The evening world. Newspaper, August 20, 1918, Page 13

Origin of a Famous Hymn By the Rev. Thomas B. Gregory Copyright, WS, vy The Presa Publishing Co, (The New York Evening Work.) | T is one (ning to sing a great hymn and feel the mighty uplift born of its inspiring sentiment and it is quite another thing to know the life- story of the man out of whose mind and heart the hymn was born. The mighty multitude of men and women who Sunday after Sunday are thrilled by William Cowper's immortal bymn, “God Moves in a Mys- terlous Way His Wonders to Perform,” are, as a rule, blissfully ignorant of the way the hymn came to be written, | A strange life-story, that of Cowper. Born in Hertford, England, in 1731, he was sent, at the age of seven, to a boarding school where he was singled out by a boy twice his age who persecuted him with relentless cruelty.” As a result of his experience with that brute of a school fellow Cowper contracted a malady of the nerves from which he never recovered. At nineteen Cowper began the study of the law, and four years later was admitted to the bar, but he never practised. | At thirty-one, poor, melancholy and almost without an object in life, | he accepted the position of reading clerk in the House of Lords; but, dread- | ing the idea of appearing in public, he resigned and sought a clerkship | which he imagined would not require his presence in the House, Learning that he would have to undergo an examination, he began his preparation for it, but when the day for the examination arrived he attempted suicide | as a means of escape. Upon his recovery kind friends took him in hand and watched over him with untiring vigilance, giving him hares, guinea pigs, birds and dogs with which to amuse himself. But the memory of that terrible boy at the boarding schoo! would not let him alone. Despair had him in the wind. There was nothing for him | in this world, and worse than nothing in the next, for he was firmly of the opinion that he was predestined to be damned. Between this and that the poor man’s life was a living agony, and @uring the evening of one of his most miserable days, Lady Austen read him an amusing story of a famous horseman. The effect produced by it was just what the reader hoped for. Cowper nearly laughed his head off, and continued laughing all through the night. The next morning he wrote the immortal “John Gilpin’s Ride,” one of the most popular short poems ever written. But there is no successful ministering to a mind diseased as Cowper's was, and once again the afflicted man attempted to get rid of the exist- ence that was so weighted down with woe. So one day, when the floodtide of his despatr was at the top-notch, he called a cabman to him and ordered him to drive him as quickly as possible to @ certain point on the Thames, where the deep water came in close ashore. ~ ‘The cabman, suspicious of the intention of his passenger, did not take him to the place designated, but instead drove leisurely about the city, and in good time stopped at the curb in front of his passenger’s home. Stepping out of the cab, Cowper beheld the old, familiar surroundings rather than the place on the river where he had ordered the cabman to take him, and where he had intended to destroy himself, and for a time he appeared to be dazed, like one “wandering in a world not realized.” Suddenly recovering himself, the poet rushed to his room. where, thinking of his narrow escape, he sat down and began writing the famous hymn: | “God Moves in a Mysterious Way His Wonders to Perform.” “The canary bird sings sweeter the longer he has been trained in a darkened cage,” says some one. It was out of the darkest of all the days that poor Cowper experienced in the cage of life that the noblest and most inspiring of all our Christian hymns was born. | Advice to Lovers | By Betty Vincent - some One| ly to be deplored. Avoid those whom | Dreher ey ary he or she| YoU Now call your friends, instead of | arrives: (0) Se ae imitating thee, | can, with honor, break an en- gagement to marry. It seems to me that there is just one answer to this question, morally «peaking, and that is that two per- son who no longer love each other should not be held togethar by the | D iter of bond of ied "| Tason Croft Makes His Fi To the Moon and Palos, The Dog Star OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS, . Vrank A. Munsey Compat for Jason. Croft, to marry is a serious thing which should sot be entered into without) thought end an acquaintance long) enough to make ft possible for the) young persons involved to know their own minds. Yet even when two who t e each other promise to ‘ a tasty oraeteing may happen during , Dy, George Murray te, called, on Vo breacribe 0 t 3 or years before the wed- | {nth /s"hna a a has teen ding day stich changes the inclin- fi ie ENT ot ite ations of one or both persons. There croft proceeds wo explain something of Lis Lie, Thay be some disagreeable discovery CHAPTER I. sro) as to the character of one of the two. ‘A third person may come on the scene and attract affection. It is very | (Continued) ‘ sad, of course, but how is it improve: | ASON CROFT was born in New by @ loveless marriage? Better break Jersey, but brought West at everything off before it becomes ‘00 peas ek hea ad ti big ; 5 who had become converts Her Friend’s Brother. —\io a certain faith. Right there, “KP. H." writes: ‘I have been very it scems to me, may have been laid fond of a girl friend of mino for s e foundation of Croft's interest in eral years, and wo are in the habit! 11, goouit in jater lite, since that faith f visiting cach other's house. Her) contains possibly a greater number hrother has been away at school and ely SO ean has recently returned. 1 am attracted any Occidental creeds. Of by him, and he seems to like ma|2"¥. OF ene ee eee there is the very much, But I am afraid he will) germ ‘of truth, Were tt not, they think 1am Tunning after him it 1/ Scr %. “tld gogmas rather than zo and sec his sister as usual, Yet| tying SORTS eine Fee fd stayed away I shall hurt her| which has grown strong in the West- feelings. What do you advise?” mien Nae eorn a rhea ie w closer I think you are unduly sensitive. approach to the eastern theory of @ Do not make any change in your ac- | saat and spiritual life, customed habits, but when you are|” jz that as it may, Croft grew to a your friend's house treat her | manhood in the very State and town brother with simple friendliness.) where I was now employed, and tn There is no reason why @ pretty) the home on the porch of which we romance should not develop. |sat, Tle elected medicine as @ career t ~_ !}te went to Chicago and put in his “rt. N." writes: “Whenever 1 go. f three years, ‘The second year to a beach or a park with @ party of his mother died and a year later his ionds they tease me because J afn | father. He revurned on each oc: 4 and —they say "stiff" , and went back to his stud deal of noise the obsequies were done, In public places | his fourth year he met @ man named and they all each other by | Gatua Kahaun, destined, as it seems, names, talk at the top of their| to change the entire course of his life, yolecs and are effusively affectionate, itua’ Kahaun was a Hindu, a ‘That sort of thing soems to me like} member of an Eastern brotherhood, ¢ manners, yet my friends make me|come tp the United States to stud - Sate bye tae (Penn iene the Fe Hes ae of the West, One can see like to make a grea on the cars and in t “aMly uncomfortable because I do not} the re n imitate them. What shall 1 do? how he naturally took up with Croft, 1 you to cul «a new set| Who had been raised in one of those friends, Of course your attitude | religions, S tly nataat and such rowdy-| The two became friends, From f : ou desrribe [| what Croft told me, the Hindu was a heylor 96 ypu dosrribe 18 grant man of marked ainments, well py garnIm versed in the Oriental creeds, When ALL THE DIFFERENCE, Croft came West after his gradua- HE two women inet in the shop'| tion, Gatua Kahan was, his com- | ning district and stopped to ex-;Panion and stopped at his home, ping district and stopped to x-| Satin aa heen kept un by Mra, Goss and her husband, then still alive. The Mrs, A. said to Mrs, B, two lived there for some weeks, and “My husband was out very late last/tho Hindu taught Croft the rudi- ments at least of the occult philoso- chan » amenities, and then night, and he tolls me he went out ; i hat int Then, with little warning, Croft That just shows that. you can't bev) was assigned on a miasion to Aus- Hoye a word thove Men aay About) tralia by his clurch, ‘The churcn of uch things, Why, my dear, T give! which he was a member has @ cus- you my word that’ 1 band told y tom of sending theiy members about ine just the opposite the world as missionaries of their “What do you mean, just the oppo-} faith, to spread its doctrines and win site converts to their ranks, “Ho says that he went out with!” For more than two years he did not your husband."—Cleveland Plain’ see the Hindu, though he kept up his Jranler. sindies of the ocontt, to which he Tuesday, HOME PAGE August 20, 1918 Do It Yourself oral ming soul from this earth to an} in the universe, and from the dog star one of the lesser planets, seemed inclined by a natural bent. @hen, just as he was nearly finished with his mission, what should hap- pen but that, walking the streets of Melbourne, he bumped into Gatua The two men renewed their ac- Gatua Kahaun of the Sanskrit When Croft's mission was finished he prevailed upon him to visit India be- fore returning home. Through Gatau's influ- ence he was admitted to the man's He forgot his for- mer objects and aims in life in the new world of thought which opened up before his mental eyes. came to comprehend that all stages of existence are but staces own brotherhood, spirit, is the highest form of life force pendent of th possible thing. mystery be solved, wus no real spirit could not be set free to roam and return to the body at will that were true, it scemed to him that the splrit could return from such ex- cursions, bringing with it a conscious recollection of tha place where it had Then once more he was called home by a thing which seems like no more than a further step in the course of what mortals call fate. hb He left Croft sufficient wealth to pro- vide for his every need oided to pursue his studies at home, fe had gained all India could give Indeed, he bad rather startled even Gatua Kahaun by some of the theories he had deduced. Ho sat one evening on bis porch Knocking the ash from his cigar, bh took one last, long, possibly farewell whiff and laid it down on the broad arm of his chair, Then summoning power of his will, fixed his whole mind upon hi pose and sank into cataleptic #1 Th science is right. out moisture, without an atmosphere Croft won his great experiment or its first step at least. His body sank to sleep, but his ego leaped into a fuller, There was a sensation of consciousness had dropped His body sat neath him in the chair. He could see AFTERWARDS —— 4 HOURS - OF I COULD DO IT Jer ts WANTED TO, BI Was Daw it. He could see the city and the lake and the mountains and the yellow isk of the moon. He knew he was rising toward the latter swiftly. ‘Then—space was apnibilated in an instant, and he scemed to himself to ‘be standing on the topmost edge of a mighty crater in the full, unob- structed glare of a blinding light. Ho sensed that as the sun, which hung like a ball of fire halfway up from the horizon, flinging its rays in @ dazzling brilliance against the dead satellite's surface, unprotected by an atmospheric screen. His first sensa- tion was an amazing realization of Mis own success, Then he gazed about. To one side was the vast ring of the crater itself, a well of unutter- able darkness and unplumbed depth, as yet not opened up to the burning light of the sun. To the other was the downward sweep of the crater's flank, dun, dead, wrinkled, seamed eared by ‘the stabbing rays bathed it in pitiless light. And beyond the foot of the crater was a Vast irregular plain, lower in the cen- tre as though in eons past it might have been the bed of some vaniehed ‘ea. And about the piain were the crests of barren mountains, crags, pinnacles, misshapen and weird be- yond thought. , the Moon ts dead—now. But— was life upon it once. Croft willed himself down from the lip of the crater to the plain, He moved about it, Indeed, it had bean a sea. There in the airless blaze, still etched in the lifeless formations, he found an ancient water-line, the mark of the fingers of vanished waters like a of what had been, And skirting the outline of that long lost sea, he came to the ruin of a@ h had stood upon its shores It stood there paved strects and in that moistureless ¥e . hrough those dead streets and dead houses, some of them thrown down by terrific earthquakes whieh he jndged had accompanied the final cooling stages and death of the moon Croft took his way, pausing now and then to examine some ancient inserip- tion cut into the blocks of stone from which the buildings had been reared. In a way they impressed him as similar in many respects to the Asiatic structures of to-day, moat of them being windowless onthe first Story, but built about an tnner court, garding of beauty in the time when the moon supported life. So far as he could judge from the buildings themselves and frescoes on the walls, done in pigments w prevailed, the lunarians had liny people, probably not above an average of four feet in height, but extremely intelligent past any doubt, as shown by the remains of their homes. ‘They had possessed rather large heads in proportion to their Ader bodies, as the paintings done on the inside walls led Croft to be- lieve, rom the same source he became convinoed that their social life had been highly developed, and that they = (The New York World.) He BEGINS wrth 4 Hours oF THis— THIS oe He's dona in” WAVES ering By POT nl Sing on By Lev | P YON, THERE—7oul)——S«~CXYS FIRST I'LL GIT THE KAISER- THEN HINDY — la OLE BOcHa ONT \ BY J U GIESY ddie Kl Copyright, 118. by The Pr > By Uncl Mr. Fox's Joke. R. FOX did not ike Mr. Fle- M phant, The big fellow was stronger than a hundred foxes put together, and besides that, he was so smart nobody could play tricks on him. This made Mr. Fox jealous. He and Buster were talking one morning, Buster said that be thought Mr. Elephant knew more than any- body else in the world. “No, he doesn't,” replied Mr. Fox; “you think that because he is #0 big and strong. Anybody can play a joke| on him.” “I bet you can't,” cried Buster. “I bet I can,” Mr, Fox answered “Come on and I will show you.” When they reached Mr. Elephant's house he was just getting ready to cat lunch. He had eome fine, ripe | stalke of sugarcane, which all | phants like very much, He was al- ways polite, so he offered Buster and Mr. Fox some, but they did not care for any. Mr. Elephant picked up a stalk and was about to eat it when there came \ shout from Mr. Fox, who had wan- | dered to the edge of the jungle: | “Go away," he cried, “or Mr. Ele- phant will give you @ whipping.” The big fellow and Buster hurried to see what was the matter, “Mr, Lion was aneaking aroun The Evening World's Conducted by Eleanor Schore: —-" ub Korner Publishing Co, (The New York Evening World.) aay SILLY SPORTS’ SILLY STUNTS - By William Fritsth Buster’s Adventures e Harry sald Mr. Fox, “but he ran away when T told him you would get him.” While Mr. Elephant was looking in the bushes, Mr. Fox darted away, but soon came back. Mr. Lion was no- where to be seen, so they returned ted the house. The sugarcane was ope, Not a stalk was to be seen. "Oh! whero is my finch?” exclaimed | Mr. Elephant; “I must find tt.” He started up the path, and as soon as bis back was turned, Mr. Fox be- gan to make faces at him. He stack out his tongue, stood on his head and then began to imitate Mr. Elephant's walk. The big follow never turned his head, but all at once ho stopped and said: : “You are very funny, Mr. Fox. Show me where you hid my lunch and then Mee can be the clown as much as you like.” Mr. Fox was s0 surprised he stood still with his mouth open. Then he pointed out the hiding place and ran away. “Why, how did you know what he was doing when you were not loak- ing at him?" asked Buster. “I thought he was up to some of his tricks,” Mr. Elephant replied, “so I brought this alon, In tho end of his trunk he was ho d- ing a little round mirror, so he could seo what was gving on behind him, { Cousin Eleanor’ | PENNANT WINNERS. | John 8. Bilvi, No, 1685 Bathgate | Avenue, New York. Norma Leng, No, 347 Dill Place, Glendale, LL L Bessie Milstein, No. 3 Lincoln Place, Weehawken, N. J. Clark Storch, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, had been well versed in the arts of vast, wide-flung plain through which of a sea-serpent or @ monster lizard manufacture and commerce, and had at the time when the lunar seas per- sisted maintained @ merchant marine, Throvgh the hours of the lunar day he explored. Not, in fact, until the sun was dropping swiftly below the rim of the mountains beyond the old soa bed did he desist. ‘Then, lifting his eyes, he beheld a luminous cres- cent, many times larger than the moon appears to us, equitting & soft, green light. He stood and gazed upon it for some moments before he rea lized fully that he looked upon a sun- rise on the earth—that the monster crescent was the earth indeed as seen from her satellite. ‘Then, as realization came upon him, he remembered his body—left on the porch of his home in the chair. Sud denly he felt @ longing to return, to forsake the foreaken relics of a life which had passed and go back to the full, pulsing tide of life which etili flowed on. Here, then, he was faced by the second step of his experiment, He had consciously reached the moon. Could he return again to the earth? If so, he had proved his theory beyond any further doubt. Fastening his full power upon the endeavor, he willed himself back, and: Ile opened his eyes—his physical eyes—and gazed into the early sun of a new day rising over the mountains id turning the world to emerald and wold. ‘The sound of a caught-in breath fellon his ears. He turned his glance, Mrs, Goss stood beside him. “Law: sir! but you asleep!" she exclaimed, “I come to call you to breakfast, an’ you wasn't in your room, an’ when I found you you was sleepin’ lke th’ dead. You must have got up awful early, Mr, Jason,” ‘L was here before you were mov- ing,” Croft said as he rose. He smiled as he spoke. Indeed, he wanted to laugh, to shout, He had done what no ‘tal had ever accomplished be- fore. The wonders of the universe were his to explore at will, Yet, even so, he did not dream of whut the future held. CHAPTER III, ND now the Dog Star called. Croft had proved his ability to project his conscious self beyond the earth attraction and return, And, having proved that, the old lure of the star he had watched when @ student in the Indian moun- tains came back with @ double strength. No longer was it an occa- sional prompting. Rather it was a never-ceasing urge which nag night and day. Ho yielded at last Summoning his will he found him- self standing on @ world not so vastly different from his own He stood yn the side of # mountain in the midst of an almost tropic vex etation ant trees were about him, giant ferns sprouted from the soll But here, as on earth, the color of the leaves Was green. Through a break in the forest he gazed out across a ras sound 4 mighty river made its way. waters glinted in the rays of the ris- lus banks were lined with patches of what he knew from their appearance were Beyond them was @ dun track, re- minding him of the arid stretches of 4 desert, reaching out as far as bis vision could plumb the distance. He turned his eyes and followed the course of the river. Swift interest he traced it to a pois where it disappeared beneath seemed the dull red walls of a mighty ‘They were huge walls, high and broad, bawtioned and towered, flung across the course of the river, which ran on through the city itself, passed beyond @ further wall, and-~beyond that again there was the glint o: ver and blue in shimmer of a vast body of water— whether lake or ocean he did not then cultivated fields. Croft’a eyes—the The call of a biird brought his at- tention back. Life was waking in the Gay-plumaged creatures, not unlike earthly parrots, were fluttering from The sound of a grunt- toward him. His eyes encountered those A creature such as he had never seon was coming out of a quivering mass of sturdy fern. small, beady eyes and a snout ‘Two tusks sprouted from its jaws like the tusks of @ boar, But the rest of the body, although some- tree to tree. of other Life ered with a long wool-like hair, tink seemingly almost ‘This, as he was to learn later, was animal still raised both for tts hi woven into fabrics, and for its fle r, which wa Croft watehed, it began re the foot of @ tree small glade it was hunting for #« Once more he Across the dun rea beyond the green region of the ri was moving dark string of the city he arrangement wave that the he deemed animals of some sort, be- no picture of a caravan 3 he had ever seen pd along by their side Something like These beasts were such creat- as might have peopled earth in the size of an earthly e They moved in a tn with a surprising were covered with dish pink in color, wrinkled and war and plainly extr Jestic fashion, yet a hairless skin x forward on th ch one of which ended oed foot armed with short, But it was the head and neck and tail of the things which gave Croft pause. The head was more that than anything else, The neck was long and flexible and curved like that of a cumel, The tail was heavy where it joined the main spine, but thinned rapidly to @ point. And the crest of head and neck, the back of each erea- ture, so far ad he could see, was cov- ered with a sort of heavy scale, an armor devised by nature for the thing’s protection, as It appeared, Yet he could not see very well, since each Sarpelca, as he was to learn their Palosian name, was loaded heavily with bundles and bales of what might be valuable merchandise, And on each sat a man, Croft hes- {tated not at all to give them that ttle, since they were strikingly like the men of earth in so far as he could ee. They had heads and arms and 8 and a body, and their faces were white. Their features departed in no particular, so far as he could, see, from the faces of earth, save that all were smooth, with no evidence of hair on upper lip or cheek or chin, They were clad if loose cloaklike garments and # hoo. cowl, ‘They sat the Sarpelcas just back of the func- ture of the body and neck, and gulded the strarge-appearing monsters by means of slender reins aM™xed to two f the fleshy tentacles which sprouted about the beast's almost snakelike mouths, ‘That this strange cortege was a vravan Croft was now assured. He decided to follow it to the city and inspect that as well, Wherefore be kept on beside it down the valley, ong what he now saw was a well of ind carefully constructed road, built of stone, cut to @ nice approxi. mation, along which the unwie procession made good time, The road showed no small knowledge of engl neering. It was like the roads of an Rome, Croft thought with quick- ned interest. It was in a perfect state of preservation and showed signs of recent mending here and there, While he was feeling a quick 1 interest in this the caravan en- red the cultivated region along river, and Croft gave hia attention to the flelds The first thing he noted here was the fact that all growth was du» to irrigation, carried out by means of ditches and laterals very much earth at the nt time. Here there as the « ssed dow splendid road a farmer set in a bower of trecs. For the most | Klub Kolumn Agnes Meyer, No. 258 Cumnes. Avenue, Brooklyn, Marjorie Kellet, No, 1639 59th Street, Brooklyn, Agnes Lydia Johnson, No. 6021 Third Avenue, Brooklyn. Raymond Laughnan, No, 51 Ba Street, Brooklyn, : Albert Schwarz, No, 57 Zeidler Avenue, Maspeth, N. Y. war: Harold Sc! ¥ Avenue, Maapeth, N. he tae, JULY CONTEST AWARD WINNER. The Funniest Thing That Happened : at School, It was a cold morning in December, The streets were frozen with ice. We were all present in school but Joha O'Driscoll. We were doing our arithmetic about fifteen minutes past nine when we heard the dredsing room door #lam and John walked tn. “Why!” said Miss Thompson. “What made you so late?” aiier @ few moments of hesitation John said, “The streets ply cap vai were coated “We all got here in time,” said Miss Thompson, “Yes.” said John, “but I ive on Greenhill Parkway and have to @ steep hill, Every time I taken step I slip ba step IL slip back two, wo T had to Written BOB. D. HOWARD. aged twelve "Wereitee Mass. AUGUST DRAWING AND writ- ING CONTEST. (Subject: What Would You Lake to Be When You Grow Up and Why?) ‘Ton prizes of $1 each will be award- ed Kiddie Klub mombers—ages from Bix to fifteen inclusive— ~who make the best drawings or write the best stor- jes on what they would like to by when they grow up and why. Drawings must be done in dlacic India ink or black crayon pencil. Stories must not exceed three hun. dred (200) words, Contestants must state their NAME, ADDRESS, AGE and © NUMBER Cousin Eleanor, Evening Nee idle Klub, No, 63 Park Row, KLUB PINS FOR NEW COUSINS WILL BE READY SOON, «+ HIS is a message to a larg: have sent in coupons but ha ived thelr pins and certifi So many kiddies joined the Klub last month that we have no not re cates, ceive them Hut this is war- 8s very bus i I have bw all entered on the mem- bership roll, part and if you wish to take t you may your fn and stories ut Waiting for pins and certifis p were built of a colored brick, and roofed with a th ng ot] rushes from the river's bank, He si the natives working 1n the tields strong bodied men, clad what seemed @ single short skirted tuni reaching to the knees, with the arm and lower limbs left bare. One or two | stopped work and stood to wateh the | caravan pass, and Croft noted that thelr faces were intelligent, well fea tured, and their hair for the most] part @ sort of rich, almost chestnut | rown, worn rather long and wholly | red or else caught about the brows by a sort of cincture whic held a bit of woven fabric draped over the head and down the neck, (To Be Continued.) een HOW TO JOIN THE KLUB AND OBTAIN YOUR PIN, with a alin > rtifivete coupon no. 3&6