Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/183

 he demanded a mule. On this beast he made the next stage, to be told on arrival that there was only a donkey available. Accepting this mount from necessity, he reached in time another stage, where he met the announcement that nothing in the shape of an animal was obtainable but a cow! The story stops there, drawing the veil of silence over the rest of the journey.

An evil life is successively degraded, declining in guilt and misery to depths lower than the brute. (Text.)

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The early Christians did not despise the dance; but as monkish asceticism drew away from the simple, natural teaching of Christ, the dance fell into disfavor and was frowned upon as a manifestation of the evil one. And just so it was with artistic perception and artistic appreciation. Where they were highest, in Hellenic antiquity, dancing had its place among the arts and was revered as the oldest of them all, that art upon which all the others were based. Dragged down to pander to luxury and profligacy, as were all the arts during the period of Roman triumph and Roman decadence, the dance fell under a cloud with the rest, and seemed to disappear during the dark ages, as did the others. (Text.)—, The Cosmopolitan.

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Degradation Inciting Philanthropy—See .

Degradation versus Transformation—See .

Degrees, Honorary—See.

DEISM

Deism of any type is morally impotent; and deism of the eighteenth-century type is nothing but a little patch of uncertain quick-*sand set in a black sea of atheism. It does not deny God's existence, but it cancels Him out as a force in human life. It breaks the golden ladder of revelation between heaven and earth. It leaves the Bible discredited, duty a guess, heaven a freak of the uncharted imagination, and God a vague and far-off shadow. Men were left by it to climb into a shadowy heaven on some frail ladder of human logic.—Rev. , "Wesley and His Century."

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DELAY

The limited express that spans the distance between New York and Chicago in twenty-four hours accomplishes the feat not so much by increasing the speed as by reducing the delays. In the main the train does not travel much faster than the other trains that take a third more time do at their maximum; but it makes fewer stops, it attends more strictly to its through business. Chicago is its objective point.

It is much so on the railroad of life. How young we would all be at sixty—ay, at eighty—if we would avoid the petty, useless, the unnecessary delays, the unprofitable business at the side-*stations along the road. (Text.)—, "The Cambro-American Pulpit."

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A newpaper item has the following:

At an annual dinner of the Architectural League of New York the venerable artist, John La Farge—who certainly belongs among the first half-score of painters that America has produced—was presented with a medal of honor.

Then a singular thing happened.

Mr. La Farge got upon his feet and, in a gentle tone of expostulation, protested that the honors now offered him were a little empty—and very much belated.

He said he had "only three or four more years left to work in," and that through all the years of his vigorous manhood the great city of New York, with all its vast enterprise of building, had offered little opportunity to his hand.

The kind word should be spoken to the friend and not engraved on his tombstone. The work that is thought of should be performed in the day of opportunity, for it may be so belated as to lose much of its meaning.

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Delay, Expensive—See.

Delay in Religious Instruction—See.

DELAY, THE TRAGEDY OF

Charles Biedinger, an inventor, was found dead in his room in a cheap lodging-house. He had been in extreme want, and had learned that the Superior Court at Cincin-