Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1896 — Page 3

MOUNT ON HIS FARM

Republican Nominee for Governor at Home. vi■ v - ” • "T"~ • y~ ■■ ■■■ FARMER STATESMAN. Interesting Story of His Rise from Poverty. . Hon. James A. Mount Is Popular with All Who Know Him, and Admiring Hoosiers Irrespective of Party Already Greet Him as the Next Execu-tive-A Plain, Hardworking, EveryDay Agriculturist with His Every Cent Invested inland Derived from the Soil of His Native State.

railway station to meet and' congratulate him. As they marched down from the courthouse they hought every large shady straw sombrero the local merchants had in stock. Thus arrayed’ they made the town ring, and the noise produced by the marchers under those wide-spreading and inclusive habiliments will go echoing through the campaign. This js because .James A. Mount is a farmer and has been wearing one of that sort of lints ever since, as a barefooted boy, he began work on his father’s acres In Franklin township, ten and one-half miles from the center of Crawfordsville. Helan’t a play farmer, or a make-believe farmer, or a merchant with a farm to amuse himself with, but a plain, hardworking, every-day American agriculturist, with every cent ho lias in tiie world invested in and derived from the soil of his native Indiana, and' Mount is as good a Republican as he is a farmer. Call Him “Governor" Already. Every one‘near his home has taken to calling him “Governor” Mount. . The Democrats do IF, too, and seem to like it. For a time, after he was elected to the State Senate in 1888. his friends and neighbors took to varying his appellation of farjner with that of Senator. But just

MRS. KATE BOYD MOUNT.

as soon as he was accorded the nomination for the chief magistracy of this State, * with a unanimity that is still a surprise to politicians they hailed him by the title which every one is morally certain will be His by the suffrages of the people en riy next November. Nobody cares about the opposing candidates. It is a mere matter of form, tliis putting somebody up against him—as a small and agile hoy sots up the pins in a bowling alley—to be knocked down. Mount lives in Franklin township, Montgomery County, Ind., and' the township and county and State are going to elect him, and are proud and glad of it. When this farmer goes to a public meeting, ns he did to the annual session of the- . Tunis Sheep Kaisers' Association held in Crawfordsville recently, he is introduced in this fa shion: ‘‘Now. I am a Democrat, and mi.father was before me. and we believe,in Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, but I

PRESENT RESIDENCE OK JAMES A. MOUNT.

take pleasure in presenting to you James A. Mount, the next Governor of this groat State of Indiana.” Then all the sheep raisers aud spectators and small boys, who came in because there was a meeting and they know Mount wus to be there and tulk. raised up their voices in a roar of confirmation thnt leaves no doubt about the result. Farmer Mount,'’ Semitor Mount. Gov. Mount—it tells the whole story of his life with its more than ordinary shnre of popularity and sucess. Farmer and Soldier, Too. But Mount was not always a farmer, though he began life that way and intends to end it so. From 1802 to 1805 —three long years—he was a soldier. Moreover, he was a good soldier, just as he has been a good fanner aud'just us he will be a good Governor. Gen. Lew Wallace has known him for a long generation nnd he anys so. Gen. Wallace was a soldier himself and knows one as soon as he sets eyes on him. Geu. Wallace lives in Crawfords vnie : not only lt» the sense of inhabiting a beautiful home within its limits, hut as pervading the entire municipality. What Gqn. Wallace says nbout the “Governor" is this: “I have known Jim Mount, man and boy, ever since the close of the war. lie was not in my command, but I ■wish he was, because be was a good soldier. There’s no doubt about it You know there are records kept, and if there Is anything in them against a man’s reputation it doesn't take long to find it out When Mount was mustered out after serving his full three years, he took the money he had saved from his pay and went to Lebanon Academy to get an education. In the army he was raised from private to corporal, and came Out a ser-

11K farmer is in the saddle in Indiana, and the big straw hat is the sign of his candidacy for the governorship. When .James A. Mount returned to Cra wfordsyille after obtaining the nomination a large party of his friends and fei--1 o w Republicans Went down tp the

genni. In the academy he did two years’ work in one, altld came put a .well-instruct-ed man. Then he got married, and he married a graduate of this same academy, so that he would not be short of learning in the family. Ever since he has been farming, and he is as •much of a success as a farmer as he was as a soldier or a student. r , “Mount’s prosperity has come him, not by being mean’or stingy, or by working his men and beasts to death, : or by taking usury, but by watching the markets, being a little ahead in, getting his products to them, keeping liis land and machinery in proper condition, and the like—what they cull in New England, ■forehanded’ is just the word. He hasn’t • deputed any one else to do his work, but asks none of his hired' hands to do any

J. A. MOUNT, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR OF INDIANA

more labor in a day Ilian lie does himself. He is a living example of the statement that farming in the United Statescanbe made to pay. Since he has attained prosperity he has_not shut himself up and been content with it, but lias earnestly sought to increase his usefulness. Knowing what it is to prosper, he and his wife have journeyed all over this and the adjoining States lecturing on the elements of success to Farmers’ Institutes. He would talk to the men; Mrs. Mount to the women. In this way he has obtained a national reputation—sufficient' to have induced the authorities at Chautauqua to invito him to lecture there song before he had ever thought of going into politics. He did not do it to make money—neither he nor his wife was paid for the addresses, and in most instances they have even paid their own traveling expenses. “This is enough to prove that Mount is a progressive man. Other tilings, in his life show it just as strongly. Hu son, Harvey Newland Mount, was graduated with honor in the class of ISO! from Wabash College here and obtained the Baldwin oratorienj nrixe. His elder daughter, Hattie Leo Alo.tftt, now Airs. Butler, was i educated at Alexander College, in - Kentucky. and the younger, Miss Helen Xesblt Mount, is a Bachelor of Arts from Coates College for the Higher Education of Women, at Torre Haute, lod. The sou lias take,n a post-graduate 1 course at Princeton University, and found time while preparing fdr the ministry to earn His”master's degree. “This keeping abreast of the times shows itself in other ways,” Gen. Wallace went on. “His new house is probably the most comfortable hereabout. He has fitted it with the modern improvements and makes it attractive by simple and genial hospitality.—No matter. Who goes there —friend, enemy, laborer, or tramp—he is received as if he were the President of the United States. Jim Mount is a plain and unassuming man, and success has made him simpler instead of hardening his heart, as it so often does. If he has any fault it is because he is so kindly in his nature First to Cros9 tile Chattahoocbe. Air. Mount’s record as a soldier is more “than ordinarily creditable. Ho enlisted for three years in Company"D of the 72d Indiana 'regiment ami was mustered out at the close of the WSr as a sergeant. His regiment was in many engagements, and it is a fact that he never lost a day during

ins entire, period of service, filled as it was with extended marches and skirmishes. Ho was named by Gen. Wilder in his dispatches as having twice'volunteered to lead the skirmish line during the desperate fighting at •Chickumauga. In 18(12 he was stricken with measles, and, though ordered to his tent he arose when a call wifs made for reinforcements

MOUNT IN HIS EVERY-DAY CLOTHES.

on the occasion! of Morgan’s raid and marched to Hartwell, eleven miles. This was Just before the battle of Stone River. In Sherman's Atlanta campaign in 1804 Sergeant Mount was the first man in the Federal army to crow the Chstta-

hoochee river and was named again by Gen. Wilder“far this act of bravery. Stern Foe of the Lobbyist. It was through the efforts of James A. Alouut, when in the State Senate, that a "bill passed the Legislature, and became a law, compelling all animate intended for food to be Inspected on the hoof before slaughter. The measure was intended primarily to aid in preserving the health Of the people of,lndiana, since the necessary certificates'could only be issued by local authorities, but if was also aimed at the aggressions of the beef trust, and would have had the effect <jf protecting the, business of the smaller butchers and marketmen who were being driven out ;of business. ■ • Air. Alount jjj bitterly opposed to lobbying in all its and expresses self as hoping to see the day when the

capitol during the session of a legislature will be the signal to pass any bill to which they may express themselves.as opposed just as soon as it becomes evident they are the attorneys or tools of any monopoly. When the bill regarding meat inspection was put upon its passage hastily, to prevent the gathering of these agents, they still managed on a single day’s notice to gather at Indianapolis in numbers.

HELEN NESBIT MOUNT. (Daughter of James A. Mount.)

One of them, a Chicago lawyer, came to Senator Mount with a long argument favoriugAhe side. Uliable to convince him that he should reconsider IltSTvofe dndT>nug -ffir- matter lief ore" the Senate for the second time the lawyer resorted to covert threats. It ended in the—Chicagoan's being told plainly that he was (i scoundrel and the bill went through. Began In poverty. J. J. Insley, a prominent resident ~of has known Mr. Mount lor thirty years. “His early struggles to secure a foothold on his father’s farm after lie came back from the war were hard ami for a time almost hopeless. Old Mr. Mount was an honest, hard-working, -XsMdsftt&fllßg uifju who tor more than half a century did his duty to himself, his family, his country and his church. He brought up a family of twelve children, all of the same kind as himself. When Jim Mount left the academy and wanted to marry Kate Boyd there was considerable opposition. Well-meaning friends went to her and told her that with such a husband life would be one long sojourn in n buckeye cabin, with a ride to town on top of a loud of cabbages for its sole diversion. But they had their own way and began life together by Jim’s taking a lease of his father’s farm. He took the improvements at tjieir full value, about $1,500, boarded -his father and his horse, limited himself to three little rooms io the lean-to of the family homestead, and paid half of all he raised as'rent. When his seven years’ contract on those terms expired he tobk it for two years more, paying SSOO cash a year. At the end of tlgat time he had grubbed out twenty acres of swamp lflnd, dug 700 yards of ditch, all with his own hands, and became the owner of 120 acres of land in Madison County. This he swapped for his father’s 200-aere farm, paying $1,500 more, these last bearing 10 per cent interest. In fourteen years he had everything paid, and since then he has taught from tim£ to time until he owns 51)0 acres of the best land in the country, all under beautiful cultivation. Devotion to His Church. “One noteworthy thing about Mount is his devotion to his church. No matter how hard up he was. or how arduous his struggles, he always had money to devote to the maintenance of public worship. His father was an elder among the Presbyterians for fifty years, and the son is likely to equal his record. “It hasn’t been luck that makes Mount rich to-day. It is hard work and system. From 1807 to 1887 no one in this county did as much with his own hands-as this man. His noightars used to say that it was no wonder he had good crops, for he had fertilized every inch of his land with his sweat. Besides doing his own share, he used to stay up nights and fill in the drains he had hired a man to cut for him daytimes. Besides that, he opens an account on his books with every plot of land, and he can tell you to a penny Just how much that ground haa cost him in labor, fertilisers, seed and interest on inveat-

meat, and exactly how mdeh he has obtained from its produce. The' Mount farm lies about miles atid a half from the city of Grawfordsville. Some 500 acres in extent, it stretches along a little valley, formerly swamp land and reclaimed by ttfe efforts of its present owner, for more than a mile. This soil Ms extremely rich, ten feet of muck resting on gravel in which water remains through the driest seasons. On the farm, 100, is ah inexhaustible supply of gravel from which enough' has been taken to provide excellent roads for miles in every direction, many of them built by himself.' Montgomery; County is the pride" of Indiana in this respect, having. more miles of roads good for either light travel or heavy hauling than any in Indiana—and all of it public. Alount was~one~of the poor men in the West to discover nbt only the value of this, but that it was cheaner for the farmers to combine and pay for making and graveling the high-" ways by voluntary subscription than by -waitingfor the road law to draw its weary length through skeins of red tape. He has avoided both the expense of compliance with all legal technicalities and the ’delay consequent upon them, and has taught his neighbors the same lesson. , Over such roads as these, past farms jusFlM'glirrriTrg—te~»how__lhe__(!oiningex-cellencemf-their-cropa_in .this far adyanc-"' ed season, over two beautiful streams, the Little Sugar and the Big Rocky, through lovely groves of birch, sycamore, maple, walnut and oak, lies the approach to the Mount residence. The house is spacious almost beyond the hopes of city dwellers, airy, roomy and with a pleasant outlook on every side. There are broad verandas on-which hammocks swung in the 1 pleasant and wholesome air. There is an attic large enough for a kindergarten playground and a cellar ready for bushels of winter stores. The house is supplied with well water and rain water, automatically pumped by a--windmill to the top and thence distributed, both warm and cold. Natural gas is supplied, and more than the customary urbap conveniences are in use. All about the lawn, are beds of dowers, behind is a kitchen garden with vegetables and small fruits in profusion to tempt an epicure, and to the side lies an orchard. Here Mrs. Alount is supreme. She hastened in to greet her visitors the other day aud then retired to return with lemonade and home-grown apples. Airs. Alount saw that her guests’ wants were supplied and then hastened otrTwlHf characteristic and customary thoughtfulness to see that the driver was duly furnished with food and drink. Books within and bleating lambs without showed- the business and pleasure of the household. Beyond' the garden lies the old homestead, the front building more than sixty years old, but still in good repair, with the lean-to in the rear, where Mr. and

JAMES EVERETT BUTLER. (Grandson of James A. Mount.) REV. HENRY NEWLAND MOUNT. (Son of James A. Mount.)

Mrs. Mount set up their little housekeeping, fnrnishing the three small rooms in it with second-hand furniture and living in themi’or'BeviVffi~ypyrs-r t f--h«i8.1,-jinromjttipff ; country. Beat Type of the American Farmer. Mr. Mount is a mail of middle height; slightly bowed by labor, hut with his still active figure indicating great strength and nervous force. His eyes are gray and fearlessly honest, his lips firm beneath the blonde mustache, now beginning to turn gray. He wears a chin whisker of moderate length, not unlike that of the typical farmer. His hair is darker and curly, though its thinness about the temples and intermingling of white indicates the approach of hale and hearty age. The complexion is bronzed like that of every healthy man whose life lias been passed out of doors, nnd his entire appearance that of the best type of American farmer. In conversation his face lights up and the little furrows left by the years deepen

FARMER MOUNT’S OLD HOME.

as he smiles or frowns to lend impressiveness to his speech. lie is proud of his achievements and willing to discuss them, but without taastfAness. His family is even a greater source of comfort to him—not one of his children, he avers with* thankfulness, hag ever given him a moment’s uneasiness. But his chief delight is in his little grandchild, Master James Everett Butler, a sturdy, flaxen-haired youth of 5 years, who finds equal delight in making his distinguished ancestor now his body servant, again his steed for riding purposes, and always his willing servitor to command. Mr. Mount says laughingly that he is having “all of the fun add most Of the worry”. ffith this small descendant Mrs. Mount is gentle and placid, with the wholesomeness of aspect, speech and manner which characterize women both good and happy. Though her husband’s partner in an unusual sense, holding all his interests in her care and sharing with hint all his responsibilities and burdens, she shows no sign of ever having been other than the mistress of circumstances. It was Impossible, when it came time for the writer to bid this worthy couple good-by, to wish them better fortune. With one another, their children, their easily borne cares, their home, their lives filled with well-doing and the honors already in sight, there was nothing left in the world to be desired.

TALMAGE’S SERMON.

THE WASHINGTON PREACHER ON THE DRAMA OF LIFE. f ' It Appears People Used to Go to the Theater in the Days of Job—'A Unique Peroration- Vindicating Shakespeare of Infidelity. ' '■* Causes of Failure. Rev. Dr. Talmage hi this discourse set? forth the causes of failure iq life, drawing on a Biblical reference to the theater for startling illustration. 11 is text was Job xxvti., 23, “Men sltHlUchtp their Haiufintt--him and shall hiss him out of his place.*’ This allusion seems to-be*dramatic. The Bible more than once mokes such allusions. Paul says,- “We are made a theater or spectacle to angels and to'roeu.” It is evident frourthe text that some of the habits of theater goers were known in Job’s time,! because he describes an actor hissed off the stage. The impersonator comes on the boards and,, either through lack of study ,o£ the part he is to take or inaptness. or other incapacity, the audience is offended and expresses jtta~disi>P--PJQ.hatiou and disgust by hlssTng. “Mon shall clap their bands at.hint tjnd shall hiss him out of his place.!’ " The Actors of Jdfe. My text suggests that each one of Us Is put on the stage of this world to take some part. What hardship and suffering and discipline great actors have undergone year after year that they might be perfected in their paVts you have often rend. Blit we, put on the stage of this life to represent charity and faith and humility and helpfulness—what little preparation wf ha ve made, although we have three galleries of spectators, earth and heaven and liell! Have we not lieen more attentive to the part taken by others than to the part taken by ourselves, and, while we heeded to he looking at home and concentrating on our own duty, we have been criticising the other performers, nnd saying, “that was too high,” or “too low,” or “too feeble,” or “to extravagant,” or “too tame,” or “too demonstrative,” while we ourselves were making a dead failure and preparing to be ignuminiously hissed off the stage? Muefi one is assigned a place, no supernumeraries hanging around the drama of life to take this or that or the other part, as they may he called upon. No one can take our place. We can take no other place. Neither can we put off our character; no change of apparel can make us any one else than that which we eternally are. Many make a failure of their part in the drama of life through dissipation. They have enough intellectual equipment and good address and geniality unbounded. But they have a wine closet that contains all the forces for their social and business and normal overthrow. Sp far back as the year 959, King Edgar of England made 1 a law that the drinking cups .should have pins fastened at a certain point in the side, so that the indulger might be remiuded 'to'sK/ft before-ha-gat to tire bottom. But there are no pins projecting from the sides of the modern wine cup ort beer mug, ajtd the first poin{ at which miliiums stop is at the gravity bottom of -their own grave. Dr. Sax of France has discovered something which all drinkers ought to know. He has found out that alcohol in every shape, whether of wine or brandy or beer, contains parasitic life called bacillus potumaniae. By a powerful microscope these living things are discovered, and when you fake strong drink you take them into the stomach and then into your blood, and, getting into the crimson canals of life, they go into every tissue of your body, and your entire organism is taken possession of by these noxious infinitesimals. When in delirium tremens, a man sees every form of reptilian life, it seems it is only these parasites of the brain in exaggerated size. It is not a hallucination that the victim is suffering from. He only sees in the room what is actually crawling and rioting in his own brain. -Every time you take strong drink you swallow fliese maggots; aud every time the imhiher of alcohol in any shape feels vertigo or rheumatism or nausea it is only the jubilee of these maggots. Efforts are being made for the discovery of some germicide that can kill the parasites of alcoholism, but the only thiug that will ever extirpate them is abstinence from alcohol and teetotal abstinence-, to > which I would before God swear all these young men -and old. __ A =^-^-^Sageg!ag:;gtrqngDrink. —America is a fruitful’country, 'flfid~we raise large crops of wheat and corn and oats, but the largest crop we raise in this country is the crop of drunkards. With sickle made out of the sharp edges of the broken glass of bottle and demijohn they are cut down, and there are whole swathes of thorn, whole windrows of them, and it takes all the hospitals and penitentiaries and graveyards and cemeteries to hold this harvest of hell. Some of you are going down under this evil, and the never dying worm of alcoholism has wound around you one of its coils, ami fey ittxt New YearWajt-lt will have another coil around you, and it will after awhile put a coil around your tongue, and a coil around your brain, and a coil around your lung, nnd a coil around your foot, and a coil around your heart, and some day this never dying worm will with one spring tighten all the coils at once, and in ■ the last twist of that awful convolution you will cry out, “Oh, my God!” and be gone. The greatest of dramatists in the tragedy of “The Tempest” sends staggering across the stage Stephano, the drunken butler; but across the stage of human life strong drink sends kingly ami queenly and princely natures staggering forward against the footlights of couspicuity and then staggering back into failure till the world is impatient for their disappearance, and human and diabolic voices join in hissing them off the stage. ’ Many also make a failure in the drama of life through indolence. They are always making calculations how little they can do for the compensations they get. are more lazy ministers, lawyers, doctors, merchants, artists and farmers than have ever been counted upon. The community is full of laggards and shirkers. I can tell it from the way they crawl along the street, from their tardiness in meeting engagements, from the lethargies that' seem to hang to the foot when they lift it, to the hand when they putHt out, to the-words when they speak. Out of Place. Two young men in a store. In the morning the one goes tu-his post the last minute or one minute behind. The other is ten minutes before the time and has hia bat and coat hung up aud is at his post waiting for duty. The one is ever and anon in the afternoon looking at his watch to see if it is not most time to shut up. The other stays half an hour after he might go, and when naked why. says he wanted to look over some entries he had made to he sure he was right, or to put up some goodsAhat had been left out of place. The one is very touchy about doing work not exactly belonging to him. The other is glad to help the other clerks In their .work- The first will be a prolonged nothing, and he will be poorer at 60 yqara of age than at 20. The other will jtf a merchant prince. Indolence la the cause of more failures In all occupations than you havener suspected. People are too lasy to do what they can do, and want to undertake that which they

cannot do. In the drama of life- they don’t want to be a common Bold ier, carrying a halberd across the stage, or a falconer, or a inere’attendnnt, ffnd so they lounge about the scenes tilj they shall, be. called to be something great. After awhile, by some accident of prosperity or .ciroumstances, they get into the place for which they have no qualification. Aml. very soon, if the man be a merchant, he is going around asking his creditors to compromise for Ttr cents on - the -dollar. ' Or, if a clergyman, he is making tirades against the ingratitude of churches. Or, if an attorney, by unskillful management he lose? a case by which widows and orphans are robbed of their'portion. Or, if a physician, he by malpractice gives his patient rapid transit from this world to ..IhjC- tirxt. Our incompetent friend would, have made a passable horse doctor! %us he wanted.to he professor of anntoiny in a university. He could have sold enough confectionery to have supported his family, but he wanted to have a sugar refill- _ pry like'the Hnvemeyers. He could have” mended shoes, hut he wanted to amend the constitution of the United States. Toward the end of life these people are out Of patience, out of money, our of friends, out Of everything. They go to the poorhouse, or keep out of it by running in debt to all the grocery and dry goods stores -that will trust them. People begin to wonder when the curtalnwill urOp onthe scene. After awhile, leafing nothing but their compliments to pay doctor, undertaker and Gabriel Grubb, the gravedigger, they disappear. Exeunt!- Hissed off the stage, r. ■

A Moral Nniaancc, Others fail in the drama of life through demonstrated! selfishness. They make all the rivers empty into their sea, all the rouds of emolument end aTtheir door, and they gather all the plumes of honor for their brow. They jtelp no one, encourage no OrfC, Vefcue no one. “How big a pile of money can I get?” and “How mueh-ot the world can I absorb?” are the chief questions. They feel about the common people as the Turks felt toward the Asapi, or common soldiers, considering them of no use except to fill up the ditches with their dead bodies while the other troops walked over them to take the fort. After awhile this prince of worldly success is sick. The only interest society has in his illness is the effect that his possible decease may have on the money markets. After awhile he dies. —Gxeat_ newspaper capitals announce how he started with nothing and ended with everything. Although for sake of appearance some people put handkerchiefs to the eye, there is not one genuine tear shed. The heirs sit up all night when he lies m state, discussing what the old fellow has probably done with his money. It takes all the livery stables within two miles to furnish funeral equipages, and all the mourning stores are kept busy in selling weeds of grief. The stone cutters send in proposals for a monument. The minister at the obsequies reuds of the resurrection, which makes the hearers fear that if the unscrupulous financier does come up in the general rising, he will try to get a “corner” on tombstones and graveyard fences. All good men nre glad that the moral nuisance has been removed. The Wall street speculators a{e glad because there is more room for themselves. Thp heirs are glad because they get possession of the long delayed inheritance. Dropping every feather of all his plumes, every eertifieate of all his stock, eve'y bond of all his investments, every dollar of all his fortune, he departs, and all the rolling of “Dead March” In “Saul,” and all the pageantry of his interment, nnd all the exquisiteness of sarcophagus, and all the extravagance of cpitaphologv, cannot hide the fact that my text has come again to tremendous fulfillment, “Men shall clap their hands at him nnd shall hiss him out of his place.” You see the clapping comes before the hiss. The world cheers before it damns., ijo it is said the deadly asp tickles before it stiiigs. Going up, is he? Hurrah! Stand hack and let his galloping horse dash by, a whirlwind of plated harness and tinkling headgear and arched neck. Drink deep of his mndeira and cognac. Boast of how well you know him. All hats off as he passes. Bask for days and years in the sunlight of his prosperity. Going down, is he? Pretend to be nearsighted so that you cannot see him as he walks past. When men ask you if you know him, halt and hesitate as though you were trying to call up a dim memory and say, “Well, y-e-s, yes, I believe I once did know him, but have not seen him for n long while.” Cross a different ferry from themne where you Jised to meet him lest he ask for financial help. .When you you at the bank. Talk down his credit now that his fortunes are collapsing. He put his name on two of your notes. Tell him that you have changed your mind about such things, and that you never indorse. After awhile his matters come to a dead halt, aud an assignment or suspension or sheriff’s sale takes place. You say: “He ought to have stopped sooner. Just as I expected. He made too big a splash in the world. Glad the balloon has burst. Ha, ha!” Applause when he went up, sibilant derision when he came “Ifew-shaH .ibeir haada at, him and hiss him out of his place.” So. high up amid the crags, the eagle flutters dust into the eyes of the roebuck, which then, with eyes blinded, goes tumbling over the precipice, the great antlers crashling on the rocks.

Consecrated to God. Now, compare some of these goings out of life with the departure of men and women who iq the drama of life take the part that God assigned them and then went away honored of men and applaud-s ed of the Lord Almighty. It is about fifty years ago that in a comparatively small apartment of the city a newly married pair set up a home. The first bluest invited to that residence was the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Bible given the bride on the day of her espousal was the guide of that household. Days of sunshine were followed by days of shadow. Did you ever know a home that for fifty years had no vicissitude? The young woman who left her father’s house for her young husband's home started out With a paternal benediction and good advice she will never forget. Her mother said to her the day before the marriage: “Now, my child, you are going away from us. Of course, as long as your father and I live you will feel that you can come to us at nny time. But your home will be elsewhere. Prom long experience I find it is best to serve God. It is very bright with you now, my child, and you may think you can get along without religion, but the day will oome when you will want Ood, and my advice is, establish a family altar, and. if need be, conduct the worship yourself.” The counsel was taken, and that 1 yquug wife consecrated every room in the house to God. Years passed on and there were in that home hilarities, but they were good and healthful, and sorrows, but tbey j were comforted. Marriages as bright as orange blossoms could make them,'and burials in which all hearts were riven. ■' They have a family lot In the cemetery, but all the place is illuminated with stories of resurrection and reunion. The children of the household that lived have grown up. and they are all Christians, the father and mother leading the way and the children following. What care the mother took of wardrobe and education, character and manners'. How hard ahe sometimes worked! When the head of the household was unfortunate 1a business,

she sewed until hep Angers were numb andbleoding at the tips. Add what close calculation of economies and- what Ingenuity in refitting, the garments of the -elder children for the younger, and only God kept account of that mother’s sidenehes and headaches and heartaches and the tremulous prayers by the side of the sick child's cradle and; by the couch of this one fully grown. <The neighbors often noticed how tired she looked, and old acquaintances hardly knew her In thestreet. But without complaint she waited and toiled and endured and accomplished all these years. The children are out in the world—an honor to themselves' and their parents. After awhile the mother’s last sickness comes. Children and grandchildren, summoned from afar, come softly into the room-one by ope, for ahe is too weak to see more than one at a time. She runs her dying fingers lovingly through their hair and tells them not to cry, and that she is going now, hut they will meet again in a little while in a better world, and then kisses them good-by and says to each, “God bless and keep yon, my dear child.” The day of the obsequies ; comes, and the otficiating clergyman tells the story of wifely and motherly endurance, and many hearts oh earth and in heaven echo the sentiment, and as she Is carried off the stage of this mortal life there are cries of “Faithful unto death,” "She hath done what she could,” while overpowering all the voices of earth and heaven is the plaudit' of the Cod' who watched her from first to last, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; < enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!” The CBp ice* But what became of the father of that household? Jle started as a young man in business nnd had admail income, and having got, a little ahead sickness in the family swept it all away. He went through all-the business panics of forty years, met tnafty losses, and suffered many betrayals, but kept right on trusting in God, whether business was good or poor, setting his children a good example, and giving them the bent dt counsel, nnd never a prayer did he offer for all those years but they were mentioned in it He is old now and realizes it cannot be long before he must quit ail these scenes. But he is going to leave bis children an Inheritance of prayer and Christian principles which all the defalcations of earth can never touch, and as he goes him and the poor ring his doorbell to see if he is any better, and his grave ls surrounded by a multitude who went on'foot and stood there before the procession of carriages came up. and some say, “There will be no one to take his place,” and others say, “Who will pity me now?” and others remark, “He shall be held in everlasting remembrance.” And as the drama of his life closes, nil the vociferation and bravos and encores that ever shook the amphitheaters of earthly spectacle were tame and feeble compared with the long, loud thunders of approval that shall break from the eloHd of witnesses in the piled up gallery of the bOavens. Choose ye between the life that shall close by being hissed off the stage and the life that shall close ,amid acclamations supernal and nrchangelic. Oh, men and women on the stage of life,' many ofyotrin the first act of the drama, nnd others in the second, and mum of you in the third, and a few in the fourth, nnd here and there one hi the fifth, but all of you between entrance and exit, I quote to you as the peroration of this sermon the most suggestive passage that Shahspeare ever wrote, although you never heard it recited. The author has often been claimed as fhfidel and atheistic, so the quotation shall be not only religiously helpful to ourselvps, but grandly vindicatory of the grcai dramatist, t quote from his last will and testaipent;^ “In the name of God, Amen. I, William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, in the county of Warwick, gentleman, in perfect health and memory (God be praised), do make this my last will and testament, in manner and form' following; First, I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing through the only merits of Jesus Christ, my Saviour, to he made partaker of life everlasting.”

A BISON IN PHILADELPHIA

j Living Specimen of Rare American Buffalo Seen on Up*Town Streets. Beeidents of the neighborhood of 11th and York streets yesterday discovmal. once so plentiful, the American bison, trotting along at their very curS" stones. On the plains of the West, where millions of bison grazed free and unmenanced by the white man’s powder, the extermination has been so great that the herd kept by the United States Government at Yellowstone Park Is taking a place In science beside the auk and dodo. The surprise of the Philadelphians, who so unexpectedly found such a rare and valuable specimen roaming at large, may ha Imagined. There was, Indeed, a whole herd of bison grazing near by, and the one they discovered had wandered from it. It is not the habit of the bison to travel alone, the species being accustomed to graze in large herds, both for the sake of companionship and safety. In such large numbers they are very dangerous, and plainsmen say that once they are stampeded nothing can stop their disastrous course. : Realizing their extraordinary opportunity. the people who discovered the bison at once prepared to capture It, Intending to add it to one of the most famous herds of the country. They gave chase to the animal, and It dashed away at a furious pace. People who met It on the street hurried out of Its way with an alacrity that showed how well the danger of a buffalo stampede was known. The plan of pursuit was not to head It off, but to tire the animal out When running wild on the plains It Ig said that frightened buffaloes sometimes run for hundreds of biles before they fall dead. It soon, however, became evident to the scientists who were attracted to the spot by the report of the startling find that the specimen they were after was not In such active training as the flery, spirited bisons of the plains, and waa not as wild as the bisons of the Cooper novels. The animals was eventually captured by a party of scouts and cowboys who were encamped In the vicinity, and was taken back where K belonged. Inside the fence with the other buffaloes and the big gathering of men and horses that go to make up the Wild West Show.— Philadelphia Public Lodger. Astronomers calculate that the surface of the earth contains 81.023,025 square miles, of which 23,814.121 are water and 7,811,604 are land, the water .thus covering about seven-ten Uk# of the earth’s surface. ' Dear weeps but onoe; cheap always wtegi-SMsa