The Little Gleaner Part 69

DIPHTHERIA.--An American medical journal gives the following remedy for diphtheria, and says that where it has been applied promptly, it has never been known to fail. It is simply as follows:--"At the first indication of diphtheria in the throat of the child, make the room clean. Then take a tin cup and pour into it a quant.i.ty of tar and turpentine, equal parts. Then hold the cup over a fire so as to fill the room with the fumes. The patient, on inhaling the fumes, will fall asleep, and, when it awakes, it will cough up and spit out all the membranous matter, and diphtheria will pa.s.s off. The fumes of the tar and turpentine loose the matter in the throat, thus affording the relief that has baffled the skill of physicians." As the remedy is so simple, parents would do well to cut this out and preserve it.

AN extraordinary affray took place at Manchester on Sunday, July 8th.

The members of several prominent Orange lodges in the city were proceeding to a church, where special services were to be held, when they encountered in a narrow thoroughfare, inhabited chiefly by Irish Roman Catholics, a band of men and women, who rushed upon them with hatchets, knives, pokers, and bottles. Two men were seriously injured, and, but for the timely arrival of thirty policemen, the affray would probably have had a fatal termination.

HOW THE COLLIE REACHED HIS HOME.--The following is a true story about a collie who took a hansom. He was lost in Oxford Street, London, so, after having spent some time in looking for him, his mistress went home, and what was her surprise, when she arrived, to see him in the hall. The butler told her the story, and it was this. After the dog had been lost, he saw an empty hansom, which he got into; and the cabby could not get him out, for he showed his teeth. He called a policeman, who could not move him either, but with some difficulty they read the name and address on his collar, and settled that it would be best to drive him to his home. They shut the doors, and drove him home. When he arrived, the cabby rang the bell, and asked for his fare (which he of course got), and then the butler opened the doors, and the dog jumped out as if nothing had happened.--From _Little Folks' Magazine_ for August.

WALKING FROM EDINBURGH TO LONDON.--Mr. Ross Fraser, who, accompanied by a collie dog, started from Edinburgh on August 15th to walk to London in eight days, an average of about fifty miles per day, arrived in London on Sunday evening about eight o'clock. The pedestrian was awaited by a large concourse of people at Sh.o.r.editch Church, and heartily greeted.

The route taken was from Edinburgh via Berwick, Newcastle, Durham, Darlington, Northallerton, Boroughbridge, Wetherby, Doncaster, Retford, Newark, Grantham, Stamford, Huntingdon, Royston, Ware, and Edmonton. Mr.

Fraser seemed somewhat footsore on his arrival, but the dog appeared in no way the worse for the journey. The walk has not been accomplished in the time originally laid down, as Mr. Fraser's feet gave way owing to the unsuitability of his boots for the task he had taken upon himself.

After a rest on this side of Berwick he resumed his walk, and finished the journey in excellent health.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE.]

GREAT EVENTS.

The great events which occurred in August, 1588, and November, 1688, are worthy of our remembrance and grateful acknowledgment before G.o.d, therefore we bring before our young readers, in a special way, the subjects of the Spanish Armada and the accession of William of Orange, which are of the greatest importance to all true Englishmen.

The following extracts, taken from an address, by Lord Robert Montagu, at a commemoration meeting at Leicester, will give our young readers an interesting and truthful account of the great historical facts referred to, in a very concise form.

He said there had been many commemoration meetings throughout the country, and why did they hold them? What were those meetings? Well, if he were asked that question, he should say that that meeting was a protest, and it was a commemoration. It was a protest against a conspiracy which had extended throughout the country, and had lasted a great number of years--a conspiracy to introduce one Romanizing practice after another into the wors.h.i.+p of the Church of England, and endeavouring to a.s.similate, by all means possible, the Church of England to the Church of Rome. It was a protest against an attempt to reduce this country again, and bring it under the domination of Rome. It was a protest against the attempts that all Governments in recent years had had in hand, and made--no matter whether Liberal, Whig, or Conservative--to establish diplomatic relations with Rome. It was, lastly, a protest against an attempt, now a few centuries old, to ruin the backbone of Protestantism in Ireland--he meant the Protestant landlords, who were the chief friends of the union between England and Ireland. On all those points they protested.

But then that meeting was also a commemoration. Commemorations, it was true, might be good, or they might be bad. No one would ever think of merely commemorating bloodshed and slaughter, but they often commemorated the deeds of daring and prowess on the part of their ancestors, and they did so in the hope that others would follow their example. He knew not whether that kind of thing was good, because such commemorations tended to increase and foster national pride; but there was one kind of commemoration which was absolutely and naturally good--he meant the commemoration of the signal mercies which G.o.d had vouchsafed to the land. In doing so, they were merely taking the advice of King David, who, speaking of his own people, said, "They remembered not the mercy of the Lord, and so they provoked Him at the Red Sea." And so also the Apostle said, "We have received mercies, and therefore we faint not." Therefore, what he (the speaker) proposed to do that evening was to ask them to consider the mercies G.o.d had shown to this country--great and signal mercies--in the year 1588, in the year 1688, and in the year 1788; and, in doing so, he hoped he should be able to bring this thought into their minds--that, having received mercies, they should "faint not."

Now, first, with regard to 1588, the commemoration of the Spanish Armada--the invincible Armada, as it used to be called. They would remember, doubtless, from reading history, that King Philip of Spain was one of the most powerful monarchs that ever existed. The historian, Macaulay, had told them that on his empire the sun never set. King Philip counted upwards of one hundred millions of subjects, and he was by far the wealthiest sovereign that had existed since the days of Darius, and he was also a cruel and bloodthirsty sovereign. They knew how many thousands he killed in the Netherlands; how many poor Protestants he had slaughtered there. He had burnt at the stake every one he could in his dominions who dared to study the Bible.

Well, he it was whom the Pope commissioned to make a crusade against this country, to conquer it, and reduce it, so that it might again come under the domination of Rome. He was like Pharaoh of old; he had let the children of Israel go, and he repented himself of having done so, and sent an army to bring them back to the slavery of Egypt; and so the Pope, not having an army of his own, told Philip, who had the most powerful army and navy in the world, to pursue those English who had escaped from the tyranny of Rome and become Protestants, and to bring them back again under the domination of the Pope; and the Pope, in order to encourage the monarch, promised him certain indulgences and two hundred thousand golden crowns as payment at the beginning of the expedition, and the payment of another two hundred thousand golden crowns as soon as he set foot in England. And the Pope also, in order to make the task easier, set the Jesuits in this country to stir up disaffection in England and Scotland, and with the same object sent a special messenger to Ireland in order to cause a rebellion there, and so call off the forces of England.

Philip at once sent to the Duke of Parma, his governor in Belgium, instructions to prepare an army and fleet to co-operate with the Spanish force as soon as the Armada should arrive in the English Channel. The Armada consisted of 136 galleons, and forty smaller vessels, manned by twenty thousand marines; and there was also something else sent. What was that something else? The Chief Inquisitor, and 150 other inquisitors--Dominican monks--to act together, and to use every possible engine of torture, and in that way to convert the people of England to Rome. Besides these, Philip sent the very pick of his army, thirty-one thousand men and four thousand officers, over-land to Dunkerque to a.s.sist them in England as soon as he arrived. Here was the invincible Armada, and it was thought that such an Armada could not be withstood by that little puny England, for England was then but a small State, and had no colonies. The whole population of England then was not much larger than the population of London at the present time. Now, as for the Royal Navy, it consisted of twenty-eight s.h.i.+ps; and how were they to cope with the 176 s.h.i.+ps which composed the Spanish Armada? Why, it was impossible, unless the hand of G.o.d should come down to protect the Protestantism of England.

Well, on the 30th of July, the Armada appeared off Plymouth, and Drake and Frobisher, and Seymour and Hawkins, and Lord Howard, High Admiral of England--who was not a Catholic, whatever might be said to the contrary, but a Protestant--determined to oppose the Armada.

It was on Sunday, the 7th of August, that the Armada anch.o.r.ed in the roadstead of Dunkerque, and there waited for Parma's fleet. In the night, a light southerly wind sprung up, and eight s.h.i.+ps were selected from the crowd of volunteer vessels that followed the fleet; their masts were smeared with pitch, and their hulls filled with powder and all kinds of explosive and combustible materials. These s.h.i.+ps were set fire to, and sent down on to the Armada. What the Spaniards ought to have done, and what could have been very easily done, would have been to cut their cables and allowed the fire-s.h.i.+ps to pa.s.s them; but the Spaniards seemed to have lost their presence of mind.

However, at length they cut their cables and ran into the North Sea; but the English followed them, and there was a tremendous battle. The Spanish s.h.i.+ps were so full of soldiers and sailors that every English shot told ten-fold. Five thousand of the Spanish were killed and not one hundred English wounded. A hasty council of officers was held on the Duke Medina's s.h.i.+p as to whether they should return to their anchorage off Dunkerque, or go back to Spain by way of the Orkneys, and they determined, like craven cowards, to run round by the north of Scotland and Ireland, and so on to the coast of Spain, because they dared not face the English in the Straits of Dover. Admiral Seymour watched them.

They could not all pursue the Armada. A small squadron only went, and when they came to the Firth of Forth, Seymour ran short of ammunition.

Now what he wanted to show them was, that it was not Seymour that was protecting England, but the Almighty Himself. Seymour had no sooner put into harbour than a hurricane rose up, and subsequently the sh.o.r.es of Ireland were strewn with the bodies of the dead, and the wreckage of the galleons. Only a few reached Spain to give mournful tidings of the disaster, and then it was found that there was not a family in Spain that was not in mourning for the loss of relatives. As the Egyptians were overthrown in the Red Sea, so the Spaniards were overthrown in the North Sea; and it was G.o.d that did all. Queen Elizabeth and the English people knew that well, for Queen Elizabeth struck a medal in commemoration of the event, and the motto on the medal was, "G.o.d blew upon them with His winds, and scattered them." She took no credit to herself, no credit to her navy, no credit to the English people; for it was G.o.d who did it all. From that day the power of Spain had dwindled and waned, until Spain had sunk to a fifth-rate power, and n.o.body thought of Spain in the councils of Europe. But what was the case with little England, then with hardly any colonies? G.o.d said, "Thou hast been faithful in little things; be thou ruler over ten great cities"; and now we had ten great colonies.

And now they would pa.s.s away from that subject, and see what happened at the end of the next hundred years--in 1688. He must first remind them what was the state of things in 1687. There was then a Roman Catholic king upon the throne of England. He was not only a Roman Catholic, but was an avowed and sworn Jesuit--James II. There was then, also, a conspiracy all over England--favoured by some of the bishops and many of the clergy--to introduce the ritual of Rome into the English Church.

There was then, as there is now, attempts to open up diplomatic relations between the throne and the Vatican. There was then an attempt to ruin the landlords of Ireland, so as to get rid of Protestantism, and separate Ireland from England. To whom did England look at that time for help? There was then no great Protestant Germany; but there was a small State, smaller than England--he meant Holland--but it was not similarly yoked. It was here that the hand of G.o.d first began to show itself in the year 1685. On account of the action of Louis XIV., who was the mainstay of Roman Catholicism in Europe, all the best soldiers, generals, and artisans in Paris left France and went to Holland. In England James II. gradually deposed Protestants and subst.i.tuted Roman Catholics in all positions of importance and influence. The people, becoming alarmed, sought the aid of William, Prince of Orange, who had married a member of the English Royal family; and on the 1st of November, 1688, William sailed on his mission to this country. A strong wind was blowing, which took him gaily on his journey; and that wind not only sent him gaily on his mission, but prevented Lord Dartmouth, who was on the Thames, from getting out. G.o.d was determined to show that success had not been arrived at by man; and on November 6th, in a fog, William and his friends arrived at a distance beyond Torbay. When the fog lifted, and the suns.h.i.+ne beamed forth, William gaily sailed into Torbay. Then there were two days of calm weather, during which William landed his army and his stores, and James's forces could not attack, owing to the stillness of the wind. Still James might have struck a blow, as his troops had converged at Salisbury; but G.o.d struck fear into his heart. He dressed himself as a fisherman, got into a fis.h.i.+ng-boat, and went to France. But our forefathers did not say to William, "Please take the crown and govern." They said, "We have certain rights; will you promise always to observe those rights? If so, you may sit upon the throne." And William promised that he would do so, and, as they knew, they had now the Act of Rights. One of the clauses of that Act was that, if the sovereign became a Roman Catholic, the throne should be instantly vacated. It was settled that no communion should be held with Rome; that was to say, that no diplomacy should exist between England and Rome.

That Act was pa.s.sed, and remained the same to this day. He would read them what Lord Macaulay said of the two events to which he referred:--

"The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some men (_e.g._, Bishop Burnet), of more piety than judgment, fully believed the ordinary laws of nature to have been suspended for the preservation of the liberty or religion of England. Exactly a hundred years before, they said, the Armada, invincible by man, had been scattered by the wrath of G.o.d. Civil freedom and divine truth were again in jeopardy; and again the obedient elements had fought for the good cause. The wind had blown strong from the east while the Prince wished to sail down the channel, had turned to the south when he wished to enter Torbay, had sunk to a calm during the disembarkation, and, as soon as the disembarkation was completed, had risen to a storm, and had met the pursuers in the face. Nor did men omit to remark that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Prince had reached our sh.o.r.es on a day on which the Church of England commemorated, by prayers and thanksgiving, the wonderful escape of the Royal House, and of the three Estates, from the blackest plot ever designed by Papists."

Now they had seen G.o.d's mercy in 1588 and in 1688, and now let them turn to 1788. It was not so striking, he would allow, as the other events, but it was not less real. And why was it not so striking? In former days men knew very well what the Government did, as there was no secrecy about it. In these days n.o.body knew what were the views and the intentions of the Government. It was all done underhanded, secretly, and no one knew anything about it. They gathered a little from the newspapers and tried to put it together as well as they could; consequently, that system having been in vogue in 1788, they did not know exactly what took place.

In the year 1787, Charles Edward Catesby was a pretender to the throne, and the Pope was again anxious to bring England under him, and he made secret allies of all the Roman Catholics to put this Charles on the throne of England. A body was to land in Scotland, and 20,000 was to be given to the Highlanders to rise in rebellion. The French had an army ready, and they were to land on the south coast of England and march to London, so as to prevent the troops going forth to put down Edward.

In that same year the Prince Regent did that thing which, according to the Act of William, made him vacate the throne for ever. He married a Roman Catholic in 1787. Notwithstanding the fact that he tried to keep it a secret at first, it afterwards leaked out through the indiscretion of a member of the House of Commons. Pitt said at first that the Prince Regent had denied it stoutly; but there were those present in the Roman Catholic Church at the time he was married; and when it was proved, Pitt then said the Act of Parliament prevented any one of the Royal family being married without the consent of Parliament, and argued that the Prince was not married. He married a German princess, and put her away, and came to the throne as George IV.

Then came 1788, when G.o.d struck that Charles with death; and then an alliance was made between Protestant England and Russia to support each other against any Roman Catholic emperor. This was not so striking a display of G.o.d's mercy as was shown in the case of the Armada; but in them all they saw the hand of G.o.d. They saw great mercy in 1588, in 1688, and in 1788, for the protection of Protestantism; and what cared they whether in 1888 ministers should try to bring them under the domination of Rome? They knew that G.o.d was a tower of strength, and that they could rely on Him. Let them think and meditate on His mercies, and then they would not fail.

THE FISH THAT SWALLOWED JONAH.

"_Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights._"--JONAH i.

17.

Upon the question as to what was the fish that swallowed Jonah, Dr.

Raleigh remarks ("The Story of Jonah," p. 148):--

"The Bible does not say that a whale was the prophet's jailer. The infidel has said that, and then has enjoyed the easy triumph of proving the natural impossibility of it. Jonah says 'a great fish' swallowed him. Our Lord uses a phrase exactly similar. He uses a generic term, which includes the whale, but is never applied to the whale particularly. The dolphin, the seal, the whale, the shark, are all included in the term that is used, and there is strong probability in the supposition that the white shark is the creature designated as the 'great fish.' Sharks abounded in the Mediterranean at that time. They have been found there ever since, and are found there still. In length some of them have attained to thirty feet and upwards, of capacity in other ways sufficient to incarcerate Samson of Zorah, or Goliath of Gath, as well as the probably attenuated prophet of Gath-hepher.

"It is related that a horse was found in the stomach of a shark, and there are many instances of men being swallowed alive--not fabulous and doubtful stories, but instances well authenticated. One, of a soldier in full armour. One, of a sailor who fell overboard, and, was swallowed in the very sight of his comrades. The captain seized a gun, shot the fish in a sensitive part, which then cast out the sailor into the sea, who was taken up, amazed and terrified, but little hurt.

"Every one knows that the shark is a most voracious creature. Its teeth are only incisive. It has no power of holding. It can snap and sever limbs, or trunk, or head, sheer and certainly as though its jaws were a guillotine. But in that case it secures only what is within the jaws.

The rest is apt to be lost. Its habit, therefore, is to swallow the prey alive, that it may lose nothing. Thus G.o.d made the voracity of the fish the means of protection and safety to His servant."

HEART-WORK must be G.o.d's work. Only the great Heart-maker can be the great Heart-breaker. If I love Him, my heart will be filled with His spirit, and obedient to His commands.--_Baxter._

THE great design, both in judgments and mercies, is to convince us that _there is none like the Lord our G.o.d_; none so wise, so mighty, so good; no enemy so formidable, no friend so desirable, so valuable.--_Matthew Henry._

TALKING WITH A MAN SEVEN THOUSAND MILES OFF!

The longest wire in the world extends from 18, Old Broad Street, London, E.C., to 29, Cable Street, Calcutta, over seven thousand miles. A telegraphic expert, who visited the London end of the wire, says:--

We have often heard of the wonderful line between this country and Teheran, the capital of Persia, a distance of three thousand eight hundred miles, but we scarcely realized the fact that good signals were obtainable through so great a length of wire until recently, when we availed ourselves of an invitation from Mr. W. Andrews, the managing director of the Indo-European Telegraph Company, to make a visit of inspection.

It was between seven and eight o'clock when we reached the office. In the bas.e.m.e.nt of an unpretentious building in Old Broad Street we were shown the Morse printer in connection with the main line from London to Teheran.

The courteous clerk in charge of the wire, Mr. Blagrove, informed us that we were through to Emden, and with the same ease with which one "wires" from the City to the West End, we asked a few questions of the telegraphist in the German town.