Miscellaneous.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2030, 25 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous.

Changes of Half a Alter an interval of more than (says Give Wendell IRI e ) biking a second look at some pails This wil l give my readers as well as a vacation to which we both seem U is a Rip \ an Winkle experiment am promising myself. The changes by half a century in the countries 1 ted amount almost to a transformational left the England of William the EourthSf tDc Duke of Wellington, of Sir Robert 1*«B the France of Louis I’hillipe, of MarahJt Soult, of Theirs, of Guizot. I went Manchester to Liverpool by the new railroad, ihc only one I saw in Europe. 1 looked upon England from the box of a stage coach, upon France from the coupe of a diligence, upon Italy from the chariot of a vettnrino. The broken windows of Aspley House were still boarded up when 1 was in London. The asphalt pavement was not laid in Paris. The obelisk of Luxor was* lying in its great boat, in the Seine, as I remember it. 1 didnotsee it erected; it must have been a sensation to have looked on, the engineer standing underneath, so as to be crushed by it, if it disgraced him by falling in the process. As for the dynasties which have overlaid each other like Ur. Schliemann’s Trojan cities, there is no need of moralizing over a history which, instead of F’inis, is constantly ending with “ What next ?” With regard to the changes in the general condition of society and the advance in human knowledge, think for one moment what fifty years have done. I have often imagined myself escorting some wise man of the past to our Saturday Club, where we often have distinguished strangers as our guests. Suppose there sat by me—l will not say Sir Isaac Newton, for he has been too long away from us, but that other great man, whom Professor Tyndall names as next to him in intellectual stature, as he passes along the lino of master minds of his country from the days of Newton to our own—Dr. Thomas Young, who died in 182!*. Would he or Ibe the listener, it we were side by side ? However humble I might feel in such a presence, I should be so glad in the grandeur of Hie now discoveries, inventions, ideas, I had to impart to him, that I should seem to myself like the ambassador of an emperor. I should tell him of the ocean steamers, the railroads that spread themselves like cobwebs over the civilized and half civilized portions of Hie earth, the telegraph and the telephone, the photograph and the spectroscope. 1 should hand him a paper with the morning nows from London to read by the electric light. I should startle him with a friction match. I should amaze him with the incredible truths about anaesthesia, I should astonish him with the later conclusions of geology, I should electrify him by the fully developed doctrine of Hie correlation of forces, I should delight him with the cell doctrine,] should confound him with the revolutionary apocalypse of Darwinism. All this change in the aspects, position, beliefs, of humanity since the time of Dr. Young’s death, the date of my own graduation from college I I ought to consider myself highly favored to have lived through such a half century. Rut it seems to me that in walking the streets of London and Paris I shall revert to my student days, and appearto myself like a relic of a former generation. Those who have been born into the inheritance of the new civilization feel very differentlyaboutit from those who have lived their way into it. To the young and those approaching middle age. all these innovations in life and thought are as natural, as much a matter of course, as the air they breathe ; they form a part of the framework of their intelligence, of Hie skeleton about which their mental life is organized. To men and women of more than three score they are external accretions, like the shell of a mollusk, the jointed plates of an articulate. Number Seven. The frequent recurrence of the number seven in the scriptures seems to indicate that there arc associated with it certain events, that it may be termed the prophetic, representative symbolic number consecrated in the Holy Scriplurcs and the religion of the Jews and other nations, by many mysterious events and circumstances. The Old Testament informs us that God completed the work of creation in seven days ami set apart the seventh day to he a day of rest for all mankind. Thcslayerof Abel was to be punished sevenfold and the slayer of Lantech seventy and seven fold. Of every clean beast Noah look into the ark by sevens and took with him seven souls when he entered the ark. After seven days the waters were upon the face of the earth. The intervals between sending out the dove the second and third times were seven and in the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. In Pharoah’s two dreams he saw seven well favored and fat kine and seven cars of corn on one stall* rank and good, and seven ears blasted with the cast wind, which was followed by seven years of great plenty and seven years of famine. The children of Israel were commanded to cat unleavened bread seven days and to observe the feast of unleavened bread ; seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses. The seventh month was signalized by the feasts of trumpets and the celebration of Hie Feast of Tabernacles. Seven weeks was the interval between the Passover and the Penticost. The seventh year was obsirved as the Sabbatical year, and the year succeeding seven times seven years as the Year of jubilee. Seven clays were appointed as Hie length of the feasts of Tabernacles and Passover. Seven days for the ceremonies of Hie consecration of the priests. Seven victims were to bo offered on any special occasion. When Abraham and Ahimeleoh wanted to confirm an oath, they took seven ewe lambs of the flock. Jacob served Laban seven years for each of his daughters. Delilah bound Sampson with seven green withes and wove Hie seven locks of his hair in the web. Seven priests, hearing seven trumpets, passed round the walls of Jericho seven days, on the seventli.May passing round seven times, and it fell. Nolmchadnaz/.ar hal the furnace heated seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated, to burn the three Hebrew children, and was driven from among men to the beasts of the held until seven times passed over him. , , . . Elisha commanded Naaman to wash in Jordan seven times and bo cured of Ins leprosy. . The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. In the New Testament the Savior commanded to forgive an erring brother not until seven times, but seventy times s-.-vcii, if he re--1,1 K Revelations of St. John we read of seven churches, seven spirits, seven stars, seven seals, seven lamps, seven golden candlesticks, seven angels, seven vials and seven last plagues. < A notion once prevailed in England with sonic people that the seventh consecutive son born had power to cure certain diseases. A Sprain is apt to he neglected. Rest and soothin'zapplicalioiis.or even cold water will he sufficient to bring matters straight very soon; hut remember, many a one has become a cripple for life, from neglecting a sprained foot or ankle.