The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, May 17, 1903, Page 6

THE SUN OMAIN D'AURIGNAC, the Humbert s brother, has, it is reported, oc- cupied the leisures of his imprisonment by training fleas. The occupation is both genteel and philosophic. Then, too, fleas are delightful. But they are also decep- tive. During the reign of Victoria Regina a professor exhibited a troop to her great- grandmother. Suddenly one of the fleaff vanished. The professor ferreted fruit- lessly about. Presently a flea, captyred on the dress of one of the children, w srned over to the professor, who, however, wouid have none of it. “That is not my flea,” he exclaimed. “Give it back to the Princess.” The incident happened a long time ago, and may never have happened at all. It is not even relevant to the amuse- ments of M. d'Aurignac, unless, indeed, the professor’s fleas were trained as his have beem, in prison. In that event the story has its reievancy. for it goes to show that prison life may be not merely genteel aiid philosophic, but conducive tu tame as well Yes, indeed. 17 we may believe what we read in the paper & Aurigna frered any guotable &um In exchinge ined. Yet there perhaps we have r ' cart before the horse. The fame which induced the eceded this chap to his cell. It was refracted from his We will catch up with her in a moment. e the point remains. Prison life is not incompatible fus. From a cage in Devil's Island he man- to throw a natic fits. The of that, though, w#s due less to what he did than to what he didn’t. The ex- ample being ipferior, here is a better one r'he hero of it is who was not a prisoner, ssembli there la There you have a convict lgrim. Indicted for maintaining unlawful a i and Bu he to use his own words, “had to prisor a complete twelve years.” *“In which condition,” he adds, con ed with much content We have not & do it. During his sequestration he every variety of temptation and every possible danger m of it all It is more er bother than the effort to get the char We do not wonder he was content to write novels than to live them, besides being s expensive Poo! ind D ps not entirely our own, probably occurred to Cervar When he was jailed the walls d through them came Sancho Panza and Don 1 their companionship he must have been quite as Bunyan and, it may be, even more so than d'Aurignac look at Silvio Pellico. We have not read the romances which he composed at the Santa Margherita and at the Spicl- berg, but, lik one else, we have read the romance of the charming. We shall always envy was conceived. Our envy of them 1s exc Blanqui, sentenced for a polit e and jailed, if we remember, in a Breton prison, there achieved the im- He promenaded the univer He vacated his cell world. Blazing before him along the slopes of the real circuit w a comet, and on it, while Venus € to him the her eternal youth and Mars the glint here f a of he moved into space and there p which has the unusual m of being d nrofound—the theory t the unverse must for the reason that if nite universe is in- he mcluded, a , that ther there may wo w vho had noticed om behind the In one hand he in the other. had line of mauct om Dor in habéasz can turn a cot into wings. It depends only upon ty of gination an astronomy e we may Quixo who ¢ seem and o it is, but Jly momentou v are far 1 a t he and ( topping c We rs. Some of us are prisor Some—a very HE history of the church proves that woman's devotion at the altar of her God is no mere passing impulse. Religion is to woman as is love—her “whole ex!s ence.” The Old Testament furnishes many *excellent illustrations of the devout religious spirit of women. While Christ was on earth he was never without the devotion and e of pure women. In the crucifixion scene as pictured by St John we learn that while all the disciples had through fear forsaken him and fled “'there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister, M the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Think you when the two secret disciples, Joreph and Nico- Gemus, had laid away the body of Christ in the sepulcher and departed that t sepulcher was deserted? It was as far as his disciples were concerned, for they had not yet sufficicntiy recovered from their fear to venture to come and see to the But in the dusk of the evening, as body of thelr master. night was fast approaching, these devoted women, who had been noticiug from a respectful distance all that Joseph and Nicodemus were doing, quietly approached the sacred tomb ding to St. Matthew, at the close of that eventful jary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting over st the sepulcher. Again, as we read ths events of that Easter we are impressed with the prominence of women throughout. Woman, who for so long had been in the background, is now conspicuously in the fore- ground. We find that she was the first at the scpulcher of her risen Lord: her eyes were the first to see him, and Christ extended his first loving welcome to a group of women. Why was it that when light first broke from out that awful spell of darkness women were there first to see? Ac cording to the reasoning of some men it was woman’s weak- htr morbid curiosity that actuated these women and them first at the sepulcher and, therefore, it was noth- 18 to thelr credit. If, instead of these women there had come to the tomb several of the disciples of Christ who had so heartlessly and cowardly deserted him, they would by these men have been considered heroes of the cross. It is becoming quite common In trying to answer for man's lack of interest in religious matters and his devotion to the urch to say that religion and the work of the church is made too effeminate. There Is nothing new in that charge. In the early propagation of the gospel the large number of women in the Christian churches became a cause of reproach and called forth the sneers and ridicule of the heathen. It was contemptuously charged against Christianity that it was a religion merely for women and children. We meet with this mean and cowardly thrust at the church to-day. Even s man of Dr. Josiah Strong’s ability in his book, *The Times and Young Men,” would answer for the lack of young men in the churches, in the eliminating of herolsm from religion which makes it weak and effeminate. He asks, “Is there no significance in the fact that two-thirds of the church member- ship to-day are females, that for every young man in the church there aretwo young women?” He then asks, “Why is it that the angels of modern art are almost invariably femmine, while those of the Scriptures are masculine? Is it because religion bas come to suggest more of beauty than of strength, more of gentleness than of heroism?” That two to one seems to be a terrible thorn in the flesh of some of the good brethren. There is some significance in the fact that for every man in the church there are two women, and that is the significant fact that when it comes to religious devotion and service the ceo) kept ness N SN S L AN \\\\ ‘—40.:4;;7/\ &) ~’4~ 7 /l 7 e Ny, A B, S G R A AR BN =57/ PR L8 few. of course—are prisoners of cheerful stupidity. 1t 1s not by any means because of the latter handicap that &' Aurignac’s sister is not at home to her friends to-day. Yet in so saying we may be in error. The friends whom she is doubtless able to evoke are, we take it, more to her taste than those whom she provoked. In any event we are quite sure that the dear woman will make capital out of both. A lady sufliciently resourceful to change a short story of her own the ons to {nvention into a hundred million francs is ju: been turned juggle infamy into fame. Besides, the trick ha Among others by Jack the Slip-String. ays a contemporary account, Nothing,” h to the entertainment of the town as the adventures contributes so ot m Jack Sheppard.” 'hese adventures were not escapades, as you m'ght fancy; they were escapes. In priscn he amused himself not with THE YOUNG WOMAN AND woman is far superior to the man. What Byron said of love can largely be sald of religion: fan’s love (religion) is of man’s life a thing apart; *Tis woman’s whole existence.” I think it a mean subterfuge and a slander on the intelli- gent and consecrated women who largely constitute the church membership and working force in most ail the lines of church enterprise. It has been a weakness in man ever since the trouble in the Garden of Eden to blame “the woman® when he is charged with neglect of duty. If th is such a thing this life as works of supererogation they belong to the Christian women. How many of these nobis women have been acting as man's proxy in p.cty and then are made the scapegoat for man's wrongdoing and negiect .of church duties? The Western Christlan Advocate says: “Wa have read of a negro entertainment at which, An lieu of print- ing on the tickets, ‘Not transferable,’ a notice was posted over the door of the hall which read, ‘No:gentleman admitted unless he comes himself.” " The editor thinks it might be a good thing if a notice were posted over the doors of the churches reading: *No gentleman admitted (o church mem- bership unless he comes himself to church services, the mid- week meetings included. The presence of wives or daughters not accepted as a substitute for the attendance of the i.an himself.” There is no_transferring of one's iciigious duty to another. Proxy piety s as impossible as 1t f absurd. Then some would answer fur the two to one membership ratio in the claim that religlon in all lands takes a deeper hold on the hearts of women in their quiet sphe than of the men, who in the busy marts of the world are more s ject to tempiation. But are not women in this age of larger liberty engaged in most every business, profession and in- dustry and subject to many of the same trials as are the men 2ecligion then is not to be called effeminate simply be- cause men neglect it in the pursuit of other things while women are loval to its claims, but men are to be called dere- lict of a most sacred chligation, wordly and unfaithful. Re- liglon is full of the heroic element and offers a field for all the struggle and effort and heroism the most ambitious and energetic might wish. Women gladly render this devotion without any equivocation, while men allow themselves to be- come absorbed in business and other interests to the neglect of the claims of religich and the kirgdom of God.' It is with women to-day as with the Marys at the cross and sepulcher of our Lord—when we consider the prominence and honor given to them—not so much a question of sex as It is of love and faith. To the credit of the Marys who figured so con- spicuously In the closing scenes of Christ's life_on earth, theirs was a deeper love and a greater fidelity than all the disciples. Whatever reason ws may assign for the majority of women in church membership, we naturally expect of the women of our country a Christian character. “I do not won- der,” says Dr. L. A. Banks, “that Christianity makes an ap- peal of pecullar power to women. Indeed, 1 marvel to see a woman who is not a Christian. When I think of what Christianity has done for woman, how it has ulways been her friend and her defander, lifting from her shoulder the burden of injustice and steadily opening the path to influence :nd power, 1 mal:,vel to RES M who does rot love and oror and serve Jesus Christ he Diorgr mid e -.oul." st r Savior with all the loyalty If young women would contrast what their sex was in the best nations of the world before Christianity came, with her present position under Christianity, they would certainly feel their debt of gratitude to Christ and the church. Upon no class did Jesus confer greater blessings than upon women. As a fitting return no class has been so enthusiastically de- N > o p, NP s ;.“’-’6;»: s ) i IFE IN \ G 5 DAY CALL. flees, like d’Aurignac, or with flights, like Blanqui, but with feats, with real tours de force, with the distending of hand- cuffs, the disrupting of chains, the pulling down of masonry, the cutting through of walls and the forcing of doors which {he Newgate turnkeys thefnselves could not open. Then, for relaxation, he amused himself by getting out and getting drunk. Jack the Slip-String inspired pantomimes, farces, meclo- WHEN HE VAS JAILED THE 1/ALLS PARTED AND THROUGH THEM CANE = SAvCcHo PANzA_AND DoN dramas, even an opera—even the late Mr. Ainsworth. The King incuired about him. The president of the Royal Acad- emy felt honored to paint his portrait. Fine ladies came to his cell to stare and stayed to soothe. Such are the rewards of honest enterprise. Such, too, is fame. Fame In visiting Jack did not neglect Cartouche. We should love to recount the crimes of that footpad. But we lack the art, which is a detail, for we also lack the space. We voted to him and the church. Into no lives did he carry suck rich blessings; to none other did his teachings appeal so forcibly and awaken such faith and rabo tel us that the Hindoos bought and sold their Hindostan women used to pray: ‘“Oh, Visanu, let not child be a girl, for very sad is the life of woma In Persia women were wholly at the mercy of their husbands, who could im- caprice, and polygamy and infanticide love. wives, In prison them at thelr were common. According to Herodotus the Babylonians were accustomed to sell their marriageable women auction. DModorus informs us that In Egypt polygamy was admitted en an unlimited seale. The ancient Germans could murder a nominal fine. Though their women at will en the payment the Greeks were splendidly endowed with physicul beauty and intellectual power, their women suborainated and - spised. Chastity and modesty were scarcely known in théir homes. Pericles in his oration on those who had fallen in the described it as the highest neither for goed nor third year of the Peloponnesian war ideal of womanhood to be conspicuous ‘The’ poverty of her conception of the dignity. of nature is given as the reason 'why the glory of Gr in the zenith of her greatness was so short lived. Tean Farrar states that the false and degraded views about the soullessness of woman have tended more than anything else to corrupt the morais and stereotyy the unprogressive Last, and, indeed, to retard the best de- velopment of many nations and mar Dr. as {llustrations: *“The senselessness ttle-footed the one-sided misappreciation of Semitic nations; the of Persia, Greece and Rome; even the fantas idolism chivalry in the Middle Ages.” 1d to the integrity of the family it is said they uccumbed to wealth and luxury, to the frivoldus, grading spirit of Greece. Athens was of fashions, the corrupter of morals. appeared. Marriage became a farce. and home lost their sacred, preclous meaning.” In view of what Christianity women should be prompt to declare tiong and hasten to identify thems God. They should early their Christian of the Christian church (I am now speaking Whatever their -calling in life. Thi time in debating the duty or necessity Christian to desire and seek congenial Christian tellowship. This is & ministering age—an age in which we are coming be ministered This is a missionary age. There Is special need of young people, especially of young great world Most It is encouraging to sce the increasing number of young people to the teaching of the’great master, not to unto, but to minister to others. women, in the work of the great church. All movements Lave been largely carried on by young life. all great leaders have been from the ranks of the young. who are giving themselves to the great work of the church. In home and soclety, in church and state, woman is the real force; hey opportunities for usefulness are fully recog- nized and constantly widening and deepening until they are almost limitless. The true young woman calls nothing com- monplace; she feels that *“God, who studies eéach separate soul, Out of commonplace lives make his bea ful whole. It true to God, what power she may lwg} in soclety. Whether as wife or mother, daughter or sister, her greatest power is wielded in the home and family relations, for the bome shapes the destiny of nations. Napoleon, when asked save it. T NN TS T\ 0~ @ S N TR T - XOIRN v N @ TR N AIL CHUR e the immobility of Farrar cites hina'; =rrors of Of the Romans who originally finally the de- to the Romans what Paris has been to so many English and Americans—the leader Domestic morality dis- The words wife, mother has done for women, young convie- ves with the kingdom of place themselves at the disposal of God. They should early identify themsclves with some branch of Christ'an young women) and serve God to the full limit of their ability is no day for spending of church membership. It is’the most natural thing for one who has just become a "/" e By EDGAR SALTUS 7 ok may note, though, that when he was finally jalled he amused himself with mocking his guards, stinging them with the wit &nd venom of his tongue, correcting with a gibe the grammar of the death warrant which they brought, and generally es- tablishing the agreeable repute of being the finest scoundrel that ever died. There, too, is fame. Fame visited Casanova also. But everything is relative. Famae, like vice, has its degrees. The fame which Casanova acquired was that of a man of fashion. He was the Brummel of his day. He was also the Lothario. Casanova promenaded through palace and cottage, cloister and inn, greenroom and garret, inveighing in the course of the promenade three thousand women, princesses and soubrettes, abbesses and ballerines, matrons and malds. That promenade, which was a continuous sin, he has recited at length In his memolrs. Tt was not because of the latter that he was jailea. though they are wearisome enough to have justified anything. Casanova was convicted of practicing magie. Though skey tical by/trade, we belieye that magician he was. Only a : cerer—or a story tellerA\uld have escaped in the manner which he says he did escape from the leaded lofts of his Venetian prison. Beside it the classic proceedings of Jack Sheppard are kindergarten. So surprising was it that it lifted him from obscurity into fashion, and thence with a bound into fame. The glory which Casanova acquired by getting out Latude obtained by staying in. He, too, wrote his memoirs. T are the longest lle ever published. But the writing of them amused him. Fiction is always more entertaining than truth And for his own entertalnment, for ours as well, he related how, while chained hand and foot, he succeeded in making a flute, In taming rats and charming pigeons: how also he ceeded in making tablets from bread crumbs, ink from d, pens from fishbones; and how therewith he managed to write a letter which his jailer refused to touch, believin s Latude with enviable imagination recites, that its provenance was demoniac. After thirty-five years, not precisely of that sort of thing, but of cognate adventures, Latude stepped out into fame and fashlon. As with him, so with others; with" Voltaire, for Instance, with Diderot also. These instances could be muitiplied, but for present purpeses they suffice. They show, or seem to, that the consciousness of imprisonment, Itke the ntiment of defeat, is an emotion which may be so ignored that it ceases to be. These instances further show, or seem to, that 1de offers vou the double advantage of being by yourself and not being with others. These Instances also show that y may make capital out of anything—out of mistakes, out misfortunes, out of bars and bolts, even out of fleas. There is real philosophy, or, rather, there is the proper philosophy for those whose lelsure is enforced. In that leisu men of course have gone mad, but only because their were insufficlently furnished. In soclety, and part! the smart set, ladies and gentlemen whose brains a - adequately equipped save themselves from insgnity only by keeping on the jump, by herding together, by cunsidering their position, if you please, and asking each other to d It is the same way in London—with this difference, over. In Loggon people begin by being smart and going Into tra Here they begin by going Into tra. end by being stupid. From that complaint d'Aurignac has been spared. So, too, and very notably, has his sister. The woman is a genlu The metamorphoses which Ovid conceived are nursery tale beside those which she put Into operation. With nothing more ponderable than a bellef in human credulity she to absence of anything, a zero with the periphery el end from it produced a grand phantasmagoria W vplved an imaginary testator, vanishing litigants ar crammed full of Government bonds, which latter, fore the eyes of financlers, crumbled at the moment into a collar button and a penny de that phantasmagoria—by means of which she was enabled to lead for twenty years a life of active brigar . to fill her house with the pick of the basket and to rook th ghetto to the tune of a hundred milllon franes guile and the genfus of that the ghosts of Bunyan, now- 4 by and psy Blanqui, Casanova, Cartouche and Latude may diminished shades. They are nowhere. This woman has beaten them hollow, knocked their fables, novels, flights, magic, highwayry and lies into so many cocked hats. It is true she was not at the time in jail. But 1s now there, though not, it Is probable, for lons. While her br has been pleasantly occupied in tramning fleas we assume wit out effort that by the exercise of her unequaled imagi she has curtained her cell with cashmeres, apotheoses and triumphant surprises, thre. with the hum of harps and in these fastldious surrov mapping a romance that shall be even more captivati s than time does not hang pert y event, you may be sure that heavy on her little hands, for in prison, in prison, time is never heavy to th poetically inclined. B> REV. FRANK K.BAKER the best training places for recruits, answered, “The nur- series.’ If these women who were-bound by home and family tles were able by their lives of devotion to the church in its many ministries, what may we not expect from young women who are comparatively free from binding ties? They should heed the call of God for more trained workers In the whitened fields to-day. Splendid energies in young women are going to waste because the urgent call of God and Bumanity to a broader work is not heeded. There are great opportunities for vejl-trained workers in the Sunday-schools, In young people’s sobieties, in missionary circles. Then what wonderful oppor- tunities awalt the consecrated and trained young women in settlement work, in the Young Women's Christian Association, in the Student Volunteer movement, the Deaconess and Sister of Charity work. There is hardly any limit to a young woman's influence; she touches in all her relations the very center of thought and life. If this be so, then you would not object to a woman's preaching. There s not so much objec- tion to a woman's preaching as there is to her preaching as a man. As long as she preaches as a woman there can be littie objection if she find that field opened to her. But there are far more powerful ways in which she may preach than by declaiming from a pulpit or platform, though these are open to the cavable and called prophetess of God. It was Coleridge who said to Charles Lamb one day: “Did you aver hear me preach?” Lamb replied: *“I never heard you do anything else.” Lady Henry Somerset justly credits a Sister of Charity with the bravest deed she ever witnessed. It occurred on a boulevard in Paris, when the brave young Christian woman was walking with some children. A mad dog was discovered running loose. Men and women wers panic-stricken and driven to places of safety. It seemed !mpossible for the chil- dren, who were so tiny and numerous, to get to a place of shelter, and they clung to their protector. As the Infuriated beast approached, all at once he made a dash for the pave- ment where the little ones were clustered. In a moment the good Sister, as though suddenly inspired, Eravely hurried forth to meet the beast as it approached snapping and snariing. Kneeling down upon the flagstones, she entered upon a fierce struggle with the mad beast, final both her hands down the animal's throat. 1‘wo~ge:1hd?rsx::§ who had been pursuing the dog, rushed upon the scene breathless and excited, and as they beheld the action of th. young woman they whispered, “She is lost.” The noble youns woman, not thinking of herself, sald to them: “Save ths children! Save the children!” One heavy blow from a sword and the dog lay dead at thelr feet. The young herolme weas socn taken in a carriage to the nearest hospital. This was t:: end of her life as told by the hospital nurse to Lady Semer. set: “Ab, the little Sister! It was the bravest thing & woman ever did, or, for the matter of that, a man either, Sh T here so quiet, and the doctors would not let her move becauc, they wanted some days to pass In order to ses what effasi the virus had taken. She was so patient, and yet so gay . . made all the sick people In the ward smile. 1t seemied’ o God's sunshine when she was there. But tha' convuls!mp l‘ s her on the fifth day, and again and again they r. (';:“d s poor little body until it was a living death to b:c l? Lo After the paroxysms she would look up and say, ~p oo ros I saved the children—such young lives, so much befors T 80 many to love them. Tell them I am glad I saved themmr And the King shall answer and say unto th:;:d'\!v’hem lfly unto you, inasmuch ye have done it unto one el-l"y east of these my brethren, ye have done {f "" y o we read: “For whosoever will save his I i wrdyenlli whosover will lose his life for my -k’:_‘.::.“ l.:: “;-h‘:l: 1]