Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 July 1876 — Powder and Shot. [ARTICLE]

Powder and Shot.

The jealousies of great men hare caused more sorrow and ruin to the world than have the iniquities of the lower classes. - I believe mankind generally are prouder of their bad luck than of their good fortune. Habits, even the smallest of them, are most arbitrary. The peg we hang our bat on, the corner where we stand our cane,

are as necessary to us as our coffee for breakfast. Those people who watch their health'or the weathercock too closely, don’t generally watch anything else much. If this life were to be the end of man’s existence, he would'not be filled with desires for something he hadn’t got and couldn’t define. ' In case of doubt ask your wife about it. Happiness, after all, is a gift from nature; y All the world given to some wouldn’t make tbenv happy, and taken away from others wouldn’t make them unhappy. Disease and pain are great levelers; the highest and the lowest nave the colic just alike. It is the little things that show character. When I see a man pick up a piece of orange peel from the sidewalk that some thoughtless cuss has dropped there and heave it into the gutter, I want to kiss that man and call him cousin. “Mother,” “Home,” “Child,” are the three tenderest words in any language. Building air castles is a kind of gambling which at first excites, theq depraves, and finally exhausts the energy. People who have nothing to do are al ways in a great hurry to do it. The human heart is like a very rich piece of ground—capable of producing a great crop of weeds or flowers, just as it is hoed or neglected. Humility is the best teacher I know of; it is always safe and generally sure. It is harder work to be a second-rate hypocrite than to be a first-class Christian. Idleness is the great bane of life. The devil always enters the idle man’s house without knocking. Ingratitude is the devil’s creed. The most comfortably matched family team that ! ever saw hooked up, has been where one of the party wanted everything their own way and the other party was willing they should have it. It is a noticeable truth in the market, that the value of all our luxuries depends entirely upon the price that other folks put on them. The hardest lesson to learn, and the easiest one to forget, is humility. There are but few folks who are as big fools as other people think they are; and there are less who are as wise as they think they are themselves. It is always best to give it up when we get beat, but it ain’t always necessary to acknowledge it. ' The man who looks to his own conscience for pay, is always sure of getting all that his due him. Millions of books have been written to teach mankind how to be virtuous and happy. The following little sentence is worth more than all of them put together: “Do as we would like to be done by.” If we could live our lives over again, even with all the experience we nave gained to guide us, the best we should do would be to make a new set of blunders. Hypocrisy is not only the most difficult to detect in others, but Is one of the most difficult things to detect in ourselves.— Josh Billings, inH. Y. Weekly.