If this be an age of reason, as is claimed for it, men who are furnished with a capacity to think cannot be prevented from putting their thoughts into execution.  Though Balmascheff was executed on Friday according to biblical and Russian law, there are many Balmascheffs in the world, and it is well for the world that this is so.

Mistake in Vocation

A woman writer who considers herself a Realist says in a story published recently:  “I found a letter in my mail and read it as I prepared my morning coffee.”  This is an impossible feat.  She may have prepared the coffee and then read the letter, or read the letter and then prepared the coffee, but she did not do both simultaneously unless she were, not a realist, but an acrobat.

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Foreign Devils Again

Among the many reforms foisted upon China by the Powers is a college.  At the head of this college is a Foreign Devil and among its professors are six Foreign Devils.  The court of last resort, however, is the Governor of Shantung, who is a native of China.  He, quite recently, filled the Foreign Devils with indignation because he expelled from the college a student who refused to subscribe to the teachings of Confucius, who was a wise as well as a learned man.  The Foreign Devils transferred some of their indignation to Mr. Conger, the United States Minister, who “warned the Throne against infractions of the treaties in respect to the freedom of the Chinese to practice Christianity.”  This warning probably filled the Throne with even more and hotter indignation than that which seethed in the Foreign Devils.  Why should Mr. Conger not follow the custom of his own country and permit every religion to take care of itself?  Here is a case in point.  A Mr. Noll applied for a license to preach and it was denied to him by a Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian brand because he refused to believe in the personality of Adam.  He would not have carried his case to the President even if he had not died.  It has been asserted by a Minister of another denomination that Noll was murdered, not in the orthodox way, but simply because he was refused a license to preach.  If the murder theory be not untenable Noll was not of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and as all Preachers hold that they are made of this stuff Noll conferred a favor upon the profession by dying of consumption.

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Heaven or Hell