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 it now! Don't linger by the way, do it now! You'll lose if you delay, do it now! If the other fellows wait, or postpone until it's late, you hit up a faster gait—do it now!—Intelligencer.

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Numbers, Courage of—See.

Numbers Without Meaning—See.

Nurse, Florence Nightingale as a—See .

NUTRIMENT OF THE SOUL

Last summer I went to an agricultural college. I had been under the delusion that black clods turned to strawberries, and that red clay ripened apples and wheat shocks. One day the professor handed me a large microscope to study two blades of corn, growing in a little pot of earth. Now there was something lacking in the soil. The little stock was yellow, sickly, and come to the moment of death. It throbbed a little, but the pulse beat low. What was the matter? All it needed was nitrogen. Nitrogen? Why there were billions of tons of nitrogen in the air, forty miles thick. When a man has pneumonia he dies, not because there are not billions of tons of oxygen above him, but because he can not absorb the oxygen. The soil could not help the dying corn plant. The rain could not help it—poor little plant that pants and pants, because it can not get that invisible nourishment in nitrogen. So we took a little liquor that held a few nodules from a nitrogenous alfalfa root, and poured it about the dying blade of corn. In a single hour the pulse began to beat true and firm; another morning came and the sickly yellow had changed to green. In a week the corn was growing like a weed. Out in the field were two acres of corn, sown broadcast. One acre was in the starved soil and yielded nine hundred pounds of fodder; the other acre yielded over ten thousand pounds, through that rich invisible food.

Not otherwise is it with the soul.—

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NUTRITION, PROPER

"With the exception of carbon, the food of plants comes from the soil and it is dissolved in the soil water. If the soil does not contain food enough, the plant can not grow well, even tho they have everything else they need. The ideal soil must have sufficient plant food in a form that can dissolve in water to supply the needs of crops grown on it."

There must be religious nutriment in the soil of education and training in order to proper moral growth. (Text.)

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O

OASES

Among the African deserts are some fertile spots. They are occasioned by springs which arise in little dells and moisten the ground for some distance around them. They are islands of verdure and beauty and refreshing in an ocean of desolation. Some of them are very extensive and contain a considerable population. One of these is called the Great Oasis, consisting of a chain of fertile tracts of about a hundred miles in length. Another is the Oasis of Siwah, which has a population of eight thousand souls.

Is not life dotted with just such oases that gladden the desert expanse that surrounds so many pilgrims of earth? (Text.)

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OATHS

The primary idea of taking an oath is that we call upon the Deity to bear witness to the sincerity or truth of what we assert, and so, as it were, register our oath in heaven. When Abraham, for example, raised his hands to heaven while swearing an oath to the King of Sodom, he pointed to the supposed residence of the Creator. Afterward, when men set up inferior deities of their own, they appealed to the material images of symbols that represented them, whenever an oath was administered. The most usual form of swearing among the ancients was, however, by touching the altar of the gods. Other rites, such as libations, the burning of incense and sacrifices accompanied the touching of the altar. Demos-