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curst—no, not one inch! It is a bishop's duty to bless, and the moment you begin to curse you cease to be fit for your high position." (Text.)

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CURVES OF TEMPTATION

An efficient baseball player tries to get at the secret of the pitcher's curves; and the player in the game of life will look well to the curves of the world. This is a good world, and the men and women in it are of royal lineage—we are of God; but the glorious gift of liberty makes possible temptation and sin.

Because you ought to do right it is possible that you may yield to temptation, and failing to overcome a world curve be compelled to give up your place at the home-*plate.—

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CUSTOM

Whether in architecture, or in education, or in dress, or in other affairs of life, custom rules in Korea. Custom explains everything.

"What about this absurdity?" "Oh, it's custom." "Yes, but see here, why are the dead propt up on sticks and not buried?" "Oh, it's custom." "Do you sometimes marry off children as early as nine years of age?" "Yes, that's custom."

The reader must learn this word if he would understand old Korea, and if he would read into much of the life of the East still The forefather may have been an imbecile, or may have walked in his sleep, but what he did has come down, down to the present, and custom maintains that it is the sane and right thing to do.

"Why do you feed all these idle tramps, who come calling at your door, and you a poor man?" I once asked of my host.

He replied, "It's custom, and for my life I can't get out of it." "What about these dolmens set up all through these valleys here like tables of the gods; what do they mean?" "They were set up by the Chinese invader, thousands of years ago, to crush out the ground influence that brought forth Korean warriors."

"You mean that they have stifled out the life of the nation for all these centuries?" "Yes." "Then why don't you roll them off and get back your lost vigor?" "Oh, that's no use now, never do." "As it was, is now, and ever shall be," is the only reply.—, "Korea in Transition."

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Custom, Disregarded—See.

CUSTOM, FORCE OF

Dr. Harlan P. Beach says:

In China there are customs which are more important than etiquette. I met a man who had been shaking from head to feet "You have had chills and fever, haven't you?" I said sympathizingly. He came very near taking my head off, because there is a special god who runs chills and fever, and if he hears a man has chills and fever and is getting over it, he will give him another shake. I had gone against their deadly custom. Another incident of the same sort happened one day when a doctor of divinity saw a cheap sedan chair and bought it. A millionaire globe-trotter used it that day for sight-seeing, and when he reached the missionary compound, he exclaimed, "I have been outrageously treated by the heathen. The whole city was out laughing at me. As soon as I appeared, every man rushed out of his shop, and the streets were in an uproar." The doctor of divinity asked his native teacher for an explanation. Now, a teacher is never supposed to smile from one day's end to another, but that dignified teacher, glass, goggles, and all, doubled up with laughter when he saw the chair. "You really must excuse me," he said, "but that kind of a chair is used only in funeral processions for the spirit of the dead to ride in." It was as tho a man should ride through our city sitting up in a hearse.

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Custom Upheld—See.

Customs, Oriental—See.

Customs, Value of—See.

Cycles in Nature—See.

CYNIC REBUKED

The late A. T. Gordon, D.D., told this incident:

A certain infidel, a blacksmith, was in the habit when any one came into his shop of telling what some Christian brother or deacon or minister had done, and say, "That