T
VOL. XVI., NO. XXXI
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amused themselves all their lives un
til the boat sprung a leak or caught
tire. For the moment, which may
be their last, the7 are convinced that,
close at hand, there is a loving and
protecting divinity only waiting to
the prayers of the sixty righteous and
credulous ones who assembled them
selves to pray publicly a prayer which
men and women by tbe million have
been praying many times a day for
six weeks as they went about their
be convinced of their love and loyalty, affairs. It may be that if
before he places them in safety on had not come together in
dry land or on another boat.
Whether the prayers make any
difference in the fate of this boat and
its passengers, I do not know. The
sea is strewn with skeletons of men
and ships. Phoenician galleys, vik
ing long-boats, and transoceanic
steamships with their crews lie in
heaps on the bed of the ocean. The
the sixty
a church
formally dedicated to religion, and
prayed in the designated forms and
phrases of prayer, that we would still
be cohered with the dust of six weeks.
galleys in which the Phoenicians and
Greeks sailed are a little further
down in the layers of the museum
which has preserved samples of all
the styles of boats that have ever been
launched on it. It was not for lack
of praying that they sank. For man
acknowledged God before the first
which come from the dusty-dry
throats of Xebraskans every summer,
the informal, sometimes inarticulate
petitions lrom the farmers, mer
chants, insurance agents and grain
dealers are not sent from a church.
They are dispatched many times a
day from the wheat field, shop, otlice
or street and the harvest fails only
once in a cycle. To be sure, even
God likes to be asked and thanked.
This observation is not intended to
r
g OBSERVATIONS. 8
Prayer and the Weather.
Agnostics, atheists, and all grades
of disbelievers in one god pray to
Jiim instinctively, when they are on
board a sinkingship, when they are
in extreme agony, when the surgeon's
knife is severing nerves and muscles,
or in the last breaths of conscious
ness before the anaesthetic has
dulled sense. Those who die from
disease are apt to expire in a state
of coma or in that kind indifference
to living or dying which has gradual
ly, without frightening or startling
the doomed ones, taken the place of
an eager desire for life. These do not
pray hard, like the strong man or
woman in perfect health and sanity
who is suddenly threatened with
death. The strong man whose mind
and body are normal, revolts from
death. He will not have it so. The
gentle voices and welcoming airs
which the slowly dying hear, he has
not heard: and soul and body are in
arms against death. By entreaty or
energy or defiance, the man who loves
life and is confronted with sudden
and unexpected death, tries to avoid
it. He may be a brave man. but a
sudden and an unexpected attempt
to deprive Lim of life, by an element,
as of fire or water, throws him into
a panic of fear. And this horrible
fear is the worst part of death. The
rest is easy.
You cannot pick out the believers
from the unbelievers among the pass
engers of a ship which is sinking.
They are all praying to one god.
They pray as to a responsive, sympa
thetic, sure-to-help divinity. There
is no mention of an all-pervading
force or energy. The agnostics and
atheists have forgotten all the fine
phrases about an impersonal, unre
sponsive force with which they
solvable riddles of the labor question.
The "Working Women of America"'
have adopted the following rules:
Rule I. Work shall not begin be
fore 5:30 A. M., and shall cease when
the evening's dishes are washed and
put away. Two hours each afternoon
and the entire evening at least twice
a week, shall be allowed the domestic
as her own.
Rule II. There shall be no opposi
tion on the part of the mistress to
club life on the part of the domestic.
Entertainment of friends in limited
The innumerable petitions for rain """rs shall not be prohibited, pro-
refreshments.
Rule III. Gentlemen friends shall
not be barred from the kitchen or
back porch. Members of the family
shall not interrupt the conversation
during said visit.
Rule IV. Domestics shall be al
lowed such hours off on Monday as
will permit them to visit the bargain
counters of the stores and enjoy the
same privileges enjoyed by the mis
tress and her daughters.
Rule V. All complaints shall be
made to the business agent of the
union. The question of wage shall be
settled at the time of employment
and no reduction shall be made.
Domestic service is hard to reduce
to a system because of the unusual
number of emergencies which arise
in it. Children are magicians of the
unexpected; and hard and fast rules
The House-Maids' Union, made to apply to them, and which
The housemaids of Chicago, Cincin- depend upon them for their regular
nati and Wilkesbarre have formed operation, get the worst of it right
unions, signed articles and agreed along. Then the unforeseen acci
upon certain conditions to which dents of sickness and company pre
every maid is entitled. If labor un- vent any woman from agreeing to
ions improve the condition of the abide by these rules or any others ab
laborers and educate employers to solutely. The rules themselves are
respect the point of view of their very simple and just,
laborers, the unions are indisputably Most of the domestics of Lincoln
beneficent; and if for laborers in enjoy a much greater latitude than
general, then for hired girls especially, those enumerated in the foregoing
whose relations with the mistress of schedule. Some domestics are ad
the house are so intimate and isolated dieted to company in working hours;
from other forms of labor that petty and company in business hours is a
tyranny is easily imposed. Wherever nuisance in otlice, counting room and
two women meet the chances are that shop, as well as in the kitchen. Some
within ten minutes of the salutation patient mistresses are obliged to make
the conversation will be devoted to "jell,'' cake, and perform many of the
the deficiencies of their "help." If special season and special occasion
the hired girls talk so much about kitchen duties before the eyes of a
their mistresses, this one relationship young woman who is calling upon her
is more discussed than any other, deprecatory cook. The eyes of the
The hired girls, though, have their visitor, more or less critical and curi
beaux, church affairs and lately, ous, follow the nervous lady of the
clubs, to talk over; and besides they house about the kitchen, until she
think that talking shop is bad form, gets so rattled that she burns her
and among the most fastidious maids syrup, puts salt in her cake instead
complaints of mistresses are not al- of sugar, and makes other fatal errors-
log was found to be buoyant, launch- discourage prayer but to remind the
ed and straddled by the first sailor. faithful sixty that prayers can be
It seems to me that storms on the mailed anywhere, inside a church or
deep and droughts on land are caused out of it. The service is absolutely
by the operation of natural laws, and perfect and no petition has ever been
that miracles are rare. Xevertheless, returned marked, "No such address."
if I were on board a sinking boat I jt ji
could not take a general and philoso
pliicalfcview of the situation but
would be with all the passengers and
crew, praying for a special miracle
or act of intervention for that one
time and for me.
Last week Governor Savage of this
state, in response to very urgent re
quests from a few, set aside a day for
prayer, last Thursday, to be spent by
devout citizens in prayer for rain.
Lincoln is a city of forty thouand
inhabitants, the second city of the
state. It contains perhaps fifty re
ligious bodies and two universities.
Whether the latter add to the depth
of religious feeling or not is a matter
of opinion. At any rate, if prayer
could improve the meteorological
conditions there was imminent neces
sity for the whole people joining in
the supplication. The First Congre
gational church of this city of forty
thousand was considered large enough
to accommodate all petitioners, prot
estant, Catholic, Jevish, Mahome
dan, Buddhist or theosophic. who
would come The church seats several
hundred people and sixty came. Tn-
quesuonaoiy .m li: uu vwx. ..u lowed Tn spite of the discussion the for which she will be twitted when
thought that prayer would make any situation and the relations between she tries to induce her unsympathetic
dllierence came. Deciiuse tiieie is
not a business man, nor any one
whom his earnings support who
would not immediatelv gain by a
copious rain. Among all the citizens
who have been watching the skies for
rain for six weeks only sixty answer
ed the call to prayer. This shows
that the other 39.940 either did not
believe in the efficacy of public prayer
for rain, or that they were disinclined
to go to so little trouble to obtain it.
The latter is inconceivable. It may
be that the one-half inch of rain that
fell Saturday night was in answer to
mistresses and maids do not improve, family or friends to cat the result
The inability of mistress and maid to of that morning's embarrassed work,
consider the subject from botli sides In shops the workmen are not al-
hinders the evolution of the relation- lowed to receive company in working
ship and the development of the call- hours. Social amenities and labor are
ing. in-so-iar as unions maice a call- incompatioie. -Many an employer
ing more respectable and dignified,
the amalgamation of domestic ser
vants is a step towards its final solu
tion. In-so-far as unions tend to
increase the suspicion existing be
tween the employed and the employ
ers, this new expression of organized
labor is only adding to the perplexi
ties and unsolved and nearly un-
lias longed to tell the bores who, hav
ing nothing to do themselves, drop
in to gossip with him, that the rules
of the house forbid visitors; but the
employer is usually the court of last
resort and must bear the burden of
all dismissals. The rule in regard to
visitors being allowed on the back
porch should specify when.
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