do your own barking. It is about as difficult to punish a man in Texas for carrying a pistol as for purveying mean whisky in a local option precinct. If a conviction is secured, the chances are that the court of criminal appeals will reverse the verdict, thereby transforming the whole procedure into an expensive farce. A man may carry a pistol in Texas for a decade and never be molested unless he makes a "gun-play," and then the damage, which the law seeks to avert, is done. Undoubtedly some citizens have laid aside their shooting-irons as a tribute of respect to the law of the land; they are invariably the very men who could be trusted to carry them. The "tough” element pays absolutely no attention to the statute, and the result is that the law-abiding are placed at the mercy of the lawless. The respectable citizen is disarmed, while the thug and the thief, the chronic brawler and the drunken desperado are as powerful for evil as ever. I am not so certain that the law would be a good one even though it could be universally enforced. Milton attributes the invention of gunpowder to the Prince of Darkness; but I am inclined to consider it a potent factor of civilization. Physically men are far from equal, but a few grains of gunpowder make the frail student and the brawny bully "equally tall." With a good "bulldog" of the Colt's breed, the weakest citizen may cope with Sullivan himself. It were idle to urge that we have constabulary and courts for the protection of the person; one cannot always have a policeman at his elbow. Furthermore, the social code is stronger than written law, and it declares that man a coward who appeals to the courts for redress when worsted in a personal encounter. And if it did not so, it is small satisfaction to see a man fined a few dollars or imprisoned a few days who has employed his superior physical strength to humiliate you. Gunpowder is a great promoter of good manners. The bully is not so ready with his insolence nor so careless of his hands, when he knows that a lapse in courtesy may be promptly repaid with a leaden pellet. Just so long as there is a criminal element in the country, the six-shooter is a blessing when in the hands of the lawabiding. Such being the case, I suggest that the law be so amended as to permit men of good moral character and temperate habits to bear arms, and that it be made the imperative duty of peace officers to search, from time to time, those to whom permits have not been granted. Let those found carrying concealed weapons, without having secured legal permission to do so, be promptly consigned to the penitentiary. Such a law could be enforced, for it would have the unqualified approval of a vast majority of the people, would only be opposed by the comparatively small class recognized as dangerous and disreputable. In a government by the people no law can be long enforced that is not supported by public sentiment. We cannot disarm the great respectable element while the criminal contingent transform themselves into perambulating arsenals; but, by according to the first a privilege that will be seldom abused, we secure their support of a law that will clip the claws of the latter. That done, the law-abiding will have little occasion to encumber themselves with weapons-the six-shooter will" go," and go for good. *** PRAYERS FOR THE PAGAN. THE American press has been making merry at the expense of those pious people who prayed for the conversion of Colonel R. G. Ingersoll, the eloquent Agnostic. It had not occurred to me that the act contained any of the elements of humor; but a skilled chemist can get sugar out of an old shoe, and an editor whose sense of the ridiculous is abnormally developed may find fun in a funeral. Whether the press disbelieves in the efficacy of prayer, considers the Colonel beyond redemption, or classes religious ceremonies under the head of "Amusements " I do not know; but it occurs to me that even a futile attempt to benefit our fellow man should be spoken of only with respect. This simple act of faith, this outward evidence of an inward grace marks an important change in the attitude of the church toward dissenters. It is another Star of the East, ushering in a new religious epoch; a glimmer of light in the darkness, heralding the coming day "A poising eagle that burns Above the unrisen morrow." It is a fragrant life-giving oasis in the dreary desert of profitless dogmatism, swept by the hot Harmattan winds of religious bigotry and sectarian hate. I wish that the whole Christian world would pray earnestly and often, not for Ingersoll alone, but for every one encompassed by the darkness of Doubt-for all those who say in their hearts "There is no God." If it would do so, the Kingdom of Heaven would be near at hand. It is much better to pray for a dissenter than to persecute him; better to win him with kindness than to pursue him with calumny. When the worst of criminals is shipwrecked upon a stormy sea we hasten to his aid. We plunge into the swirling breakers and brave the treacherous rocks, while above the storm rings the cheer which informs the fainting wretch that hearts of oak are hastening to his rescue. But when one of God's noblemen is cast away upon the dark sea of Infidelity; above him only the starless night, below him hopeless death, no boat puts forth from the shore to succor or to save, no prayers are uttered for his preservation-every voice that comes to him from that land he cannot reach is pregnant with a curse. After all these years the maledictions are for a moment hushed, and in their place there rises the fervent prayer. At last, from Christian lips there bursts the cry, "To the rescue-man the life-boat!" Had such ever been the practice of the church there would not be an Atheist to-day in all the earth. You cannot war upon kindness—all the logic of man cannot cope with the power of love. There may be spots on the sun; but while it fills the land with light and life all admit that it is good. The tree may be gnarled and misshapen, but if its flowers yield fragrance and its fruits strength, the axe will not be laid to its root. Revealed Religion may run counter to the laws of Science and regard not the rules of Reason; but while Faith, Hope and Charity be the sign on its forehead and all-embracing Love the transcript of its heart, Logic will bow at its altars and Philosophy worship at its fanes. The prayers for the great Agnostic, even though he dies in his doubts, have not been labor in vain. They proclaim once again, "Peace on earth and good-will to men." They were evidence that there still burns within the church a living spark of that all-embracing love which, more than the miracles, attested the divinity of Christ, and is destined, let us devoutly hope, to bind the great round earth every way, "With gold chains about the feet of God.” They will convert others even though they fail to bring Ingersoll into the fold. At last the church is marshaling its forces beneath a flag that can be carried in triumph around the world-the snowy gonfalon of the Prince of Peace. In hoc signo vinces! The brand of the bigot and the empoisoned arrows of those who persecute in the name of Christ have recoiled with ten-fold force upon the church. "Those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword." In attempting to destroy men like Ingersoll the church has well nigh destroyed itself. The well-informed know full well that, morally and mentally, Ingersoll has few equals and no superiors within or without the church; hence every attempt to belittle and belie him has added new recruits to the great army of Infidelity. Where his well-rounded periods caused one to doubt, the brutal attacks made upon him by ignorant zealots and ministerial mountebanks have made a thousand despair. Every cowardly lie told about him by professors of religion has but enhanced his power for evil; every effort to discredit his genius and cover him with contempt has but added fresh terrors to that iconoclastic hammer which, like the weapon of Thor, rocks the world. Prayer may not alter the plans of the Infinite, but it disarms the enemies of the Christian faith. If it does not reach to the highest Heaven it fills the earth with sweetest incense and covers the rocks with flowers. By praying for Infidels, the church will soon have them praying for themselves, and that “with faith believing." *** BONDS VS. BUNCOMBE. 66 CLEVELAND AND THE CURRENCY. DAY by day my conviction strengthens that the American press is "a great public educator." Hour by hour my faith in its infallibility burgeons and blooms. Since the announcement of still another bond issue to bolster up the moribund gold reserve, I have examined several hundred papers, great and small, and carefully considered their opinions anent this important public measure. I was |