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over, as the delegates and their part- tary church going tendencies. Con
nors were strangers, every delegate sidering all these things, it is not
8
t00f
OBSERVATIONS. 8
Business Women.
There is much solemn talk in the
newspapers and elsewhere, where talk
is cheap and not especially signif
icant, about women not possessing
business ability. An occasional
demonstration of such ability is more
conclusive than many paragraphs.The
dinner given by the president of the
French Republic to the mayors of
France a few years ago, was in charge
of a woman. Over a thousand peo
ple were served with more than ten
courses in the time in which a dinner
is usually served. Xo man had to
wait and although there were not
many hot dishes included in the
menu, coffee and a few meats were
served piping hot. Hundreds of
waiters, thousands of dishes, complex
French courses, hundreds of hungry
:nen with aldermanic annetites did
not fluster the woman who was in
charge of the feast. Last week the
local chapter of the Delta Gamma
fraternity entertained the biennial
convention. A series of entertain
ments, a ball, a banquet, a reception,
a play put on by the local chapter,
and other functions characterized
the week. The arriving delegates
were met at the station by a young
woman who took charge of all checks
and attended to the transference of
the passengers and their luggage to
the hotel. This young woman met
all the trains on the days of arrival
and attended in the same way to the
departure of guests. Everybody who
knows girls has observed that the
supreme test of their hospitality is
at a ball. Even the most conscien
tious and anxious hostess hates to
give up her time to girls at a ball.
But these young hostesses danced
only a few times in order to insure
he enjoyment of their guests. More-
was assigned to a member of the
local chapter who Investigated her
ball book, hunted out missing part
ners between dances and brought
them together. The members of the
local chapter have been working with
zeal and unity for months. The
financial arrangements were as com
plete as the others; although these are
family matters and cannot be men
tioned in detail, the adequate prep
arations are instructive to much
older managers of conventions.
The ability to work harmoniously
with a large number of people is be
coming more and more a necessity of
modern life. Clubs, church and so
ciety conventions and all sorts of
annual and biennial reunions are
uniting the people of this country in
a fraternal order that no future
schism.no disagreement about poli
tics, no religious discussion can af-
fect. With the increasing recurrence of many books, of the
of these meetings the ability to work many newspapers,
harmoniously and effectively togeth
er is an important part of American
ism. These young girls have demon
strated their cooperative culture.
In future combinations in which they
may be interested they will be
pared to do things in the large,
church, the family, the club, the
lernal society and all social combi
nations will be the Letter for this
their early training in entertaining
strangers from widely separated
parts of the United States.
Church-Going.
A Lincoln minister has asked the
newspaper editors to tell him what
is the matter with the modern
preacher and his sermon or with the
church service, that they do not at
tract a larger audience. The trouble
is not so much with the minister,
his sermons, the choir or the service
as with the people themselves. The
habit of church-going has been brok
en up by the distractions of modern
life, by the strain of a week's nervous
endeavor, by the multiplied organi
zations which demand attendance
and loyalty. A man is no stronger
now than he was a hundred years
ago. But that man's task, his daily
stint has been doubled. The old man
welcomed the Sunday church going
as a diversion. The example of the
Puritan church-goer is often quoted.
The Puritans lived a calm routine.
They were occupied with ideas.
They evolved theories. They were
men of action, but the field of their
action was limited. Theological dis
cussion was popular. People haven't
time for much of that sort of thing
now. Business methods are more
aggressive. There are plotters with
fertile minds and sharpened wits
whose schemes must be circumvented
with plans equally sound by the suc
cessful merchant. Six days' effort
tires and satisfies the love of action.
On Sunday men who have no strong
spiritual inclination resist heredi-
surprising that so few go to church.
It is difficult now to get an audience
together to hear a lecture. Formerly
every city and village offered lecture
courses by the best speakers and most
learned scholars. People are not as
fond as they used to be of listening.
They read and study more, talk less,
or at any rate listen less than they
did. The preacher used to be the
apex of the community: he was in
sight from all points. He was the
arbiter of social, family, religious and
sometimes commercial disputes. He
takes his place now, a man among
men. He occupies no dais, but
speaks to them from their own level.
He dresses as they do, and he uses
habitually no ex-ollicio authority, and
the most successful minister is the
least professional. Preaching is
doubtless better today than it has
ever been, but because of the making
publishing of
the preacher
speaks to an audience as well read,
as well informed as himself. The min
ister was formerly the learned man
of the community. He taught Greek
and Latin to the young men prepar-
pre- ing for college. He was the conser
The vator of learning, as the old monas-fra-
teries were the conservatories of-
books before the days when paper
backed classics were the common
property of all. Tiiis being so, the
preacher cannot hope to dazzle or
awe his audience by his learning.
But sound logic, melodious English
and originality are alwnys attractive
and restful to preoccupied and fatigued
minds. Sensationalism is no long
er popular, and a minister who relies
upon logic and sound ideas is sure to
conquer an audience, though he has
not the aid of the old reverence for
the profession, and lacks the distinct
ion of being the oply scholar in the
community. The modern preacher
has an influence upon his sophisticat
ed audience that the old preacher
lacked. It is the influence of the
good comrade, ot the good citizen, of
the pure philanthropist. Some sur
vival of traditional reverence for
the priesthood adds to his influence
as a man. But the larger part
of his effect upon the community be
preaches to, is earned. In candidly
considering the question of what is
the matter with the preacher?, every
honest man is forced to admit that
the trouble is not with the preacher
but. with himself.
Advertisements.
Many otherwise clever advertisers
seek to hide their advertisements in
a story or news item. With an edu
cated public which has been taught
at large expense to read advertise
ments the disguise is a confession of
weakness and it is also an expensive
failure to take advantage of a mag
nificently developed opportunity.
The Sun and other large newspapers
of the first class, label advertisements
that appear on the editorial or tele
graph pages "adv." Such a policy is
in accordance with the growing fash
ion of frankness in all matters. A
man who has some excellent article
to sell, who is honest himself and is
convinced of the merit of his mer
chandise is behind the times if he
conceal his exploitation of medicine,
tobacco, bicycles, or soap in an arti
cle porporting to be an account of the
President's trip or in a description of
Queen Willielinina's trousseau. De
ception disgusts. When the trous
seau turns into soap and the Presi
dent's trip into an emlusion of cod
liver oil the metamorphosis is irritat
ing and creates a prejudice against
the soap and oil that reacts on their
sale. Consequently such an adver
tisement is worse than none at all.
The progress of the last seventy live
years toward frankness and genuine
ness is the most encouraging sign of
that millenium or the thousand years
mentioned in the twentietii chap
ter of Revelations when Satan
shall be bound and holiness become
triumphant throughout the world.
Three decades ago men wore queues,
society women painted their faces and
used palpably false devices, as a mat
ter of course. Men and women lisped,
addressed each other In forms of ex
aggerated politeness and servility;
they pretended to be all sorts of men
and women that they were not, and
the accepted forms of conventional
deceptions were more numerous.
Athletics have been an active factor
in changing all this. What began in
croquet has arrived through tennis
at golf. Tan and the blowsy effect of
the wind are fashionable. Affecta
tion disappears on the plains or in
the forests. Plein air effects can
only be obtained by moving the easel
into the open. Oratory, literature,
letter-writing, music, as well as man
ners and painting show the effect of
the progress toward realism. And
the advertiser who ignores the pop
ularity of frankness and calculates
his effects upon a discarded standard,
is throwing his money away.
.. J
"Resurrection."
There are doubtless young men in
America as high-minded and spirit
ually determined as Tolstoy's Nekhlu
doff, but I do not remember having
met one in literature. The minister
in The Scarlet Letter is the most
celebrated case of remorse I can re
call. He suffered a life-long remorse,
but he was a pindling little coward.
He did nothing all his life and only
when death scared him still more he
acknowledged his crime.He expiated it
in his own body, as by flagellation. He
owed it to Esther to share the shame
with her, but he was afraid and he
suffered a coward's agon ie?. Tolstoy's
Nekhludoff lives the life of a gay
young otlicer exempt from all moral
reflections and restraints until the
discovery that a young girl whom he
loved in his youth but with whom he
LI
