MOORE’S RURAL NEW“YORKER! AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
(flic ({^ssaijist. 
ABUSE OF HEALTH AND WEALTH. 
BY HORACE MANN. 
Tho young man walks in the midst of 
temptations to appetite, tho improper in¬ 
dulgence of which is in danger of proving 
his ruin. Health, longevity and virtue de¬ 
pend upon his resisting these temptations. 
The providence of God is no more respon¬ 
sible because a man by improper indulgence 
becomes a subject of disease, than for pick¬ 
ing his pockets. For a young man to injure 
his health, is to waste his patrimony and 
destroy his capacity for virtuous deeds. 
Should a man love God, he will have ten 
times tho strength for the exercise ot it with 
a sound body. Not only tho amount but 
tho quality of a man’s labor depends upon 
his health. Not only lying lips, but a dys¬ 
peptic stomach, is an abomination to the 
Lord. Tho productions of tho poet, tho 
man of science, or tho orator, must bo af¬ 
fected by his health. The man who neg¬ 
lects to control his appetites, is to himself 
what a state of barbarism is to society—the 
brutish part predominates. He is to him¬ 
self what Nicholas is to Hungary. 
Men buy pains, and tho purveyor and 
market man bring home disease. Our an¬ 
cestors used to bury the suicides wherofour 
roads met; yet every gentleman and lady 
who lav the foundation of disease with tur¬ 
tle soup and lobster salad, as readily com¬ 
mit suicide as if thoy had used tho rope or 
tho pistol; and were the old law revived, 
how many who are now honored with a rest¬ 
ing place at Mount Auburn, would be found 
on tho cross roads ? It is amazing that 
man, invited to a repast worthy of tho gods, 
should stop to feed on cabbage; or when 
called to partake of the Cireean cup, should 
stop to guzzle with the swine. 
If young men imagine that tho gratifica¬ 
tion of appetite is the great source of en¬ 
joyment, they will find this in tho highest 
degree with industry and temperance. The 
epicure, who seeks it in a dinner which costs 
live dollars, will find less enjoyment of ap¬ 
petite than tho laborer who dines on a shil¬ 
ling. If the devotee of appetito desires its 
high gratification, ho must not send for beef 
tongues, but climb a mountain or swing an 
axe. Without health there is no delicacy 
that can provoke an appetito. Whoever 
dostroys his health, turns the most delicate 
viands into ipecac and aloes. Tho man that 
is physically wicked does not live out half 
his days, and he is not half alive while he 
does live. However gracious Gbd may bo 
to the heart, he never pardons the stomach. 
Lot a young man pursue a course of tem¬ 
perance, sobriety and industry, and he may 
retain his vigor till three score years and 
ten, with his cup of enjoyment full, and de¬ 
part painlessly ; as tho candle burns out in 
its socket, so will he expire. 
But look at the opposite. When a man 
suffers his appetites to control him, ho turns 
his dwelling into a lazar house, whether ho 
lives in a hovel, clothod with rags, or in the 
splendid mansion and gorgeous clothing of 
tho upper ten. 
I ask the young man, who is just forming 
his habits of life, or just beginning to indulge 
those habitual traits of thought out of which 
habits grow, to look around him, and mark 
the examples whoso fortunes ho would covet, 
or whose fate ho would abhor. Even as we 
walk the streets we meet with each extreme. 
Here behold a patriarch, whose stock of vi¬ 
gor three score years and ten scfems hardly 
to have impaired. His erect form, his firm 
step, his elastic limbs and undimined senses, 
are so many certificates of good conduct ; 
or rather, so many jewels and orders of no¬ 
bility with which nature has honored him 
for fidelity to hor law. His fair complex¬ 
ion shows that his blood has never been cor¬ 
rupted ; his pure broath that he has never 
yielded his digestive apparatus for a vinter’s 
cesspool; his exact language.and keen ap¬ 
prehension, that his brain has never been 
drugged or stupefied by the poison of dis¬ 
tillers or tobacconists. Enjoying his appe¬ 
tites to tho highest, ho has preserved tho 
power of enjoying thorn. Despite the mor¬ 
al of tho schoolboy’s story, ho has oaten his 
cake and still kept it. As ho drains the cup 
of lifo, there are no lees at the bottom. His 
organs will roach tho goal of existence to¬ 
gether. Painlossly as a candle burns down 
in the socket, so will he expire, and a little 
imagination would convert him into another 
Enoch, translated from earth to a better 
world without the sting of death. 
But look at an opposite extreme, whore 
an opposito history is recorded. What 
wreck so shocking to behold as tho wreck 
of a dissolute man; tho vigor of life ex¬ 
hausted, and yet tho first stops in an hon¬ 
orable career not yet taken; in himself a 
lazar house of disease ; dead, but by a hea¬ 
thenish custom not yet buried ? Roguos 
have had tho initial letter of their title burnt 
into the palms of their hands; ovon for 
murder, Cano was only branded in tho fore¬ 
head ; but over tho whole person of the de¬ 
bauchee or the inebriate, tho signatures of 
infamy are written. How nature brands 
him with stigma and opprobrium ! How 
she hangs labels over him, to testify hor dis¬ 
gust at his existence, and to admonish others 
to bewaro of his example! How she loos¬ 
ens a'.l his joints, sends tremors along ID 
muscles, and bends forward his frame, as if 
to bring him upon all fours with kindred 
brutes, or to degrade him with reptile’s 
crawling ! How she disfigures his counte¬ 
nance. as if intent upon obliterating all tra¬ 
ces of his own imago, so that she may swear 
she nevor made him! How she pours 
rheum ovor his eyes, sends foul spirits to in¬ 
habit his breast, and shrieks, as if with a 
trumpet, from every pore of his body, “ Be¬ 
hold a Boast!” Such a man may be seen 
in tho streets of our cities every day; if rich 
enough ho may bo found in tho saloons and 
at the tables of tho “supreme ton;” but 
surely to every man of purity and honor; 
to every man whose wisdom as well as whose 
heart stands unblemished, tho wretch who 
comes crooped and bleeding from the pil¬ 
lory, and redolent with its appropriate per¬ 
fumes. would be a guest or companion fai 
less offensive and disgusting.. 
Now let the young man rejoicing in his 
manty proportions and in his comeliness, 
look on this picture and on that, and then 
say after the likeness of which model ho in¬ 
tends his own erect stature and sublime 
countenance shall bo configured. 
SELF MADE MEN. 
It is tho surprise of Europe that tho 
United States has so many really great self 
made men. In tho old invidiously privileg¬ 
ed and distinctivoclassifications of European 
social organization, nothing, or less than 
nothing, can be self made, because all is 
made by theories and arbitrary distinctions. 
In such a distinction of tho social compact, 
everybody is trying to find out what his 
ancestors were by birth, instead of what he 
himself is intellectually by nature. 1 his is 
certainly the fittest way possible to make 
a fool of any man, who has not had the mis¬ 
fortune to be born one, while nothing could 
more effectually stifle'ambition, or oven 
hope, on tho part of those not born aright. 
Self made men, under such a state of things, 
are out of tho question. I here is nothing 
to make them of. Tho masculine gender, 
in such lands, must needs become routine 
men, so far as they become men in any 
sense. 
Why, then, should it not be a matter of 
surprise, in Europo, that it is easy for brains 
in this country, to make its way in the 
crowd ? Tho law asks not when or of whom 
one was born, nor does it define any posi¬ 
tion which one is given to occupy, by rea¬ 
son of any contingents of that birth. Hero, 
then, man has only, in tho freest manner 
possiblo, to employ his capacity as he sees 
occasion, in a field open to all. His own 
free choice can alone direct his efforts as 
regards tho object ot his exertions, and his 
capacity in the premises will solely deter¬ 
mine his measure ot success. W ith these 
contingents in view, and their vast influence 
duly appreciated, neither Europo nor tho 
world need longer wonder that Franklin tho 
mechanic, rose as he did; or that tho thou¬ 
sands who havo como alter him from equal¬ 
ly obscure beginnings have so certainly risen 
and so gloriously shone along the paths ot 
greatness which our nation has trod. 
Genius is certainly not tho exclusive in¬ 
habitant of any one realm or clime; but 
genius is naught, even it existent, without 
development can only be full and complete 
when all restriction is absent. When this 
is the case, genius, if it exist, will be found 
—will como forth into activity, mingling its 
results with passing events, and lending its 
aid in their direction. Such is genius here; 
and such is the result of its activity and its 
freedom. Europe has stood amazed at our 
progress, for the last half century. It has 
never comprehended the secret, as it seem¬ 
ed, of our national success; the reason has 
been that it has never realized the facts of 
which we speak. Hence, every nesv move 
that this Republic has made in the form of 
progress, has been promptly pointed out by 
Europe, as tho sure element of our destruc¬ 
tion. When we purchased Louisiana, En¬ 
gland instantly saw that such an extension of 
our borders was to he fatal to the Union ! So, 
again at tho formation of each new State, 
at tho west, the English press has faithfully 
repoated to the world, that tho last hour of 
our confederation had come. But still tho 
Union survived, strengthened and prosper¬ 
ed ; and its calumniators wondered, while 
waiting ill silence. Wo addod California; 
and again tho announcement came from 
London, that we had now finished our ca¬ 
reer, and that tho sun of our glory was soon 
to set in Lynch law and in blood. Since 
that tho London Times, as if tired of wait¬ 
ing for tho fulfilment of its own evil prophe¬ 
cies, has found tho seeds of our national 
chaos and ruin in tho Japan expedition ; 
and again still in the report that we were 
to take part in some way in the Chinese re¬ 
bellion. 
One would think that such constant dis¬ 
appointment, in predictions, would induce 
tho suspicion that erroneous data had been 
employed, and so provoke a revision ol 
these. But it has not. That we could re¬ 
ceive into tho body of our nation such mass¬ 
es of emigrants from Europe, and still oidy 
grow stronger and richer, by tho process, 
has more than once been declared by the 
London press, a mystery past finding out; 
for that press has again and again predict¬ 
ed our ruin from that infusion of popula¬ 
tion. 
Nothing, then, results, with us, as Europo 
predicts and foretells; and hence the cer¬ 
tainty that Europe does not see things as 
they are, here. Europo does not know, be¬ 
cause Europo has never seen, that man, in 
all his despotisms, is governed too much 
and above all, not by his own consent. IIis 
capacity for self government is thero treat¬ 
ed as a fallacy ; and hence tho sluggard in¬ 
activity of his mental existence, there. It is 
only in a stato of self-governed freedom 
that can bo developed the powers which 
men possess; and when Europe shall have 
fully comprehended this noblo idoa, then 
will it cease to wonder at tho strong and 
steady stop of this nation onward, and above 
all at tho constantly recurring cases of real¬ 
ly great and valublo men rising from obscu¬ 
rity, in tho midst of our people, to intellec¬ 
tual positions that astonish while they ben¬ 
efit mankind. 
Misery assails riches as lightning does tho 
highest towers; or as a tree that is heavy 
laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, so do 
riches destroy tho virtuo of their possessor. 
— Burton. 
BARON JUSTUS LIEBIG. 
In his late work entitled “ A Visit to Eu- j 
rope in 1851,” Prof. Silliman gives tho fol- j 
lowing interesting account of a visit to Bar- | 
on Liebig, tho distinguished Agricultural 
Chemist: 
Oi'R principal object in Goisscn, however, I 
was to pay our respects to Liobig, its cele¬ 
brated Professor of Chemistry. Wo had j 
sent in our cards, and while we were wait¬ 
ing for the arrival of the hour which ho had 
named for an interview, we drove about tho 
town, and obtained access to tho library of 
the University, which contains 200.000 vol¬ 
umes. It is arranged in a largo and hand¬ 
some building, and we were attended by a 
very intelligent librarian, who spoke Eng¬ 
lish fluently. Ho made our brief visit in¬ 
teresting by loading us through the different 
departments of this large collection. Tho 
books are divided by subjects : theology, 
physics, mathematics, &c., being placed in 
separate departments, which is obviously 
tho most useful and convenient arrange¬ 
ment. * * * * At the door of 
Prof. Liebig’s lecture-room wo were detain¬ 
ed a little by the reluctance of tho janitor, 
under orders not to admit any one after the 
lecture had begun, but our German atten¬ 
dant, whom we had engaged at tho inn, over¬ 
came his objections, and wo were admitted. 
Prof. Loibig, who was sitting and lecturing 
in his chair, perceiving our ontranco, gavo 
us a pleasant smile of recognition and wel¬ 
come, and tho young men courteously gave 
us seats. He spoke about 15 minutes after 
wo entered. Ilis pupils were very atten¬ 
tive, and most of them were engaged in ta¬ 
king notes. Their appearance was very 
much like that of a similar collection of 
American students. Tho room was crowd¬ 
ed and from its dimensions, it could not 
have contained over 100 students. Tho ta¬ 
ble was full of tho usual accompaniments of 
a chemical lecture. Everything was plain 
and business like. 
Wo havo been surprised at the small size 
of the lecture rooms in several of tho Eu¬ 
ropean Universities which wo havo visited, 
and at the small number of pupils who gene¬ 
rally frequent them. In Heidelberg, for 
example, Prof. Leonhard threw open, for 
our inspection, tho doors of his lecture-room, 
which was in his houso, and contiguous to 
his geological collection. The apartment 
had a rough, appearance, and the benches 
did not imply more than 30 pupils. 
Prof. Liebig’s manner of lecturing is calm 
and quiet; his voice is musical, and his fine, 
dark, deep set oye sparkles with a depth of 
intellectual expression and fire indicative of 
high genius. He has nothing of tho action 
and vehemence of some of tho Parisian Pro¬ 
fessors, and with a manner perfectly natu¬ 
ral, he appeared to command entirely tho 
attention of his audienco. His subject was 
morphine and other alkaloids of opium.— 
When his lecturo was finished he came im¬ 
mediately to us, gave us a very warm recep¬ 
tion, and showed us about bis working labo¬ 
ratory. There are four rooms, in two of 
which the working students are employed 
in their analytical labors. Tho tables ex¬ 
hibited every appearance of actual labor.— 
They were full of chemical vessels and re¬ 
agents, and of course in the disorder which 
necessarily attends on numerous operations 
in which many persons are engaged. Tho 
number of working pupils in this depart¬ 
ment of tho laboratory was from 20 to 30. 
It being the hour of dinner (at 1 o’clock, as 
in New England,) there were only a few 
young men present, and they appeared to 
be employed as private pupils; but Prof. 
Liebig told us that thero wero forty young 
men at work in another department, under 
an assistant teacher. We were conducted, 
last of all, into a private room, whero deli¬ 
cate balances, and other nico articles of ap¬ 
paratus are kept. 
Prof. Liebig is a very pleasing man. In 
his person, ho is tall and genteel, and appa¬ 
rently about 50, or not much beyond that 
age. He is very affable and courteous ; and 
as he speaks tho English language perfectly, 
with only a slight German accent, our inter¬ 
view was particularly interesting and agree¬ 
able. Ho showed us somo new chemical 
products, among which was cordcin, which, in 
prosecution of his researches on tho flesh 
fluids, has been extracted from tho heart of 
the ox. Cordein crvstalizes and appears to 
be similar to sugar, having a sweet taste.— 
Nitrogen does not enter into its composi¬ 
tion, which is tho more remarkable, espe¬ 
cially for a principle extracted from muscle. 
Prof. Liobig also called our attention to the 
result of a process for obtaining barborine 
from tho bark or alburnum of tho barberry; 
it is a yellow crystalized substance. 
The expression in tho published print of 
Prof. Liebig, is very different from that of 
his speaking face. Tho print is true to the 
form of features, but it does not givo the 
impression of suavity and mildness which 
he wears in conversation. It is howover, a 
common misfortune to men whose minds 
have been much exercised with thought, 
that tho artist often catches tho settled fixed 
expression in which intensity is easily mis¬ 
taken for sevority. 
Prof. Liebig expressed much regret, 
which we of course felt still more, that our 
interview must be so brief; but ho was go¬ 
ing to London, and wo exchanged addresses 
hoping to moot again in that city. 
To our earnest invitation that ho would 
visit tho United States and lecture in our 
institutions, ho gavo no oncouragement, ex¬ 
pressing great reluctance to speak in a for¬ 
eign language, and when wo named Prof. 
Agassiz as an example of groat success in 
the Unitod States, ho added that ho had a 
peculiar facility in acquiring a foroign lan¬ 
guage. ____ 
THEOLOGY AND EDUCATION-A FABLE. 
One winter’s night, a poor boy, worn 
out with cold and hunger, lay senseless be¬ 
fore a rich man’s door; and tho rich man 
seeing him, was moved with pity, and car¬ 
ried him into his houso. In a little while 
the warmth of the fire, which was blazing 
in the room whore the boy was laid, re¬ 
stored him to life, and, feebly oponing his 
eyes, and raising his head from tho ground, 
in a faint, low voice, ho cried : “ I have had 
nothing to eat these two days; givo mo food 
or I shall die.” Bread, and meat, and wine 
wero placed before him ; but as he stretch¬ 
ed forth his hand towards tho food, tho rich 
man removed it from within his reach, 
saying, “ Stop, beforo you eat you must say 
grace.” And ho repeated a form of grace 
which ho ordered the boy to say after him. 
But another man who was present, and 
who was a dissenter, interrupted him, and 
criod : “ Your words are wicked, tho boy 
shall not use them ; this is tho graco which 
ho must pronounce”—and ho then gave 
another form of graco, which he would havo 
spoken. And when he had finished talking, 
a third|man, who was a Catholic, more ve¬ 
hemently than tho othor two, exclaimed, 
“ Both of you are wrong, I cannot suffer 
tho boy to sin by doing as you would urge. 
This is what ho ought to say”—and ho 
repeated, in a loud voice, a third form of 
grace. And thon all three spoke together, 
j each one insisting that ho alone was right. 
| And they becamo angry, and abused ono 
another, and tho altercation continued for 
more than an hour, for thoy could como to 
no agreement. And as they were still de¬ 
bating and quarreling, they heard a groan ; 
then suddenly they stopped talking, and 
turned towards the boy, and found that ho 
was dead.— Diogenes. 
PRIVATE CHARACTER OF A LOCOMOTIVE 
People who may see a locomotivo tearing 
up and down tho land at tho rato of lorty 
miles an hour, making tho earth groan be¬ 
neath its giant tread, and tho heavens re¬ 
verberate with its fearful clatter, scaring 
nature with its unearthly din, and frighten¬ 
ing all creation almost from its propriety- 
people who only see it in its terrible activi¬ 
ty, have no idea what eminently social vir¬ 
tues it is endowed with. This is its public 
character. Its privato ono is another affair. 
Now and thon one of these hugo monstors, 
in whoso iron bowels slumber more than a 
thousand giants’ power, comes up and stands 
under our window, and smokos away as 
gently as the most exemplary cooking stove, 
its huge steam pipes singing a strain as soft 
and as dulcet as tho most amiable teakettle, 
and its hugo lungs of steel breathing as 
sweetly as an infant in its slumbers. But 
the demon of powor is there Lot any one 
but pinch its ears, and no vonorablo spin- 
stor cat will spit more fiercely ; let him gripe 
those iron hands, and tho pipes, which wore 
tuned to so soft a strain, send forth a yell, 
as if hoavon and earth were coming togethor, 
and those lungs, which breathed so quietly, 
cough like a volcano ; and off it goes, dark¬ 
ening heaven with its volume of smoke.— 
Home Companion. 
“ALL FOR THE BEST.” 
FROM A LADY’S ALBUM. 
All’s for the best I be sanguine and cheerful; 
Trouble and sorrow are friends in disguise; 
Folly alone goes faithless and fearful; 
Courage forever is happy and wise; 
All’s for the best—if men would but know it; 
Providence wishes us all to be blest; 
This is no dream of pundit or poet;— 
Heaven is gracious, and—all’s for the best. 
All for the best! set this on your standard, 
Soldier of sadness or pilgrim of love, 
Who to the shores of despair may have wandered, 
A way-wearied swallow, or heart-stricken dove. 
All for the best 1 be a man, but confiding : 
Providence tenderly governs the rest; 
The frail bark of His creature He’s guiding, 
Wisely and warily, all for the best. 
All for the best 1 then fling away terrors, 
Meet all your foes and your fears iu the van; * 
In the midst of your dangers or errors, 
Trust like a child, while you strive like a man. 
All’s for the best 1 unbiassed, unbounded, 
Providence reigns from the East to the West, 
And by wisdom and mercy surrounded, 
Hope and be happy that’s all for the best. 
[Parable from the German.—Translated for the Rural.] 
THE THREE FRIENDS. 
There was a man who had three friends; 
two of these ho loved exceedingly, but was 
indifferent to the third, who nevertheless 
dealt most honestly with him. One day he 
was summoned to appear beforo tho tribu¬ 
nal, whero ho was severely accused. Think¬ 
ing himself innocent, he spoke thus to his 
three friends :—Who of you will go with mo 
and give evidence of my innocence ? For 
I have been severely accused, and tho King 
is angry.” The first of his friends immedi¬ 
ately excused himself that ho could not, on 
account of other affairs, go with him. Tho 
second accompanied him as far as tho door 
of the court of justice, and then turned 
away and went home, fearing tho anger of 
tho judge. Tho third, upon whom he had 
least reckoned, went in, spoko in his behalf, 
and testified his innocence so joyfully that 
tho judge released tho accused and loaded 
him with presents. 
Man has three friends in this world.— 
How do they conduct themsolves, in tho 
hour of death, when God summons him to 
his tribunal ? Woalth, his best worldly 
friend, is tho first to abandon him. His re¬ 
latives and friends follow him to tho opon¬ 
ing of the grave, and thon return to their 
homes. Tho third friend, whom he often 
during his life forgot, are his beneficent 
deeds. These alone accompany him to tho 
throne of the Judge; thoy load tho way, 
speak in his behalf, and obtain mercy and 
graco. t. 
THE BETTER LAND. 
A father and mother woro living with 
their two children on a desert island in tho 
midst of tho ocean, on which they had been 
shipwrecked. Roots and vegetables sorved 
them for food; a spring supplied thorn with 
water, and a cavern in the rock with a dwell¬ 
ing. Storm and tempest often raged fear¬ 
fully on tho island. 
The children could not remember how 
they had reached tho island ; they knew 
notliing of the vast continent; bread, milk, 
fruit, and whatever othor luxury is yielded 
there, were unknown to them. 
There landed ono day upon the island 
four Moors in a small boat. Tho parents 
folt groat joy, and hoped now to be roscuod 
from their troubles; but tho boat w’as too 
small to tako them all over together to tho 
adjoining land, so the father determined to 
risk the passage first. 
Mother and children wept whon ho om- 
barked in tho boat with its frail planks, and 
four black men were about to tako him 
away. But ho said, “ Weep not! It is bet¬ 
ter yonder; and you will all follow soon.” 
When tho little boat returned and took 
away tho mother, tho children wept still 
moro. But she also said, “ Weep not! In 
tho better land we shall all meet again.” 
At last tho boat camo to tako away tho 
two children. They were frightened at tho 
black mon and shuddored at tho fearful sea 
over which thoy had to pass. With fear and 
trembling thoy drew near the. land. But 
how rejoiced they wore when their parents 
appeared upon tho shore, offered them 
their hands, led them into the shade of lof¬ 
ty palm-trees, and regaled upon the flowery 
turf with milk, honey, and delicious fruits. 
“ Oh ! how groundless was our fear !” said 
tho children; “ we ought not to have feared 
but to have rejoiced, when the black men 
came to take us away to the better land.” 
“Dear children,” said their father, “our 
•voyage from tho desert island into this 
beautiful country conveys to us a still high¬ 
er meaning. Thero is appointed for us a 
still longer voyage to a moro beautiful 
country. Tho whole earth, on which wo 
dwell, is like an island. Tho land here is, 
indeed, a noblo one in our eyes, although 
only a faint shadow of heaven. Tho pass¬ 
age hither over the stormy sea is—death; 
that little boat resembles tho bier, upon 
which men in black apparel shall at some 
time carry us forth. But whon that hour 
Btrikos, then we, myself, your mother, or 
you must leavo this world. So fear not.— 
Death ig for pious men who havo loved 
God, and havo dono his will—nothing olso 
but a voyage to tho bettor land.” 
If thero was no futuro lifo, our souls 
would not thirst for it.— Richter. 
