Part 17

92. Q. What line ended with the dethronement of Richard II.? A. The Plantagenet line.

93. Q. What House began to reign with the accession of Henry IV.? A. The House of Lancaster.

94. Q. How long did the House of Lancaster continue to hold the throne, and what sovereigns reigned during the time? A. It continued sixty-two years, embracing the reigns of the three Henries, IV., V. and VI.

95. Q. During the reigns of Henry IV. and Henry V. the members of what religious sect were persecuted with great vindictiveness? A. The Lollards, several being burned at the stake.

96. Q. What prominent supporter of the Lollards was made a victim of this persecution? A. Sir John Oldcastle, called Lord Cobham.

97. Q. What invasion did Henry V. renew? A. The invasion of France.

98. Q. What noted battle was fought in France during this invasion? A. The battle of Agincourt.

99. Q. What was the result of this battle? A. The complete defeat of the French.

100. Q. What were the important features of the treaty of Troyes that followed? A. The French king acknowledged Henry as heir in succession to the French crown, and gave him his daughter in marriage.

* * * * *

Good health is a great pre-requisite of successful or happy living. To live worthily or happily, to accomplish much for one’s self or others, when suffering from pain and disease, is attended with difficulty. Dr. Johnson used to say that “Every man is a rascal when he is sick.” And very much of the peevishness, irritability, capriciousness and impatience seen in men and women has its root in bodily illness. The very morals suffer from disease of the body.—_Mary A. Livermore._

CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL COURSE.

Season of 1884.

LESSON IX.—BIBLE SECTION.

_The House of the Lord._

By REV. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., AND R. S. HOLMES, A.M.

The Temple on Mount Moriah was the result of long growth. 1. It began with _the Altar_, erected of loose stones wherever the patriarchs journeyed, and bearing its bloody sacrifice as a prefiguration of Christ. 2. Next came _the Tabernacle_, a movable tent, designed for a nomadic people, and symbolizing God’s dwelling-place among his people. 3. When the Tabernacle was fixed at Shiloh, a more substantial structure, by degrees, took the place of the tent, surrounded by rooms in which the priests lived, and standing in an open court. 4. This, in the age of David and Solomon, furnished the ground plan for the Temple on Mount Moriah.

There were three temples. 1. _Solomon’s Temple_, dedicated 1000 B. C., and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, 587 B. C. 2. _Zerubbabel’s Temple_, begun by the Jews on the return from captivity, B. C. 536, and completed in 20 years. 3. _Herod’s Temple_, begun 30 B. C., as the second temple was in a ruinous condition, but not fully completed until 65 A. D., five years before its final destruction by Titus. The latter is the one to be briefly described in this lesson. It consisted of several courts and an interior building. The dimensions named below are not precise, as the length of the cubit and the thickness of the walls are uncertain.

I. _The Court of the Gentiles_ was an open plaza, or quadrangle, not square, but of about 1000 feet on each side. It was surrounded by a high wall, and entered by six gates, of which three were on the west, toward the city, and one on each of the other sides. On the eastern side extended a double colonnade, Solomon’s Porch, and on the south another, Herod’s Porch. As this was not regarded a sacred place, it was considered no sacrilege to have a _market_ upon its marble floor, especially for the sale of animals for sacrifice.

II. On the northwestern part of the Court was the _chel_, or sacred enclosure, a raised platform 8 feet high, surrounded by a fence, within which no Gentile could enter. Its outer dimensions were about 630 by 300 feet. It was entered by nine gates, four each on the north and south, and one on the east. Upon the platform of the chel rose an inner wall 40 feet high and 600 by 250 feet in dimensions.

III. The space enclosed by this lofty inner wall was divided into two sections, of which the eastern was a square of about 230 feet, called the _Court of the Women_, on account of a gallery for women around it. It had four gates, of which the one on the east was probably the Gate Beautiful. In its four corners were rooms, used for different purposes connected with the services; and upon its walls were boxes for the gifts of the worshipers, from which it was often called “the Treasury.”

IV. _The Court of Israel_ occupied the western part of the enclosure, and was about 320 by 230 feet in size. Another court stood inside of it, so that it was simply a narrow platform 16 feet wide, from which male worshipers could view the sacrifices. In the southeastern corner was the hall in which the Sanhedrim met, and where Stephen stood on trial. In the wall around this court were rooms used for storage, for baking bread, for treasuries, etc. This court was entered by seven gates, on the north and south each three, and one on the east.

V. _The Court of the Priests_ was a raised platform inside the Court of Israel, and separated from it by a low rail. It was 275 by 200 feet in size. Upon it stood the altar, the laver, and the Temple building.

VI. _The Temple_ itself was the only covered building on the mountain. It consisted of a lofty vestibule, having a front 120 feet high; a series of rooms three stories high for the priests, and within these the house of God, divided into two rooms, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, separated by a veil. The outer room was 30 by 60 feet in size, the inner 30 feet square and of the same height. In the Holy Place stood the table for the show-bread, the golden candlestick (properly a lamp-stand), and the golden altar of incense. In the Holy of Holies there was no ark in the New Testament period, but only a stone upon which the high-priest laid the censer when he entered the room, on but one day in the year, the great Day of Atonement.

Notice, that each department of the Temple stood at a different elevation. Thus the platform of the chel was 8 feet above the pavement of the Gentile’s Court; the floor of the Women’s Court was 3 feet higher; that of the Court of Israel was 10 feet higher still; the Court of the Priests 3 feet above that of Israel; and the floor of the house was 8 feet above the Court of the Priests. Thus there was a constant ascent to the one entering the Temple.

SUNDAY-SCHOOL SECTION.

LESSON IX.—THE TEACHING PROCESS.—ATTENTION.

_Attention._—This is a Latin word of very decisive meaning; “a stretching of something toward something.” A bow strained is a literal illustration. In common acceptation it is limited to mental conditions. The dictionaries define it as “a steady exertion of the mind.” Without attention there can be no teaching. In Sunday-school teaching the _something stretched_ must be the pupil’s mind; the _objective something_, the truth to be taught.

There are two kinds of attention: (1) Voluntary, and (2) Involuntary. Voluntary attention is born of ignorance and of desire to know, and places confidence in the power of the person to whom it yields itself to satisfy that desire.

Illustration: My little child sees my hand upon the door-knob; sees the door open, and my egress. Next day, pursuing his desire, his hand seeks the knob, but the door does not open. He comes to me with his difficulty. I slowly turn the knob. He watches. He gives attention. It was born of ignorance; of desire to know; and of confidence in me. It was voluntary; and it will end when the necessity for it ends.

2. Involuntary attention. This is of two kinds—(1) _Compelled_; (2) _Won_. The galley slave under a master’s eye illustrates the first. Another is furnished by a violin string, when strained. It is attent, it answers the thought in the soul of the musician who draws the bow upon it. But the bow was resined and the string strained by the artist’s hand. He created the attention. It was involuntary; nay, more; it was compelled. Such attention ends when the compulsion ends. I do not want such from my pupils.

2. That which is won; and which involuntary at first soon becomes voluntary. This is the attention which results in teaching and learning.

The duration of attention, voluntary or involuntary, must always depend on certain conditions:

1. Conditions of Circumstance. (_a_) The place must be suitable; (_b_) the time must be opportune; (_c_) the ventilation good; (_d_) the temperature agreeable. These are necessary elements in the effort of holding attention. But though these things be all unfavorable, their disadvantages may be overcome, if there is no lack in the second class of conditions, namely:

2. Conditions of Personality. By this I mean my personality as teacher. These conditions are (_a_) that of attractive power that will draw the pupil toward me; (_b_) that of magnetism that will hold the pupil fast to me; (_c_) that of enthusiasm that will fire my pupil with zeal for work; (_d_) that of self-withdrawal; (_e_) that which transfers attention from myself to my subject. If I have these personal elements in my teaching, I shall get attention and hold it. If I have not, I must cultivate them.

3. Conditions of Knowledge. These are three. I must know _my subject_, _myself_, and _my pupil_. A knowledge of the subject, involves a knowledge of methods. And here is the critical test with a teacher.

Notice some of the methods essential: (_a_) The use of illustrations apt and interesting; (_b_) the use of questions full of surprises and wise devices; (_c_) the use of elliptical readings between teacher and pupil; (_d_) the use of concert recitations in low tones by pupils; (_e_) the use of inter-questions, each pupil asking a question in turn of his fellow-pupil, and each also of the teacher; (_f_) the use of pictures, maps, and objects.

EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.

TWO KINDS OF LAWLESSNESS.

A mob in Cincinnati, involving the loss of many lives and much property in a three days’ reign of terror, has added another to a long list of warnings that the criminal administration of this country needs a thorough-going reform. The popular indignation which expressed itself at Cincinnati has been growing slowly into steady strength for thirty years and more. About 1845, gangs of horse thieves in northern Illinois were broken up—the law having failed—by regulators composed of the best citizens, who summarily hanged the thieves. About ten years later this history was repeated in Cedar and Linn counties, Iowa. These are two incidents among many of like type. Most readers know the history of the vigilance committee in San Francisco. The criminal administration having utterly failed, the best citizens organized themselves outside of the law and by vigorous and summary punishment restored the supremacy of the law. The mobbing of the “Dukes jury” at Uniontown is a still fresh event. In New York City, a few years ago, a citizen was brutally murdered in a public place, and the murderer, when arrested, said: “Hanging is played out.” The remark roused public feeling and refreshed the courage of the courts so that for some time hanging became the certain punishment of wilful murder. But in New York City, it is the press which really administers criminal law—by compelling the courts to do their duty. In the Cincinnati case, the last of a series of miscarriages of justice was the convicting of manslaughter in a case where wilful and mean-motived murder had been proved. The judge commented harshly upon the verdict. A public meeting listened to appropriately animated addresses, and passed strong resolutions of condemnation of the jury in that case, and of the criminal administration of the city. The excitable elements of the audience broke up there to reorganize in an assault on the jail. They were joined by a baser element, and a reign of terror followed.

The criminal system of the entire country is defective. It is not a terror to evil-doers. It tortures the conscience and the self respect of honest men. It has rendered human life much more insecure than private property. It is on the average safer to kill a man after robbing him than to rob him only. The match that lighted the Cincinnati conflagration was a murder done for the sake of robbery, and punished as if it had been robbery.

Our evils in this branch of justice are several distinct fungus growths of demoralized customs. A murder trial seldom ends within a year of the discovery of the criminal; it often ends twice as long after the arrest of the murderer. In England, three months suffices for the same work. There is no civilized country except our own where these long delays are tolerated. This is the safest country in the world for a murderer to carry on his profession. He is less likely to be arrested; he is not tried until the general public has forgotten his crime. When he comes to the dock, _if he has money_, or friends possessed of money, he can buy out the law by employing some member of a class of lawyers who make a profitable industry of defeating the aims of public justice. In the Cincinnati case, the judge said, courageously, that the murderer had been cleared of that crime because _his friends had six or seven thousand dollars to fee criminal lawyers with_. It is almost a rule that if the murderer has money, his cunning lawyers will delay trial, destroy testimony, and confuse the jury, or bribe the jury. If these fail, and there is money left, motions for new trials will be pressed upon judges, and perhaps secured by fictitious testimony. The motto of a murderer may well be: “While there is money there is hope.” It is plain to all intelligent persons that the law’s delay, under the influence of money, has become intolerable. We do hang the poor; we seldom hang the men who can command money. There ought to be a more summary procedure. There ought to be more pure discretion—unhampered by precedent—vested in judges. These interminable delays ought to be impossible without the connivance of the judges.

The power of money in criminal trials is a feature of the jury system _as we manage it_. In some states a man who knows what is going on in the world about him can not be admitted to serve on a jury. He has heard of the case and formed an opinion. Every intelligent man does that in a case of murder. This leaves jury duty to professional jurors, and to the least intelligent citizens. Worse still, on the plea of business duties intelligent men evade service on juries. In New York City, last year, a ring of “jury fixers” was discovered. They had hundreds, probably thousands, of customers—consisting of business men—who paid from ten to fifty dollars a year to have “things fixed” so that they should not be called on jury service. The men who thus bought themselves off from a civil duty were so numerous that even the press evaded the duty of vigorously exposing the crime. The men who are left, in large cities, to serve on juries, are men whose judgments can be involved in confusion by an artful plea; often, too, their verdicts can be bought with money. The city demoralization is gradually extending to the country. _We must reform._ We are nearing the end of popular patience. People begin to demand that they shall not be murdered with impunity. Get better juries; or amend the constitution and abolish juries. Give judges more power over the criminal lawyers, and more real discretion in refusing delays that defeat the ends of justice. Give judges to understand that we want more speedy trials and more direct methods of trial. Ask for reform—imperatively, emphatically—and reform will come. The lawlessness of court proceedings keeps within the forms of law; but it has become an ally of that other lawlessness which murders men, women and children—and gives its ally comparative impunity.

THE REWARDS OF PUBLIC SERVICE.

There is a large amount of well-founded distrust of the tendencies of our public life. It is not a distrust of Republican principles, or of universal suffrage, or of popular influence on government. It centers in our public service, and relates exclusively to the political paths to office, the uncertain or inadequate rewards for service, and the speculative element in the tenure of office. Are we not on a road which leads to demoralization in the civil service? The civil service law applies only to a small part of the public field. Cabinet officers, heads of departments, custom house and internal revenue officers, and all judicial officers, are outside of that law, not to forget the entire body of law makers. If we ask ourselves what first-class ability is worth, we find the railroads, banks and other corporations paying an average of twice (or more) as much as the government pays legislators, judges, cabinet officers, and heads of departments. If we compare what is needed by corporations with what is needed by the government, we shall be slow to admit that the public service can be satisfied with inferior ability. If we look at the cost of holding an office, we discover that a bank president may live where and in such style as he pleases, but a cabinet officer must live in Washington, and _ought_ to spend more than we pay him in acquitting himself of social obligations.

The editor of THE CHAUTAUQUAN recently attended a party in the house of Secretary Chandler, the cost of which could not have been less than a thousand dollars; and there was no ostentation; only the reasonable social demand was met. Of course Secretary Chandler can not give such parties out of his salary, and could not meet the social demand upon his official position, if he had not a private fortune. The incident points to the suspicion that we are rapidly advancing to a condition of things under which poor men can not hold high offices. Everywhere the public officers of the classes which we have named are under special social obligations which exceed in money-cost the amount of their salaries. There is a double tendency—on two parallel lines—to exclude honest poor men, and to take in an inferior class of men who are either rich or unscrupulous. There is no reasonable doubt that the United States Senate has seriously deteriorated through the tendencies just mentioned. Every one knows that so many members of the other House are habitually absent, that a political battle has to be advertised to collect the members of the majority for the time being. The men in this case may or may not be inferior, but they are certainly rendering an inferior service—doing their own work while in the pay of the people. The other work is a growing factor. Senators live by their practice in the Supreme Court or by their services to corporations in which they hold office; this private work too often coming into collision with public interests.

The subject is so large that we can barely hint at points. Here is a man climbing to public place through a political combination which taxes him at every step. He must have money, or borrow or steal money, to make the ascent. When he reaches the place, he is paid a salary so far below the demands of his office that if he is to meet his social obligations he must have an income beyond his salary, and this income he must earn as he can if he is not wealthy. And the real evil is still farther on: if he wishes to stay in public life he must pay tribute to political sponges; for the tenure of his office is so short that he must begin to provide for the next election as soon as the first is over. If he wishes to rise, he must pay, and keep on paying to the invisible army of political tax-collectors which lines, many ranks deep, every road that leads to an office. Rare and favored men escape these evils; but the majority of public men encounter them. To crown the edifice of bad policy, partisan rules are set up which limit time of service. Two terms, for example, is the limit for service in the lower House of Congress, in many districts. That is to say, your Congressman is advised at the outset that he must retire in four years. What motive has he for qualifying himself to be a good legislator? He naturally seeks an office under the government, and gives his brain power to that pursuit. But wherever he is—unless he hold a judicial office—he is menaced by the rule of rotation in office. We have been remarkably fortunate in the judicial service through the fact that, though the salaries are niggardly, the terms of service are long, and safe from partisan influences.

We might profitably reflect on foreign comparisons. In Italy men receiving from $300 to $600 in bureaus serve for life, and have certain promotion. It is not a perfect method, but under it the government service is honorable to an extent which amazes an American. The honor is the largest item of the pay. We pay a less and less measure of honor. The path to our service grows more filthy, and the man who has reached the goal is often soiled with the filth through which he has waded—often enough to discredit, insensibly but surely, the class which he has joined. We pay too little in money; we pay too little in honor; we cheat ourselves and demoralize our public servants by befouling the ladders on which they climb, and by making their ascent as uncertain, and their hold on any round of the ladder as precarious, as possible. A large moral lies in the contrast that a bank cashier is discriminatingly chosen for ability, has no election expenses, is secure in his office, owes no social duties to the bank, and may rise to the presidency of it. It is the same in other corporations. As employers, the corporations have more soul and more sense than the people of the United States.

DOCTOR NEWMAN’S NEW IDEA.

The disturbance of Christian peace which has for some months affected the Madison Avenue Congregational Church, New York, has impressed us as disclosing a new phase of inter-church life. To an onlooker the case—the very heart of the case—is a struggle of a pastor to maintain himself in full membership with two denominations, against a struggle of men in both denominations to shut him out of one or the other denomination. This is the novelty in this New York “church quarrel.” For our part we are disposed to ask what general principle of morals, equity or discipline is violated by the Rev. Dr. John P. Newman’s position? He claims to be the permanent pastor of a Congregational church while retaining his membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Why not? It surely is not an axiom that a man can not belong to two denominations. Dialectic theologians may invent a score of arguments, but they will find their best one in the fact that the practice has been to confine a Christian’s membership to one branch of the church. But in the advance to Christian unity we have rapidly changed the practice at several points; and it is quite possible that Dr. Newman’s “new departure” may be another march on the general line of our progress.