Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/274

 hesion. All his grown-up life, the fly has to manage with sticky feet. These are constantly becoming clogged with adhering substances, and this contamination the fly must assiduously remove if his feet are to act properly in supporting him on slippery places. If this contamination is too sticky to rub off, the fly laps it off, and it then passes off through the stomach.

The fly lays her eggs in the manure-pile or some other filthy place. All the germs—all the microbes—fasten themselves on the spongy feet. The fly brings them into the house and wipes them off. The fly that you see walking over your food is covered with filth and germs.

TRACKS OF A FLY, SHOWING THE WAY IN WHICH THEY SPREAD DISEASE GERMS

If there is any dirt in your house, or about your premises, or those of your neighbors, he has just come from it. Watch him, as he stands on the sugar, industriously wiping his feet. He is getting rid of disease germs, rubbing them on the sugar that you are going to eat, leaving the poison for you to swallow.

This does more to spread typhoid-fever, cholera infantum and other intestinal diseases than any other cause.

Intestinal diseases are more frequent whenever and wherever flies are most abundant, and they, and not the summer heat, are the active agents of the spread of such diseases. There is special danger when flies drop into such fluid as milk. This forms an ideal culture material for the bacillus. A few germs washed from the body of one fly may develop into millions within a few hours.—, The Christian Herald.

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See.

Flying-machine—See.

FOCUSING THE EYE

I can look one moment at a book six inches from my sight, at the next I can with ease look on a tree 200 yards away, and the next I can raise my eyes and view the sun millions of miles away in the upper heavens. As easily should Christians, compelled to look at the things close at hand, lift their thoughts and prayers to God. But it is hard to refocus the eye of the soul on the divine and eternal if the affections are too much set on things on the earth. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Text.)

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Foes Fraternize—See.

FOLD, THE, OF CHRIST

When the Savior proclaimed Himself as the Good Shepherd, He was not only describing His own character in one of its most beautiful aspects, but was by implication suggesting very much more. The fact of a fold implies not only protection and provision, but also restraint, oversight, authority, and order.

A traveler who recently arrived in a remote region of Uganda, relates how amazed he was to see immense numbers of all sorts of wild animals, some in great herds, others in smaller groups. That was not a fold. But if the same traveler had looked across the great pampas or llanos of South America he would have seen vast flocks and herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, roaming and grazing over the immense expanse of prairie. It might seem to him at first that those thousands of animals were wandering about at their own will. But the spectator would quickly discover that they were in reality under close attention on the part of ranch-men, cowboys, and shepherds. Further, he would find that the vast pasture-lands were enclosed by wire. So that here is a fold under shepherds.

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FOLLOWING CHRIST

A missionary doctor at Shanghai was lying one night in his bed fast asleep, when he was awakened by a loud knocking at his front door. Even Chinese grown men are very much afraid of the dark, so he was very much surprized to see two little lads from a village five miles distant standing at his door. They said their school-teacher had been taken ill, and they had come for some med-