Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1876 — Page 3

RENSSELAER UNION. HOBACK E. JAMES, Proprietor. RENSSELAER, - INDIANA.

DON'T TAKE IT TO HEART. There’* many a trouble Would break like a bubble, Andinto the waters of Lethe depart, Did not we rehearse it. And tenderly nurse it. And give it a permanent place in tae heart. There’s many a sorrow > Would vanish to-morrow. Were we not unwilling to furnish the wings; So sadly Intruding And quietly brooding. It hatches out all sorts of horrible things. How welcome the seeming Of looks that are beaming. Whether one’s wealthy or whether one's poor; Eyes bnght as a berry. Cheeks red as a ch erry. The groan and the curse and the heartache can cure. Resolved to be merry All worry to ferry Across the famed waters that bid us forget. And no longer fearful. But happy and cheerful. We feel life has much that's worth living foe yet. Georgiana C. Clark, in Tineley's Magazine.

THE TWINS.

BY MARY N. PRESCOTT. “There, say anything that comes into your head, Silvia—anything that’s nice and sentimental, and sounds as if I knew all creation and had studied and read and thought no end; anything so that he won’t guess what a miserable little dunce 1 am. Only don’t bother me about it!” “And supposing he finds out?” “Finds out! How 1 in the name of goodness is he going to find out unless you up and tell him?” “I sha’n’t tell him. But it doesn’t seem right; my conscience rebukes me. I wake up sometimes at dead of night in assort of nightmare, where I see him treading your letters under foot and his eyes like javelins!” “It’s high time a-day for you to sit there and lecture me, Silvia, and prate about your conscience. I know what I’m about; write the letters and keep the dreams to yourself. What business had you to be dreaming about my lover, let me ask ? A pretty case of conscience!” “ The same business that I have to be ■writing to him, I suppose.” “ You write to him because I require it; and papa hires and pays you to be a companion to me and to do what I will. I don’t see that you need trouble yourself at all about it unless you want to throw up the situation and oblige me to get used to a new companion." “You might find the change of handwriting embarrassing, to be sure,” laughed Silvia. “ It’s very generous of you to remind me of that dilemma, now, isn’t it? And just to show me how dependent I am upon you? Perhaps it’s a bid for a higher figure. I always mistrust your high and mighty conscientious folks.” “ You know me better,” answered Silvia. “ I was only thinking that you were laying up trouble for yourself.” “ That needn’t trouble you." “ It annoys me that I should be obliged to aid and abet you in the undertaking.” “‘Sweet sensibility! Oh, la!’ You may resign your situation and find a better if you can. I’m almost afraid to keep such a saint in the house." “ Situations don’t grow on bushes, and laborers are thicker than flies in August; and Mme. Genesis would turn the twins out of house and home if I omitted a quarterly payment, you know.” “ Well, what’s the need of so much pother? It’s only a matter of choosing between your conscience—whiqh is only another name for your own comfort—and the welfare of the twins. We’ll see which you love best, you goody-goody! And, after all, I can’t understand that your poor conscience has anything to do in the matter. You’re always magnifying trifles—looking through your Puritan spectacles at them.” Silvia sat down at the davenport and took up the pen. “ You could write as good a letter as I if you chose.” “ But I don’t choose to be bothered.” “ It wouldn’t be any bother to me ” began Silvia. “ Then you’d better do it without any comments.”,, “ I mean to write my own love-letters s ?’ “ That’s because it would be such a novelty, perhaps.” “ Now don’t be rude, Luna. I was only thinking what a pleasure you lose.” “ I can afford it; and my loss is your gain.” “ I know if you would only give a little practice to it your handwriting would be finer than mine. Let me beg you to try. A half hour daily would work magic.” “ Pshaw! I wouldn’t be hired to waste so much time on it. I hate to write; and what is money good for if it can’t relieve me of doing things I hate to do? The girls at school used to write my compositions, and weren’t half as fussy as you, though I pay them. And nobody found it out, either.” “ But I should so hate to deceive my lover.”

“ Wait till you get one. And as to that, the deception has begun, and would only make things worse to confess,” “ And when you’re married.” “La, I shall get my letters then —or yours, rather—and burn them up, provided he has not done so already. And he’ll forget whether I wrote well or ill; and, like as not, won’t care a fig.” “And are you in love with him?” “I call that an impertinent Question, Silvia. It implies a doubt. Most of the girls are in love with him, let me tell you. Perhaps you’ll experience a shock when you see him. He isn’t so stunningly handsome; but he has those seductive manners that make mere beauty a bagatelle—l read that somewhere—and he’s rich, rich as mud, and descended from the great Mogul, for all I can tell. He knows enough to run two or three colleges, 1 believe; and when I’m Mrs. Prof. Shale it won’t signify whether I write in Choctaw or hieroglyphics, and nobody will ask whether my grandfather was a soap-boiler or a cobbler. I shall be at the top wave of society; don’t you see?” “Iconfess that I don’t see with your eyes.” “But don’t you wish you could? ‘ Sweetest eyes were ever seen,’so Max calls them—not that I’m a bit proud ot them I Aren't those gloves a perfect fit ? A philopena gift from Mr. Mushroom.! Now I’m going out and you may finish the letter and leave it for me to read. . I know it will be a gem. Max says my letters always are. Hai ha! He says it almost makes amends for absence to receive one. So consider yourself complimented.” “ Poor Max!” “ Poor Max, indee|! Didn’t I just tell

you that he’s rich as-Crcesus, whoever he was? By the way. if I’m not here earlv you had better send the.,letter off to catch the evening mail—he’ll be so sorry not to receive one to-morrow.” • “And isn’t there anything in particular that you wish me to say in it? Can’t you send'some message of your own? Let me tell you it’s no fool of a job to write a loveletter to a man you never saw.” “Oh! you always hit upon the right things to say. Play that you had known him always-and loved him dearly.” “But just give me a message of your own,” pleaded Silvia. “ Oh! well, tell him the last book he sent me was absorbing—of course it was or he wouldn’t have sent it, and you must know for I saw you reading it; I’ really haven’t had time to open it—-but you needn’t add that.” “ Oh! dear, dear.” “Why did you buy it at that price?” laughed Luna*. “Can’t you say’ anything—anything affectionate ? How am I to do all that sort of thing in cold blood?” “ Why, don’t travel out of your way to say spooney things; write naturally, just as if we were talking together, he and I." “ How do 1 know what you would say to him if you were talking together?” “ How can I tell you ‘in cold blood ?’ Can’t you imagine?” “ I may compromise you; I may be too gushing or too frigid.” “Never fear. The King can do no wrong. There’s his last letter; maybe it will give you the cue. I declare, if you make such a fuss I shall be sorry I ever set you about it.” “ I am sorry already.” “ The bargain’s made and the money’s paid,” murmured Luna, significantly, as she closed the door. Silvia opened “his last letter” and sighed. What a pleasant one it was, to be sure, and how little appreciated. Sweetness wasted on the desert air. Supposing it were her own. Would anyone ever write to her like that? A genuine loveletter, meant for no eye but his sweetheart’s, yet howMesecrated. The old line said “ Men were deceivers ever.” Had they taught women the craft? Here was she professing sentiments she did not feel, to a man she had never seen. Was not the-sin as much hers as Luna’s? Ought she not (to resign her situation, rather, and trust to Providence for another ? But there were the twins—two little baby sisters, with only her to look to, only her between them and the poor-house. Had she a right to jeopardize their welfare for a scruple, as Luna had hinted? Tniswas not the first time, to be sure, that she had lent herself to the fraud; but on each occasion she bad wrestled with herself and had been worsted by necessity. In fact, she had been trapped into it at the beginning, Luna had yawned one day and said: “Come, Silvia, dear; Max has been away a fortnight and I haven’t written him once. We were never separated before. I never wrote him a line in my life; but, goodness, how his letters are accumulating!” tossing a half-score on the table, “and something must be done. I hate writing. I was never taught. I learned to flirt and dance and parley vmis in board-ing-school. I learned small talk—very small talk—and crochet; but my handwriting is all pothooks and skewers. Max would never speak to me again if he once caught sight of it; I know he wouldn’t. And as to composition, I can’t say boo! to a goose, on paper! I haven’t any head for it. And his letters are real poems. Do dash off something, that’s a love. Let me see what you’d say, supposing you had a lover like Max—which would be an impossibility, of course. But there are his letters. Read them.”

And so, in a frolic vain, Silvia dashed off a love-letter in the merriest mood to an unknown Max, with just enough love in it for flavoring and coquetry, just enough to tantalize and make a man’s mouth water for more, and signed it “your devoted Moonshine,” in travesty of Luna’s nfune. “ Splendid!” cried Luna, reading it over Silvia’s shoulder. “ What practice you must have had.” “ I never wrote a love-letter in my lite,” said Silvia. “Why, what are you going to do?” asked Luna, precipitately, arresting the half-dried sheet that Silvia waved in the air. “Tear it up, of course.” “Never! It’s a work of art. Let me read it again, myself, before you make away with it. But Silvia fired with indignation later, When she learned that my lady Luna had dispatched the letter to Max as her own. . ‘ * Oh I how could you ? How could you ?’ ’ cried Silvia. “ It was just the easiest and the neatest thing in the world. He had left me an envelope all directed to himself, for fear I should forget. And he gives me no end of credit for my brilliant talentcalls une a Sevigne,' whoever she maybe. Ha! ha!” “ Haven’t you any conscience, Luna?” “My dear, you have enough for us both.” Hut every little while since then Silvia’s conscience, as well as her common sense, had taken alarm; .but all the same the letters were written, and Max delighted. She used to lie awake nights trying to devise a scheme for extricating Luna and herself from the situation; and,, after all, the only one which she could invent was that which Luna scorned and would none of. r After Luna had taken herself off to the promenade Silvia dipped her pen into the gold and ebony ink-stand and wrote freely as if she were indeed holding sweet converse with a familiar affinity. It was something, at least, to be able to utter the thoughts that surged in her soul, to express herself under this mask. It was an opportunity for companionship from which she was in a manner cut off in all other directions. The opinions and fancies of Silvia Johnson, a needy day laborer, counted for nothing in the society about her, and it was only when she put on her disguise and wrote to another woman’s iover that they hit the mark and were received with encores. How wonderful that he should appreciate and respond to all her extravagances and transcendental notions, as if there had already been some secret magnetic understanding between them, before circumstances had thrown them, mentally, in each other’s way. Was it only love for Luna, orVwas it the unconscious groping of a soul for its twin, which caused every word of Silvia’s to receive such hearty approbation, and every truth she expressed seem an inborn instinct of the other’s being? One day she tried an experiment. She wrote in this wise: “ I must tell you o the strangest thing that happened to an ac quaintance of mine. She was ambitious, very naturally, to appear well in her lover’s eyes. One day he foolishly went away, and, being a bad pen-woman and aware of other mental deficiencies, which, however, only needed time and care, for

their Improvement, she employed a friend to write her love-letters! “ Imagine her lover’s dismay when he discovered the fact! How should you have acted in his place?” “ The womarn who could so cruelly deceive would deserve my unbounded contempt, as well as the friend who should lend herself to the fraud," he answered. “There,” said Silvia, “you have his opinion of us.” “ La, he’ll never suspect me—and in for a penny, in for a pound," laughed Luna. “ Would you never forgive her?” Silvia asked, pursuing the subject in hqr next letter, “when it was only love for you, and a mistaken wish to secure your approbation, that prompted the action?” “ I could never love such a woman again, not if she repented in sackcloth and ashes,” he returned, in reply, “and such women are not apt to repent.” “ Oh! Luna, Luna!’’ jj cried Silvia, terrified at the confession she had wrung from Prof. Max, “ whatever will you do?” “ Take care that lie never finds me out —eternal vigilance, and all that; and, after all, there’s as good fish in the sea. I’m not a bit scared; there’d be a rumpus and a row; but bless you, he’d come to his senses presently, hecouldn’t help himself; the moth and the candle, you know! Heaven save us, what are you crying for?” r “ I’m crying about my sins.” “Oh! all right; only it’s bad for the eyes, and it would make it inconvenient for me if you should grow blind.” “ I’m not so blind but I foresee a crisis some day, which you will rue.” “ Catch me! Besides, you will be as deep in the mud as I in the mire.” “But I am not engaged to Prof. Shale.” “ But don’t you wish you were ? Come, diy your eyes, and remember that the end will justify the means.” “ That is just what I’m afraid of.” “ Well, think of the twins, then. Max is coming back directly, and perhaps there won’t be any more letters necessary —wedding-cards instead, maybe; or perhaps I shall tell him myself and explain that it was only a joke.”" “ And it will never do to laugh at your own joke, unless you laugh the other side of your mouth.” “ Don’t be sarcastic at the expense of your friends. You’ll find my new initial paper in the left-hand drawer; you may be brief to-day, if you please. There, do I look co:nme it fault By the way, you needn’t tell Max that I’m going to the Mushrooms’ croquet party this afternoon.” “ Certainly not; how could you be writing to him and playing croquet with Mr. Bullion Mushroom’ at the same time? I suppose it will be unnecessary to mention the fact that Mr. Mushroom repeated poetry to you till nearly twelve last night on the veranda, with only the moon for duenna? Waß it ‘ Paradise Lost’ or ” “ Come, I will not be lectured, Silvia Johnson! Could I tell Mr. Mushroom to go home? Besides, they were some verses of “his own—very sweet ones, too.” “ Sonnets to a Luna—tic?” “ Well, am I to blame if he is sweet on me ? There, I shan’t parley any longer with you. Be a good girl and write your letters and think of the twins.” Silvia began to write: “My dear Max”; how droll it looked all at once. She could hardly help laughing, Jjardly help crying, but compromised and went on, and had finished and folded the letter and was in. the act of inclosing it in its addressed envelope when her two hands were suddenly imprisoned from behind, and a deep voice said over her shoulder: “A feast of reason and a flow of soul!” and a brown-bearded lip was about to touch Silvia’s white neck, when she turned her head and confronted a strange gentleman, who dropped her hands and shot half Across the room. “I have the pleasure of seeing Prof. Shale,” said Silvia, taking in the situation, and not liking it a bit, and dropping the letter in her excitemant.

“You flatter me in calling it a pleasure,” said the professor, “and I beg pardon; but not having my glasses on, I mistook you for Miss Lutestring.” And then he stooped and picked up the telltale letter, and spread it out on his knee and stared at it and then at shrinking Silvia, and selected choice morsels to hurl at her, the lightning shooting from his glance. “And this is the way in which Miss Lutestring wrote to me, eh? You are her amanuensis and mind-reader, I suppose?” i‘ I am her companion, bought and paid for,” said Silvia, withering under his eye. “Apretty pair of hypocrites —birds of a feather! I could not believe that the world held such a couple. The -conception and execution of this deceit is worthy of older heads. Shows genius of a rare type! A person capable of assisting at such a fraud can have no appreciation of its effects, so let me tell you, madam, that you have not only robbed me of a home and fireside, with all its genial influences, but you have broken my idol before my eyes and robbed me of a future, so to speak .4? “I—I!” cried Silvia, putting out her hand as if she would ward off the accusation. “ No, no, you will forgive her, you will be happy together again. She is only a giddy child, nobody taught her ” “Except yourself!” thundered Max. “ You can make her w’hat you like,” not heeding the interruption, “ as you have done.” “Oh! it was my fault. I should have prevented it. What is a companion good for but to prevent such things?" “I am glad that you see | r our error,” said Max; “ but it’s rather late in the day as far as Luna and I are concerned. How could I love a woman who regards truth merelj’ as a plaything? I assure you that if I would it is not in my power to do so.” Whe end of it was that Luna lost her lover and Silvia her situation. “ Wanted—an amanuensis,” read Silvia in the morning paper, one day. “ I mean to apply.” And she may have felt a little fsorry at her headlong action when she encountered Prof. Shale. ‘ “So you want a situation as amanuensis?” asked Max, with a grim smile. “ Well, perhaps I ought to employ you since you lost your last my means.” “ I did not guess it was you,” explained Silvia, with a blush. “ I will withdraw my application if—if ” remembering the twins. “ That would be quite unnecessary. I am acquainted with your skill in this business. Consideryourself engaged.” So she sat down and wrote hour after hour, day in and day out, for three months; , and then—- “ I’m ahnost’sorry that we have gotten through this pile of work,” confessed Max. “I believe that 1 said some bitter awhile ago; but let bygones be bygones. lam going away." ‘•Yes,” said Silvia, absently. “Andi must be looking about for another situation.” “ You would prefer a permanent one?”

“ Oh! yes, certainly.” “ And you’ll not be surprised if I offer it to you?” “You!” “ Yes. I remember telling you once that you had robbed me of home and fireside ; but even a learned, professor may be mistaken, I find. At least, let me assure you now thet you can make amends, if you will; that I love the woman who robbed me of my blind faith in an iynitt fatuue. Hushl Notaword! I will not have an answer to-day. lam going away, as I said, and you shall write me one of your incomparable letters—either for good or for ill.” And he bent and kissed a tress of her hair and was gone. Somewhat later the evening papers corruscated with an account of the wedding festivities of Miss Luna Lutestring and Mr. Bullion Mushroom. Max smiled as he put the paper down and reread a letter the postman had just brought him. “ The twins, bless them!” he thought. “My home shall be their home. I’m under great obligations to those dear children. It was their necessities that saved me from marrying a woman who held the truth as of no account.” — N. F. Independent.

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—An effort is being made to. form a Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society in every church belonging to the United Presbyterian body in this country. ’ “ —The Sabbath-School Union of Ohio has issued a request to its friends for aid to enable it to be represented in the Sab-bath-School Department of the Centennial Exhibition. —Missionaries in Egypt say that the outlook is most encouraging. Calls for missionary labor come from all directions. Nine persons have recently been licensed to preach, and the schools contain 1,170 scholars. —The Flower Mission of London sends between 3,000 and 4,000 bouquets weekly to the hospitals, workhouses and sick poor at home. The flowers are placed in little paper bouquet-holders, upon each of which is a text of Scripture. —(The Presbytery of Oregon includes thirty ministers and nineteen churches. Its field extends over Oregon, Washington Territory and Idaho. The presbytery recently resolved to appeal to the General Assembly for the establishment of a synod with three or more presbyteries. —A missionary in Madagascar says the demand of the Malagasy in and near the capital for education is very great, and teachers cannot be trained fast enough. There is also a great demand for the Bible. Most of the tribes surrounding the central province are, however, rank heathens, filthy, cruel and almosj constantly warring with one another. —Prof. Fawcett maintains that different students should be allowed to choose their own intellectual discipline, so as to be in keeping with their own aspirations and interests, and cites cases in which the study of political economy takes hold of young men and develops their mental powers after classics and mathematics have completely failed to awaken them. —The Commissioner of Education has issued a circular concerning the representation of the higher education at the Centennial Exhibition. It is proposed to give (1) a summary of the history of each institution and of its several grants and endowments; (2) full statistics of the professors and students; (3) an account and estimate of the buildings owned by each; (4) a separate account of the chemical laboratories and of the observatories for astronomical, magnetic, or meteorological observations; (5) statistics of college societies; (6) statistics of grants and endowments. In this way a most important body of statistics will be gathered and made accessible to the student of political or social science.

Remarkable Career of a Successful Merchant.

Fifty years ago or more a lad named Augustus Hemenway was engaged as a shop boy in a dry-goods store in Charlestown, Mass. His extraordinary aptitude for business attracted the notice of a Boston merchant who was heavily engaged in't&e South American trade. He took the boy to his counting-house on Central Wharf, Boston, and when the latter grew to manhood sent him to Valparaiso to look after his large interests in that city. In a short time the young man left his> employer and struck out for himself. This South American trade was a comprehensive one. It embraced the buying of all kinds of South American products, hides, wool, copper,’etc., sending them to the United States and bringing back an assortment of American manufactures. The business established by Hemenway advanced with great strides. The wealthy English houses in Valparaiso, having confidence in the remarkable ability of the ycung American, lent him their credit. A singular feature in this man’s career was that he never gave a note. His business in a few years had become so great that he found it necessary to return to Boston and establish a house in that city. He sent his brother, Charles P. Hemenway, to South America to manage the house there, and, remaining himself in Boston, Enlarged his operations until the magnitude of them demanded every moment of his time. He even built his ow ; n ships and made additional profits by carrying his own goods. He owned sugar plantations in Cuba, copper mines in South America and had business relations with the Barings of such magnitude as to astonish even that colossal house, and the whole of this immense business he managed himself. Now comes a strange change in his career. About fifteen years ago, one morning he walked into the China Insurance Company’s office and expressed some anxiety about a payment which he was obliged to make of a comparatively trifling amount, saying that he was afraid he should not be able to meet it. Mr. Bacon, the President of the company, Was astonished, and after some talk with Mr. Hemenway was convinced that the latter was a little out of his mind. Mr. Hemenway himself came to the same conclusion. He sent for his lawyer and' ordered him to draw up a power of attorney confiding the management of his business to hrs brother, Francis Bacon, and Air. Tileston, his brother-in-law, of the firm of Spotford & Tileston. Associated with . them?was his chief clerk, a Mr. Brown, aiso a min of great business sagacity. Having done this he quietly retired to Litchfield, Conn., and put himself in charge of an eminent medical man who resides there.' In this house he remained for thirteen years, watching and nursing his brain. He had satisfied himself that without perfect rest and quiet the machine so terribly tried would give out and the result would be softening of the brain. He passed his time in quiet amusement, glanced at the newspapers, but would never allow the word business to be mentioned in his

presence. During this long period of seclusion the great civil war broke out and was extinguished, specie disappeared, a new currency was born, new channels of trade were opened, and new methods of business were evolved. The great whirlwind swept by him unnoticed. To his friends Hemenway appeared to be hopelessly insane. About eighteen months ago, like a clap of thunder from a glear sky, a telegram came to Charles' Hemenway, worded thus: “Bring on your trial balance—Augustus Hemenway.” The brother telegraphed to the physician. The answer came: “ Patient perfectly recovered.” Mr. Hemenway received his brother and the trial balance, and looked over it. A few days afterward he walked into his countingroom, on Lewis’ Wharf, hung up his hat on the accustomed peg, and sat down to business quietly. He was tiying his brain. Im a few days more he looked over the entire transactions of the house for the past thirteen years, and generally approved of what had been done. Among the items in the statement was one for $lO2 charged to Mrs. Hemenway. “ What is this?” he asked. Mr. Brown did not remember. “ Look it up, if yott please,” was the request. The book was referred to, and the bill was a dentist’s bill. This was instanced as a specimen of his minute methodical ways. A singular change had come over the man. Formerly be was brusque and stern. Now he had liecome urbane and polite. He went to church, a new custom, and on hospital Sunday put the following memorandum into the contribution box: “SIOOO. A. H.” The wardens were puzzled to know whether it meant ten dollars or SI,OOO. On calling upon him the next day they received SI,OOO. Mr. Hemenway resumed the charge of his business. It had been enormously enlarged by his brother and Mr. Brown. To them he released the entire profits of the thirteen years. Now this extraordinary man has resumed his sometime suspended business. His first step was to go to England to purchase at Swansea the machinery for the thorough smelting of his copper. It had been coming to the country in an imperfectly smelted form as an article known to the commercial world as “regulus.” His hearing that going to sail in the Adriatic, one of the White Star Line, strongly advised him to go instead in a Cunarder. His reply was characteristic. He said: “ I have examined the ship thoroughly, and have talked with the engineer. lam satisfied.” He sailed in that ship and came back in her. It gave him a week in Swansea, time to complete his purchases. When he landed he had been absent just twenty-three days. His voyage embraced the Adriatic’s two remarkably quick trips. He then went to Cuba to look after his sugar plantations. He sold the whole crop to a London house on a strong market, acting with his usual sagacity. After this sale sugar went down, a thing which he had foreseen. From Cuba Mr. Hemenway went to Valparaiso, and from there to London, where, in connection with the Barings, he is now engaged in some huge operation, which will no doubt prove successful, as it is asserted that during his long career he never made a business mistake. Mr. Hemenway is probably the wealthiest man in America. He owns a great deal of property in New York city. Seeing that the dry-goods trade was drifting over to Church street, he bought some old houses there, and, pulling them down, erected stores. He received as much for one year’s rent as the ground and old houses cost. During tne whole long self-imprisonment of this remarkable man his wife was an angel of mercy to the poor, going about and visiting them, and spending money to the extent of a Prince’s revenue. All this she did in the most unostentatious manner, and as secretly as if detect ion would bring scorn instead of honor.— N. f. Sun.

A Comedian’s Joke.

The joyous Christian, who is just now popular in Paris, because of his extraordinary antics and drolleries in the part of King Vilan in the “Journey in the Moon,” produced at the Gaiete Theater, is an individual of great eccentricity, and many amusing stories are told of his practical jokes. He has, among other things, a horror of “style” and of affectation of every kind. He"is also a little careless in his dress, and not over ceremonious in his ways; so that recently a brother actor, in inviting him to a reception given in honor of a noted artist, and at which nearly all the theatrical world was to be present after the performance, said to him firmly: “ Aly dear Christian, when you come this evening do pay a little attention to your style, and try and have a little more etiquette than usual about you. ’*■ , Christian took the advice kindly, saying nothing. Toward midnight, just as the giver of the reception was beginning to think that he had offended his confrere, and that he would not come, there stalked into gie midst of the thunderstruck company tn astonishing figure. It was Christian, straight as an arrow, looking neither to right nor left, save to bow haughtily. He was clad in an extravagantly elegant court costume of a remote neriod; carried under his arm acqcked hat well furnished with gold lace; arid at his side a long antique rapier. He seated himself in a corner apart from the surprised guests and away from the host, who was too mortified to address him. In this position he remained for two hours ;’and, just as the people were getting ready to depart, he rose and stalked out, saying in a loud voice to his entertainer: “I fancy that you have had all the style you want this time.” — Paris Letter.

The upper courses of the river Danube have suddenly been left dry without any evident cause. This dryness begins at the village of Mohringen, some twenty kilometers down the stream of Donaueschengen. If the water does not return complete ruin is looked for to a prosperous and fertile country. A committee of savants have been named to try and find out the cause. The general opinion is that the construction of so many railroads has had something to do with it. The removal of the soil, it is thought, may have opened up an inlet into some immense subterranean caverns. There is a man now in jail here for six months, and is to remain six months longer. . His board is sixty cents a day. This for a year costs the city $219. His offense was stealing a cotton umbrella. It serves the thief right, but is rather expensive on the people.— Lexington. (Ky.) Gazette. _ A miner working near Virginia City the other day fell about 100 feet down the shaft, striking on a platform of two-inch planks and crashing through them to the bottom of the shaft, a few feet below. In spite of all this he suffered no more thana cut on the head, a few bruises and three broken ribs.

THE DEPARTED YEAR. Ta: year 1* deadt His hoary bead Is resting-in the tombt How like a eage Of ripe old age He met the common doom! When all his work was qnlte complete He gathered up hie weary feet. How silently. Through night and day, The fleeting yean gd byt They never pause For any cause— No smile or threat or sigh Or bribe of gold or place of power Can check the onward march an hour. How many tears Departed yean Call forth from weary eyeel And many stings —: . The xnem'ry brings. And deep, regretful sighs, • When echoes of the by-gone time Some up from haunts of vice and crime. But they are blest With joy and rest Whose record brings no dread. When 'neath the pall ■ • That covers all The gray old years lie dead, The smile of approbation peers From out the scenes of vanished years. Let all be true * And pledge anew Their lives to God's own cause With ransomed powers And golden hours; While wisdom's holy laws • Shall mark the road and tell the way That leads to realms of endless day. Now grasp the sword — The Holy Word— And war against the wrong And for the right With all thy might! The time may not be long. Perchance thy work may not be done When all thy fleeting years are gone. —Rev E. IT. Lawhon, tn Weetern. Church Advocate. International Snnday*Scbool Lessons. FIRST qVAKTBB or 1876. Jan. 16iDavid and Goliath 1 Sam. xvii. 38-51. Jan. 23 David in the Palace.... 1 Sam. xviii. 1-16 Jan. BO.David and Jonathan. .. 1 Sam. xx. 35-42. Feb. 6;David Sparing Saul.... 1 Ham. xxiv. 1-16. Feb. 13 Saul and his Sons Slain 1 Sam. xxxi. 1-16. Feb. 20'David Established Kingj2 Sam. v. 17-25. Feb. 27'The Ark Bro'ght to Zion 2 Sam. iv. 1-15. Mar. sJGod's Cov't with David 2 Sam vii. 18-29. Mar. 12jAbsaloni’s liebellion... 2Sam. xv. 1-14. Mar. 19 Absalom's Death ,2 Sam. xviii. 24-33. Mar. 26, Ke view ...|

The Gospel of “ Don’t.”

“Don’t do that!” is almost the only exclamation which you hear falling from the lips of parents in some homes. In apologizing for their children and themselves such parents will frequently say: “Ican’t see why my boys are so bad. I’m sure I constantly check them for their badness, but it does no good.” Certain teachers are very much like these parents, and ought to be called “ don’t teachers,” because the sum and substance of their effects is prohibitory and not productive. All such jiersons need to learn that “ the gospel of don’t,” which is about all they teach, will not produce any of the good fruits which are so needful in every life. Destroy weeds ever so thoroughly, and, if you stop there and fail to plant good seed of Some kind, they will soon spring up with renewed vigor. A boy or girl must do something, The restless activities of his or her nature will push in some direction. It is the part of the wise parent and teacher to guide this impulse in the right direction, rather than to leave it to push as It pleases and then repress it. There is a place and an important use for “ don’t” in training the young. We find it in the law of God, who says “ Thou shalt not" very often. This is the rod by which until there are higher motives the child must be restrained from wrong-doing. “ Don’t” is well enough as a present check to some evil doing, but after such check from wrong there should be an immediate impulse to what is praiseworthy. It is strange that so many professing Christians seem to have no higher gospel than the “gospel of don’t.” It is not strange that such persons invariably make such an utter failure m securing anything good or noble by their efforts. Encouragement is no less important than restraint; and, if one or the other of these is to bo cast aside, we would rather risk the abandonment of the latter. There are but two ways, right-doing and wrong-aoing. There 'is no third way of doing nothing. If such course could be taken, it would ruii alongside of wrongdoing. Satan soon picks upthe idler, and leads him off in the road of the “wrongdoer.” The life of God’s law is summed up in positive precepts: “ Thoushalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighboras thyself.” All prohibitory enactments, “don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t lie,” etc., are but as hedges to shut us up to the direct way of love. The life of religion is oftentimes well-nigh killed out in young hearts by the unwise and improper use cf “ don’t.” You would never put a high-strung and spirited young horse into the hands of one to train "who would use the whip from morning to night upon him, especially if he would make the use of the whip a substitute for good food and kindly care. The child must have his moral nature ted and strengthened, as well as restrained. “ Don’t” is good as a rod and a restraint, but it will not do as a substitute for food. If you are determined to press your child into the service of God, gently, resolutely and irresistibly say: “Come this way!” The “ Don’t go that way any farther!” is included id this. Backbone is a good thing. I admit that backbone is essential to a man! but nobody wants a man who is all backbone and nothing else. There must be flesh —soft and warm and sympathizing—on the bones, or else they will be of but little use. The “gospel of don’t” is the mere skeleton of the Gospel of Christ, and people want the living man and the living Gospel, not the mere skeleton. Don’t make your teachings of the Gospel consist of “ don’t,” or the results, both to yourself and to others, will bring bitter disappointment.— IK. T. Wylie, in the Sunday Teachers’ Treasury.

Need of the Holy Spirit.

Suppose we saw an army sitting down before a granite fort, and they told us they intended to batter it down, we might ask them: “How?” They point to a cannonball. “ Well, but there is no power in that; it is heavy, but no more than a hun-dred-weight. if all the men in the army hurled it against the fort they would make no impression.” They say: “ No! but loot at the cannon.” “ Well, but there is no power in that; a child may ride upon it; a bird may perch in its mouth; it is a machine and nothing more.” “ But look at the powder.” Well, there is no power in that; a child may spill it, a sparrow may peck it.” Yet this powerless powder and powerless ball are put in the powerless cannon; one spark of fire entersit; and then, in the twinkling ot an eye, that cannon-ball is a thunderbolt which smites as if it had been sent from heaven. So it is with our church machinery of this day; we have all the instruments for pulling down strongholds, and oh! for the baptism of fire.—Jrt/wr. i