Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 January 1886 — Page 10

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BAMSON’S UNHAPPY CHOICE. The First of Dr. Talmage’s Series of Sermons on “The Marriage Ring.” The Artificialities of Society Deceive the Suitor and None Save God Can Safely Guide His Choice Aright. Jteport of Sermon on Sunday, Jan. !0. The Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage preached this morning, in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, the first of his series of sermons on “The Marriage Ring," the subject being “The Choice of a Wife.” In the series will be treated the following subjects, of the greatest importance to every person: “The Choice of Husband and Wife;” “Clandestine Marriages and Escapades;” “Duties of Husbands to Wives;” “Duties of Wives to Husbands;” “In Matters of Religion, Should the Wife Go with the Husband, or the Husband Go with the Wife?” “The Wrong Ways of Women;” “Costume and Morals;” “Competent Housewifery,” “Sensible Young Womanhood;” “Women Who Will Pass Life Single;” “influence of Sisters Over Brothers;” “The Modern Novel and Woman;” “Board-ing-house and Hotel Life:" “Treatment of Manservant and Maidservant" The hymn sung on the occasion was: “The morning light is breaking, The darkness disappears." An organ solo was rendered by Prof. Henry Eyre Browne, who selected the first sonata in D minor, by Ritter, for his musical theme. After expounding a passage of Scripture, Dr. Talmage took for his text Judges xiv, 3: “Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take • wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?” Dr. Talmage said: Samson, the giant, is here asking consent of bis father and mother to marriage with one whom they thought unfit for him. He was wise in asking their connsel, but not wise in rejecting li Captivated with her looks, the big son wanted to marry a daughter of one of the hostile families, a deceitful, hypocritical, whining and saturnine creature who afterward made for him a world of trouble till she quit him forevor. In my text his parents forbade the banns, practically saying: “When there are so many honest and beautiful maidens of your own country, are you so hard put to for a lifetime partner that you propose conjugality with this foreign flirt? Is there such a dearth of lilies in enr Israelitish gardens that you must wear on your heart a Philistine thistle? Do you take a crab-apple because there are no pomegranates? •Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines'?’ ’’ Excuseless was he for such a choice in a land nod amid a race celebrated for female loveliness and moral worth —a land and a race of which self-denying Abigail, and heroic Deborah, and dazzling Vashti, and pious Esther, and glorious Both, and Mary who hugged to her heart the blessed Lord, were only magnificent specimens. The midnight folded in their hair, the lakes of liquid beauty in their eye, the gracefulness of spring rooming in their posture and gait, were only typical of the greater brilliance and glory of tbeir soul. Likewise excuseless is any man in our time who makes lifelong alliance with anyone who. because of her disposition, or heredity, or habits, or intellectual vanity. or moral twistification. may be said to be of the Philistines. Such opulence of womanly character, or such splendor of womanly manners, or multitudinous instances of wifely, motherly, daughterly, sisterly devotion, as it owns to-day. I have not words to express my admiration for good womanhood. Woman is not only man’s equal, but in affectional and religious nature, which is the best part of us, she is 75 per cent his superior. Yea, during the last twenty five years, through the increased opportunity opened for female education, the women of the country aro better educated than the majority of men; and, if they continue to advance in mentality at the present ratio, before long the majority of men will have difficulty in finding, in the opposite sex, enough ignorance to make appropriate consort. if I am under a delusion as to the abundance of good womanhood abroad, consequent upon my surroundings since the hour I entered this life until now, I hope the delusion will last until I embark from this planet. So you will understand, if I say in the course of sermons’something that seems severe, I am neither cynical nor disgruntled. There are in almost every farm-house in the country, in almost every home of the great town, conscientious women, worshipful women, self-sacrificing women, holy women, innumerable Marys, sitting at the feet of Christ; innumerable mothers, helping to feed Christ in the person of His suffering disciples; a thousand capped and spectacled grandmothers Lois, bending over Bibles whose precepts they have followed from early girlhood; and tens of thousands of young women that are dawning upon us from school aud seminary, that are going to bless the world with good and happy homes, that shall eclipse all their predecessors, a fact that will be acknowledged by all men except thoso who are struck through with moral decay from toe to cranium: and more inexcusable than the Samson of the text is that man who amid all this unparalleled munificence of womanhood marries a fool. But some of you are abroad suffering from such disaster, and to halt others of you from going over the same precipice I cry out in the words of my text: “Is there never a woman among the daughters of the brethren, or among ail my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines?”

There are thousands of American pulpits, among them this pulpit, guilty in the fact that 'gome of the subjects on which men and women need practical advice they have heen silent or teaching them only in forceless circumlocution. About the choice of a lifetime companion, a question in which so much of time and all of eternity are involved, what almost universal silence in the church, so that there are not ten people in this house who have ever heard a discourse upon this theme; and the first one I have ever heard is the one I am preaching. We leave to the flippant novel, or the spectacular play, or the jingle of a doggerel rhyme, that which ought to burden the most tremendous sermon a minister ever preaches, from the day when he takes ordination to the day when in judgment ho meets his JJod. And 60. in the course of these I am going to hitch up my best team to the whists etree, and put the coulter of the plow clear up to the beam, and go straight on from fence to fence, however many nests of moles and serpents may be ripped up by the furrow, and however many alarmed people may cry “Whoa f That marriage is the destination of the human race is a mistake that I want to correct before I go further. There are multitudes who will never tnarry, and still greater multitudes who are not fit to marry. In Great Britain to-day there are 948,000 more women than men, and that, I understand, is about the ratio in America. By mathematical and inexorable law, you see, millions of women will never marry. The supply for matrimony is greater than the demand, the first lesson of which is that every woman ought to prepare to take care of herself if need be. 1 hen there are thousands of men who have no right to marry, because thev havo become so corrupt of character that their offer of marriage is an insult to any good woman. Society wdl have to he toned up and corrected on this subject, so that it shall realize that if a woman who has sacrificed her honor is unfitted for marriage, so is any man who has ever sacri steed his purity. What right have you, O masculine boast, whose life has been loose, to take under your care the spotlesaness of a virgin reared in the sanctity of a respectable home? Will a buzzard dare to court a dove? But the majority of you will marry and have a right to marry, and as your religious teacher I wish to say to these men, m the choice of a wife, firstofall, seek divine direction. About thirtyfive years ago, when Martin Farquhar Tupper, the English poet, urged men to pray before they decided upon matnmouial association, peoplo laughed. And some of them have lived to laugh on the other side of their mouth. The need of divine direction I argue from the faet that so many men, and some of them strong and wise, have wrecked their lives at this

juncture. Witness Samson and this woman of Timnath. Witness Socrates, pecked of the historical Xantippe. Witness Job, whose wife had nothing to prescribe for his carbuncles but allopathic doses of profanity. Witness Ananni&s, a liar, who might perhaps have been cured by a truthful spouse, yet marrying as great a liar as himself—Sapphira. Witness John Wesley, one of the best men that ever lived, united to one of the most outrageous and scandalous of women, who sat in City Road Chapel making mouths at him while he preached. Witness the once connubial wretchedness of John Ruskin, the great art essayist, and Frederick W. Robertson, the great preacher. Wtiness a thousand hells kindled on earth by unworthy wives, termagants that scold like a March northeaster; female spendthrifts, that put their husbands into fraudulent schemes to get money enough to meet the lavishment of domestic expenditure; opium-eating women—about 400,000 of them in the United States—who will have the drug though it should cause the eternal damnation of the whole household; heartless and overbearing, and namby-pamby and unreasonable women, yet married; married, perhaps, to good men. These are the women who build the low club-houses, where the husbands and sons go because they can’t stand it at home. On this sea of matrimony, where so many have wrecked, am I not right in advising Divine pilotage? Especially is devout supplication needed, because of the fact that society is so full of artifi cialities that men are deceived as to whom they are marrying, and no one but the Lord knows. After the dress maker, and the milliner, and the jeweler, and the hair-adjuster, and the dancing-roaster, and the cosmetic art have completed thbir work how is an unsophisticated man to decipher the physiological hieroglyphics and make accurate judgment of who it is to whom he offers hand and heart? That is what makes so many recreant husbands. They make an honorable marriage contract, but the goods delivered are so different from the sample by which they bargained. They were simply swindled, and they backed out They mistook Jezebel for Longfellow’s Evangeline, and Lucretia Borgia for Martha Washington. Aye, as the Indian chief boasts of the scalps he has taken, so there are in society to day many coquettes who boast of the masculine hearts they have captured. And these women, though they may live amid richest upholstery, are not so honorable as the cyprians of the street, for these advertise their infamy; while the former profess heaven they mean helL There is so much counterfeit womanhood abroad it is no wonder that some cannot tell the genuine coin from the base. Do you not realize you need divine guidance when I remind you that mistake is possible in this important affair, and, if made, is irrevocable? The worst predicament possible is to be unhappily yoked together. You see it is impossible to break the yoke. The more you pull apart the more galling the yoke. The minister might bring you up again, and in your presence read the marriage ceremony backward; might put you ou the opposite side of the altar from where you were when you were united; might take the riDg off of the finger; might rend the weddingveil asunder; might tear out the marriage-leaf from the family Bitye record; but all that would fail to unmarry you. It is bet' or not to make the mistake than to attempt its correction. But men and women do noc reveal all their characteristics till after marriage, and how are you to avoid making the fatal blunder? There is only one Being in the universe who can tell you whom to choose, and that is the Lord of Paradise. He made Eve for Adam, and Adam for Eve, and both for each other. Adam had not a large group of women from whom to select his wife, but it is fortunate, judging from some mistakes which she afterward made, that it was Eve or nothing. There is in all the world someone who was made for you, as certainly as Eve was made for Adam. All sorts of mistakes occur because Eve was made out of a rib from Adam’s side. Nobody knows which of the twentyfour ribs was taken for the nucleus. If you depend entirely upon yourself in the selection of a wife, there are twenty-three possibilities to one that you will select the wrong rib. By the fate of Abab, whose wife induced him to steal; by the fate of Macbeth, whose wife pushed him into massacre; by the fate of James Ferguson, the philosopher, whose wife entered the room while he was lecturing and willfully upset his astronomical apparatus, so that he turned to the audience and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the misfortune to be married to this woman;” by the fate of Bulwer, the novelist, whose wife’s temper was so incompatible that he furnished her a beautiful house near London, and withdrew from her company, leaving her with the one dozen dogs whom she entertained as pets: by the fate of John Milton, who married a termagant after he was blind, and when someone called her a rose, the poet said, “I am no judge of colors, but it may be so, for I feel the thorns daily;” by the fate of an Englishman, whose wife was so determined to dance on his grave that he was buried in the sea, by the fate of a village minister whom I knew, whose wife threw a cup of hot tea across the table because they differed in sentiment—by all these scenes of disquietude and domestic calamity, we implore you to be cautious and prayerful before you enter upon the connubial state, which decides whether a man shall have two heavens or two hells, a heaven here and heaven forever, or a hell now and a hell hereafter.

By the bliss of Pliny, whose wife, when her husband was pleading in court, had messengers coming and going to inform her what impression he was making; by the joy of Grotius, whose wife delivered him from prison under the pretense of having books carried out lest they be injurious to his health, she sending ont her husband uuohserved in one of the book-cases; by the good fortune of Roland, in Louis’s time, whose wife translated and composed for her husband, while Secretary gs the Interior—talented, heroic, wonderful Madame Roland: by the happiness of many a man who has made intelligent choice of one capable of being prime counselor and companion in brightness and in grief—pray to Almighty God, morning, noon and night, that at the right time, and in the right way, He will send yon a good, honest, loving, sympathetic wife; or if she is not 6ent to yon, that you may be sent to her. At this point let me warn you not to let a question of this importance be settled by the celebrated match-makers in almost every community. Depend upon your own judgment, divinely illumined. These brokers in matrinionoy are ever planning how they can unite impecunious innocence to an heiress, or celibate woman to millionaire or marquis, and that in many cases life an unhappiness. How can any human being, who knows neither of the two parties as God knows them, and who is ignorant of the future, give such direction as you require at such a crisis. Take the advice of the earthly match-maker instead of the divine guidance, and you may some day he led to use the words of Solomon, whose experience in home life was as melancholy as it was multitudinous. One day his palace, with its great wide rooms and great wide doors, and great wide hall, was too small for him and the loud tongue of a woman belaboring him about some of his neglects, and he retreated to the house top to get from the lingual bombardment And while there he saw a poor man on the corner of the roof with a mattress for his only furniture and the open sky bis only covering. And Solomon envies him, and cries out: “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house.” And one day, during the rainy season, the water leaked through the roof of the palace and began to drop in a pail or pan set thereto catch it And at one side of him all day long the water went drop, drop, drop, while on the other side a female companion, quarreling about this and quarreling about that, the acrimonious aud petulant words falling on his ear in ceaseless pelting, drop, drop, drop, and he seized his pen and wrote: “A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.” If Solomon had been as prayerful at the beginning of his life as he was at the close, how much domestic infelieitv he would have avoided! But prayer about this will amount to nothing unless yon pray soon enough. Wait unul you are fascinated, and the equilibrium of your soul is disturbed by a magnetic and exquisite presence, and then you will answer your own prayers,. and you will mistake your own infatuation for the voice of God. If you have this prayerful spirit you will surely avoid all female scoffers at the Christian religion, and there are quite a number of them in all communities. It must bo told that, though the only influence that keeps woman from being estimated and treated as a slaveaye, as a brute and a beast of burden—is Christianity, since where it is not dominant sho is so treated; yet there are women who will so far forget themselves and forget their God that they will go and hear lecturers malign Christianity and scoff at the moat sacred things of the son!. A good woman,

THE INDIANAPOLIS JOUBNAL, SUNDAY, JANUABY 17, 1886.

overpersuaded by her husband, may go once to bear such a tirade against the Christian religion, not fully knowing what she is going to hear: but she will not go twice. A woman not a Christian, but a respecter of religion, said to me: “I was persuaded by my husband to go and hear an infidel lecturer once, but going borne, I said to him: *My dear husband, I would not go again though my declination should result in our divorcement forever.’ ” And the woman was right If, after all that Christ and Christianity have done for a woman, she can go again and again to hear anch assaults, she is an awful creature, and you had better not come near such a reeking lepress. She needs to be washed and for three weeks to be soaked in carbolic acid, and for a whole year fumigated before she is fit for decent society. While it is not demanded that a woman be a Christian before marriage, she must have regard for the Christian religion or she is a bad woman and unworthy of being your companion in a life charged with such stupendous solemnity and vicissitudes. What you want, O man! in a wife, is not a butterfly of the sunshine, not a giggling nonentity, not a painted doll, not a gossiping gad-about, not a mixture of artificialities which leave you in doubt as to where the humbug ends and the woman begins, but an earnest soul, one that can not only laugh when you laugh, but weep when you weep. There will be wide, deep graves in your path of life, and you will both want steadying when you come to the verge of them, I tell you! When your fortune fails you will want someone to talk of treasures in heaven, and not charge upon you with a bitter, “I told you so.” As far as lean analyze it, sincerity and earnestness are the foundation of all worthy wifehood. Get that and you get all. Fail to get that and you get nothing but what you will wish you never had got. Don’t make the mistake that man of the text made in letting his eye settle the question in which coolest judgment, directed by divine wisdom, is all important He who has no reason for his wifely choice except a pretty face, is like a man who should buy a farm because of the dahlias in the front door-yard. Beauty is a talent, and when God gives it He intends it as a benediction upon a woman’s face. When the good Princess of Wales dismounted from the rail-train last summer, and I saw her radiant face, I could understand what they told me the day before that when at the great military hospital where are now the wounded and the sick from the Egyptian and other wars, the Princess passed through, all the sick were cheered at her coming, and those who could be roused neither by doctor nor nurse from their stupor, would get up on their elbows to look at her, and wan and wasted lips prayed an audible prayer: “God bless the Princess of Wales! Doesn’t she look beautiful?” But how uncertain is the tarrying of beauty iu the human countenance. Explosion of a kerosene lamp turns it into scarification, and a scoundrel with one dash of vitriol may dispel it, or time will drive his chariot wheels across that bright face, cutting it up in deep ruts aud gullies. But there is an eternal beauty on the face of some women whom a rough and ungallant world may criticise as homely, and though their features may contradict all the laws of Lavater on physiognomy, yet they have the graces of soul that will keep them attractive for time aud glorious through all eternity. There are two or three circumstances in which the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to her husband, whatever her stature and profile. By financial panic or betrayal of business partner the man goes down, and returning to his home tnat evening he says: “I am tuined; i am in disgrace forever; I care not whether I live or die." It is an agitated story he is-telling in the household that winter night He says: “The furniture must go, the house must go, the social position must go,” and from being sought for obse quiously they must be cold-shouldered everywhere. After he ceases talking and the wife has heard all in silence, she says: “Is that ail? Why, you had nothing when I married you, and you have only come back to \frhere you started, if you think that my happiness and that of the children depend on these trappings you do not know me. God is not dead, and the national bank of heaven bas not suspended payment; and if you don’t mind I don’t care a cent. What little we need of food and raiment the rest of our lives we can get, and 1 don’t propose to sit down, and mope, and groan. Mary, hand me that darning-needle. Ana, John, light one of the other gas-burners. And, Jimmy, open the register for a little more heat. Fanny, fetch your father’s slippers. I declare! I have forgotten to set the rising for those cakes! And while she is busy at it he hears her humming Newton’s old hymn, “To-morrow:” “It can bring with it nothing But He will bear us through; Who gives the lilies clothing Will clothe His people too; Beneath the spreading heavens No creature but is fed; And He who feeds the ravens Will give His children bread. “Though vine nor fig-tree either Their wonted fruit should bear, * Though all the fields should wither Nor flocks nor herds be there; Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice; For while in Him confiding I canuot but rejoice.” The husband looks up in amazement, and says: “Well, well; you are the greatest woman I ever saw. I thought you would famt dead away when I told you.” And as he looks at her, all the glories of physiognomy in the court of Louis XV or the modern fashion plates are tame as compared with the superhuman splendors of that woman's face. Joan of Arc, Marie Antionette and La Belle Hamilton, the enchantment of the court of Charles 11, are nowhere. There is another time when the plainest wife is a queen of beauty to her husband. She has done the work of life. She has reared her children for God and heaven, and, though some of them may be a little wild, they will yet come back, for God has promised. She is dying and her husband stands by. They think over all the years of their companionship, the weddings and the burials, the ups and downs, the successes and failures. They talk over the goodness of God and His faithfulness to children’s children. She has no fear about going. The Lord has sustained her so many years she would not dare to distrust Him now. The lips of both of them tremble as they say good-bye and encourage each other abont an early meeting in a better world. The breath is feebler and feebler, and stops. Aro you sure of it? Just hold that mirror at the mouth and see if there is any vapor gathering on the surface. Gone! As one of the neighbors takes the old man by the arm gently and says: “Come, you had better go into the nextroom and retire, ho says, “Wait a moment I must take one more look at that face aud at those hands.” Beautiful! Beautiful! My friends. I hope you do not call that death. That is an autumnal sunset. That is a crystalline river pouring into a crystal sea. That is the solo of human life overpowered by the hallelujah chorus. That is the queen’s coronation. That is heaven. That is the way my father stood, at eighty-two, seeing my mother depart at seventynine Perhaps so your father and mother went I wonder if we will die as well.

Don’t Like Oar Preacher. New York Commercial Advertiser. We have become accustomed to the spectacle of daily newspapers trying to extend their circulation- --sworn to—among those who cannot read, by the presentation of pictures of the primer and first reader description. We have now to chrouicle the prostitution of the pulpit by kindred methods in order to attract the minds of those who cannot appreciate a simple exposition of the gospel. Os all ribald exhibitions that of Brooklyn's notorious contortionist yesterday morning easily bears away the palm. Like Ingersolf, Talmage sees the effect of treating scriptural topics in a light and flippant manner, and, like Tngersoll, he so treats them for pay. The greater the reverence attached to tho ideas or words employed in worship the greater will be the shock to the mind of having them frivolously treated. It is tho same thing that makes Gilbert’s burlesque of human majesty a success. The mind is tickled by such a shock. The difference between Ingersoil and Talmage is that one is honestly outspoken in his opposition to the scheme of Christianity, the other makes that scheme the mask for his performances. No unprejudiced person could lay Talmage’s remarks on ‘‘how to choose a wife.” his ghastly jokes about man’s rib, his poking of fun at Solomon, his disgustingly vulgar picture of a society woman, followed by a vivid description of his own mother’s death-bed, by the side of any of Ingersoll’s lectures and say that the pulpit orator’s utterances were not just as ribald, just as sacrilegious and blasphemous in tone as those of the professional infidel.

ABOUT THE BIG TEA SHIPS. Reminiscences of John Jacob Astor and Others Who Began the Tea Trade. A Modern Tea Steamer—A Scene in Sontli Street—The Old-Time Clippers—The Far-Off Marts to Which They Go. Written for the Indianapolis Journal. The sight of a big tea steamer, the other day, at a South-street wharf in New York, just above old Rutgers slip, recalled to mind the old times of the tea trade of the great city, the days of John Jacob Astor and his ships, and more particularly the famous old millionaire himself. In 1785 he hired a room at 362 Pearl street as a shop for the sale of toys and German knickknacks. Later he had a shop at 69 Pine street, at the corner of Pearl, then at 81 Queen street, and still later he was located at 71 Liberty street In 1828 his store was in Vesey street, 0£ the site of the present Astor Honse. He then owned a large tea warehouse on the east side of Greenwich street, between Liberty and Cortlandt At this time he had a number of vessels of his own. They traded principally with Canton, the great Chinese port of the famous merchant’s day. One of the clipper ships, the Beaver, became the subject for the pen of a no less gifted writer than Washington Irving. Mr. Astor paid the genial Irving a considerable sum to write abont the Beaver and the settlement of Astoria in Oregon. His vessels took out ginseng, spelter, lead, iron, furs and Spanish dollars to Canton. He sent bis ships to Oregon to get the furs, aud he sold them in China for a large profit His captains brought back large cargoes of tea. The duty on tea was then very large, but the governmeut allowed merchants a year and a half in which to pay it. Mr. Astor sold his tea cargoes ou four or six months’ time, or perhaps for cash. In twenty years it is said that he thus secured from the government, without interest, a loan of $5,000,000. The tea ships to be seen at the New York wharves also recall such large tea-houses of other days as Thomas H. Smith & Cos., Russell, Sturgis & Cos., and Oliphant & Cos., all of whom have gone down in commercial typhoons. Here at pier No. 46, East river, is the steamer Benvenue, which suggested the foregoing reminiscences. She is a screw-steamer of nearly 2,300 tons capacity, 318 feet long and 38 feet wide. She was built in Glasgow in 1883. She arrived hero on Christmas day with no less than 51.000 chests of tea. These chest contained from sixty to eighty-five pounds, making the cargo at the smallest estimate considerably over 3,000,000 pounds, easily worth $1,000,000. The steamer has a black hull and a short yellow funnel, from which curls a volume of black smoke. On the deck is a stove, on which pails of tar are boiling; the tar is to be poured on the deck to make it more sbip shape. A good-natured Swedishlooking sailor is carrying it aft in performing this work. Two dark-skinned sailors are watching the fire and replenishing it when necessary. One looks like a Southern negro, with a round, amiable face, but he is a native of Bombay; the other is also a native of India. He is an older man. with a strange face that suggests a Hindoo image. The skin is dark; be has a gray, grizzly beard and tigerish eyes; he proves very civil when spoken to, but plainly enough was never designed by nature to set the North river on fire. Sidney Smith once said that a surgical operation would be necessary in order to get a joke into some people's heads. Perhaps something of the kind would be necessary in order to make our Hindoo friend understand a simple question about a pail of tar. The crew looked rough and bronzed; chev wear canvas jackets or dark, greasy blue coats, and some have their pants in their boots; an officer in a cap adorned with a wide gold baud looks inquiringly at the writer as possibly a large stockholder iu the steamer. A quiet Chinaman is smoking a cigarette by the bulwarks He is the cook; his little cook-house close by has an array of pots and kettles, a copper tank and a range, whose glow looks cheerful in the gray, damp afternoon. Forward there are men taking out the steamer’s ballast of stones and gravel, doubtless obtained in Japan; large buckets of ballast are hoisted by the steam winch from the deep, gloomy hold and poured down into a canalboat beside the steamer, where a man in a cap and red shirt, doubtless obtained from the general store in some inland village, is shoveling the larger stones here and there, while a small dog near by is knawing a bone, in blink-eyed apprehension of the descending stream of stones. The wharf is-a busy scene. Trucks are being loaded with chests of tea, some of which are marked “Y T ia Suez Canal, extra choicest new season Moyune gunpowder;” others, “Pakeong Moyune spring pickings Hyson," and still others bear the name of Oolong. The boxes of tea are piled up so as to make a lane along the wharf, aud through this passage comes a procession of trucks, heavily loaded, on their way to different parts of the city. One man is hurrying about with a pencil behind his ear, overseeing the loading; another in blue overalls is sewing up with stout twine and a needle large enough for a shark hook the matting of tea boxes: others in canvas aprons are tacking up the packages or repacking the tea. It is a noisy as well as a busy scene. There is the rumbling of trucks along the wharf, the stampiug of horses straining under their loads, the hooting of steamers on the river, the ringing of hammers in neighboring dry docks, the alternate rattle, and thunderous rumbling of the steam winch on the steamer, the falling of stones and gravel down the wooden chute from the steamer to the canal boat, the rattling of carts and the jingling of horse cars along South street, and the sound of men’s voices. It is a region of ships, warehouses, dry docks, shipwrights, caulkers, spar makers and cheap dining-rooms for sailors and ’longshoremen.

Tho large black steamer stretches along the entire length of the wharf. She has brought an unusually large cargo. Her next port of destination is Leith, Scotland. She has come to New York by way o£. the Suez oanaL She has made a voyage of about 15.000 mile3. The steamer left Yokohama on Oct. 1. Yokohama, by the way, is a foreign settlement in Japan, whose commerce has greatly increased ■within the last twenty-five years. It is an emporium for tea, as well as beautiful specimens of lacquer ware, bronze and inlaid work and ivory carvings. It has railroads and telegraphs. The Japanese are far more progressive than the Chinese. The population of Yokohamais 62.000. The city was nearly destroyed by fire in 1860, and again in 1860, but has since been rebuilt. By Oct. 14 the steamer, whose course may be of interest to indicate, had reached Hiogo. At this port she took on board tea, Japanese ware, lacquer tea-sets and various native curiosities. Hiogo is a seaport of Japan, on the island of Hondo. It is lighted with gas, has a town ball, a customhouse and large government machine shops. The population is 50,000. It has a fine harbor. On Oct. 23 the Ben venue arrived at the far-famed port of Shanghai, whence 2,000 vessels are cleared annually, which has an annual trade of $75,000,000 and a population of 250,000. It is the most important of the Chinese ports now open to Europeans. There tho steamer obtained tea, straw braid, curios and pongees. Its streets are narrow, filthy, dark and gloomy. It not only has a large foreign commerce, but a very extensive coastwise traffic; 3,000 of the strangelooking Chinese junks often crowd its river. It has a prosperous trade in flowered silks and muslins, delicate and quaint with Chinese workmanship, not to mention iron ware, glass, paper, artificial flowers, and fine manufactures ' of ivory, bone, silver and gold. Tbere are three daily newspapers, two weekly and two fortnightly papers published in English, and four published three times a week in Chinese, From this famous port a great commercial fleet takes tea, silk, cotton, cassia, camphor and porcelain to the f reat marts of the western portion of the globe. t has had its scenes of carnage, of fire and the sword. On June 10. 1842, Shanghai was taken by the British, who captured 171 pieces of cannon and a large quantity of military stores. On

Sept 7,1853, it was taken by the Chinese rebels, and in 1862 was menaced by the Tae-Pings, who were driven back, however, by an allied force of British, French and Chinese, commanded, if 1 remember rightly, by that intrepid Christian soldier, Chinese Gordon, whose subsequent fate at Khartoum is a scathing commentary on vacillation in statesmen and a reminder that “Perfidious Albion" sometimes deserts its own. We next find our steamer at Foo-Chow. where she arrived Oct 27. There dark-skinned natives brought on board packages of labels, mats of native grass and tea, consigned to Brown Brothers, the Bank of .Montreal and the Barings, worldrenowned bankers. Foo-Chow is a large Chinese city, having a population of 500,000. Its queer streets, strange-looking pagodas, temples and other buildings interest the traveler. It sends out ships to every clime, ladeu with tea, timber, paper, bamboo, oranges and other fruits, copper, corn and spices. It has 500 ovens constantly making porcelain. It is within seventy miles of the black tea district Amoy was reached on Oct 29, where the cargo of tea was increased. The Amoy merchants are famous throughout the Chinese empire for their wealth and enterprise. It has great warehouses and an enormous trade. Some of the buildings are of extraordinary size. Amoy is on an island of the same name, near the mainland of China, of which it is a part The city was captured by the British in 1841. Its streets are narrow, dirty and gloomy. The Fourth ward of New York is cleanliness itself compared to some of the sickening thoroughfares of this strange and far-off city. On Nov. 5 the large steamer stopped at Singapore. It is for a moment difficult to realize that this vessel which we see at a South-street wharf, in familiar New York, has actually traversed the waters of the antipodes, yet only about two months ago this steamer was in the region to which Milton gave the name of the Golden Chersonese, a region which poetic fancy might imagine a land of unfailing delight, of race pleasure for the senses, and of delicate ministrations to the higher susceptibilities. And so it is, within certain limits. As for the island of Singapore, however, on which is the port of the same name to which I have referred, it has its inconveniences. Tigers are more plentiful than could be desired. The salubrity of the climate is thus, in some sense, a negative advantage. The population of tigers is constantly reinforced by their striped brethren swimming from the mainland, which, in some places, is only a quarter of a mile distant, and these fourfooted immigrants are a source of no little uneasiness. They keep a wholesome check on moonlight strolls, and evening picnics. The island of Singapore was purchased by the British from the Sultan of Jahore, in 1819. The port of Singapore has risen rapidly into importance. It is one of the principal coaling stations for steamers in that region. It was mainly for the purgose of replenishing its supply of coal that the ienvenue stopped there, though It also took on board about sixty bundles of rattans, as well as some gum copal, the latter to be used in making varnish. Port Said is reached on Nov. 28. This is a seaport of Egypt at the Mediterranean entrance of the Suez canal, and is a coaling station for steamers. It is in the region traversed by Marco Polo 600 years ago, when he told the wonderful stories of the splendid Orient to a skeptical Western world. Malta, a British island, sixtytwo miles southwest of Sicily, is made on Dec. 2. The port is a valuable commercial depot and naval station. The island has been peopled in its eventful past by Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Goths and Saracens. From the Saracens it passed to Sicily, and was held by that country till 1522, when Charles V granted it to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1798 the grand master, Hompeach, surrendered it to Napoleon. Later it was taken by Nelson. At length, on Dec. 6, Gibraltar is reached, the port nestling uuder that frowning promontory, one of the Pillars of Hercules, which the old Greeks and Romans regarded as the western limits of the world—a superstition which lived for centuries, but which Columbus, of course, destroyed. Beyond these awful pillars the gateway leading out to the dark and the terrible, to fierce tempests, horrible serpents and unknown horrors, the boldest dared not venture. After reaching a certain point the convexity of the earth would prevent the return of the navigator who should defy the nameless terrors of exploration in the unknown seas, aud his fate would be a “vast and wandering grave.” Nothing of this sort was encountered by the Benvenue. If any of the crew had ever heard of the ancient superstition, it would, of course, have raised a laugh, or at least a stare of incredulity from the most ignorant The steamer sailed westward from Gibraltar out into the ocean anciently peopled with the black, fearful, comfortless and horrible, and arrived at the great mart of the new world on Dec. 25. Other great steamers are constantly bringing tea to New York. Twenty years ago this country imported $8,000,000 worth in a year; now the imports are valued at $20,000,000. From 70,000,000 to 75,000,000 pounds are annually consumed in this country. New York does three-quarters of the trade; it is not unusual to have a supply in the great warehouses of 20,000,000 pounds; one of these stores on the East-river front sometimes contains as many as 150,000 chests. I have known as many as 12,000 chests to be sold at auction in New York in a single day. It is an interesting sight to see the tea-brokers at their circular, rotating tables, sampling tea, taking it in the Chinese fashion, without milk or sugar. The part that tea played in the Revolution is too familiar to require any more than a bare mention. At first tea was denounced in Europe as a poison. Two hundred years ago it was a luxury; it cost in England at first SSO a pound. Pepys says in his diary, in 1667: "Horae, and there find my wife making of tea, a drinking which Mr. Pelhne, the apothecary, tells me is good for cold and deflexions. ” Queen Anne indulged in the "best foreign Bohee,” at Hampton court, a fact that inspired Pope’s couplet: “Here, thou great Anne, whom three vast realms obey, Dost sometimes counsel take and sometimes tea.” Tea is adulterated with the leaves of the willow, bawthorne, elder, plane poplar and other trees, besides exhausted tea-grounds, soapstone, turmeric, plumbago or black lead, gypsum, indigo, terra alba and Prussian blue. The best tea cannot be brought to this country; it would ferment on the voyage. Most grocers greatly overcharge their customers for their tea. This is one of the greatest abuses in the trade. o. w. r.

WHY THEY ARE VAIN. Little Vanities of Great Men as Seen by a Photographic Positinnist. New York StarNo one has such opportunities to find ont men’s little vanities as a photographic positionist. A man may conceal them from his nearest friend, but place him before the camera, and he becomes once more a child of nature; he forgets everything in his desire to look well, and unconsciously reveals his weak points. “I posed most of the public men in Washington while I was employed in a gallery there,” said a well-known positionist in an up town establishment; “and I found that eveu the ideal legislators exhibited those little vanities which are supposed to be the peculiar property of women. Take, for instance, the patriarchal Senator Edmunds, with his shining bald head and flowing beard. No one t,ould suspect him of personal vanity. Still, he is vain—negatively, at least. He had a horror of seeing his enormous nose on pasteboard, and has often tried my patience to find a position for him in which said nose could be toned down both in bulk and prominence. When the proof is shown to him he at once glances at the nose, and if that is satisfactory, the photographer may go on with the printing. “Senator Wade Hampton’s weak point is his -side whiskers. Though tolerably long, they are so sparse and scattering that each hair is distinct from the others Tho Senator seems jealously fond of each particular hair, and is said to take a careful inventory of the whole every morning. When he sits fora photograph, he must have at least twenty minutes in the toilet room to attend to those precious whiskers. “Senator Ingalls, having nothing to be-proud of in his face, since it is the ugliest in the Senate, cherishes an undue admiration for his long, lank form. He clothes it with the richest raiment, is never tired of displaying it by prancing up and down the Senate Chamber, and is very obdurate about beiDg photographed in a standing position, so as to give a view of the whole body, with as little prominence as possible to the face. “Mr. Salisbury, with his clean-shaven, venerable face, bears a dose resemblance to some of the Revolutionary worthies. He knows it, too, and is proud of it. In fact, rumor says that he regards himself as quite irresistible among women, though his advanced age might be considered an obstacle in that direction. Anyhow, it i9 certain that more thau one fair creature has

campaigned against the single blessedness of tha Senator from Delaware since he has been at tha capital. Senator Blair, of educational bill fame, thinks highly of his soft, expressive eyes, into which he tries hard to throw a look of profound intellectuality. When placed before the camera, he seems to bring to mind all the learning of ages, assu, ® es * n expression which, put into words, would read: "I care not for the material things of this world. Let me wander forever in the realms of the abstract with the great minds of old.” “Senator Coke, the broad-shonidered, shaggybrowed Texan, has to suffer annoyance from comments on his large ears. He has tried every method of hiding them in his pictures, but the camera seems to magnify rather than dimmish them, making them cover nearly the whole region about the sides of his head, and appear as some extraneous objects pinned on the Senator. “The ‘Tall Sycamore of the Wabash,' Mn Voorhees. has had his figure praised so profusely by newspaper correspondents that he has come to regard himself as the handsomest man in Washington. This may account for the fact that the ‘Sycamore’ always walks from his residence to the Capitol. It is only natural, you know, that when a man has a good figure he is not averse to showing it off. Os course, he prefers to stand for his picture. . “Mr. Ransom can with difficulty be enticed into a photograph gallery. Besides being ,tha best dressed m%n in Washington, he is extremely graceful and has more than a common measure of good looks. Still he takes a wretched picture. He cannot preserve his natural expression in the chair. His eyes take on a hard, ferocious look; his lips become compressed, aud hia whole appearance is that of the heavy villain ia the play. Os course, therefore, the North Carolina Senator is not anxious to see himself on pasteboard. “Jones, of Florida, wants the reputation of the student of the Senate. In his photograph he wears a countenance that instantly connects itself in the mind with a student’s lamp, a welL thumbed Plato and a midnight brain-racking ia a little college room. “Mr. Beck has the prettiest iron-gray curls I have ever seen, and, oh, how carefullv they are oiled and trained! The chief duty of‘the Senator’s body-servant—an old Kentucky negro— is to look after the handsome head of his master. “No one would imagine that Senator Plumb ia afflicted with any touch of vanity. His round shoulders, big baby face and policeman-like feet preclude the idea of that siu. He has, however, his weak point, like the rest Next to bis political aspirations he cherishes the ambition of being able some day to comb his hair like the fashionable young man’s—down over the forehead and back in two graceful curves. His success so far has been equivocal, since his sandy locks have a constant heavenly tendency, and will not down. “I recollect the first time Senator Harrison came into our gallery. My glance at him waa meant to take in his whole body, but gradually it became contracted, concentrated, drawn to a center, and that center was the Senator's nose. It is well that Mr. Harrison did not take to a more criminal life than politics, for his nose would certainly have brought him to the gallows. It is hard to describe the organ accurately. It starts out from the forehead very well, sinks modestly between the eyes, and—ah, there is the rub!—it rises no more until the nostrils are reached, and then it asserts itself too vigorously. It is, in a word, a concave nose, apparently boneless, and with a go-as-you-please air about it that is quite refreshing. The otherwise handsome little Senator is not above feeling mortified at this derogation from his good looks. “Senator Call tries to conceal the bald spot ou top of his head by combing his hair straight up from the ears. His success is not all that could be wished. “Mr. Colquitt looks like the school-history portraits of Charles I, of England. All his personal Eride lies in his Samson-like hair, which makes im appear as a relic of the age of wigs and ruffles. “There is another class of statesmen who, thoueh vain of no particular physical qualities, like to have their faces looking out from photograph galleries In nearly every window you can see Frye, of Maine, with his pugnacious expression; Brown, of Georgia, who looks like Santa Claus; Bowen, of Colorado, the great poker-player, who dresses in clerical style, with broadcloth coat extending below the knees, high-cut vest and white tie; Manderson, of Nebraska, who endeavors to look like a very sharp lawyer, and fails; Cullom, of Illinois, whose lone, sad face recalls the country schoolmaster of our youthful days; E the man of the ra-ven-black beard. resembles an Italian brigand; Palmer, o' <gan, in appearance half negro, half Frenc l wholly like the portrait of the elder Dum; an Wyck, of Nebraska, whoso benign countenance betrays nothing of the bull-in-the-china-shop temper he displayed near the end of the last Congress; Sawyer, of Wisconsin, the exact counterpart of any prosperous lager beer seller; Vest, the sil-ver-tongued orator of Missouri, with humped shoulders, short neck and irritable features; Teller, the man of deep, sorrowful eyes, which seem to be constantly protesting against tha selfishness of the world; Aldrich, the boyish Rhode Islander, who is the youngest man in tha Senate, after Kenna, and one of tha best looking. “Last, as best of all, come the statesmen wha are sometimes called the professional beauties. The particular star of this quartet is Butler of South Carolina. His features are as finely cut as a Grecian god’s; his form is manly perfection, and his bearing military without the military swagger. Though he lost a leg some years ago, he uses an artificial one so adroitly that an observer would not notice the loss. “Howell Jackson, the young Tennessee legislator, has a face less classical, but it would, perhaps, find greater favor with women. It is plump and white, faultless in regularity of feature, and lit up by a pair of most expressivd eyes. His hair is black, glossy and curly. It is impossible to find a wrinkle in his clothes, even though you inspect the knees of his trousers. He has crown rather stout of late, but not sufficiently so to impair the grace of his figure. “Senator Wilson is not handsome, but pretty. His complexion has that rosy tint which is so much sought by women. His smile is sadly sweet. He pays little attention to dress, and indeed no amount of tailoring could improve him. “The last member of the Senate’s handsome quartet is Warner Milier. I would give you o description of this eentleman's charms, but l charity bids me to spare his virginal blushes.”

Along the Creek. Down along the creek, where the old mill used to stand. There’s nothing any finer in any clime or land; Beech trees with their long arms hanging to the ground, And big white sycamores and oaks and other tree* around; ( Snipes and kill deers and a wading-crana or two, Skulking near the creek with nothing else to do; Morning, noon or night, in spring or summer time, There’s nothing any finer in any land or clime Little white and yellow moths darting every way, And big brown butterflies drinking honey all the day.' And getting just so full of nectar and of bliss They palpitate in rhythmie waves with every kiss; Water standing still to take the picture of the trees, The shadows and the roots, and to photograph breeze. < Little leaves all dancing just for pure delight— There’s not a land or clime with any finer sight. Yellow sand, and yellow light, and yellow hazes fctoO, With sky and hills, and woods and crystal water" glimpsing throngh; Songs among the thickets, and music in the sky, A driving rain of melody iu the wind that flutters by. Trickling from the happy leaves and drenching me. And ebbing through my soul in very ecstacy, Down along the creek, where tho old mill used to stand, There’s not a fairer spot in any clime or land. Ma-Biom, Ind. —O. A. Pickett. A Hopeless Task. Atlanta (institution. Sam Jones has already inaugurated the work of salting down the sinners in Cincinnati. Wa trust he will be successful, but it ig a mighty hard matter to choke a Cincinnati man off of beer Cheerful tn Adversity. Boston Advertiser. It is now less than six months to the Fourth of July, by which time summer will certainly havf begun.