Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. 
MANNERS. 
Wit at constitutes maimers? This is an im¬ 
portant question, for manners are more closely 
connected with morals than they are generally 
thought to be — our actions and words coming 
from some secret motive of the bouI, whether 
good or evil. It is undoubtedly right to make 
use of a certain amount of politeness, if wc only 
know what true politeness is. The Bible says 
“be courtcpns;” though it evidently does not 
mean that excess of unmeaning compliment and 
studied complaisance which is affected by some 
people, and which is frequently deceptive. But 
there is a certain polite respect due from one 
person to another in reference to that person’s 
opinion, comfort and general good feeling;—a 
cordial kindness —a readiness to do anything 
for his accommodation, even at the sacrifice of 
some temporary enjoyment—a carefulness not 
to wound unnecessarily another’s feelings, or to 
slight the most insignificant person, After this 
politeness or truly good manners—which come 
from a quick perception of propriety of circum¬ 
stances and from genuine good feeling—is shown, 
there is nothing more needed—no excuses for 
that which needs no excuse, no insinuating flat¬ 
teries which flow from a selfish desire to be 
thought pleasing and refined. There are some 
people who express so much love and admira¬ 
tion for you that it puts you out of countenance, 
while it gives a sad suspicion that their polite¬ 
ness—if such it may be called—is all a sham, and 
their whole friendship a mere pretence. Peo¬ 
ple like to know, when they are treated kindly, 
that it comes from a real goodness iu the heart, 
aud not from a mere semblance of it. Polite¬ 
ness is pleasant to everybody; but let it not be 
overdone or unnatural, for then would we rather 
meet with the rude but honest-hearted manners 
of the sturdy backwoodsman. If we only would 
observe the divine command, “ Do unto others 
as you would have others do unto you,” wc 
should be using all the manners wc* could ask 
of each other, and all ihat God ever intended 
that we should use. B. 
Hopeaale, Ohio. 
IN TE DOMINE CONFLDO.” - CATHOLIC 
HYMN. 
Written for Moore's Rural New-Yorker. yj*. 
FLOWER TALE WITH THE GIRLS. 
vjtf ^ j 
,ud you Ly, [j 
Not in vain I poured my supplication, 
Voiced in anguish that was'nigh despair; 
God— henceforth the Rock of my Salvation— 
Hears in pity, and receives my prayer. 
On His name from midst the darkness calling. 
He my soul hath ransomed from its fears; 
By His strength my feet are saved from felling, 
And His love hath dried my flowing tears 
Therefore come I to His altars, bringing 
Hymns and vows my gratitude would pay; 
Hallelujahs and the voice of singing, 
But interpret what this voice would say. 
Henceforth, with a spirit meek and lowly. 
With a faith that nothing can appall, 
Hopes serene, and purpose high and holy, 
I will meet whatever may befell. 
If around me clouds and darkness gather, 
Lo! the brighter day .that dawns beyond! 
Through the gloom the Everlasting Father 
Sends a voice that bids me not despond. 
Yes, I know you love flowers 
would like to cultivate them too, only 
you think you have uo place, and you 
sigh sadly as you stand with your fresh J'" 
young cheek close to the window pane, W- 
and look upon the lawn before you. You * 
love everything bright and beautiful—you \ t 
wish you could have flowers like those ^ 
which you saw smiling in trim little gar¬ 
dens in town last spring. You remember 
the thrill of enthusiasm with which you 
looked upon the mosses of bright color so -,>r 
soon out of the rich mold. 
Papa is very kind, but “he hasn’t jthe 
time to fuss,” and the boys are so busy. 
Well, you pout your rosy lips a little, and 
wish the farm would be sold, aud a nice 
little place in town bought; then you ^ 
could have flowers. pfcjr 
Now, you do not know what a princess 
you are ou the lrandrediaeres of luxuri- (c,' 
ant meadows and dewy pastures, where T-"' 
the June eunlight seeks ankle [deep for 0*-. 
the roots of the tender grasses. ^You do 
not know what a possession yon have in ■ 
the long belt of woodland, where the su- 1^4 
gar fires glow brightly In the Marchjmid- 
night, what wealth of beauty uiight*bc -. - ' \ 
wrought from this teeming domain,—and 'il ‘ 
your own little hand can work wonders if ■’ 
you will. 41 
That slope down to the south, just at the 
right of your doorway, is a splendid spot 
for flowers. At the left, where the half v"*- 
dozen old trees exclude the sun from the 
green turf in summer, you could sit in 
your low chair on sultry afternoons, and -JM > 
hear the low hum of bees from the bright / , 
tangles of bloom In full view. But you ' 
say, “How am I to work this change?” 
and the little brown hand does look slen- ' r'u 
der to hold spade and rake and hoe; but ' r "0 
it is used to the great heavy dasher of the 
chum, and it scrubs and cleans and adapts V ^ 
itself to the varied work of the household. 
The mother favors you, she would give 
you hours of leisure; and when once the 
pleasant task wa- begun, there would be 
no weariness so long as the light of the 
autumn mornings opened the blue eyes of 
the violets, and the breezy winds stirred 
the tears of night on the tender leaves. 
You cannot make the change all at once—you 
will not be disappointed, because you arc- a sensi¬ 
ble girl, if the perfection of a garden is not 
reached in years; but you can begin soou, when 
the rain seeks the roots of the millions of plants 
which will thrive it naught else is set iu their 
stead. As you stand then by the window, look¬ 
ing out so thoughtfully, just draw with your eye 
a circle where the future garden shall be—not a 
large eiicle; a small one will hold many bloa- 
and you have a large work to do, aside 
THE POETEY OF WORDS, 
In Trench’s “Study of Words” we find the 
following history of the New Testament word 
“ tribulation:" 
Popular language is full of poetry, of words 
used in an imaginative sense, of things called— 
and not merely in transient moments of high 
passion, and in the transfer which at such mo¬ 
ments finds place of the image to the thing 
imaged, but permanently—by names having im¬ 
mediate reference, not to what they are, but to 
what they are like. 
Let me illustrate my mcauing by the word 
“tribulation.” We all know in a genaral way 
that this word, which occurs uot seldom in 
Scripture, aud in the Liturgy, means affliction, 
sorrow, anguish; but it is quite worth our while 
to kuow how it means this, and to question the 
word a little closer. It is derived from the Latin 
“tribulum,” which was the thrashing instru¬ 
ment or roller, whereby the Roman husbandmen 
separated the corn from the husks; and “tribu- 
latio” iu its primary significance was the act of 
this separation. But some Latiu writer of the 
Christian Church appropriated the word and im¬ 
age for the setting forth of a higher truth; and 
sorrow, distress and adversity being the ap¬ 
pointed means for the separating iu men of 
whatever In them was light, trivial aud poor 
from the solid and the true, their chaff from 
their wheal, therefore he called these sorrows 
and trials “tribulations,” thrashings, that is, of 
the inner spiritual man, without which there 
could be no fitting him for the heavenly garner. 
Now, in proof of my assertion that a single 
word Is often a concentrated poem, a little grain 
of pure gold capable of being beaten out into a 
broad extent of gold-leuf, I will quote, in refer¬ 
ence to this very word “tribulation,” a grace¬ 
ful composition by George Wither, an early 
English poet, which you will at once perceive is 
all wrapped up in this word, being from first to 
last only the expanding of the image and thought 
which this word has implicitly given; these are 
his lines: 
“Till from the straw the flail the com doth beat, 
Until the chaff be purged front the wheat, 
Yea, till the mill ihe grains in pieces tear, 
The richness of the flour ■will scarce appear. 
So, till men’s persons great afflictions touch. 
If worth he found, their worth is not so much, 
Because, like wheat in straw, they have not yet 
That value which in thrashing they may get, 
For till the bruising flails of Goo's corrections, 
Have thrashed out of us our vain affections; 
Till those corruptions which do misbecome us 
Are by thy sacred Spirit winnowed from us; 
Until from us the straw of worldly treasures. 
Till all the dusty chaff of empty pleasa-es, 
Yea, till His flail upon us He doth lay, 
To thrash the husks of this our flesh away. 
And leave the soul uncovered; nay. yet more, 
Till God shall make our very spirit poor. 
We shall not up to highest wealth aspire: 
But then we shall: and that is my desire.” 
This deeper religious use of the word “tribu¬ 
lation” was unknown to classical, that is, to 
heathen antiquity, and belongs exclusively to 
the Cliristain writers; and the tact that the same 
deepening and elevating of the use of words re¬ 
curs in a multitude of other, and many of them 
far more signal instances, is one well deserving 
to be followed up. * Nothing, I am persuaded, 
would more strongly bring before us what a new 
power Christianity was in the world than to 
compare the meaning wich so many words pos¬ 
sessed, and the deeper meaning which they ob¬ 
tained so soon as they were assumed by it as the 
vehicles of its life, the new thought and feeling 
enlarging, purifying and ennobling the very 
words which they employed. 
1W 
THE MORNING STARS 
I had occasion a few weeks since, to take the 
early train from Providence to Boston; and lor 
this purpose rose at two o’clock in the. morning. 
Everything around was wrapped iu darkness aud 
hushed in silence only by what seemed at that 
hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. 
It was a mild, serene midsummer's night, the 
sky was without a cloud, the winds were whist. 
The moon, then tn the last quarter, had just 
risen, and the stare shone with a spectral luster, 
but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two 
hours high, was the herald of the dayj; the Pleia¬ 
des, just above the horizon, shed their sweet 
llUlueiicc Hi (tie CU8t; Lyin -pr-liI p-" UP-Ar tlit- 
zenith; Andromeda, her newly discovered glo¬ 
ries from the naked eye of the south; the steady 
Pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly 
up from the north of their sovereign. 
Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered 
the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach 
of twilight became perceptible; the intense blue 
of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, 
like little children, went first to rest; the sister 
beams of the Pleiades soon meRed together; but 
the bright constellations of the west aud north 
remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous 
change went on. Hands of angels, hidden from 
mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; 
the glories of night shifted into the glories of 
dawn. The blue sky now turned softly gray; 
the great watch stars shut up their holy eyes; 
the cast began to kindle. Faint streaks of pur¬ 
ple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celes¬ 
tial concave was filled with the overflowing tides 
of the morning light which came pouring down 
from above in one great radiance till, at length, 
as we reached the blue hills, a flash of purple 
fire blazed out from tbc horizon, and turned the 
dewy tear drops of flower and leaf into rubies 
and diamonds. In a few minutes the everlasting 
gates of the morning were thrown open, and the 
lord of the city, arrayed in glories too severe for 
the gaze of man, began his course. —Edward 
Everett. 
So let us make it nice and snug, 
That he may not complain, 
Bat feel it e’er his gilding-star 
Through all the dark and rain. 
Now softly, Frank; don’t make a noise— 
Baby has dropped ^.sleep: 
sues been as “ u o*y; 
1 want her so to keep. 
Off with yuar boots, and say your prayers 
You mus| be ready quite 
To go to bed when father comes, 
And you have said “ good-night.” 
Now Franky, boy, ’tis time for bed 
Put up those books, I pray: 
And Katy, dear, those toys of yours 
Must all be cleared away. 
The clock struck six some time ago, 
Sounding through all the room: 
And era it fciYn* ns seven, you tn'.iw 
Father will be at home. 
He says there Is no place to him 
So sweet as this hie home; 
So sweet that he can never care, 
Elsewhere for joy to roam. 
souis, 
from that, in arranging for other things. 
A huge pile of chips — the debris of years of 
wood-chopping lies there, you tell me. Well, it 
has lain there for years, and the ground will be 
all the better for its decay of vegetable matter ; 
and the widow’s two little boys, who live over 
on the next street comer, will be glad to carry 
them away by basketfuls, if you don’t choose to 
give them some peuules, for all the large ones 
they can pile into the great wood-house, handy to 
the cook stove. 
Yon are willing to work for your flow¬ 
ers, you do so like them in jour hair when you 
have freshened your toilet for the afternoon’s 
sewing, (your thrifty New England mother 
taught you to get your housework done in the 
forenoon,) and you ean work faster with the 
cluster of pansies winking their great purple 
eyes at you from the green leaves of your bou¬ 
quet ou the window sill. 
Put an evergreen tree in the center of j’our 
plot. “The boys” can get it from that clump 
of pines in the field yonder. 
In due time have your neat border, your flow¬ 
ers and roses of early and later bloom and varied 
colors, that may delight the eye from early 
spring to the nipping frosts of a late autumn, 
and thus secure the sweetly-changing pageautry 
of nature’s wondrous floral procession, and 
satisfy that hunger for beauty which is in every 
soul. 
By and by papa will grow interested — he will 
be as proud as any oue of your flowers—he may 
say they don’t amount to anything, but he would 
drove of cattle in his favorite 
eye to look upon — uo rough, unpainted board 
but may be changed by the tendrils of a vine 
creeping over it, and we only wonder that 
Country Homes are not made what they should 
be,—the beauty and delight of the land. 
Ithica, N. Y. Sylvia Lawson Corey. 
Written lpr Moorn’siRural New-Yorker. 
.S-TO AMERICAN PUBLISHERS. 
Dear FrieJtds : — I w is oi 
facts about our early si ttler 
me a note saying that h was 
I was doing—when I “ tad 
like to have me write to lira 
tured to write, and the 
Since then when I takt 
ticularly wise air, my f< 
are rather irreverent) in 
I have “got an idea.” 
Dropping ray case, I \ 
ing that daring the tel 
have been 750,000,000 t 
(including women) hav 
elaborately, without ido 
to do about it. I think tl 
would have made a goot 
road, dec., &c. The de 
wasted, looms up as tin 
advent of fire, flood, aii 
to suggest to writers to 
idea, and to advise pub) 
the ideas are furnished. 
—the printing business 
the board: but then t 
fields to till. 
When “ seven-by-nim 
sheets,” and themont 
people can “readtheir 1 
GOSSIPPY PARAGRAPHS. 
A Jenkins speaks of “ —, who is just emerg¬ 
ing into womanhood in white trimmed with 
blue.” 
who was the 
Acnt Polly Heckenwelder, 
first 'white child born in Ohio, is still living in 
the Moravian Sisters’ House, Bethlehem, Ohio. 
A lady in Detroit rubbed a quantity of hair 
dye on her face, mistaking it for perfumery. 
Her face assumed a deep olive color, aud she will 
uot receive calls for some time to come. 
The Princess of Wales has her third baby, a 
daughter, bora on Wednesday, February 30. She 
has been married not four years, and has three 
children, which is doing as well as could be ex¬ 
pected—as she is doing uow. 
A second attempt is being made iu Paris to 
introduce the fashion of three-cornered hats for 
ladies; but it does not succeed very well, appa¬ 
rently, because such a style of hat only suits a 
very young and very pretty woman, and, in 
Paris, a large number of the fair sex are neither 
the one nor the other. 
Mrs. Tolly Ashfield, a venerable lady of 
Bullitt Co., Ky., has a living progeny numbering- 
two hundred aud thirty-three souls. Mrs. Ash- 
lickl is very aged, not far from, if not quite, one 
hundred, but possesses excellent health aud ac¬ 
tivity for one of her age. She was a woman 
grown and married at the time of St, Clair’s de¬ 
feat, aud gave food and drink to the soldiers 
as they passed her house. 
At a party, on Fifth Avenue, New York, the 
other evening, a beautiful young lady was com¬ 
plimented, by a gentleman, on the simplicity 
and good taste of her dress. “ I am so glad yon 
like it,” the lady replied:—“I made it myself, 
and it cost just seven dollars.” Who will follow 
that fashion ? It would help a great many wo- 
AMERICA NO PLACE FOR FOOLS. 
In a lecture lately delivered before the London 
Farmers’ Club, Mr. James Howard, the well- 
known manufacturer of implements, of Bedford, 
England, made the following pointed remarks 
concerning Ms experiences iu a recent visit to 
the United StatesHe said he had been pro¬ 
foundly impressed with the happiness, pros¬ 
perity, energy, intelligence and self-government 
of the American people, lie wondered that so 
many people are willing to remain in the Old 
World, without a chance to rise, with hardly 
a chance to exist. If the United States were 
crowded as England is, the population would 
be nearly a thousaud millions. In reply, how¬ 
ever, to the question whether he thought large 
and opulent English farmers would do well to 
send out their sons to America, he remarked 
that one of the first memoranda which he made 
in his diary after seeing the United States was, 
that “ it was no use to seud a fool to America.” 
Mr. Howard hit the nail on the head. 
1 supplant the “blanket 
ies appear once a year, 
lies through by course,” 
oquially on politics to 
1 also destroy the nox- 
uost mistaken man in 
if there have been 75 
novels published with- 
e compressed into one- 
retain every idea in full 
as soon see a 
meadow as a stray cow setting her homely foot 
into the fresh earth of your flower beds. The 
boys may not say much, but if you are diplo¬ 
matic you will get many a half-hour’s work from 
them, which will tell in the future of j'ou flower 
garden. 
Papa may enlarge that circle, or have a nicely 
arranged plot marked out, with walks and 
clumps of shrubbery, and wheu the fragrance of 
the honeyed blossoms steals into the old home, 
in mornings when the birds sing and the world 
seems lull of sunshine, he will feel amply repaid. 
Above all don’t try to eoox Mm to move away 
into town, and let the possession of those hund¬ 
red acres fall into other hands. "When the beauty 
of your garden attracts the eyes of the passers- 
by, he will think of the old, brown walls of the 
house, and 60 tne day you will find the painter’s 
ladder leaning up against them, and the carpen¬ 
ters at work throwing out that bay window, for 
wMch you have sighed so long,—‘* you could 
make the half-circle so lovely with flowers,”— 
and you will be content to wait In the old home, 
growing so bright and dear to you. 
No home is so unlovely but the hand of an 
earnest lover of the beautiful can adorn its 
walks and walls with something lovely for the 
Errors of tub World.— The little I have 
seen of the world teaches me to look upon the 
errors of others in sorrow, not in auger. When 
1 take the history of one poor heart that has 
sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the 
struggles and temptations it has passed through; 
the brief pulsation of joy, the feverish inquie¬ 
tude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the 
desertion of friends, I would fain leave the erring 
soul of my fellow man with Him from whose 
hand it came.— Lonyfellovi. 
lug this was a cut of 
just now thrust under 
was reading in a book. 
:r’s Weekly of Feb. l(j. 
state that they felt a 
that their ar- 
Beautifcl Idea. —That was a beautiful idea 
in the mind of a little girl who on beholding a 
rosebush, on the topmost stem of which the 
oldest rose was fading wMlst below and arouud 
it three beautiful crimson buds were just unfold¬ 
ing their charms at once, and earnestly exclaim¬ 
ed to her brother:—“See, William, these little 
buds have just awakened in time to kiss their 
mother before she dies.” 
btratiou 
strained themselves on 
, were now very hard 
iicm that any common- 
tract attention by abus- 
—that they took u hint, 
occuiTed to me that a 
wn credit, and espocial- 
i be permitted to leave 
ank that he could not 
motive matter: that it 
o make all the books, 
. capers smaller to begin 
H. T. B. 
Breakino up a Bad Habit.—A minister once 
prayed in the pulpit that “ the Lord would bless 
the congregation assembled, and that portion of 
it which was on the way to church, and those 
who were at home gettiug ready to come, and 
that in His infinite patience he would grant the 
benefit of the benediction to those who reached 
the house just in time for that.” The clergy¬ 
man succeeded in breaking up a bad habit which 
had resisted all legitimate appeals. 
Two ears and but a single tongue, 
By Nature’s laws to man belong; 
The lesson she would teach is clear. 
“Repeat but half of what you hear.’ 
perfectly content, for she was “ii 
and what more could be desired? 
