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like him, but unlike him they were unconscious of their confine- 

 ment, and thought themselves all the while enjoying life, drinking 

 double beer and singing like true students " Guadiamus igitur." 

 There is much significance in that story ; many men are shut up 

 in bottles, and all the while are unconscious of it. You can laugh 

 to yourselves, no doubt, and think of many of your neighbors 

 besides the drunkards, who live shut up in their own glass bottles, 

 living regardless of all the duties of hfe, selfish churls Avithout 

 friendships or affections, who can never grow better or wiser, or 

 more kindly, but only a little more selfish and cold as they grow 

 older. Let them remain there ; the country will have no useful 

 influences for them. They would barter their birthright in the 

 stars, and exchange all that sweet, holy beauty for a single tallow 

 candle to light their gloomy dens. They would rob the sunset 

 clouds of their gold, if it Avould but make a httle dollar for their 

 pockets. Every rose bush would bear thorns only, and not flow- 

 ers, could they but make the laws of creation. Such churls are 

 not good men, nor good farmers either. 



Nature hates a churl and a miser ; his fields are traitors to him, 

 his crops rebel against him, his fruits fail him. It is but another 

 illustration of the doctrine, " No work, no wages !" A farmer who 

 tliinks only of himself, of crops and of money, and forgets the duties 

 of man, of life, and home, is false to himself, because he is true to 

 himself alone ; and by the sure, slow, certain, and inevitable laws 

 of life, his fields and his farm will betray him, and be false to him 

 also. But I repeat it, these are not the representatives of our 

 farmers, nor the results of rural life. 



I have often noticed this general difference, that in the country 

 men reflect more, are more conservative and thoughtful. In the 

 city, men live by the railroad, and the telegraph ; the morning- 

 newspaper thinks for them ; the excitement of to-day is forgotten 

 in to-morrow's news ; they do business by steam and electricity, 

 and decide on the spur of the moment ; they are all fast men. 

 But in the country there is more reflection and thought. The 

 deep pastoral solitudes have their uses, and their profound instruc- 

 tions. There is always food for thought here. In the city, if we 

 pause and step aside from the current, and shut our ears to the 

 rush and roar of life, we see only the works of man — not the 

 beautiful, the elevating and refining works of God. Even at 



