Pike County Democrat, Volume 26, Number 28, Petersburg, Pike County, 22 November 1895 — Page 3

fife* < Dottnts IJrmomt JL MoO. BTOf'm Editor ia^ Proprietor. PETERSBURG. . - - iNDlk^A. MILLIONS OF LETTERS. Astounding .Results of a Scheme to Aid a Cripple. „ -CroM-Roads Vl'Isje Flooded with Old Postage Stain >s—Countn Postmaster Wants His SrJary Increased—Largest Mall R' i-clpts la the W orld. The post office department is worrying over the Kaneville (111.) “letter fthain” enormit,’. Inspector Stuart has been requested to investigate it. Letters are pouring into Kaneville at • the rate of 6,00< a day. These are coming from Europe. The first install- ’ rjnent of forcigr replies to this gigantic “chain" reached Kaneville recently. The operation: of the “chain” have been practically headed off in this eoun- . try, but the multiplying missives have got to foreign i ands and the “chain” is running riot in Europe, particularly in England and Scotland.

This is the “letter chain" which was set going by A'.iss Edna K. Brown, of Kaneville, Kane county, Til., in September, 1S94, for the ostensible purpose of procuring 1,000,000 stamps, for which a * medical institu ion would treat a crippled girl. Mist Brown has since been married, the eri ppled girl has been pronounced incura tie, and was, years ago. Over 25,000,000 stamps have been received, and stil letters are pouring in. The limit of th i “chain” has been extended from 5C to 80 singe it reached Europe, and where it will end nobody.--can conjecture. What thelTnit ‘d States postal author- — ities can do abo- it it is the question that worries them. 1'he writers are outside the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. There is seemingly n<’ evidence of premeditated fraud or purposed swindling in the scheme, ye thousands and thou- - sands of dollar^ lave l>een spent in postage. Kaneville is flooded with mail matter. Postrge stamps are stacked up in farmhouses around Kaneville like wheat in a bin a d people are spending $300 a day for t ie carriage of their letters alone. A phase of this undertaking which the United Sta :es* government will take up, it is sa d, is the losses in postage due. This amounts to over $40 n day on Edna I£. Brown’s mail. It is not paid and the letters are returned to the dead letter office. This letter chr in, started from an obscure crossroads post office, has become the most gigantic thing in the way of ••correspondence the world has ever heard of. If Edna R. Hr )wn, to whom the letters ure add res; ed, wished to stop it now she would be as powerless as if •contending aga nst the tides of the -ocean. If the machinery of the United States post office department was called to her aid it eou d not end it, now that it is spreading over Europe. The only tiling Uncle Sam can do is to treat with .*m-h phases of it as come within the scope of the vindicatory features of the law. ( All this world-wide correspondence is •directed to a simple country girl, w’ho would stand amazed at the complexities of the workings of a third-class yost office. She is a slight built young woman, 18 years old, with fair complexion and dark hair and dank eyes. Vet this unsophisticated girl, gow the bride of the village blacksmith, receives more letters in a day or a week or a month than any other person on earth receives or ever did receive, and these letters contain ten or more old postage

EDNA &. BROWN. stamps. She has received in a single j<ackage as many* as 50,000 of these stamps. To say. then, she has more Setters and more old postage stamps than anyone in the world is to make the statement with mild comparison. She has received more than 25,000,000 stamps, and they are pouring in on her now at the rate of 100,000 a day. The Knneville post office is swamped ■with letters. About 16 of every 5,000 letters received there are for some of •the other 75 or more residents of Kaneville—all the rest are addressed to Edna R. Brown. Bushels of letters come from Denmark. liussia, Holland, Germany, Italy, 45pain, India, China, Japan, South and ■Central America The history of the «cheme one gets in Kaneville is this: Miss Edna R. Brown, a country girl, •top-daughter of J. F. Watson, one of •the. oldest and wealthiest farmers in Rape township, conceived the idea of making a stamp collection to aid a friend, Mattie E. Gorman, aged 19, the •daughter of the village blacksmith of Ranevilie, John Gorman. Miss Gorman ■was made helpless by spinal meningitis -when six years old. Miss Brown had formerly lived ip Jefferson county, N. ^ Y.,and she wrote to a friend living there v -asking her to aid in collecting 1,000,000 stamps. These 6he said she could sell for $100 and procure medical aid for Mattie Gorman. This friend, so the ■story goes, wrote to Miss Brown asking her permission to project on the unsuspecting world a letter “chain.” Miss Brown had <no r mj oi knowing what

the wsult of it would be—no one elae had—it seemed to be an easy way of fretting the stamps, so she said yea. The friend wrote a letter designating Mias Brown as the treasurer of the stamp fund, and mailed three copies of it to as many acquaintances. The letter was as follows: Dbaii Friend: A medical Institute has offered to treat a young lady of Kaneville. who has been lame, a cripple, since six years of age. If she would collect 1,090.000 stamps, so we have aided In keeping this chain going, which has been started In her behalf, and your aid Is kindly asked. Maks three copies of this letter, as we have done, only changing the date, and put the next i higher number at the top. numbering them j all the same, and sign your own name. Re- j turn this letter to Miss Edna R. Brown, j Kaneville, Kane county, 111., with ten or j more canceled stamps; also the name and j address of the three, snd they In turn are j asked to do the same. Anyone not wishing i to do this is asked to return this letter to j Miss Brown, that we may know the chain i

»» Ul UAUII. Although this may seem a small thlnis to you anyone breaking the chain will involve loss to the enterprise. The person receiving No. 60 will please return tho letter without making any copies, as that ends the chain. Yours respectfully. .Thai no medical institution ever made this offer Edna admits. She had a vague sort of a notion that a million old stamps could be sold for $100 and this sum would procure doctors* services. The Kaneville girl got an idea, and with the aid of her thinking friend in New York the brilliant plan of a shain was evolved from a laudable desire to acquire a wooden leg for a boy who would be too big for it before Christmas. She did not expect much from it, she says. She had not even calculated on the possibilities of it. She did not know there were not enough people on tne earth and had not been since the time of Adam to furnish a writer for every request in the “chain.” That there was not enough wealth in Kane county to pay for hauling the water used in making the glue or the stamps necessary to mail the letters if the

“chain was not broken, rhat the interest. on the value of the postage alone would pay the national debt and buy another new navy. To carry out the idea of this chain the first person sends out three letters. Each recipient of these sends three, and the second series thus product's nine answers, the third 27, the fourth 81, the fifth 243. When the 13th series is reached the number of letters received exceeds 1,500,000. The increase is colossal from there. If the chain be unbroken the number of the letters in the 50th series would be 717 sextillions, S97 quintillions. 987 quadrillions, C>19 trillions, 852 billions, 588 millions, 770 thousands, and 249. The table carried out in full is as follows: 1.... ..27: ..SI I .243 ! ...729 .2.187 j .6.561 1 9 . 19.6S3 10 . ....59,049 11 .177.147 12 .531.441 13 . 1.594.323 14 . 4.7S2.969 15 . 14,348,907 1C.43.W6.721 17...1.129.140.163 IS... 387,420,489 19 . 1,162.261,467 20 ...^...3.486,784.401 21 .... 10.460.353,203 22 .,v. .81.381,059.809 23 . 64,143.178.827 24 .282,429,536,481 25 .847,288,609443 2C....2,541,865.828,329 27.7,625,597,484,987 £S. ..22.876,792,454.961 29 .68,630.377.364883 30 . 205,891,132,094,619 31 .J*.617,673,396,283,947 22.~..1.S5S.026,188.851841 53.. .....555,060,565.355,523 34....16,677,181,699,666,569 35.50,031,545,098,999,707 SC. 150,094.635,296,999.121 87... 450.283.905,890.997.363 38. .1,850,S51.717.672,992,089 39...4.052.555,153.018,976,267 40 . 12,157,665,459.056,928,801 41 . 36.472,996,377,170,786,403 42.. ;.109,418,9S9.131,512,359,209 43 . 328,256,967,394.537,077,627 44 . 984,770,902,183,611,232,881 4a...?,954,312,706,550,833,698,643 46 .j, ..... .8,862,938,119,652,501,095,929 47 . 26,588,814,358,957.503.287,787 48.. ..* ....79,766,443,076,872,509,863,361 49. 239,299,329,230,617,529,590,063 59...717.S97.987,691,852,588,770,249

if this chain is earned out to the 80th series, which is the limit in England, a glance at this table, which is carried out to the 50th series, will give one an idea of a total almost too great to be calculated and far exceeding ordinary conception. Within a month after ‘the “chain** was started letters containing ten or more stamps began to find their way to Kaneville, each a link in the chain. One nay in early October last year 54 letters came for Miss Brown. People of Kaneville opened their eyes in wonder when they heal'd of it. The news spread rapidly. Postmaster Shoellliurn, who is also the village shoemaker, went over the addresses half a dozen times before he could believe it. Then he tied them up in a nice bundle with a stout wax-end, and the post office was

tiui or staring people wnen neeame out from behind the little row of pigeon holes and delivered the package to the confused and blushing addressee. Crowds gathered in Mart Shoop’s and Clel's places that night to talk it over. C harley Garmon tried to explain how it j was, but there was more doubt than ; conviction that night in Kaneville. The j ne tt day there were 150 letters for Edna ; It. Brown, and before the prominent citizens of the place could arrive at a verdict on the “miracerlous lot of letters’* they were pouring in by the thousand. Then they just submitted to the inevitable. The letters were coming; there was no doubt of that, and that waS all there was to it, Before the hazy afternoons of October j were gone there was a romance mixed up in the postal sensation. John Gar- j ttftvn, the father of the crippled gprl, had ; a son, a big, easy-going fellovprfa chip ; of the old block, the villager^said. He j was a blacksmith, like his father, and iudustrious enough. No one in Kanevilie was prepared to hear that “Edna Grown had picked out Charley Garimu,” but she had, and during the fetter part of October, just as the letters began coming swiftly, they were married. Edna R. Brown became Mrs. Charles German.

The prominence Kaneville ban acquired in the world is appreciated by everybody there. Charley Graham, the village blacksmith, is not much heal'd of outside of KanevUie, but he poses as the most prominent citizen there now. He lives in a cottage-roofed square frame house two stories high, situated near his shop. There are two '/rout rooms; one is used as a parlor and the other as a storage room for the stamps and letters. The room is 12x14 feet, and one-half of it is stacked up six feet high with boxes and barrels filled with stamps. One corner of the room is filled with unopened letters; the rest of the fioor is piled up with bags filled with stamps. Measurements and cal* culations showed there were 420 eubio feet of postage stamps in the room. Estimates Tnade, based on the counted contents of boxes, placed the number at more than 20,000,000. “These ain’t all, either,** said Garman. “My uncle, John Weber,who lives two miles east of Sycamore, hauled

MATTIE E. CORMAX. away about a quarter of what there ia here. My father took nearly as many as my uncle.” ‘‘What are they doing with them?” “They are helping open the lettera and sort out the stamps. Everybody around helps us.” “Have you sold any stamps yet?” “Yes—we sold some;—about $70.worth of old stamps and the same amount cf new ones.” “Get any rare stamps in these letters?” “We got two we sold for $5 apiece.” “Were those all?” “No; we find rare ones every once in awhile.” “Do you get any money in them ?” “Yes, we get a check now and then. Never more than five dollars. We got about sixty dollars in this way.” Then he told of a $500 check which his wife cashed at Elburn. It turned out to be a fictitious paper, and it cost her $7.50 for the trouble the banks had with it. In all, he said the scheme had brought them a little more than $200. “Was this used for medical-aid for your sister?” He explained that she came to Chicago last summer and remained here

three mouths, speut $150 aud went back no better than she came. “She was treated by Dr. Dowle,” ho said, “the divine healer. She had all the faith in the world, but he could not do her any good.” “Will she try any more to be cored?” “Yes, when we get more money out of these stamps.” Ileeently some one wrote to the mayor of Kuneville inquiring about the case. Now Kaneville has only one officer, a constable, so the letter was turned over lo Neet llavlin to answer. The writer had 150,000 stamps and wanted to know something about the case before giving the stamps.* Kavlin wrote to him saying the people of Kaneville would raise all the money needed for the girl’s cure if she eould be cured. Letters of inquiry arrive every day from people who want to know more about the case before contributing to the charity. These are addressed to the postmaster, the mayor, the chief of police, the burgomaster, the coxumissaris van politic and to ever so many other sorts of municipal officers that do not exist in Kaneville. When one comes for a poliee officer Mart Shoop, the constable, takes care of it. He answers them all in the s&me vein as Neet Kavlin answered the man with the 150,000 stamps to give. The postmaster, John Shocllhorn, does not answer one letter in 40 which he receives. He has not the time and besides he has lots of other things to do. He is the shoemaker, the barber and the confectioner of the place. Versatile though he is, he was plodding along on a salary of $300 as fourth-class postmaster all unknown to fame until one day he was compelled to move his barber shop and shoe bench

out In the back yard to make room for the wagon load of mail “Grandpop” Logan brought over from Sugar Grove. Now he wadea around in mail breast high and sits up nights writing to the fourth assistant postmaster general for more salary, so he can hire somebody to help him. “Grandpop” Logan, who gets $144 a year for hauling the mail over from Fugar Grove, eight miles, six days in the week, says the postmaster has no ground for complaint as compared to him. The postmaster is getting famous and people are showering sympathy on him, while he has to haul that mail through all kinds of weather, while it fills his Wagbn so he can’t haul tuiy passengers or freight, and no one ever thinks of his troubles.—Chicago Chronicle. No Time for Choo*iny. A quack doctor in Yokohama named Yamai Yosen was once called urgently to attend a neighbor’s wife who was suffering from an attack of hysteria. The doctor, entering the house in a hurry, proceeded to the assistance of the sick woman, who was supported by a maid-servant. But in his confusion nc seized the servant’s hand instead of that of her mistress and began intently to count the pulse-beats. To correct his error the girl said: “You have made a mistake. That other is my mistress* hand.” “Nani,” replied the medico, “in caaea of emergency one can’t stop to be particular in the matter of hands.”—J udgm.

TALMAGE'S SEEMON. A Notable Discourse Giving "Advice to Young Women." YMnely SattMtlom to the Sox Groerallj— AdfMt or Ik* “Jf*w Worn**" Do. ptorod—Let tU«* Young Women Get Cloea to God. Bex. T. DeWitt Talmage took for the subject of a recent sermon to his Washington congregation: **A Word to Women,” basing it on the following letter lately received: Cikcwmati. O.—Reverxxd Sia: You deliv- ; ered a discourse in answer to a letter from six young men of Payette. Ol. requesting you to preach a sermon on •*Advice to Young Men.” ; Are we justified in asking you to preach a sermon oa "Advice to Young Women?” (Letter signed by six young women.] Christ, who took His text from a flock of birds flying overhead, saying: “Behold the fowls of the air,” and from the flowers in the valley, saying: | “Consider the lilies of the field,” and j from the clucking of a barnyard fowl, | saying: “As a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing,” and from a crystal of salt picked up by the road- j side, saying: “Salt is good,” will grant us a blessing if, instead of taking a text from the Bible, 1 take for my text this letter from Cincinnati, which is only one of many letters which I have received from young women in New York, New' Orleans, San hVancisco, London, Edinburgh and from the ends of the earth, all implying that having some months ago preaehed the sermon on “Advice to Young Men.” I could not, without neglect of duty, refuse to preach a sermon on “Advice to Young Women.” It is the more important that the pulpit be heard on tills subject at this time when we are having such an ii

limitable discussion about what is called the “New "Woman,” as though some new creature of God had arrived on earth, or were about to arrive. One theory is that she will be an athlete, and boxing-glove and foot-ball and pugilistic encounter will characterize her. Another theory tis that she will superintend ballot-boxes, sit in congressional hall, and through improved politics bring the milieu nium by the evil she will extirpate and the good she will install. Another theory os that she will adopt masculine attire and make sacred a vulgarianism positively horrific. Another theory is that she will be so esthetic that broom handle and rollrialized with tints from soft skies or .suggestions of Rembrandt and Raphael. But I must be specific. This;letter before me wants advice to young women. • Advice the first: Get your soul right with God and you will be in the best ! attitude for ^everything that comes. New ways of voyaging by sea, new ways of threshing the harvests, new ways of printing books, and the patent office is enough to exchant a man who has mechanical ingenuity and knows a good deal of levers and wheels, and we hardly do anything as it used to be done; invention after invention, invention on top of invention. Bnt in the matter of getting right with God there has not been an invention for six thousand years. It’s on the; same line of repentance that David exercised about his sins, and the same old 6tyle of prayer that the publican used when he emphasized it by an inward stroke of both hands, and the- same faith in Christ that Paul suggested to the 4 jailer the night the penitentiary broke down. Aye, that is the reason I have more confidence in it. It has been tried by more millions than I dare to state lest I come far short of the brilliant facts. All who through Christ earnestly tried jto get right with God, are right and always will be right. That gives the young women who gets that position superiority over all rivalries, all jealousies. all misfortunes, all health failings, all social disasters, and all the combined troubles of eighty years, if she shall live to be an octogenarian. If the world fails to appreciate her, she says: “God loves me, the angels in Heaven are in sympathy with me, and I can afford to be patient until the day when the imperial ehariot shall wheel to" my door to 1 take me up to my coronation.” If | health goes, she says, “I can endure the present distress, jfor I am on the way , to a climate the first breath of which will make me proof against even the slightest discomfort” If she be jostled with perturbations of social life she

can say: ‘‘Well, when 1 begin my me among1 the thrones of Heaven anti the kings and queens unto God shall be : my associates, it will uot make muck ! difference who on earth forgot me I when the invitations to that reception were made out” All right with God you are all right with everything. Martin Luther, writing a letter of condolence to one of his friends who has lost his daughter, began by saying: “This is a hard world for girls.” | It is for those who are dependent upon ■ their own wits aijd the whims of the l world, and the preferences of human favor, but those who take the Eternal j God for their portion not later than | fifteen years of age, and that is ten years later than it ought to be. will find that while Martin Luther’s letter of condolence was true in regard to many, if not most, with respect to those who have the wisdom, and promptitude, and the earnestness to get right with God, I declare that this is a good world for girls. Advice the second: Make it a matter of religion to take care of your physical health. I do not wonder that the Greeks deified health and calljed Uygiin a goddess. I rejoice that there have been so many modes of maintaining and restoring5 young womanly health invented in our time. They may have been,known a long time back, bat they have been popularised in our day—lawn tennis, croquet and golf and the bicycle. It always seemed strange and inscrutable that our human race should be so slow of locomotion, when creatures of less impcx

fence hart' power® of Telocity, wing of bird or foot °f antelope, leaving na far behind, and w.*1**®ik seems so important that we be in t,*»any places in a short while, we were weighed down with incapacities. and mos,^ mftn »f they run a mile are exhausted w dead from exhaustion. It was left nntil the last decade of the nineteenth century'to give the speed which ws see whirling through all onr cities *ytd along the country roads, %nd with that speed comes health. The women pf the next decade will be healthier thad at any time since the world was created. while the invalidism which has so often characterized womanhood will pass over to manhood, which by its posture on the wheel, is coming to curved spine and cramped chest and a deformity for which another fifty years will not have power to make rescue. Young man, sit up straight when yon ride. Darwin says the human race is descended from the monkey, but the bicycle will turn a hundred thousand men of the present generation in physical condition, from man to monkey. For good womanhood, I thank God that this mode of recreation has been invented. Use it wisely, modestly, Christianly. No good woman needs to be told what attire is proper and what behavior is right. If anything be doubtful, reject it. A hoydenish, boisterous, masculine woman is the detestation of all, and every revolution.of the wheel she rides is toward depreciation and downfall. Take care of your health, O

woman; or your nerves, in not reading the trash which makes up ninetynine out of one hundred novels, or by eating too many cornucopias of confectionery. Take care of your eyes by not reading at hours when you ought to be sleeping. Take care of your ears by stopping them against the tides of ! gossip that surge through every neighborhood. Health! Only those know its value who have lost it. The earth is girdled with pain, aud a vast proportion of it is the price paid for early recklessness. I close this^ though with the salutation from Macbeth: , Now good digestion wait on appetite ' And health on both. Advice the third: Appreciate your mother while you have her. It is the almost universal testimony of young women who have lost mothers, that they did not realize what she was to them until after her exit from this life. Indeed, mother is in the appreciation of many a young lady a hindrance. The maternal inspection is often considered an obstacle. Mother has many notions about that which is proper and that which is improper. It is astounding how much more many girls know at eighteen than their mothers at forty-five. With what an elaborate argument, perhaps spiced with some temper, the youngling tries to reverse the opinion of the oldling. The sprinkle of gray on the maternal forehead is rather an indication to the recent graduate pf the female seminary that the-^ir-cumstances of to-day or to-night are not fully appreciated. What a wise boarding school that would be if the mothers were the pupils and the daughters the teachers. How well the teeps would chaperone the fifties. Then mothers do not amount to much anyhow. They are in the way, and are always asking questions about postage marks of letters, and asking: “Who is that Mary D.?” and “where did you form that acquaintance. Flora?” and where did you get that ring, Myra?” For mothers have such unprecedented means of knowing everything—they say'“it was a bird in the air” that told them. Alas! for that bird in the air. 'Will not some one lift his gun and shoot it? It would take whole libraries to hold the wisdom which the daughter knows more than her mother. “Why can not I have this?’ “Why can not I do that?’ And the question in many a group has been, although not plainly stated: “What shall we do with the mothers, anyhow? They are so far behind the times.” Permit me to suggest that if the mother had given more time to looking after herself and less time to looking after you, she would have been as fully up-to-date as you, in music, in syle of gait, in esthetic taste, aud in all sorts of information. I expect that while you were studying botany, and chemistry, and embroidery, and the new opera, she was studying household economies. But one day from overwork, or sitting up of nights with a neighbor’s sick child, or a blast of the east wind, on which pneumonias are horsed, mother is sick. Yet the family think she will soon be well, for she has been sick so often, and always has got well, and the physician comes three times a day, and there is a consultation of the i doctors, and the news is gradually broken that recovery is impossible.

given in uie woras wnue were is me there is hope.” And the white pillow over which are strewn the loeks a little tinted with snow, becomes the point around which all the family gather, some standing, some kneeling, I and the pulse beats the last throb, and the bosom trembles with the last | breath, and the question is asked in a whisper by all the group: “Is she gone?” And all is over. Now come the regrets. Now the daughter reviews her former criticism of maternal supervision. For the first time she realizes what it is to have a mother, and what it is to lose a mother. Tell me, men and women, young and old^d^d any of us appreciate how much mother was to us until she was gone? Young woman, you will probably never have a more disinterested friend than your mother. When she says anything is unsafe or imprudent, you had better believe it is unsafe or imprudent. When she declares is is something yc" ought to do, I think you had better do it She has seen more of the world than you have. Do you think she would have aoy mercenary or contemptible motive in what she advises you? She would give her life for you if it were calle d for. Do you know of any one els* who would do more than that for you?\ Do

yoc know of any one who would do an? much? Again and again she haa already endangered that life dnring six weeks of diphtheria or scarlet fever, and she never once brought up the question of whether she had better stay, breathing day and night the contagion. . The graveyards are full of mothers who died taking care of their children. Better appreciate your mother before your appreciation of her will be no kindness to her, and the post-mortem regrets will be more and more of an agony as the years pass on. Big headstone* of polished Aberdeen, and the bestepitaphs which the family put to- * gether could compose, and a garland of whitest roses from the conservatory are often the attempt to atone for the thanks we ought to have uttered in living ears, and the kind words that would have done more good than all the calls lilies ever piled up on the silent mounds of the cemeteries. Advice the fourth: Allow no thee to pass without brightening one’s life. ■- Within five minutes’ walk of yon there is some one in a tragedy compared with which Shakspeare’s King Lear or Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean has no power. Go out and brighten somebody’s life with a cheering word, or smile, or a flower. Take a good book and read a chapter to that blind man. Go up that dark alley and make that invalid woman langh with some good story. Go to that house from which that child has been taken by death and tell the father and mother what an escape the child has -had from the winter of earth in the springtime of Heaven. For God’s sake, make - some one happy for ten minutes, if for no longer a time. A young woman bound on sueh a mission, what might she not accomplish. Oh, there are thousands of these manufacturers of sunshine. They are “King’s Daughters’’ whether inside or outside that delightful organization. They

do more good before they are twenty years of age than selfish women who live ninety, and they are so happy just because they make others happy. Compare such a young woman who feels she has such a mission \Vith one who lives a round of vanities, card case in hand •calling’ on people for whom she does not care, except for some social advantage. and insufferably bored when the call is returned, and trying to look young after they are old, and living a life of insincerity and hollowness, and dramatization and sham. Young woman! live to make- others happy anti you will be happy. Live for yourself and you will be miserable. There never has been an exception to the rule; there never will be an exception. Advice the fifth: Plan out your life on a big scale, whether you are a "i farmer'n .laughter, or a shepherdess among the hills, or the flattered pet of a drawing r<x»m filled with statuary, and pictures, and bric-a-brac. Stop where you are and make a plan for your lifetime. You can not be satisfied. with a life of frivolity, and giggle, and indirection. Trust the world, and it will cheat you if it does not destroy you. The Redoubtable was the name of an enemy’s ship that Lord Nelson spared twice from demolition, but that same ship afterward sent the ball that killed him, and the world on which you smile may aim at you its deadliest weapon. Be a God’s woman. This moment make as mighty a change as did a college student of England. He had neglected his studies, rioting at night with dissipated companions and sleeping in the class room when lie ought to have been listening. A fellow student came into his room one morning before the young man I am speaking* of had arisen from his pillow, and said to him- “Paley, you are a fooll You^ are wasting your opportunities. W' not throw away your life” Paley said; “I was so struck with what he said that 1 lay in bed until I ■ had formed my plan for life. I ordered my fire ' to be always laid over night. 1 arose |»t live and read steadily all day. Allotted to each portion of the day its proper branch of study, and become the senior wrangler.” What an hour that was when a resolution definitefy placed changed a young man from a reckless and time-wasting student to a consecrated man who stopped not until all time and all eternity shall be debtor

to ms pen ana muueuce. Young women! draw oat, and decide what you will be, and do, God help* ing. Write it out in a plain hand, not like the letters which Josephine received from Napoleon in Italy, the writing so scrawling and scattered that it was sometimes taken as a map of the seat of war. Put the plan on the wall of your room, or write it in the opening of a blank book, or pat it where you will be compelled often to see it. AHhousand questions of your coming life you can not settle now, but there is one question you can settle independent of man, woman, angel and devil, and that is that yon will be a God’s woman now, heneeforth and forever. Clasp hands with the Almighty. Pythagoras represented life by the letter Y, because it easily divides into two ways. Look ont fo* opportunities of cheering, inspiring, rescuing and saving all the people yoa can. Make # league with the Eternities. I seek your present and everlasting safety. David Brewster said that a comet belonging to our system called Lexell’s comet is lost, as it ought to have appeared thirteen times, and has not appeared at all. Alas! it is not early the lost comets, but the lost stars, and what were considered fixed stars. Some of the most brilliant and steady souls have disappeared. (tee who has known in storms to sail Ihave on board; Above the roanhg^f the gale, I hear my Lord. He holds me when the billows smile; 1 shall not fail; If short ’tis sharp, it lonr ’tis light; He tempers all. Doctrine is nothing but the skin t f truth act up and stuied.—£L Vi. Itouair. r"