Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/626



If we were to note that, suddenly and in the same proportions, the distance between two points on this earth had increased, that all the planets had moved farther from each other, that all objects around us had become larger, that we ourselves had become taller, and that the distance traveled by light in the duration of a vibration had become greater, we should not hesitate to think ourselves the victims of an illusion, that in reality all these distances had remained fixt, and that all these appearances were due to a shortening of the rule which we had used as the standard for measuring the lengths.—, "The New Physics and Its Evolution."

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Releasing the Word of Life—See. RELIC VALUED  Byron's remains rest in an old leaden coffin, side by side with those of his mother, and close by lies his daughter, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, who died in 1852. When the vault was opened to permit of the interment of Lady Lovelace many persons visited the church in order to catch a glimpse of the coffin. Upon one occasion a little girl was prevailed upon to descend by the stone staircase into the vault and she returned carrying a narrow strip of faded velvet in her hand, torn from the poet's coffin. Among the group around the mouth of the graves was a tall, dark foreigner, who eagerly questioned the child as to her possession, and finally, in exchange for a piece of gold, received the strip of cloth. That man was Kossuth.—Frank Leslie's.

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Relief by Crying—See.

Religion—See ;.

RELIGION A GROWTH

Time goes to the making of the oak, and the man and the Christian. Moral development is slow. We must not be surprized nor disappointed to find it so. As one says:

The sunrise is gradual, as we have seen—there are many tremulous gleams before the wheels of his chariot are moving over the sea. And so we should beware in a measure of momentary impulsive religion: the idea that we can pass in a moment from deadness, darkness, worldliness, to the full assurance of the favor of God. There are such cases, but they are rare, and the religion of sudden emotion is apt with many to prove not lasting.

If religion is a growth, let us be patient in the process.

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RELIGION, A TEST OF

Addressing a big Methodist camp-meeting, Bishop Quayle informed his audience how to discern a Christian by street-car manners. "If you are hanging on a strap in a crowded street-car, and the conductor calls out 'Step forward, please,' and there is no place in front where you can step forward, the way you act will be a test of your religion. If you are a woman, and a man gives you his seat, and you act as if you thought it was your right and not his kindness that gave you the seat, the way you act will test you more than answering questions in theology. It is not how you treat some big body, but how you treat a little urchin, dirty in tears, that tests your religion. What you do when you are off duty—that's what counts. What if the people who see us at church and at weddings should see us in the betweens? What we Christians do ofttimes kills faith in the Church. Anybody can see a rose-*garden in the daytime, but we can also smell it in the dark. What we do when nobody sees us ought to be as beautiful as what we do in the open."

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RELIGION ALLAYING FEAR

Athens had two cities—down in the plain was the city of work, with shops, ox carts, plows and hoes, on the hillside were the shops where men bought and sold. But the crags above were crowned with temples, where beauty and worship had their home. Oft in the hours of tumult and strife, when the workers feared the coming of enemies, they turned their thoughts upward toward the Parthenon, and drank in the beauty of Athena's face, and her calm, white hand seemed to fall upon the brow, to allay the fear, and breathe peace to the frightened working men. Greek culture and character represented the interplay of the upper and the lower city. So it is that man's life of work, and his invisible life of faith and worship are knitted together. The inventor, the