“Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”—St. James iii. 5-6. In the development of Christian Truth a peculiar office was assigned to... more...

CHAPTER I. "I won't give you any farther trouble, I can find what I want myself." The sexton's wife looked at the gentleman in some little surprise, and then glanced at the bunch of huge keys which hung in the door she had just opened for the stranger. "That's right; you need not be uneasy, I shall not stay long, and here is something for your trouble." He pressed a piece... more...

CHAPTER I Introductory How old is the problem of the Nervous Housewife? Did the semi-mythical Cave Man (who is perhaps only a pseudo-scientific creation) on his return from a prehistoric hunt find his leafy spouse all in tears over her staglocythic house-cleaning, or the conduct of the youngest cave child? Did she complain of her back, did she have a headache every time they disagreed, did she fuss and... more...

PREFACE. The discovery of the "Great West," or the valleys of the Mississippi and the Lakes, is a portion of our history hitherto very obscure. Those magnificent regions were revealed to the world through a series of daring enterprises, of which the motives and even the incidents have been but partially and superficially known. The chief actor in them wrote much, but printed nothing; and the... more...

CHAPTER I Where the trail bent over a knoll, Zeke halted, and put down from his shoulder the hickory cudgel with its dangling valise of black oilcloth—total of baggage with which he was faring forth into the world. Then, he straightened himself, and looked back over the way he had come. There, to the east, the dusk of night still lay somberly, hardly touched by the coming dawn. Through the shadows,... more...

OUR FRIEND THE DOG I I have lost, within these last few days, a little bull-dog. He had just completed the sixth month of his brief existence. He had no history. His intelligent eyes opened to look out upon the world, to love mankind, then closed again on the cruel secrets of death. The friend who presented me with him had given him, perhaps by antiphrasis, the startling name of Pelléas. Why... more...

LETTERS OF A WOMAN HOMESTEADER I Burnt Fork, Wyoming, April 18, 1909. Dear Mrs. Coney,— Are you thinking I am lost, like the Babes in the Wood? Well, I am not and I'm sure the robins would have the time of their lives getting leaves to cover me out here. I am 'way up close to the Forest Reserve of Utah, within half a mile of the line, sixty miles from the railroad. I was twenty-four hours... more...

CHAPTER I. FORT MOULTRIE IN 1860. The Garrison of Fort Moultrie.—Early Indications of Secession.—Situation of the Fort.—Edmund Ruffin and Robert Barnwell Rhett.—The Secretary of War.—Arms sent to the South.—Colonel Gardner.—Captain Foster ordered to Charleston Harbor.—The Officers at Fort Moultrie.—Communications with Northern Men by Cipher.—Proscription of Antislavery Men in... more...

The Evolution of English Lexicography BY JAMES A.H. MURRAY M.A., LL.D., D.C.L., PH.D. When the ‘Act to facilitate the provision of Allotments for the Labouring Classes’ was before the House of Commons in 1887, a well-known member for a northern constituency asked the Minister who had charge of the measure for a definition of the term allotment, which occurred so often in the Bill. The Minister... more...

A Bolt from the Blue The atmosphere of the office that morning was a shade less genial than usual. We had all of us fought our way downtown through such a storm of wind, snow, slush, and sleet as is to be found nowhere save in mid-March New York, and our tempers had suffered accordingly. I had found a cab unobtainable, and there was, of course, the inevitable jam on the Elevated, with the trains many... more...