14 The Acorn and like the lesser sun in the heavens, we can walk by its light, live in its warmth, and live even if we see but a small part of it and receive but a microscopic fraction of it." But it seems there are some who are not capable of understanding the gospel. We believe only those who have kept their first estate that is their preexistence to a certain degree are given this privilege, though of course our acts in this life will make it either more difficult of comprehension or more easily undertsood. To the man who has led a God fearing life, truth will appeal more forcibly than to one who has strayed far away from his Creator. To those who see the light, the gospel seems very simple as truth always is and the people who have the gospel to-day must have it as it was given from the beginning. Their doctrine must be in accord with the old, since once truth, truth forever. Miscellaneous IN APPLE TIME. In apple pickin', years ago, my father'd say to me, "There's jest a few big fellers, Jim, away up in the tree. You shinny up an' git 'em. Don't let any of 'em fall, Fur fallen fruit is scercely wuth the gatherin' at all. I'd climb up to the very peak of that old apple tree, 'N', find them apples waitin': My, what bouncin' ones they'd be, Then, with the biggest in my mouth, I'd clamber down again, 'N', tho' I tore my pantaloons, it didn't matter then. Since then in all my ups and downs, an' travelin' around, I never saw good apples, boys, lyin' on the ground. Sometimes, of course, they look all right, the outside may be fair; But when you come to taste 'em, you'll find a worm-hole there, Then leave behind the wind falls, an' the fruit on branches low. The crowd grows smaller all the time, the higher up you go. The top has many prizes that are temptin' you an' me, But if we want to git em, we've got to climb the tree. Dancing is now being taught in the common schools in New York. It was introduced to give school girls, interesting and helpful recreation that would have a real part in their lives outside of school hours Dancing was found to be superior to gymnastics in having, like the latter, the element of "control" and in addition the "play" element. One of the principle things said in its favor was that in the small space they had, there was more real all a round physical exercise in dancing than in gymnastics or any team game. The primary object was to develop the play spirit. The enterprise began as an experiment less than a year ago, but between two and three thousand children are now receiving instruction. Ability is a poor man's wealth. Wordsworth was a prophet as well as a poet, and he looked at the world with a prophet's eyes. "As a spiritual interpreter of nature," says Professer Phelps, "he has never had an equal among English writers, and but one successful rival in the world, his great contemporray, Goethe." He regarded nature as in some way alive, spiritual and immaterial, and able to teach all lessons that mankind needed to learn. Europe makes far better use of her natural water-ways than the United States does. The Volga its largest river, navigable for two thousand miles has a yearly traffic of forty million tons. The Dnieper is navigable for one thousand four hundred miles and feeds the seaports of the Baltic; the Rhine for seven hundred miles; and the Danube for one thousand five hundred miles. An interlocking system of canals connects the Rhine and the Danube, and the Rhine and the Rhone. Yet together all of these rivers of Europe teeming with commerce are less than half as long as the navigable portions of the Mississippi and its tributaries. In eight years the traffic on the rivers of the United States has increased but 1,300,000 tons. On October 17, a regular wireless telegraph service across the Atlantic was instituted by William Marconi. The terminal sections are at Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island and at Clifden Island. In the first twenty-four hours, 13,-000 words were sent and 2,000 words returned. This marks the The Acorn 15 emergence of trans-oceanic wireless telegraphy from the experimental stage. Later, press reports as well as small messages will be handled. The Belgian government, and the Congo Free State have appointed a committee to arrange for the annexation of the Congo to Belgium. India has splendid acheivements to her credit in the past. She was one of the greatest pre-Christian empires, and her pillar and rock inscriptions are the most important of any age. Two of the great world religions had their birth in India, and the sacred books of the Hindus exceed in volume those of any other faith. Goethe wrote a poem in honor of the drama of Sakuntala, one of the gems of Kalidasa, a poet who flourished at the court of the first great Hindu emperor after the decline of Buddhism. Where is there in all the world a gem of architecture equal to the Taj at Agra, as it stands alone in its expuisite garden on the banks of the Jumna? It is the finest monument in the world to the most beautiful of sentiments the love of man for woman. Secretary Taft, while on his visit to Japan, took the nation by storm. He was feted and honored by every one, from the Emperor to the smallest street urchin. His straightforwardness, and his good nature, made the people feel that the United States is not an enemy of Japan. Taft is their ideal of an American statesman, and he certainly brings to them a message of peace. His is a career of big tasks. "A friend may well be reckoned the maserpiece of Nature." Emerson.