your scrul and dishonor your manhood. I should 
think you would be proud to stand up firmly in 
your independence, and show yourself a max. scorn¬ 
ing to let God. or humanity, see you eternally dis¬ 
grace yourself. A black spot on your soul yon can 
never efface! 
While riding from A- to I-, yesterday, a 
young man. an occupant of the stage coach, was. 
feeling very unwell, and attributed his illness to a 
glass of ale which he drank the day previous, 
adding, “ale is such & fashionable drink now-a-days 
that one must drink it, if he likes it or not.” I could 
not help wondering if there were not some men as 
simple as most women, perfectly willing to make 
consummate fools of themselves for the sake of 
being fashionable 1 
Any man who furnishes intoxicating drinks on 
any occasion for stimulation, such as during har¬ 
vesting. huskings, raising buildings, Ac., is a down¬ 
right curse to his country, and should be treated as 
a public nuisance of the most detestable stamp. As 
for tobacco smokers, they can’t help knowing that 
they resemble inhabitants of a very icarm country, 
puffing away at a blazing stick, blowing the filthy 
smoke in honest people’s faces. 'Tis a fact that the 
first drink of intoxication and the first attempt at 
tobacco using, make men terribly sick. And if it is 
not strange that they will persist in becoming ad¬ 
dicted to the vice, then I’ll admit there is nothing 
strange. Every old tobacco cbewer should be 
thrown into a vat of strong, hot ley, and soaked lor 
six months; and if he is then dean, after being 
thoroughly rinsed in a strong solution of nitrate of 
silver, he may think he hadn't used as much to¬ 
bacco as some of his neighbors. 
If there is anyone who can tell me “wliatl’d 
like to know,” he had hotter do it, providing he 
wants a situation in Barnutn’s Museum. 
Minnie Mintwood. 
Alfred University, Alleg. Co., N. Y., 1362. 
English character and habits have an inherent 
dignity and solidity, which might be copied to ad¬ 
vantage in this country. They seem to have a root¬ 
ed aversion to anything like display on ordinary 
occasions, and find in simplicity a peculiar charm. 
American ladies are sadly deficient in good taste in 
dress. Mauy of them are never satisfied unless bur¬ 
dened with costly silks and jewelery. for an out-door 
costume; and foreigners are uniformly amazed at the 
promenade dress of our great cities. A recent vis¬ 
itor in England alludes to the habits in respect to 
dress and furniture which obtain in the first families 
there, and we know many husbands and parents 
here who would rejoice if such habits provoked im¬ 
itation : 
«In the families of many of the noliility and gen¬ 
try of England, possessing an annual income which 
of itself would he an ample fortune, there is greater 
economy of dress and more simplicity in the fur¬ 
nishing of the dwelling, than there is in many of the 
houses of our citizens, who are barely aide to supply 
the daily wants of their families by the closest atten¬ 
tion to business. A friend of ours, who sojourned 
not long since several months in the vicinity of some 
of the wealthy landed aristocracy of England, whose 
ample rent rolls would have warranted a high style 
of fashion, was surprised at the simplicity of man¬ 
ner practised. Servants were much more numerous 
than with us. but the ladies made more account of 
one silk dress than would he thought here of a 
dozen. They were generally clothed in good, sub¬ 
stantial stuffs, and a display of fine jewelry was 
reserved for great occasions. 
“ The furniture of the mansions, instead of being 
turned out of doors every few years for new and 
more fashionable styles, was the same which the an¬ 
cestors of the families for several generations had 
possessed—substantial and in excellent preserva¬ 
tion. but plain, and without any pretention to ele¬ 
gance. Even the carpets in many suits of parlors had 
been on the floors for fifty years, and were expected 
to do service for another half century. With us how 
different is the state of things! We are wasting an 
amount of wealth in this country on show and fash¬ 
ion, which, rigidly applied, would renovate the con¬ 
dition of the whole population of the world, and hu¬ 
manize, civilize, and educate all mankind.” 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
THANKSGIVING. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
like:. 
THE COUNTRY CHILD 
With mingled trembling and delight, 
And slowly falling feet, 
A little country maiden now 
Is passing down the street; 
A country child—I know it by 
Her timid air. her wand'ring eye. 
The warm sunlight has kissed her brow, 
And tinged her cheeks with brown ; 
The odor of the Violets 
Conies with her to the town ; 
We almost guess the woodland place 
Where she has dwelt, from her sweet face. 
We almost read her inner thoughts, 
Through her large, wistful eyes; 
How bright, to her, the city seems, 
How much like Paradise 
As Nature's child, with bounding heart, 
Looks, for the first glad time, on Art! 
The merchant, in his store-house door, 
Stnilcs as she passes by. 
The laborer pauses in bis work, 
To watch her with a sigh ; 
Where'er she goes, she wakens dreams 
Of shady nooks and rippling streams. 
She seems to bring the country here— 
Its birds, its (lowers, its dew ; 
And slowly, as, amid the throng, 
She passes from our view, 
We watch her, sadly, as we might 
Some pleasant landscape fade from sight. 
Ah well 1 we w ould not keep her here, 
These dusty streets to roam— 
So fair a dower should open with 
The daisy buds at home ; 
“ Mid primrose stars, as sweet and wild, 
As she will be—dear woodland child! 
Resistless, forward-flowing tide of Life! 
Upon thy current, rapid, silent dark. 
Float* to its destiny my little burk. 
Past snow-crowned hills and vales all red with strife 
Like the light gossamer tossed by the breeze, 
The veriest sport, of Fortune and of Chance; 
So I obey the winds of Circumstance 
Speeding me onward unto unknown seas. 
Though the stars shine and the soft breezes sigh. 
And tire fair flowers woo tne to delay ; 
Though woes assail me and my loved ones die, 
And I would pause to weep, I may not stay, 
For lo! the end! Without a warning cry, 
My bark is whelmed iu dread Eternity. 
Mt. Morris, N. Y., 1862. L. L. 1 
I hear a sound of joy!—the deep-toned thunder, 
Speaking low love-words to the fainting earth,— 
Sending a thrill through all her trembling heart-strings, 
Reward, at last, for patient trust, and worth. 
Long hath she languished like some doubting maiden, 
Pining in silence o'er the love denied; 
But now she binds upon her brow fresh roses, 
And stands, arrayed and crowned, a trusting bride. 
Thanksgiving to our Gon!—the rain in torrents 
Descends upon the scorched and barren land,— 
See ye not now that for some good, we knew not, 
Our Father thus so long withheld His hand? 
O, ye, whose hearts were faint, and unbelieving, 
Doubt not the promise of His love again,— 
Which He has left recorded lirm forever.— 
Promise of •* early and of latter rain.' 
Great God, our eyes by mists of sin are blinded; 
We cannot rightly read Thy works and ways; 
Yet here, to night, we lay upon Thine altar, 
From thankful hearts, our offerings of praise. 
Cambria, N. Y., 1862. 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
OUR LIFE - MISSION. 
a heaven-planted germ—to be, or to do something 
great or good. It is true that all our high and holy 
aspirations may never have a perfect, realization. 
Many glowing anticipations yield only grief and 
bitter anguish: many sweet and precious hopes are 
borne far from us, on the resistless tide of adversity: 
mauy noble intellects that might illumine the world 
by their brilliancy, are content to dream only of 
fame, or goodness, while the Gon-given powers: 
ever remain dormant, a hidden fountain, whose 
sparkling waters never leap up to the merry snn- 
ligbt, making more bright and beautiful the high¬ 
way of life. There are others, of far inferior 
endowments, yet possessed with that indomitable 
will which amounts to an overwhelming force, 
sweeping away every opposing influence, and, like 
the gigantic mountain torrent, rushing on and on, 
with fast-increasing power, till it reaches the 
ocean’s Yast expanse. The influence exerted by 
such a mind, if directed by the “ unerring counsel 
of God,” will produce most glorious results, the 
extent and magnitude of which time can never 
reveal. 
God has not endowed us all with the gigantic 
mental powers of a Webster, or the exquisite 
moral sensibilities of a Luther, nor the sensitive 
poetic nature of Pope or Drydex. The All-wise 
may not require of us the work ot a Howard or an 
Obeklin. It may not be ours to stand among the 
great or noble of the earth,—the fadeless laurel may 
never wreathe our throbbing brows, nor our hands 
ever grasp life’s highest prizes; our missiou may lie 
of a very humble nature, yet we have each a life- 
work to perform, and the giving even a cup of cold 
water to one of earth’s weary fainting ones, in the 
name of the Father, hath a most, glorious reward; 
every cooling drop will exhale in sparkling gems, 
for the crown of life awaiting us, more purely 
bright than ever graced au earthly monarch’s brow. 
Let us not complain of the work God assigns us, 
though it be of such a character as never to win lor 
us the applause of iadmiring world. So long as 
there are (lark and cheerless places scattered up 
and down the vale of life, to be illumined by the 
warm sunlight of love; sad, aching hearts to soothe 
with the healing oil of joy; fainting ones on life’s 
Sahara to cheer with the refreshing waters of kind¬ 
ness; be it our mission to scatter, as gently and 
abundantly as pearly dew-drops, the sweet, and 
grateful ministries of love and sympathy^ It is 
true, the imperishable marble will not bear to suc¬ 
ceeding generations the record of our meek self- 
denial for another’s good, “ but it is written deep in 
the hearts of men, of friends, of children, of kin¬ 
dred all around us;” yea, more, it is wrinen in the 
secret book of the great account. 
Our life-mission, whether it be to relieve the 
needy, comfort the afflicted, lead the erring from the 
dark and deadly ways of sin, and guide them gen¬ 
tly to the safe and pleasant paths ot peace, or bear 
to heathen lands the "good tidings ot great joy 
which shall be to all people,” should engage the 
whole heart, calling into vigorous action all the 
latent powers of our being. God has not fashioned 
us after His most glorious image, and bestowed 
upon us minds susceptible of all the transcendent 
joys of heaven,—minds that will not be bound down 
to the material and visible, but are ever soaring, 
grasping after the infinite and unseen,—without a 
purpose developed, and matured in infinite wisdom 
and love. What, we may then ask, is the design of 
our present existence? Is it not that we may augj 
ment the glory of the Being who created us? An 
idle, aimless life is a perversion of the divine pur¬ 
pose,—we degrade ourselves and dishonor God, by 
being idlers instead of faithful workers in our Mas¬ 
ter’s vineyard. “ Lord, what will thou have me to 
do?” should be the burden of our daily prayer; and 
He who ever lends a listening ear to the cries of 
His children, will point out. our duties day by day, 
and when the work assigned us is all complete, like 
melting strains of richest harmony will sound from 
the Eternal’s throne, “Well done, good and faithful 
servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” 
Oxford, N. Y., 1862. F. M. Turner. 
IMITATION OF CHRIST, 
It is reported in the Bohemian story, that St. 
Wenceslaus, their king, one winter night going to 
his devotions in a remote church, barefooted in the 
snow and sharpness of unequal and pointed ice, his 
servant Podavidus, who waited upon his master's 
piety, and endeavored to imitate his affections, 
began to faint through the violence of the snow and 
cold, till the king commanded him to follow him, 
and set his feet in the same footsteps which his feet 
should mark for him- The servant did so, and 
either fancied a cure or found one; tor he followed 
his prince, helped forward with shame and zeal to 
his imitation, and by the forming footsteps for him 
in the snow. In the same manner does our blessed 
Jesus; for, since our way is troublesome, obscure, 
full of objection and danger, apt to be mistaken, 
and to affright our industry. He commands us to 
mark IIis footsteps, to tread where His feet have 
stood, and only invites us forward by the argument 
of His example; but lie hath trodden down much 
of the difficulty, and made the way easier, and fit for 
our feet. For He knows our infirmites, and Himself 
hath felt their experience in all things but in the 
neighborhood of sin; and, therefore, He hath pro¬ 
portioned a way and a path to our strengths and 
capacities, and, like Jacob, hath marched softly and 
in evenness with the children and the cattle, to en¬ 
tertain us by the comforts of His company, and the 
influence of a perpetual guide. He that gives 
alms to the poor, takes Jesus by the hand; he 
that, patiently endures injuries and affronts, helps 
Him to bear His cross; he that comforts his brother 
iu affliction, gives an amiable kiss of peace to Jesus; 
he that bathes his own and his neighbor’s sins in 
tears of penance and compassion, washes his Mas¬ 
ter's feet. We lead Jesus into the recesses of our 
heart by holy meditations; and we enter into llis 
heart when we express Him in our actions, for so 
the apostle says, "he that is in Christ walks as lie 
also walk?." But thus the actions of our life relate 
to Him by way of worship and religion; but the use 
is admirable and effectual, when our actions refer to 
Him as to our copy, and we transcribe the original 
to the life.—Jeremy Taylor. 
[Written lor Moore’s Rural New-Yorker.] 
SPEAK KINDLY. 
It seems as if nothing could be said under this 
head, because, in truth, there is so much to say. 
To get a good idea of the beauty of the grass, 
endeavor, in imagination, to form a picture of the 
world without it. It is precisely to the scenery of 
nature what the Bible is to literature. Do you 
remember that idea of Froude's, that the Bible had 
been obliterated, and every other book had thereat 
lost its value, and literature was at an end. Take 
away this green ground color en which Dame Na¬ 
ture works her embroidery patterns, and where 
would be the picturesque scarlet poppies, or white 
daisies, or the gray of the chalk cliffs, or the golden 
bloom of a wilderness of buttercups? Its chief 
service to beauty is as a garment of the earth. It 
watches uigbt and day at all seasons of the year, 
“in all places where the eye of heaven visits,’’ for 
spots on which to pitch new tents, to make the 
desert less hideous, to fill Up the groundwork of the 
grandest pictures and give the promise oF plenty 
on the flowery meadows where it lifts its silvery 
and purple panicles breast high, and mocks the sea 
in its rolling waves of sparkling greenness. It is 
beautiful when it mixes with lupine and turrUis on 
the ruined bastion or the gray garden wall; beauti¬ 
ful when it sprinkles the brown thatch with tufts 
that find sufficient nourishment where green mosses 
have been before; beautiful when it clothes the 
harsh upland, and gives nourishment to a thousand 
snow-white fleeces; still more beautiful when it 
makes a little islet in a bright mountain lake, “ a 
fortunate purple isle," with its ruddy spikes of 
short-lived flowers; and precious as well as beauti¬ 
ful when it comes close beside us. in company with 
the sparrow and the robin, as a threshold visitant, 
to soften the footfall of care, and give a daily wel¬ 
come to the world of greenness. 
“ If a friend my grass-grown tliresliold find, 
Oh, how my lonely rot. resounds with glee!” 
Is it only for its velvet softness, and the round 
pillowy knolls it heaves up in the vista of the green¬ 
wood, that the weary and the dreamer find it so 
sweet a place of rest? or is it because the wild bee 
flits around its silvery panicles, and blows his bugle 
as he goes with a bounding heart to gather sweets; 
that the hare and the rabbit burrow beneath its 
smooth sward; that the dear lark cowers amid its 
sprays, and cherishes the children of his bosom 
under its brown matted roots; that the daisy, the 
cowslip, the daffodil, the orchids—the fairies of the 
flower world—the. bird’s-foot trefoil —the golden- 
fingered beauty of the meadows, the little yellow 
and the large strawberry trefoil, are sheltered and 
cherished by it; and that one of its simple children, 
the Anthoxanfhuni adorat um ,or sweet-scented vernal 
grass, scents the air for miles with the sweetest 
perfume ever breathed by man.— Hibberd’s “ Bram¬ 
bles and Bay Leaves.” 
Are the salutary effects of kind words upon those 
around us, upon ourselves, our social relations, and 
our happiness, sufficiently well understood? Do we 
realize their priceless value? I often think we do 
not. We all are ready to acknowledge the charm 
of a soft answer—the magic, as it were, contained 
in gentle words. We respect and admire those 
who ever make use of them, but fail to make use of 
them ourselves! This life would prove but a desert 
of sorrow, devoid of one heart-cheering oasis, were 
it not tor gentle words! What else is possessed of 
such power to lead the erring from the rough and 
stony paths of sin into the flowery walks of virtue 
and right? They cost nothing, while they enrich 
the heart and scatter sunlight all around, winning 
us many true and faithful friends. It is no excuse 
to say we are naturally quick spoken, and impul¬ 
sive, and therewith rest content, our talent effectu¬ 
ally buried in the dust. We can remodel and 
improve our natural dispositions if we will,—we 
can cultivate the good and eradicate the evil. 
Mother, are you wearied -and exhausted, watching 
over and guarding those wayward little ones ? 
Do their oft-repeated transgressions have a ten¬ 
dency to extort from you an unkind word or hasty 
blow? Oh, think again before you speak it. Let 
not that little spirit committed to your care, so easily 
moldcn in your hands, ever become familiar with 
harsh words. Consider the lasting impression you 
are making upon that darling child. Would yon 
that your memory he ever sacred to your little one, 
when it has arrived at the age of maturity? Would 
you that it should remember with pleasure the days 
of its childhood, and think with fondness of the 
gentle mother who watched over and guarded it? 
Then let kind and loving words he ever heard from 
your lips, reprove gently, and win by love. Some 
one guided your erring little feet, years agone, and 
bore and lbrebore with your disobedience; can you 
not do as much? 
Daughter, never let an unkind word escape your 
lips, never have it to regret, should you be bereft of 
parents, that you were so disrespectful that you 
often spoke so unkindly to the patient one! Speak 
kindly to thy brother, and gently to all, for “kind 
words can never die.” Ella Mortimer. 
I’enn Yan, N. Y., 1862. 
THE WOMEN OF AMERICA, 
The women of our land have distanced all their 
sisters on the earth for general steady devotion to 
the material needs of the soldier. We may chal¬ 
lenge any people to show such a perfect devotion 
manifested in such a way. When the history of this 
wav is written, the Sanitary Commission will take a 
large place in it, and the Sanitary Commission will 
have to write, “ We should have been able to do 
very little for the comfort of our men, had it not 
been for the untiring devotion of our women, and 
their generous, boundless gifts of what was most 
needed.” Of the part taken by women in that 
which pales all gifts of food and garments, I cannot 
at this time adequately tell. Mothers gave their 
sons, wives their husbands, and then sat down to 
their daily life. “ That is the portrait of a young 
man, the only son of his mother, and she was a 
widow,” a friend said to me one day, opening her 
album; “they are a rich family; be was educated iu 
the best schools, and had just come back from a tour 
in Europe when the war began; he went into the 
army at once, and was killed at Ball’s Bluff” 
A lady, now the widow of one from our own State 
who fell at Pittsburg, went up to the field on one of 
the first boats, and when she arrived found her hus¬ 
band dead. The novelist, who professes to give us 
life as it ought to he, will say, “ Then she sat down 
by his bleeding corpse all night long and wept,” 
The angel who writes down in the book kept in the 
archives of heaven life as it is, has written out in 
fair golden characters:—The wife of Gen. Wallace, 
of Ottawa, went to Pittsburg to find her husband, 
who was represented wounded, and found him dead. 
Then she looked on the face of her dead, and wept 
for a little season. But she saw all around him on 
the boat the men who had fought and fallen with 
him there yet alive, in pain and thirst, with none to 
help them. So she turned away from her dead, sent 
back her tears into her heart, and turned to the liv¬ 
ing, and all night long she went from man to man 
with water and words of Comfort, and the holy suc¬ 
cor that must come out of such an inspiration in such 
a place .—Sermon by Rev. Robert Collyer. 
ANSWERING PRAYER 
I would rather have a good man’s prayers laid 
up iu Heaven for me, than anything a king could 
give. It is good to ask tor physical and external 
things—we need them, and we get them. It is 
good to ask for secular benefits; but ah, “a man’s 
life consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
which he possessed!;” a man’s life is joy, peace, 
faith, immateriality — it is heart. In that realm 
where heart is, there is the realm of God’s answer¬ 
ing of prayers; and there he hears us pray for 
others, and others pray for us. And the prayers are 
not instantly answered. The answers are reserved, 
because the multitudes of things asked for have to 
be wrought out, and not because God is indifferent, 
or wishes to tantalize His creatures. I do not think 
that God sits and trifles with us. as we do with our 
children when we hold out tempting fruit towards 
them, and then, when they have reached after it, 
and almost clasped it, draw it back. There is no 
such trifling with us by the Divine Being as that. 
But if my child asks me for a tuberose, though I 
plant a bulb immediately, and comply with his 
request at the earliest possible moment, months 
necessarily elapse before he gets the flower. And 
the reason why our prayers are not answered al 
once, is not because God would tantalize us, but be¬ 
cause the things tor which we ask are so large, and 
require such a development, that there is of neces¬ 
sity a space between asking and getting.— Beecher. 
WOMAN’S PHYSICAL STRENGTH, 
The Atlantic Monthly recently contained one of 
Mr. High inhon’s vigorous and common-sense arti¬ 
cles, on the “Health of our Girls.” He thinks 
women have more physical capabilities than they 
are credited with in the world’s books, and remarks: 
“We must hold hard to the conviction that not 
merely decent health, but even a high physical 
training, is a thing thoroughly practicable for both 
sexes. If a young girl can tire out her partner in 
the dance, if a delicate wife can carry her baby 
twice as long as her athletic husband, (tor certainly 
there is nothiug in the gymnasium more amazing 
than the mother’s left arm,) then it is evident (hat 
the female frame contains muscular power, or its 
eqivalent, though it may take music or maternity to 
bring it out. But other inducements have proved 
sufficient, and (he results do not admit of question. 
The Oriental bayaderes, for instance, are trained 
from childhood as gymnasts; they carry heavy jars 
on their heads to improve strength, gait and figure; 
they fly kites to acquire ‘statuesque attitudes and 
graceful surprises; ’ they must learn to lay the back 
of the hand flat against the wrist, to partially bend 
the arm in both directions at the elbow, and, inclin¬ 
ing the whole person backward from the waist, to 
sweep the floor with the hair. So, among ourselves, 
the great athletic resources of the female frame are 
vindicated by every equestrian goddess of the cir¬ 
cus, every pet of the ballet Those airy nymphs 
have bee icated tor their vocation by an amount 
of ph rue which their dandy admirers may 
vr utemplate through the safe remote- 
- i , r; Jass. Dr. Gardner, of New York, 
!a‘t in ed very important professional 
ol* ‘ i class of his patients; he de¬ 
ls infinitely superior to that 
c '.‘d. . ?, n, . lerfully adapting them not 
ol iy i i h< vtj nl but to the common perils 
of th> i t b: , py union of power and 
pliabito < ’ ‘Their occupation 
demand-in ii , : t subsequent practice 
an amount of •.con’: mscular energy of 
the seven : i . gnized or under¬ 
stood by ti 1 ty.' a ? description of 
their habitua to th* als of woman¬ 
hood reminds . ’ '■ to sc; s of savage 
tribes. But it if real j a in ih.i ibution for 
our prolonged offt c-to vhen our 
saints are thus com, ! -d . to eh n d els from 
INFLUENCE OF MOTHERS, 
Love as we may other women, there stands first 
and ineffaceable the love of “ mother;” gaze as we 
may on other faces, our mother’s face is still the 
fairest; bend as we shall to other influences, still 
over all, silent but mighty, reaching to us from long 
gone years, is a mothers influence. The heart may 
be wayward at the time; tear, entreaty, the silent 
agony, all in vain; she may sink into her grave 
despairing; but these are not lost, no prayer, no 
counsel, no appeal. When tossing oceans separate, 
and other scenes distract; when years have rolled 
their steady increase, and care and toil and grief 
have joined to make the self-reliant man; when the 
green grass waves above her grave, then, audible 
to the soul as when first spoken to the ear, come 
those neglected words, to strengthen and to save. 
In the mighty want of his soul, the prodigal hears 
his mother's voice, her hymn, her prayer, her pre¬ 
cept; flashes over him in his riot a vision of her 
form kneeling by his bedside and teaching his inno¬ 
cence to pray. In upon scenes ot sin and shame 
and license comes that pure, that holy, that all- 
loving presence. The wine-cup falls: the tempter 
is at bay. A little child in spirit but a giant in a 
new-found strength, he dashes all away, and goes 
out into the world with new resolve and hope, to 
contend, not alone, against the perils which had 
well-nigh mastered him. Full many a time, just at 
the crisis-hour—you have known it, I have known 
it—a long-forgotten word or look —a little waif 
floating down the tide of years—has borne the per¬ 
iled soul into its safety. Do you remember that 
toast which was given in the camp of the 20th Mas¬ 
sachusetts regiment, last Thanksgiving day—“Our 
Mothers?” Did not it, and the response made to it 
there, and wherever the knowledge of it went, 
speak, as no eloquence of language could, to the 
all-pervading, unquenchable influence of mothers? 
—Rev. J. F. IF. Ware. 
Temper.— A man’s temper is very much like a 
colt. When a colt is first bitted and saddled, it 
seems as though he would tear the yard all to pieces, 
and himself with it; but by-and-by he finds that 
he cannot break the hit, nor throw the man and the 
saddle from his back. The man sticks to him day 
after day, and gradually he becomes less and less 
difficult to manage, and in the course of two or three 
weeks he gets so that he will let the man bit him, 
and saddle him. and back him without any resist¬ 
ance. Now, getting astride of a man’s temper is 
frequently like riding, not a colt, but lightning. 
And yet, after he has trained it, and broken it, by 
determined effort of his will, he finds that he can 
maintain his equanimity with perfect ease in circum¬ 
stances in which at first he could not have done it 
without a struggle. Thus the yoke becomes easy, 
and the burden light. In proportion as you bear 
the cross, you conquer that for which you bear it.— 
Beecher* 
[Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker.] 
WHAT I’D LIKE TO KNOW, 
There are two things which I’d like to know. 
One is, why will a man get drunk. And the other, 
why will a man use tobacco. It is neither manly , 
womanly, nor beastly. So I infer it must he in imita¬ 
tion of that rebel down iu Plutonic Dixie, holding 
the reins of government there. And still, with all 
my ideas of the horrible of that abode, a drunken 
man or a walking tobacco shop always seems a 
trifle beyond the picture. 
Dante, I believe, assigned a place for drunken¬ 
ness; but if he lived in these times, I fancy he would 
be puzzled to find a future residence lor the latter 
an—I was going to write animal, but my conscience 
forbade my disgracing the brute creation. If there 
is a more disgusting, horrible sight, than that of a 
human being, bearing God’s image in every linea¬ 
ment, with the unmistakble stamp of intellectual 
sovereignty upon his brow, staggering wildly along, 
uttering oaths that would make Beelzebub him¬ 
self ashamed, or talking so sillily one would think 
him devoid ol brains, I hope it may be my good 
fortune never to behold it. When I see young men, 
those who are to be the future guardians of our fire¬ 
sides, and who must, if any, stand out in the full 
light of the future, groveling in the depths ot 
drunken dissipation, my heart dies within me. If 
there was any reason for one’s getting drunk, 
’twould not seem so bad. 
Young man, if your friend invites you to take a 
glass with him at the bar, he most grossly insults 
you. If you yield to his temptation, you purjure 
The best dates are said to be gathered when ® 
tree has reached a hundred years. So is it 
eminent Christians; the older the better; the older 
the more beautiful; nay, the older the more uselul, 
and,different from worldlings, the older the happier. 
Prayer is this—to look into the Bible and see 
what God has promised; to look into our hearts and 
ask what we want, and then, for Christ’s sake, ask 
and expect the promise to be fulfilled. 
Shaftsburt observes, that, after all. the most 
natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral 
truth. True features make the beauty of the face, 
and true proportions the beauty of architecture, as 
true measures that of harmony and music. In 
poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection. 
