Earlier text: CONDITION OF THE WORLDTHE GROG-SELLER'S DREAM.
By Editor
[IN one of our exchanges we find a long piece of poetry under this head, recounting a dream-land visit of Satan to the grog-seller. The latter was much afraid that the devil had come to carry him away, but assurance was given to him in the words following. —ED.] "Ho, ho!" said Nick, "'tis a welcome cold
You give to a friend so true and old,
Who has been for years in your employ,
Running about like an errand boy.
But we'll not fall out; for I plainly see
(And it's very strange), you're afraid of me.
Do you think I've come for you? Never fear,
You can't be spared for a long while here! "There are hearts to break, there are souls to win
From the ways of peace to the paths of sin;
There are homes to be rendered desolate;
There is trusting love to be turned to hate;
There are hands that murder must crimson red;
There are hopes to crush; there is blight to be shed
Over the young and pure and fair,
Till their lives are crushed by the fiend Despair. "This is the work you have done so well,
Cursing the earth and peopling hell,
Quenching the light on the inner shrine
Of the human soul till you make it mine!
Want and sorrow, disease and shame,
And crime that even I shudder to name,
Dance and howl in their hellish glee,
Around the spirits you've marked for me! "Oh, selling of grog is a good device
To make a hell of paradise!
Wherever may roll that fiery flood,
It is swollen with tears, it is stained with blood,
And the voice that was heard erewhile in prayer,
With its muttered curses stirs the air,
And the hand that shielded the wife from ill,
In its drunken wrath is raised to kill. "Hold on your course! You are filling up
With wine of the wrath of God your cup;
And the fiends exult in their homes below
As you deepen the pangs of human woe!
Long will it be, if I have my way,
Ere the night of death shall close your day;
For, to pamper your lust for the glittering pelf,
You rival in mischief the devil himself!" ONE of the most absurd of all foolish customs is that of inviting a crowd of friends or strangers up to the bar “to take something at my expense.” Some one has sensibly said:— “Now, boys, if you want to be generous, and treat each other, why not select some other place besides the liquor shop? Suppose as you go by the post-office, you remark, ‘I say my dear fellow, come in and take some stamps;’ these stamps will cost no more than drinks all around. Or go to the clothier’s and say, ‘Boys come in and take a box of collars.’ Walk up to a grocer’s, free and generous, and say, ‘What kind of coffee will you have?’ Why not treat to groceries by the pound as well as liquors by the glass? Or take your comrades to a cutler’s and say, ‘I’ll stand a good pocket-knife all around.’” This would be thought a strange way of showing friendship; but would it not be better than to offer to your friends a maddening, poisonous, deadly draught? Suppose a man should keep a den of rattlesnakes, and allow men to come in and be bitten at sixpence a bite: would it be a sensible thing for a man to invite all his friends in to be bitten at his expense? Is it worth our while to turn our friends into brutes, maniacs, and murderers, and their homes into hells of trouble and distress, by giving them “something to drink at my expense?” “At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” THE LOST LETTER.
By S. P. Brigham
JACOB CARTER and Albert Harrison were merchants living in adjoining towns. The strong friendship existing between them in boyhood had not declined in manhood. Each possessed sterling traits of character, though the two men were quite unlike. Mr. Carter was much beloved for his gentle nature and kindly qualities. The short-comings of his fellow-men were always viewed by him with a charitable eye. Mr. Harrison, on the contrary, though an honest, true man, was harsh and inflexible, and quick to condemn any deviation in others from the code of rectitude laid down for himself. One bright morning he said to his son, as he sealed a letter he had just written:— "Paul, I want you to carry this letter to the post-office. Don't stop on the way. It must go out on the next mail." Paul took it, put on his hat, and went whistling down the street. On his way, he had to pass the home of Caleb Parker, his most intimate friend. "Halloo!" called Caleb from the piazza. "I've just had a streak of luck. Uncle Roger has given me a splendid Newfoundland dog." "Oh, that's jolly!" returned Paul, eagerly. "Come in and see him," urged Caleb. Paul glanced at the clock on the church steeple. It lacked a full half-hour to mail time. Thoughtless of the disobedience he was committing, he yielded to the temptation before him. A few minutes could be easily spared. He hurried with Caleb to the shed where Rover was tied, and spent five minutes admiring and praising the "splendid puppy." Then he continued his walk; but on reaching the post-office he found, to his great dismay, that the letter was missing. He was sure he had carefully put it in his pocket. What should he do? He remembered pulling out his handkerchief while talking with Caleb, and thinking it was probable it fell out then, he quickly retraced his steps to Mr. Parker's house. He told Caleb his trouble, and the two made a thorough search. But the letter could not be found. Paul was in agony. "I'd about as soon be killed as to go home and tell father. He told me not to stop by the way, and he'll whip me awfully." "Do you know what was in the letter?" inquired Caleb, after thinking a little. "Yes. Father wrote to Mr. Carter to send him twenty barrels of flour, to last till he gets a supply from the West." "Then save yourself a whipping by holding your tongue. Don't say a word to your father about it. Come to my room and write another letter, and sign your father's name to it. 'Twont do any harm, and 'twill bring the flour all the same. Only keep whist." Paul hesitated. He knew Caleb was a wrong counselor; that a frank and straightforward course was the only right one. But he had twice been severely punished for small acts of thoughtless disobedience, and the pain of the blows was fresh in his memory. "Well, on the whole, Caleb, I guess I'll follow your advice. I can't see what hurt it can do." They went into the house. Paul took the offered pen and ink, and quickly wrote thus:— "Merritown, May 9, —,
"MR. CARTER—Dear Sir: I wish to purchase of you twenty barrels of good flour, to be sent immediately. A. HARRISON, per P. H." Paul had seen his father's clerk write letters on business, and sign them in this way. Ten minutes later he deposited the letter in the post-office and went home. "Did you get my letter in before the mail went?" asked Mr. Harrison, as Paul entered the parlor. "The letter was there in time," was the evasive reply. A growing uneasiness now took possession of the boy's heart, and he really felt sorry that he had not braved his father's displeasure, and owned the truth. He had been guilty of crooked dealing, and his act (as such acts always do) left something to dread. It was too late now, he reasoned, to retrieve the mistake; but what might come of it, he could not tell. He grew more and more unhappy in thinking about it. Three days afterwards, Mr. Harrison received twenty barrels of flour from the wholesale house of Mr. Carter. It was a great relief to Paul's mind. The letter substituted had apparently fulfilled its purpose as well as if it had been the original. A week went by. One morning Mr. Harrison said to his wife at the breakfast table:— "I sent a check of one hundred and fifty dollars to Mr. Carter. Don't see why it hasn't been acknowledged." Terror and dismay instantly overspread Paul's face, and he quickly left the table. It had not before occurred to him that the lost letter held a check, which was lost too. The thought appalled him, and terrible forebodings tortured his soul. Late in the afternoon of that day, as Paul sat alone in the library, the door-bell rang, and a moment after, he heard his father cordially greet Mr. Carter, and invite him into the parlor. They held a low, earnest conversation together. Mr. Carter seemed to be giving some important information which astonished Mr. Harrison. The door was closed, but occasionally part of a sentence came out distinctly to Paul's ears. He heard the words, "check;" "stolen from a letter;" "State-prison offense;" "young for such a crime." He looked out of the window into the street, and a strong impulse seized him to flee from the house, but his limbs were powerless to act. Suddenly Mr. Harrison opened the door. "Paul, come here," he said. "Mr. Carter wishes to talk with you." The boy went into the parlor, nervous and trembling. One glance at the weary, serious expression of Mr. Carter's face seemed to assure him of his coming doom. Faintly, and with a palpitating heart he returned the good man's salutation. "I want to ask you a few questions," began Mr. Carter. "Can you tell me—why, how you shake! What's the matter?" "Nothing—I—I don't know," stammered Paul. "I want you to tell me all you know about—" "O, sir," interrupted Paul quickly, "I know nothing about it! I haven't stolen the check! I didn't know there was any in the letter!" Mr. Carter and Mr. Harrison exchanged glances in surprise. "O father," pleaded Paul, pitifully, "I never told you a lie! never! NEVER! and I hope you'll believe me now!" "That—that—I didn't steal the check! I—I lost your letter—but—but—it held a check!" stammered Paul, with chattering teeth. "Lost my letter! what letter? Out with the truth!" commanded Mr. Harrison. "The one you wrote to Mr. Carter. You gave it to me to carry to the post-office. There was plenty of time before the mail closed, and I stopped a few minutes to look at Caleb's new dog. The letter was dropped somewhere, and I couldn't find it,—and—and I thought it was only an order for flour, and I wrote another and signed your name to it. I knew 'twould bring the flour all the same, and it did." "I received that letter and forwarded the flour at once," put in Mr. Carter. "Go on, Paul. So you forged a letter for me. What else have you done?" asked Mr. Harrison, in a severe tone. "That's all I have to tell,—nothing else," sobbed the boy. "Your father's letter, with a check of one hundred and fifty dollars, came to me. I had two letters, a few days after the other," said Mr. Carter. "The lost letter had been picked up and forwarded according to its written direction." A look of mingled relief and surprise suddenly came on Paul's face. "Why did you suspect me of stealing the check, then?" he asked, drying his tears. "Don't see what led you to think I suspect you. What did?" questioned Mr. Carter. "Because I heard father and you talking about a check that had been stolen from a letter, and just after that you mentioned my name." Mr. Carter burst into a hearty laugh, and even the knitted brows of Mr. Harrison relaxed. Paul's face flushed crimson. "You were more frightened than hurt, my boy," said Mr. Carter, laying his hand on Paul's shoulder. "Your course was not right, and guilt is a loud accuser, and is easily alarmed. No one has suspected you of stealing, Paul. I was only telling your father that Abel Phillips, the son of one of our friends, has lately forged on a stolen check, and is likely to go to prison." "But something was certainly said about me." "Yes; I asked to see you, to inquire about your school-mate, Ned Lee, who wants a place in my store." Paul gave Mr. Carter all the information he wanted about his school-mate, while Mr. Harrison sat thinking. He was not quite ready to change the subject. "Paul," said he sternly, "how comes it you are so late in owning that you lost my letter?" " 'Twasn't right, I know, father. I hated to hide it, but I thought 'twould—'twould save me from a beating." Paul left the room, and the merchants were again alone. "Albert," said Mr. Carter, earnestly, "we have been friends from boyhood, and I hope you won't take offense at my plain speaking. Don't you see that you are helping to make your son a rogue?" "A rogue! What do you mean?" "That's what the end will be. Paul is a little thoughtless and impetuous, but a good boy in the main. It was dread of punishment, you see, that forced him to act underhanded in this thing. Encourage frankness in him by keeping him less under fear. He has taken his first lesson in artifice. God grant it may be his last." Half an hour later Mr. Carter went away, and Mr. Harrison sat long, absorbed in thought. A revelation had been made to him. He arose and went to Paul's room. "Well Paul," said he, "you have paid a heavier penalty for concealment than if the truth had been told at first." "Indeed I have father; I never had anything in my life worry me half so much." "Always be true and open, Paul, and you need have no fear of me." Father and son had both learned an important lesson.—S. P. Brigham, in Youth's Companion. SHE is old, and weary, and full of cares,
And her form is bent, and her step is slow;
But she reads her Bible, and prays her prayers,
Just as she did in the long ago.
And while she sits in the rocking-chair,
And reads, or works, as the case may be,
I think she is praying the same old prayer
She used to offer to God for me. Though wrinkled, her face is sweet and dear,
And her voice, though tremulous, still is strong,
And still, thank God, her eye is clear,
And sweet as ever her motherly song.
Her laugh has the same old silvery ring,
And her love shines out in a thousand ways,
And it does me good to hear her sing
The good old songs of my youthful days. As slyly I steal to her sunny room,
Or listen a while at the half-closed door,
And hear her about with her brush or broom,
I feel, and must tell her, I love her the more.
Her sweet, loving nature is brimming with fun,
She holds to her girlhood with heroic stay,
And gives out her cheerfulness, just as the sun
Illumes the earth, making cheerful the day. God bless and protect her, our grandmother dear!
May she nothing know of the world's wasting strife!
Give beauty for ashes, and mellow and cheer
And lighten and sweeten the remnant of life.
We will tenderly lead her, and love to the last,
And cherish the lessons of wisdom she gave,
And while we remember the love of the past,
We'll gather the roses to lay on her grave. DANIEL WEBSTER once told a good story in a speech, and was asked where he got it. "I had it laid up in my head for fourteen years, and never had a chance to use it till to-day," said he. My little friend wants to know what good it will do to learn the "rule of three," or to commit to memory a verse of the Bible. The answer is this: "Sometime you will need that very thing. Perhaps it may be twenty years before you can make use of it in just the right place; but it will be just in place sometime. Then, if you don't have it, you will be like the hunter who had no ball in his rifle when the bear met him." "Twenty-five years ago my teacher made me study surveying," said a man who had lost his property, "and now I am glad of it. It is just in place. I can get a good situation at a high salary." The Bible is better than that; it will be in place as long as we live. -The national debt was reduced nearly $10,000,000 during the month of April. -The Marquis of Salisbury succeeds Beaconsfield as leader of the Conservatives. -Hon. Ansel Briggs, the first Governor of Iowa, died May 5, at Omaha, aged seventy-five years. -The Postmaster-General says that he will not rest until every official implicated in the Star-service frauds is dismissed. -A Catholic congress will be held in Madrid, Spain, in October, which will be attended by Catholic notables from every part of the world. -Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, refused to attempt to enforce the closing of saloons on Sunday. He says he "takes no stock in Sabbatarian nonsense." -The Chinese immigration treaty and the commercial treaty were both ratified by the Senate on the 5th. There seems to be equal rejoicing by both Americans and Chinese. -While some school-children were playing under a small tree, in a yard eight miles east of Winona, Miss., on the fifth inst., lightning struck the tree and instantly killed three of them. -Over 150,000 persons visited Central Park, New York, Sunday, May 8. The fair weather induced large crowds to resort to Coney Island and other seaside places in the vicinity. -About 500 switchmen employed in Chicago on the various railroads have struck for an advance of wages. If persisted in, incalculable damages will result to shippers and the railroad companies. -May 7, a fire broke out in the shaft of a coal mine near Scranton, Osage Co., Kan., cutting off the supply of air from the miners, of whom there were 22 in the mine. The total loss of life was 10. -Mrs. Fletcher, an American "medium," has been convicted of imposture in London and sentenced to imprisonment for twelve months. Her "psychic force" was believed by the jury to be a fraud. -The Anti-Jewish crusade in the old country is not diminishing. Two hundred persons were injured in the riots at Elizabethgrod, Russia. In West Prussia fresh excesses have been committed, and many families have fled for their lives. -May 4, the British sloop of war, Doterel, was blown up in the Strait of Magellan. Eight officers and one hundred and thirty-five men were killed; three officers and fourteen men escaped. It is supposed that the boiler burst and exploded the magazine. -May 6, a freight train on the Texas Pacific railroad went through a bridge, killing the engineer and fireman, and wounding the conductor and a brakeman. In another wreck at Katula, on the same road, the engineer, a brakeman, and a telegraph line contractor were killed. -A Baltimore dispatch says: Henry Ward Beecher, in passing through here, was served with a summons to appear and answer in a suit against him by the Directors of the Western Maryland Agricultural Fair, for failing to perform his part of a contract which bound him to lecture before the Fair last October. -A dispatch from Deer Lodge, Montana, says that the Grand Jury has indicted ten Mormons, including two Bishops, for unlawfully voting in Montana for delegate to Congress. One hundred Mormons residing in Utah and Idaho are said to have voted for the Democratic candidate in Montana under assurance of protection. -The Herald says: The sense of the city and the country has been so fully taken upon the proposal to have an International World's Fair in New York, to be held in 1883, that there need be no misapprehension as to the public opinion. The idea is not popular, nor does it grow in popularity. The wisest plan now is to abandon it altogether. -The vast treasure which had been amassed by the Sultan Abdul Aziz, mysteriously disappeared after his assassination, and the Ministry gave out that it had been used for war expenditures. Recent inquiry, however, seems to show that a considerable part was appropriated by high officials connected with the palace, and who are supposed to be the instigators of the assassination. -Dillon, the agitator, has been arrested. In his speech a day or two before his arrest he advised the people to keep within the law, not because he respected it or thought they respected it, but for the sake of preserving their organization. They must exercise their ingenuity to sail as close to the line as possible. It is said that his arrest has had a quieting effect upon the people. -The Utes in Colorado are getting troublesome. The Commissioners have no influence over them, and dare not go among them for fear of inciting them to an outbreak. The Indians are held in by threats to remain in the valleys, and they regard the prospect of a fight with the soldiers with derision, and boast that they can defeat all the soldiers that the Government is likely to bring into the fight. -Troy, N. Y., is suffering from the lack of a Police Superintendent. A dispatch from there, May 4, says: "The Police Commissioners balloted eleven times to-night for a Superintendent, without result. There is talk of a Vigilance Committee in South Troy, if the depredations are continued. In the absence of a police force to-day, the roughs fired a load of straw, burning that and a tenement. -Hostilities continue in Tunis. A fight occurred recently in which the French are reported to have suffered the greater loss. It is said that the mountains are alive with Arabs armed with flintlock guns, each man carrying thirty charges of ammunition. It is impossible to calculate their number. At the bombardment of Tabarca, Tunis, by the Frevet, 58 Tunisian soldiers and a large number of non-combatants were killed. -In the Baltic provinces of Russia there is much agitation among the peasants, who desire absolute ownership of land now held on lease. The Lutheran pastors in many parts of Estheland have refused to administer the oath of allegiance to the Czar, or do so with manifest reluctance. Handbills have been distributed, calling upon the inhabitants not to swear allegiance until the Czar has granted them lands and land rights equal to those possessed by the Russian people. -The flood at St. Louis, which was fast driving the people from their homes, has subsided sufficiently for business to be resumed. A dispatch of May 7 says that several of the railroads leading out of the city have done wonders within a few days in repairing the damages incident to the late inundations. The Kansas City, St. Joseph, and Council Bluffs run trains regularly to Atchison and north to Bigelow. The St. Joseph and Western are running as usual, and the Missouri Pacific announces the opening of its entire line. -A dispatch from Fond du Lac, Wis., says that gold-bearing quartz has been discovered a few miles from that city, in a ledge of lime rock. The quartz shows nine feet above the surface of the ground, and reaches to an unexplored depth below. Some specimens taken from the top of the drift assayed $21 per ton: others, taken from six feet below the ground, assayed $148 per ton. A company of Boston capitalists have secured the working on a lease of the farm, and have a stamp mill and other mining machinery on the way. They expect to begin operations within two months. -Turning to the Universalist Year-Book for 1861, for the statistics of 1860, we notice a marked decline since that time in the number of their parishes. In 1860 they reported 1,264 parishes in the United States; in 1880, 856—a decrease of 308, or about twenty-five per cent. in twenty years. Of this decrease 133 were outside of New England, and 175 in New England; as follows: In Maine, a loss of 48; in New Hampshire, 43; in Vermont, 18; Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, lost one-third, and New Hampshire more than one-half of their Universalist parishes since 1860, according to the figures given in their own Year-Books. -Secretary Lincoln is reported to be the most beset of any of the Cabinet officers. His visitors, however, are mainly of a different nature from the office-seeking hordes that throng the doors of the other Secretaries. They come to pay their respects to him as the son of the greatest President. A legion of the lowly are waiting in the corridors of the War Department every day, and when the Secretary appears they reverently shake his hand and look upon him with devoted eyes; and, with the same kind heart and consideration that so endeared his father to these people, Robert Lincoln has time and kind words for the poorest and most infirm of them. -The Queen of Madagascar is a Christian woman who adorns her profession and honors her throne. Under a former treaty with France importations of rum were allowed, and a portion was assigned to the government as revenue. She has forbidden her people to drink it, and warned them of the evil consequences of its use. Better than all she caused the barrels of liquor received as revenue to be broken and the contents to be poured upon the ground. "I cannot take a revenue from anything that will debase and degrade my people." These words are worthy to be printed in gold, and presented to every so-called Christian ruler in the world, many of whom derive millions of revenue from the tears, and groans, and crimes of their people in the shape of liquor. -The popular pastor of Surrey Chapel, London, has an article on revivals in the New York Independent, in which he expresses his full agreement with his friend, the Rev. Dr. Cuyler of Brooklyn, that "the progress of the church does not keep pace with that of population." In London, he says, as in the most of the large towns, there is a diminished attendance. There are not sittings in the churches for more than one-fourth of the population, and these sittings are now not more than half filled. His conclusion, after much inquiry, is that as to church members there is "not only no increase to announce, but a very large diminution to lament; and this with a rapidly increasing population." He is quite unable to agree with Dr. Cuyler, however, in saying that most of the accessions to his church have been the result of special revival effort. The 2000 received on profession of faith during the 26 years of his pastorate, not 25 had been brought in through revivals, including that under Mr. Moody, of whose converts he has not more than three remaining in a membership of 1300. As the result of a six months' revival in Hull, 1000 members were added to the one district. In three years "not fifty remained on their books." His conclusion is that revival "machinery is but mockery." What is needed is "the steady, quiet prayerful work of the church."