The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Science
The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, October 1884, No. 1
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
It has been a dry summer, but it has rained financial scandals. The
heaviest part of the clearing-off shower—we hope it is clearing off—fell
on New Brunswick, N. J., where first the cashier and next the president
of a bank committed suicide in the midst of the ruin they had wrought.
That is awful, but it is morally more satisfactory and healing than the
flight into Canada. When financial wreckers are hurt to the point of
remorse and suicide, the horrors of the crime of genteel stealing will
begin to be realized. That sin is dangerous, too. Let us thank God and
take courage.
* * * * *
Dr. McCosh has been re-visiting the Old World, and at a breakfast party
in Belfast stated an interesting fact. “In my early life,” he said, “I
applied for many positions which I did not get; but I never applied for
the positions which I have since held.” There is plenty of good wholesome
use for the motto: “Let the place seek the man.” It is the rule for
the good places, as the case of Dr. McCosh shows. Perhaps it is more
generally the rule for other places than men suppose it to be.
* * * * *
John Bright continues to excel in strong quotable phrases and
descriptions. The House of Lords being once more in the way of reform,
Mr. Bright declares that House to be filled with “the spawn of the
blunders, the wars and the corruption of the dark ages of our history.
They have entered the temple of honor, not through the temple of merit,
but through the sepulchres of their ancestors.” The last clause will
probably be as lasting as his “Cave of Adullam.”
* * * * *
A notable saying easily forgets its parentage. It is too much trouble for
a busy world to remember _who_ said this or that first. An expression
passes into currency, and after that it is no matter who coined it. It
was, we are now told, a Harvard professor who said not of Edward Everett,
but of the Rev. Dr. Huntington, that his prayers were the most eloquent
ever addressed _to a Boston audience_. The Dr. Huntington referred to
was then a Unitarian of Boston, but is now Protestant Episcopal Bishop
of Central New York. The _Christian at Work_ is our authority for the
precise facts. We do not advise any one to try to remember them.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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