And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8, NLT
I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope, John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble worker in the Lord's vineyard. The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.
"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"
"I have little brothers and sisters, over there, poor avid innocent. She will corrupt them! You are a saint! You are a child yourself--save them! Snatch them from that... she is... it is shameful! Oh! help them! God will repay you a hundredfold. For the love of God, for the love of Christ!"
“I’ll tell you the truth,” replied Jesus. “No one who has left a house, or brothers or sisters, or mother or father, or children, or lands because of me and the gospel 30will fail to receive back a hundred times more in the present age: houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and lands—with persecutions!—and finally the life of the age to come. 31But plenty of people at the front will end up at the back, and the back at the front.
We tell the ladies that good wives make good husbands; I believe it is a more certain position that good brothers make good sisters.
Our meeting here on earth with those we loved was not our doing. We did not select our father and mother, and sisters and brothers. We did not even explore the whole world to discover our friends. They too were more or less given us, the choice was given us, and the sphere of choice was determined and limited. Hence we seem to have a right to say that they were meant for us, and we for them, and unless we believe in accident, who is there by whose will alone they could have been meant for us? Hence, if they were meant for us once by a Divine, not by our own will, that will can never change, and we have a right to hope and even to believe that _what has been will be_, and that we shall again meet and love those whom we met and loved here. This is faith, and this is comfort, but it is greater faith, and greater comfort still, if we close our eyes in the firm conviction that whatever will be, will be best for us.
We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.
"No, my dear fellow, it is not at all incredible. You saw the child pass through the Rue Richelieu last year, who amused himself with killing his brothers and sisters by sticking pins in their ears while they slept. The generation who follow us are very precocious."
There is nothing, prima facie, which renders this origin of animal, plant and other such names for early savage groups at all improbable. They would not even be resented, as now are the animal names for villagers in the Orkneys, the Channel Islands, France, Cornwall and in ancient Israel (for examples see _Social Origins_, pp. 295-301). The names once accepted, and their origin forgotten, would be inevitably regarded as implying a mystic _rapport_ between the bestial and the human namesakes, Crow, Eagle Hawk, Grub, Bandicoot, Opossum, Emu, Kangaroo and so on (see NAME). On this subject it is enough to cite J.G. Frazer, in _The Golden Bough_ (2nd ed., vol. i. pp. 404-446). Here will be found a rich and satisfactory collection of proof that community of name implies mystic _rapport_. Professor Rhys is quoted for the statement that probably "the whole Aryan race believed at one time not only that the name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul." In such a mental stage the men "Crows" identify themselves with the actual Crow species: the birds are now "of their flesh," are fabled to be their ancestors, or the men have been evolved out of the birds. The Crow is sacro-sanct, a friend and protector, and a centre of taboos, one of which is the prohibition preventing a Crow man from intercourse with a Crow woman, "however far apart their hunting grounds may have been." All men and women Crows are recognized as brothers and sisters in the Crow, and are not intermarriageable. Entry: 9
As a result of the report of the royal commission a bill was passed in 1893 making it compulsory for all deaf children to be educated. This was to be done by the local education authority, either by providing day classes or an institution for them, or by sending them to an already existing institution, parents having the choice, within reasonable limits, of the school to which the child should go. School-board classes came into existence in almost every large town where there was no institution, and sometimes where one existed. Those who uphold the day-school system advance the arguments that the pupils are not, under it, cut off from the influence of home life as they are in institutions; that such influences are of great advantage; that this system permits the deaf to mix freely with their hearing brethren, &c. The objections, however, to this arrangement outweigh its possible advantages. The latter, indeed, amount to little; for home influences in many cases, especially in the poorer parts of the large cities, are not the best, and communication with the hearing children who attend some of the day schools may not be an unmixed blessing, nor is freedom to run wild on the streets between school hours. But it may be urged further that it is difficult, except in very large towns, to obtain a sufficient number of deaf children attending a day school to classify them according to their status, while it is more than one teacher can do to give sufficient attention to several children, each at a different stage of instruction from any other. Moreover, the deaf need more than mere school work; they need training in morals and manners, and receive much less of it from their parents than their hearing brothers and sisters. This can only be given in an institution wherein they board and lodge as well as attend classes. The existing institutions were from 1893 placed, by the act of that date, either partly or wholly under the control of the school board. They were put under the inspection of the government, and as long as they fulfilled the requirements of the inspectors as regards education, manual and physical training, outdoor recreation and suitable class-room and dormitory accommodation, they might remain in the hands of a committee who collected, or otherwise provided, one-third of the total expenditure, and received two-thirds from public sources. Or else, the institution might be surrendered entirely to the management of the public school authority, and then the whole of the expenditure was to be borne by that body. Extra government grants of five guineas per pupil are now given for class work and manual or technical training. Such is the state of things at the present day, except, of course, that the school board has given place to the county council as local authority. Entry: A
_Norway._--In Norway under the state income tax incomes under 1000 kroner are exempt, those between 1000 and 4000 kroner pay 2% on that part liable to taxation; those between 4000 and 7000 kroner pay 3%; those between 7000 and 10,000 kroner pay 4%, and those above 10,000 kroner 5%. Persons liable to taxation are divided into (a) those who have no one to support, as companies and the like; (b) those who have from one to three persons to support; (c) those who have from four to six persons to support; (d) those who have seven or more persons to support. Those who are counted as dependent upon the taxpayer are his children, own or adopted, his parents, brothers and sisters, and other relations and connexions by marriage who might have a reasonable claim to his support. A certain part of the income liable to taxation is abated by a graduated scale according to the class into which the ratepayer falls. Entry: 5
Two results followed from this persecution. First, the development of a self-contained and homogeneous community was made impossible. No opportunity for the adoption of any common confession was given. Only a few great doctrines are seen to have been generally held by Anabaptists--such as the baptism of believers only, the rejection of the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith as onesided and the simple practice of the breaking of bread. This last, the Anabaptist doctrine of the Lord's Supper, was to the effect that brothers and sisters in Christ should partake in remembrance of the death of Christ, and that they should thereby renew the bond of brotherly love as the basis of neighbourly life. In the second place, the persecution deprived the Anabaptists of the noble leaders who had preached non-resistance and at the same time provoked others to an attitude of vengeance which culminated in the horrors of Münster. For Melchior Hofmann (_ca._ 1498-1543 or 1544) having taken the Anabaptist teaching to Holland, there arose in Haarlem a preacher of vengeance, Jan Matthisson or Matthyszoon (Matthys) (d. 1534) by name, who, prophesying a speedy end of the world and establishment of the kingdom of heaven, obtained many adherents, and despatched Boekebinder and de Kniper to Münster. Here the attempt was made to realise Matthisson's ideals. All who did not embrace Anabaptism were driven from Münster (1533), and Bernt Knipperdolling (_ca._ 1495-1536) became burgomaster. The town was now besieged and Matthisson was killed early in 1534. John (Johann Bockelson) of Leiden (1510-1536) took his place and the town became the scene of the grossest licence and cruelty, until in 1535 it was taken by the besieging bishop. Unhappily the Anabaptists have always been remembered by the crimes of John of Leiden and the revelry of Münster. They should really be known by the teaching and martyrdom of Blaurock, Grebel and Hubmaier, and by the gentle learning and piety of Hans Denck--of whom, with many hundred others, "the world was not worthy." Entry: I
Bonaparte's letters to Josephine during the campaign reveal the ardour of his love, while she rarely answered them. As he came to realize her shallowness and frivolity his passion cooled; but at the time when he resided at Montebello (near Milan) in 1797 he still showed great regard for her. During his absence in Egypt in 1798-1799, her relations to an officer, M. Charles, were most compromising; and Bonaparte on his return thought of divorcing her. Her tears and the entreaties of Eugène and Hortense availed to bring about a reconciliation; and during the period of the consulate (1799-1804) their relations were on the whole happy, though Napoleon's conduct now gave his consort grave cause for concern. His brothers and sisters more than once begged him to divorce Josephine, and it is known that, from the time when he became first consul for life (August 1802) with large powers over the choice of a successor, he kept open the alternative of a divorce. Josephine's anxieties increased on the proclamation of the Empire (May 18, 1804); and on the 1st of December 1804, the eve of the coronation at Notre Dame, she gained her wish that she should be married anew to Napoleon with religious rites. Despite her care, the emperor procured the omission of one formality, the presence of the parish priest; but at the coronation scene Josephine appeared radiant with triumph over her envious relatives. The august marriages contracted by her children Eugène and Hortense seemed to establish her position; but her ceaseless extravagance and, above all, the impossibility that she should bear a son strained the relations between Napoleon and Josephine. She complained of his infidelities and growing callousness. The end came in sight after the campaign of 1809, when Napoleon caused the announcement to be made to her that reasons of state compelled him to divorce her. Despite all her pleadings he held to his resolve. The most was made of the slight technical irregularity at the marriage ceremony of the 1st of December 1804; and the marriage was declared null and void. Entry: JOSEPHINE
_Charities._--The principal public charity of the Territory is the leper asylum on a peninsula almost 10 sq. m. in area on the N. side of the island of Molokai. A steep precipice forms a natural wall between it and the rest of the island. The place became an asylum for lepers and the caring for them began to be a charity under government charge in 1866; but conditions here were at first unspeakably unhygienic, their improvement being largely due to Father Damien, who devoted himself to this work in 1873. The patients are almost exclusively native Hawaiians, and their number is slowly but steadily decreasing; in 1908 they numbered 791, and there were at Molokai 46 non-leprous helpers and 27 officers and assistants, including the Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in charge of the homes. In 1905 the United States government appropriated $100,000 for a hospital station and laboratory "for the study of the methods of transmission, cause and treatment of leprosy," and $50,000 a year for their maintenance; the station and laboratory to be established when the territorial government should have ceded to the United States a tract of 1 sq. m. on the leper reservation. The cession was made soon afterward by the territorial government. In 1907-1908 a home for non-leprous boys of leprous parents was established at Honolulu. Another public charity of Hawaii is the general free dispensary maintained by the territorial government at Honolulu. Entry: HAWAII
Here, then, we have practical Exogamy, as regards unions of brothers and sisters, among man still brutish, while the Sire is husband of the whole harem of females, probably unchecked as regards his daughters. Entry: 8
In June 1672, when England to her shame sent six thousand troops to aid Louis XIV. in his attempt to subdue the Dutch, Churchill was made a captain in the company of which the duke of York was colonel, and soon attracted the attention of Turenne, by whose profound military genius the whole army was directed. At the siege of Nimeguen Churchill acquitted himself with such success that the French commander predicted his ultimate rise to distinction. When Maestricht was besieged in June 1673 he saved the life of the duke of Monmouth, and received the thanks of Louis XIV. for his services. In 1678 he was married to Sarah Jennings (b. June 5, 1660), the favourite attendant on the Princess Anne, younger daughter of the duke of York. Her father, Richard Jennings of Sandridge, near St Albans, had twenty-two brothers and sisters; one of the latter married a London tradesman named Francis Hill, and their daughter Abigail Hill afterwards succeeded her cousin the duchess of Marlborough as favourite to Queen Anne. Entry: MARLBOROUGH
DAMIENS, ROBERT FRANÇOIS (1715-1757), a Frenchman who attained notoriety by his attack on Louis XV. of France in 1757, was born in a village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, his conduct earning for him the name of Robert le Diable. During the disputes of Clement XI. with the parlement of Paris the mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the king without wounding him severely. On the 5th of January 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, he rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was condemned as a regicide, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Grève. Before being put to death he was barbarously tortured with red-hot pincers, and molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France. Entry: DAMIENS
DUMONT, FRANÇOIS (1751-1831), French miniature painter, was born at Lunéville (Meurthe), and was left an orphan when quite young, with five brothers and sisters to support. He was for a while a student under Jean Girardet, and then, on the advice of a Lunéville Academician, Madame Coster, set up a studio for himself. In 1784 he journeyed to Rome, returning after four years' careful study, and in 1788 was accepted as an Academician and granted an apartment in the Louvre. He married the daughter of Antoine Vestier, the miniature painter, and had two sons, Aristide and Bias, both of whom became painters. He was one of the three greatest miniature painters of France, painting portraits of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, Louis XVIII. and Charles X., and of almost all the important persons of his day. His own portrait was engraved both by Audouin and by Tardieu. He resided the greater part of his life in Paris, and there he died. A younger brother, known as Tony Dumont, was also a miniature painter, a pupil of his brother, a frequent exhibitor and the recipient of a medal from the Academy in 1810. Each artist signed with the surname only, and there is some controversy concerning the attribution to each artist of his own work. Tony was an expert violinist and delighted in painting portraits of persons who were playing upon the violin. Many of Dumont's finest paintings came into the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, but others are in the Louvre, presented by the heir of Bias Dumont. The work of both painters is distinguished by breadth, precision and a charming scheme of colouring, and the unfinished works of the elder brother are amongst some of the most beautiful miniatures ever produced. Entry: DUMONT
The courts of law having held that by the grant of administration the authority of the ecclesiastical courts was exhausted, the administrator became entitled to the privilege, similar to that formerly enjoyed by the ordinary, of dealing as he pleased with residue of the property. The next of kin of the same degree of relationship to the deceased were thus aggrieved by the preference of the administrator, and it was to remedy this grievance that the Statute of Distributions 1670/1 was passed. It empowered the ordinary to take a bond from the administrator binding him to make a fair and complete distribution of the property among the next of kin. Such distribution is to be in the following manner: one-third to the wife of the intestate, and all the residue by equal portions to and amongst the children, and their representatives if any of such children be dead, exclusive of children who shall have any estate by the settlement of the intestate, or shall be advanced by the intestate in his lifetime by portions equal to the shares allotted to the other children under the distribution. If such advancement should be less than the share of the other children in distribution, then it shall be made equal thereto. But the "heir-at-law, notwithstanding any land that he shall have by descent or otherwise from the intestate, is to have an equal part in distribution with the rest of the children" (§ 5). By § 6, if there be no children nor any legal representatives of children, one moiety of the property is to be allotted to the wife of the intestate, the residue "to be distributed equally to any of the next of kindred of the intestate who are equal in degree and those who legally represent them." By § 7 there shall "be no representation admitted among collaterals after brothers' and sisters' children; and in case there be no wife, then all the said estate to be distributed equally to and among the children; and in case there be no child, then to the next of kindred in equal degree of or unto the intestate and their legal representatives as aforesaid, and in no other manner whatsoever." For the protection of creditors it is enacted that there shall be no distribution till a full year after the intestate's death, and if any debts should be discovered after distribution, the persons sharing the estate shall refund the amount of the same ratably. With reference to the above rules the following points may be observed: (1) The husband's absolute right to administer his wife's estate is not affected by the act. This was made clear by a later act of the same reign. (The Statute of Frauds 1677). Administration is now granted to the representatives of the husband where he has died without taking out administration to his wife, unless it can be shown that the wife's next of kin are beneficially interested. (2) The widow, in the event of there being no children or next of kin, takes only her half. The other half goes to the crown. The widow's rights, however, have been enlarged by the Intestate Estates Act 1890. By this act where a man dies wholly intestate and without issue, his property, both real and personal, shall, if it does not exceed £500 in net value, belong to his widow absolutely. If the estate exceeds £500 net, the widow is entitled to £500 out of the estate and has a charge for that amount upon the real and personal property of the deceased. (3) The child or children take equally, two-thirds if the widow be alive, and the whole if she be dead. If some of the children be alive and some dead having issue, then such issue will take their parents' share equally among themselves. There has been some difference of opinion as to whether if all the children have predeceased their parent but have left issue, such grandchildren take as between themselves _per stirpes_ as representatives of their parent or _per capita_ as next of kin. Thus if A and B predecease their father but A leaves three children and B one, should the property be divided into fourths, or first into moieties and then one moiety subdivided into thirds among A's children and the other moiety be given undivided to B's child? It is now settled that the latter method of distribution is the correct one, and it is thought that this will also apply when only great-grandchildren are alive. (4) The next of kin must be ascertained according to the rules of consanguinity, which are the same in English as in the civil law. Degree is calculated from the intestate, through the common ancestor if any, to the kindred. Thus from son to father is one degree, to grandfather two degrees, to brother two degrees, to uncle three degrees, and so on. The statute ordains distribution to be made "to the next of kindred in equal degrees _pro suo cuique jure_, according to the laws in such cases and the rules and limitations hereafter set down." Equality in degree is therefore not in all cases accompanied by equality in rights of succession. Neglecting the cases of wife and children already noticed, the father excludes all other next of kin. So would a mother, in default of a father surviving, but an act of 1685 enacted that in such a case the brothers and sisters, and children of brothers and sisters, of the intestate should share equally with the mother. In the absence of brothers or sisters and their representatives, the mother in the case supposed would take the whole. Mothers-in-law and stepmothers are not within the rules of consanguinity. As between a brother and a grandfather who are both in the second degree, preference is given to the brother; but a grandfather, being in the second degree, will exclude an uncle, who is in the third. An uncle and a nephew, both being in the third degree, take together. Brothers or sisters of the half blood take equally with brothers and sisters of the whole blood. The rule which prohibits representation after brothers' and sisters' children would, in a case where the next of kin were uncles or nephews, wholly exclude the children of a deceased uncle or nephew. Also, as between the son of a brother and the grandson of a brother, the latter would not be admitted by representation. Where a brother and the children of a deceased brother are the next of kin, they will take _per stirpes_, i.e. the brother will take one half, and the children of the other brother will take the other half between them. When the next of kin are all children of the deceased brothers or sisters, they will take equally _per capita_. Subject to these modifications, the personal property will be divided equally among the next of kin of equal degree, e.g. great-grandfathers would share with uncles or aunts, as being in the third degree. Failing next of kin, under these rules, the estate goes to the crown as _ultimus haeres_, a result which is more likely to happen in the case of illegitimate persons than in any other. Entry: INTESTACY