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16 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
JAN. 9. 
ItiUlWiS 
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For Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
LIFE'S VOYAGE. 
BY JENNY A. S T O N E. 
Mine was a thoughtless heart 
When first it clung to thee, 
For oh! 'twas a gilded bark 
That bore me o’er the sea. 
And never a storm its strength had tried, 
As it gaily danced on the sparkling tide. 
For a father’s arm of strength 
Had shielded his darling well, 
And a mother’s voice of love 
O’er her girlish spirit fell. 
Where are the dear ones that sailed with me 
In those gilded barks on that golden sea? 
I said I would go with thee, 
I said I would be thy bride, 
So they yielded me to thy care 
In thy manhood’s early pride. 
And I left them all to go with thee, 
The gilded barks and the summer sea. 
Our way has been dark and drear, 
With storm and with cloud o’ercast, 
And trembleng I clung to thee, 
And wept in the pitiless blast, 
Till my heart grew strong, and a deathless love 
Linked both our souls to a home above. 
Mine is a thoughtful heart 
As I sit beside thee now, 
And brush the clustering curls 
From thy pale and aching brow, 
And I would not go back to the summer sea, 
To the gilded bark that held but me. 
Hadley, Mich., 1857. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
THE BRIDE OF DEATH. 
Near the banks of our wild and wayward Gene 
see stands a neat and beautiful cottage, almost em¬ 
bowered in vines and overshadowed by swaying 
trees of uncommon growth and beauty. This was 
the home of contentment, occupied by a small fam¬ 
ily, Mr. and Mrs. Clifton, and an only child, their 
cherished daughter, Ida. She was a true child of 
Nature, loving alike her rugged hills, rocks and 
tiny flowers, her roaring cataracts and silver stream¬ 
lets, and with these she was ever happy, while she 
possessed the sweet consciousness of her parents’ 
love. She knew nothing of the din and allure¬ 
ments of the bustling world, nor cared to know; 
her heart was free as the wild bird’s song to which 
she loved to listen. Her form was graceful—her 
step bounding and light. A luxuriant wealth of 
dark curls shaded a brow of exceeding loveliness, 
while the faint tinge that lay on her fair cheek was 
like the freshness of roses when first touched by 
the rays of morning. 
But as rudest blasts are often near in hours of 
severest calm, so, over the sunshine of that pure 
heart, were gathering angry clouds, and dark, 
threatening storms. The spoiler was at hand! A 
royal stranger has discovered the spot where bloom¬ 
ed the fair wild-flower, and secretly resolved to win 
her from its quiet loveliness. Hesoughtand read* 
ily obtained permission of her falsely ambitious 
parents to convey her in the freshness of her youth 
far from her own sweet home to grace his lordly 
mansion. Constant and ardent were his attentions 
to her, but in vain did Ida Clifton endeavor to 
force her heart into love for him; for although 
fortune had smiled on him from infancy, she knew 
that his heart was barren—that his seeming virtues 
were but the dim reflection of some external good. 
She felt that his passionate admiration would not 
survive the decay of beauty, or the chill of adver¬ 
sity; and even this she could not return without 
stooping to that deception to which she was a 
stranger. 
Long and earnestly did she entreat that the 
dread sentence might be recalled; but her mis¬ 
guided parents still insisted on strict obedience to 
their wishes,—thinking that her present excitement 
would give place to gratitude, when she found her¬ 
self mistress of the splendid fortune which awaited 
her. In the meantime preparations were going 
forward for the intended nuptials. The future 
bride wore a calm brow, thqugh deathly pale, but 
her smile was one of despairing hope and madden¬ 
ed reason, telling of purposes deep and unspoken, 
secretly maturing in the heart’s recess. Time 
rolled on—the last evening of freedom for her had 
arrived. To-morrow’s light would seal the sudden 
woe that had enshrouded her soul with its darken¬ 
ed pall,—one day more, and her voice could no 
longer respond to the name of Ida Clifton —one 
day more her spirit will be fettered—she must be 
another’s and not her own. A strange tire burned 
in her eye. How could she take one by the hand 
from whose very presence her true nature shrank, 
and perjure her own soul by pledging herself his 
while life should last Oh, she could not. Fren¬ 
zied with the thought, she hastily left the room and 
walked with a quick step down the winding path 
where in happier days she had seen such pure de¬ 
light. As she passed under the drooping foliage 
she cast one longing look up the flower-grown way, 
and sadly murmured — “Farewell, dear, happy 
home—no longer mine”—then turned, and it was 
quickly hidden from view. 
The rays of the departing sun were slanting 
dreamily across the clear waters, now resting on 
tufts of moss that clung to the dark gray rocks, 
then darting his golden arrows through the twin¬ 
ing branches of walnut and elm, weaving fantastic 
figures of light and shade on the rugged bank be¬ 
yond, as she emerged from the shadows and stood 
at the water's edge. The earth was beautiful, but 
to her heart, crushed and bleeding, its brightness 
was but mockery. Her poor brain was reeling, and 
in her wild fancy she saw seraph robes, and angel 
hands beckoned her away. For awhile she stood, 
lost in thought, then whispering, “No! I cannot, I 
cannot,” she drew from her pocket a small porce¬ 
lain vial, raised it to her lips, and drank the deadly 
liquid. Then hastily seating herself on a grassy 
mound, she snatched up a scrap of paper which had 
fallen to her feet, and penciled upon it the follow¬ 
ing lines: 
“ Adieu, dear father, mother, 
I close my weary eyes, 
Earth has for me no beauty, 
But glorious is the sky. 
And it invites me upward, 
With many an angel eye— 
Adieu, dear father, mother, 
A long, a last good bye.” 
An hour had passed. The sun had disappeared, 
leaving his robe of gold and crimson around the 
western gates, but in the east the round, full moon 
arose, and looked once more on earth. Her placid 
rays fell on the waving forests, and o’er the flowery 
meadows, tipped the little ripples of the silent riv¬ 
er with silvery gems, and rested like a halo of 
peace from its “home of light,” on the pure brow 
and shining hair of the fair maniac, now free from 
earth. The fatal drug had done its work, but left 
no trace of terror. Her eyes were calmly closed, 
and her lips were free from the impress of woe that 
a scathed brain and broken heart had stamped 
upon them. On that mossy seat, in Death’s own 
beauty, reposed the gentle Ida—Ida Clifton still. 
The silver cord was softly loosed—the dark life 
struggle was over. 
Come now, mistaken parents, come wretched 
mother,—her voice-will not reproach you. Bitter, 
bitter is the cup, but murmur not; your own hands 
have mixed it. Bear her gently to her room—fold 
her lily hands over her pulseless bosom—wreathe 
the flowers she loved so well to deck her marble 
brow, but think not to stay the scalding tears, nor 
to find a balm for tortured spirits. Never shall the 
remembrance of that pleading voice and despair¬ 
ing eye fade from the tablet of the heart, and the 
lesson here taught shall ever haunt the memory, 
that no power on earth—not even a parent’s hand, 
when swayed by false, ambitious motives—may 
weave a fetter for the soul, for love alone may claim 
its homage, and bind with silken strings its high 
and restless yearnings. A. E. m. 
Livingston Co., N. Y., 1858. 
GV. 
-JO 
1 $,! 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
IN A HUNDRED YEARS. 
BY ELLEN C. LAKE. 
When in searching for mischief you knock your crown, 
And pity takes the shape of boxed ears, 
When you drop your bread-slices “butter-side down,” 
And your cheeks are race-courses for tears, 
Take this gate for the flood, this balm for the wound, 
“ ’Twill be forgotten in a hundred years." 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
BEAUTIFUL HANDS. 
“ Oil! she has such beautiful hands.” “ Why do 
you call them beautiful?” “ Oh, they aro so small, 
and soft, and white. Her fingers taper- so finely, 
and the nails are most perfectly shaped and deli¬ 
cately tinted.” 
“ They may be all that, and yet not beautiful. Did 
you learn how many good deeds they have done? 
how often, as the agents of a charitable heart they 
have bestowed charities? how many times they 
have soothed the pain in burning, aching brows? 
how often they are folded in humble prayer before 
God? And are they willing hands? will they do a 
kindly act as readily and gracefully as they touch 
the keys of the piano? Are they modest hands?— 
can they do good without boasting? Are they 
industrious hands? will they sweep a room or 
knead a loaf of bread? Are they brave hands? 
would they dare do right in spite of pride and fash 
ion? Are they democratic hands? would they, lie 
fore the eyes of wealth, and pomp, and would-be 
aristocracy, clasp as equals the hard toilworn fingers 
of the honest poor? 
It is not softness, nor whiteness, nor delicacy of 
form which determines a hand’s beauty in Heaven 
We find nothing concerning prettily shaped hands 
in the Bible. But we read of Sara, the wife of 
Abraham, that she did ‘make ready quickly three 
measures of fine meal, kneaded it, and made cakes 
upon the hearth;’ and of the faithful Ruth, — ‘and 
she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after 
the reapers, for the support of herself and Naomi; 
and of Mary, —‘she anointed the feet of Jesus, 
and wiped his feet with her hair.’ Mould thy spirit 
into perfection and thy outward body shall assume 
all comeliness. Be industrious, patient and prayer 
ful; he pure-lieartcd, affectionate and true, so shall 
thy hands he beautiful in the sight of God.” 
Stouts-Grove, Ill., Dec., 1857. E. E. 
When your paper-kites have a liking for mud 
That keeps you ever in a “ stew” of fears, 
When your plans for fun are “ nipped in the bud,” 
By a frost leaving marks like whip-lash sears, 
Reflect as you fret, or the smarting stripes rub, 
“ ’Twill he all the same in a hundred years.” 
When you’ve got the “ sack” from the girl with black eyes, 
After all your sonnets, and hopes, and fears, 
When you dream of poison and live on deep sighs, 
’Mid the dark fancies a smitten heart rears; 
Assert, eyeing the faults of the “ sour grapes’ ” prize, 
“ 'Twill be just as well in a hundred years.” 
When a “ plaguey bank” fails with your money there, 
And your “ home-comfort” takes to pouts and tears, 
When the thorns of your life-path are sharp and bare, 
And you see not where the Faith-pilot steers, 
Remember that no text-book of woe or care, 
Holds lessons for dark’ning a hundred years. 
You may grumble and fret when your hopes are vain, 
You may sigh and shed pails-full of tears, 
But, man, you should know that earth’s burdens of pain, 
Whether of the mind, the heart, or the ears — 
Come like the fitful dashings of summer rain, 
And are forgotten in a hundred years. 
So keep a brave heart at the helm of your ship, 
See that all breakers of despair it clears, 
Let no ghostly fear-phantoms before it flit, 
Hiding the safe harbor for which it steers. 
Then who knows but the song that passes your lip 
Will bo remembered a hundred years. 
Charlotte Centre, N. Y., 1858. 
THE END OF GREAT MEN. 
For Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
DIGNITY. 
For Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
THE ANGEL OF CHANGE. 
I look out of my window and lo! the green 
walls that have imprisoned my cottage home all 
summer, are growing brown, and bare, and I know 
that the Angel of Change has passed by. 
The Angel of Change? Y'es, for is it not an angel 
that'strews the beautiful petals all over the garden 
walks, leaving exposed to the perfecting influences 
of the last sunbeams of summer, the tiny caskets of 
fruit, wherein are stored away the elements of a 
new life of greenness and glory? 
And is it not an angel that strips the foliage from 
the forest trees, leaving them to say their prayers 
to Heaven awhile with heads uncovered, and then 
distils upon them, like the light our God pours out 
upon the worshiper, soft fleeces of beauty, that 
grow glorious in the sunlight of the mornings that 
He also brings? 
And are not angels looking pityingly upon our 
own mortality, and longing for the time when they 
may bear us away to the great toilet-chamber to be 
arrayed in fadeless robes—fadeless because pure? 
Heaven bless the Angels of Change! Our hearts 
would weary with monotony, our souls despair, 
were there no hope of change. 
Grandville, Mich., 1857. Mrs. M. P. A. Crozier. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
THE DEAD BABY’S SMILE. 
Tiie little sufferer lay upon her couch nearly 
worn out and just ready to depart For several 
days she had suffered and such had been her ago¬ 
ny that her features were distorted. Her breath 
grew short —her bosom heaved lighter and lighter, 
and the friends of the little one gathered around 
to see the baby die. The mother’s heart was bleed¬ 
ing and friends mingled their tears beside tbe couch. 
All unseen by those who wept, an angel drew 
near and touched the panting little sufferer. She 
sighed feebly, hut was at rest. The gentle spirit 
has gone with the angel to the home of the good 
but there lingered upon the countenance of the 
dead baby a smile. She had felt of the sorrows of 
this life, but before she died the angel opened to 
her the glories of the future, and her happy spirit 
departing left its impress behind. Fitch. 
Syracuse, N. Y., Dec., 1857. 
Human affections are the leaves, the foliage of 
our being—they catch every breath and in the bur¬ 
den and heat of the day they make music and mo¬ 
tion in a sultry world. Stripped of that foliage 
how unsightly is human nature. 
Man may err, and be forgiven; but poor woman, 
with all his temptation, and but half his strength 
is placed beyond the hope of earthly salvation, if 
she but once be tempted into crime. 
Dignity, according to the lexicographers, is a 
term used to indicate the superiority of the human 
race as compared with the brute creation; to point 
out a native nobleness and dignity of one as com¬ 
pared witli another; and in social life, to denote 
superior rank and elevation. Such is the old es¬ 
tablished definition; hut when we consider it in its 
present application, and note the manner in which 
the quality it is supposed to name is appropriated 
by all classes, we are led to regard it as second to 
nothing in the line of humbuggery, in this age of 
sham and false pretense. Instead of being a mark 
by which the few arc distinguished from the many , 
it is a property in the possession of which, all men 
are Fourieritcs. Like the necessaries of life, as air 
and water, all have “enough and to spare.” 
Dignity is the prerogative of all, from the child in 
the nursery to the prince on the ihrone. Dignita 
ries occupy the Senate floor, and they fill the sacred 
desk. Dignitaries don the judges ermine, and 
Dignitaries exercise the duties of pettifoger in the 
picayune court of a backwood’s sliiretown. Digni 
taries shave men’s pockets on “ ’change,” and their 
faces in the barber’s saloon. Dignity is invaluable 
on all occasions, increasing tbe importance of the 
man, where real worth would seem to render it 
superfluous, and serving as a never-failing bugbear 
to naughty children. With those who possess no 
other patrimony, it is like Indian rubber in the 
hands of the manufacturers—available for all pur¬ 
poses. It is at once, the hollow tree from which, 
owl-like stupidity threatens the world with a deluge 
of wisdom and profundity, and the secret covert 
behind which “duncedom skulks and sneaks.” A 
man may be led to abandon hope; to acknowledge 
that fortune is a fickle dame; goodness a cheat, and 
life a delusion; but when all else have failed, like 
Noah’s dove returning to the Ark, he flics to his 
dignity, and planting himself thereon, laughs at 
adversity. 
Many a man, by assuming an imposing air, 
palms himself off on the duped multitude as a very 
paragon of wisdom and intellectual power, while 
in the dreary and unfurnished chambers of Iris 
mind, the imp of ignorance reigns without a rival. 
Robed in a mantle of dignity the impersonation of 
obtuseness itself is able to win the most important 
offices of State, and is ever ready with impertinent 
officiousness to vote on all bills which tend to in¬ 
crease the quality and quantity of his dinners and 
dignity. While modest worth is compelled to re¬ 
tire shivering and shaking into a cold corner, bold 
effrontery, alias dignity, elbows his way through 
the throng, and complacently spreads his palms to 
the reviving influence of the blaze of prosperity. 
Again, its advantages are well exemplified in its 
power of abbreviating the probationary term of 
all aspiring candidates to manhood. By its happy 
influence, the long and tedious period of youth and 
inexperience is eluminated from the equation of 
life, and at one mighty stride, the child passes from 
the embarrassment of long clothes to the panta¬ 
loons of manhood. From the profound ignorance 
of the cradle, he struts forth, a man, a giant in in¬ 
tellect and judgment, and at ten years of age, 
leaves the paternal roof, because lie “ can do bet¬ 
ter,” goes into business, and with dignity for stock 
in trade, cash capital and income, he laughs at 
competition. 
In their love of honor, men seemingly forget 
that it is not externalities which make the man, 
and so they fold the cloak of dignity around them 
as if to find beneath it the semblance, at least, of 
those qualities which command respect, imagining 
that if not reverenced for visible virtues, they will 
be for those which are supposed to exist Still, the 
veil is not entirely impregnable, and as we some¬ 
times see it rent in twain, exposing to an astonish¬ 
ed world the spectacle of that ridiculous dignity 
and ursine vanity “which,” as Coleridge says, 
“ keeps itself alive by sucking the paws of its own 
self-importance,” we feel to respond to the senti¬ 
ment of that other poet, who says, 
“0 wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursol’s as ithers see us; 
It would frao mony a blunder free us, 
And foolish notion.” 
Belfast, N. Y., Dec., 1857. T. D. Tooker. 
Happening to cast my eye upon a printed page 
of miniature portraits, the personages who occupied 
the four conspicuous places were Alexander, Hanni¬ 
bal, Caesar and Bonaparte. I had seen the same 
unnumbered times before, and never did the same 
sensation arise in my bosom as my mind hastily 
glanced over their several histories. 
Alexander, the Great, after having climbed the 
dizzy heights of his ambition, and with his tem¬ 
ples bound with chaplets dipped in the blood of 
countless nations, looked down upon a conquered 
world, and wept that there was not another for him 
to conquer, set a city on Are, and died in a scene of 
debauch. 
Hannibal, after having, to the astonishment and 
consternation of Rome, passed the Alps; after hav¬ 
ing put to flight the armies of the mistress of the 
world, and stripped three bushels of gold rings 
from the fingers of her slaughtered knights, and 
made her very foundation quake—fled from his 
country, being hated by those who once exultingly 
united his name to that of their god, and called 
him Hannibal—died at last by poison administered 
by his own hands, unlamented and unwept in a 
foreign land. 
Caesar, after having conquered eight hundred 
cities, and dyed iris garments in the blood of one 
million of his foes, after having pursued to death 
the only rival he had on earth, was miserably assas¬ 
sinated by those he considered his nearest friends 
and in that very place, the attainment of which had 
been his greatest ambition. 
Bonaparte, whose mandate kings and popes 
obeyed, after having filled the earth with tears and 
blood, and clothed the world with sackcloth, closed 
bis days in lonely banishment, almost literally 
exiled from the world, yet where he could some¬ 
times see bis country’s banner waving over the 
deep, but which could not or would not bring 
him aid. 
Thus four men who from the peculiar situation 
of their four portraits, seemed to stand as the rep¬ 
resentatives of all those whom the world call great; 
those four who, each in turn, made the earth trem¬ 
ble to its very centre by their simple tread, severally 
died—one by intoxication, or as some suppose, by 
poison mingled in iris wine, one by suicide, one 
murdered by his friends, and one in a lonely exile. 
How are the mighty fallen! 
PARIS AND NAPOLEON. 
All over this city spreads the mighty shadow of 
the Napoleon! Everywhere you see, and hear, and 
feel “ Le Grand Emperenr!" His statues—in the 
favorite grey coat and chapeau—are on every tho¬ 
roughfare; his pictures are on every wall. Yester- 
day we went to visit his tomb in the Hospital des 
Invalides .' Thousands were pressing up to the iron 
doorway of the little chapel, to look in at the mar¬ 
ble coffin. Besides it are the cap lie wore at Eylau 
and his sword; over the coffin a velvet pall It 
took my breath out of me for the moment, as the 
thrilling thought broke in upon me—“There—just 
within that marble—lies the actual Napoleon Bona¬ 
parte.” Not that I am a Napoleon worshiper.— 
None more admired his colossal intellect than I; 
none more hate his sublime intensity of selfishness 
—his gigantic butcheries of his fellow-men. Every¬ 
thing, however, that is connected with him, ex¬ 
cites my keenest interest To-day I have been 
examining the relics of him in the Louvre. They 
show you his old tattered book of mathematics — 
Iris cop}' of Ossian— his low, plain, iron camp bed¬ 
stead—his famous grey overcoat, which used to stir 
the military Satan in the French soldiers so, when¬ 
ever they saw it—his coats and vests—his gold 
dressing-case apparatus— his iron crown, which 
once rested on the imperial brow of Charlemagne, 
and which he placed on his own head in the Notre 
Dame. But more touching than any of these were 
two other trifles,—one, the plain old bathe wore at 
St. Helena; the other, the linen pocket-handker¬ 
chief which wiped iris pale face in Iris dying hour! 
The letter “?V” was embroidered in the corner. 
Near it lay his watch, which had stopped at twenty 
minutes past five. What a career ended with the 
stopping of that watch.— T. L. Cuyler. 
EARLY IMPRESSIONS, 
In a retired village in Vermont, two hundred 
miles from any seaport, a traveler, some years 
since, turned his horse up to the door of a farm 
house, to ask for entertainment and shelter for the 
night. He was hospitably received. In the even- 
ing, in conversation with his host and hostess, he 
learned that their three sons, their only children, 
were absent from them upon the sea. He was told 
that each of them, from early boyhood, had mani¬ 
fested a desire to become a sailor, so strong and 
ardent that all the earnest entreaties of their 
parents could not quench it. To these parents it 
was a mystery how their sons, so far from the sea, 
and surrounded by all the attractions of rural life, 
should each of them, in turn, exhibit such an un¬ 
conquerable desire to be wanderers on tfie ocean. 
The traveler thought he could solve tbe mystery. 
He bad noticed, in a recess in the wall over the 
mantle-piece, a beautiful glass model of a ship com¬ 
pletely rigged and in full sail. He believed that 
that little glass ship, a bridal gift to the mother, as 
he was told, and constantly before the eyes of those 
boys from infancy, had inspired in their breasts 
that love for a sailor’s life upon the ocean-wave. 
\\ho will say it was a groundless belief? 
A single incident in early life is often the pivot 
upon which a person’s whole character and destiny 
turns. It is stated in the biography of Michael 
Angelo, the great Italian sculptor, that when a 
child, his nurse, who was the wife of a stone-mason, 
was accustomed to give him for play things, a little 
hammer and chisel. Had it not been for those 
toys, the genius of Angelo might have taken an 
entirely different course, and we should have read 
of him in history as a poet, an orator, or a states¬ 
man. Had a little sword and drum been given him 
for toys, in place of the hammer and chisel, his 
name might have come down to us as a renowned 
chieftain, a great general, rather than as the man 
Who made the senseless stone to breathe and speak, 
The dull rock reflect the perfect form of youth and age. 
M ere we to trace one of the majestic rivers of our 
country to its source, we should find, (if the reports 
of travelers be true,) not far from the spot where it 
issues from its parent spring, a rock lying directly 
across the path it would naturally pursue, and turn¬ 
ing its stream into an entirely different channel, 
thus determining, ever after, the direction in which 
that proud river is to convey its waters to the 
ooean. So is it with character. Often a trival cir¬ 
cumstance in early life, gives a new and decisive 
turn to the purposes or tastes of a child, which 
determines his whole future character, and shapes 
the course of all his subsequent life.— Rev. \V. Bates. 
IDLERS. 
EARNEST WORDS. 
We find them recorded in hooks—we read them 
and are impressed by them—we mentally ejaculate, 
“ blessings on those who write earnest words, and 
breathe deep thoughts into the hearts of the young 
and undecided, at the beginning of their pilgri¬ 
mage.” 
We hear them from the lips of parents and 
teachers — we wonder if they will be heeded by 
those to whom they are addressed, or whether they 
are mere sounds, destined to die upon the ear, and 
be forgotten in an hour. These earnest words are 
the fruits of experience and affection. Will the 
young believe this? Will they heed the voice of 
warning, the yearning of affectionate hearts?— 
Earnest words are heard from the pulpit — words 
fraught with the stupendous truths of immortality 
and pardon for guilty men. Are these words heeded ? 
Earnest words are sent forth through the period¬ 
ical and newspaper presses of our country. Words 
of warning—words of admonition—words of en¬ 
couragement. Let them still go on their mission. 
Like seed thrown from the hand of the husband¬ 
man, some, doubtless, “ will fall on stony ground,” 
— some will first spring up, but wither when the 
noonday sun shines, “ because they have no depth of 
earth, while others, falling upon good ground, shall 
bring forth, some thirty and some an hundred fold.” 
The present is a bright speck between the dark¬ 
ness of the future aud the twilight of the past. 
Beautiful Extract. — When the summer of 
youth is slowly wasting away into the nightfall of 
age, and the shadow of past years grows deeper 
and deeper, as life were on its close, it is pleasant 
to look back through the vista of time upon the 
sorrows and felicities of our earlier years. If we 
have a home to shelter, and hearts to rejoice with 
us, and friends have been gathered together by our 
firesides, then the rough place of our wayfaring 
will have been worn and smoothed away in the 
twilight of life, while the sunny spots we have pas¬ 
sed through will grow brighter and more beauti¬ 
ful. Happy, indeed, are they whose intercourse 
with the world has not changed the tone of their 
holier feeling, or broken those musical chords of 
the heart, whose vibrations are so melodious, so 
tender and touching in the evening of age. 
Thomas Carlyle lias said, somewhere in his 
voluminous works, that the world has “ one mon¬ 
ster—the idle man.” Who can doubt it? 
Young man, are you an idler? Are you con¬ 
senting under some pretext or other, to live on tbe 
earnings of others? Do you plead “ bad health,” 
while they are feebler than you? Are you spending 
your hours in utter idleness, while even your 
mother and sisters are pricking their fingers with 
the needle, or skinning them at the wash-tub to 
keep you iu bread and butter, and hide your lazy 
carcass with decent clothes? We have known some 
young men as mean as this. Arouse yourself, 
young man! Shake off the wretched and disgrace¬ 
ful habits of the do-nothing, if you have been so 
unfortunate as to incur them, and go to work at 
once! 
“But what shall I do?” you perhaps ask. Any¬ 
thing, rather than to continue dependent, and in 
enfeebling and demoralizing idleness. If you can 
get nothing else to do, sweep the streets. But per¬ 
haps you are “ ashamed ” to do that. If so, your 
shame has been very slow in manifesting itself, 
seeing how long you have been acting, on life’s 
great stage, the despicable parts of drone and 
loafer, without shame. 
Idler! take the foregoing home to yourself.— 
Don’t try to persuade yourself that the cap doesn’t 
fit you. Honestly acknowledge its fitness. It will 
he a great point gained to become honest with 
yourself. It will be a step forward—a step towards 
that justice to others which your present conduct 
absolutely ignores! 
Personal Influence. —Blessed influence of one 
true loving human soul on another! Not calcula¬ 
ble by algebra, not deducible by logic, but myste¬ 
rious, effectual, mighty as the hidden process by 
which the many seed is quickened, and bursts 
forth into tall stem and broad leaf, and glowing 
tasseled flower. Ideas are often poor ghosts; our 
sunfilled eyes cannot discern them; they pass 
athwart us in thin vapor, and cannot make them¬ 
selves felt. But sometimes they are made flesh; 
they breathe upon us with warm breath, they touch 
us with soft, responsive hands, they look at us with 
sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing 
tones; they are clothed in a living human soul, 
with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then 
their presence is a power, then they shake us like 
a passion, and we are drawn after them with gentle 
compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame.— Black- 
ivoods Magazine. 
For Everybody'. —Let the business of everybody 
else alone and attend to your own; don’t buy what 
you don’t want; use every hour to advantage and 
study to make leisure hours useful; think twice be¬ 
fore you spend a shilling, remember that you will 
have-anotlier to make for it, find recreation in look¬ 
ing after your business, and so your business will 
not be neglected in looking after recreation; buy 
low, sell fair, and take care of the profits; look 
over your books regularly, and if you find an er¬ 
ror, trace it out; should a stroke of misfortune 
come upon you in trade, retrench, work harder, 
hut never fly the track; confront difficulties with 
unflinching perseverance and they will disappear 
at last; though you should even fall in the strug¬ 
gle, you will be honored; but shrink from the task 
and you will be despised. 
What is this world? A dream within a dream 
—as we grow older, each step has its inward awa¬ 
kening. The youth awakes and he thinks from 
childhood—the full-grown man despises the pur¬ 
suits of youth as visionary—the old man looks on 
manhood as a feverish dream. Is death the last 
sleep? No—it is the last final awakening .—Sir 
Walter Scott. 
