41
THE KING’S BUSINESS
cigarettes causes restlessness and inability to concentrate thought.
In the second of Luke mention is made of the census as having been taken in the time of Quirinius, governor of Syria. Tertullian, in referring to this passage, places the taxing in the time of the gov ernorship of Sentius Saturninius, and crit ics have insisted that Quirinius was a mythical personage, and the Lucan account so far to be discredited. Now we are told by Sir William Ramsey in the E x positor of the discovery, in Antioch in 1912,, of an inscription on the base of a statue from which it appears that both Quirinius and Saturninius were governors of Syria at the same time. The Matron of the Women’s Home, in Geneva, Illinois, is reported as saying that over eighty-seven per cent of the girls in that institution have confessed that their first downward steps were taken in the dance hall. ' “ The strength o f the so-called ‘White Slave Traffic’ is the dance and the dance hall. It is a known fact to the police of cities that the ‘cadets’—but another name for ‘procurers’—haunt the dance halls, there to select the victims for their nefarious business. Unsophisticated yoting women, simply desiring amusement and recreation from their arduous daily toil, are trapped like flies in a spider’s web.’’ Recent scientific investigation and exam ination of the smoke produced by the burn ing of a cigarette show that the nicotine of the cigarette is far less virulent than are the carbonic oxide and other products of its combustion. The loose structure of the cigarette is said to cause the production of this poisonous gas. Carbonic oxide thus enters the blood through the lungs and the damage done is in direct proportion to the quantities inhaled. Acrolein is another of the drugs produced by the burning of cigar ette paper. It is this that makes the smoke irritating. Acrolein in considerable quan tities is extremely dangerous. It is said by doctors that the constaut irritation of the nervous system of the young especially by
A Presbyterian minister widely known tells how he was led to Christ in college. Revival meetings in chapel and class rooms did not attract him ; he felt no interest. One night a classmate who had been foolish and reckless, but recently had done better, came in blushing and embarrassed and stammer ed out : “ I wish you would be a Chris tian!’’ The other grinned and said: “ Christ neither would nor could save me.” “ Yes, He could and would !” “What makes you think so ?” “Why, He saved me !” That was unanswerable. The angel Gabriel could have given no such convincing reply. Now, that is preaching—when a sinner saved tells another sinner about it. Any follower of Christ can preach that way, the only effec tive way. You can, Do you? Try it on a sinner. You may find a deep joy you have never known yet, a heavenly joy, when you lead a sinner to repentance. “ I am greatly disturbed by present condi tions in the American home. Men have ceased to read the Bible, and have put it on the plane with Shakespeare. Amer ica is losing respect for Sunday. Lands not long ago wild, Australia, can teach us the better observance of the Sabbath. The public is accusing the ministry of indif ference to their audience. Some people seated in church are so cold no one could welcome them. I am distressed because there are in this church some people who did not pray this morning. They said, per haps, they did not have time. Every man who has the best interest of his country at heart must be saved. Homes are not what they were in the olden times. Mothers are not what they used to be, in many cases. Do your children think as much of their mother as you did o f yours ? The family prayer is out o f fashion. W e have few homes now. We have flats. There is lit tle room or fancy for a sign in the place in which families now live, reading, “ God Bless Our Flat.”— Dr. Chapman.
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