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OLMSTEAD & CO., PUBLISHERS.
* PASCAL STUDYING GEOMETRY.
. Blaise Pascal, one of the greatest Frenchmen
who ever lived, was born on the 19th of June,
1623, at Clermont, in Auvergne.
His father, Stephen Pascal, was President of
the Court of Aids in Clermont.. He was de-
scended from a noble French family, and was a
learned and good man. . He devoted himself to
the education of his children, and was the only
teacher of the young Blaise. From his earliest
years Blaise Pascal showed uncommon talent
and éagerness for learning. Always his father’s
companion, he was present at many conversa-
tions on learned subjects among his_ father’s
friends, to which he eagerly listened... When
only twelve years’ old, he was most anxious to
learn geometry, but his father wished him not
to begin tgo young, and promised that when he
- had masteréd the difficulties of Latin and Greek,
he should learn mathematics as a reward.—
Meantime Pascal could not cease to think upon
is a science which teaches how to form figures
correctly, and explains the proportions which
they bear fo’ each other. In his play hours he
took a piece of charcoal and drew figures on the
floor, trying to make perfect squgres, circles,
and, triangles, and to compare them with each
other’ “Without books, teachers, or assistance
of any kind, he thus learned mathematics alone,
and had got as far as the thirty-second proposi-
tion of the First Book of Euclid when he was
one day discovered by his father busy with bis
drawings on the floor. He was so intent on
what he was doing that he did not hear his
“father come in.’ Stephen Pascal, astonished and
delighted at his son’s wonderful talent and perse-
yerance; could no longer refuse him books; and
from that time his progress was wonderfully rapid.
‘At sixteen he composed a treatise on conic sections,
—at nineteen he invented his famous arithmetical
machine to assist him in his calculations, and soon
aftet published many remarkable works on science.
‘His close studies hurt his health, and he was forced
to take a little relaxation. In the month of Octo-
der,’ 1654, he was one day taking his usual drive in
a carriage and four, and was crossing the bridge of
Neuilly, when the two leaders became unmanage-
able on a part of the bridge where there was no
parepet, and planged headlong into the river Seine.
Happily the shock of their sudden fall broke the
them with the hindmost
horses, the carriage was stopped on the very brink
of the precipice, and Pascal was saved. This won-
derful escape from sudden death had a great effect
onhis mind. From that time his whole attention
was turned to religion, and he resolved "to devote
oto God alone the life so maryellously preserved.
“Although a Roman Catholic from his youth, Pas-
~ cal, unlike thost other Romanists, studied the Bible
for himself; and from this source of light he learned
the truth. necessary to salvation, and became a
Protestant in heart, though not in name. He still
retained some of the errors and mistakes of his
early childhood, but in important matters he was a
Bible Christian and a devout believer. One of his
tten to expose the false doc-
trines of the Jesuits. It is called the “Provincial
Letters,” because written in ie form of eters
en addresses a@ per:
suppose to oe a Paris to i" friend in the
greatest works was wril
the provinces living in
the suits are an order of Romanists, founded
by a Spanish soldier named Loyola, to oppose the
ath ‘and light of the Bible, which, long hidden,
had again begun to shine, by the translation of the
i a the help o!
“ble into the languages in use, an p
the v inting press to increase the number of copies.
Lather and Loyola lived about the same time,
Luther the champion of truth and light,—Loyola
the champion of the Pope and darkness. .
“\ Professing to know God, the Jesuits in works
deny Him. They say one thing and mean another,
I 7 ofoes one thing and practice another. They
profess to seek the glory of God, when in truth
they seek power and worldly greatness for pat
D the name o:
order,—they profess to bear a
Tord Jesus, when in truth they break His laws nd
- persecute His people,—they profess tobe governe
i ible, when in
by the laws of God in the Bible, wh tt
° they are governed by Jaws and traditions of their
os . oh
Lee
own invention, published in secret books, kept
carefully hidden from the light. .
Pascal, however, got these books of theirs, read
and studied them, and published to the world the
wicked doctrines of these pretended followers of
Jesus.
The Jesuits could not deny or refute his book, so
they had recourse to their usual arguments, perse-
cution and fire, Pascal’s friends were persecuted,
his book was’ censured, burned at Rome, and by
the hands of the executioner; but all in vain—it
has outlived all their efforts, and has been trans-
lated into English.
Pascal began to write a large work on religion,
which he never lived to finish. The parts of it
which he wrote are published under the title o}
“Thoughts on Religion.” In it he speaks of the
miserable state of man’ by nature, and the remedy
provided in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have no
space for long extracts, but a single passage may
e given as a specimen of the rest of the work:
To know God as a Christian, we must feel that
in Him alone is the true happiness of the soul, that
all its rest is in Him, and that its only true enjoy-
ment isin Ilis love; and we must. hate the sin of
our nature, which hinders us from loving Him with
all our strength. To know God thus, we must at
the same time know our own wretchedness, our un-
worthiness, and our need of a Mediator to recon-
cile us to God. 'These things cannot be separated.
To know God without knowing our own miserable
state by nature, would make us proud. To know
our misery without knowing our Redeemer, would
make us despair. But the knowledge of our Lord
Jesus Christ saves us both from pride and from
despair; because, while we see our miserable state,
we see also the means by which we may be de-
ivered from it. .
In future numbers we may find space for more of
Pascal’s “Thoughts.” Pascal’s health was injured
by his constant studies; and after a severe and
lingering illness, he died on the 17th of August,
1662, at the age of thirty-nine. How much he had
done in his comparatively short life!
————+e
THE CONTRABANDS’ ESCAPE.
Slaves owned by rebels ho live in the vicinity ti
of our armies, usually improve the opportunity
thus afforded to escape from bondage. They show
boldness, many of them, in their conduct, that
effectually refutes the slander that negroes are cow-
ards. A chaplain in Kentucky writes to the boy
readers of the Christian Advocate as follows:
vg, let me tell you astory about one
of nee no apes named Friday. Friday lived
i to be
bout forty miles from here, and, desiring t
free, he devermined to escape to our lines, A fel-
PASCAL STUDYING GEOMETRY.
. ~ <e —_
low-servant, a woman, wished to escape with him,
and both started on foot, the woman dressed in
men’s’ clothes. They walked about twenty miles
the first night, and then hid in some negro-houses
for the day. When it grew dark again, Friday
went out to find out whether he was pursued or
not, and to send some word to his wife, who lived
in the neighborhood. A slave told him, at the first
house where he stopped, that a man was there
‘hunting him, that he was then in the house with
his master, and that his horse was in the stable.
“Well,” said Friday, “that is good enough for
me; I'll make one slave-catcher walk home.”
So he took the fellow’s horse. . He and the wo-
me got on him, and reached our camp about day-
it.
i
That was turning the tables on his pursuer in a
| manner that would do no discredit to a white skin,
or even toa “chivalrous” descendant of the F. F. V.
.
———_++___
COUSIN JOHN:
OR MY RIDE WITH A MANIAC.
Cousin John must have been a noble-looking
man. He was, even when I first saw him, a noble
ruin, ‘I was eleven years old then—old enough to
comprehend something ‘of his sad, romantic story.
I had heard how, while he was still young, the
crushing out of a great and sweet hope had shat-
tered his proud intellect; how, prostrated by the
sudden blow, he had “lingered long in a state of
mind and body that made it almost undesirable, in
human judgment, that he should ever rise from
bis couch of suffering. :
But One wiser than all human beings had seen
fit to restore the wasted frame, and lift up the suf-
ferer, and enable him once more to walk forth
among his fellow men,—among them, but not of
them. Cousin John was never himself again. His
noble, tender, sensitive nature had not been of
fibre tough enough to resist the blow that had fallen
upon him. From that hour Cousin John had been
subject to fits of insanity; usually a gentle, mel-
ancholy insanity, though sometimes mischievous
“| and obstinate, never violent.
Sometimes months, nay, years would elapse in
which he betrayed go symptoms of this sad condi-
ion. Then he attended to business, living a quiet,
reticent life... When the attack came he was al-
ways brought home to the old homestead, where
his aged parents resided, to be cared for. Long
ago the medical authorities had pronounced him
incurable. I suppose he was forty years of age
when I first’ saw him, and for nearly twenty years
he had been in this sad condition.
We did not suspect, my mother and I, that he
was not perfectly in his right mind, when he came
22 SCHOOL STREET, BOSTON, -
in. Mother had met him the previous day, but
Thad been ill and had been left at home. . In-
deed, this was the first time I had been down
stairs for many days, and the doctor, who had
just been in, had said that I ought to ride a lit-
tle way. Mother told Cousin John this, in an-
swer to the kind inquiry he made about me, and
he insisted that I should be wrapped up and
have a ride with him in his carriage, which stood
at the door. 5 rt
We had no fears, therefore; his mild, open
countenance, that expressed such a kindly in-
terest in an ailing child, had entirely disarmed
them, "I was wild to go, for after my long con-
finement to the house the soft air and spring
sunshine were strong temptations, and my mo-
ther consented. Cousin John said he was going
to visit some of his relatives who were not ours,
on the east side of the town, but he could give
“me a short drive, and still have ample time for
going there. And so we set off. .
How pleasant he was. Once or twice I ob-
served that the quiet old horse turned almost.
out of the road, but Cousin John was talking to
me, and I thought he had neglected to guide
him past the tufts of tempting grass that were
springing so green by the roadside, and I was
not frightened. But after a time I began to
wonder that we did not turn towards home.
But by that time I had become so completely
charmed with Cousin John that I was ‘tot at all
displeased when he told me that we had almost
arrived at his Cousin Dudley’s, and that he was ~
going to take me there. :
“But mother thought we were coming back
ery soon,” I ventured to say.” “I fear that she”
will be uneasy about me.” Be .
We would only stay a few minutes, Cousin John ~
replied, laughing; but as we were so near it:....
seemed a pity to go back now without making ‘a
call, and he had not seen the Dudleys in as much
asa year. So we drove on, and soon stopped be-
fore the large, handsome farm-house of Mr. Dudley. =
We had a pleasant reception here, but after a°
time I found that Cousin John had allowed his’
horse to be put in the stable, and had determined
to remain all the afternoon, He was very pleas-
ant about it, but not all my anxiety, which had
now become intense, could move him. I was very
weak and tited, and soon began to cry. But-I was
afraid to let the family, who were strangers to me,’
and the youngest many years older than myself,
see that I was troubled. So I let my tears fall si-
lently, as I sat by the window looking out on the
fields, and there presently I fell asleep, I suppose
from weariness and exhaustion.
couch in the dining-room, where’ the table was al-
ready laid for tea, and the fire on the hearth shone
rosily over allin the gathering twilight. I cried
then in good earnest to go home, but was persuad-
ed to stay to tea, which I did in great anxiety, that
prevented me from eating anything. As soon as
tea was over Cousin John declared himself in read~
iness to set out. It was now quite dark, but it
was said that the moon would rise soon, and we
were soon on our way. All this time Cousin John
had betrayed no wanderings of the mind. He had
conversed on’ various topics with readiness and
good taste, had been particularly pleasant and so-
cial, and I suppose the Dudleys, who knew him
well, had not suspected him. Dut no sooner were
we on our homeward way than his manner changed,
He sang, and even stood up in the’ carriage and
danced. He drove furiously up and down long and
steep hills. He “made faces,” and uttered strange,
unearthly sounds. In short, he frightened me so
much that I could only cower in my corner of the:
seat and watch him in the half-light and say my
prayers. I remember thinking that I must ask.
God to help me, and repeating all the prayers and
texts I could call to mind, expecting every mo-
ment to be dashed to pieces, as he drove over rocks.
and close to high banks and precipices. At last,
I don’t know how, I suppose we had turned about
without my being aware of it, he suddenly stopped _
before the Dudleys’ door, which we had-left an
hour before. Cousin John’s frantio shouts had:
called the family forth before we stopped, and I re~
member being lifted from the carriage, but nothing.
more, for I had fainted.
ye ™ 7
j
When I woke I found they had laid me on |
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