IBM 
THOUGHT IN MUSIC 
I HAD heard very mucn ot me ueauiy ui opuuu 
women, but indeed the half of the truth was not 
and cannot be told. Sometimes, heretofore, when 
standing half entranced before Murillo's pictures, I 
have wondered whenee came his ideal or inspira¬ 
tion; but his Madonnas and Magdalena only walk 
the streets of Madrid and other cities of Spain. lLe 
had but to paint the portraits of his friends. Often 
have I stopped in utter astonishment at&ueh ravish¬ 
ing beauty. The features, the form, the movement, 
the expression, are Roman dignity combined with 
Moorish grace ; the stateliness of ZeDObia with the 
voluptuousness of Cleopatra. Can it be that such 
summer evening twilight of repose can ever give 
place to the dark, stormy night of demoniac pas¬ 
sion ? That vice, treachery, falsehood, lurk under 
that angelic exterior? 
The statue of the Venus de Milo in the Louvre, 
at Paris, and the statue of the Venus de Medici in 
the Tribune, at Florence, have divided the admira¬ 
tion of the world. They represent two types of 
womanhood, differing as night and day; the former 
strong, sensuous, aliectional, devotional, and faith¬ 
ful friend, the constant wife, the devoted mother; 
the latter, light, volatile, spiritual, brilliant, impul¬ 
sive. The first typifies the English woman, the last 
the French. A combination of the two constitutes 
the perfection of womanhood, as found in the Span¬ 
ish Senora. She is evidently the result of many 
generations of the finest culture. The climate, the 
scenery, the romance, the chivalry, the grand and 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
IS GOD’S LOVE IN YOUR HEARTSP 
william winter. 
Oh, I know the world is a weary place 
Of suffering, and care, and woe, 
And that every bean has the deadly trace 
Of the sin that makes it so; 
Yet I see the promise of Heaven gleam 
On this sorrowful earth of ours, 
That God’s sea will whiten life’s darkened stream, 
God’s sun will open life’s dowers. 
’Mid the western forest I sit me down, 
Where the church hells never ring, 
My hands they are rough, and my brow is brown, 
And a woodman's song I sing; 
But yet, when the work of my day is done, 
And I rest on the mossy sod, ■ 
Then my heart grows soft with the thought Oi one 
Who has been ten years with God. 
Just a little lass, who was fair to me, 
— I may not he over-wise— 
But what can the beauty they talk of be 
Because Love’s sigh is but a sigh, 
Doth it the less Love’s heart disclose? 
Because the rose must fade and die, 
Is it the less the lovely rose ? 
Because black night must shroud the day. 
Shall the brave sun no more be gay? 
Because chill autumn frights the birds. 
Shall we distrust that spring will come? 
Because sweet words are only words. 
Shall love forevermore be dumb ? 
Because our bliss is Beating bliss, 
Shall we who love forbear to kies? 
Because those eyes of gentle mirth 
Must sometime cease my heart to thrill, 
Because the sweetest voice on earth 
Sooner or later must be still, 
Because its idol is unsure, 
Shall my strong love the less endure ? 
Ah , no 1 let lovers breathe their sighs, 
And roses bloom, and music sound. 
And passion bum on lips and eyes, 
And pleasure’s merry world go round; 
Let golden sunshine Hood the sky— 
And let me love or let me die! 
’Twas a question our Pastor would ask us, 
Each Sabbath when service was o’er, 
As he came down the aisle from the pulpit, 
And stopped by the open pew door. 
Our heads, they were bowed down the lower, 
And the tears to our young eyes would start. 
As he asked in tones loving, " Dear children, 
Is God’s love shed abroad in your hearts ?” 
His forehead was knotty and wrinkled, 
A'nfj whiter than snow was his hair. 
Bat the blue eyes e’er beamed on us kindly, 
For the light of affection was there. 
And as slow grew his footsteps, and feeble, 
Though 'twas hard from the old man to part, 
We knew he was going to leave us 
With God’s love shed abroad in his heart. 
No flashes of rhetoric brilliant, 
No biting sarcasm or wit. 
Ever fell from his lips on the hearers 
Who under Ms preaching did sit; 
But he loved the blest Word of the Father, 
And its thrilling truths sought to impart, 
And would pray that the poor fainting Christian 
Might have God’s dear love in his heart. 
Years have flown since together we gathered 
A joyous and lighthearted band. 
The living far distant are scattered, 
The dead walk the bright summer land; 
And we thank God that each who has left us, 
When feeling Death's cold stinging dart, 
Could answer the Pastor's old question, 
“ Yes, God’s love abounds in my heart.” 
constantly intruding the outlines of objects among 
the melodies and harmonies, which, as the music 
advances, become shaped and moulded into definite 
forms. 
The more the musical element associates such 
external thoughts and images with itself, the more 
poetical and picturesque will be the composition; 
and the more imaginative and strict is the concep¬ 
tion of the composer, the more will he arouse and 
rivet his hearers. 
What is to prevent Beethoven, in the midst of his 
conceptions, being suddenly possessed by the idea 
of immortality ‘ Why should his imagination not 
be kindled by the image of a mighty hero in ruins r 
Or why is some other composer not to be inspired 
by the recollection of happy times gone by? Are 
we to be ungrateful to Shakspeare because he has 
evoked from a young musician a work worthy of 
himself—or, in a word, shall we be unmindful of 
Nature, and deny how much we owe to her beauty 
and her majesty? Can music tell us nothing of 
Italy, of the Alps, of the ocean, of a spring morn¬ 
ing ? It i& even possible for music to derive a charm 
from images so minute as to make it surprising that 
they can be expressed. I was told by a composer 
that, while writing a certain little piece, he was con¬ 
tinually haunted by the image of a butterfly swim¬ 
ming down a stream on a leaf, and this gave his 
music a delicacy and naivete , which nothing could 
infaBc but an actual image of the kind. In such 
exquisite genre painting, Schubert was a master; 
and I cannot resist recalling how a friend of mine, 
with whom I wa3 plajing one of Schubert’s four- 
hand marches 
When I hear of maidens wnom goou men mve, 
They are just like her, I know; 
When I think how the angels sing above, 
I think how she spoke below! 
She lived in a quiet country place, 
With womanly duties round; 
Where even God’s dumb things loved her face, 
And came at her footsteps' sound- 
No earthly pride save her mother’s praise, 
The blessing the farmer gave; 
Then at last, a break in the happy days, 
A name on the house hoid grave: 
And I dared not ask them-for what was I ?— 
For sight ol’ the holy dead; 
I looked on her bier as they bore it by, 
And I Md the tears I shed. 
’Twas long since I’d joined in a godly work, 
Or gone where God’s people meet, 
But next Sabbath morning I went to kirk, 
And gazed on her empty seat. 
For I could not carry her in my heart 
To haunts of ungodly men; 
But when in God’s service I took my part, 
Her soul seemed nearer me then. 
And she’s near me now, as I sit alone 
In the western forest dim: 
And she soothes my heart like a mother’s tone 
Singing the evening hymn. 
So in many a quiet place, I trow, 
God’s servants may dwell unseen. 
Like the little streamlets that hidden flow, 
Except that their grass grows green; 
For we sec the evil, we hear the cry, 
Of this sorrowful earth of ours, 
But in loving patience God sits on high. 
Because He can see its flowers. 
[Sunday Magazine. 
SALVATION OF THE INTEMPERATE 
We have been asked to state, through the Rural, 
whether we know of any remedy for habitual intox¬ 
ication. The one who makes this request writes: 
11 1 have a dear friend whom I wish to save, active, 
intelligent and social,—worth saving. I pray you 
aid me if you can.” 
Very gladly would we render assistance, not only 
in this case, but in thousands of others where noble 
and worthy men are wrecking themselves. But we 
fear it is beyond our power. We do not know of 
anything which will act as a substitute, while de¬ 
stroying the appetite for intoxicating drink, fcuch 
nostrums have been advertised, if we remember 
rightly, though when and where we cannot now 
recall. They cannot have proved of much utility, 
Written for Moore’s Rural New-Yorker. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS 
Nearer my God, to thee.”— Sarah F. Adams. 
There is a beautiful compensation principle that 
pervades both the universe of matter and or mind. 
If a person would have anything, he must labor for 
it If he would know anything, he must study for it. 
If he would be loved, he must love. If he would be 
godly, he must exercise himself to godliness. If he has 
aspirations and ardent desires for attainments in a 
higher life, he must seek. He who 6eeks shall find. 
Is his soul necessitous ? He must ask. The promise 
is: — “ Ask, and ye shall receive.” Does he desire 
happiness ? Joy may flow along his path in a perpet¬ 
ual and an abundant stream; and uninterrupted hap¬ 
piness may bloom around him like a never-fading 
rose, if he will train himself to think, to act, and to 
live in harmony with the unchangeable laws of nature 
and of grace. The nearer one will draw to God the 
more happy he will be. 
The Creator is the very embodiment of happiness. 
One cannot buy love for paltry gold; neither can 
happiness be purchased, as if it were a pleasant 
j beverage. You cannot put it on and lay it off, as if 
, on my asking if he had not defi¬ 
nite figures before his mind, answered by saying, 
»Certainly; I am at Seville, a century ago, among 
the dons and donnas, promenading intrains, pointed 
shoes, rapiers, and all the rest.’ And the remarkable 
thing is, that 1 was myself seeing the same vision.” 
THE BANDS OF ORION, 
“ Canst thou loose the hands of Orion I"—Job. 
The three bright stars which constitute the girdle 
or band of Orion never change their form; they pre¬ 
serve the same relative position to each other, and 
to the rest of the constellation, from year to year, 
They present precisely the 
There were no ladies’ journals of fashion in those 
days, and at each change of costume two dolls 
were dressed up at the Hotel Rambouillet; called 
aptly and wittily enough, the one, “ la grande Pan- 
dore,” in “grande tenue;” the other, “la petite 
Bandore,” in morning deshabille. The custom of 
dressing up a doll as a model of fashion originated 
at Venice, where at the annual fair in the Piazza of 
St. Mark a doll was exposed in a conspicuous place 
to set the style of dress for the ensuing year. 
Later, Henry IV. sent Marie de Medicis, before 
their marriage, some such dolls, to show her the 
French fashions; and Mercier, in his “'tableau de 
Paris,” celebrates with emphasis the “ poupee de la 
rue Saint ilunore.” “C’est de Paris que les profon- 
and from age to age, 
same appearance to us which they did to Job. No 
sooner does the constellation rise above the horizon, 
however long may have been the interval since we 
last beheld it, than these three stars appear in the 
old familiar position. They afford ns one of the 
highest types of immutability in the midst of cease¬ 
less changes. When heart-sick and weary of the 
continual alterations we observe in this world, on 
whose most enduring objects and affections is writ¬ 
ten the melancholy doom, “ Passing away,” it is 
comforting to look up to that bright beacon in the 
heavens, that remains unmoved amid all the surges 
of time’s great ocean. And yet in the profound rest 
of these stars there is a ceaseless molion; in their 
apparent stability and everlasting endurance, there 
is a constant change. In vast courses, with incon¬ 
ceivable velocity, they are whirling around invisible 
centers, and even passing into new collocations. 
They appear to us motionless and changeless, be¬ 
cause of our great distance from them, just as the 
foamine torrent that rashes down the hillside with 
the speed of an arrow, and in the wildest and most 
vagrant courses, filling the air with its ceaseless 
shouts, appears from an opposite hill, frozen by the 
There is no ornament made oy tue goiasmita 
that has so interesting a history as the ring. From 
the remotest antiquity it has been in use. Signet 
Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek and 
some 
rings were used in 
Roman times. Their devices preceded, and to 
extent did the work of the more modem heraldic 
distinctions. Kings wore used as symbols of honor, 
or types of reconciliation, as in the affecting naria- 
tive of the prodigal son“ Bring forth the best robe 
and put it ou him, and put a ring on his fingci. 
That rings should very early have become a token 
of affection, and in time an established emblem of 
the nuptial tie, is only a reasonable result of the 
poetry involved in the shape of the ring. I oi it i» 
the emblem of eternity. Its circlet has no begin¬ 
ning and no end. True love triumphs over time. 
In pursuance of this idea came the custom of the 
weddiDg ring at the marriage ceremony. Our an¬ 
cestors, though, had what is no longer the custom 
—mottoes engraved on or inside the ring. These 
were often very impressive and appropriate, as see 
the following: 
“In thee, my love. 
All joy I prove.” 
“ Beyond this life 
We’ll love, dear wife." 
“Divinely knit by 
An old gentleman by the name of Gould had mar¬ 
ried a girl scarcely nineteen years of age. After the 
wedding the juvenile bridegroom addressed to his 
friend Dr. G. the following couplet, to inform him 
of the happy event: 
So yon see, my dear sir, though eighty years old, 
A girl of nineteen falls in love with old Gould. 
To which the Dr. replied: 
A girl of nineteen may love Gould, if is true. 
But, believe me, dear sir, it is gold -without U. 
AjkSng the gifts to a newly-married pair at a town 
in New Jersey, the other evening, was a broom 
sent to the lady, accompanied with the following 
sentiment: 
“ This trifling gift accept from me, 
Its use I wo aid commend; 
In sunshine use the bvushy part, 
In storms the other end.” 
A professor was explaining in a young ladies’ 
school iu France the theory according to which the 
body is entirely renewed every six years:—“Thus, 
Mademoiselle F,,” said he, addressing a pretty 
blonde with a wide-awake face, “ in six years yon 
will be no longer Mademoiselle F.” “I hope so,” 
replied the unsophisticated, casting down her eyes. 
“Are a man and his wife both one?” asked the 
wife of a certain gentleman, in a stupefaction as she 
was holding his aching head in both her hands. 
“ Yes, I suppose so,” was the reply. 
“ Well, then,” said she, “ I came home drunk last 
night, and ought to be ashamed of myself.” 
A young lady who teaches music in an academy 
in Western New York, sent an order to a publisher, 
recently, in which she had spelled the words very 
poorly. She apologized by adding a postscript, as 
follows“ Yon must exkews this letter, as I pla bi 
“ Divinely knit by grace are we 
T;vo made one ; the pledge here see. 
Admonitory mottoes were not unusual, as— 
Silence ends strife 
’Twixt man and wife.” 
“ Pray to love. 
Love to pray.” 
“ This ring should bind 
Body ana mind.” 
We could add a large number of ancient mottoes, 
but these will suffice. 
At the present time it is customary to let the en¬ 
gagement and wedding rings bear only the initials 
of the plighted twain, with perhaps a date. Now 
and then, however, something more is added. An 
engagement ring given to a young lady in Brooklyn, 
last summer, bore within it a more beautiful senti¬ 
ment than graced many of the ancient circlets. To 
the names of the giver and wearer was appended,— 
“ Each for the other, aud both for God.” 
While many articles of jewelry serve but to trick 
out beauty, or supply the place of it, the finger ring, 
and especially the wedding ring, serves a nobler pur¬ 
pose. It is a little circlet of joy, and memory, and 
pleasant thoughts, calling up tender recollections 
and sweet and solemn incidents. Its material of 
pure plain gold suggests both the purity and dura¬ 
bility of wedded love. Just as gold does not cor¬ 
rode, and lasts longer than any other metal, so 
should cod jugal affection resist the corroding of 
angry passions, and the fret of daily anxieties._JLt 
should grow brighter with age and use. 
And then the circular form tells of endless deeds 
of kindness, running in the daily round of life with¬ 
out flaw; smooth and strong should be the bond 
that unites two hearts, so that it may not be a fet- 
Look at your wed- 
Dress parade—A fashionable woman’s toilette. 
The best circulating medium—The blood. 
The sun-dial counts only the bright hours. 
All flowers of speech spring from tu-lips. 
Sporting intelligence—A stable mind. 
Ice-olated society—'The Arctic circle. 
A man in the write place—An editor. 
The language of flowers— Their blowing. 
Fashionable dears—The bucks of the forest. 
Manual exercise—Living from hand to mouth. 
Ry-standers— Men who purchase at counters. 
The ancient bitterness of Europe—Old Gaul. 
Natural humbugs—Bees. 
Light duty—Making iires. 
An intellectual relative—A connection of ideas. 
Well “posted”—The telegraph. 
nnt. aa true that which you connot as truth 
tions, his own actions; and the rich reward will re¬ 
turn into his own bosom. Happiness is man’s nor¬ 
mal state. When a proper use is made of all the 
facilities of the body and mind, we are living right; 
and happiness is the certain result. Happiness is 
holiness. Whoso wants it can have all he is willing 
to pay for, in honest effort and rigid self-denial. 
The universe is full of happiness, and replete with, 
glowing thoughts; and the world is liberally sup¬ 
plied with gold. Take your choice. 
Sebeno Edwards Todd. 
September, 1S6S. 
broken. Finally a sojourn or some monins in me 
Inebriate Asylum at Binghamton effected an appa¬ 
rent reformation. For a year he was a new man. 
Then he yielded to Hie solicitations of false friends 
to take “just a glass,” and was rained. One Sab¬ 
bath his lingers were laid upon organ keys with a 
touch almost angelic; the next he was filling a 
drunkard’s grave. 
Concerning the treatment of patients in Inebriate 
Asylums we are not fully informed. Opium-eaters, 
as set forth in the plan alluded to, are to be cured 
by degrees,—decreasing the amount of opium taken 
each day or week. That this is the proper way to 
treat opinm patients has been well attested. Ha¬ 
bitual drunkards may require similar treatment. 
ter to gall nor a film to break, 
ding ring, young wife, and let it be your monitor to 
suggest all this. And even though it is no longer 
the fashion to inscribe it with quaint device or lov¬ 
ing words, it will be eloquent to sou: and none the 
less that your tears have sometimes fallen on it. 
They have not marred the gold or broken the circle. 
Sometimes they have made both dearer. 
And you, 0 mourning widow, weeping a good 
man’s loss, your wedding ring, whether it is now 
enameled with black, or kept in its pristine bright¬ 
ness, what a doubly precious memorial to you has 
that little round of plain gold become! It links 
your thoughts now with heaven. It is the pledge 
of a spiritual bond here, to be renewed hereafter. 
It tells, according to a favorite couplet of our ances¬ 
tors, that 
“ Death never parts 
True loving hearts." 
However much, then, we may condemn tawdry 
ornaments in general, let us consider the wedding 
ring as possessing a significance deep and even 
solemn. Its value is in what it typifies. Brilliant 
gems of rarest setting cannot make more precious 
„ the golden link of love. 
HOW MEN MAK E EPOCHS. 
Life is short and art is long. In the secular 
sphere it is conceded that the powerful minds are 
those who rigorously confine themselves to one 
department of thought. Newton cultivated science 
and neglected literature. Kant wrought in the 
quicksilver mines of metaphysics for fifty years, and 
was happy and mighty in his one work. These men 
made epochs, because they did not career over the 
whole encyclopedia. And the same is true in the 
sphere of religion. The giants in theology have 
dared to let many books go unread, thsfc they might 
be profoundly versed in Revelation. And the mighty 
men in practical religion, the reformers, the mis¬ 
sionaries, the preachers, have found in the distinct¬ 
ively evangelical elements of Christianity, and their 
application to the individual soul, enough, and 
more than enough, to employ all their powers and 
enthusiasm.— Dr. Shedd's Homiletics. 
Poetrt.— All poetry is but the reaching out of 
the soul,—all painting, whether iu words or colors, 
—for something better, brighter, fairer than it has 
yet seen, but which imagination prophesies is yet 
to come. It sees brighter tints, more indestructible 
loveliness th an this world contains, but which even 
its disappointments and defeats foreshadow; and 
which will certainly come, or hope, and faith, and 
love would not be. 
Tub Girls.— Can we not bring up our girls more 
usefully, less showily, less dependent on luxury and 
wealth? Can we not teach them from babyhood 
that to labor is a higher thing than merely to enjoy; 
that even enjoyment itself is never so sweet as when 
it is earned ? Can we not put it into their minds, 
whatever be their station, principles of truth, sim¬ 
plicity of taste, hopefulness, hatred of waste, and 
these being firmly rooted, trust to their blossom¬ 
ing up in whatever destiny the young maiden may 
be called ? — Miss Muloch. 
J 
