Show CURRENT TOPICS IN EUROPE on december at his bis house at hawarden mr gladstone celebrated his e eightieth birthday so numerous were the messages of cou congratulation that it required a special staff at the telegraph office to receive them not merely from great britain and ireland but likewise from france and Ital yand from lands beyond the abi rbi rhine be came good wishes and testimonials of regard nor was this all america also sent her congratulations and far off australia and the isles of the sea took up the refrain and echoed their best wishes to the grand old man it has often been remarked that the month of december has exercised a dominant influence on the destiny of the great orator and statesman over whose vigorous mind and frame fourscore years have passed without impairing their singular powers thus on december 1809 a child was born of scottish parents at liverpool who has since lived to share with pitt peel palmerston and beaconsfield Beacons field the honor of being one of the five great british statesmen of the nineteenth century it was in december 1832 that gladstone was sent to parliament G for the first time as member for newark in december 1845 he was appointed secretary of state for the colonies and in december 1852 he became chancellor of the exchequer it was also in december 1868 that mr gladstone reached the pinnacle of his fame by becoming prime minister of the british empire sixty eight years have elapsed since he began life as an eton schoolboy school boy and from that day to this he has allowed no particle of time to go to waste the superiority of gladstone over so many of his co contemporaries temporaries seems to lie in his wonderful health and untiring energy like many other light and sinewy men without an ounce of unnecessary flesh flesh mr gladstone despite his enormous load of work and responsibility has had very few hours of sickness progressive by temperament he broke away from the conservatism of his early years and became the advocate of all measures which seemed to him for the good of his fellow men no sooner is one advance gained than his vigorous mind immediately makes another oft in the highway of reform in power or out of it he is one of the most persistent and energetic of workers even at this moment it would be difficult to name a man of any age who is capable of doing a greater amount of intellectual work in his last great public speech delivered at manchester a few weeks ago his voice rang out with wonderful clearness and at the clo close e he see seemed in ed s scarcely c a acely more wearied than when in 1853 he held the house of commons spellbound spell bound by his eloquence for nearly five hours and a half in bis mind there are but few symptoms of decay his hia thirst for knowledge seems as great as in former years his writings areas logical and terse as they were thirty years ago he is a grand example of what the brain and frame of man are capable of doing during the past three months have passed away four of En glands literary personages eliza cook martin F tupper wilkie collins and robert browning many are asking who are going to take their places laces I 1 in n the estimation of the tt e upper classes tennyson aud browning occupy the first rank indeed carlyle ruskin tennyson and browning are often spoken of as the four great teachers of the nineteenth century whenever their works have been published a few thousand aristocratic families and persons of a literary turn have bought up the editions but if we go into the public libraries and ask the of the authors of the books which the people mostly ask for we need not be surprised to hear the names of dickens and irving burns and charles mackay longfellow and whittier william morris and will carlton cariton except among giggling girls and senseless fops the reign of sensuous fiction is passing away even among the so called christian sects it is perceived that the pulpit has lost 1 ost its influence over the minds of the people the christian merald herald dadd the christian world the globe the christian million and in fact nearly every religious journal now employs fiction for the dissemination disse ruination of its doctrines this earnest active thinking age demands a religion that has life and power ower in it not a religion of cold Er formality malitY and narrow sectarianism but bat a religion that will satisfy the intellect with its truths touch the heart with its love sway the will with its persuasiveness gratify the taste with its beauties and fill the imagination with its sublimities A religion is wanted that will enlist upon its side the whole nature of man and command his willing and devoted homage these qualifications the religions of the world well know they do not possess hence they seek for the romances to dream a picture of what they wish they were and then the preachers try to fancy that the dream is real mene alene mem 1 thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting J is written over the portals of the churches but the wise wise men of this age cannot decipher the inscription though written in the plainest of characters the terrible epidemic known as the russian influenza still continues to spread never so far as history records has there been so much sickness in almost all the countries of europe as at the present time coming events cast their shadows before there are many who look upon this pestilential visitation and sudden corruption of the atmosphere as a premonitory shadowing foreshadowing fore of the suddenness with which predicted pestilences will come upon the world in the latter days and that the voice of god speaks by this influenza pestilence as distinctly to the nations as it of yore by the plagues of egypt in the days of pharaoh but the greater number by far pay no heed head to the divine voice of warn ing and attribute this sudden outbreak of pestilence to natural caddes causes in every capital of continental europe there to is an amount of real sickness of prostrated strength and of business interrupted which people at a distance can but faintly realize the progress of the epidemic c has been unusually rapid the disease fell almost simultaneously upon st bt petersburg and paris leaving vienna berlin belgrade copenhagen frankfort brussels madrid and lisbon to be overtaken a few days later compared with cholera influx influenza adza is as the hare to the tortoise in the rapidity of its progress A leading physician of paris says that to all intents and purposes this seems to be a ne new disease and that it presents such a variety of symptoms that it is difficult to deter mine what remedies to employ in some cases there are fever headache and severe gastric and lombar pains when quinine is administered the patient getts gets no better but often develops typhoid symptoms or inflammation of the lungs when the influenza takes that turn fatal results follow very rapidly in those cases where the patients already suffer from some organic disease such as diabetes or liver complaint the lowering of the vital power which seems the one indubitable feature of the epidemic makes them an easy prey to their organic malady the Paris journals estimate that over twelve hundred thousand persons are now suffering from this mysterious and undefined disease in france no such epidemic has ever visited paris even in the worst visita eions of cholera alta although ough the mor bality was greater social life in paris was never affected to the extent that it now is the average mortality in paris at this season of the year is one hundred and twenty but in the last two weeks of cof the month just passed the average was nearly four hundred daily and one day viz december 26 the death roll amounted to no ne less than five hundred and eighty six in some scientific circles the exceeding mortality is attributed to the crowding together of so many millions at the great exposit espos expos tion the wonderful show on the champs de mars was visited by more than thirty millions of human beings when we consider that between may and november of the past yeara year a population nearly equal to one half of the population of the united states encamped there for an average time of one week on a space scarcely equal to four miles square it needs not the genius of la a sanitary engineer to perceive perceive that a t the city of paris is well fitted to become the hotbed hot bed of pestilence unless steps are taken to cleanse the city before the warm weather comes it is much to be feared that a worse epidemic than influenza may set in there to is something peculiarly sad in the circumstances attending the death of the exempress empress ex of brazil whose demise took place on dec at first the ex emperor could not believe the news of her death he immediately hastened to her bedside and seemed unable to 0 o corn cora the extent of the calamity that had befallen him since bince then he has haa had frequent attacks of hysterical weeping and his deplorable condition inspires ins serious anxiety his trials are indeed great and cannot fail to tell upon a man managed aged and ill 1 I regret that my children and grandchildren are not around me that I 1 might blew bless them for the last time alas brazil brazil tf that beautiful country I 1 cannot return there these were the tee last words of the exempress empress ex J H WABD january |