.V;l 4
• , 4 4 ;
I
/ ti IFI,I ,
elatif , "
-
•.
•,.
~ • t
At L
WILLIAM BREWSTER, 1 EDITORS,
SAM. G. WHITTAKER,
elect ';;1 ottrß.
al4®©sl.
How dear to roam among the sunny hills,
When Autumn spreads her bounties on the
plain ;
When Industry his garnered treasure fills
With richest stores from fields of ripened
grain ;
When slow across the field the pondrous wain,
Deep laden with the yellow ears is drawn, •
While from wide trees that overhang the lane,
The ripe red apples, shaken down at dawn,
Lie scattered thick and fur along the level lawn.
The winding rill along the sunny vale
Sings its sweet sone to cheer the reaper's
heart;
And oft its voice the pensive autumn gale
Will join and cause the rustling leaves to start,
While scores of screaming blackbirds bear
their prat,
. .
With varied notes, yet full of melody ;
And troops of noisy boys, with dog and cart,
Are hosting to the hills with youthful glee,
To shake the clustering nuts from the tall walnut
tree.
But soon this beauteoua pageantry shall fail,
And every mellow tint of Autumn fade;
melancholy murmur fills the.gale,
And Sorrow saddens o'er the yellowing glade;
Through thickening clouds the suns of autumn
wade,
And beauty sits upon the hills no more
The verdure of the wood is prostrate laid,
And soon the autumn rains begin to pour,
And down the craggy rocks the swelling torrent
Su,h ii the fortune of majestic man
The leaves of fragrance round his forehead
flow,
T.., ovate wTenth, that gales of fortune far.,
which ha climbed so high or stooped so
:.: sc. ; approach the tempest clouds of wo,
m , - the 'ueauty of his brightest deed ;
....c i a 'noun's his fortune's overthrow,
to heaven fur some more glorious
autumn winds I rano my Doric
( (r_baltbgibing iscrilion,
A Dineoune delivered ou the 231,
UY THE
REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER
On Thurs.dny the 23d inst.,—Thanksgi
wing Day—Rev. Beecher delivered the
lowing able sermon to his Congregation.
The subject —.'The True Idea of a Cons
monweulth."
Tear--Mark our 37 s "And the cemmor
people heard him gladly."
here is a quiet and very marlted
this declaration. It implies very
ant cagly what is abundantly plain in histo•
ry, that He was not much liked by anybo
dy else in His day and preadhing. When
the Lord Christ came to his public minis
try he was an object first of universal curi
osity, and then to a limited extent an object
of sympathy. Society was then, as such,
a cluster of classes and interests. There
wns the ruling class and the obeying class
There were those who were at the top and
who claimed the right to indulgence and
pleasure ; and there was the moss at the
ottom, held to the duty of being docile,
laborious, and useful in supplying their au•
perims with the means of leisure and gra•
tification. ].'here were the learned clas
ses, and, as there always is, there were the
holy classes. There were the rich men of
eminence, and the men of political influ.
ence. There were the respectable classes
vain of their refinement. There were, in
fine, only three words to include the whole
populntion, with all these classes—upper,
middle. tower. The lower classes wore the
vast mass—ninety-nine in the hundred.—
They had just such natures as all men
have—just such desires yearnings and sus
ceptibilities; but they were kept down both
by the spirit of the times and by its insti•
utions, au thot they could never hope to be
other than they were—the 'lower classes.'
Th. Lord's Prayer is n most touching pic•
ture et the-condition of the mosses. and if
the whale world he regarded, it is not far
from the same now. Christ taught them
to srress the auto of their wants by—
'•Give us this day our daily bread." No
payer for home, none for education, nono
for children, none for their rights, none for
the reguzation of all aspirat:ons which ev
ery creature has in some measure—*
but Li, great au.) controlliug necessity was
n:. LAD. The masses of men stood
u.. ,:ge of existence. Their whole
! , fu WAS a sharp vigilance not to slip ofi—
to for mere living was the great
coufl t. Next shove the lower class, the
n i3,able multitude, but diminished in
nu,..lmrb, was the middle class, to whom
the comforts had been multiplied, and
whose ambition doubtless was to work up.
'vista from their intermediate quia is the
rank of the superior class. The superior
classes were then what they have always
been, where they are without the restraint
of the spirit of the Gospel, avaricious of
wealth and power, and unscrupulous in
the means by which they secured them ;
selfish, vain, supercilious, conceated and
haughty, Christ stood in the midst. of such
men. They listened to his sermons, and
what did the scholars, the religious and the
governing classes think of them 3 They
thought Christ was an ignoble prophet—a
men who would have some influence with
the 10554, because the mass were ton igno.
rant to discern the real merit, and the good
upper class pronounced upon Christ the
judgment of exclusion. They put him
under the ban of fashion ; placed the
badge of inferiority upon him ; and it is
in the midst of exhibitions of just such
feelings of curiosity running into contempt
—of intellectual conceit changing by dis•
cussion into disgust and hatred, that our
text falls out. It is but a line, and it does
not seem to have been put there parpo , ely.
It is like an accidental insertion of a word
into a sentence which is the key to its be- •
ing understood. It indicates that Christ ,
was uncongenial to the upper classes; but
it is said that the common people heard
him gladly. The great common mass
yearned for Christ ; while all that was per-
tonal and special—all that which set one
class of men above another in a selfish and !,
exclusive sense. woo repelled from Christ.
The top of society was never drawn tow
ard
him. His bearing, his spirit, hissym
pathy, his teachings repelled aristocractic
men. and drew toward him the democratic
masses. With most exquisite '.naivete"
the Apostle describes the things which
took place in his own day. 'Tor ye see
your calling, brethren, how that not ma
" ny wise men after the flesh, not malty
t , noble, are culled. But Clod bath chosen
the foolish things of the world to con
found the wise ; and God hath chosen
the weals things of the world to confound
the things which arc mighty. And base
things of she world. and things which
are deepis J, bath God chosen, yea, and
1, things which are not (visibly not) to
Icing to nought things that are." The
humble, the million mass, is thus, as it
were, at length to wipe out the ignominy
and the pride of the arrogant few ; set the
bottom against the top, and weigh the val
ue of the common humanity—the soul and
heart that belongs in common to man, the
power they love and worship—against the
artificial refinement of the few, and he
judged that these influences, which were
common to all, with or without refinement
• were transcendently greater than the few
things which had been evolved by the ed •
ucation of the few. It was not accident
which led the common people to hear glad
ly the Saviour. It was the proper effect
of the Divine cause It was to the coin.
mon people Christ came and meant to come.
It was not to men in classes, but men
without clues or distinction. It was to men
in mosses that the Gospel wits preached.
It was the good word of God sent to the
brotherhood. It was truth which concern
ed all mankind in common, and one just
as much as the other, Since our free goe
ernsnent has formed end expressea this
truth, it behonves us to ;sunder it well. ;-
There are lemons of instruction, both in
minting and in thankegiving:in the study
of things in our stature reepecting these
' very elements of common wealth. The
word itself has become ennobled. It was
once vulgar. But instead of being a term
to express vulgarity and unworth, it has
now come to signify eminent excellence.—
It has risen to a clues of power words., so
that we no longer say, ns they used, when
they would have their ideas evoked of ma
jesty arid greatness - we no longer say
kingdom ; when we speak of government
"and all that is sublime in it, we say the
commonwealth, or we ought to say so,—
'1 he people ore meets with us than were
ever princes with them. We say the
whole at last is admitted to be more than
' any part. In other times it was not so.—
; Things tools repute and honor as they were
exclusive. The power el one supreme
man was more glorious than the united
power of a million of men. With us there
is more sublimity in the idea of the inhe
• rent power, remaining in the hands of tee
. millions of men than there was in the ori
ental notion of Solomon holding in his
; hand the power of ten millions.
I propose to consider, as far as time will
permit me, the true idea of a common
• wealth from its religious basis—the con
trast between the kingdom and the corn
; monwealth—the state of public ideas upon
this subject among us, and the influences
; which are at war with religious truth.
The truth of the commonwealth or com
• mon weal is inspired of Christianity. The
true notion nf .he Christian commonwealth
" LIBERTY• AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE."
HUNTINGDON, PA., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1856.
does not signify a common property as in.
validating man's right to Individual owner
thip in property. We do not believe that
civilization can be promoted except by
means of individual property interests, and
any attempt to improve society by attack
ing this distinction and having common
property would have the effect to suck it.
The law of th•e individual is as strong as
the law of community Both are true.
Nor does this idea of a commonwealth flee
ply a literal equality among men. Man
cannot make sr change natural laws. Our
Legislation must always be a mere interpre.
teflon and recognition of God's original le
gislation. It has been said in high places
that it would be folly to re enact a law of
nature. It is the only thing anybody can
do. All our legislation is but the finding
nut what God had done, and owning up to
it, and adopting it. The commonwealth
admits of inferiorities and superiorittes, of
high and low, of weak and strong, of wise
and simple, of gradations innumerable and
infinite in their differences and contrasts.
.I'he very element of power in a cotnmon.
wealth is not in its conformity, but in its
In'varieties and differen
ces concord is always obtained. It was
not meant that man should find his level.
When rivers find their level they are
swamps and so are communities, They
were never built to be level. It will not
seek,either up or clown, a method by which
to make all men alike. This wily be the
hope of the theorist, but it was not the ex
pectation of Ilium who made the theory,
and will execute in practice what he•me.rot
in theory. The commonwealth begins
with the fundamental idea that every man
belongs to himself—that he has a right to
the use of his own body, his faculties, his
appetites, his affections, his reason, his mo
ral nature and his working powers. And
las it is impossible to be possessed of our
faculties where there is not room for eve•
lotion and development, this doctrine of
man's right to himself carries with t the
right of the conditions of growth and all the
circutnstances needful far that deeeleement
Though the State tnny not be obliged to
secure that development in n person, yet it
has no right to prevent it. The right to be
myself is a part of tny right to be born and
to live. The right to develop is only to
say diet I have a right to rays •If in fun—
net condensed or abridged. Man was not
burn to be an index or an nppendix. fie
was born to be himself, written out in full
and there is no authority which has the
right to condense a man to a mere table of
contents. And in this right of man to hint
self to bring himself clear up to the line de
signated by God—this , primordial funda
mental right, all men stand on a common
ground. There is no distinction. If one
men have u hundred talents and another
one, they will difler to the amount of possi-
Ids being, but they all will be alike is this
right to develop that which God gave
them; and the man who has one talent
st,ntis precisely on the sante ground of
divinely appointed right us Lilt . . 111011 w•ho
lies one hundred. No law, no custom, no
opinion or prejudice has the right to say to
one tine), you may grow, and to another,
3 ou may ac t —to one, you may grow in
L. diroVloll3 and not to twenty — to the
strong, you may grow stronger. mid to the
weak, you may never become strong.—
Launched upon the ocean of life like an
innumerable fleet of ships, each lean may
spread what sails God has given him, whe
ther a pinnace, sloop, brig, bark. ship, or
man-of wear; and no Commodore or Admi
cal• may signal what canvass he may carry,
or what voyage he may take. Life is coin
non to all The earth is common to all;
and growth and improvement lie open to
all. if, then, a man be made high by that
which is in him lawfully used, lie is just
as much a democrat as another who is
low. There is a vulgar impression that
the words demodracy, democrat, and de
mocracy menu Geed at the bottom. By no
manner of means. A man may be at the
topmost spire of the pinnacle of God's
grace, and be as much a democrat as if he
were under the stones and amid the dirt at
the door; for dirt and democracy have no
thing in common necessarily, whatever it
may be nary. The eagle mines not over.
shadow the dove because he flies higher.
The dove does no violence to the sparrow
by his swifter flight. Ills wings are won.
ger. All these natures aro concordant,
and so among men—Democracy consists
in a man being just what be is in himself,
and being nothing by pretension; It is be
ing wise if you are wise, and not being in
high places when you have to be b dstered
up artificially to keep there. Dein cracy
means that monkeys are monkeys where
ever they are, that won are men, and that
strength is strength wherever it isoop,
middle or bottom. It is the reality of
things; the-answering of man to that which
God marked out for him. All wealth, all I
power, all influence, and all respectahilities
that arc mot of man's own self and nature,
are aristocratic in whose hands they may
be; and where man has power, place, em
mence, and strength in his own right, le
cause God meant him to have it, place him !
where you please, and still he is a Demo-
crat. Every man has a right to attain his
own sphere. his capacity is both guide I
and charter to that sphere. If we may not
place hint in his spht;.re, we shall not for-
bid him from attaining it, lf Imu burn
outwardly a peasant and inwardly an artist,
no man may hind me to the plow; for 1'
have received in my capacity God's com
mission for doing higher and better things
than that. It is the right of men in com
anon. It makes no difference by what
name you call them, prince, people, or
slave ; man is that name of power that ri.
ses above till these designations—is better
than all, and carries with it to savage and
civilized, to clown and boor and refined and
cultured, to master and slave, privilege
and prerogative conferred by the Almigh
ty; and no law is to trip him in the race ;
no artificial barrier is to block his way ; no
miasmatic prejudices are to poison the air
about him. The slave who has the ele
ments of humanity has a right, common
to him with his master—common to him
with the governor, the president, the king
and the emperor—a right common to all
men, of being whatever God wrote in the
churtor of his nature when he created him.
It is not a right that comes from Inn's
charter ;it comes from God himself. It i 3
the business of government to help men
to themselves and not to restrict and re-
duce their power. Justice is not meant to
keep down the yearnings of those who ,
fain would grow up. Justice ought to
nourish nod stimulate a dLposition to pos
sess all that God intended should be theirs,
and should never prevent their growth.
Laws, institutions and civil stooges, were
not intended fur the benefit of classes ; they
are not for the strung, for the wealthy—
they are the alinoneis of univer-al bounty ,
for all men. Governments sneeze estil•
pattern from God to the administration of
nature. Another element of common weal,
inspired of Christianity, is found in that
benevolent spirit in which we usually es
teem and rejoice in the influences which
are common to all men, rather than those
which are special and are peculiarly ours.
'rite element of seif.esteem in the human
soul is that which gives person'ality and
dignity to each man, It is the instinct of
bring one's ono self. It is the basis of
personal identity, and therefore around it
clusters those influences which tend to
, make men their own; and from it proceed
those influences which tend to make men .
seek their own power and their own spe
cial dignity. But at a little distance out,
this element becomes the spirit of selfish
ness. It is then the root of ambition, the
mainspriug of exclusiveness. Society is
full of custems and tendencies which spring
from perverted stlf.esteein. Under these
influences niers sympathize more with
themselves than they do wiih others. They
are proud of their natne, of their place, of
their power, of their class, of their heri
inc. It is as if the writ of self eiem,-
children so far predominated in each bra
then and sister that they forgot the ties of
brotherhood and sisterhood, and self had
extirpated family love; and it is the some
in the great family and brotherheod of
mankind. Men under influence of this
feeling come to live in isolation, und
be
ceme exclusive. Then it is that they are
proud of family, and foolishly hold all
without their circle less than they, simply
because they are not of their circle. They
glory en their rank, they are jealous of
their guarded privileges, and the essence
of their joy is that they have and others
• have not. Men in this wise think they
go up as they stand alone. They :Teak
of gaining power and eminence by the
degree in which they gain separateness
from their fellowmen in rank, wealth and
in the various circumstances of - external
condition. Gradations of society spring
from God's ordinances ; hut exclusiveness
—the vain glory of gradations--springs
from man's selfishness. The spirit of
Christianity is that wo love our neighbor
us ourselves ; and it is the peculiar good
fortune of this land to possess institutions
which, when they were created, were cre
ated to express this very spirit, and for the
salce of maintaining, expressing and per
petuating it ; fur I think, far as our insti
tutions are (rem being perfect, they yet
come nearer being New Testament instittu
none than the world has over before seen.
And I account it not a little singular that
when Jefforsonovho was known to be an
unbeliever in the truth of Christianity in
the main, when he, with others, was maul•
i ding and giving shape to our institutionr.,
that he, in the hands of God, should have I be in conflict for growth is conflict. There
been the architect of the temple which I is no improvement without excitement and
more truly expresses the spirit of Christi it grows out of conflict. You and I are
unity than any institutions in the world. boned life-long, if we are in a state of
Let le. look at these elements. First. the growth, to be in the midst of excitement
common citizenship—that is to say, eiti. I and conflicts. Let us not be alarmed when
zenship which hes no orders, no degrees, i we see influences throughout the nation
no rank, except such as men make among which seem to be subverting things, so long
themselves. Aoroad they have kings, no- as are have organic powers, so long as we
hiss, inteimediate classes, and the laboring ! stand in the original divine idea expressed
classes. These are not the classes in in man, the Christian idea that is register
which the people hove urrauged themselves I ed in the Bible—so long as we beer God's
but they exist by law. The tenure of pro• I thought in nature At Christianity, and
pirty, the condition of social intercourse, I institutions fronted to express that truth.
all these things have been twined together Should we not be the veriest cowards ever
so as to split society up, and make some i seen if we gave up our faith in this victo
high, because they happened to be born in ry, and vail our faces and believe that a
a certain classification, and some low, be. sneaking plantation tyranny was to over•
cause they happened to be born below— come all that which ages have accomplish
not leaving men to classify themselves, but cd 1 No, I glory and rejoice that Gel
organizing things beforehand. In our when about to throw the devil down, lifts
land, men have classified themselves. lVe hint very high so that on his way through
have aristocrats here, but God made them; the air taward hell every man will see him
and there never will be the time when fall. I never felt more occasion for thanks
mightiness of soul will overshadow little- giving than I feel this day, for I feel that
ness of soul. If aristocratic means that the institutions of Liberty stand on a solid
which is higher and superior to others, I I foundation; sad though the desert sande
say God's angels are aristocrats. It was may drift about our doorways and cover
designed that some should be high, some I them up, yet there will come men who will
intermediate and some low, as some trees I seek that threshold and those places which
nre forty, some a hundred, and soma, the were once consecrated to the Berme of
mammoth pines, three hundred feet in j Liberty, and will bring them out. There
height. But however high their tops may jis a certainty that these divine ideas shall
reach, their roots rest in the same soil. In be wrought out here and everywhere. The
our country there is a common citizenship. time I trust will come when them there
It permits a man to grow and towel aloft as i shall be no more crowned heads, no more
much as he pleases. but every man stands revolution, oppressions, and tyrannies, but
.on one common foundation. I have just when all the world over, there shall be a
es much right to be Lord Bacon at you 1 common people in a commonwealth, with
hare just as much right to be President as common joy, common love, common place,
city other man. There is no ditlerence a- common life, a common God and a con
bout that right. It is just as touch the moil bleaven.
poor man's as the rich, the blacksmith's,
the carpenter's, and the scholar is the
cloisters, as anybody else's. All swirl on
the common ground of citizenship. There
arc no special and peculiar rights gitaran•
teed or permitted by society--none exeopt
those God has given. Every man in this
country has net only the right to be every
4nnn ikon , is iinthina In Government.
nothing in the town, the county, the State,
or the confederated States, that is not open
to the petition of every single one of the
inhabitants of the whole land
Next, 1 desire to call your attention to
the fact that while in other lands there are
special privileges for the few, in our land
the influences are precisely the reverse.--
typified by the common schools. It stands
on the threshold of society and brings all
men back to a common starting point.--
The father, by the gifts of God is him may
shoot far ahead of cotemporary eminent
men in the State, and the son who goes
back to the sante stetting point, the colo
nies school, stay be n booby. It is not the
school fur the rich, nor the school for the
smart, a school for classes, but it is a com
mon school---a school that makes everybo
dy common together. It knows no dis
tinction—who the boy is, or from whom
descended. The poor oleo's boy, with ge
eras, walla above the rich mun's dunce
'They both take their chance in common,
and mike themselves what they were in.
b•iided to be by God. I think it does eve
r:,•tiody good to have been in the common
,chod. It certainly does boys good to pass
through the little republic which they do
there. l'he next among our noticeable in
stitutions is the ballot-box. It dote; from
ten to twelve years after the school, and it
teablies precisely the same lessen —there
is no distinction to be known among men.
The ballot hexis the tnost•cxtraordinary
thing that existed in the notions, customs,
and institutions of a people, for it does not
recognize any difference in men. When
a Story, a Kent, or a Marshall goes up to
deposite his ballot, he is note whit strong
er than the miserable individual who reels
and staggers Up, and places his ballot in.
All these elements tend to the same idea--
tend to bring into organization and efficient
and practical operation this great Christian
idea that man has a common weal. And
then, going above these institutions to their
sources, the charters, the bills of right of
every State, the Declaration of Indepen.
deuce, the preambles to the constitution,
we find that they keep up the same truth,
They may be regarded as one political Bi
ble so to speak, and are one political stan
dard of orthodoxy; and as long as we have
a religion, a Bible, a Democratic Go-ern
meet, common schools, a ballot box, char
ters, bill of rights, Sze., I think we may,
without fear, let rhetoricians declare that
the doctrine of human rights is but glitter
ing and sounding generalities. Glitter and
sound he may call it, because it glitters
wits light that is seen over the whole con•
tinent, and sounds so that every living be
ing on the continent heere and knows it.
Now of the conflicts that are going on in
our country. It is 3 necessity for men to
`Ji rdUauu.
Variety's the very spice of Life,
The Temper.
; In an old leaf of the Columbian Maga
zine, published some 50 years ago, we find
the following paragraph. •which shows that
our fath e rs were quite as exciteoble, and
decide their political opinions as any
scendants:—
political conversation, particular
care ought to be taken to preserve the
temper. None are so irritable as the
tempers of enthusiastic politicians. . I
have seen some of this character, concern
ing whose lunacy I have not the least
doubt. It is better, if possible, to avoid
political conversation when the speakers
betray warmth and attachment to party.—
I never knew an instance of conviction
attending the longest disputes. There is
a pride and obstinacy in the tninds of ig
norant partioans, which we rarely find in
other men. If their belief in God were
half as sincere as their confidence in their
favorite lender, they would be the most pi.
ous and fervent saints the world ever saw.
As we must sontotimes meet with in?n of
this character; it is best never to urges,
nor answer, oven when we are certain of
their errors ; let us rather leave their com
pany, and pity their weaknes of mind.
Capital Reply to a Dualist.
John SI. Botts: of Virginia, was re•
cently challenged to fight q duel by R. A.
Pryor, of the same State. Mr. Botts de•
clined the honor of being shot at in a re
ply which contained the following senti•
ment :
"Your life could not be the value of a
pin's points to me, and I am sure I should
derive no comfort from making your wife a
widow and your children fat Lerless ; there
fore, I have no desire to take it; while
my own life is not only of value to me,
but indispensible to the support and hap.
piness of my family, and I hope to make
it useful to my country —therefore ; I am
not disposed to place it at your disposal."
Nothing could be finer or better exhibit
the immorality of duelling than this aen•
timent.
ger Mr. Showman, what kind of an
animal is that I" That, my deer, is the
rhynocercow. He is cruising German or
Dutch relative to the unicorn. Ile was
born in the desert of Sary Ann, and fed on
bamboo an missionaries. He is very cour
ageous and never leaves home unless he
moves, in which ease he goes somewhere
else unless overtaken by the dark. He
was brought to this country much against
his own will, which accounts for his ,
low spirit, when he's 'melancholly or de
jected.
He is sow somewhat aged, al.
though he has seen the day when he was
the pungest specimen of animated nature
in the world. Pass on, my little dear, and
allow theladiee to survey the wisdom of
providence as displayed in the ring tailed
monkey,a hanimal that can stand hang•
ing lilt. n feller Trifler, only it'sreserred "
VOL. XXI. NO. 49.
Two Reps tot; Few.
A man somewhat advanced in life, who
was the other part of a strong minded la
dy, had great faith in Spiritualism. His
wife openly proclaimed her infidelity, and
with the consistency which often forms
part of the female character, for a long
time refused to be convinced of her errors
through test or experiment. At last the
persuasions of the husband induced from
her a promise tc make one of a circle at
the residence of a celebrated medium. up
on condition, however, that she should pre
cede her husband in entering the house,
and nothing should be said or done by
him, which should disclose to the "medi.
urn" the fast that any connection existed
between them.
fhe wife on entering found two gentle
men in waiting and the aforesaid medium.
Soon after this the husband came in and
a circle was formed, the lady of course, ta
king procedence over the other. She as•
certained that a spirit was present who
would communicate with her, and was
desired to ask any test question which she
might think proper. After having been
informed that she must put her questions
so as to have them anmwered affirmatively
by three raps: or negatively by only one
rap, she questioned as follows
.Ain I married?'
'Rap rap, rap r
.Have I ever been married but once?'
Rap !
q. many years t'
Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!
(.Eight years') said the medium.
!Have I children
Rap, rap, rap !
'How many 1'
Rap, rap, rap, rap ! ('Foar,') •aid the
medium,
The Indy was somewhat startled at the
correctness of these answers, and freely
confessed it. With a radiant face the hus
band then 'braced in,' asked the following
teat questions :
'Am I married V
Rap, rap, rap !
How long have I been married V
Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap, rap !
'Strange coincidence murmured th.
medium.
'Have I children V
Rap, rap, rap !
'How many V
Rap, rap !
.Good Heavens! How :fmy V'
Rap, Rap ! !
The wife swooned, and the husband,
when last seen, was walking on the Jersey
Ruts. To this day the lady professes to
disbelieve !
Bleeding Trees to Mae them Bear.
This consists in cutting the bark up
and down the tree, from the limbs to the
ground, about the Ist of may. Th . e bark
should be cut entirely through. But the
wood should not be penetrated with the
knife. The advantages claimed for this
operation are these : Ist It promotes
rapid growth. 2d. It brings trees into
bearing sooner. Rd It aids those trees
whose outside bark is hard and unyield.
ing. St. ne fruited trees are not inured,
it is said, by this operation.
Spoiling Lila /damage Ceremony.
_
Tile following statement is no jet, but a
positive fact : A young man in business in
Liverpool, led his blushing bride to the al
tar in the Old Church in that town ; and
when the question was asked, "Wilt thou
love and cherish," he answered as is cus
tomary, and added, "When she needed, he
would bang her." The girl immediately
stopped the clergyman, and turning upon
her heel quietly walked out of the church,
saying that ' , A man who could say what
he has said in such a moment, in jest, wets
most likely to put his threats into execu
tion, and bade him choose another mate.
A Sure Remedy for Poison.
- Sugar of lead, dissolved in new milk.
and warmed till it curdles, will cure the
poison of ivy or elder, or any other poi.
sonous vine or weed. It ehould be made
so strong that it will have a stringent taste
and the part affected, wet with it occa
sionally. Sugar of lead, as well as 'all
other dangerous medicine. about a house,
should be plainly labeled. So says a cor
respondent of the Ohio Cultivator.
Millet for Sheep.
Several farmers in Washington county
have tried raising millet for sheep feeding,
and are pleased with it. They sow it
thickly, which produces more and finer
stalks, but less seed. The lose in seed is
more than made up in the increased val•
ue of stalks. Sown thinly, the stalks will
be course. Sheep are fond of, it, and
thrive well on h.—Pittsburg Agriculturist.
air A man mai smile and smile, tnd
be a villein still.