under similar conditions and have equal
ability and industry.
Can the Rev. Byron Beall prove that
those who pray for long life and for
restoration to health when sick , get long
life or recovery from disease more fre
quently than those who do not pray ?
The prayer for life , the supplication to
be spared from death , is undoubtedly
the most frequently uttered of any.
There are many families which for
generations have been praying families ,
fully believing in the efficacy of prayer ,
and in all their generations they have
asked to be allowed to live long in the
land of their fathers. Do the records
show that such families are endued
with greater longevity than non-prayer-
making families ? If praying for long
life through a lengthy line of ancestry
has resulted in giving long life to any
families in this country or any other ,
why have not the life insurance com
panies found this out ? And when ask
ing whether your. ancestors were of a
tuberculous diathesis , whether your
grandfather or your grandmother ever
had chronic rheumatism , and a whole
lot of similar questions besides , why do
they not ask whether you are descended
from an extended line of ancestry given
to praying for long life ? If prayers for
longevity in certain families have been
efficacious , it is rather strange that the
life insurance companies have not found
it out and made a special reduced rate
for the descendants of prayer-makers.
If making prayers at the bed of the sick
had proved efficacious , would not the
modern doctor be accompanied by a
prayer-malwr to every bedside ? Every
i intelligent physician would have a
prayer-maker partner accompany him
in visiting his patients.
Public prayers for the sovereigns of
every state , Protestant and Catho
lic alike , have been , in the spirit of the
Episcopalian prayer-book which asks
that the president here and the sovereign
in England may be granted health long
to live. But have the members of the
royal houses of Great Britain averaged
a longer life than the unprayed-for
members of the medical profession 01
the English gentry ? On the contrary
they have averaged only (54.4 (
years , while the gentry have averaged a
longevity of 70.22 years. The sovereigns
eigns of Great Britain have been the
shortest lived of all those having the
advantage of affluence. The clergy
lawyers and medical men in England
show an average of 09 years for the firsi
class , 08 years for the second
and 07 years for the third.
Tims , it is observed that the
prayer for royal persons seems to have
been inefficient if a table , from whicl
we quote , and which includes all the
classes named from the year 1758 to the
year 1848 , may be taken as reliable
statistical data. The liturgy of the
Church of England prays "that the no-
bility may be endued with grace , wis
dom and understanding. " But , are the
ipbility spared from insanity , imbe
cility , gracelessuess and ignorance ? Are
eligious people delivered from insanity
more often than the irreligious ?
The Rev. Byron Beall seems to forget
that there is a growing feeling in the
United States very intensely opposed to
the belief that the general laws of na
ture may be suspended by human
prayer. In the Psalms the belief is
frequently expressed that the descend
ants of the righteous shall continue , and
that those of the wicked shall surely
fail. But this faith is not verified by
the history of the English peerage , nor
by the history of prominent political
personages whose names are recorded in
the United States.
Rev. Byron Beall should give statisti
cal data more recently gathered up than
that which he details from the Old
Testament.
Finally , if the Rev. Byron Beall were
compelled to sail out into a storm-lashed
sea and he were given the choice of two
steamships leaving port at the
same moment of time , one of them
manned completely with experienced ,
but profane and wicked sailors from the
captain down , and the other wholly in
charge of good Christian prayer-makers
unskilled in nautical matters and un
used to ocean storms , on which crait
would the Rev. Byron Beall embark ?
Would he have faith in the skillec
sailors who are sinners or the unskilled
prayer-makers who are Christians ?
Two weeks among
COLORADO. the mountains
mines , cities aiic
ranches of Colorado will convince any
thoughtful , reasoning man that the re
sources , of that common wealth are in
exhaustible. From gold and silver and
copper and coal down to cantaloupe mel
ons , sugar beets , plums , peaches and
grapes , Colorado is miraculous. There
is wealth in vast diversity all over tha
mountainous state , and health in every
breath of its deliciously pure and ex
hilarating climate.
MAKING LANDSCAPE GARDENING
AN ART.
Mr. Sylvester Baxter writes in The
World's Work of the importan
work of the Arnold Arboretum , its pres
ent achievements and the un
limited promise of its future. Thi
school for school it is was the be
ginning of what is already a nationa
movement for making more beautiful
everything in our cities , from the grea
parks to the railroad stations.
"Materials , " says Mr. Baxter , "have
been brought within reach of the pub
lie. Before the Arboretum was started , i
was difficult to obtain American shrub
for horticultural purposes without send
ug to Europe. But that institution
las taught our gardners , our wealthy
amateurs , and the public at large the
great value of our native growths , and
low for beauty and climatic suitability
; hey are best adapted to local con-
litions. Today , there is hardly a park
n the country that does not bear wit IT1
ness to the influence of the Ar-
lold Arboretum. The services of the
great institution stand freely at the dis
position of everybody. Any one who
chooses , may avail himself of the re
sults of its investigations and make
iraotioal use of its new introductions
! rom other parts of the world. Economic
lorticulture and timber culture are
thus obtaining immense benefits.
"This important work has been car
ried on at a singularly small cost. The
city of Boston has spent over half a
million dollars in fulfilling its contract
with Harvard University a contract
that insures the existence of the Ar
boretum , both as a scientific institution
and as a public pleasure-ground for at
least a thousand years , and guards the
university against any temptation to
realize on its laud value , which already
is estimated at over two million dollars.
The museum building and the unsur
passed herbarium were given by Mr. H.
H. Hunuewell , but the original fund ,
increased to one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars by the accumulation of
interest , has remained the sole endow
ment. The Arboretum is national in its
usefulness and scope. With a broader
endowment its usefulness to the whole
world could be widely increased , and
the scientific name of America greatly
broadened. "
LITERARY NOTES.
Miss Sarah Orue Jewott's novel , "The
Tory Lover , " will be published by
Houghtou , Mifflin & Co. , about the
twentieth of September. It is at once
the longest and the strongest book that
Miss Jewett has yet written. It is a
story of the revolution , and the stirring
scenes and powerful passions of the
time give it a highly dramatic character.
Paul Jones figures picturesquely in it ,
and the exploits of his Rwngev on the
seacost of England lend a vivid light to
it. The spirit of the epoch is finely re
produced , and the tory lover , Roger
Wallingford , who became a patriot for
love of Mary Hamilton , is a noble char
acter , while Mary Hamilton herself is
one of the most attractive heroines in
modern fiction. The story will contain
several illustrations by Mr. and Mrs.
Charles H. Woodbury.
In the view of the Philadelphia Rec
ord ( Ind. Dem. ) , "The ommission of
steamship subsidy is more siguiftcant
than anything that the Iowa platform
contains in relation to current issues. "