me advise you to be choice. It is easy to make acquaintances, but very difficult to shake them off, however irksome and unprofitable they are found, after we have once committed ourselves to them.

While absent from Mount Vernon Washington wrote to his manager:

Although it is last mentioned, it is foremost in my thoughts to desire you will be particularly attentive to my negroes in their sickness, and to order every overseer positively to be so likewise; for I am sorry to observe that the generality of them view these poor creatures in scarcely any other light than they do a draught horse or an ox, neglecting them as much when they are unable to work instead of comforting and nursing them when they lie in a sick bed.

A part of each day was always set apart for meditation and devotion; nor this in time of peace only, for we are told that one day while the Americans were encamped at Valley Forge, the owner of the house occupied by the General, a Quaker, strolled up the creek, and when not far from his mill, heard a solemn voice. He walked quietly in the direction of it and saw Washington's horse tied to a sapling. In a thicket near by was the chief, upon his knees in prayer, his cheeks suffused with

tears.

During the Revolutionary War, General Washington's army was reduced at one time to great straits, and the people were greatly dispirited. One

of them who left his home with an anxious heart one day, as he was passing the edge of a wood near the camp, heard the sound of a voice. He stopped to listen, and looking between the trunks of the large trees he saw General Washington engaged in prayer. He passed quietly on, that he might not disturb him; and on returning home, told his family, America will prevail," and then related what he had heard and seen.

THE ABUSE OF WASHINGTON

BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

On the last day in office Washington wrote to Knox comparing himself to "the weary traveler who sees a resting-place, and is bending his body to lean thereon. To be suffered to do this in peace," he added, “is too much to be endured by some.' Accordingly on that very day a Philadelphia newspaper dismissed him with a final tirade, worth remembering by all who think that political virulence is on the increase:

"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation" was the exclamation of a man who saw a flood of blessedness breaking in upon mankind. If ever there was a time that allowed this exclamation to be repeated, that time is the present. The man who is the source of all our country's misery is this day reduced to the rank of his fellow-citizens, and

has no longer the power to multiply the woes of these United States. Now more than ever is the time to rejoice. Every heart which feels for the liberty, and the happiness of the people must now beat with rapture at the thought that this day the name of Washington ceases to give currency to injustice and to legalize corruption. . . . When we look back upon the eight years of Washington's administration, it strikes us with astonishment that one man could thus poison the principles of republicanism among our enlightened people, and carry his designs against the public liberty so far as to endanger its very existence. Yet such is the fact, and if this is apparent to all, this day they should form a jubilee in the United States.

PROVIDENTIAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF WASHINGTON

BY IRVING ALLEN

From The Independent

At this season of the anniversary of Washington's birth, it seems especially appropriate to recall certain singular circumstances in the life of the greatest of Americans-events remarkable in themselves in whatever light they may be viewed; whether, in accordance with the tenets of modern Spiritism and, to a certain extent, in harmony with the doctrines of Swedenborg and his followers in human affairs of departed spirits; or if, on the other hand, we adopt the simple teachings of the Sacred Scrip

tures, and acknowledge the truth with men and their affairs.

Authentic history records no less than six marvelous instances in which the life of Washington was saved under circumstances seemingly little less than miraculous. The first of these wonderful escapes from impending peril occurred during the period of Washington's sole recorded absence from the American continent-when he accompanied his brother Lawrence, then fatally ill with consumption, to the Barbadoes.

Smallpox

They sailed in September of 1751, George being then in the twentieth year of his age. Before the brothers had been a fortnight in the island the younger, the future hero of the Revolution, was attacked with smallpox in its "natural" and virulent form. This disease was not then the fangless monster with which we are familiar, but was terrific in its assaults and almost invariably fatal; yet Washington recovered in something less than three weeks, and retained through his life but slight marks of the malady.

One of General Washington's biographers well says, in reference to this incident, in the life of the first President, that, "it may well be doubted whether in any of his battles he was in equal danger. If the disease entered an army, it was a foe more to be dreaded than embattled hosts. . . But it belongs to that class of diseases of which, by a mys

terious law of our nature, our frames are, generally speaking, susceptible but once.. Thus it came

to pass, that, in the morning of his days, Washington became (humanly speaking) safe from all future danger from this formidable disease."

The reader of American history will remember that the smallpox appeared among the British troops in Boston in the fall of 1775; that it ravaged our army in Canada in the following spring; that it prevailed the same year at Ticonderoga, and in 1777 at Morristown. Regarding this last occasion of its appearance, Washington said, in a letter to Governor Henry, of Virginia, where vaccination was not permitted:

You will pardon my observation on smallpox because I know it is more destructive to the army than the enemies' sword and because I shudder whenever I reflect upon the difficulties of keeping it out.

This was the tremendous peril from which Washington was comparatively safe after his twentieth year. "If," says a very eminent writer, "to refer this to an overruling Providence be a superstition, I desire to be accounted superstitious."

The Journey to Venango, 1753

The next imminent danger to which Washington was exposed, and from which his escape was wellnigh miraculous, was on the occasion of his historic expedition to the headquarters of the French Gov