Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/571



for a piercing sense of the danger and the sinfulness of it. 2. Take care how you ingratiate yourself with any people by slackness of discipline. 3. Or by any method which another preacher can not follow. 4. Warn the people among whom you are most of esteeming or loving you too much. 5. Converse sparingly with those who are particularly fond of you.

Times and men are strangely changed since those words were written. What preacher to-day has to study anxiously "how to avoid popularity," or finds any necessity for warning the people among whom he labors against "esteeming him or loving him too much!"—, "Wesley and His Century."

(2407)

Population—See ; .

Population, Non-Church and Church-Membership—See .

Population, Over-.—See.

Populations, Religious, of World—See .

Position, Advantage of—See.

Position and Worth—See.

POSSESSION

When the Australian miner was drowned because he had heavy bags of gold round his waist, while trying to swim ashore from the wreck, it was an open question which possest which. Just so I am quite convinced that men stuffed with information or "the science of the day" are not always possest of true wisdom. Wisdom itself, anyhow, is not an end but a tool to work with.

(2408)

Possessions—See.

POSSESSIONS, UNDESIRABLE

"The regular practise of the Christian is exceptional with the world," says a writer in the Pacific Monthly.

"Out in Kansas when the bottom dropt out of the great boom in real estate some years ago, men found it harder to get rid of property than to acquire it. A lawyer going through the country one day met an old friend leading a reluctant cow toward town. Inquiry brought out the information that the cow had been secured in exchange for a city lot. 'And do you know,' said the new owner of the bovine, 'that I turned a neat trick on the old granger! He can't read a word, and in the deed I worked off two lots on him instead of one.'"

(2409)

POSSIBILITIES, LATENT

The diamond unworn is still a diamond. And the power unused is not therefore less real, or less majestic. What men do, is by no means the measure of what they might do, if they used with a rational energy their powers.—

(2410)

Posthumous Blessing—See.

POST-MORTEM CONSEQUENCES

The start of tuberculosis in France in a serious sense may be traced to the great importance of mummies and mummy-cases at the time of the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt, and this start gave the disease its first great foothold in Europe, whence it has spread all over the Eastern world and throughout the Western hemisphere as well. Dead bodies preserved in the manner peculiar to the Egyptians of the time of the Pharaohs are undoubtedly favorite lodging-places for the tubercular bacilli. (Text.)

(2411)

POVERTY

This letter was left by Miss Alice Law, aged 26, an editor employed by a local publishing firm in Chicago, who committed suicide by asphyxiation:

I am ending my life because I am seized with an acute disinclination to live, and I believe I have an absolute right to end my life if I wish. The struggle is too hard. There is too much work, too much monotony, too much weariness and not enough art, music, recreation and rest.

I am to change it. I am in my right mind. My reasoning powers are as good as ever. I go because I want to. The chief reason is because I am too near starved. Let the State pay my expenses. If I were blind, crippled or had an incurable disease the State would be obliged to take care of me. So I think I will take advantage of my rights and be buried at the public expense, as I have no money to defray the putting of me under ground.

The prices charged for a casket and burial are too exorbitant for persons in moderate circumstances. It just keeps the family in