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 southern division by the completion of the Union Pacific railway, and the annual rate of destruction from 1870 to 1875 has been estimated at 2,500,000 head. In 1880 the completion of the Northern Pacific railway led to an attack upon the northern herd. The last of the Dakota bisons were destroyed by Indians in 1883, leaving then less than 1000 wild individuals in the United States.

A count which was concluded at the end of February 1903, put the number of captive bisons at 1119, of which 969 were in parks and zoological gardens in the United States, 41 in Canada and 109 in Europe. At the same time it was estimated that there were 34 wild bison in the United States and 600 in Canada.

In England small herds are kept by the duke of Bedford at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, and by Mr C. J. Leyland at Haggerston Castle, Northumberland.

Two races of the American bison have been distinguished—the typical prairie form, and the woodland race, B. bison athabascae; but the two are very similar.

 BISQUE (a French word of unknown origin, formerly spelt in English “bisk”), a term for odds given in the games of tennis, lawn tennis, croquet and golf; in the two former a bisque is one point to be taken at any time during a “set” at the choice of the receiver of the odds, while in croquet and golf it is one extra stroke to be taken similarly during a game. The name is given, in cookery, to a thick soup, made particularly of crayfish or lobsters.

 BISSELL, GEORGE EDWIN (1839–  ), American sculptor, son of a quarryman and marble-cutter, was born at New Preston, Connecticut, on the 16th of February 1839. During the Civil War he served as a private in the 23rd Connecticut volunteers in the Department of the Gulf (1862–1863), and on being mustered out became acting assistant paymaster in the South Atlantic squadron. At the close of the war he joined his father in business. He studied the art of sculpture abroad in 1875–1876, and lived much in Paris during the years 1883–1896, with occasional visits to America. Among his more important works are the soldiers’ and sailors’ monument, and a statue of Colonel Chatfield, at Waterbury, Connecticut; and statues of General Gates at Saratoga, New York, of Chancellor John Watts in Trinity churchyard, New York City; of Colonel Abraham de Peyster in Bowling Green, New York City; of Abraham Lincoln at Edinburgh; of Burns and “Highland Mary,” in Ayr, Scotland; of Chancellor James Kent, in the Congressional library, Washington; and of President Arthur in Madison Square, New York City.

 BISSEXT, or (Lat. bis, twice; sextus, sixth), the day intercalated by the Julian calendar in the February of every fourth year to make up the six hours by which the solar year was computed to exceed the year of 365 days. The day was inserted after the 24th of February, i.e. the 6th day before the calends (1st) of March; there was consequently, besides the sextus, or sixth before the calends, the bis-sextus or “second sixth,” our 25th of February. In modern usage, with the exception of ecclesiastical calendars, the intercalary day is added for convenience at the end of the month, and years in which February has 29 days are called “bissextile,” or leap-years.

 BISTRE, the French name of a brown paint made from the soot of wood, now largely superseded by Indian ink.

 BIT (from the verb “to bite,” either in the sense of a piece bitten off, or an act of biting, or a thing that bites or is bitten), generally, a piece of anything; the word is, however, used in various special senses, all derivable from its origin, either literally or metaphorically. The most common of these are (1) its use as the name of various tools, e.g. centre-bit; (2) a horse’s “bit,” or the metal mouth-piece of the bridle; (3) in money, a small sum of money of varying value (e.g. threepenny-bit), especially in the West Indies and southern United States.

 BITHUR, a town in the Cawnpore district of the United Provinces of India, 12 m. N.W. of Cawnpore city. Pop. (1901) 7173. It is chiefly notable for its connexion with the mutiny of 1857. The last of the peshwas, Baji Rao, was banished to Bithur, and his adopted son, the Nana Sahib, made the town his headquarters. It was captured by Havelock on the 19th of July 1857, when the Nana’s palaces were destroyed.

 BITHYNIA ( ), an ancient district in the N.W. of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine. According to Strabo it was bounded on the E. by the river Sangarius; but the more commonly received division extended it to the Parthenius, which separated it from Paphlagonia, thus comprising the district inhabited by the Mariandyni. On the W. and S.W. it was separated from Mysia by the river Rhyndacus; and on the S. it adjoined Phrygia Epictetus and Galatia. It is in great part occupied by mountains and forests, but has valleys and districts near the sea-coast of great fertility. The most important mountain range is the (so-called) “Mysian” Olympus (7600 ft.), which towers above Brusa and is clearly visible as far away as Constantinople (70 m.). Its summits are covered with snow for a great part of the year. East of this the range now called Ala-Dagh extends for above 100 m. from the Sangarius to Paphlagonia. Both of these ranges belong to that border of mountains which bounds the great tableland of Asia Minor. The country between them and the coast, covered with forests and traversed by few lines of route, is still imperfectly known. But the broad tract which projects towards the west as far as the shores of the Bosporus, though hilly and covered with forests—the Turkish Aghatch Denizi, or “The Ocean of Trees”—is not traversed by any mountain chain. The west coast is indented by two deep inlets, (1) the northernmost, the Gulf of Ismid (anc. Gulf of Astacus), penetrating between 40 and 50 m. into the interior as far as Ismid (anc. Nicomedia), separated by an isthmus of only about 25 m. from the Black Sea; (2) the Gulf of Mudania or Gemlik (Gulf of Cius), about 25 m. long. At its extremity is situated the small town of Gemlik (anc. Cius) at the mouth of a valley, communicating with the lake of Isnik, on which was situated Nicaea.

The principal rivers are the Sangarius (mod. Sakaria), which traverses the province from south to north; the Rhyndacus, which separated it from Mysia; and the Billaeus (Filiyas), which rises in the Ala-Dagh, about 50 m. from the sea, and after flowing by Boli (anc. Claudiopolis) falls into the Euxine, close to the ruins of the ancient Tium, about 40 m. north-east of Heraclea, having a course of more than 100 m. The Parthenius (mod. Bartan), the boundary of the province towards the east, is a much less considerable stream.

The natural resources of Bithynia are still imperfectly developed. Its vast forests would furnish an almost inexhaustible supply of timber, if rendered accessible by roads. Coal also is known to exist near Eregli (Heraclea). The valleys towards the Black Sea abound in fruit trees of all kinds, while the valley of the Sangarius and the plains near Brusa and Isnik (Nicaea) are fertile and well cultivated. Extensive plantations of mulberry trees supply the silk for which Brusa has long been celebrated, and which is manufactured there on a large scale.

According to ancient authors (Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo, &c.), the Bithynians were an immigrant Thracian tribe. The existence of a tribe called Thyni in Thrace is well attested, and the two cognate tribes of the Thyni and Bithyni appear to have settled simultaneously in the adjoining parts of Asia, where they expelled or subdued the Mysians, Caucones, and other petty tribes, the Mariandyni alone maintaining themselves in the north-east. Herodotus mentions the Thyni and Bithyni as existing side by side; but ultimately the latter must have become the more important, as they gave their name to the country. They were incorporated by Croesus with the Lydian monarchy, with which they fell under the dominion of Persia (546 ), and were included in the satrapy of Phrygia, which comprised all the countries up to the Hellespont and Bosporus. But even before the conquest by Alexander the Bithynians appear to have asserted their independence, and successfully maintained it under two native princes, Bas and Zipoetes, the last of whom transmitted his power to his son Nicomedes I., the first to assume the title of king. This monarch founded Nicomedia, which soon rose to great prosperity, and during his long reign (278–250 ), as well as those of his successors, Prusias I.,

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Rh the physiological fact, that a certain and constant proportion of children are born with two or more fingers or toes joined together by a web, as in the seal. This is regarded by our physiologists as an instance of 'atavism,' or the reproduction in a descendant of a feature or organ peculiar to a remote ancestor."

I inquired if it would not be desirable, considering the medium they inhabited, that the race of web handed or footed children should alone be preserved, as they might in turn propagate and develop this peculiarity, so that ultimately the whole population might become provided with fins, in place of hands and feet. Of course, I merely meant this as persiflage, but he replied very seriously,—

"No, we do not wish to see a recrudescence of the organs which denote an inferior animal nature; and it is doubtful if we could ever perpetuate or redevelop in the more perfect being an organ which indicates an inferior grade. For though, doubtless, our fingers and toes if webbed would be more powerful swimming organs than they are, still, the separation of the fingers and toes has been necessitated by the other uses we have acquired for them, and we should not wish to sacrifice their utility in the higher manifestations of muscular movement in order that they might be more fitted for a lower such manifestation. I only mentioned the fact of the constant recurrence of this peculiarity among human beings to prove to you our common origin with seals."

"Or fishes?" I remarked.

"Well, you may say fishes; but that is a further remove, for we should require to trace ourselves through reptiles back to the piscine order.

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104 "Many other circumstances," he continued, "I could adduce to prove to you the community of our origin with aquatic mammalia, but I fear to fatigue you. Thus, when a child is born into the air, it screams with pain and fright, in consequence of entering at once a medium unsuited to its nature. Now, when it is born in water, it shows none of these signs of distress, but continues tranquilly the same sort of existence it had in its mother. It is gradually and quietly taught to use its lungs, without that shock to its system which in air often proves fatal to its tender life. You have, in your own person, experienced the facility with which, when circumstances require it, the power of closing the nostrils by voluntary muscular action, as seals do, is acquired, proving that this is no new faculty, but simply the revival of one which had become obsolete from there being no occasion for it as long as you lived in air.

"In your own part of the world, some of the most ancient inhabitants are shown by their remains to have constructed their dwellings in large lakes. These people were, doubtless, the first in descent from the truly aquatic animal the human race sprang from, who, because they inhabited a region too cold to allow them to remain altogether in the water, still retained somewhat of the aquatic habits of their ancestor, and so lived an amphibious life, partly on the land and partly in the water.

"In short," he concluded, "it is obvious that man was never intended to pass his life in the air, where he is the inferior of almost all those he is pleased to call the lower animals. The water is his proper element, and there alone can he assert and prove his superiority to the brute creation, and develop in

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Rh those faculties of his body with which nature has so liberally endowed him."

I should have had no great difficulty in refuting these gross sophisms, but my experience of Colymbians had taught me that they were singularly intolerant of opposition; that, unlike the true philosophers of my native country, they preferred their system to truth, and disliked those who produced facts that militated against their theories. As I did not wish to forfeit the friendship of my young companion, I left his bundle of arguments unanswered, and merely ventured to hint that, though an aquatic life was possible and perhaps even desirable in these tropical regions where the temperature of the water was high, yet it was not practicable in higher latitudes where the water was so cold that it would rapidly abstract all the heat of the body, and any one who attempted to live in the water must soon perish from the mere abstraction of his animal heat.

"I grant," he said, "that at present such would be the case. But, no doubt, the ingenuity of man is equal to the task of finding some method of warming the water sufficiently to enable him to live in it in comfort, even in the highest latitudes.

"But supposing you are not ripe for such an invention yet, why not come and live where the water is always warm enough for you? There are millions of square miles of warm sea in the tropics, which could easily contain the whole human race. Before these are fully peopled, I have not a doubt that a method of heating the colder water will be discovered. Your objection reminds me of the cry of alarm lately raised in your country about the imminent exhaustion of your coal, when you had still remaining a supply for

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 Prusias II. and Nicomedes II. (149–91 ), the kingdom of Bithynia held a considerable place among the minor monarchies of Asia. But the last king, Nicomedes III., was unable to maintain himself against Mithradates of Pontus, and, after being restored to his throne by the Roman senate, he bequeathed his kingdom by will to the Romans (74 ). Bithynia now became a Roman province. Its limits were frequently varied, and it was commonly united for administrative purposes with the province of Pontus. This was the state of things in the time of Trajan, when the younger Pliny was appointed governor of the combined provinces (103–105 ), a circumstance to which we are indebted for valuable information concerning the Roman provincial administration. Under the Byzantine empire Bithynia was again divided into two provinces, separated by the Sangarius, to the west of which the name of Bithynia was restricted.

The most important cities were Nicomedia and Nicaea, which disputed with one another the rank of capital. Both of these were founded after Alexander the Great; but at a much earlier period the Greeks had established on the coast the colonies of Cius (afterwards Prusias, mod. Gemlik); Chalcedon, at the entrance of the Bosporus, nearly opposite Constantinople; and Heraclea Pontica, on the Euxine, about 120 m. east of the Bosporus. All these rose to be flourishing places of trade, as also Prusa at the foot of M. Olympus (see ). The only other places of importance at the present day are Ismid (Nicomedia) and Scutari.

See C. Texier, Ásie Mineure (Paris, 1839); G. Perrot, Galatie et Bithynie (Paris, 1862); W. von Diest in Petermanns Mittheilungen, Erganzungsheft, 116 (Gotha, 1895).

 BITLIS, or (Arm. Paghesh), the chief town of a vilayet of the same name in Asiatic Turkey, situated at an altitude of 4700 ft. in the deep, narrow valley of the Bitlis Chai, a tributary of the Tigris. The main part of the town and the bazaars are crowded alongside the stream, while suburbs with scattered houses among orchards and gardens extend up two tributary streams. The houses are massive and well built of a soft volcanic tufa, and with their courtyards and gardens climbing up the hillsides afford a striking picture. At the junction of two streams in the centre of the town is a fine old castle, partly ruined, which, according to local tradition, occupies the site of a fortress built by Alexander the Great. It is apparently an Arab building, as Arabic inscriptions appear on the walls, but as the town stands on the principal highway between the Van plateau and the Mesopotamian plain it must always have been of strategic importance. The bazaars are crowded, covered across with branches in summer, and typical of a Kurdish town. The population numbers 35,000, of whom about 12,000 are Armenians and the remainder are Kurds or of Kurdish descent.

Kurdish beys and sheiks have much influence in the town and wild mountain districts adjoining, while the Sasun mountains, the scene of successive Armenian revolutions of late years, are not far off to the west. The town was ruled by a semi-independent Kurdish bey as late as 1836. There are some fine old mosques and medresses (colleges), and the Armenians have a large monastery and churches. There are British, French and Russian consuls in the town, and a branch of the American Mission with schools is established also. The climate is healthy and the thermometer rarely falls below 0° Fahr., but there is a heavy snowfall and the narrow streets are blocked for some five months in the year.

A good road runs southward down the pass, passing after a few miles some large chalybeate and sulphur springs. Roads also lead north to Mush and Erzerum and along the lake to Van. Postal communication is through Erzerum with Trebizond. Tobacco of an inferior quality is largely grown, and the chief industry is the weaving of a coarse red cloth. Manna and gum tragacanth are also collected. Fruit is also plentiful, and there are many vineyards close by.

The Bitlis vilayet comprises a very varied section of Asiatic Turkey, as it includes the Mush plain and the plateau country west of Lake Van, as well as a large extent of wild mountain districts inhabited by turbulent Kurds and Armenians on either side of the central town of Bitlis, also some of the lower country about Sairt along the left bank of the main stream of the Tigris. The mountains have been little explored, but are believed to be rich in minerals, iron, lead, copper, traces of gold and many mineral springs are known to exist.

 BITONTO (anc. Butunti), a town and episcopal see of Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, 10 m. west by steam tramway from Bari. Pop. (1901) 30,617. It was a place of no importance in classical times. Its medieval walls are still preserved. Its cathedral is one of the finest examples of the Romanesque architecture of Apulia, and has escaped damage from later restorations. The palazzo Sylos-Labini has a fine Renaissance court of 1502.

 BITSCH (Fr. Bitche), a town of Germany, in Alsace-Lorraine, on the Horn, at the foot of the northern slope of the Vosges between Hagenau and Saargemund. Pop. (1905) 4000. There are a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, a classical school and an academy of forestry. The industries include shoe-making and watch-making, and there is some trade in grain and timber. The town of Bitsch, which was formed out of the villages of Rohr and Kaltenhausen in the 17th century, derives its name from the old stronghold (mentioned in 1172 as Bytis Castrum) standing on a rock some 250 ft. above the town. This had long given its name to the countship of Bitsch, which was originally in the possession of the dukes of Lorraine. In 1297 it passed by marriage to Eberhard I. of Zweibrücken, whose line became extinct in 1569, when the countship reverted to Lorraine. It passed with that duchy to France in 1766. After that date the town rapidly increased in population. The citadel, which had been constructed by Vauban on the site of the old castle after the capture of Bitsch by the French in 1624, had been destroyed when it was restored to Lorraine in 1698. This was restored and strengthened in 1740 into a fortress that proved impregnable in all succeeding wars. The attack upon it by the Prussians in 1793 was repulsed; in 1815 they had to be content with blockading it; and in 1870, though it was closely invested by the Germans after the battle of Wörth, it held out until the end of the war. A large part of the fortification is excavated in the red sandstone rock, and rendered bomb-proof; a supply of water is secured to the garrison by a deep well in the interior.

 BITTER, KARL THEODORE FRANCIS (1867–  ), American sculptor, was born in Vienna on the 6th of December 1867. After studying art there, in 1889 he removed to the United States, where he became naturalized. In America he gained great popularity as a sculptor, and in 1906–1907 was president of the National Sculpture Society, New York. Among his principal works are: the Astor memorial gates, Trinity church, New York; “Elements Controlled and Uncontrolled,” on the Administration Building at the Chicago Exposition; a large relief, “Triumph of Civilization,” in the waiting-room of the Broad Street station of the Pennsylvania railway in Philadelphia; decorations for the Dewey Naval Arch in New York City; the “Standard Bearers,” at the Pan-American Exposition grounds; a sitting statue and a bust of Dr Pepper, provost of the University of Pennsylvania; and the Villard and Hubbard memorials in the New York chamber of commerce.

 BITTERFELD, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Saxony, 26 m. N. from Leipzig by rail, on the river Mulde, and an important junction of railways from Leipzig and Halle to Berlin. Pop. (1900) 11,839. It manufactures drain-pipes, paper-roofing and machinery, and has saw-mills. Several coal-mines are in the vicinity. The town was built by a colony of Flemish immigrants in 1153. It was captured by the landgrave of Meissen in 1476, and belonged thenceforth to Saxony, until it was ceded to Prussia in 1815. Owing to its pleasant situation and accessibility, it has become a favourite residence of business men of Leipzig and Halle.

 BITTERLING (Rhodeus amarus), a little carp-like fish of central Europe, belonging to the Cyprinid family. In it we have a remarkable instance of symbiosis. The genital papilla of the female acquires a great development during the breeding season and becomes produced into a tube nearly as long as the

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Rh XI

——,

Admitting the doctrine of illusion, and dismissing all prejudice against what is new, you declare that still my position remains absolutely unintelligible to you. I will set down your objection in your own words:"Apparently you maintain that Christ is a mere man who came into the world, lived, worked, and died according to the laws of human nature; even His resurrection you apparently intend to explain away till it becomes a mere vision, and therefore not a sign of any other than a human existence. Now worship is a tribute conceded to God alone. To a mere man, who lived eighteen centuries ago, how can you force yourself, by any effort of the will, to pay worship simply because you have reason to believe that this individual was pre-eminently good"?

In reply, I ask you, "What else is more worthy of worship?" There is no question of "forcing myself" at all. I worship Christ naturally. That is to say I love, trust, and reverence Him more than I love, trust, and reverence any other person or thing or universe of things. This I do because I cannot help it; and if I have brought myself to do this naturally by fixing my thoughts on the power of Goodness, and on Christ as the incarnate representation of Goodness, this causes me no shame and involves me in no conflict with my Reason.

But you—have you not omitted some important features in the description of this "mere man"? Jesus was not


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112 only pre-eminently good, He was also pre-eminently powerful and wise for spiritual purposes. His influence regenerated the civilized world; it is manifest around us. He Himself spoke of Himself in language which shews that He believed Himself to be endowed with a divine authority over men, and to stand in a unique relation to God. In a fanatic or a fool that would mean nothing: in one so wise, so soberly wise, so utterly unselfish, so marvellously successful, it must needs count for much. Although I reject the miraculous, I do not reject—nor understand how any one can reject—the supernatural. I regard Jesus as being a "mere man" indeed, if by "mere man" you mean a "real man;" non-miraculous, subjected to all the material limitations of humanity; but still a man such as is described in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel; the Word of God incarnate; the Man in whom was concentrated God's expression of Himself; the Divine Perfection made humanly perceptible. This I believed once upon the authority of the Fourth Gospel; but I believe it now on the testimony of history and my own conscience.

Put yourself in my place. Suppose, as I suppose, that Christ was what He was, and did what He did, naturally and without miracles. Does not that make His personality in a certain sense more wonderful and certainly more lovable? It is comparatively easy, with miracles at command, to persuade men to anything; but, without miracles, to introduce a new religion, to bring in a new power of forgiving sins, to offer up one's life, not for friends, nor for country, but for mankind, to manifest oneself so to one's disciples during life that after your death they shall see you and shall be convinced that you have triumphed over death; to disarm an armed world by non-resistance, and to breathe a spirit of enthusiasm for righteousness and a passionate love of mankind into


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Letter 11] myriads of a remote posterity—these surely are feats which, if natural, should make us exclaim, "Verily we have here a divine nature."

I trust I am not being goaded into any exaggeration of what I really feel, by the hope of inducing you to share my feelings. Perhaps it is not possible to worship any man, not even such a one as Jesus, as long as he remains in the flesh. Not till death takes a friend from us do we seem to know the real spirit that lay behind the flesh and blood; not till Jesus was taken from us could that Spirit come which was to reveal the real Being that underlay the humanity of the Nazarene. I will admit that I should not have worshipped Jesus of Nazareth on earth—in Peter's house for example at Capernaum; for though love might have been present, the trust and awe that were to be developed by His resurrection would have been wanting. Jesus does not claim our worship nor even our recognition, as an isolated being, but as inseparably linked to One without whom He Himself said He could "do nothing". It was not till He was removed from the visible world and enthroned in the hearts of men by the side of the Father, that men could perceive His real nature; and He is to be worshipped not by Himself, but as the Son of God, and one with God. Christ did not merely tell us about the Father; He revealed the Father in Himself; and, if we worship the Father as Christ revealed Him, we are, consciously or unconsciously, worshipping the Son.

Almost all language about all spiritual existences is necessarily metaphorical. What is "righteousness" except a straightness, and what is "excellence" except pre-eminence? The proposition "Christ is the Son of God" is a metaphor; it is a metaphor to say that "God is our Father in heaven," and that "God is Love." Perhaps even to say that "God is" is a metaphor, expressing a truth, but expressing it inadequately. But


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114 it would be the ignorance of a mere child to suppose that a metaphor means nothing. There is no deeper truth in heaven or earth than the metaphor that God is the Father of man, and that the Lord Jesus Christ is His Eternal Son. When I try to think of God and to pray to God as my Father, I can think of Him as being without the seas, without the stars, without the whole visible world; but I can never think of Him aright, nor ever conceive of Him as being Love, without conceiving also of One whom He loves, who is with Him from the beginning; whom when I try to realize, I can realize only in one shape; and hence it comes to pass that I find myself without any "effort of the will," spontaneously worshipping God through, and in, and with, that one shape, I mean the Lord Jesus Christ. Worshipping the Father I find that I have been unconsciously worshipping, and must consciously continue to worship, the Eternal Son.

But there is another difference between us, besides your failure to recognise the spiritual power and spiritual wisdom of Christ. You do not know what you mean by worship; you do not know what you ought to worship; and you do not know how little you know of God.

You tell me that "worship is a tribute conceded to God alone." But what is God? The absolute God no one knows. Our most perfect conception of Him is only a conception of a Mediator of some kind by which we approach Him. To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I worship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to that? I suppose you will say "A non-miraculous Christ ought not to be God to you"? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is He less loving, less merciful, less just? "No," you reply, "but He is less powerful." How is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying, loving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He


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Letter 11] less powerful in the spiritual world? "Perhaps not; but He is less powerful in the material world. He never, according to your account, rose above, never even for a moment suspended the laws of nature." Indeed? And God, the Maker of the world—did He ever rise above, or suspend the laws of nature? When? "Well, He is said to have done so frequently in the records of the Bible". But many men deny that, and you yourself are disposed to agree with them. "At all events He did so when He made the world."

Here at last we can come to an understanding. You look up to God as to the Maker of the world, and are more ready to worship Him, as such, than to worship a non-miraculous Christ. If by "the Maker of the world" you mean—as I am quite sure many mean—"the Maker of the mere material forces of Nature," or even "the Maker of all things apart from Christ," then words fail me to express how entirely I differ from you. But let me try to put your view into my own language, in order to shew you that I do not condemn it without understanding it. "We cannot," you say, "worship a mere non-miraculous man, who did nothing but talk and lead a good life, and perhaps perform a few acts of faith-healing, however beneficial may have been his influence on posterity. The fact that, after his death, visions of him were seen by excited and enthusiastic followers, and in one case by an enemy of highly emotional tendencies, cannot alter this decision. It is impossible to worship a being so helpless, so limited, so aweless as this. What is such a creature in comparison with the mysterious Maker of the stars or Ruler of the ocean? Surely the sight of a storm at sea ought to suffice to turn any one from the imaginary and self-deceiving worship of the merely human Jesus of Nazareth to the worship of One whose greatness and glory and terror surround us on every side with


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116 material witnesses, One in comparison with whom no mere man may be mentioned."

Natural as such an argument may seem to you and to many others who call themselves Christians, it is in reality based upon a diabolical prejudice in favour of power. I can understand our forefathers, worshippers of Thor and Odin, arguing thus; and so great is our own inherited and inbred admiration of mere force, that even to us Christians the temptation is still very strong to bow down before the whirlwind and the fire, rather than before the still small voice. But it is a temptation to be resisted and overcome. You call upon me to worship the Ruler of the waves. Now the sea is full of the gifts of God to men; yet if I knew nothing more of the Creator than that He had made and rules the sea, then—with all the knowledge of the death and destruction that reign beneath the depths of ocean among its non-human tenants, and of the destruction that reigns on its surface when it wages war against man and conquers—I should say, "So far as the sea alone reveals the nature of Him who made it, I would a thousand times sooner worship Jesus of Nazareth, the non-miraculous man, than the Maker of the ocean." It is the most vulgar and contemptible cowardice to cringe before the Maker of the destroying ocean—who might be the Devil and not a good God, so far as the ocean's destructive power reveals its Maker—rather than to do homage to the best of men. I grant that in a storm at sea, with the lightning blinding my eyes, and the pitiless waters tearing my companions from my side and threatening every instant to devour me—I grant that I might, and should, feel tempted to exclaim, "A mightier than Christ is here." But, if I did, I should be ashamed of it. It would be a traitorous tendering of allegiance to Satan. When force and terror and death come shrieking on the wave-crests, and proclaiming that "Power after


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Letter 11] all is Lord of the world," then is our faith tested; it is "the victory of our faith" to overcome that lie and to make answer thus: "No, Goodness is Lord over the world; Love is Lord over the world; and therefore He who is one with Love and Goodness, the Lord Jesus Christ, He is Lord over the world. Do with me as thou wilt, thou Mighty Maker of all things! If Christ was not deceived, thou art His Father and I can trust thee. But if Christ was deceived, then art thou Satan and I defy thee, be thou the Maker of a world of worlds. Better to perish and be deceived with Christ, than to be saved and caressed by a Maker who made Christ to perish and to be deceived! If there be in truth any opposition of will between the Maker and the Lord Jesus Christ, then is the Lord Jesus the superior of the two; and in the Lord Jesus alone will I put my trust, and to Him alone will I cleave as my Lord and my Saviour and my God."

Have I made my meaning clear to you? I do not say, Have I persuaded you that I am right? But have I made you understand that it really is possible for one who has apprehended even imperfectly the illimitable extent of the goodness of Christ and the divine nature of that goodness, to feel heartily and sincerely that, of all things in heaven and earth and in the waters under the earth, the goodness and power and wisdom of God in Christ are the fittest objects for our love, our trust and our reverence, in other words, for our worship? Can you name any fitter object? If you will not worship God in the man Jesus, you will hardly worship Him in Socrates, or Paul, or any other specimen of humanity. Will you then turn to inanimate nature, and worship him in that? Then you will be turning from the higher to the lower conception of God. Before I knew Christ, I might perhaps have worshipped God the Maker, being led to him, so to speak, by the world as Mediator. Inspired by awe for


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118 the Creator of so vast and orderly a machine, I might have adored Him as the artificer of the stars and this terrestrial globe. But now, Christ has made this kind of "natural religion" impossible. He, the ideal Man, has revealed to me depths of love, pity, mercy, self-sacrifice, in comparison with which the ocean is but the "water in a bucket," and the stars of heaven are as "a very little thing." If therefore I try to conceive of God as alien and apart from Christ, God becomes at once degraded and inferior to man.

How shall I try to express myself more clearly? Let me use words not my own, in which a man of recognized ability once summed up for me my own conceptions; "I see," he said, "you do not, as most do, worship Christ out of compliment to God; you worship God out of compliment to Christ." The words then sounded to me a little profane, though they were not meant to be so; but I had to confess that they exactly expressed my meaning. Since then, it has seemed to me that these words were but an incisive way of saying, what every one says and few realize, that Christ is the Mediator between us and God: we worship God the Father because we attribute to Him the character that we adore in God the Son.

By this time you will have seen that while answering the question, "Whom, or what, ought we to worship?" I have indirectly answered a preliminary question, "What do we mean by worship?" You have also probably noticed what answer I have given to this question: worship appears to me a combination of love, trust, and awe. Do you accept this? I have never seen any serious objection taken to this definition except by those who refuse practically to define it at all and who would simply say "Worship is the homage paid by man to the Creator: and it has nothing to do with, and cannot be explained by, the feelings with which we regard man." If I had


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Letter 11] not seen this in the columns of a theological journal, I should not have believed it possible that modern superficiality and conventionalism could achieve quite so transparent a shallowness. The sum total of our feelings towards God—more especially our awe for Him—cannot indeed be adequately expressed in the same language which expresses our feelings for men: but that is a very different thing from saying that the former "have nothing to do with" the latter. I believe that a large part of most men's worship consists of a shrinking from an Unknown, the sort of dread that children feel for "the dark." But righteous worship must imply other feelings; and these feelings—some of them at all events—must have names; and whence are the names to be derived but from our feelings towards men and things—towards men, surely, as well as towards things? We must either love God, or hate Him, or be indifferent to Him; we must either trust, or distrust Him. I do not see how the people who would sever worship from all reference to human relations can look upon it as other than a mere homage of the lips or knees, a going to church, and attendance at religious services. Need I say that, when I define worship, I am defining the worship of the heart, not the attitude of those who honour God with their lips but whose heart is far from Him?

Now the attitude of man to God has varied greatly in accordance with their conception of God, according as they have conceived Him to be Moloch, or Apollo, or Jehovah, or the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. In some men worship has been mere terror; in some, it has been a desire to bribe; in some it has been faint gratitude and strong admiration; in some it has been intense awe and reverence. All such forms of worship have been imperfect, and some have been very bad. At the best, none of them have combined all the best and noblest feelings of aspiration which Nature tends to develop in us by means


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120 of human and non-human agencies. Human nature—acting through the relations of the family—should elicit love and loving trust; non-human nature—acting through the seas and skies, with their suggestions of vastness and power—should elicit awe and awful trust; and the combination of these two natural influences should elicit love, trust and awe, which three-fold result constitutes worship.

Has the worship of God through the mediation of Christ entirely superseded—was it intended to supersede—the worship of God through the mediation of the visible World? I think not yet. It will in the end but not now. There may come a time, in some future existence, when we shall see righteousness like the sun, when we shall have visions of the beauty and order of holiness like the stars, and behold the glory of sacrifice spread out before our eyes like the firmament of heaven; and then the revelation of God through visible Nature will be swallowed up in the revelation of God through invisible Nature. But now, not many of us can pretend to such a power of spiritual insight. We feel that, if we learned the story of Christ without the help of the commentary of the awful powers of material nature, we might be in danger of repeating it with a glib familiarity which would hinder us from penetrating its meaning. Those who live in the stir of cities where they are doomed never to be alone, never to realize perfect silence, never to see more than a few square feet of sky, are living as the Word of God did not intend them to live; they may have—they often have—great spiritual compensations; they certainly have some spiritual disadvantage in these unnatural negations. As long as we have eyes and ears and the faculties of wonder and admiration, so long must we suppose that the revelation of the Word of God through Jesus of Nazareth has not dispensed with the revelation of the Word of God through the forces of material nature. If we wish to approach


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Letter 11] God we should not despise the Mediation of the Word of God in its entirety, that is to say, the mediation of "the World with Christ."

Now what practical inferences follow from our definition of worship, if we are satisfied that it is roughly true? Here let me put in a caution. Our definition cannot be exactly true; for, in its exactness, worship means the sum total of all the feelings that should be felt by the mind of man, when he contemplates God through the mediation of "the World with Christ." Who can enumerate these without confessing that he may have passed over some so subtle and so deep that language itself has left them unnamed? We must therefore be content with a rough definition. But if it be roughly true that worship means love, trust and awe, what practical inferences may we thence deduce as regards our own conduct?

First, then, worship is not the formal thing it is generally supposed to be. It is not a mere smoothness of the hinges of the knees, or a readiness to take the name of God within one's lips. It is a natural going forth of the heart to that which one loves, trusts, and reverences most. Some men have little power of reverencing; others, of trusting; others, of loving; such men's worship must necessarily be maimed and imperfect. If a man who is destitute of reverence loves and trusts money more than anything else, money really is that man's God; it is no hyperbole, it is the fact; the man does actually worship money; he does not say prayers to it, does not go down on his knees to it, but he loves it and trusts it more than anything else; therefore, so far as he can worship anything, he worships money. Similarly another man worships pleasure; another, his children; another, power. We are accustomed to apologize for such expressions as if they were metaphors or exaggerations; but they are not; they are plain statements of spiritual realities.


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122 Thousands of men who say they worship Christ, and who honestly suppose they worship Christ, do nothing of the kind. This is the dark side of the self-delusion of worship, but there is a brighter. There are many men at the present day who call themselves agnostics, but who would hardly deny that they love and reverence Jesus of Nazareth more than any other being. They worship Him then. Their worship is tinged with hopelessness, and therefore imperfect; but so far as it goes, it is a genuine worship of Christ. Perhaps, too, some who profess mere Theism feel, in their hearts, that though they dislike to say they worship Christ, they love Christ more than they love their conception of "God without Christ;" if so, may we not say that, so far as that element of love goes, they worship Christ? Thousands of thousands of people, before Christ was born, worshipped Goodness and a good God in their lives and hearts, though they were, in name, worshippers of Apollo or Moloch. Thousands of people in the same unconscious way have been, and still are, worshipping the Incarnate Christ. They may not acknowledge this, they may not even know it: but their hearts have gone out to Him in love and trust and awe, more than to any other person or thing in heaven or earth.

Search your own soul and acknowledge how little you know of God; I do not mean how little you profess to know, but how little you really know; how very much of


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Letter 11] what you think you know, is but second-hand knowledge, scraps of sayings repeated on authority, but not representing any heartfelt faith. Then—after deducting all the verbiage that you once esteemed a part of your own belief—take the poor residuum of your conception of the Godhead, and put it by the side of your conception of the Word of God incarnate in Christ, making some faint attempt at the same time to realize the stupendous life and character of Jesus. Then ask yourself in what respects the former conception differs from the latter for the better. Lastly ask yourself what you mean by worship—not lip-worship, or knee-worship, but the worship of the heart; and whether your heart does not go out in heart-worship as much towards the latter as to the former of these two conceptions. If you will do this fairly and honestly, my only fear would be that you might find that your conception of God Himself was too weak to retain its grasp on you; but if God still held His place in your heart, then I should feel confident that Christ would sit enthroned by His side, as being the Son without whom the Father could not be known, worshipped in virtue of a claim which no mere performance of miracles could establish, and which no mere non-performance of miracles could invalidate.

The sum is this. In Nature there is evil as well as good. I cannot therefore worship the Author of all Nature, but must worship the Author of Nature-minus-the evil. Where is He to be found? He is revealed in what we recognize to be good, true, and beautiful. Now no one man can include in his life all that we mean by scientific truth, and artistic beauty, as well as moral goodness. But, truth being a harmony, there is no deeper and nobler truth than the harmony of a human will with the will of the Supreme; and, beneath perishable artistic beauty, there is an eternal beauty to be discerned in


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124. It ought not therefore to surprise us that the Eternal Word, after endeavouring for thousands of years to lead creation up from the worship of Power to the worship of Goodness, should at last take upon Himself the form of a creature, conspicuously powerless from the world's point of view, ignorant of science, and destitute of outward beauty, but of a goodness so divinely beautiful and so true to the underlying Laws of spiritual Nature, that when He held out His arms and called upon wandering mankind to come to Him, the enlightened conscience of humanity sought refuge in His embrace.


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 fish itself; this acts as an ovipositor by means of which the comparatively few and large eggs (3 millimetres in diameter) are introduced through the gaping valves between the branchiae of pond mussels (Unio and Anodonta), where, after being inseminated, they undergo their development, the fry leaving their host about a month later. The mollusc reciprocates by throwing off its embryos on the parent fish, in the skin of which they remain encysted for some time, the period of reproduction of the fish and the mussel coinciding.

 BITTERN, a genus of wading birds, belonging to the family Ardeidae, comprising several species closely allied to the herons, from which they differ chiefly in their shorter neck, the back of which is covered with down, and the front with long feathers, which can be raised at pleasure. They are solitary birds, frequenting countries possessing extensive swamps and marshy grounds, remaining at rest by day, concealed among the reeds and bushes of their haunts, and seeking their food, which consists of fish, reptiles, insects and small quadrupeds, in the twilight. The common bittern (Botaurus stellaris) is nearly as large as the heron, and is widely distributed over the eastern hemisphere. Formerly it was common in Britain, but extensive drainage and persecution have greatly diminished its numbers and it is now only an uncertain visitor. Not a winter passes without its appearing in some numbers, when its uncommon aspect, its large size, and beautifully pencilled plumage cause it to be regarded as a great prize by the lucky gun-bearer to whom it falls a victim. Its value as a delicacy for the table, once so highly esteemed, has long vanished. The old fable of this bird inserting its beak into a reed or plunging it into the ground, and so causing the booming sound with which its name will always be associated, is also exploded, and nowadays indeed so few people in Britain have ever heard its loud and awful voice, which seems to be uttered only in the breeding-season, and is therefore unknown in a country where it no longer breeds, that incredulity as to its booming at all has in some quarters succeeded the old belief in this as in other reputed peculiarities of the species. The bittern in the days of falconry was strictly preserved, and afforded excellent sport. It sits crouching on the ground during the day, with its bill pointing in the air, a position from which it is not easily roused, and even when it takes wing, its flight is neither swift nor long sustained. When wounded it requires to be approached with caution, as it will then attack either man or dog with its long sharp bill and its acute claws. It builds a rude nest among the reeds and flags, out of materials which surround it, and the female lays four or five eggs of a brownish olive. During the breeding season it utters a booming noise, from which it probably derives its generic name, Botaurus, and which has made it in many places an object of superstitious dread. Its plumage for the most part is of a pale buff colour, rayed and speckled with black and reddish brown. The American bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) is somewhat smaller than the European species, and is found throughout the central and southern portions of North America. It also occurs in Britain as an occasional straggler. It is distinguishable by its uniform greyish-brown primaries, which want the tawny bars that characterize B. stellaris. Both species are good eating.

Bittern.

 BITTERN (from “bitter”), the mother liquor obtained from sea-water or brines after the separation of the sodium chloride (common salt) by crystallization. It contains various magnesium salts (sulphate, chloride, bromide and iodide) and is employed commercially for the manufacture of Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) and bromine. The same term is applied to a mixture of quassia, iron sulphate, cocculus indicus, liquorice, &c., used in adulterating beer.

 BITTERS, the name given to aromatized (generally alcoholic) beverages containing a bitter substance or substances, used as tonics, appetizers or digestives. The bitterness is imparted by such substances as bitter orange rind, gentian, rhubarb, quassia, cascarilla, angostura, quinine and cinchona. Juniper, cinnamon, carraway, camomile, cloves and other flavouring agents are also employed in conjunction with the bitter principles, alcohol and sugar. Some bitters are prepared by simple maceration and subsequent filtration (see ), others by the more complicated distillation process. Those prepared by the latter process are the finer commercial articles. Bitters are usually sold under the name of the substance which has been used to give them the predominant flavour, such as orange, angostura or peach bitters, &c. The alcoholic strength of bitters varies, but is generally in the neighbourhood of 40% of alcohol. Some bitters, although possessing tonic properties, may be regarded as beverages pure and simple, notwithstanding the fact that they are seldom consumed in an undiluted state; others again, are obviously medicinal preparations and should be treated as such.

 BITUMEN, the name applied by the Romans to the various descriptions of natural hydrocarbons, the word petroleum not being used in classical Latin. In its widest sense it embraces the whole range of these substances, including natural gas, the more or less liquid descriptions of petroleum, and the solid forms of asphalt, albertite, gilsonite or uintahite, elaterite, ozokerite and hatchettite. To distinguish bitumen intermediate in consistency between asphalt and the more liquid kinds of crude petroleum, the term maltha (Latin) is frequently employed. The bitumens of chief commercial importance may be grouped under the three headings of (1) natural gas, (2) petroleum, and (3) asphalt, and will be found fully described under these titles. In the scriptures there are numerous references to bitumen, among which the following may be quoted:—In Genesis ix. 3, we are told that in the building of the tower of Babel “slime had they for mortar,” and in Genesis xiv. 10, that the vale of Siddim “was full of slime-pits,” the word slime in the latter quotation from our version appearing as bitumen in the Vulgate. Herodotus alludes to the use of the bitumen brought down by the Is, a tributary of the Euphrates, as mortar in building the walls of Babylon. Diodorus, Curtius, Josephus, Bochart and others make similar mention of this use of bitumen, and Vitruvius tells us that it was employed in admixture with clay.

In its various forms, bitumen is one of the most widely distributed of substances. It occurs, though sometimes only in small quantity, in almost every part of the globe, and throughout the whole range of geological strata, from the Laurentian rocks to the most recent members of the Quaternary period. Although the gaseous and liquid forms of bitumen may be regarded as having been formed in the strata in which they are found or as having been received into such strata shortly after formation, the semi-solid and solid varieties may be considered to have been produced by the oxidation and evaporation of

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text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bitter, Karl Theodore Francis


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text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bitterfeld

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bitterfeld


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Author:Joseph Massie

Works
And Shewed to be a Deep Concerted Project to Traduce the Wisdom of the Legislature; Disquiet the Minds of the People; and Ruin the Trade of Great Britain (1757) If it Should Continue So Long (1757)
 * Reasons Humbly Offered Against Laying Any Farther Tax Upon Malt and Beer (1740)
 * An Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest: Wherein the Sentiments of Sir William Petty and Mr. Locke, on that Head, are Considered (1750)
 * Observations Upon Mr Fauquier's Essay on Ways and Means for Raising Money to Support the Present War Without Increasing the Public Debts. To which is Added, an Account of Several National Advantages Derived from the Nobility and Gentry Living in London a Greater Part of the Year Than Their Ancestors Used to Do (1756)
 * Calculations of Taxes for a Family of Each Rank, Degree Or Class: for One Year (1756)
 * A Letter to Bourchier Cleeve, Esq; Concerning His Calculations of Taxes. From the Author of the Calculations of the Present Taxes Paid by a Family of Each Rank, Degree Or Class (1757)
 * The Proposal, Commonly [!] Called Sir Matthew Decker's Scheme, for One General Tax Upon Houses, Laid Open
 * Ways and Means for Raising the Extraordinary Supplies to Carry on the War for Seven Years
 * A Plan for the Establishment of Charity-houses for Exposed Or Deserted Women and Girls, and for Penitent Prostitutes (1758)
 * Observations Concerning the Tax Upon Houses and Windows ; Wherein the Ill Consequences of Increasing that Tax are Considered, and a Way of Raising Two Millions of Pounds, by Other Means, is Briefly Pointed Out [submitted to the Consideration of the Honourable House of Commons (1758)
 * A Proposal for Making a Saving to the Public of Many Thousand Pounds a Year in the Charge of Maintaining His Majesty's Marine Forces (1758)
 * Farther Observations Concerning the Foundling-Hospital (1759)
 * A State of the British Sugar-Colony Trade, Etc (1759)
 * Calculations and Observations Relating to an Additional Duty Upon Sugar (1759)
 * A Supplement to the Reasons Already Offered (1760)
 * A Representation Concerning the Knowledge of Commerce as a National Concern; Pointing Out the Proper Means of Promoting Such Knowledge in this Kingdom (1760)
 * Reasons Humbly Offered Against Laying Any Farther Tax Upon Malt Or Beer (1760)
 * General Propositions Relating to Colonies (1761)
 * To the Printer of the Gazetteer (1761)
 * A Supplement to J. Massie's Brief Observations Concerning the Management of the War, &c (1761)
 * Magna Charta --- Or --- Magna Farta (1761)
 * The Rotten and Tottering State of the Popular Part of the British Constitution Demonstrated (1761)
 * An Historical Account of the Naval Power of France (1762)
 * Observations Relating to British and Spanish Proceedings, &c Wherein Due Notice is Taken of a Memorable Dialogue Between Harry and Will. on the Expediency of a Continental War (1762)
 * Observations on the New Cyder Tax, &c (1764)
 * Brief Observations and Calculations on the Present High Prices of Provisions (1765)
 * To Messieurs Fog and Mist (1766)
 * Ways and Means of Raising the Extraordinary Supplies for the Present Year (1780)
 * To Lord North. My Lord, Etc. [With Reference to Lord North's Speech of 6 March 1780 in the House of Lords.] (1780)
 * A Free and Equal Parliament for England (1780)

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—Middlesex v. Sussex.

—The Tee-totallers' Eleven v. The Licensed Victuallers'.

—Speeches at cricket-club dinners.

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Author:Christian Daa Larson

Works

 * The Pathway of Roses (1913)

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—New Yorker. Say, can I get a square meal here?

Waiter (with dignity). This, sir, is the Oval 2s. 6d. Luncheon.

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 Pain, Francis Henning, LL.B., Trin. Hall, Camb., 1868, a member of the South-eastern circuit, a student of the Middle Temple 5 June, 1866, called to the bar 17 Nov., 1870 (4th son of late Solomon John Pain, of New Inn, London, solicitor); born,.
 * 3, (North) King's Bench Walk, Temple, E.C.

Pain, Thomas, a student of Lincoln's Inn 13 April, 1839 (then aged 18), called to the bar 2 May, 1844 (son of Thomas Pain, Esq., of Dover); born 2 Nov., 1820; married 1st, 1 Jan., 1858, Emma, dau. of William Pain Beecham, of Hawkhurst, Kent, solicitor; she died 13 Oct., 1873; he married 2ndly, 3 Nov., 1874, Mary Anna, dau. of Rev. Richard Buckby, rector of Begelly, Pembrokeshire.
 * Stratfield House, Thurlow Park Road, West Dulwich; 13, Old Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.

Pain, William Percy, LL.B. (honours) London Univ. 1879, a student of the Inner Temple 26 June, 1879 (then aged 24), 1st class studentship Hilary, 1880, called to the bar 3 May, 1882 (eldest son of Charles Pain, Esq., of Micheldever, Southants); born, 1855.
 * 11, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.

Paine, Tyrrell Thomas, B.A., Trin. Coll., Camb., 1871, from Rugby, a member of the South-eastern circuit, a student of the Inner Temple 10 April, 1872 (then aged 22), called to the bar 30 April, 1875 (eldest son of Sir Thomas Paine, of London, solicitor); born 15 Oct, 1849.
 * 4, Paper Buildings, Temple, E.C.

Pakington, Hon. Herbert Perrott Murray, M.A. Merton Coll., Oxon, B.A. 1870, from Wellington Coll., a student of the Inner Temple 29 Dec, 1871 (then aged 23), called to the bar 26 Jan., 1876 (2nd son of John Somerset, 1st Lord Hampton, G.C.B.); born 12 Feb., 1848; married 23 Aug., 1877, Evelyn, youngest dau. of Sir George Baker, Bart., and has issue (see Foster's Peerage).
 * 6, Eaton Terrace, S.W.

Paley, Algernon Herbert, B.A. Exeter Coll., Oxon, a student of the Inner Temple 3 Nov., 1865 (then aged 21), went to Lincoln's Inn 20 June, 1871, where he was called to the bar 6 June, 1872 (2nd surviving son of Thomas Paley, Esq., of London, dec.); born, 1844.
 * 9, Hogarth Road, S.W.

Paley, George Knowles, B.A. Christ's Coll., Camb., 1884, a student of Gray's Inn 30 June, 1881, called to the bar 26 Jan., 1885 (eldest son of Rev. Thomas Paley, B.D., of Bournemouth); born,.

Paliologus, Nicholas Lower, educated at Pembroke Coll., Oxon, a member of the South-eastern circuit, a student of the Inner Temple 25 Jan., 1877 (then aged 21), called to the bar 9 June, 1880 (eldest son of Nicholas Paliologus, of London, solicitor); born 1856.
 * 6, Dunchurch Road, Rugby; 3, Temple Gardens, E.C.

Palit, Tarak Nath, practised before the High Court at Calcutta, a student of the Middle Temple 20 Nov., 1867, called to the bar 10 June, 1870 (2nd son of late Kalikinkar Palit, late of Calcutta, merchant); born, 1841.
 * 3, Ormonde Terrace, Regent's Park, N.W.

Palmer, Arthur, undergrad. Trin. Coll., Camb., a student of Lincoln's Inn 15 June, 1832 (then aged 19), called to the bar 4 May, 1841 (eldest son of Arthur Palmer, Esq., of Bristol, bar.-at-law); born, 1813.

Palmer, Charles Felix, a student of the Middle Temple 15 Jan., 1881, called to the bar 26 Jan., 1884 (2nd son of Rev. Felix Palmer, of Loughton, Essex, dec.); born,.

Palit, Jitendra Nath, a student of the Middle Temple 11 Nov., 1881, Campbell Foster prizeman, common law prizeman and scholar, called to the bar 26 Jan., 1885 (eldest son of Tarak Nath Palit, of Calcutta and of the Middle Temple, bar.-at-law); born,.
 * 3, Ormonde Terrace, Primrose Hill, N.W.

Palmer, Charles James, F.S.A., J.P., D.L. Bucks, J.P. Berks, late capt. Bucks militia, a student of the Inner Temple 1 May, 1860 (then aged 31), called to the bar 17 Nov., 1863 (only son of Rev. Henry Palmer, of Dorney Court, Bucks); born, 1829; married , 1862, Katherine Millicent, dau. of Peter Hood, M.D., of Windmill Hills, Durham (see Foster's Baronetage, ).
 * Dorney Court, Windsor; Junior United Service Club.

Palmer, Francis, B.A. Christ Church, Oxon, a student of the Inner Temple 17 Nov., 1832 (then aged 22), called to the bar 5 May, 1853 (3rd son of George Palmer, of Nazing Park, Essex); born 17 Feb., 1810 (see Foster's Peerage, ).
 * 8, Old Burlington Street, W.

Palmer, Francis Beaufort, undergrad. Univ. Coll., Oxon, author of Shareholders' Companion, of Company Precedents, of Private Companies, etc., a student of the Inner Temple 29 Jan., 1866 (then aged 20), called to the bar 27 Jan., 1873 (son of 'William Palmer); born 7 July, 1845.
 * 5, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C.; Athenæum Club, S.W.

Palmer, Sir Geoffrey, Bart., B.A., Christ Church, Oxon, 1830, from Eton, late capt. Leicestershire yeomanry cavalry, J.P. cos. Leicester and Northampton, sheriff 1871, a student of the Inner Temple 6 Aug., 1831 (then aged 22), called to the bar 8 June, 1838 (eldest son of Sir John Henry Palmer, Bart, of Carlton Park, Northants); born 9 June, 1809.
 * Carlton Curliew Hall, near Leicester; Carlton Park, Rockingham, Leicester; Travellers', United University Oxford & Cambridge Clubs.

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—The play of the features.

—Strike only at the ball!

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Twenty Years After/Chapter 58

Whilst Mordaunt was making his way to Cromwell's tent, D'Artagnan and Porthos had brought their prisoners to the house which had been assigned to them as their dwelling at Newcastle.

The order given by Mordaunt to the sergeant had been heard by D'Artagnan, who accordingly, by an expressive glance, warned Athos and Aramis to exercise extreme caution. The prisoners, therefore, had remained silent as they marched along in company with their conquerors - which they could do with the less difficulty since each of them had occupation enough in answering his own thoughts.

It would be impossible to describe Musqueton's astonishment when from the threshold of the door he saw the four friends approaching, followed by a sergeant with a dozen men. He rubbed his eyes, doubting if he really saw before him Athos and Aramis; and forced at last to yield to evidence, he was on the point of breaking forth in exclamations when he encountered a glance from the eyes of Porthos, the repressive force of which he was not inclined to dispute.

Musqueton remained glued to the door, awaiting the explanation of this strange occurrence. What upset him completely was that the four friends seemed to have no acquaintance with one another.

The house to which D'Artagnan and Porthos conducted Athos and Aramis was the one assigned to them by General Cromwell and of which they had taken possession on the previous evening. It was at the corner of two streets and had in the rear, bordering on the side street, stables and a sort of garden. The windows on the ground floor, according to a custom in provincial villages, were barred, so that they strongly resembled the windows of a prison.

The two friends made the prisoners enter the house first, whilst they stood at the door, desiring Musqueton to take the four horses to the stable.

"Why don't we go in with them?" asked Porthos.

"We must first see what the sergeant wishes us to do," replied D'Artagnan.

The sergeant and his men took possession of the little garden.

D'Artagnan asked them what they wished and why they had taken that position.

"We have had orders," answered the man, "to help you in taking care of your prisoners."

There could be no fault to find with this arrangement; on the contrary, it seemed to be a delicate attention, to be gratefully received; D'Artagnan, therefore, thanked the man and gave him a crown piece to drink to General Cromwell's health.

The sergeant answered that Puritans never drank, and put the crown piece in his pocket.

"Ah!" said Porthos, "what a fearful day, my dear D'Artagnan!"

"What! a fearful day, when to-day we find our friends?"

"Yes; but under what circumstances?"

"'Tis true that our position is an awkward one; but let us go in and see more clearly what is to be done."

"Things look black enough," replied Porthos; "I understand now why Aramis advised me to strangle that horrible Mordaunt."

"Silence!" cried the Gascon; "do not utter that name."

"But," argued Porthos, "I speak French and they are all English."

D'Artagnan looked at Porthos with that air of wonder which a cunning man cannot help feeling at displays of crass stupidity.

But as Porthos on his side could not comprehend his astonishment, he merely pushed him indoors, saying, "Let us go in."

They found Athos in profound despondency; Aramis looked first at Porthos and then at D'Artagnan, without speaking, but the latter understood his meaning look.

"You want to know how we came here? 'Tis easily guessed. Mazarin sent us with a letter to General Cromwell."

"But how came you to fall into company with Mordaunt, whom I bade you distrust?" asked Athos.

"And whom I advised you to strangle, Porthos," said Aramis.

"Mazarin again. Cromwell had sent him to Mazarin. Mazarin sent us to Cromwell. There is a certain fatality in it."

"Yes, you are right, D'Artagnan, a fatality that will separate and ruin us! So, my dear Aramis, say no more about it and let us prepare to submit to destiny."

"Zounds! on the contrary, let us speak about it; for it was agreed among us, once for all, that we should always hold together, though engaged on opposing sides."

"Yes," added Athos, "I now ask you, D'Artagnan, what side you are on? Ah! behold for what end the wretched Mazarin has made use of you. Do you know in what crime you are to-day engaged? In the capture of a king, his degradation and his murder."

"Oh! oh!" cried Porthos, "do you think so?"

"You are exaggerating, Athos; we are not so far gone as that," replied the lieutenant.

"Good heavens! we are on the very eve of it. I say, why is the king taken prisoner? Those who wish to respect him as a master would not buy him as a slave. Do you think it is to replace him on the throne that Cromwell has paid for him two hundred thousand pounds sterling? They will kill him, you may be sure of it."

"I don't maintain the contrary," said D'Artagnan. "But what's that to us? I am here because I am a soldier and have to obey orders - I have taken an oath to obey, and I do obey; but you who have taken no such oath, why are you here and what cause do you represent?"

"That most sacred in the world," said Athos; "the cause of misfortune, of religion, royalty. A friend, a wife, a daughter, have done us the honor to call us to their aid. We have served them to the best of our poor means, and God will recompense the will, forgive the want of power. You may see matters differently, D'Artagnan, and think otherwise. I will not attempt to argue with you, but I blame you."

"Heyday!" cried D'Artagnan, "what matters it to me, after all, if Cromwell, who's an Englishman, revolts against his king, who is a Scotchman? I am myself a Frenchman. I have nothing to do with these things - why hold me responsible?"

"Yes," said Porthos.

"Because all gentlemen are brothers, because you are a gentleman, because the kings of all countries are the first among gentlemen, because the blind populace, ungrateful and brutal, always takes pleasure in pulling down what is above them. And you, you, D'Artagnan, a man sprung from the ancient nobility of France, bearing an honorable name, carrying a good sword, have helped to give up a king to beersellers, shopkeepers, and wagoners. Ah! D'Artagnan! perhaps you have done your duty as a soldier, but as a gentleman, I say that you are very culpable."

D'Artagnan was chewing the stalk of a flower, unable to reply and thoroughly uncomfortable; for when turned from the eyes of Athos he encountered those of Aramis.

"And you, Porthos," continued the count, as if in consideration for D'Artagnan's embarrassment, "you, the best heart, the best friend, the best soldier that I know - you, with a soul that makes you worthy of a birth on the steps of a throne, and who, sooner or later, must receive your reward from an intelligent king - you, my dear Porthos, you, a gentleman in manners, in tastes and in courage, you are as culpable as D'Artagnan."

Porthos blushed, but with pleasure rather than with confusion; and yet, bowing his head, as if humiliated, he said:

"Yes, yes, my dear count, I feel that you are right."

Athos arose.

"Come," he said, stretching out his hand to D'Artagnan, "come, don't be sullen, my dear son, for I have said all this to you, if not in the tone, at least with the feelings of a father. It would have been easier to me merely to have thanked you for preserving my life and not to have uttered a word of all this."

"Doubtless, doubtless, Athos. But here it is: you have sentiments, the devil knows what, such as every one can't entertain. Who could suppose that a sensible man could leave his house, France, his ward - a charming youth, for we saw him in the camp - to fly to the aid of a rotten, worm-eaten royalty, which is going to crumble one of these days like an old hovel. The sentiments you air are certainly fine, so fine that they are superhuman."

"However that may be, D'Artagnan," replied Athos, without falling into the snare which his Gascon friend had prepared for him by an appeal to his parental love, "however that may be, you know in the bottom of your heart that it is true; but I am wrong to dispute with my master. D'Artagnan, I am your prisoner - treat me as such."

"Ah! pardieu!" said D'Artagnan, "you know you will not be my prisoner very long."

"No," said Aramis, "they will doubtless treat us like the prisoners of the Philipghauts."

"And how were they treated?" asked D'Artagnan.

"Why," said Aramis, "one-half were hanged and the other half were shot."

"Well, I," said D'Artagnan "I answer that while there remains a drop of blood in my veins you will be neither hanged nor shot. Sang Diou! let them come on! Besides - do you see that door, Athos?"

"Yes; what then?"

"Well, you can go out by that door whenever you please; for from this moment you are free as the air."

"I recognize you there, my brave D'Artagnan," replied Athos; "but you are no longer our masters. That door is guarded, D'Artagnan; you know that."

"Very well, you will force it," said Porthos. "There are only a dozen men at the most."

"That would be nothing for us four; it is too much for us two. No, divided as we now are, we must perish. See the fatal example: on the Vendomois road, D'Artagnan, you so brave, and you, Porthos, so valiant and so strong - you were beaten; to-day Aramis and I are beaten in our turn. Now that never happened to us when we were four together. Let us die, then, as De Winter has died; as for me, I will fly only on condition that we all fly together."

"Impossible," said D'Artagnan; "we are under Mazarin's orders."

"I know it and I have nothing more to say; my arguments lead to nothing; doubtless they are bad, since they have not determined minds so just as yours."

"Besides," said Aramis, "had they taken effect it would be still better not to compromise two excellent friends like D'Artagnan and Porthos. Be assured, gentlemen, we shall do you honor in our dying. As for myself, I shall be proud to face the bullets, or even the rope, in company with you, Athos; for you have never seemed to me so grand as you are to-day."

D'Artagnan said nothing, but, after having gnawed the flower stalk, he began to bite his nails. At last:

"Do you imagine," he resumed, "that they mean to kill you? And wherefore should they do so? What interest have they in your death? Moreover, you are our prisoners."

"Fool!" cried Aramis; "knowest thou not, then, Mordaunt? I have but exchanged with him one look, yet that look convinced me that we were doomed."

"The truth is, I'm very sorry that I did not strangle him as you advised me," said Porthos.

"Eh! I make no account of the harm Mordaunt can do!" cried D'Artagnan. "Cap de Diou! if he troubles me too much I will crush him, the insect! Do not fly, then. It is useless; for I swear to you that you are as safe here as you were twenty years, ago - you, Athos, in the Rue Ferou, and you, Aramis, in the Rue de Vaugirard."

"Stop," cried Athos, extending his hand to one of the grated windows by which the room was lighted; "you will soon know what to expect, for here he is."

"Who?"

"Mordaunt."

In fact, looking at the place to which Athos pointed, D'Artagnan saw a cavalier coming toward the house at full gallop.

It was Mordaunt.

D'Artagnan rushed out of the room.

Porthos wanted to follow him.

"Stay," said D'Artagnan, "and do not come till you hear me drum my fingers on the door."

When Mordaunt arrived opposite the house he saw D'Artagnan on the threshold and the soldiers lying on the grass here and there, with their arms.

"Halloo!" he cried, "are the prisoners still there?"

"Yes, sir," answered the sergeant, uncovering.

"'Tis well; order four men to conduct them to my lodging."

Four men prepared to do so.

"What is it?" said D'Artagnan, with that jeering manner which our readers have so often observed in him since they made his acquaintance. "What is the matter, if you please?"

"Sir," replied Mordaunt, "I have ordered the two prisoners we made this morning to be conducted to my lodging."

"Wherefore, sir? Excuse curiosity, but I wish to be enlightened on the subject."

"Because these prisoners, sir, are at my disposal and I choose to dispose of them as I like."

"Allow me - allow me, sir," said D'Artagnan, "to observe you are in error. The prisoners belong to those who take them and not to those who only saw them taken. You might have taken Lord Winter - who, 'tis said, was your uncle - prisoner, but you preferred killing him; 'tis well; we, that is, Monsieur du Vallon and I, could have killed our prisoners - we preferred taking them."

Mordaunt's very lips grew white with rage.

D'Artagnan now saw that affairs were growing worse and he beat the guard's march upon the door. At the first beat Porthos rushed out and stood on the other side of the door.

This movement was observed by Mordaunt.

"Sir!" he thus addressed D'Artagnan, "your resistance is useless; these prisoners have just been given me by my illustrious patron, Oliver Cromwell."

These words struck D'Artagnan like a thunderbolt. The blood mounted to his temples, his eyes became dim; he saw from what fountainhead the ferocious hopes of the young man arose, and he put his hand to the hilt of his sword.

As for Porthos, he looked inquiringly at D'Artagnan.

This look of Porthos's made the Gascon regret that he had summoned the brute force of his friend to aid him in an affair which seemed to require chiefly cunning.

"Violence," he said to himself, "would spoil all; D'Artagnan, my friend, prove to this young serpent that thou art not only stronger, but more subtle than he is."

"Ah!" he said, making a low bow, "why did you not begin by saying that, Monsieur Mordaunt? What! are you sent by General Oliver Cromwell, the most illustrious captain of the age?"

"I have this instant left him," replied Mordaunt, alighting, in order to give his horse to a soldier to hold.

"Why did you not say so at once, my dear sir! all England is with Cromwell; and since you ask for my prisoners, I bend, sir, to your wishes. They are yours; take them."

Mordaunt, delighted, advanced, Porthos looking at D'Artagnan with open-mouthed astonishment. Then D'Artagnan trod on his foot and Porthos began to understand that this was merely acting.

Mordaunt put his foot on the first step of the door and, with his hat in hand, prepared to pass by the two friends, motioning to the four men to follow him.

"But, pardon," said D'Artagnan, with the most charming smile and putting his hand on the young man's shoulder, "if the illustrious General Oliver Cromwell has disposed of our prisoners in your favour, he has, of course, made that act of donation in writing."

Mordaunt stopped short.

"He has given you some little writing for me - the least bit of paper which may show that you come in his name. Be pleased to give me that scrap of paper so that I may justify, by a pretext at least, my abandoning my countrymen. Otherwise, you see, although I am sure that General Oliver Cromwell can intend them no harm, it would have a bad appearance."

Mordaunt recoiled; he felt the blow and discharged a terrible look at D'Artagnan, who responded by the most amiable expression that ever graced a human countenance.

"When I tell you a thing, sir," said Mordaunt, "you insult me by doubting it."

"I!" cried D'Artagnan, "I doubt what you say!" God keep me from it, my dear Monsieur Mordaunt! On the contrary, I take you to be a worthy and accomplished gentleman. And then, sir, do you wish me to speak freely to you?" continued D'Artagnan, with his frank expression.

"Speak out, sir," said Mordaunt.

"Monsieur du Vallon, yonder, is rich and has forty thousand francs yearly, so he does not care about money. I do not speak for him, but for myself."

"Well, sir? What more?"

"Well - I - I'm not rich. In Gascony 'tis no dishonor, sir, nobody is rich; and Henry IV., of glorious memory, who was the king of the Gascons, as His Majesty Philip IV. is the king of the Spaniards, never had a penny in his pocket."

"Go on, sir, I see what you wish to get at; and if it is simply what I think that stops you, I can obviate the difficulty."

"Ah, I knew well," said the Gascon, "that you were a man of talent. Well, here's the case, here's where the saddle hurts me, as we French say. I am an officer of fortune, nothing else; I have nothing but what my sword brings me in - that is to say, more blows than banknotes. Now, on taking prisoners, this morning, two Frenchmen, who seemed to me of high birth - in short, two knights of the Garter - I said to myself, my fortune is made. I say two, because in such circumstances, Monsieur du Vallon, who is rich, always gives me his prisoners."

Mordaunt, completely deceived by the wordy civility of D'Artagnan, smiled like a man who understands perfectly the reasons given him, and said:

"I shall have the order signed directly, sir, and with it two thousand pistoles; meanwhile, let me take these men away."

"No," replied D'Artagnan; "what signifies a delay of half an hour? I am a man of order, sir; let us do things in order."

"Nevertheless," replied Mordaunt, "I could compel you; I command here."

"Ah, sir!" said D'Artagnan, "I see that although we have had the honor of traveling in your company you do not know us. We are gentlemen; we are, both of us, able to kill you and your eight men - we two only. For Heaven's sake don't be obstinate, for when others are obstinate I am obstinate likewise, and then I become ferocious and headstrong, and there's my friend, who is even more headstrong and ferocious than myself. Besides, we are sent here by Cardinal Mazarin, and at this moment represent both the king and the cardinal, and are, therefore, as ambassadors, able to act with impunity, a thing that General Oliver Cromwell, who is assuredly as great a politician as he is a general, is quite the man to understand. Ask him then, for the written order. What will that cost you my dear Monsieur Mordaunt?"

"Yes, the written order," said Porthos, who now began to comprehend what D'Artagnan was aiming at, "we ask only for that."

However inclined Mordaunt was to have recourse to violence, he understood the reasons D'Artagnan had given him; besides, completely ignorant of the friendship which existed between the four Frenchmen, all his uneasiness disappeared when he heard of the plausible motive of the ransom. He decided, therefore, not only to fetch the order, but the two thousand pistoles, at which he estimated the prisoners. He therefore mounted his horse and disappeared.

"Good!" thought D'Artagnan; "a quarter of an hour to go to the tent, a quarter of an hour to return; it is more than we need." Then turning, without the least change of countenance, to Porthos, he said, looking him full in the face: "Friend Porthos, listen to this; first, not a syllable to either of our friends of what you have heard; it is unnecessary for them to know the service we are going to render them."

"Very well; I understand."

"Go to the stable; you will find Musqueton there; saddle your horses, put your pistols in your saddle-bags, take out the horses and lead them to the street below this, so that there will be nothing to do but mount them; all the rest is my business."

Porthos made no remark, but obeyed, with the sublime confidence he had in his friend.

"I go," he said, "only, shall I enter the chamber where those gentlemen are?"

"No, it is not worth while."

"Well, do me the kindness to take my purse. which I left on the mantelpiece."

"All right."

He then proceeded, with his usual calm gait, to the stable and went into the very midst of the soldiery, who, foreigner as he was, could not help admiring his height and the enormous strength of his great limbs.

At the corner of the street he met Musqueton and took him with him.

D'Artagnan, meantime, went into the house, whistling a tune which he had begun before Porthos went away.

"My dear Athos, I have reflected on your arguments and I am convinced. I am sorry to have had anything to do with this matter. As you say, Mazarin is a knave. I have resolved to fly with you, not a word - be ready. Your swords are in the corner; do not forget them, they are in many circumstances very useful; there is Porthos's purse, too."

He put it into his pocket. The two friends were perfectly stupefied.

"Well, pray, is there anything to be so surprised at?" he said. "I was blind; Athos has made me see, that's all; come here."

The two friends went near him.

"Do you see that street? There are the horses. Go out by the door, turn to the right, jump into your saddles, all will be right; don't be uneasy at anything except mistaking the signal. That will be the signal when I call out - Jesus Seigneur!"

"But give us your word that you will come too, D'Artagnan," said Athos.

"I swear I will, by Heaven."

"'Tis settled," said Aramis; "at the cry `Jesus Seigneur' we go out, upset all that stands in our way, run to our horses, jump into our saddles, spur them; is that all?"

"Exactly."

"See, Aramis, as I have told you, D'Artagnan is first amongst us all," said Athos.

"Very true," replied the Gascon, "but I always run away from compliments. Don't forget the signal: `Jesus Seigneur!'" and he went out as he came in, whistling the self-same air.

The soldiers were playing or sleeping; two of them were singing in a corner, out of tune, the psalm: "On the rivers of Babylon."

D'Artagnan called the sergeant. "My dear friend, General Cromwell has sent Monsieur Mordaunt to fetch me. Guard the prisoners well, I beg of you."

The sergeant made a sign, as much as to say he did not understand French, and D'Artagnan tried to make him comprehend by signs and gestures. Then he went into the stable; he found the five horses saddled, his own amongst the rest.

"Each of you take a horse by the bridle," he said to Porthos and Musqueton; "turn to the left, so that Athos and Aramis may see you clearly from the window."

"They are coming, then?" said Porthos.

"In a moment."

"You didn't forget my purse?"

"No; be easy."

"Good."

Porthos and Musqueton each took a horse by the bridle and proceeded to their post.

Then D'Artagnan, being alone, struck a light and lighted a small bit of tinder, mounted his horse and stopped at the door in the midst of the soldiers. There, caressing as he pretended, the animal with his hand, he put this bit of burning tinder in his ear. It was necessary to be as good a horseman as he was to risk such a scheme, for no sooner had the animal felt the burning tinder than he uttered a cry of pain and reared and jumped as if he had been mad.

The soldiers, whom he was nearly trampling, ran away.

"Help! help!" cried D'Artagnan; "stop - my horse has the staggers."

In an instant the horse's eyes grew bloodshot and he was white with foam.

"Help!" cried D'Artagnan. "What! will you let me be killed? Jesus Seigneur!"

No sooner had he uttered this cry than the door opened and Athos and Aramis rushed out. The coast, owing to the Gascon's stratagem, was clear.

"The prisoners are escaping! the prisoners are escaping!" cried the sergeant.

"Stop! stop!" cried D'Artagnan, giving rein to his famous steed, who, darting forth, overturned several men.

"Stop! stop!" cried the soldiers, and ran for their arms.

But the prisoners were in their saddles and lost no time hastening to the nearest gate.

In the middle of the street they saw Grimaud and Blaisois, who were coming to find their masters. With one wave of his hand Athos made Grimaud, who followed the little troop, understand everything, and they passed on like a whirlwind, D'Artagnan still directing them from behind with his voice.

They passed through the gate like apparitions, without the guards thinking of detaining them, and reached the open country.

All this time the soldiers were calling out, "Stop! stop!" and the sergeant, who began to see that he was the victim of an artifice, was almost in a frenzy of despair. Whilst all this was going on, a cavalier in full gallop was seen approaching. It was Mordaunt with the order in his hand.

"The prisoners!" he exclaimed, jumping off his horse.

The sergeant had not the courage to reply; he showed him the open door, the empty room. Mordaunt darted to the steps, understood all, uttered a cry, as if his very heart was pierced, and fell fainting on the stone steps.

title: Twenty Years After/Chapter 58