Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/784

 scope, costing only about twenty-five cents, and known as a "linen tester," furnished the necessary magnifying.

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USELESS STRUCTURES

Science speaks of useless physiological structures, as when we read in "The Descent of Man":

Man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so during any former period of his existence, either in relation to his general condition of life, or of one sex to the other. Such structures can not be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts.

Useless structures are not discerned alone by science. History and experience, in the large field of life, have seen them many times. The efforts of man have often reclaimed "useless structures."

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USURY IN OLD DAYS

Our Pilgrims were few and poor. The whole outfit of this historic voyage, including £1,700 of trading stock, was only £2,400, and how little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the soldier, Captain Miles Standish, who, being sent to England for assistance—not military, but financial—(God save the mark!)—succeeded in borrowing—how much do you suppose?—£150 sterling. Something in the way of help; and the historian adds, "tho at fifty per cent interest." So much for a valiant soldier on a financial expedition. A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony £200 at a reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants.—

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UTILITY

Many men decide values as Russell Sage did in this incident from The Saturday Evening Post, which illustrates the thrift which has always been present in all transactions made by Russell Sage:

A prominent New York financier says that recently, while on a tour of inspection over the Missouri Pacific system, President Gould took great pride in pointing out to Russell Sage the late improvements in equipment, and various new and ingenious devices and attachments. Among the latter Mr. Gould was especially pleased to show to Mr. Sage a certain device by which there is registered the speed of a train. The device in question resembled a steam-gage, and was connected with an axle, so that the pointer registered the number of revolutions every minute.

Mr. Sage examined the device with great interest. Then, after a moment's pause, he looked up at Mr. Gould, and asked with great solemnity, "Does it earn anything?" "No, I think not," answered the president. "Does it save anything?" "No." "Then," concluded Mr. Sage decidedly, "I would not have it on my car!"

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See.

UTILITY AS THEISTIC EVIDENCE

Man reasons from himself to the great cause of things. That which is true of man may be true of God.

A prospect-glass or a forceps is an instrument; they have each a final cause; that is, they were each made and adjusted for a certain use. The use of the prospect-glass is to assist the eye; the use of the forceps is to assist the hand. The prospect-glass was made the better to see; the forceps, the better to grasp. The use did not make these instruments; they were each made for the use—which use was foreseen and premeditated in the mind of the maker of them. We say of each of them without a shadow of hesitation: If this had not first been a thought, it could never have been a thing.

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UTILITY, DIVINE

Preaching, like every other thing that God permits or ordains, can not be limited by human regulations. Rev. W. H. Fitchett says of John Wesley:

John Wesley heard at Bristol that his helper, Maxfield, had crossed the mystic border-line which separates an exhortation from a sermon, and the story has already been told of how Wesley rode post-haste to London to trample out the first sparks of what might prove to be a conflagration. His mother's calm eyes and quiet speech arrested him. She made the one appeal which, to Wesley's