press, a history of the war with Spain, with pull page portraits
of Dewey, Sampson, Cervera, and the boy king, and colored plates of the
battles of Manila Bay and Santiago. I run my eye down the page till I
came to 'Drowned, How to Revive the,' page 96; and what I read there
saved my life."

The ladies sighed with relief.

"What shall I say about my four long years on that island?" said Eliph'.
"I was the only man on it. Oh, the pangs of solitude! Oh, the terrors of
being alone! But, ladies and gents, I suffered none of them. I was not
alone. He is never alone who has a copy of Jarby's 'Encyclopedia of
Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,' published by
Jarby & Goss, New York, and sold for the trifling sum of five dollars
a volume, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid, the book
delivered when the first payment is made. And that, my friends, was the
book I had, and the book you see before you."

The minister put out his hand.

"May I look at the volume?" he asked, and Eliph' passed it to him with a
nod.

"From the first the book was my friend, philosopher, and guide. I had
no matches. Page 416, 'Fire, Its Traditions--How to Make a Fire Without
Matches--Fire-fighting, Fire-extinguishers,' et cetery, taught me to
make a fire by rubbing two sticks, as the savages do. I had no
weapons to kill the fowls of the air. Page 425, 'Weapons, Ancient and
Modern--Their History--How to Make and Use Them,' et cetery, told me
how to twist the cocoanut bark into a cord, and to shape the limb of
the gum-gum tree into a bow and arrow. Page 396, 'Birds, Tropical,
Temperate, and Arctic--Song Birds, Edible Birds, and Birds of Plumage,'
et cetery, with their Latin and common names, and over one thousand
illustrations, told me which to kill, and which to eat. Page 100, 'The
Complete Kitchen Guide,' being eight hundred tested recipes--roasts,
fries, pastry, cakes, bread, puddings, entrees, soups, how to make
candy, how to clean brass, copper, silver, tin, et cetery--told me how
to prepare and cook them.

"Yes, my friends, I went to that island an ignorant, unbelieving man,
and I came away educated and reformed. For my idle hours there was
the 'Complete Mathematician,' showing how to figger the most difficult
problems easily, how to measure corn in the drib, water in the well,
figger interest, et cetery, by which I become posted on all kinds of
arithmetic. There was the 'Complete Letter Writer, or a Guide to