h.1
THE COURIER
AS TO LENT.
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II
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FZ,l s w
A local paper speaks of Professor Fosslenas "of the sato peniten
tiary." The young woman who takes the part of Cinders in "The Lost
,Paradise,".Etta HawkinB, is the wire of the leading man, William
Morris. Mrs. Morris is a St. Paul girl and the niece of De Mille,
the author of the play. When not on the road Mr. and Mrs. Morris
make their home in St. Paul where there is a young Morris to
occupy their attention.
Omaha society must have opened the gates too wide or placed
careless guards at the outer posts, as the following from the World
Herald will indicate: "On Christmas day, 183 J, Mrs.iukey of 815
South Seventeenth street was presented with a.beautiful gold watch
by.her brother. March 5, 1894, it was stolen from her. Every effort
to locate it at the timo was unavailing. March 5, 1893, or exactly
one year from the date on which it had been. stolen, Detective Dan
Davis recovered it from a Douglas street pawn shop. It had on
that day been pawned by a well-known society lady who had, left
the city, ostensibly for Beatrice."
- Mme. Yale, of Chicago, ""the most beautiful woman on .earth,"
who lately delivered an advertising lecture in this city at the Funke
opera house is advertised to lecture in St. Louis, and taking advant
age of the most notable current fad 6he will appear sometime dur
ing her performance as "Trilby" with bare ankles and feet. Mme.
Yale is probably the most extensive and voluptuous fake in the
country. She has a mammoth establishment in Chicago, known as
tue "Temple of Beauty," and it is said that she is fairly coining
money. She advertises largely in all the Chicago papers and thus
prevents an exposure in that city. Usually Mme."Yale takes care
that the public does not make a close scrutiny of her "wonderful
beauty";" but there are people who have seen this "most beautiful
woman on earth" at close range with veil removed, and one of The
Courier's Informants says that no one who ever saw this impostor
as she really is would ever think of buying any of her preparations
for the complexion. Even as she appeared from the stage of the
Funke opera house she looked anything but the "most beautiful
woman on earth" with her painted cheeks and blackened eyebrows,
and the audience was impressed with her lack not only of beauty,
but of intelligence. The "lecture" was crude, much the same as one
can often heardelivered in thestreet. But the vendor of proprietary
concoctions has a system that is practically infallible in preventing
any unfavorable public comments. For months before she appears
in a town every daily newspaper is given advertising in liberal
quantities, and just before she reaches the town skilled advacce
agents make raying yearly :ntracts with these papers, leaving
in each office a two column article descriptive of the lecture in
which the beauty of the lecturer is made a leading feature. The
papcrp, most of them, use the ready made stuff instead of sending .a
reporter to. the affair, and the public or that portion of it that does
not attend the lecture, is deluded into the idea that Mme. is beauti
ful and wise. If there is any virtue in the articles emauating from
the "Temple of Beauty," it is certainly not manifest on the person
of thj "most beautiful woman on earth." Her assumption of the
role of "Trilby" is a. slam at the character and Du Maurier. It is
worse than Professor Sherman's criticism.
TYING HER SHOE.
- ? -1 -
-ft" ' - ..
Tying the strings of her shoe.
With only the moon to see me;
Could I be quick? Could you?
That is the time to woo.
What would anyone do?
I tied no knot that would free me.
Tying the strings of her shoe,
With only the moon to see me.
Tom Hall.
Written for The, Courier.
TUE custcni ofobservingjent isjio longer confined to the
Kpiscopal ch'irch among protestant churches?. The Presby
terian unci Cdngregationalist ehurche.. especially in the
east, have made a practice of holding special devotional services in
the forty days 6et apart since the third century by a season of fast
ing and prayer. In Lincoln the Congregationaiist church has
placed its week of prayer at the end of lent instead of at the begin
ning of the year, as formerly.
-)(-The
general observances of the same fast days and feast days by
Christians of all denominations is a step, a long step, toward the end,
which is unity.
Tho word lent is from the Anglo-Saxon word lenten to lengthen,
with reference probably to the longer days of spring.
It is a tradition that the disciples on the first anniversary of Christ's
crucifixion fasted and prayed for forty hours, the number forty rep
resenting the forty hours after Christ's death before his resurrec
tion. In the seconl century after Christ Irenaeus lengthened the
time from forty hours to a week. The week commemorated the
Saviour's passion and death.
-)(-In
325 the Nicene council finally established the number of days
in lent as forty, giving as a reason the forty days that Christ spent
in the wilderness before the beginning of his ministry. Thus lent
was established by the fathers of the early church before there was
a pope. Therefore tho charge that protestants sometimes make
against protestants of the Episcopal church, namely, that lent is a
a popish fast, can not be historically sustained.
-)(-The
attitude of an Episcopal rector toward the members of his
parish has a priestly character, however. He rebukes and exhorts
his flock in the paternal style long ago exchanged by pastors of other
churches for a distant, courteous, chilly style such as one planet
might use in signaling another a million miles away. Listen to any
Catholic priest in this town talking business to his congregation,
and the difference between the old and the new style will be fully
appreciated. He talks about hjmely every day vices and faults,
drinking, swearing, lying, untidiness, etc. He tells his hearers he
knows they are guilty of the vices because in his walks among them
he has taken notice of their habits. Then he sternly rebukes them
and threatens them with punishment in this world and suffering in
the next. Finally, as an incentive to reform, he holds out the favor
of the church in this world and peace and hap'jv!ne33 hereafter.
This style of address he considers bis priestly privilege, and duty.
A Catholic congregation is probably no better or no worse than that
gathered in any other church building, but Catholics are more used
to reproofs from the pulpit.
-)(-The
planetary style has influenced the sermons of the Episcopal
ministry to some degree but it is still essentially a priestly body ful
ly conscious of its duties to the people. There are some old-fashioned
men in the church who preach as they have always done,
Dean .Hart of Denver is a notable example of this class. Several
years ago I attended some lenten services in his church which were
especially for the women of his parish. Dean Hart's address was
extremely pointed. He told the women it was their duty to keep
the faces of their children clean, to sympathize with their servants
and to make their burdens as light as consistent with good house
keeping, to be obedient and loving to their husbands, to be sweet
tempered unselfish, etc His hearers listened with apparent meek
ness. I expected to see an indignant expression take the place of
the reverent, devotional one 'that the women wore as they entered
the church. Instead of which as they went out I heard them com
mending the sermon. Fancy the reception such a talk woald have
delivered by Rev. Curtis or Rev. Lasby or Rev. Gregory. Of course,
the planetary style ha6 merit. It is not apt to be made a personal mat
ter by wealthy and influential pew holders, but there is great danger
of its accents being lost in space; whereas the priestly style generally
hits somewhere. Jane Archer
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