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A WOMANLY VOCATION. A Field In Which They Can Make An Honorable Living IF*tered accord A despatch from Chicago says :-- Rev. Frank De Witt Talniage preached from the following text :--I Timothy v, 10, "Well reported of for good works * * * if she have relieved tho afflicted." Well, indeed, may a woman be reported of for good works in such a world as ours if she have relieved the afflicted. Such womeir are sorely needed. There is suffering everywhere--in the rich man's palace and the poor man's tenement. If any woman desires to be well reported of for good works, she can attain her ambition in no surer, better, way than in relieving the afflicted. It is a glorious mission that has been chosen by these noble women, who are graduating as trained nurses and are going forth in their lik valia diers, to contend with fell disease. 1 want to present to you my conception of what such a woman should be, whether she stands by the operating table or bends over the invalid's bed or walks through the wards of a hospital for contagious diseases or sterilizes the surgeon's knives Just before the limb is to be amputated. I take this opportunity to address not a single graduating class of trained, nurses, but to speak to all the different training schools for nurses with which my pulpit comes into contact. The scope of my theme can best be realized If the hearer is led into the humble home of the most beloved and internationally honored of all women living at the present time. Who is she ? I will answer that question by relating an incident which happened about the year 185S. Lord* Stratford was entertaining at a London banquet many of the prominent military officers of the British army, who had led to victory the queen's soldiers in the Crimean conflict. As a matter of the noble lord asked lad about ten years of age--had had the skin cut off his arms and sho ' ' era and chest the surgeon turnec the nurse and Said, •'Nurse, where did you get that knife ?" "Ou the alcohol," she answered, you then place the blade in sterile water before you gave it to me ?" "No," she answered ; "I did not know you wanted me to do it." "Then," said the surgeon, "we have cut all the skin off from this boy's body for nothing. Your criminal ignorance is to blame for this useless suffering. You should have known enough to place that knife in sterile water. You profess to be a trained surgical nurse and a graduate of a nurses' college." Thus, you women about to become trained nurses, it is of vital importance that you are intelligent and efficient. It is of vital importance that you should know the value of fresh air and cf proper dietetics. It is of vital importance that you obey the laws of cleanlinesss and not allow your patient to become infected. The ignorance of incompetent nurses has sent many a patient to the grave. If you voluntarily enter your noble profession intellectually unqualified, you are committing a sin against the human race just as surely as is tho ignorant switchman who throws open the wrong switch and sends the passenger train crashing into the freight train which has been sidetracked. CURE SOUL AND BODY. The ideal nurse should be a Christian woman. During the dark night, when the black winged death angel is hovering, wing and wing, beside the white winged birth angel, the c gent the . to thei and "Who do you think, of all the participants of the late war, will be tho most honored and revered by the coming generations ?" He asked his guests to write the names of their choice upon slips of paper and he would read the same and announce the result of tho ballot. When the slips were collected, the vote was unanimous. Wonderful to state, the name which Lord Stratford announced was not that of a general. It belonged to an untitled Florence Nigh rale. THE IDEAL NURSE. Who was Florence Nightingale ? I will tell you. She was the heroic nurse who did not want the British people to rear for her a monument of cold marble, but instead she took the 5250,000, which was a free will offering given by her countrymen, and with it built and endowed, only a short distance from Westminster abbey, the famous training school for nurses which now bears her name. This school, established in I860, is the foster mother of all the modern training schools for nurses. When a woman so honored by church and state as Florence Nightingale thinks the development of the trained nurse a work so important that she devotes to it her fortune and her consecrated energies, we need make no apology for taking as our theme this morning the qualities which are needed in the ideal nurse. Tho trained nurse, in the first place, must be intelligent. She is the right arm of the physician. By that we do not mean that the train-machine and that when the physician pulls the string sho is to move and when he stops pulling she is to stand still. Oh, no ! She is to be far more. We find that to-day the intelligent trained nurse is more than the mere physical right arm of the physician. She is his eyes, his hands, his constant helper. What the intelligent trained nurse is able to report in reference to the progress of the patient to a great lieves in God and prayer and the one who can ask for the divine blessing when sho pours out the medicine or places the ice bag on the fevered brow. A great deal of Florence Nightingale's power over her patients was due to the fact that she could tell the physically helpless and the dying about the Good Physician,, who was able to cure the sufferer's soul as well as his bodv. The Crimean soldiers had a better chance for getting well in this world when Florence Nightingale's mere presence made these rough men stop their swearing and influenced many of them to turn their lips toward heaven with a beseeching prayer. We know that one of the beneficent tasks of a nurse is to inspire patients with peace of mind and of heart. Therefore, is not the ideal nurse doubly fitted for her work when she can impart to the sufferer's soul a knowledge of the peace that passeth understanding? THE IDEAL NURSE should be a brave woman. The battlefield, with its storm of shot and shell, shows no greater percentage of loss of life than that found among the trained nurses in our contagious hospitals. The soldier who charges the enemy's breastworks is looking death in the face with no braver eye than the uniformed nurse who times the pulse of the smallpox patient or the young girl who offers to go with tho physicians into the quarantined city affected with, yellow fever. Then the dangers which may af- fect the patients . frc delir raving patient committed to her marge. Having stepped out of the ,-oom for a little, w, die found the pat: lis bed with a ki •eady to cut his thr screaming- or runnin standing by Instead of vay, she fix-3 she thr, go about their tasks with the soured visage of an undertaker's assistant rather than with the radiant face of one who is trying to cheer up those who are pain racked and depressed. They never seem to realize that a true nurse's facial expression should be full of sunshine as well as her fingers' touch gentle and But, outside of her duty toward the patient, there is another reason why the ideal nurse should be happy. Her life is one of self sacrifice. It is a life which has in it a sweet consciousness that she is trying to help her fellow men. It is not a life of mere money making, as many suppose. After the trained nurse has taken out her legitimate expenses she has little money to save. It is a life of sweet and noble self sacrifice. THE JOY OF SELF SACRIFICE. Oh, the transcendent joy of the Christian nurse's sacrifice for others! Young women who are about to enter the nurse's profession, if you are to become ideal nurses, this is to be your joy. You will be happy because you will know that you: sacrifice and devoti ness will save other li have the sweet you have been able ferei ck fro: the d faithful-You will that lead a suf-£ valley of S phyf ; but c ; diagn, He ours, while she is by the invalid's bed practically all tho time. Sho can record the progress of the disease by the flight of minutes. He can only study it by the morning and evening call. The value of the > be found as well ; what iefulnc tell, as well as by her willingness to obey orders. A FALLACY EXPLODED. "It is high time," Florence Nightingale once wrote, "that the fallacy should be exploded that every woman is able to become a competent nurse." It is high time that the standard of our training schools for noises should be raised, that unworthy institutions should be crushed out and that the question of a trained nurse's efficiency should not be decided by her ability to buy a gingham dress and to read a thermometer. Incompetent nursing has involved the loss of many a life and caused many an agonizing pain. Some Lime ago a dear friend of mine a brother minister, had his little five-year-old son nearly burned to death. The only way to save the child's life was by grafting human skin upon tho little one's stomach and chest. The father and the child's two brothers volunteered to let the doctor peel the skin from their bodies to save the baby's life. After die of the brothers--a iioble for i on pa PI', positively knew that if you obeyed the doctor's orders to give to your patient a certain medicine that act would kill the patient, would you give it?" Most of the students answered "No." Some answered "Yes." I myself believe that neither answer fully covered the duty in the case. If there should come a time--and that time will come--when a competent nurse knows that her patient is being cared for by an incompetent physician, then that nurse should go to that doctor and tell him plainly what she knows and then and there refuse to work any longer under his orders. A trained the shadow of death, to close the eyelids of the dead, you will know that you have been able to place their hands in the saving hand of Jesus. Christian women about to enter the noble profession of trained nurses, I congratulate you. I give to you a gospel salu tion. I wish you godspeed. May God bless to-day the memc of Florence Nightingala! And may the bandage and the nurse's cool hand upon the fevered brow ever be accompanied by the earnest Christian prayer of the ideal nurse. THE S. S. LESSON. Text of the Lesson, I Cor. j 20, 21, 50-58. Golden Text, I Cor. xv., 20. 20. But now is Chri the dead and become 1 of them that slept. We have to-day a great and glorious chapter truly, beginning with the gospel by which we are saved and ending with the complete subjugation of all things unto Him who died for our sins and was buried and rose again the third day, according .to the Scriptures (verses 3, 4). The writer of this epistle, with whom we have recently been journeying so much, seemed to know nothing but Christ crucified, Christ risen and ascended and Christ returning to reign. It would be well if there were many like him. In this chapter he gives special prominence to the resurrection, proving that the life and death of Christ would have availed us nothing if He bad not risen ; that apart from eKTs"'"gre4.t fact there is no gospel to preach, no ground for faith, no salvation; but, Christ being risen, all is well with those who trust in Him, and as He is in His risen body so shall we be (Phil.iii, 21; I John iii, 2). 21. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive^ world, and death by sin, and so death.passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom. v, 12, 19). All are in Adam without exception, and therefore all are sinners and dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. ii, 1). All who, being convinced of sin, have accepted Christ are in Christ, and He is wisdom, righteousness, sanctification redemption and life Sternal to all who truly receive Him (I Cor. i, 30, I John v, 12). 50. Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorrupticn. The kingdom of God will be that condition of affairs on earth when the will of God shall be done on earth as it is done in heaven (Matt. Vi, 10), or, as in verso 28 of our chanter, when the Son, having (during the thousand years Rev. xx) subdued all things unto Himself and cast Satan and all his followers into the lake of fire, God shall be, all in all. In order to enjoy that j kingdom and its glorv, these present j mortal bodies of flesh and blood j must be changed and be made like | His resurrection body of flesh bones (Luke xxiv, 39). They i as real and tangible as His resurrection body, but no longer subject to the powers and circumstances which control our mortal bodies (Luke xxiv, 31; John xx, 19). 51, 52. Behold, I show you -a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a with Christ reigning over it (Rev. v, 9, 10), Israel shall have her place, with her rebuke taken away from off all the earth, for she shall see Him coming in His glory. 55-57. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which glveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. In Hos. xiii, 14, from which part of this is quoted, the words are: "O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes." Thinking of these words, I often say that I am glad that God hates death and the grave and will destroy both and will never alter His purpose about it. While in the case of the believer the curse of death is changed to a blessing and brings only gain and the very far better (Phil, i, 21, 23), yet the fact stands that death is an enemy, and to talk of death as the Lord's coming is to confound one of the worst of enemies with the best Friend. 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as ye know that your labor Is not, in vain in tho The glories of the resurrection, the kingdom, the new earth, concerning which Paul said Rom. viii, 17, 18; II Cor. iv, 17, 18, and many such words may well encourage us to be steadfast in the faith, unmoved by the false doctrine and gladly walking in the good works which He has prepared for us. He only wants us to present to Him our bodies, which is truly a reasonable thing, since Ho has bought us with a great price, that He may unhindrred work in us all His good pleasure, causing all grace to abound toward us"'|ph. ii, 10; Rom. xli, 1, 2; I Cor. vi, 19, 20; II Thess. i, 11, 12; II Cor. ix, THE KING AT COLLEGE. When Wales) was at Cambridge University, his life did not differ much ' routine from that of the undergr; uates of the time, inasmuch as attended lectures, had rooms college and occasionally dined hall. But it differed materially the fact that his rooms comprised" a complete suite (and not the usual two apartments), and that the lectures he attended were especially arranged for him by the Master of Trinity College, and delivered only to himself and a few of his intimate friends, foremost among whom was the Duke of St. Albans. Subsequently the Prince took up his residence at Madingley Hall -- a large Elizabethan mansion about four miles northwest of Cambridge-- and attended at College daily. In this particular it is interesting to recall the circumstance that when the Prince visited the university shortly after his marriage he took the Princess to see this house (which he was desirotis of purchasing) and insisted upon driving by way of a certain street that he had been accustomed to use as an undergraduate, although this entailed the destruction of a barrier that had been erected in view of his visit. Hunting was one of the Prince's chief amusements, and he was generally to be seen out with the Cambridgeshire Hounds. He also indulged in shooting in the county, ar.B on one occasion made his way TO BEG A DRINK. The farmer's wife brought out her best, but was more than a little astonished and chagrined when the Prince politely refused her proffered "sherry wine" and accepted a glass of home-brewed ale. That the Prince had a fondness for a practical joke is shown in the fact that fishing from a punt in of the college, and i: mischief pushed him in The act wt« no sooner ever, than he took step; luckless lad out again, the vicinity i spir ducking the Prir for ! gave There i 1 be 1 i doubt the routi istrirtions of university life sememes galled the high spirits of the rince, and it is said that he one ly escaped from the care of his tu->r and determined to have a jaunt London on his own account. The msternation of the authorities I imagined when he was found , be i ing; but inquir tablishetl the fact that he had left Cambridge by a London train. A telegram was therefore despatched In I Thess. lv, 16-18, this is fully set forth and so simply clearly that only those who do not Lord Hii; though h. i fail Ou it believeth in Me, et shall be live, and th and believeth in Me shall never die" (John xi, 25, 26). The natural man can never see nor inheiit the kingdom of God unless he is born from above, born tie le ond time, and all whd\ being born again, bel IN THE DOICfO FREE STATE King Leopold Protested to England Against Circulation of Book. The sensation of the book publish- month in London of "The Curse of Central Africa," which is the latest contribution to the sickening history of the Congo Free State, of which Leopold, King of the Belgians, is the autocratic sovereign. Before the book appeared, it is stated in the introduction, the Aid-ministration of the Congo Free State applied to England for a legal injunction to prevent its publication. The preliminaries to a libel suit were also taken in behalf of three officials whose names in certain proof sheets had been sent to the Free State Company. These names were subsequently omitted in the book which appeared last month. Almost immediately a rumor came from Brussels that King Leopold had protested against the book to the English authorities. Whatever may be the fact, an attempt made to purchase it resulted in the discovery that the book had been withdrawn from sale. This, however, may be only temporary. The authors of the book are Capt. Guy Burrows, who resigned his commission in the Seventh Hussars to enter the service of the Congo Free State Company, to whom Henry M. Stanley had recommended him, and Edgar Canisine, who also spent several years in the company's service, The authors declare that they havt absolute proof of everything in the book, and also of much that is not printed, because the book was intended for general circulation. SLAVES OF THE COMPANY. What is in the book, however, is sufficiently horrible and revolting. It appears that the natives have only been delivered from Arab s drivers to become the slaves of the Free State Company. The stories of cruelties practiced by its officials equal and surpass the ghastliest tales from Armenia and Bulgaria. The main trade of the Congo is in rubber. The villages are obliged to send in a certain amount, which is so great that it takes up the whole time of the people. The villagei wear round their necks a zinc badge of servitude, with their name number. If they bring in at the fortnightly muster a quantity which the agent deems insufficient they are handed over to the soldiers, thrown on the ground and flogged with a hippopotamus hide whip, receiving from 50 to 100 lashes. The natives are reduced to this practical slavery by the sending out of a military forte, which surrounds the village and shoots the men and such women as try to escape. The rest are taken prisoners and sent to distant plantations, where they are practically slaves. If they escape, death in the jungle awaits them. SHOOT WOMEN AND CHILDREN. When expeditions go out to re«d\ice fresh tribes the soldiers shoot the men, women, and children they possibly can, and burn the villages, which are abandoned on their approach. One practice on these occasions was for the soldiers to cut off the left hand of all the men, women, and children killed and bring them to the commissary, who "counts them to see that the soldiers had not wasted any cartridges " A photograph, which is reproduced in the book, shows Major Lothaire and other, Belgian officials looking at a gruesome scene of two chiefs, who with 400 people, had come in to place themselves under Lothaire's protection, being suspended from a horizontal pole by cords from their necks, waists and ankles in the most painful attitudes. After having been thus suspended these two natives were scalped. Then their shin bones were sawed through by the negro sergeant of the Belgian doctor. After this their ears, noses, and lips were cut off for "the amusement the white onlookers." This tor lasted for an hour, after which the. men were thrown into the bush. Stories of similar tortures of men, women, and children are scattered through the book, with accounts of the general system of administration of this vast district of 802,000 square miles, which give evidence of existence of an appalling state of affairs. The whole conduct of affairs is a violation of the solemn pledges given to the European na-" s when the Congo Free State created. FROM MANY QUARTERS, lerr Krupp's income, the largest although but ' two .alpra She ■ Phys mid >; -the body i the dead at DIDN'T LIKE TO BOAST. A couple of months ago a Scots-body of Cent in •i-tal troops, when one of the officers said to him : "There, sir, do you tell me that an equal number of Scotsmen could beat them ?" "No, sir," was the ready reply, "I won't pretend to say that ; but I am perfectly cer-that half that number would a right. She should refu for him at all. The ideal nurse should I woman. Happy! Why? as King Solomon wrote, heart doeth good like a Happy! Why? Because is contagious ai well as The nurse's smi'e- in lb. has the same curative oi the sun bath or an ulc And yet there are some i pap Augustus (who has been looking at comic paper)--"I should hate to > a public character, doncherknow, iss Flash, and have all the funny inting. things abo x the < acqu Afis .ed church is less of yo square ; In Nov aile, ;aland a government sul n the Salvation Army t Hing among the needy. sidy prevent A year ago i.aoa women were enrolled in the German universities ; now, in consequence of restrictions and discriminations against them, the number is but 737. Women have invaded many linos of employment hitherto thought exclusively masculine. There are shown in the last United States census report 126 women plumbers, 45 plasterers, 167 bricklayers and stone masons, 241 paper-hangers, 1,759 painters, and 545 carpenters. NO ROOM FOR CREAM. "My dear," said the young- band, "did you speak man about there being no cream on the milk ?" "Yes, I told him about it this morning, and he has explain-id I think it quit credit What did he say ?" "He said that he always filled the cans so full that there is no room on the top for tin fEASTERf | SUNDAY OF JOY. | Easter, Dominica gaudii, or Sunday of Joy, is the festival after the closing of the austerities of Lent, when the resurrection of Christ is celebrated. The Teutonic tribes of tin North celebrated to the goddess Os-tara, the personification of the morning, at this season and also to th« opening of the year or spring. The policy of the church gave Christian significance to such rites as could not be rooted out, and thus conver-' sion was made easy for the heathen. The bonfires of pagan rites gave way to the great paschal tapers, some times weighing 300 pounds, which were lighted in the churches Easter Eve. Easter eggs are symbolical of the reviving life in spring, and were pre sented as gifts by the Persian fire worshippers on the solar New Year. The Jews, too, used eggs in the feast of the Passover. These eggs were colored and stained with dye woods and herbs and sometimes were kept as amulets and sometimes were eaten. Various games of egg rolling and egg knocking were play, ed. LOOKING FOR EGGS. In some moorland districts o( Scotland the young people went abroad early on Pasch Sunday and searched for wild fowl's eggs foi breakfast, for it was thought lucky to find them. Tlte rabbit seems ta have become associated with Easter, but there is no trace of it in ao counts of ancient customs. In the State of Maryland the children mak« nests in the young grass under the clumps of budding Easter lilies East er Eve and the following East el dawn find them filled with spotted and gaily stained eggs. The Christian world adorns the Easter service with a gorgeous wealth of ceremonial and song. The secular world blossoms in spring bonnets and garments new and wonderful, for has not springtide arrived? The business world recognizes the carnival season with early sales of linen, underwear and summei gauzes, which the worldly woman transforms into marvelous decora* tions when she may e*nerge from hei Lenten season of sewing and contriv. Ing as splendid as the first spring butterfly from its chrysalis. The fashionable woman either flees southward, or, piously garbed in sombre attire, attends a daily service, fasts at a Lenten luncheon or listens to expositions of the deeper poets. A BLESSED BIRTHRIGHT. Occasionally one meets a family that preserves traditions and superstitions and celebrates all holidays, both pagan and Christian. Such people have inherited a blessed birthright. They have an interest in the passing year not dependent on change of fashion, on rumors of war or on stock bonds. To watch with joy the signs of the year, the events of the equinox, the changes of the moon, and even to place faith in the ground hog, which holds its own until St. Michael's day, Feb. 24, when, if the good saint came and found ice, he would break it and usher in an early spring, or if he saw no ice, deemed wise to make it to protect the tender herbs and tree buds from too early a start and warn the sparrows against untimely nesting--all this adds spice to the variety of life. It is a happiness to think that as we celebrate Easter, so, from times far distant, before the Christian era, the peoples celebrated the return of the sun and the awakening of spring, and that gratitude toard the source of light and heat turned the altars of pagan temples toward the east bowed the Parsee fire worshipper in adoration, while the gladsome doctrines of Christianity have found a place for the aspirations of the nations that walked in spiritual darkness and have turned the sun worship into love and faith in the Son of Right, - EASTER SEX HOLIDAYS. Easter Monday by long prescription is the men's holiday, and Easter Tuesday the women's. The sex have a right to play tricks on each ether interchangeably. Thus in some parts of England men "bind" the women on Easter Monday, and women the men on Tuesday. Binding consists in streti hing a rope across the highways and catching in the toils wayfarers of the opposite sex, who were not released until they had given some small sum to be laid out in revelry "Lifting," however, is more common than binding. In imitation of the sun, supposed to rise on Easter Monday in three leaps, the men 'lift" the women on Easter Monday, and the women return the content on Easter Tuesday, th3 vic-bcing lifted three times, and then either kis.sod, or let off for a consideration. The lifting is some-done by means of a chair, sometimes by the lifters joining their hands at the wrist, so as to improvise a seat, upon which the ' i lifted is placed, and at other times less decorously by the lifters taking hold of the victim's and legs. In ancient times husbands had a right to beat their Monday, and the latter retaliated on Tuesday. That all these practices had their torn in the ident from the fact that similar rites are found to-day Germany. Thus in many villages the boys go about flogging the girls >n Easter Monday, in return for rhich the boys must give them fish nd potatoes on Easter Tuesday and irovide the iuvs>e fi.r a ft'ane -a.'