Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/63



remember the tolling of St. Paul's bell as the Iron Duke's funeral passed up Ludgate Hill. The long green bell which announced to the Pisans that the wretched Ugolino, starved to death in the bottom dungeon, had at length ceased to breathe, still hangs in the famous leaning tower of Pisa.

At the ringing of the Sicilian Vespers in the Easter of 1282, 8,000 French were massacred in cold blood by John of Procida. The midnight bells of Paris gave the sign for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day, August 24, 1471, when 100,000 persons are said to have perished. The great towers of Christendom have all their eloquent bell tongues, and as we pass in imagination from one to the other we not only catch the mingled refrain of life and death as it floats upward from the fleeting generations of men, but we may literally from those lofty summits contemplate all the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them.—, English Illustrated Magazine.

(207)

Benefaction in Kind—See.

BENEFACTION OF ANESTHETICS

A fine sculpture in the Boston Public Garden is a marble group representing the Good Samaritan helping the man who had fallen among thieves. But more beautiful than the fine work of the sculptor is the inscription showing how the monument was erected to commemorate the earliest use of anesthetics in surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, with these texts from Scripture appended:

"Neither shall there be any more pain."

"This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."—, "Sermons in Illustration."

(208)

BENEFIT, COMPULSORY

The following paragraph appeared recently in The Medical Record (New York):

Because of the opposition of his parents to the operation, surgeons of the County Hospital of Chicago were compelled to obtain an order from the court directing the amputation of the arm of a fourteen-year-old boy recently. Gangrene following a fracture made the operation necessary, but neither the boy nor his parents would consent.

Sometimes it is legitimate to do a man good against his will.

(209)

BENEVOLENCE

He is dead whose hand is not open wide To help the need of a human brother; He doubles the length of his lifelong ride Who of his fortune gives to another; And a thousand million lives are his Who carries the world in his sympathies.

(210)

Kosciusko, the famous Polish patriot and general, was very benevolent. Sending a messenger on a hurried errand, he bade him ride his own horse. But the man was long gone, and returning said that next time he must take another horse, for that one insisted on stopping at every poor hovel and with every beggar by the way, as if he had stopt to give alms at every wayside call. Even a horse can learn the way of giving.—, "Sermons in Illustration."

(211)

Benevolence, Christian—See.

BENEVOLENCE, MODEST

One of Baron Rothschild's peculiarities was to conceal his benevolence. He gave away a great deal of money, but if the one who received it ever mentioned the fact so that it came back to the baron's ears, he never got any more. His contributions to general benevolence were always anonymous or passed through the hands of others. His name never appeared upon any benevolent list.

(212)

Benevolence, Practical—See.

Best, Getting the—See.

BEST, MAKING THE

Drudgery is the gray angel of success Look at the leaders in the professions, the solid men in business, the master-workmen who begin as poor boys and end by building a town to house their factory-hands; they are drudges of the single aim "One thing I do." Mr. Maydole, the hammer-*maker of central New York, was an artist. "Yes," he said, "I have made hammers for twenty-eight years." "Well, then, you ought