EC3.B.VEY SlCKljaß;Proprietor
NEW SERIES,
A weekly Democratic
paper, devoted to Poll ,
ics, News, the Arts nfc ']
and Sciences Ae. Pub- " g aL'etj**
ishad every Wednes
pay, at Tunkhannock ** [I
Wyoming County,Pa \ ' V 'riff U 1'
BY HARVEY SICKLERa
Terms—l copy 1 year, (in advance) $2 00
et paid within six months, £2.50 will be charged
NO paper will be DISCONTINI ID, until all ar
rearages are paid; unless at the option of publisher.
ADVERTISING.
10 tines or . | I . ;
lest, make three fourl two < three six >, one
ne square weeks iceek mo Uigno tli. inv'Ui year
1 Saua're I*oo I ! 2,25* 2,97 3,0(T 5,00
2 Jo 2'00! ' 3,251 3.50 4 50) 6,00
3 do 3'oOi 5,50 7,00
Column 4,00 0 i 6,50; 8,00 10>00. 15,00
600 6 :1 0.00 12,00 17.00 25,00
* do' 800 < 14,00 18,00 25>0U< 35,00
1 do. 10,00 12 ( 17,00 22,00128,00 40,00
EXECUTORS, ADMINISTRATORS and AUDI
TOR'S NOTICES, of the usual length, $2,50
OBITUARIES,- exceeding ten lines, each ; RELI
OIOUS and LITERARY NOTICES, not of genera
interest, one half toe regular mtes.
Business Cards of one square, with paper, $5.
JOB WORK
of all kinds neatly executed, and at prices to suit
he times.
All TRANSIENT ADVERTISEMENTS and JOB
WORK must be paid for, when ordered.
flushing Ufltirs.
rTa w b ijttij:. A riORVKYS at
LAW Office on Tioga street, TnnkhuunockPa.
H St. COOPER, PHYSICIAN A SLRGEUN
• Newton Centre. Luzerne County Pa.
i-jEO S. TUTTON, ATTORNEY AT LAW
IT Tunkhonnock, Pa. Office n Stark's Brick
•ck, Ttoga street.
WM. M. PIATT, ATTORNEY AT LAW, 0
fice in Stark's Brick Block Tioga St., Tun.,
hannock, P
&ijf Bufhlu goim,
HARRISDURG, HENNA-
The undersigned having lately purchased the
•' BUEHLER HOUSE " property, has already com
menced such alterations and improvements as will
loader this old and popular House equal, it not supe
rior to any Hotel in the City of Ilarrisburg.
A continuance of the public patronage is refpeet
fully solicited. j BOLTON
WALL'S HOTEL,
LATE AMERICAN HOUSE,
TUNKHANNOCK, WYOMING CO., PA.
THIS establishment has recently been refitted an
famished in the latest stylo Every attention
•rill he given to the comfort and convenience of those
who patronize the House.
T. B W ALL, Owner and Proprietor :
Tunkhannock, September 11, 1861.
I4ORTH BRANCH HOTEL,
MESIIOPPEN, MTYOMING COUNTY, PA
Wm. 11. CORTRIGIIT, Prop'r
HAVING resumed the proprietorship of the above
Hotel, the undersigned will spare no effort to
render the house an agreeable place ot sojourn for
.11 .ho f.v.r it „lU>
Cune, 3rd, 1863
TOWANDA, T'-A--
D- B. BART LET,
{Late of t . n BRAINARP noes*, Elmira, N. Y.
PROPRIETOR.
The MEANS HOTEL, i one of the LARGEST
and BEST ARRANGED Houses in the country-It
is fitted up in the most modem and improved style,
nod no pains are spared to make it a pleasant and
agreeable stopping-place for all,
v 3, n2l, ly.
CLARKE,KEENER,St CO.,
MANUFACTURE Rd A. VI) WHOL' SALE DEALERS IN
LADIES', MISSES' & GENTS'
filfeattli£ ass imf treats
AND JOBBERS IN
HATS, CAPS, FURS, STRAW GOODS,
PARAHOIiS AND (IMBKELLAS.
BUFFALO AND FANCY ROftJiS,
040 BIIOADWAY,
CORNER OF LEONARD STREET,
WMW
0. r. CLARK, J
A. O KEEN KY, >
1. lceehkv. y
MT OILMAN,
DENTIST.
-jv
AT OILMAN, has permanently located in Tunk
I* L* hannock Borough, and respectfully ter.derhi
professional services to the citiiens of this placeand
surrounding country.
ALL WORK WARRANTED, TO GIVE SATIT
IION.
Office over Tutton's Law Offi.e near the Post
Office
NEW
TAILORING SHOP
The Subscriber having had a sixteen years prac
tieal experience in cutting and making clothing,
■ow offers his services in this line to the citizens of
NICHOLSON and vicinity.
Those wishing to get Fits will find his shop the
pteee to get them. r
e..6.6„ J-s.as.mi. _ ,|
POLITICAL PREACHING.
Judge mack's Reply to the Rev. Doctor
Nevlli.
Influence of the Pulpit Upon the
Commencement and Continu
enceofthe War.
THE TRUE PEACEMAKERS,
To the Rev. Alfred Nevin D. D.
MyDf.abSir: Your letter addressed
to me through the Philadelphia Evening
Bulletin disappoints me; because I did
not expect it to come in that way, and be
cause it does not cover the subject in is
sue between us. Put if lam silent youf
friends will say, with some show of reason,
that you have vindicated " Political Preach
ing" so triumphantly that all opposition is
confounded. I must, therefore, speak free
ly ir, reply. In doing so, I mean to say
nothing inconsistent with my great respect
for your high character in the church and
in the world. The admirable style and
temper of your own communication de
serve to be imitated.
I fully concede the right you claim for
cleigymen to select their own themes and
handle them as they please. You say tru
ly that neither lawyers .tor physicians nor
any other order of men have the least au
thority to control you .iu these particulars
But you will not deny that this is a priv
ilege. which may he abused; you expressly
admit that some clergymen have abused
it "and bg doing so did more than any oth
er class of men to commence and continue
the late rebellion." While, therefore, we
can assert no power to dictate your con
duct, much less to force you, we are surely
not wrong when we entreat you to impose
up<>n yourselves those restrictions which
reHsofi and revelation have shown to he
necessary for the ±0 ! of the church and
the safety ot civil .-oeiety,
I acknowledge that your commission is
a very broad one. You must "declare the
whole counsel of Got]," to the end that sin
ners niav he convinced and converts built
t.p in their most holy faith. Truth, jus
tice, temperance, humility, mercy, peace,
hrpthorlv kindness, charity—the whole cir
| clc of the Christian viitues—must be as
siduously taught to your hearers; and if
anv at" them he inclined to the opposite
vices, you are to denounce them without
fear, by private admonition, by open re
buke, or by a general delivery of the law
which condemtfs them. Y'ou are not
hound to pause iii the performance of this
dutv because it may offend a powerful
ruler or a strong political party. Nor
I -hou'd vou shrink from it when had men,
for their own purposes, approve what you
do. Elevate the inrral character.? enlight
<-n ihe dark iu ss, and purify the hearts of
thoi-e who are under your spiritual charge,
at ail hazards; for this is the work whicfy
your great Task-master has given you to
do, and he will admit 110 excuse for neg
lecting it.
But this is precisely what the political
preacher is not iu tlio habit of doing. He
directs the attention of his hearers away
from their own sins to the sins, real or ira
putcd, other people. By teaching his con
gregation that they are better than other
men, he lill- their hearts with self-conceit,
bigotry, spiritual pride, envy, hatred, mal
ice and all uncharitahleness. Instead of
the exhortation, which they need, to take
the beam out of their own eye, he incites
them to pluck the mote from their broth
er's. He does not tell them what they
shall do to he saved, hut he instructs them
very carefully how they shall act for the
destruction of others. lie rouses and en
couragi s to the utmost of his ability, those
brutal passions which result iu riot, blood
shed, spoliation, civil war, and general
corruption of morals.
You commit a grievous eiror" in sup
posing that politics and religion are so
mingled together that you cannot preach
one without introducing the other. Ciirist
and his apostles kept them perfectly sepa
rate. They announced the great facts of
the Gospel to each individual whom they
addressed. \Y hen these were accepted
the believer was lod to repent and be bap
tized for the remission of his sins, and aft
erwards to regulate his own life by the
rules of a pure and perfect morality. They
expressed no preference for one form of
government over another, they provoked
no political revolutions, and they proposed
no legal reforms. If they had done so,
they would have finally contradicted the
declaration that Christ's Kingdom was not
of this world, and Christianity itself would
have died out in half a century. But
they accepted the relations which were
created by human law and exhorted their
disciples to discharge faithfully the duties
which arose out of them. Though the
laws which defined the authority of hus
bands, parents, masters and magistrates
were as bad as human perversity could
make them, yet the early Christians con
tented themselves with teaching modera
tion in the exercise of legal power, and
uniformly inculcat. d the virtues of obedi
ence and fidelity upon wives, children,
slaves and subjects. They joined in no
clamors for or against any administration,
but simply testified against sin before the j
only tribunal which Christ ever erected on
earth ; that is to say, the conscience of the
sinner himself. The vice of political
preaching was wholly unknown to the
primitive cbutch.
It is true that Paul counselled obedience
to the government of Nero; and I am
aware that modern clergymen interpret
his worda as a justification of the doctrine
that support of an existing administration
"TO SPEAK HIS THOUGHTS IS EVERT FREEMAN'S RIGHT. " —Thomas Jefferson.
TUNKHANNOCK, PA., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1866.
is "part of their allegiance to God." Sev
eral Synods and other ecclesiastical bodies
have solemnly resolved something to that
effect But they forget that what Paul
advised was simply submission, not active
assistance,to Nero. The of
that day did not endorse his atrocities
was merely because he was "the adminis
tration duly placed in power." They did
not go with him to the theater, applaud
his acting, or praise him in the churches
when he kidnapped their brethren, set
fire to a city, or desolated a province.—
Nor did they assist at bis apotheosis after
his death, or pronounce far.eral sermons
to show that he was greater than Scipio,
more virtuous than Cato, and more elo
quent than Cicero. Political preachers
would have done this, but Paul and Peter
did no such thing.
There is nothing in the Scriptures to
justy the church in applying its discipline
to any member for offenses purely political
much less for his mere opinions or feelings
on public affairs. The clergy arc without
authority, as they are often without fitness,
to decide for their congregations what is
right or what is wrong in the legislation
of the country. They are not called or
sent to propagate any kind of political
doctriue. The Church and the State are
entirely separate and distinct in their ori
gin, their object, and the sphere of their
action ; insomuch that the organism of one
can never be used for any purpose of the
other without injury to both.
Do I therefore say that the Christian re
ligion is to have no influence on the polit
ical destiuy of inan ? Far from it. Not
withstanding the unfaithfulness of many
professors, it has already changed the
face of human society ; and it will yet ac
complish its mission by spreading peace,
independence, truth, justice, and liberty
regulated by law, "from the sea to the
uttermost ends of the earth." But this
will be accomplished only by reforming
and elevating the individuals o*' whom so
ciety is composed; not by exasperating
communities against each other; not by
any alliance with the governments of the
world; not by any vulgar partnership
with politicians to kill and plunder their
enemies.
Every time you refoim a had man and
bring his character up to the standard of
Christian morality, you make an addition,
greater or less, to that righ.eousness which
exalteth a nation, and subtract an equal
sum from the sin whichris a reproach to
any people. Sometimes a single conver
sion is extremely important in its immedi
ate effect upon the public interest of a
whole nation. No doubt the acceptance
of the truth by Dionysius the Areopagite
had much to do in moulding the subse
quent laws and customs of Athens. The
conversion of Constantine was followed by
the instant abiogation of all laws which
fettered the conscience. In the reign of
Tbeodosins the people of Thessalonica rose
against the Roman garrison and killed its
commander. For this act of rebellion the
Fimperer decreed against them the curse
of an indiscriminate war, in which the
guilty and the innocent were confounded
together in one general slaughter. Bis
spiritual "guide, philosopher, and friend"
at the the time was Ambrose, Archbishop
of Milan, who boldly denounced his cruel
ty, refused to give him the sacrament, or
even to administer it in his presence, com
pelled him to take his seat among the pen
itents on the portico of the church and in
duced bun to humble his diadem in the
dust for eight months in succession. The
conscience of the Emperer was thoroughly
awakened; his subsequent reign was dis
tinguished by justice and mercy, the in
tegrity of the empire was preserved in
peace, and the great Theodosian code, the
product of that bitter repentance, is still
read and quoted for its admirable union of
humanity and policy. Atnbrgse produced
these consequences by acting in the true
capacity of a Christian minister ; for he
r.formed the criminal by a direct appeal
to his own heai t. Apolitical preacher in
the same circumstances would have in
flamed the sanguinary passions of the
monarch by exaggerating the treason of
the Thessalonians and counselling the mil
itary execution of all who presumed to
sympathise in their sufferings.
You will see, I think, the distinction I
would make. A gospel preacher address
es the conscience of his hearers for the
honest purpose of converting them from
the errors ol their ways; a political preach
er 6peaks to one community, one party or
one sect, and his theme is the wickedness
of another. The latter effects no religious
purpose whatever; but the chances are
ninety nine in a hundred that he excites
the bad passions of those who are present,
while he slanders the absented undefend
ed. Both classes of prefcehers frequently
speak upon the same or similar subjects,
hut they do so with different objects and
aims.
I will make ray meaning more clear by
taking your own illustrations. You be
lieve in the first day of the weA as the
Sabbath, and so believing yonr duty un
doubtedly is to exhort all persons under
your charge to observe it strictly; but you
have no right to preach a crusade against
she jews anfl Seventh-day jjaptists, to get
intolerant laws enacted" against them for
keeping Saturday as a day of rest. If
drunkenness be a 6in which easily besets
your congregation, you may warn them
against it, and inasmuch as abstinence is
always easier than moderation, you should
advise them to taste not, touch not, and
handle not; but your position gives you
no authority to provoke violent hostilities
against tavern keepers, liquor dealers or
distillers. If any of your hearers be ignor
ant or coarse enough to desire more wives
than one a piece, you should certainly
teach them that polygamy is the worst fea
ture of Asiatic manners, inconsistent with
Christianity and dangerous to domestic hap
piness ; bnt you cannot lawfully urge them
to carry tire and sword into the Territory of
the Mormons merely because some of the
Mormons are in this respect less holy than
you. If the holding of slavas, or bond-ser
vants be a practical question among the
members of your church,l know of nothing
which forbids you to teach whatever you
conscientiously believe to be true on that
subject. But in a community where slav
ery is not only unknown but impossible,
why should any preacher make it the sub
ject of his weekly vituperation! 1 You do
not improve the religion of the slave-hold
er by traducing his character, nor mend the
spiritual condition of your own people by
making them thirst for the blood of their
fellow-men ?
If any person, to whom the service oT
another is due by the laws of the State in
which he lives, shall need your instructions
to regulate this personal conduct towards
the slave, yon are bound in the first place
to tell birn, that as long as that relaxation
exists he should behave with the utmost
humanity and kindness; for this you have
the clear warrant of the Apostolic example
and precept. In dealing with such a per
son you may be as much further as your
own conscientious interpretation of the Bi
ble will carry you. If you are sure that
the divine law does, under all circumstan
ces, make* the mere existence of such a re
lation sinful on the part ot the master, you
should induce him to dissolve if by the im
mediate emancipation of his slaves ; for
this is truth to you, which you believe to
he true. But where is the authority for
preaching hatred of those who understand
the scripture differently 1 What privilege
can you show for exciting servile insurrec
tion ? Who gave you the right to say that
John Brown was better than any other
thief or murderer, merely because his
crimes were committed against pro-slavery
men 1
I think the minister, in his pulpit dis
courses, is forbidden to touch at all upon
that class of subjects which are purely po
litical, such for instance as the banking
law, tariff, railroad charters, State rights,
the naturalization laws, and negro suf
frage. These are questions of mere politi
expediency ; religion takes no cogniz
ances of them ; they come within the sole
jurisdiction of the statesman; and the
church has no more right to take sides up
on them than the civil government has to
use" its legislative, judicial or executive
power for the purpese of enforcing princi
ples wholly religious.
In short, if I am not entirely mistaken, a
Christian minister has no authority to preach
upon any subjects except those in which
divine revelation has given him an infalli
ble rule of faith and practice ; and, even
upon them he must speak always for the
edification of his own hearers, "rightly di
viding the word of truth," so as to lead
them in the way of all righteousness. —
When he docs more than this he goes be
yond his commission, lie becomes a scurvy
politician, and his influence is altogether
pernicious.
T'Fie use of the clerical office for the pur
pose'of propagating political doctrines un
der any circumstances, or with any excuse,
is in my judgment, not only without au
thority, hut it is the highest crime that can
be committed against the government of
God or man. Perhaps I ought not to make
this broad assertion without giving some
additional reasons for it.
In the first place it is grossly dishonest.
I employ you asa minister, pay your salary,
and build you a church because 1 have
confidence in your theological doctrines, —
Biit you may he at the same time w holly
unfit tor my political leader. Now, you
are guilty of a base fraud upon me, if, in
stead of preaching religion, you take ad
vantage of the position I have given you to
ventilate your crude and ignorant notions
on State affairs. I have asked for bread
and you give me a stone; instead of the
fish I bargained for, you put in my hand a
serpent that stings and poisons me.
It destroys the unity of the church. —
There is no room for rational dispute about
tho great truths of Christianity ; but men
will never agree upon political subjects, for
human government is at best hut a com
promise of selfish interests and conflicting
passions When you mix the two togeth
er you break the church into fragments,
and instead of" One Lord, one faith and
one baptism," you create a thousand war
ring sects, and substitute the proverbial
bitterness of the odium theologicum for the
"charity which thinketh no evil."
No one will deny that a union of Church
and State is always the cause of bad gov
ernment, perverted religion and corrupt
morals. Ido not mean merely that legal
union which exists in European countries.
That is bad enough ; but you have less
common sense than I give you credit for, if
you do not see, that this adulterous connex
ion assumes its most polluting form when
the church is voluntarily prostituted bv her
own ministers to a political party in a pop
ular government.
The evil influence of such connexions
upon Ohureh and State is easily accounted
for. Both of them in combination will do
what either would recoil from if standing
alone. A politician backed by the prom
ise of the clergy to sustain bim can safely
defy honesty and trample upon law, for do
what te may, he is assured of clerical sup
port here and of heaven hereafter. The
clergy, on the other hand, and those who
are under their influence, easily acquire
iue habit of praising indiscriminately what
ever is done by their public men. Acting
and reacting on one another, they go down
together in the direction of the pit that is
bottomless ; and both are found to have "a
strange alacrity at sinking."
NiTman can serve two masters faithfully ;
for he must hate one if he lovi-s the other.
A minister who admires and follows such
men as those who have lately ruled and
ruined this country, must necessarily de
spise the character of Christ. If he glori
fies the cruelty, rapacity and falsehood of
his partv leaders, he is compelled by an in
flexible law of human nature to " deny the
Lord who bought him."
The experience of fifteen centuries
proves that political preachers are thegre.H
curse of the world. More than half the
bloody wars which at difierent periods have
desolated Christendom, were produced by
their direct instigation ; and wherever they
have thrust themselves into a contest com
menced by others, they always envenomed
the strife and made it more cruel, savage
and uncompromising. The religious wars,
socalled, had nothing religions about them
except that they were hissed up by the
clergy. Look back and see if this be not
true.
The Arian controversy (the first great
schism) was followed by wars in which mil
lions of lives were lost. Do you suppose
the real quarrel was for the insertion or
omission of filioque in that part of the
creed which describes the procession of the
Holy Ghost? Did a homaousian slaughter
his brother because he was hornoousiun ?
No, it was not the difference of a dipthong,
hut the plunder of an empire that they
fought for. ll was the politics of the
church, not her religion, that infuriated the
parties and converted men into demons.
The Thirty Years' T /Tar in Germany is
often supposed to have been a fair stand up
fight between the two leading forms of
Christianitv. It was not so. The religious
difference was a false pretense of the politi
cal preachers for the promotion of their
own schemes. There was not a sane man
on all that continent who would have felt
himself impelled by motives merely relig
ious to murder his neighbors for believing
or disbelieving in transubstantation. If
proof of this were wanting, it might he
found in the fact, that long before the war
ended, the sectarian cries were abandoned,
and Catholics, as well as protestants, were
fighting 011 both sides.
It is utterly impossible to believe that the
cfergv of England and Scotland,if they had'
not been politicians, would have thought of
waging bloody wars to settle questions of
election and reprobation, fate, fore-knowl
edge, free-will, ar.d other points of meta
physical theology. For would they, apart
from their politics, have encouraged and
committed the other horrid crimes of which
they were guilty in the name of religion.
Can you think that the Irish were inva
ded, and conquered, and oppressed, and
murdered, and robbed for centuries, merely
because the English loved and believed in
the Protestant religion ? I suppose you
know that those brutal atrocities were car
ried on for the purpose of giving to political
preachers in England possession of the
churches, cathedrals, glebe lands and tythes
winch belonged to the Irish Catholics. The
soldier was also rewarded by confiscations
and plunder. The Church and the State
hunted in couples, and Ireland was the prey
which they ran down together.
Coming to our own coutry you find Mas
sachusetts and Connecticut in colonial times
tinder the sole domination of political
preachers. Their treacherous wars upon the
Indians for purposes wholly mercenary ;
their enslaving of white persons, as well as
red ones, and selling them abroad,or "swap
ping them for blackamoors;" their whip
ping, imprisoning and killing Quakers and
Baptists, for theii conscientious opinions ;
and their base treatment of such men as
Roger Williams and his friends, will mark
their government through all time as one
of the cruelest and meanest that ever ex
isted.
Political preachers have not behaved any
better since the Revolution than before.—
About the commencement of the present
century they were busy in their vile voca
tion all over New England and continued
it for nianv years. The wilful and deliber
ate slanders habitually uttered from the
pulpit against Jefferson, Madison, and the
friends who supported them, were a dis
grace to human nature. The immediate
effect of this was the Yankee plot to secede
from the Union, followed by corrupt com
binations with a foreign enemy to betrav the
liberties of the country. Its remoter conse
quences are seen in the shameless rapacity
and bitter malignity which, even at this
moment, are howling for the property and
blood of an unarmed and defenseless people.
You and I both remember the po'itical
preaching which ushered in and supported
reign of the Know-Nothings, Blood Tubs,
and Plug-Uglics; when Maria Monk was a
Saint and Joe Barker was Mayor of Pitts
burgh: when pulpits resounded every Sun
day with the most injurious falsehoods a
gainst Catholics; when mind was
debauched by the iriculation of hypocrisy
and deception; when ministers met their po
litical allies in sworn secresv to plot against
the rights of their fellow-citizens. You can
not forget what came of this—riot,murder,
church-burning,lawless violence all over the
land, and the subjugation of several groat
States, to the political rule of a party des
titute alike of principle and capacity.
I could easily prove that those clerical
politicians, pho have tied their churches to
the tail of the Abolition party, are criminal
on a grander scale than any of their prede
cessors, But I forbear partly becaue I
TIERMe, * 02,00 PER AHTNI3M
have no time, and partly because it may,
for aught I know, be a sore subject with
you. I would not excite your wrath, but
rather "provoke you to good works."
Apart from the general subject there are
two or three special ideas expressed in your
letter from which I venture to dissent.
You think that, though a minister may
speak from the pulpit on politics he ought
not to indicate what party he belongs to.
It strikes me. that if he has a party, and
wants to give it ecclesiastical aid or com
fort, he shouli boldly avow himself to be
what he is, so that all men may know bun.
Sincerity is the first of virtues. It is bad to
be a wolf, but a wolf in sheep's clithingis
infinitely worse.
You represent the Church as an unfinished
structure and the State as its scaffoldings I
think the church came perfect from the
hand of its divine Architect—built upon a
rock, established, finished, complete — and
everv one who comes into it by the righf
door will find a mansion prepared for him.
It needs no scaffold. Its founder refused'alE
connection with human governments for
scaffolding or any other purpose.
You say (in substance)that, without
sometimes taking political subjects, a min
ister is in danger of falling into a "vague,
indefinite, and r.on-committal style," whicb
will do no good and bring him no respect.
The gospel is not vague, indefinite or non
committal upon the subjects of which it
takes jurisdiction, and upon then) you may
preach as loudly as you please. But I ad
mit that in times of great public excitement
-an important election or a civil war—
men listen impatiently to the teachings of
faith and repentance. A sermon which
tels them to do justice, love mercy and walk
humbly before God, is not an entertain
ment to whicb willingly invite them
selves. At such a time a clergyman CAM
vastly increase bis personal consequence,
and win golden opinions from his audience,
by pampering their passions with a highly
seasoned discourse on politics. The temp
tation .to gratify them often becomes too
strong for the virtue of the preacher. I
fear that you yourself are yielding to it. —
As a naere layman I have 110 right to ad
vise a Doctor of Divinity, but 1 hope 1 am
not over presumptuous when I wain you
against this spacious allurement of Satan.—
All thoughts of putting the Gospel aside be
cause it does not suit the depraved tastes
of the day, and making political harangues
to win popularity in a bad world, should be
sternly trampled down as the suggestions
of that Evil One, "who was a liar and &
murderer from the beginning.
Faithfully yours, Ac,"
J. S. BLACK.
York, July 25, ISC6.
A BIT OF a SlLVEß, —California has long
b°en celebrated for "big things," animal and
vegetable, and the following adds to the
list:—
Before Justice F , at San Juan, Ne
vada County, was brought a Hibernian,
charged with assault and battery upon a fel
low-countryman. Manv witnesses were ex
amined ; and, finally, Jimmy C -■■ -wa*
called to the stand.
"Mr C —, state what you know
about tills case."
"Well, your honor, Barney and Patrick
had a bit of a (]uarrel about some wood they
had been cutting. They were standing near
the wood-pile in front of the house,and at
ter jawing a little, Barney picked up a bit
a silver, and give Patrick a little tap on
the head, and he went over on to the wood
pile—and that was all there was about it,"
f Justice F —"You say Barney hit
Patrick 011 the head withabit of a rilver. —
What kind of a silver was that ?"
"We li, your honor, 'twas a small thing
—a bit of a chip."
"But we want to know how big was it;
give usyour idea of about the size of it."
"Well, your honor, (after some besita*
tion,)l think it was about two feet long,and
about as big round as my wrist!"
WHO IS OLD. —A wise man will never
rust out. As long as he can move and
breathe, he will do something for himself,
for his neighbor or for his posterity. Al
most to the last hour of his life, Welling
ton was at work. So were Newton.Bacon,
Milton, and Franklin. The vigor of their
lives never decayed. No rust marred their
spirits. It is a foolish idea to suppose that
we must lie down because we are old. Who
is old ? Not the man of energy ; not the
day laborer in science, art or benevolence ;
but he only suffers bis energies to waste
timc.ar.d the spring of life to become mo
tionless, on whose hands the hours drag
heavily.
Mr. Jenkins was dining at a very hos
pitable table table, but a piece of meat near
iiim was so very small that the lady of the
house said to him
"Prav, Mr. Jenkins, help yourself to the
meat. Don't be afraid of it!"
"No, indeed, madam, 1 shall not be, Fve
seen a piece twice as large, and it didn't
scare inc a bit."
At Adrian, Mich., a lady saw an en
gine house with a steeple, and innocently
asked a gentleman attendant, "What church
is that?" The gentleman, after reading
the sign, "Deluge No. 8„" replied, "I guess
it must be the Third Baptist!"
Why are seamstresses not admttted
into so-called fashionable society ? Be
cause the shoddy and codfish aristocracy
think there is no gentility in them, what
sew ever.
VOL. 6 NO. U