did their slain prophets, they build monuments to them. Bunyan was no doubt considered a crank as well as a heretic in his day, but recently England put his statue in Westminster Abbey. All such cranks as Columbus, Washington, Harvey, Galileo, and Luther have turned the world forward for centuries upon its great centennial axis. So of Morse and Fulton and Stephenson and Eads and a host of others. Besides impracticability in the genuine crank, he is often and truly a fanatic-irrational, incorrigible, and unimpressible. In the great bundle of his peculiarities he sometimes has something good, but with impracticable fanaticism he carries his ideas to extremes and fails to reach the conservative co-operation of mankind in order to carry them out. Even when a man is a crank upon something true and good he kills his influence by his persistent hobbyism and his of fensive idiosyncrasy. Every thing runs into the groove of his own idea, the importance of which dwindles every thing else into absolute insignificance; and, with an utter disregard for the opinions of all mankind besides, the crank soon becomes, even in the good and the true, an insufferable bore. One-idead men have done the world, in some instances, its greatest good; but, to be successful, they put their one idea in harmony with all other ideas. about them. They were practical with their peculiarity, and they were neither hobbyists nor fanatics. They had common sense as well as singular genius, and, whatever their persistent enthusiasm, they pressed nothing out of joint. They bowed at the feet of learning and excellence, and they only implored the forces of wealth and ability to consider their claims. They were not George Francis Trains, nor were they anarchists, anti-poverty fanatics, and all-the-world panacea propagandists of our day. They were common-sense geniuses who knew that they had something good for the world, and with wisdom and fortitude, suffering opposition and persecution, they waited and worked until they succeeded. Henry George, Father McGlynn, Justin D. Fulton, Frances Willard, and others are considered cranks upon a grand scale, urging great but impractical ideas; but it may be that they are but great revolutionizers of thought and of society. They may turn out ahead of their age. Let us not always judge too harshly of those considered cranks, remembering how often the world has persecuted its greatest benefactors. The Pharisees considered Christ a crank, but he has revolutionized the world, and the once cruel cross has become the ensign of the world's glory. Best of all, let us examine ourselves and see if there is not a crank within, knowing that most men have something peculiar. There are but few straight trees in the forest. Most of them are crooked or gnarled or knotty or cranky. SHIMEI THROWING STONES. NE of the most pitiable scenes in history was that of David and his friends fleeing from Jerusalem and from the threatened destruction by his own son, Absalom. This promised to be the great disaster of his life, and he went out of the city and over the slope of Mount Olivet barefoot, covered with sackcloth, weeping as he went up, and all the people, with heads covered and eyes weeping, followed him. The only hope David seemed to have was that God would "turn the counsel of Ahithophel," his chief counselor, "into foolishness," for, as an arch-conspirator, he would be Absalom's chief adviser. Quite a number of leading friends joined the king on the way, but he sent back such men as Hushai, and Zadok and Abiathar the priests, to counteract the conspiracy and keep him informed of Absalom's movements, while he himself moved on with his little army and the people. A little beyond Mount Olivet, Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, came to him with a couple of asses loaded with bread, raisins, wine, and fruits, and so in his great and bitter misfortune he had some consolation and encouragement at the hands of distinguished friends, while the mass of the people, led by the sons of Zeruiah, Joab and Abishai, stood by him, but not |