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charge of the hens strutted with pride the Indian Game cock; ever watchful of the approach of danger, with massive breadth of chest, a cruelly efficient bill, and spurs as sharp as a needle-point. The puppy with playful longing had often watched them through the picket fence and barked for the joy of seeing them scatter with discordant cackling and utter confusion. And then had come the day when, to his delight, he had discovered an opening under one of the bottom boards of the chickenrun and through it he squeezed. As the hens fluttered out of his way with squawks of alarm, the puppy sprang at the one nearest, to grab only a mouthful of feathers and to be ferociously attacked the next minute by the Indian Game cock, who came valiantly to the rescue. In the act of jumping over the puppy the cock struck him with one of his spurs and sent him reeling. As he struggled to his feet he was again laid low, and as often as he attempted to rise he met a similar fate, until, in panic and acute distress, besmeared with blood and dirt, he found at last his exit, and sought the comfort of the cold earth under the hydrangea bushes, to repent at leisure for his misdeeds and lick his wounds, a sadder but wiser dog. He had learned two things of value to the hunting dog: first, to leave chickens alone; and, second, not to chase a feathered creature fluttering however temptingly ahead of him.

It seemed that the gardener had been an amused spectator of the tragic comedy and reported it to Mac's master upon his return from the city that night, who smiled with keen appreciation at the lesson the puppy had so effectively though painfully learned.

But his evil genius was not yet content, for upon the following day, through the carelessness of the housekeeper, he absent-mindedly wandered into the pantry, where the smell of cookies proved irresistible. Cautiously raising himself up on his hind legs, he brought his fore paws down on what he supposed to be the edge of the lower shelf of the pantry, only to turn loose upon his unsuspecting head the wrath of the pantry gods in the shape of the contents of a huge pan of curdled milk, which covered him from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail. Then, too, the pan set in motion some particularly sticky sheets of fly-paper, which sailed down in time to make connection with his hind feet. Tragedy begets tragedy in puppydom, and the stage was well set for the villain. Shocked by his sudden milk bath, with increasing terror beclouding his sanity, spurred on by the flapping of the fly-paper on his feet, in a mad retreat of panic he started for the kitchen door and came in violent contact with a leg of the intervening table, which promptly reared up, tottered in its mild protest, and fell on its side, taking with

it to the floor jar after jar of recently made jelly. Goaded on afresh by the new catastrophe, that inflicted all of the nerve shock of shells bursting over the trenches, he dashed wildly through the closed kitchen screen door, taking most of the screen with him. His dirt wallow under the hydrangea bushes soothed in time his injured pride and screenscratched nose, and the lesson of keep ing out of the kitchen was wisely remembered without further experiment.

HIS SECOND CAMPAIGN

The bite of the air in the morning brought to him the memories of the year previous. With puppy ways forever cast aside, broad of forehead and of chest, and intelligent of eye, he watched with growing impatience for some sign from his master that the hunting season had come.

He had been dozing by the fire one evening after a particularly generous supper that the housekeeper, due to special orders, had begrudgingly given him, when he awoke with a start to find his master gone. The door leading into his master's room was open, with a light shining brightly out into the hall as his guide, and there he found his master and the joyous news that he had so impatiently awaited. The master was overhauling his hunting clothes, cartridge vest, boots, and quail gun, and around all still clung that most wonderful of smells, the quail scent. With a low whine and with love and pleading in his eyes, he crawled to his master's feet and, trembling from head to foot, raised a paw in supplication. A pat, a low word of hunting command, the well-imitated rallying call of quail when scattered, such was his greeting from his master; and, responding with a wild, joyous bark of delirious anticipation, Mac knew that the following dawn would usher in another hunting season.

All night long he lay by his master's bedside, shaking in his excitement, incapable of sleep, but too well trained to stir until his master awoke at dawn.

The next day Mac won his commission as a hunting dog. A lazy sun discovered him and his master well on their way to the nearest buckwheat stubble, the frost outlining in silver the delicate tracery of the grass and woods. The solemn dropping of an occasional leaf as it haltingly dipped to earth from near-by trees, the flutter of small birds along the roadside hedge, the smell of the fall in the air, and the brilliant contrasts in changing foliage-all attested the ideal hunting day.

The buckwheat field soon reached, the dog was ordered on, and with superb restraint he held a steady pace as he quartered right and left in glad response to the wave of his master's hand. At the end of fifteen minutes, the field thoroughly covered and no birds found, he returned to his master for further orders. The dog was motioned to heel,

and they two, in perfect understanding, with love and respect each for the other, struck out for a cornfield near by. And so the day was spent in silent reverence for God's own out-of-doors, and with due regard for nature's need of game conservation. A bird was shot here and there and proudly retrieved by the young setter; luncheon was shared by them both beside a sparkling spring where purple asters and goldenrod proudly stood sentinel, then upon the return in the afterglow the memories of the day were treasured by dog and master.

AN UNUSUAL NOSE

Rarely has a dog possessed the nose or bird sense that Mac developed in his second season. Hunting up wind or down, he never flushed birds, stopping often so suddenly when he came unexpectedly upon a covey of quail that he would, with back hunched and all four feet braced, slide to a sudden stop.

Perhaps the incident for which he was most justly famous occurred in his third hunting season. He had found a covey of quail; his master and a friend with him had each shot a bird as they rose, and the party moved on to hunt for single birds. At the edge of a young growth of birch Mac pointed, a single quail flushed, and was shot by his master's companion, falling well inside the thicket. Mac was ordered to retrieve the dead bird, was plainly heard working into the cover, and then suddenly vanished and all was quiet. As Mac failed to return and ignored his master's whistle, the gunners started into the thicket in the direction the bird was seen to fall. One hundred yards ahead, Mac was found with the dead quail carefully held in his mouth and pointing another bird! As the hunters moved up the quail flushed and was shot by his master. Here then was a problem for Mac. Should he first retrieve the bird in his mouth, or attempt to retrieve them both at the same time? He decided in favor of the latter, and proudly returned holding each bird by a wing for fear of doing them injury by careless mouthing.

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at the log with all brakes set, and maintaining a balance with difficulty on top of the log, he pointed as best he could, seeming to realize his loss of dignity in the absurd position he was compelled to assume. The gunners came up, and in response to a noise of a branch purposely broken by one of the hunters, the quail got up. Somewhat rattled, the invited guest shot his right barrel as he was bringing his gun to his shoulder and the second barrel at a bird that had already started to fall as a result of the master's first shot.

The guest plainly showed his irritation over his obviously premature first shot, and remarked with emphasis that he was glad he had scored with his "left." His companion looked amused and dryly remarked, "Suppose we leave it to Mac as to who shot the bird," and the faithful dog proudly and promptly retrieved it to his master in no uncertain manner.

The guest was man enough to accept the dog's apparent rebuke, apologized handsomely, and later told his friends: "Mac made me feel like the tin-horn sport that I was, and taught me what a game-hog I have been."

A REMARKABLE POINT

Mac's stanchness on point was early indicated, but soon became developed to a remarkable degree. The spring following his third hunting season he discovered after breakfast one morning an English snipe in the open meadow behind the barn. Wild as the English snipe usually are, this particular bird evidently was wing-weary from a long flight the night before, and to the delight of Mac did not flush. Carefully working up to the bird, he came to point, nostrils dilated and eyes blazing in his excitement. The head gardener reported the fact that Mac was pointing

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one of them snipes, sir, on the north meadow, sir." The master, absorbed in the writing of an important article, dismissed the gardener with a word of thanks and promptly forgot Mac and the snipe. At twelve o'clock, upon coming down to his early luncheon, the master's housekeeper, with ill-concealed rebuke in her voice, said: "The gardener, sir, says as how Mac's still a-pointing, sir, in the north meadow-he's been that way since nine this mornin', he says." Conscience-smitten, the master grabbed his gun and a shell or two, and was soon striding up behind the faithful setter. At his spoken "Good dog" Mac's tail "broke point" for a moment in a joyous wag of welcome, and the dog once more became a statue of stone.

The bird, flushed by the disturbance, started upon its erratic, zigzag course, to fall forty yards away at the first shot, and was duly retrieved with dignity; but the reaction from the long strain under which Mac had suffered all morning was too much for him, and with grown-up manners cast to the four

winds, he barked and capered about his master in all the abandonment of his joy and relief. I believe it was from that moment that his master realized that Mac was destined to become a truly great dog.

MAC TAKES A TRIP

That summer his education was enlarged by a most interesting and at times dismaying trip to a farm on Long Island owned by his master's father. The arrival of the puffing engine at the station, the dog's abrupt introduction into the baggage car, and the jerk of the train as it started, struck terror to his stalwart heart. Had it not been for the presence of a blasé bulldog, who eyed him with amused scorn from the further end of the car, poor Mac would have howled. Appeasing his own outraged feelings with a low whine of self-pity, he managed meanwhile to glare insultingly back at the bulldog and grudgingly settled himself with the philosophy of a stoic for whatever fate the trip had in store. Recovering his poise by the time the ferry was reached, and fortified by a wonderful ham sandwich, he succeeded without effort in walking, stiff-legged and with back hair bristling ferociously, in front of a panic-stricken sky-terrier that a woman had hastily taken up in her arms at his approach.

The journey ended, Mac, whose fame had preceded him, was welcomed as the guest of honor, and condescendingly accepted the homage given him. To his master alone did he show plainly that he was only putting on airs and enjoy ing the situation to its uttermost.

LONELY DAYS

And then strange days befell Mac and all was not well with him. There arrived at the farm a beautiful lady, soft of voice, kind of eye, who reminded Mac in some vague way of sweet clover in blossom. And what was more worthy of observation, his master appeared pleased with her, and as the friendship ripened, spent hours at a time in her company on long walks lasting into the afterglow of the day. At such times the dog, seeking to please his master and secure his favor, searched most diligently for quail, without in any way securing the attention he so deeply craved, and his heart ached. Yet the bigness of the dog showed in his attitude to the girl his master honored. In spite of the jealousy arising from his master's strange neglect of him through devotion to the lady, he loyally extended his friendship to one who found favor in his master's eye. It was well that it was so, for dire days, full of sorrow, soon befell Mac. His master was obliged to remain in town throughout each week, leaving him on the farm to await with ill-concealed impatience his arrival each week-end. Through the lonely days to be endured during his

master's absence he was wont to go forlornly up to his master's room and there lie down upon some discarded coat his master had worn, indifferent to the possible delights each day had to offer, yearning only for the one he loved. It was there, lying on his master's coat, that the lady found him, and in time, as they grew to understand the bond between them, the dog was persuaded to leave his sanctuary and seek comfort in the presence of his master's lady. The two soon became inseparable, and waited, each with a love that few men are worthy to inspire, the return of the absent one, vying each with the other in the welcome extended to him upon his arrival.

Now it came about that the wonderful lady was greatly embarrassed upon one occasion by the dog's keen nose. Returning from town one mid-week day, she was greeted by the family assembled, who soon were seeking without success to conceal their amusement over the discovery of a profound secret that Mac so ingenuously made apparent to all. The lady had that day, as ladies will forever and a day, met, without undue publicity, the man of her heart and choosing. And what is more, horror of great horrors, had lunched with him. unbeknown to his family, and, shocking as it may seem, had even walked in Central Park with him after the luncheon.

The fullness of the skirts in the courting days of yesterday made the contact of skirts and trousers well-nigh unavoidable for those who walked and talked of things most intimate each to the other. The dog had discovered, in the presence of the master's family, the scent of his master on the hem of the wonderful lady's skirts. With a low whine of heart-hungry longing, Mac capered about her, sniffing her skirts in ecstasy, until the mother, with a teasing smile, said, "Daughter of mine to be, Mac confirms your guilty though becoming blushes. How is that son of mine?"

The years rolled on until we come to the latter days of Mac's life, in which he performed an act of love and heroism that inspires even to-day the master's children, now grown, with a memory of great reverence for the dog who taught all with whom he came in contact a mighty lesson in loyalty, devotion, and service.

A TRAGEDY WITH A HAPPY ENDING

A baby girl arrived to bless his master and mistress, and, although regarded at first by old Mac with suspicion, was soon accepted by him as a responsibility that he must assume. Plague him as she might, he patiently suffered her baby attentions with no sign of protest or annoyance. It was well-nigh a daily sight, and the fitting end of a strenuous afternoon of baby play, to find the little lady fast asleep with her head on Mac's

Photograph from F. Freeman Lloyd

stomach and the dog not daring to move lest he disturb his charge, diplomatically feigning sleep until a member of the family appeared to relieve the faithful nurse. And then came a tragic day. The little lady had disappeared, no one knew where; night was approaching, and the chill of the fall evenings made exposure at night for a youngster of three fatal beyond doubt. Mac had followed the carriage to the station to welcome his master from the city, and therefore offered no comforting thought of the possibility of his having wandered off with the child to protect it from

harm. House, barn, carriage-house, and
grounds had been frantically searched.
Mother, gardeners, and housekeeper
were wild with terror and awaited
heart-broken the return and help of the
father. Grasping the situation upon
his arrival, he instinctively called Mac
to him, who seemed to sense the terror
that was upon them all. Reminded, at
thought of him, of Mac's wonderful
nose that had never failed him in the
hunting-field, the master caught up a
little jacket belonging to his daughter.
Holding it out for the dog to see and
smell, he said, "Go find her, Mac!"
With an eager whine the dog was off to
search the familiar parts of the estate
where dog and girl had been accus-
tomed to play. Some distance from the
house, he suddenly raised his head, stood
motionless for a moment sniffing the
air, and then with nose near the ground
he unhesitatingly followed a trail that
led off back of the barn and along an
old pasture road. Stopping uncertainly
at a stone wall, the dog again picked up
the trail, which led into the dark of the
woods near by. Stumbling on as best
he could, the stricken father heard at
last the wild barking of Mac, a mile
away, deep in the tangle of the thick
woods. And there the little lady was
found, Mac licking her tear-stained
face and barking with all his might in
his joy at finding the maiden bold, who
had wandered off to catch the sunset
that the forest hid from view each night.

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Another winter passed, with Mac's advancing years foretelling the end. Rejoicing in the arrival of early summer's warmth and sunshine, he sought the comfort of his favorite spot beneath the hydrangea bushes, and there asleep he peacefully crossed the great divide into the happy hunting-grounds beyond. There too he was buried with a headstone marking the grave, and inscribed upon it were the words: "Mac, a dog with heart and soul, a mighty hunter, beloved by those whose lives he shared and held in honored memory by his master whom he served so faithfully."

SONNET

BY THEODORE MAYNARD

I must unlearn my early modes of praise;
Forego the noisy trumpet and the drum
'With which a boy made music. I have come
To learn a gentler art. I cannot raise
A fanfarade along the city's ways

As once I did. My fingers and my thumb
Tremble along the lute-strings; and the dumb
Wires wake and whisper in the evening haze.

I have discovered beauty in my pain,
And with naught else can I be satisfied.
Never, oh, never shall I know again
An easy rapture. But with muted breath
I softly cry, until my broken pride
Be mended by the tenderness of death.

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PLAYING TENNIS IN OLD DORPAT, ESTHONIA

This is a branch of American Y. M. C. A. work. The Y has four tennis courts here, near the old Dom, which was partly destroyed by fire in 1528. The Y supplies free racquets, balls, nets, and even tennis shoes (these being very scarce). The rear end of the Dom, which was not destroyed, is used as a library by the University of Dorpat. It was looted by the Russians, but negotiations are pending for the return of the books

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From Harry Beardsley Chicago

JAPANESE SANITARY EFFICIENCY To prevent dumping of refuse in the harbor and possible spread of the dread Asiatic cholera, the harbor sanitary squad at Nagasaki, Japan, provides receptacles for all refuse from ships anchored in her harbor. These receptacles are carried away twice each day in barges and their contents burned

SAVING THE WHEAT CROP

Federal Board students at the Kansas State College of Agriculture operating a machine which treats seed-wheat with formaldehyde to kill the spores of stinking smut adhering to the kernels. If the recent crop of wheat in the United States, our informant says, had been grown from seed thus treated, the farmers would now have in the neighborhood of an additional 45,000,000 bushels of wheat, valued at about $110,000,000. Last year to have treated the smutted seed-wheat in this manner would have cost about $500,000. Over 250 ex-service men students are being trained in this institution under the Federal Board for Vocational Training

THE BOOK TABLE: DEVOTED TO BOOKS AND THEIR MAKERS

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I

VIEW FROM THE CAMPUS OF THE SYRIAN PROTESTANT COLLEGE AT BEIRUT, WITH THE LEBANON MOUNTAINS IN THE BACKGROUND THE PRESIDENT'S RESIDENCE, COLLEGE HALL, AND ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AT THE RIGHT

THE STORY OF A PIONEER1

BY LYMAN ABBOTT

LAST saw him probably seven or eight years ago. He had passed his eightyfifth birthday and was about returning

to his home in Syria. He had been a missionary in that land for more than half a century and for thirty-six years President of the Syrian Protestant College. The graduates of that College gave him a farewell supper in New York at a downtown Syrian restaurant. I had the good fortune to be one of the comparatively few American invited guests. He sat in an easy chair which had been provided for his comfort. His body was aged and getting beyond possible repair. But he had all the inteltectual courage, the welcoming sympathy, the broad interest, the unfaltering courage, and the genial humor which had made him as a young man a pioneer and a chosen leader among pioneers. When it came time for him to reply to the cordial farewells which had been spoken, his son helped him to his feet, and, leaning upon his crutch, his beautiful face beautifully framed in by his long white hair, he began his speech thus:

"Boys! in this last speech that I shall ever make to you I will repeat the first speech I ever made as a schoolboy:

"You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage." He was born to be a teacher. No one is fitted to answer the questions and solve the problems of youth who has not in his own youth formed the habit of asking questions and facing problems. When he was eight or nine years old, he cut off his toe with a scythe in the hay-field. This started in his mind the question what would become of that toe in the resurrection. His father could give him no better answer than that the resurrection was a great mystery, but God was able to raise the dead. He had patience as well as curiosity, and the question remained unanswered for twenty years, when he reached his conclusion: no resurrection of the body; God shall give a new body. In narrating this incident, he adds: "Since studying Paul I have never, except in memory, seen bones flying in space in search of the old body."

In the first half of the nineteenth century

1 The Reminiscences of Daniel Bliss. Edited and Supplemented by His Eldest Son. Illustrated. The Fleming H. Revell Company, New York.

asking questions about religion was generally regarded dangerous. An old minister remonstrated with the youthful inquirer. "Dan," he said, "you are the most dangerous boy in town." "Why, what evil have I done?" "None; that is the trouble. If you were drunk half the time, your influence would not be so bad. You neither lie, swear, drink, nor quarrel, and others point at you and say, 'Dan Bliss is not a Christian, and yet what a good boy he is.'

He carried the same spirit with him to Amherst College. Graduating in 1852, when the anti-slavery agitation was at its height and Congress had passed a resolution that there should be no agitation of the slave question during the session, he took for the subject of his graduating address, "Agitation." The spirit of the address is sufficiently indicated by a single sentence: "Truth can lose nothing by agitation but may gain all; and Error can gain nothing but lose all."

It indicated both the spirit of the American Board and the non-combative spirit of the young collegian that three years later young Bliss, still engaged in that quest for

Courtesy of Fleming H. Revell Co.

DANIEL BLISS

truth which every success converts into a braver quest, obtained an appointment as a missionary to Syria and set sail with his bride in a sailing vessel of three hundred tons burden. Mrs. Bliss has left a graphic description of the perilous voyage.

In 1843 Dr. C. V.A. Van Dyck had established a high school in Syria, which in three years had developed into an academy for the training of teachers and preachers. In 1855 it had twenty-four students and its curriculum included physics and the higher mathematics taught from Arabic textbooks prepared by Dr. Van Dyck himself. Little attention was paid to the English language, but much to the study of the Bible.

The success of this school or academy probably led to the suggestion in 1862 of an institute for the higher learning in Beirût; it was resolved by a gathering of missionaries to attempt it, and Mr. Bliss was chosen as its Principal. Its object was to be, not proselyting, but education; its aim, to furnish an education equal to that of the better American colleges; the language of the lectures and the text-books, the Arabic. It was an undertaking which required an audacious faith and an inexhaustible patience.

Such an enterprise was sure to meet bitter hostility from the Turkish Government, for apostatizing from the Moslem faith was punishable by death. "A delegation of Druses called on the wife of a Druse seminary student who was seeking admission to the church and asked her permission to kill him." Even to this day very few of the students either in the Syrian College in Beirût or in Robert College in Constantinople are of Turkish parentage. It could have at first little welcome from the Syrian Christians, for they were divided into bitterly hostile sects. "Mr. Bliss's maidservant, who was a member of the Greek Church, was threatened with death by her own family when she encouraged a Protestant suitor." There was no money; for these missionaries had no notion of taking mission funds to support an educational institute which was not the object for which the funds were given. The money must be raised in England and in the United States, and there was opposition to the enterprise in both countries. To train ministers was all very well, but to prepare boys for other callings-business, law, medicine, engineering, literature was quite another matter. Sectarian differences at home as well as sectarian differences abroad had to be overcome. The move

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