Baby Moose

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888 IMPROVEMENT ERA

rangers who rescued him from the river, and tried to play with the grave old dog, who quite disapproved of his frivolity. He could hardly be kept out of the pail in which his meals were served, and he "drank milk like a pump," as the forester ruefully phrased it. He came to demand attention, and could often be seen standing beside the fence, calling for company. It happened once that his pleadings brought to his enclosure a motherly Jersey cow. She gave one look over the fence at the expectant baby, then, turning quickly, trotted away with her patrician nose lifted high in the air. One night Baby Moose kept the forester awake with his bleatings and piteous calls of "Ma." The next night, and again the next, he was quiet, but on the third his cries were more piteous and his calls for "Ma" more distinct than ever. The forester, who was angry at being kept awake, rejoiced when he heard the baby run into the fence, and hoped his bruises would keep him quiet. But the next morning, Baby Moose was missing, and a panel of the fence lay flat. On the soft ground, outside the break in the fence, the forester saw, side by side, the spoors of a cow moose and her calf. The forester was a lover of nature and the creatures of the wild. As he pointed out the footprints in the mud, he talked enthusiastically of the wonderful instinct that had brought this great creature to her captive offspring, and the intelligence that enabled her to rescue it. And a Montahnais Indian, who looked at the track of the big cow-moose, nodded stolidly. Waynsboro, Va.

My Theme Into the hills, Apart from the city I strolled, to find A theme; Among crags and rugged rocks Away from footprints Into the hills where Beauties teem. On I roamed Beyond the haunts I'd loved and strolled past Long before. And there I found The old response from the life I — loved my theme I could not wish for more. For more. Spencer, Idaho. Linda Kartchner,

Noise in Worship By F. S. Harris, Ph. D., Director Agricultural Experiment Station, Utah' Agricultural College

One evening recently as I was walking through the poor district of a large city,my attention was arrested by the shrieks of a woman who seemed to be in great distress. Going hurriedly to the place from which the sound came, I found an open door leading into a room fitted up for religious worship. Prob- — ably a hundred persons a few colored, but mostly white — were sitting in the room. Some of them sat silently while others were yelling or muttering all sorts of unusual sounds. On the little stand facing the congregation was a young colored woman holding a guitar, the strings of which she was striking violently. At the same time she was walking back and forth, occasionally jumping and shrieking at the top of her voice, which showed the effect of over-exertion. Her incoherent sentences, in which she frequently mentioned salvation and repentance, were so interspersed with screams of "hallelujah," "glory to God," and other similar exclamations that it was impossible to follow what she was trying to say. Walking, sometimes in front of her, and at other times behind or at her side, was a big, burly negro man of the type one would expect to see swinging the death-dealing sledge hammer in a slaughter house. He also carried a guitar the strings of which he seemed intent on breaking. His exclamations, and those of some members of the congregation, when added to the efforts of the "leading lady," produced a volume of inharmonious noise that I am unable to describe. This was all done in the guise of worship. An intelligent God was being called on to send his Spirit to bring righteousness into the world; but instead of supplicating with quiet humility, the worshipers were proceeding as if the first necessity was to awaken someone by hideous noises and disorderly actions from a deep sleep. I do not know what the final result was, since my nerves did not permit me to endure the ccnfusion till it ceased. I remained long enough, however, to be deeply impressed by the contrast between these actions and those of the Master who, when he wanted to communicate with his Father, did so in secret. His instruction was to go "not upon the housetop" but "in your secret chamber." True worship is largely an individual matter between the worshiper and his God. Where it is done for the praise of men, it probably does not rise above the earth. Logan, Utah