EXPRESS LEAPS IN GORGE. MODERN LUXURY. VATICAN AND THE BIBLE.' THE MODERN MAN AND HIS CLOTHES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10770, 15 September 1906, Page 5

EXPRESS LEAPS IN GORGE.

MODERN LUXURY.

VATICAN AND THE BIBLE.'-

THE MODERN MAN AND HIS CLOTHES.

forgetting himself utterly in his loving pity for her. At last she moved away from him. Her tear-stained face, in the moonlight, filled him with tenderness so great that his love was pain. "It's late," she said. "It must be after one o'clock. 1 must go upstairs." She started toward the open window, but still he held her back, gently. "Dear," he said softly, we've been away from each other four weeks and three days and I've come two thousand miles to sec you. You haven't kissed me yet. Don't you want to? You don't need to if you'd rather not, but if you could " His voice vibrated with passionate appeal. She lifted her white face to his and kissed him, mechanically. "To-nior. row," she breathed, "I'll be more like myself; I'll try to make up for to-night, but if you love me, let me go now !" He went with her to the elevator and watched till she was lifted out of his sight, smiling at her till the last — the old, loving smile. He wont out to the balcony again, and sat down with his arm thrown over the back of the chair that had so recently held her. His brow was wrinkled in deep thought, but his boyish mouth still smiled. Presently there was a step behind him and he turned — to look into the face of tin. 1 war correspondent, who spoke firet. "I've come back,' he said, "to shake hands with you, if you don't mind." The Other Man's hand met his— more than halfway. "And," continued the war correspondent, "1 want to apologise. T've been all kinds of a brute, but what 1 said was the truth. I love her, as no man ever before loved a woman. That's my only excuse." "Your'e not to blame for loving her," returned the Other Man generously; "nobody is. And as for her loving you, that's all right, too. She's got a lot of teinperment and she's used to being loved, and you're not a bad sort, you know — not at all. And," he concluded fondly, "my little girl was lonesome without me. ' The war correspondent went away quietly. In the moonlight, he could see the boyish face of the Other Man, radiant with all-believing, all- forgiving love. "Yes," said the Other Man, again, after an interval, and not realizing that he was alone, "that was it. My little girl was lonesome without- me." — Katherine La Targe- Norton in the Smart Set —— — — — ■ 3— — — — — I

-o- • SPOKANE, July 24. The "Great Northern Flier," westbound, left the rails near here last night, and the fore portion plunged into the depths of the Diamond Lake. Thirteen passengers and four railway employes went clown with the detached engine and front smoking carriage, and were not seen again. The accident happened at a spot which is weirdly perilous. As the train rushed from a tunnel it had to run along the ledge of a precipice over a 300-feet deep gorge. It left the rails immediately after leaving, the tunnel and before tlie passengers realised what had happened the fore part had disappeared into the depths below. The remaining carriages were twisted and shattered, but miraculously remained perched half -hanging over the precipice. Owing to the darkness the people were rescued with great difficulty. Several women became hysterical, and had to be prevented by force from throwing themselves into the gorge. Seven of the passengers who were saved were seriously hurt, and twenty others received injuries. All attempts to locate the sunken portion of the train have so far proved unavailing, the water at this place being at least 130 feet deep. The bodies have not been recovered. The accident is attributed to the rails having spread owing to great heat. — Daily Express.

*+. The great increase in luxury among the wealthy of Sydney, says the Sydney Daily Telegraph, is giving the thoughtful pause. "Are civilised people to-day dropping into decadence?" asks an American journal. "Is vast wealth, or, rather, the-vast misuse of it, undermining racial stability and national progress? Are the artificial castes being created bound to result in disaster? Can a nation be true to its highest ideals when dollar-chasing shoulders even patriotism aside; when dollarspending engages attention to the exclusion of civic pride and virtue? Many thoughtful observers of the trend of events answer the first three of these questions in the affinnitive. 'Luxury is killing the virility of mankind' is a warning that does not come from preachers alone, but from eminent medical and philosophical students of present conditions. It is not so much, for instance, that American* spend nearly 50,000,000d01. a year in the! purchase of automobiles ; that a family in Newport society cannot get along on less than lOOOdol. a day, or that iS,UJUdoI. may be spent upon a single ball. The last-mentioned sum is said to have been the cost of a Newport hop, while -fashionable functions there frequently demand the expenditure of 10,000dol. or 12,000d01. In season New York alone spends in the neighbourhood of 1,000,CC0 dol. a night for after-theatre suppers ; wealthy men have been 'known to furnish their palatial homes at a cost of l,ooo,ooodol.— one of them paid 300,000 dol.. for three tapestries to hang upon his walls. America imports something like 25,000,000d01. worth of diamonds and other precious stones annually. Not long ago one New York dealer found little difficulty in securing a purchaser for a single ruby of 100,000dol. The question that arises is, 'Do modern extravagance and luxury tend to the deterioration of the individual?' For, when the individual deteriorates; society in general strikes the sliding scale that has its end in decadence."

111 reply to numberless troubled inquiries received in Rome from Bishops and priests in all parts of Roman Catholic Christendom as to the correct attitude of QA'tbolics towards the Higher Criticism relative to tlie Pentateuch, the Vatican has Issued through the Biblical Commission the following document, sealed with the Pope's approval: — 1. Despite_the arguments formulated by modern criticism against the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch, greater re--Bard must be had for the witness of the ild and New Testaments, the constant persuasion of the Jewish people, and the uninterrupted tradition of the Church, equally with the internal proofs derivable from the Sacred Books themselves. Itmust be maintained that these books have Moses for their author, and have not been composed of elements for the most part later than his time. 2. It does not. however, follow that Moses wrote the Pentateuch entirely with his own hand, or dictated it all to copyists. It may be admitted that, when lie had conceived his work under Divine inspiration*, he confided its redaction to one or many secretaries. It must, nevertheless, be affirmed that they have truly rendered his thought, neither adding nor omitting anything contrary to his intention; and that they, have published their labors only after liiiving obtained the inspired author's approbation of the work which bears his name. 3. It is, likewise, admissable that Moses, iu composing the Pentateuch, availed himself of earlier sources, written documents, or oral traditions, whereof, under Divine inspiration, he made use conformably to the end he proposed attaining ; so that he borrowed sometimes the words, and at other times the sense only, abridging or amplifying according to circumstances. 4. It may further be admitted that the books of Moses in the long course of centuries whieh have elapsed since their composition have undergone some modifications, as. fiir instance, certain additions, written by some inspired author after the death of Moses ; certain words and forms of discourses translated from an older into a more modern style ; and, lastly, certain faulty readings attributable to the unskilf ulness of copyists. It belongs to the province of criticism to employ tlie rules of its art in the research and discernment of these modifications. The London Tribune says it is noteworthy that the most eminent living exegetes in tho Roman Catholic Church, even the few whose names figure on tlie Biblical Commission, consider ths foregoing pronouncement as altogether inadequate to, and in part irreconcileable with, the assured results of critical research.

♦ "Man has played fantastic tricks in his time," L'arlyle once snarled, and goodness knows what he would have said if he had seen a man garbed in a rainbow waistcoat, a garment that would weld all the glories of all the Auroras, Borealis, Australis, or*-others, with a few tropical sunsets and sunrises thrownin, bound up with nutmeg' buttons. Some of this modern raiment (says a Wellington Post contributor) fairly; dazzles the naked *ye. A tie shop nowadays is likea jeweller's display, with rubies, emeralds, amethysts, and opals gleaming in the sun or electric light. Your fashionable young man is a' bird of paradise by day and a swallow by night. The spectacle is saddening in a - way, but it is inevitable. The pity is that the color scheme, if it has to come, is only partial. It might not be painful to behold a man in a red vest, a, green coat, and blue trousers, with a heliotrope hat, something after the old Parisian style illustrated in "Veronique," but it is unsatisfactory to gaze at just a little oasis of iridescence in a desert of drab. But the other things are sure to come. Man appears to have grown tired of seeing his womankind monopolise the violets, indigoes, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. • If the cut of his clothes will not allow' him to be pretty in form, he is determined to be gorgeous in color. Ifcilkhe get to thg stagfrof havinfr-birds