A Floating Hermit's Morning Devotions

1896

Hermits who make their homes in the caves and forests of California are plentiful, but a hermit who makes his home on the water is not so common.

The first one that has ever been seen in the bay of San Francisco is now living in a small scow, or ark, in the cove near Black Point. There he spends his days, and with the exception of an occasional drifting cruise along the front in a small skiff he never leaves the home he has made of the old, battered craft, which is named "Southern Pacific."

Every morning, rain or shine, he is up before sunrise. Climbing a ladder raised against an impromptu mast he reaches a small platform. On this he kneels and begins his morning orisons. First he sings a hymn. Sometimes his voice can be heard, chanting the melody at Black Point, and at other times he can barely be heard by the fishermen who are waiting the turn on tide in Black Point Cove. Then he will read a chapter from the Bible and after that he prays that the kingdom of the Messiah may come and that heaven be established on earth.

If it is a fine morning the sun by this time is well up in the heavens and the sun rise gun has been fired half an hour previously. The hermit descends from his lofty perch and pumps out his frail craft, in order to keep her afloat for another twenty-four hours. — San Francisco Call.

Gum-Chewing Girl Makes Faces at Minister

March 1896

Two girls in Cumberland, Pennsylvania, have been heavily fined for disturbing public worship by chewing gum. The minister testified that when he remonstrated with one of the girls she made faces at him.

The Congregational Church of Sedalia, Missouri, is going to make a grand effort to bring the old sinners into the fold this year. Young women are to act as ushers in place of the young men hitherto acting in that capacity.

Mrs. Cleveland rarely fails to attend the regular church services, and is scrupulously exact in being present on all special days.

Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein who is Queen Victoria's daughter Helena, and her daughter Princess Victoria, are to sing solo parts in the "Messiah" at a church concert at Slough.

Melchizedek's Place in Scripture and Legend

1922

AS TYPE OF MONOTHEISM

Melchizedek So Figures in Pages of Scripture and as Character in Legends

Melchizedek is a vague character occasionally mentioned in the Scriptures, whose name means "king of righteousness." The most definite references to him indicate that he was king of Salem, and priest of Jehovah in the time of Abraham, uniting the royal with the priestly dignity, and so becoming a welcome type for the Scripture writers.

Later on his name seems to have become more or less legendary, and was used in a figurative sense as "a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek," and he is placed in the same category as the Messiah, Himself, apparently as a type of ancient monotheism.

Still later he becomes identified with Shem, the son of Noah, and the ancestor of Abraham, and is the subject of an elaborate story in the Egyptian book of Adam and Eve. In this story he is represented as having been chosen of God "from all generations of men," to stand by the body of Adam after it had been brought back to Jerusalem. He is supposed to have remained with Adam's body under the protection of an angel until he encountered Abraham.

He is one of the four mentioned in Holy Writ as "without father and without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the son of God abiding forever."

—The Pointer, Riverdale/Dolton, Illinois, July 28, 1922, page 5.