hunger and fatigue began to make walking unpleasant, they accosted a farmer.
"How far is it," they asked, "to Interlaken?"
"Two miles," was the reply.
They walked hopefully on. A half hour passed. Interlaken was not yet in sight. So, seeing another farmer in a field, they shouted to him:
"Are we near Interlaken?"
"Keep straight forward," the farmer shouted back; "it's just two miles."
The tired, hungry tourists trudged on again. Another half-hour passed, and still no sign of Interlaken.
"Is Interlaken very far from here?" they asked a third farmer.
"No, gentlemen," said the farmer, "it is only two miles."
Then the tourists looked at one another, and the younger sighed and exclaimed:
"Well, thank goodness, we're holding our own, anyhow."—Cleveland Leade..
(1413)
Holystoning—See Drudgery.
HOMAGE
When Rollo, the Dane, made his treaty
with Charles the Simple, of France, by which
he became a Christian and won Giselle, a
daughter of Charles, for his wife, one of the
ceremonies to be performed was to do
homage. This was to kneel, clasp hands
with the king, and kiss his foot, which was
covered with an elegantly-fashioned slipper
on such occasions—all in token of submission.
But the proud Rollo did all save
kissing the foot. No remonstrance, urgency
or persuasion could induce him to consent
to it.
On the slipper which the pope of Rome for hundreds of years has worn on certain state occasions, and which the kneeling suppliant kisses, is embroidered a cross, the sacred symbol of the divine Redeemer's sufferings and death. (Text.)
But true homage is not ceremony, it
is the attitude of the soul toward one
who is greater.
(1414)
HOMAGE TO CHRIST
The following story is told of England's Queen:
When Queen Victoria was but a girl they
went to instruct her in matters of court
etiquette. "You are to go to hear 'the
Messiah' to-morrow night, and when they
sing through the oratorio and come to the
hallelujah chorus, we will all rise, but you
are the Queen; sit still." So when they
came to the hallelujah chorus the Englishmen
sprang to their feet and cheered, while
the Queen sat; but when they came to the
place where they sang, "And King of kings
and Lord of lords," she rose and bowed her
head. That was at the beginning of her
reign.
But when she came almost to the end of her reign, and Canon Farrar was preaching on the second coming of Christ, she sent for him to enter the Queen's box, and when he came in, Her Majesty said:
"Dr. Farrar, I wish that the Savior might come while I am still upon the throne, because," she said, "I should like to take the crown of England and lay it at His feet." (Text.)
(1415)
HOME
Lamar Fontaine describes graphically the effect upon contending armies of the strains of "Home, Sweet Home":
Just before "taps" every band, on both
sides, sent the strains of that immortal song,
"Home, Sweet Home," in soul-stirring notes
out on the wings of the night, quivering and
reverberating, with endless echoes from
hill, dale, and valley—and answered by a
thousand brass instruments, bass and kettledrums,
and more than a hundred thousand
living throats. It was a time and scene
never to be forgotten, for in that hour Yank
and Reb were kin, and the horrors of war,
the groans of the dead and dying upon the
bleak, wind-swept field of death at our very
feet were forgotten, and the whole armies of
the gray and blue were wafted back to the
quiet fireside of mother and father, wife and
babes, far, far from the bloody, corpse-strewn
plain beneath us.—"My Life and My
Lectures."
(1416)
How few people go into raptures over home. Helen T. Churchill did at least in this poem:
One spot alone on earth
Is fair to me—
There centers all the mirth,
There I would be.
There, only there, God's sunlight pierces through
And all the heaven paints with stainless blue.
