Chapter I: Cannot Close This Chapter (1)

without imploring the reader to exterminate this characteristic of envy altogether. Because it is at first so little and so ridiculous, envy often escapes the hand of discipline. Yet the homely saying is a true one that "they which play with the devil's rattles will be brought by degrees to wield his sword," and the force of a nature given up to envy is truly a two-edged sword from the bottomless pit, cutting both the fiend who smites and the victim who smarts.

CONTENTMENT.

Mrs. Lofty keeps a carriage--
So do I.
She has dappled grays to draw it--
None have I.--Alma Calder.

Unquestionably, the baby-carriage of the poet, with contentment, was a far richer establishment than the gilded barouche and the dappled grays of childless Mrs. Lofty. Riches are often childless; poverty is often contented. Happiness is a golden spell inwoven with most of our lives at certain times, whether we be rich or poor. The first surprise of the newly-rich comes in the non-discovery of additional happiness. Additional cares and duties come thickly enough. The greed of the envious, and the demands of the poor who are likewise needy in thoughtfulness for their more fortunate neighbors, fall upon the wealthy like a mist. There is no escaping it. As James Russell Lowell says of a Scotch fog--an umbrella will afford no protection. They must give all, or accept the hatred of those who believe it to be easier to give than to receive. "Contentment is natural wealth," says Socrates; "luxury is artificial poverty." Contentment is generally a sign of a high class of character. "If two angels were sent down," says John Newton, "one to conduct an empire and the other to sweep a street, they would feel no inclination to change employments."

HUMAN GREATNESS

is at best such a little thing that wise men do not lament its absence in their own persons. Our main pleasures are free to rich as well as poor. What sight is so grand as the sun? What pleasure is greater than to breathe? What fluid is more grateful for all purposes than water? What music is sweeter than the singing of birds, the ringing of free school bells and the hum of machinery? The extra pleasures which the rich man, if he be foolish, tries to buy, almost invariably

END IN HIS EARLY DEATH,

and in his hatred of the whole world. Those noble men of wealth who gain the plaudits of their fellows, have earned those plaudits just as poor men would earn them--by service to their fellow-creatures. Man is not constituted so that he can "take his ease" and be happy. The prisoner in solitary confinement is forced to take his ease, and we are told that he suffers terribly under the ordeal. Of course you have heard of

THE PRISONER IN THE DARK DUNGEON

who had three pins, and who gave himself employment by throwing them into the air and then beginning the long search which should finally secure them. Sometimes a pin would be hidden for years in a crevice. In this way the prisoner preserved his mind from utter decay, and was almost happy--nay, was really happy when his arduous labor would result in the discovery of all three of the objects of his pitiful quest. Instances like this should impress upon us the fact that the principal sum of our happiness is inalienable. We cannot, in health, possibly lose it. The hale pauper is far better off than the invalid Duke. We breathe and eat and see and hear with ease. All of those offices of the body are unquestionably delightful, as is proven by the relative view we get when we are ill and can neither breathe nor eat nor see nor hear without great suffering. "There is scarce any lot so low," says Sterne, "but there is something in it to satisfy the man whom it has befallen." The reason of this lies in this same fact that when the tree of happiness loses superfluous wealth, it but loses its foliage.

THE POOR MAN CARRIES INTO HIS COTTAGE

all the great and marvelous blessings of life. He leaves outside only a lot of artificialities, the most of which are so-called pleasures, but are really miseries. If we cannot be contented without these artificialities, we certainly would not be satisfied with an addition so unimportant. "A tub was large enough for Diogenes," says Colton; "but a world was too little for Alexander." Alexander valued the true blessings of life as nothing, and the power of life and death over others as everything. His disappointment and the contentment of Diogenes, who viewed things more correctly, are matters of tradition. "Contentment," says Fuller, "consisteth not in adding more fuel, but

IN TAKING AWAY SOME FIRE."

Therefore, if you are spending so much money that you need more income, take away some of the fire. If you reduce your expenses two dollars a week, you have added nearly eighteen hundred dollars to your account in fifteen years. If you wear your boots one month after you could well persuade yourself to have a new pair, your new ones will not wear out a month sooner for that reason!

GOOD FORTUNE OF OUR LITTLE EGOTISMS.

We are all, fortunately, greatly disposed to contentment with our lot. We do not seem to realize it, but the importance of the pleasures of life which cannot be bartered in, has its noticeable effect on the mind. Horace remarked this ages ago, and Dr. Johnson has thus translated the thoughts hinging upon it: "Howsoever every man may complain occasionally," says he, "of the hardships of his condition, he is seldom willing to change it for any other on the same level. Whether it be that he who follows an employment, chose it at first on account of its suitableness to his inclination; or that when accident, or the determination of others, have pleased him in a particular station, he, by endeavoring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing it only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that class to which he belongs the most illustrious, merely

BECAUSE HE HAS HONORED IT WITH HIS NAME--

it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men have a very strong and active prejudice, in favor of their own vocation, always working upon their minds and influencing their action." Let us be thankful for that laughable egotism which is born with us, and within us, and which, in this natural and unobtrusive affair of contentment, becomes a true anchor, holding us inside the peaceful haven.

AMBITION.

Marble may rise from crystal waters spanned
By other marbles: founts may plash on stone,
And fashionably-branched trees may stand
As thieves upon a scaffold. Yet, how cold!
How cold!

We are made up of elements. These elements should be well balanced. The delicacy of equilibrium is what makes the perfect man, or, rather, the honorable man. Too much avarice makes a contemptibly mean man; not enough makes a foolish spendthrift, who is always appealing to his friends for help. Too much bravery in man makes a bully; not enough a coward. Too much speech in man makes a bore; not enough a "stick." Too much hope in man makes a speculator and a gambler; not enough, a hermit and a man-hater. So of ambition. It is a flame to be guarded--a willing slave, an unpitying master. In its full sway it is the very essence of self-conceit and selfishness,--two traits, a little of which goes a good way. You know that you do not put much blueing into a washtub full of water. Well, use ambition in the same sparing way. If you spill it in using it, you will have a difficult affair on your hands. It may be just possible, of course, that you have clothes to wash, so to speak, which require the whole box or bottle. If so, your chance of happiness is not great.

"HE WHO SURPASSES OR SUBDUES MANKIND,"

says Byron, "must look down on the hate of those below." "Who soars too near the sun, with golden wings, melts them," says Shakspeare. We all have upon us golden wings of happiness. Let us not soar near the sun. "Fling away ambition," mourns old Cardinal Wolsely in Henry VIII; "by that sin fell the angels; how can man, then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it?" "It often puts men upon doing the meanest offices," says Swift, "as climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping." It has been aptly called by Sir William Davenant,

"THE MIND'S IMMODESTY."

Watch this petty man. He is consumed by a desire to be a little higher than he now is. He is driver on a street car, in a city. Unconsciously, he is an excellent driver. He has not become so by the silent care which befits a real climber. No! he was born a horseman. But he was also born ambitious. If he were private secretary to the President, he would want to be President, simply because his attention would be more closely directed to the Chief Magistracy than elsewhere.

BEHOLD HIM INSTALLED AS CONDUCTOR.

He rings the bell incessantly for a milk-wagon to get out of the road. The passengers expostulate. One of them is drunk, therefore extra-expostulatory. Our conductor beholds the moment arrived when he must "bounce" the passenger. The passenger is landed free on track, with only the conductor's badge in his mind, which he reports to the office. The next day the conductor tells a passenger to get his feet off that seat, or he will put him off. In a dispute which follows, the conductor loses a chance to get across a swinging-bridge, and a passenger who has thus missed a train, gets angry and reports the conductor. The driver is quietly asked about our friend, and our friend is thrown out of his place like a shot out of a gun. He is too proud to drive again, and takes a trip into the country for his health. This homely drama is played in all the hotels where head-waiters are employed, in all the departments of business where head-clerks are needed; in all the great stores where floor-walkers "strut their brief hour,"--everywhere that gives an opportunity for little Envy to peep, from

THE RIDICULOUS AMBUSCADE

of some incompetent subordinate, out upon the goings and comings of unsuspecting Merit. "There is a native baseness," says Simms, "in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object." So, to me, there has always seemed a real baseness in these attempts of unfit people, who have only their self-conceit for training and their cheek for capital. Half our failures in business come from men attempting something they know nothing about. A printer will open a drug store, and a country dry goods merchant will start a daily paper in a city! "Alas!" says Young, "ambition makes my little less."

Once in a while there is born, in every State, a soul which is to be "like a star and dwell apart." It is to be gifted with qualities of an exalted character. But it is also to be lashed with the scourge of ambition. It is to stand, as William Penn said,

"THE TALLEST TREE,

therefore the most in the power of the blasts of fortune." How little should we desire the dizzy niche in which it seats itself. Our little heads would swim in the sickness of our unfamiliarity. We would fall. "Remarkable places," said Madame Necker, "are like the summits of rocks; eagles and reptiles only can get there." Napoleon, possibly, never had a true friend in his life. He certainly never deserved one. Each year saw him surrounded by new associates, whom he meant to sacrifice, if he could.

UPON THE BLOODY FIELD OF ASPERN AND ESSLING,

he offered up Marshal Lannes. He was forced to stand by that brave dying man and listen to his awful reproaches. So, again, in the terrible carnage of Spain at Eylau, at Borodino, Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Leipsic, Hanau, everywhere, he was compelled to hear the outspoken protests of the men who had held the ladder for him--to stamp his foot at the constant declarations of "Dukes," "Princes," and "Kings," that he was a monster whose thirst demanded only human blood. At last, the whole world cried out that it had had

"ENOUGH OF BONAPARTE!"

The expression became a war-cry, and the world escaped from the baleful sceptre under whose shadow it had too long suspired. "What millions died that Cæsar might be great!" cries Campbell. "None think the great unhappy but the great," says Young. They deserve their unhappiness. It is the mess of pottage to obtain which they have sold everything. Fame has always seemed to the philosopher like some mountain in a polar clime--cold, lonesome, inhospitable.

Tall mountains meet, and giddy greet
The clouds in their exalted homes;
What may they show, save ice and snow,
Unto the fleets that pass their domes?

Their crests are bold with solar gold:
Their charming cliffs enchant the eye;
Yet earth shows not more dreary spot
Than toilers in their heights descry.

There points a peak which mortals seek--
Fraught are its crags with human woes;
Shrill through its fasts shriek envy-blasts--
Forever drift hate's blinding snows.

Its towering height beams with a light--
The wondrous blaze of Glory's orb;
Still those who gaze feel most the rays,
While they who climb no warmth absorb.

Contentment creeps--Renown climbs steeps
Where consummations ne'er appease;
Below, how oft, when Care's aloft,
Unhappiness, distrusting, flees.

THE REPUBLIC'S ANCHOR.

In ancient times the sacred plough employed
The kings and awful fathers of mankind.

A work of this character--a book for the home--would be manifestly halt without some consideration of that grand subject, Agriculture,--the tilling of the continents of this wide earth, to whose fruitfulness the oceans apply their beneficent offices; to whose generosity the sun lends his quickening rays of brightness and beauty. "The awful fathers of mankind" to-day pay attention to the "sacred plough" as in ancient days, aye, thousands of times as much attention! The tribes which then wandered upon the globe have now increased until Nature must needs groan with the load of her gifts to sustain them, and the rulers must scan the sky, and send the telegraph out-riding the storms, to warn the husbandman that danger to his crops approaches--danger, which if not averted, were more deadly than the hatred of an enemy on a foreign strand.

The magnificent, conservative forces of our Republic live upon its farms. There is our safety in the hour of trial! Rome fell because

HER LOAFERS AND CITYITES

were the only voters. They had no homes to protect--they had only votes to _sell_. But here, with our mighty experiment in human government, we have an irresistible power, the elements of which are straight-thinking men, who want only the right to prevail, and who have wheat and corn to sell, but absolutely no votes! God be thanked for this! When the torch of Communism shall

BURN THE SENATE HOUSE

in the city, the swords which were yesterday plow-shares will surround the glaring pile, and steadfastly blot out of existence the conspiracy of the beer-saloon and the "dead-fall;" when the bayonet of the gaudy foreigner shall glisten on our coasts, the ranks of farmers will hurry, side by side with the metropolitans, to chase the adventurers back into the seas.

"Agriculture," says Zenophon, "for an honorable and high minded man, is the best of all occupations and arts by which men obtain the means of living." How true this is! One would think

"BUSINESS"

in the days of the Greek were carried on just as it is now--the concourse of a pack of men turned wolves, hungry for trade, and devouring each other in the absence of common sustenance. To succeed in business in a city in this epoch, and to be at the same time a high-minded and honorable man, is very rare--is usually the result of employing lieutenants to do the "business," and keeping the "dirty work" away from the knowledge of the principal. But when the farmer drives a bargain with

"THE GOOD GODDESS"

how clean is the transaction! There is no lying, no cheating, no treachery, no rivalry. How frank and open is the face of him who has concealed nothing! How hearty is his laugh--for has he not laughed with nature--with the twitter of the birds, with the low beating of the bells? Has he not faithful friends--friends of a life-time? When he has gone into debt has he not paid? Has he ever considered

FIFTY CENTS ON HIS NEIGHBOR'S DOLLAR

a full return, and has he walked into his neighbor's parlor (shabby for lack of the fifty per cent) and congratulated him on the return of the holidays? A spade is a spade with him. A thief is a thief. He does not like thieves. He says so. Neither does his city cousin like thieves. His city cousin is very careful not to say so. He does not like monopolies, he says so. Neither does his city cousin like monopolies. His city cousin would "turn off" any clerk who said so very loudly, let alone saying it himself. He does not like corruption and hypocrisy. On this point his city cousin has

POSITIVELY NO OPINION,

as "it really would ruin his business." Thus we see the farmer--free, ingenuous, independent. Thus we see the city merchant--smooth, prudent, sycophantic. Thank God for Agriculture! And now

CANNOT WE INSPIRE YOUNG MEN

with a little truer idea of life? Cannot we teach them that money in itself is not what they want above all things? How little wealth the really wise find necessary! On the farm is health, independence, high standing--all within the reach of any young man. He certainly sacrifices one or two of these objects when he enters a city. He can get money but he will lose his health. If he get true independence he will be

ONE OUT OF TEN THOUSAND,

all the rest of whom are slaves. With the new combinations forming in the business of the world, new experiences are constant. The man employing three hundred fortunate workers to-day, may be himself searching for work next year. The man getting $5,000 a year to-day may next week be trying to find labor at a dollar a day, and may absolutely fail. The financial panic has no such thing in store for the farmer. He will live on, just as his brook runs on, and when the sleek magnates in the hotel-parlor decree that he must lose his farm, as they need it for a "colony," he will rise up and smite them, and thereafter the sleek magnate will be an affair of the past. Young man, if you have not an absolute genius for something else, stay on the farm. Read books which will make you desire to be a pure man, just for the noble name it will give you. If you can get as great a desire to be a good man as you have to be a purse-proud man, you will be on the right track; for you will see that honesty is easier in the perfumed fields than it is in the polluted air of a city business-house. Read over the biographies, and see how certainly all our great men got their greatness in the open air of the country. Take a big city, for instance. Has it not surprised you to see how few great men New York or Chicago have furnished to the nation? The city levels men. It drags them down. Their individualities are put into a dredge-box, and the flour of mediocrity is scattered on all alike.

"IN A MORAL POINT OF VIEW,"

says Lord John Russell, "the life of the agriculturist is the most pure and holy of any class of men; pure because it is the most healthful, and vice can hardly find time to contaminate it; and holy because it brings the Deity perpetually before his view, giving him thereby the most exalted notions of supreme power, and the most fascinating and endearing view of moral benignity."

Farmers, you take pains to get two teams, so that the boys can take hold at the ploughing and in the corn. See to it that you also get the boys a light wagon, so that they can go to a picnic or a bee without discommoding you.

START YOUR BOYS OUT IN THIS WAY,

and they will not abuse their opportunities. Instead of going six miles on Sunday to a lake or river, they will "turn out" of their own accord and go to church with their heads up, self-reliant, perhaps just a little bit proud. Why? Because when they sneak off to a river, it is because they have nothing with which they are decently pleased for all their hard toil. Make your home a pleasant place for your sons, even if it be at great hazards. It will all come out right. Give the children some comforts before you take big chances on a short-horn herd. Rig up a bath-room, a swing, a sort of gymnasium. Buy games of recreation, such as your taste approves. Buy above all things good books and plenty of them. Remember some book in your own old childhood-home! What a gigantic influence that book has exercised on your whole life! It does not seem to you that your sons will pay so much attention to the books in _your_ house, but they will. Some one book will furnish a key to a life--will sway its reader while young, while old, until he goes over the bounds of its dominion into the next life. You and Society both desire your young people to

STAY OUT OF THE CITIES.

The safety of our Great Republic entirely depends upon the existence of a conservative class of independent individuals, unable to become crazed, through laziness, over some miserable idea unconnected with the business of living. When any great wrong is to be righted by absolute force it is necessary that the body exercising that force should be amenable to a sense of practical justice. If it shall be necessary to take the railroads away from their owners, or to close the boards of trade, or to go the other way and farm out the post-office and machinery of the government to get rid of the crime of office-hunting,--why then, the action of independent men is necessary--the doings of wage-workers are not satisfactory, and are almost always fatal to the order of things which was to be renovated. If this Republic have any vitality not enjoyed formerly by the democracies now buried in the yellow pages of history, it is the tremendous scope of her quarter-section farms. Not many years ago one of the largest business houses in Chicago put up a placard, just before election, stating that the proprietor considered his interests justly the interests of his clerks, and it was decidedly to his interests to have the Honorable Barnacle Bigbug re-elected. All employes were requested to note well. You see the crime of this dry-goods "prince" (how we all run to idiotic titles!) lay in subordinating the good of the State to the good of his particular millions. He totally forgot that the good of each clerk was as much to be looked after by the Government as the good of his own ambitious flesh and blood. He drowned every principle of democracy in the monarchical desire to "get it all and then give some away." The desire to give away is where the theory gives away. Now this can never happen on the farm.

The plutocrats must always tremble before the man with hay-seed in his hair. They cannot reach him. They cannot tempt or debauch him. Teach this to your sons. Teach it with horses, buggies, churches, picnics, schools, books, rest, and travel. Take the boys to the rank-smelling cities; show them the factories, the store-gangs, and the street gangs. Then they will go home with joy in their hearts, and when Old Brindle moos and Old Sorrel whinnies in recognition at their gate you may be sure that the greedy city will never swallow up your sturdy sons, the pride of your declining years. I have been somewhat earnest in this because my life on a farm was harder than circumstances make imperative nowadays. Clearing is heavy work. The culture of an Indiana opening among stumps that make a field look like a drag turned wrong-side-up leaves little chance for gymnasium or bath-room. But all that is gone by. I have been earnest, again, because

THE FOREIGNERS

are all getting our farms, while our own folk seem to think that a precarious existence as a rich man's slave in the city, is a more sensible thing than to take advantage of opportunities for which the people of other worlds tear out their heart-strings, leave native climate, language, habits, government, everything, and hurry hitherward. For shame upon ourselves!

My lord rides through his palace gate;
My lady sweeps along in state;
The sage thinks long on many a thing
And the maiden muses on marrying;
The minstrel harpeth merrily,
The sailor plows the foaming sea,
The huntsman kills the good red deer,
And the soldier wars without a fear;
_Nevertheless, whate'er befall_,
_The farmer he must feed them all_.

TEMPERANCE

O thou invisible spirit of wine; if thou hast no name to be known
by, let us call thee--devil.--Shakspeare.

Society has much to attend to. The whole wonderful mechanism by which those citizens who now do measurably right, can have blessings far beyond the totals of luxuries enjoyed by Kings a few centuries ago--this whole mechanism, I think, has been perfected by one law, the self-interest of the class wielding the force necessary to compel the change desired. To-day, among the evils which we suffer,--not as results of the new civilization, but as vestiges of the old barbarism,--is the abuse of stimulants. The effects of this abuse are, perhaps, next to atrocious crime, the most discouraging which menace the march of progress, and

EVEN THE ANNALS OF ATROCIOUS CRIME

so closely link the curse of strong drink with deeds of violence as to totally extinguish the mark of difference in the minds of many good men. Society as to-day organized, commits the keeping of a woman to the hands of a man, who in turn, is legally free to condemn her to the horrors of companionship with a man (that man being himself) bereft periodically or continuously of his moral motives of conduct. He is entitled by law to return to his wretched home with murder in his heart, and to vent upon a woman from whom he fears no defense, the anger which

IT WOULD BE UNSAFE TO MANIFEST

toward the person who may have originally inspired the passion. The point at which this cruelty becomes practically illegal is that limit which the wife puts to her own endurance, which in turn, is generally gauged not by her own powers, but by the personal safety of her children. So long as her own life seems to be alone in jeopardy, she waits to be killed--as in the notable case at Minneapolis, Minn.,--and Society permits itself to be called in simply to attend the funeral of the murdered woman, who, however, is often buried as a victim of some hypothetical disease, invented to take the blame off the prevailing order of things. Now while this is

ENTIRELY HORRIBLE IN THE ABSTRACT,

the abstract is notoriously a false way of getting the general drift of things. The abstract philosopher, the moment he is charged with the practical conduct of an affair, as a general rule, fails ignominiously, even in his own opinion. With regard to drunkenness, for instance, let us ask ourselves: "Is drunkenness less prevalent now than in olden times?" Yes. "Is the condition of the woman better, in addition to the improved habits of the man?" Yes. Therefore, it is evident Society,

THE GRAND MACHINE

(let us never say "Society" when we mean spike-tailed coats), has an eye on the scourge of Rum, and will eventually stamp it out. "But why," asks the Impracticable, "does not Society stamp it out at once?" "Why does not the sun shine twenty-four hours in America on the Fourth of July?" Simply because America is not the whole world. Neither is the subject of the murder of wives and the degradation of offspring the whole affair with which Society deals.

THE FIRST GREAT DUTY OF SOCIETY

is to feed and clothe her individuals. This burden is just beginning to sit on her shoulders without galling weight. The next effort is to protect the more industrious against the forays of the wicked and the mistakes of the unwise. This is the problem with which the past century has had most to deal. It is an immeasurably greater question than is that of drunkenness, and it is immeasurably far from solution. For instance, a foolish statesman can to-day plunge fifty millions of people into

WAR

--a thing represented among words by three letters, but which among events entirely fails to find complete expression, from the lack of any other misfortune worthy of comparison. An angry statesman, acting like a boy, may stop, not a game of marbles, but ten thousand grain-laden ships. But, notwithstanding, as an attendant in the betterment of her condition, Society is advancing rightly toward the rum-bottle. She does not hearken always to the voice of

THE PROFESSIONAL TEMPERANCE "WORKER"

because a betterment in Society is naturally and rightly the result of self-interest. The man who spends his time altogether in the bettering of others does not establish reforms on the surest basis. Society usually has to do his work after him, with considerable delay and additional cost. He is all right in the abstract, but he delays matters. What I would illustrate is this: The place for the reformer to deal with drink on a fair battle field is in the city. The place where the professional reformer finds it profitable to go is in the country, where the youth wear

THE BADGE OF TEMPERANCE

in their cheeks--not in the button-hole of their coats. In the country, surrounded by circles of persons as free from stimulants or the need of them as is their snow from the smut of soft-coal, they swear eternal "conversion" to the views of a man--usually a former victim of intoxication,--often a subsequent wallower in his same old gutters. Society sometimes looks upon this Peter the Hermit with little pleasure. The excitements, the passions and the commotions which he sometimes foments are pitiable from the very fact that

NO RUM CAN BE BLAMED

as having fired the unhappy brains that rush into the vortex of public confusion, like ships into the whirlpool. All the practical laws would be passed (and at a date earlier than that at which the public finally accept them in reality) without the sacrifices of the man who proudly calls himself a "horrible example" of the power of strong drink. How does Society do it? I am sure I do not know. All I know is this:

ON THE REAL BATTLE-GROUND,

in the city, where stimulant is often needed--whisky, iron, quinine, coffee, tobacco, opium, or tea--the men who waste the most nerve-tissue are more rigidly required to abstain from the abuse of stimulants than was the case fifteen years ago. To put it plainer, fifteen years ago, a smart man would be employed on a newspaper to "write" or "report". If he were brilliant, he was entitled almost by custom to "go on the war-path" once a week--that is, to be drunk that often, and to be totally unable or unwilling to do the current day's work.

NOW-A-DAYS,

if a man in the same position were to get drunk once a year he would be superseded. No matter how brilliant he may be, the drunkard at once sinks to the bottom. The "fat jobs" are filled by men as steady as clock-work. How has Society done this wonderful thing? Hard to tell. She has constantly tempted the steady man. In fact, she inclines to treat him a shade the better if he can drink some stimulant each day without unbalancing himself--some alcohol, some coffee or some tea--but

WOE TO HIM

if he transgress her limits. In the country it is asked "Does he drink?" In the city it is asked "Does he get drunk?" The two methods are essentially the results of two conditions. The mistake of the one locality is to apply its own preliminary to the other. Now, again, to this frightful question of woman-torture: Society knows all about woman. It knows that the wife must be the arbiter of her own sufferings. Her brother, being less wise than Society, separates the wife from

THE OCCASIONAL BRUTE

who married her, takes her ills and her children to his house, kicks the brute on the street, and, for all his pains, is eventually either assassinated by the wretch or anathematized by the wife. Having made matters much worse (by unanimous opinion), he abandons his reform, and then, with his valuable experience, joins Society and becomes a wave in the tide of events, instead of a presumptuous pebble rolling in small opposition on the beach of time. How will Society approach the wife-beater? Nobody knows. Probably she will exterminate the breed. The woman, like the newspaper proprietor, will at last awake. The man who gets drunk will not gain her affections--above all, he will not keep them. The "old soak" will be wifeless. Monsters will cease to propagate their species. When once the strong hand of Bread-and-Butter gets hold of Whisky, then whisky will be as useful for good as it now is powerful in evil. Society however deals with the affections cautiously, and wisely, because her experience is inconceivably great.

TRY PLAYING ON HEARTSTRINGS YOURSELF

to hear the music you make! Let us then pray for the day when the "drop too much" with the bottle will be as nefarious as a cut too much with the razor or a blaze too much with the torch.

A GOOD NAME.

Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious,
in the heavens immortal.--Chilo.

Perhaps there is no man so well known and yet so little thought about in any one community as he who, in the universal opinion, bears a good name. Upon his brow he wears the modern laurel, the highest emblem of his worth, yet the simplest tribute of his fellow citizens.

There are certain exigencies in the histories of all groups of people when the ordinary machinery of life will not operate. The citizens require the utmost letter of the bond; they look with suspicion on all who have usually given satisfaction by their services. A great man is needed. It is then that the people, with one voice, cry out for succor from him of of whom, in days of greater prosperity, they had no imploring need; and it is then astonishing to what a degree the voice of the people at once becomes the voice of God.

A bank which, owing to its high-sounding title, had attracted the savings of the people, fell into the hands of a clique of scoundrels and was compelled to suddenly suspend, the President flying to a distant land to escape the penalties of his crimes. When thirteen thousand depositors were thus confronted with total or partial ruin, there was but one man in a great city whom they would trust to enter the desecrated temple of their hopes and set to rights the treasure yet unstolen. This man came

LIKE CINCINNATUS FROM HIS FARM--

like a father to his children--and from the hearts of plundered widows and orphans there breathed relief in every sigh. In peaceful times this great man was seldom heard of; rogues could be elected over him to places of usual trust; but, in a crisis, his whole biography seemed embossed upon the people's hearts, rising forth like muscles in an agony.

Again a city--itself an exhalation, rising like Milton's hall of Pandemonium--perished in a night. Where, in one week, there had been one hundred "leading candidates" for Mayor, in the next week there was none so rash as to offer himself. A stricken city--the pity of a Christlike world--cast its eyes upon one citizen; and he, as an act of supreme duty, took the perilous post of helmsman through a storm that unsettled the deeps of credit and prosperity all over the earth.

In each of these illustrations party politics played no part. Tall masts were needed for the great ships, and these two men, like red wood patriarchs, touched hard against the zenith of the people's vision. Admirable tributes! Magnificent rewards of life-times of virtue and high character!

THE SILENT GROWTH OF REPUTATION.

How does a man become so great that malice and envy and utter hatred cannot by their constant stings infect his blood? How can a man silently amass a capital of virtuous renown which, when the clear vision of adversity is given to the people, will show with unerring certainty his assets and liabilities of character? It is hard to say. Accidents and circumstances so surround us all that we are the clay, baked either in fair moulds or foul. When the mould is made we have the least judgment; yet when the clay is baked we must abide.

Josh Billings has said that, "after the age of forty, a man cannot form new habits; the best he can do is to learn to steer the old ones." Yoke, therefore, the ox you call Firmness with the one you call Contentment. When you come to drive them down the road the neighbors may laugh at the hawing and jeeing, and jee-hawing, but keep on until you break your oxen in. No man ever got so he could handle that team but had

A HIGH STANDING ON THE ROAD OF LIFE.

Never discuss other folks' affairs except with the common-sense view of doing the folks good. Never start out to do a thing which is impossible of execution. Never start back after you have started out. Never pay the slightest attention to the criticism of persons who are trying to do what you are trying to do. When he who has ever done you a kindness gets angry and addresses you angrily, ponder on every word he says. Pearls then drop from his mouth. Live in no great regard of the passing fashion; it may be a very foolish one, and people who are foolish have a surprising power of perception in pointing to folly in others. Owe no man other than your good office. Have no pride above your fellow mortal; he is essentially like you.

THE BAG OF THINGS

in which ye are alike (if each thing were a grain of wheat) would freight a ship; the things in which you are better than he could be put into your vest-pocket. Gold does not tarnish, and good names do not soil easily, though herein custom has something to do with the affair. "The soul's calm sunshine" however, should spread abroad. It often reflects hidden beauty in other faces. "Be just, and fear not." You may stand apparently without honor when you have it most. If you are the man of good name in your community, you are on the high hill where your people will gather in time of need, as did the ancients to the rocky acropolis.

WORSHIP.

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And "Let us worship God," he says, with solemn air.--Burns.

The good and holy custom of family prayers is, I fear, dropping into disuse. Our lives are so full of business that a season of God's service in the morning and in the evening is almost thought to be an excuse of sloth. But what a sad effect do we see on our youth! They have quick eyes for cant and hypocrisy. They follow us to church on Sunday less and less willingly, until finally there is rebellion in their hearts and irreligion in their souls. Family worship is a fount of piety pure enough for even the young, who are pure themselves. Into its depths they look and see only a chastity of spirit reflected. The machinery and the ambition that adulterate the true faith at the church have not had their birth at the fireside of a good man. At that fireside the child grows up religious, because he loves religion. It is kind and good to him. His shrine is at home. And where can we ever build

SO HOLY AN ALTAR

as at that sweet spot where life has come in upon us, and love been wrapped around us! Burns sees the humble cotter finish his family service in the presence of his little ones, and then, to show a further duteous regard for the souls intrusted to his care, kneel again with the wife:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That he who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride.
Would in the way his wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs," sings the sweet poet, and this very poem has touched a chord in the hearts of all humanity, in every clime, and nearly every tongue, that has almost doubled that Scotia's fame. "A house without family worship," says Mason, "has neither foundation nor covering." "Measure not men by Sundays," says Fuller, "without regarding what they do all the week after." "Educate men without religion," said the Duke of Wellington, "and you make them but clever devils."

THE IRON DUKE

was forced to fight one of the cleverest of this kind, and his victory was earned so hardly that he remembered it. "The dullest observer must be sensible," says Washington Irving, "of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony." "It is for the sake of man, not of God," says Blair, "that worship and prayers are required; not that God may be rendered more glorious, but that men may be made better--that he may acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists." How can religion bear fruit so well as by daily instruction from God? How can the family bear its burdens more easily than with God's help?

HOW CAN THE BROOD BE GATHERED TOGETHER

at night so surely as when there is an engagement with the Creator at the hearth where life began? In all views, from all sides, this holy custom is seen to be founded in divine wisdom--and divine wisdom includes human wisdom "as the sea her waves."

I have prefaced this subject of worship with the matter of family services, on account of its vital importance. Without the reading of the Bible and the praise of God at home, worship appears to the young like the grinding of the corn, the shoeing of the horses, or the aid of the physician--a matter to be paid for rather than to be done by one's self.

SOME OF THE HAPPIEST AND BEST FAMILIES,

who have turned out into the world the strongest, bravest men, have not limited their worship to stated hours, even, but upon occasions of unusual peril or unusual gladness have poured out to God their prayers or their gratitude. Charnock, in his "Attributes," says: "As to private worship, let us lay hold of the most melting opportunities and frames. When we find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend Him; such impressions and notions are God's voice, inviting us into communion with Him in some particular act of worship, and promising us some success in it. When the Psalmist had a secret notion

'TO SEEK GOD'S FACE'

and complied with it, the issue is the encouragement of his heart, which breaks out into an exhortation to others to be of good courage, and wait on the Lord: 'Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.' One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, than a hundred when it is cold; melted metals may be stamped with any impression; but once hardened, will, with difficulty, be brought into the figure we intend."

THE WISEST AND THE BEST.

We have in religion the experience of the wisest and the best minds before us. Their guarantee in all else is of the very highest human standing and degree. We must, therefore, in reason, profit by their knowledge. In this, also, we are aided by our own development. Behold the truth of this from the mouth of Colton: "Philosophy is a bully that talks very loud when the danger is at a distance, but the moment she is hard pressed by the enemy she is not to be found at her post, but leaves the brunt of the battle to be borne by her humbler but steadier comrade Religion, whom, on most other occasions, she effects to despise." There died in Paris, not long ago, a man named Emile Littre, as well known in France for his infidelity as is Colonel Ingersoll in this country. Over there

THEY CALL ATHEISM POSITIVISM,

which is a good name. It signifies that a man is positive he knows more about the future state than God! Upon his death-bed this Monsieur Littre,--although he had been the means of sending thousands of other souls before their Maker, rebellious and unredeemed--this same Monsieur Littre dared not to meet God with his Positivism on his soul, and embraced the offices of the Church with great relief. Men, before entering upon a course which flings away the only hope a man has,

SHOULD LOOK WELL TO IT

that they know what they are doing. I wandered in the terror-stricken streets of burned Chicago. The multitudes--nearly two hundred thousand--were eating in gratitude; the mothers with babes were under shelter. Was the unburned temple of the atheist open? Oh, no! He had none. Who was cutting the meats and breaking the bread? The wives and daughters of the parishes which had been spared from the hot flames. It was a solemn lesson. I said: "I will not, Colonel Ingersoll, throw away the hope I have." By their works shall ye know them! 'Tis as true upon the field of blood as in the track of fire, but we must pass on. "When I was young," said

THE GREAT NEWTON,

the ornament of his race, "I was sure of many things; there are only two things of which I am sure now: one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient savior." The closing pages of Dr. Johnson's works are filled with simple little prayers to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. "I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion." This is the language of La Place, the author of "La Mecanique Celeste," one of the greatest books of the world. He spoke from real experience. He had seen religion "abolished by law." He had seen the "worship of Reason" established with the decapitation of seven thousand innocent citizens of France. He had heard one of the apostles of Reason arise in the Constituent Assembly and demand two hundred and ninety thousand corpses instead of seven thousand. Then this man who had grasped the machinery of the heavens, who had shown the absolute accuracy of Newton's great discovery, wrote, in the same spirit of absolute knowledge: "I have lived long enough to know what I did not once believe." Magnificent testimony! Almost as valuable as the teachings of our own hearts! The same statement comes from

THE ROCK OF ST. HELENA.

Victor Hugo, with a mind like that of Shakspeare, says: "I believe in the sublimity of prayer." "If we traverse the world," says Plutarch, "it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without Kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools, without theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiceth not worship, prayers, and the like, no one ever saw." "Wonderful!" cries Montesquieu, "that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the happiness of this!"

SAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON:

"Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion." "Religion is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character," says Daniel Webster. "Nothing," says Gladstone, "can be hostile to religion which is agreeable to justice." "It is the property of the religious spirit," admits Emerson, "to be the most refining of all influences. The writers against religion," says Edmund Burke, "whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own." "I fear God," says Saadi, "and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears him not." "Space is the statue of God," cries Joubert. "Truth is his body and light his shadow," says Plato.

There is almost a revelation of God in the cries upward to Him, of some of his human souls. Says Wordsworth:

Thou who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein with our simplicity awhile
Mightst hold on earth communion undisturbed;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restor'st us daily--
Thou, Thou alone.
Art everlasting!

The poet Young, driven by sorrow to God's foot-stool, addresses his Creator in the same nobility of language:

Thou, who didst put to flight
Primeval silence, when the morning stars,
Exulting, shouted o'er the rising ball;
O Thou! whose word from solid darkness struck
That spark the sun, strike wisdom from my soul;
My soul which flies to Thee, her trust, her treasure,
As misers to their gold, while others rest.

"Come unto me, ye that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Therefore, accept this boon. Take your own child by the hand, and pray, and pray:

The way is long, my Father! and my soul
Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal;
While yet I journey through this weary land,
Keep me from wandering, Father, take my hand.

THE ATHEIST

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,
(Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism,
Sailing on obscene wings, athwart the noon,
Drops his blue-fringed lids and holds them close,
And hooting at the glorious Sun in heaven,
Cries out: "Where is it?"--Coleridge.

The laugh of the foolish infidel and the sneer of the solemn atheist are abroad in the land. The awful draught they hold to the lips of humanity is well honeyed with some of the adjuncts of religion itself, else the perilous cup would be rejected. Let us see how the atheist secures his victim, for he is never content to enjoy alone the extravagances of his folly. I have noticed that when a Democratic editor receives dispatches containing news of a Republican victory, he is frequently expert enough in the guile pertaining to his profession to put a displayed heading on those same dispatches which clearly saves the day for the Democrats--or _vice versa_. And I have also noticed that it takes true mental pluck to rightly scan, first, that rooster of roosters (invented during the last few years), then the ten lines of Democratic Io Paians which follow, and lastly, the small type containing the real facts.

MAN IS SO MUCH LIKE A FISH

that certain bait is sure to catch him. The morning after the election the most astute Republican or Democrat in the country trembles before the terrors of a ten-line Democratic or Republican displayed heading, as the case may be. Now the crafty atheist has a way of laying down fallacies which often terrifies one into involuntarily believing that those fallacies are facts, until one stops to think that the atheist is but a man, after all, and that there is an appeal from his findings. It is, therefore, in the defense of humanity that I advance against him,

HOPING TO HIT HIM BECAUSE HE IS SO BIG,

and to escape his blows because I am so small. "What though the day be lost, all is not lost!" Though man have glaring faults, he is still a problem far beyond the fiat of any atheist. He still has a destiny. The atheist lays down dogma after dogma. In this changing world, where even the little balance-wheel of a watch must be "compensated," it is clearly as impossible for any atheist to lay down an undeviating dogma as it was for the Cretan to truly say that all Cretans were liars! "Broadly, an unselfish deed is impossible. There never was a human thought that reached beyond the human body." Let us capture those two atheistic dogmas and take off their displayed headings.

AWAY BACK ON THE PLAINS OF CHALDÆA,