and directs our way. No wonder his face is sad. It is blind enough work for him. He has no time to consider fine, far-reaching results. What he has to do with is the balance of the boat. She must be kept trim, no matter which side the coal-cart or the phaeton goes. Men and women and horses and wagons must be nothing to him save so much ballast. If the hearse happens to be sent after the bridal coach, it is because the load of pig-iron weighed more than the McFlimsey turnout, footmen, lapdog and all,--and perhaps the bride will not look out of the window. Yes, he is as potent and as impotent as the stone that divides the mountain brook-sending one long river line to the sunrise, and the other to the sunset. For his lines do not stop at the other end of the boat. They run far up into the city, far on into the lives of these men and these horses. No one standing here on the ferry-boat can see where they end.. There is in the little man's face something besides sadness-something very much like cruelty, I think. You may be sure that the thunder on his brows will flash into the lightning of curses, if any driver dare thwart his will. One may attempt this, but it will be a vain attempt. This embodied Chance is too sudden for him. He is under the ferryman's full dominion before the rebellion in his soul has time to organize for action. The horses strain up the steep incline, the iron hoofs seizing the slippery planks with fearful clatter; they reach the deck and surge forward under fierce headway; now the glitter of the little man's eye, the team swings to port, and the driver, with belated oaths, parts company with his starboard-bound chum of the butcher cart. I suppose if I could fully understand my little man of the ferry, I should have a clue to the mystery of life. This element of Chance in history, what a curious thing it is! But history, after all, is something afar off. It is the Chance in our own lives that is above all things wonderful. Why, it sometimes seems that I have chanced upon everything I have had of good or ill. How often something has happened to me,something so slight, maybe, in the outward seeming, that no one else has taken cognizance of it-and I have tried hard to remember how the world looked five minutes before. Will it be the I have some little thing to write. same, I wonder, if I write it to-morrow instead of to-day? I sit here at the Old Cabinet, and the thoughts rush in upon me from all the darkling corners of the room; through the closed windows; from the open fireplace, where an armful of broken branches threatens the cool air. Suppose I am called to the door by a begging tramp: when I come back will I be greeted by the same aërial throng; or will one of the sisterhood turn her grieved face from me forever? As I was falling asleep last night I thought of something concerning the man of the ferry, which should find a place among these paragraphs. I half believe I have remembered it; but whether that very notion were recaught and fixed on the page, just as it came to me then, or whether it fled away on the wings of a dream, I shall never know. And that slow Chance we sometimes call Fate; how hard it is for us to believe that things are what it has made them. So little the rift in the lute. If only; if only ! Ah, that first night of Mario, when the world-famous singer stood there so like himself, but with that melancholy ghost of a voice scaring us to tears! Here was the old sweetness and tenderness and art,-surely an effort might bring the old clearness and vigor and thrill! I have a friend who thinks he can write poetry. Sympathizing as I do with this yearning of his for expression, whenever he brings me a new piece of verse to criticise, I say to myself, this time it must be a poem. But it isn't. There is no lift in it at all; not a ray of the light they talk about, that never was! And here is Ambrosia's last painting-the drawing is so careful and correct; the color is so good; the labor has been so long and loving; but it is not a picture, and it is so clear that she can never make a picture. With both would-be poet and painter, you see, it was the big Chance that came early and killed off all the little chances. They happened not to be born poet and painter, and no minor happening may relieve the monotony or lessen the pathos of their mediocrity. It is the same in morals. Have you not said again and again of some dear fellow-this moment he is so bright and cheerful, and seems so sane; so one with these innocent, joyous companions of his; he cannot be the wreck we have thought him; now if the tempter comes he will be strong to conquer; now, at last, he will escape his fate! But alas, and alas! And the chain of Chances that dragged those we love to the grave-thinking, sometimes, how slight the links; how easily they might have been broken and flung aside,-I tell you I have almost, for a moment, brought my dead to life! . . . It sometimes seems that I have chanced upon everything I have had of good or ill. But looking back, I know now well why the fickle goddess of Fortune was called the sister of Law,-I know now well why in these latter days the world has found another name for both Law and Fortune. THE begging tramp who did not come to the door, started our conversation this evening on the subject of beggars and forlorn folks in general. It is rather interesting to see how even with some very benevolent people a moral taint is a bar to charity. Is he honest? they ask first. If that question is answered satisfactorily, their generosity knows no bounds. But if the poor fellow has the double misfortune of a light purse and a slim conscience,—then he must move on! If he is sick in body, they help him, O how tenderly! If he is sick, in soul they cast him off without compunctions. If a pile of bricks falls and breaks his leg, how quickly they run for bandages; but if a sadder accident overwhelms him in moral misery, they think they do well to abandon him to his fate. They appear never to consider how brittle the legs of their own virtue; how fortunate for themselves that their ways lie not alongside of tottering moral brick-piles. Yes, said the Present Incumbent, when we remember how easy it is for even the good to go astray, and the inconsistency of human character generally, it behooves us I don't believe in inconsistency of character, interrupted Theodosia. The actions we call contradictory, and the lives we call inconsistent, are plain and consistent enough when we come to study them. Every one knows, for instance, that lavish generosity and supreme selfishness may belong to the same type of character-they meet in those jolly good fellows who cheerfully take the clothes off their backs to give to strangers, and as cheerfully let their own families go naked. When humanity is thoroughly understood, there will be no more talk about inconsistency. For my part, said neighbor Jacobus, I am tired of this everlasting balancing of qualities, this justice that consults family trees and cranial developments. What we want is a little wholesale condemnation. I should like to be able to look some man straight in the eyes and say (sotto voce),-My dear sir, I am happy to know that you are a perfect scoundrel, an unmitigated scamp, a person in whose rascality there is not the shadow of a shade of alleviation, for whom pity is impossible and hanging too good. WHILE we were talking, I noticed that the Poet appeared to be copying something from the backs of old envelopes and scraps of paper which he had taken from his breast-pocket. After he had gone, I found the following verses, scribbled in lead-pencil, lying on the desk of the Old Cabinet : THE SONG OF A ROSE. I loved a red rose in a garden: My comrade leaned over the fence And playfully plucked it thence-Not so much as I beg your pardon ' ! There is one who goeth yet stayeth; There is one who stays yet is gone. |