f hogsheads--"measures," it
says: I reckon it means about a hogshead. Some of the people were going
to put on their things and go, for they allowed he was crazy. They
didn't know Isaac. Isaac knelt down and began to pray: he strung along,
and strung along, about the heathen in distant lands, and about the
sister churches, and about the state and the country at large, and
about those that's in authority in the government, and all the usual
programme, you know, till everybody had got tired and gone to thinking
about something else, and then, all of a sudden, when nobody was
noticing, he outs with a match and rakes it on the under side of his
leg, and pff! up the whole thing blazes like a house afire! Twelve
barrels of water? Petroleum, sir, PETROLEUM! that's what it was!'

'Petroleum, captain?'

'Yes, sir; the country was full of it. Isaac knew all about that. You
read the Bible. Don't you worry about the tough places. They ain't tough
when you come to think them out and throw light on them. There ain't a
thing in the Bible but what is true; all you want is to go prayerfully
to work and cipher out how 'twas done.'

(1) This is the captain's own mistake.

STIRRING TIMES IN AUSTRIA

I. THE GOVERNMENT IN THE FRYING-PAN.

Here in Vienna in these closing days of 1897 one's blood gets no chance
to stagnate. The atmosphere is brimful of political electricity.
All conversation is political; every man is a battery, with brushes
overworn, and gives out blue sparks when you set him going on the common
topic. Everybody has an opinion, and lets you have it frank and hot, and
out of this multitude of counsel you get merely confusion and despair.
For no one really understands this political situation, or can tell you
what is going to be the outcome of it.

Things have happened here recently which would set any country
but Austria on fire from end to end, and upset the Government to a
certainty; but no one feels confident that such results will follow
here. Here, apparently, one must wait and see what will happen, then he
will know, and not before; guessing is idle; guessing cannot help the
matter. This is what the wise tell you; they all say it; they say it
every day, and it is the sole detail upon which they all agree.

There is some approach to agreement upon another point: that there will
be no revolution. Men say: 'Look at our history, revolutions have not
been in our line; and look at our political map, its con