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[TIP-END OF YANKEE LAND. The Extremity of Cape Cod?A Quaint and Historic Spot. One of the historic places in America, inferiorin desert of renown to none, though comparatively unrecognized, is Provincetown, at the extremity of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts bay. Its spacious, deep and land-locked harbor terminates one i of the most formidable parts of our Atlantic coast, -where in a single storm, ?? 1fl"Q tivnntr.nnn -ppocolo iU X%JKJUy I'llvutj-vuv ff w*v ? *ww? ed in a space of ten miles. Here, on the L eleventh of November, lG20,the Mayflower, after a sixty-six day's voyage, found temporary refuge, eighteen years after Bartholomew Gosnold had discovered and } given its present name to the cape. Here occurred the first birth in the Pilgrim Colony, that of Peregrine White, and the first death, that of Mrs. Marv Bradford, the Governor's wife, who fell overboard from the ship. From here the explorations were conducted, which finally discovered Plymouth, twenty-five ' - - r xi. _ r miles wesr, on tne opposite s:us ui iuu | bay, to be the fittest place for settlement. I ... Close by Provincetown, at Truro, the explorers, under Captain Standish, disw covered the deposit of Indian corn, I which saved the colony from famine. " But that which chiefly gives the place historic fame is the birth of American ! republicanism in the civil compact, which was here framed and signed by forty-one persons in the cabin of the Mayflower, just one month before the landing at Plymouth. From the germ thus unfolded at Provincetown there came, in natural development, the Declaration signed at Philadelphia one hun* ? dred and fifty-six years later. It is intended ere long to commemorate this great transaction by a suitable memorial building on the hill overlooking the Mayflowers anchorage. Thoreau called Provincetown the most maritime of American towns, tnougn Key West might compete with it for that distinction. In his intensely realistic book, "Cape Cod," one can almost smell the salt, and hear the surf, and feel the land yielding to his tread. One 1/ who lives far inland finds an experience worth his journey in walking, withi Thoreau, along the desolate seashore, far j from every roof but those of the life-saving patrol, and by the skeletons of whales, and fragments of wrecks cast up by the storms. ; Every night, even in the wildest Storms, from September to May, this Shore is traversed by watchers for endangered vessels, each man walking from r Eis station to the half-way house, where he meets a man from the next station, *" exchanges checks with him, and returns to the station where he deposits his check for record of his work. Mncsfirhnset.tR bav is enclosed bv Cane j WW W ~ J ~~~ - ' W x | Ann on the north, all of rock, and Cape Cod on the south, all of sand. The lat^ ter would seem to have been built out of the debris of the former, carried along in a gigantic swirl or eddy of the current along shore from the north; and such a theory has been entertained by some ^ geologists. On this sandy soil forests that have now disappeared nourished a century ago, and a profitable agriculture was kept up, but the livelihood of the population is now more derived from the sea. It is a sight worth seeing to watch the unloading of a schooner from the Grand banks, returning after four or five months' t ' ' ? ?-i- n j ? J aosence wnn nity or sixty tuuusauu uuufish, every odg caught singly with hook and line, and as soon as caught, split, salted and stowed away. These are * tos3ed up on a hay fork by the dozen from the hold to the deck, and thence to the wharf, where they are washed by a gang in a dory for a tub, then trundled -r to the shed, where in summer time they are pickled in huge butts. Thirty thousand hogsheads of salt, brought chiefly from the Mediterranean, at about $1.50 a hogshead, are annually used here. In the autumn the tish are spread out to dry on ''flakes," spacious horizonr tal frames of slats, two or three feet from the ground, from which, if a rain comes up, they must be taken in, as if they were hay. An assemblage of these "flakes," covering the space of a goodfiized garden plat, is sometimes spoken of as a "fish-orchard." There is more of work and exposure and risk iu the business than of monev. at the rate of two cents per pound, and these two or three years past have been losing years for the fishermen, who complain that the retailers get all the profit. The mackerel fishery is prosecuted from Provincetown all along shore. Some of these vessels are of most graceful build, and, but for their boats towing astern, might be taken to be pleasure yachts. The seines used are sometimes of great size, a quarter of a mile in length by hundred feet in depth. "When a boat has pulled one of these so as to enclose a school of mackerel, it is pursed up at the bottom, and the fish are transferred to the deck of the schooner, as I rapidly as a gang of men can split and barrel them. In this business also, plentiful as the mackerel have been, the fishermen complain that there is for them no mnnpp r?rrrnpa Vinvinor hppn snM aq lnw as $2.50 a barrel, half of which goes for the barrel, salt and cost of inspection. But where the sea fails to yield a living in one way, It is made to in another. Summer visitors come to the cape in large numbers for its climate and the cool breezes which from every side blow oil i from the sea. Every morning a staunch boat, steaming from Boston fifty miles southeast to Provincetown, affords the novelty and excitement of a short ocean voyage, generally calm enough in summer to avoid nausea. "Whales are now and then seen blowing in the bay, and finTiinir vpqopIq rtrr> fit. thpir tvnrlf The dreaded rocks of Cohasset, the scene of many a wreck, and now marked by inot's light, the Eddystone of America, are passed fifteen miles from Boston; then, on the receding shore, are seen to the south, Marshfield, where Webster lived, Duxbury hill, crowned with a tall monument to the short-statured Pilgrim captain, Standish.and the high lands of Plymouth in the dim distance. Then the thin yellow streak of the Cape emerges from the Bea, in the midst of which it is anchored as Tfcoreau say3, by the beach-grass, which keeps the sand from being blown away. A quaint and cleanly town of wooden houses in a curved line three miles long here crouches under the sandhills that rise from the beach. The Btate of Massachusetts holds the title to I the land, "Province Lands," so-called, and charges itself with the care of keeping unimpaired the barriers which the beach-grass and other vegetation oppose to the inroads of the sea-sands. Here dwells a population of about 4,000, twenty-five per cent, of whom are Portuguese, as industrious, frugal and peaceable as any class of immigrants. It has been from our fishing-towns that our navy in time of war has been recruited. Nor is there any class of those who live by manual labor more intelligent than the men who wrest their living from "theunharvcsted sea," and C&rry life and fortune in their hands in constant struggle with the elements. In no community are there fewer criminals. There has been but one instance of capital punishment in the history of the country. Were the precepts of St. Paul against the speaking of women in the CorinthiaD churches, to be regarded as still imperative, it would be difficult in these cape towns to maintain the prayer-meeting, at least in the fishing seasons. A woman superintends the Sunday school iD Provincetown, and the Congregational Year Book reports u woman as ministei at Dennis.? Chicago Advance. A Bushman's Cave. "Weengnged two or three of the natives as guides," says Mrs. Carey Hobson, in "At Home in the Transvaal,'" "and they took us into one of their curious caves, though I think cave is hardly the proper name; it is more like aD enormous fissure in the rocks, with small caves and shelves in the precipitous sides. It was a wonderful place, capable of being garrisoned and provisioned in time of war, and, one would think, rendered impregnate. " 'IIow about the water?' asked Graham. 'Had they a supply in the cave?1 "They had, and a very plentiful supply, too. We entered the place through a narrow, zig-zag opening in the rocks, which almost gave you the idea that you were going into some tunnel that had fallen in. All at once we found our selves in a Deauuiui upuu sijuue, ?ul-io there were some cattle feeding upon grass growing luxuriantly on cither sido of a clear stream of water that ran the whole length of the chasm. "We walked along its banks for a long way, admiring the vegetation, which was different from any we had seen outside. Beautiful little fairy ferns and maidenhair grew in the crevices of the rocks, making a pretty, lace trimming, as it were, between the lines of strata, each side matching so exactly both in strata and fernwork. as to denote in a wonderful manner the suddenness with which the mountain must have been reft in twain. And in that clear, dry climate, the rocks looked as bright and newly-broken as if this cataclysm had taken place but yesterday. Gradually we heard more and more distinctly a roaring noise, that we understood to come from a fall of water. The rocks had hitherto been opeu to the sky, although much nearer to cach other at the top than below; but at last they closed entirely, and we were in a dark passage. Here were rooms or holes for the stores of grain, and hiding places for their women and children. "At the end of this tunnel we came upon a cascade, falling sheer, from the mountain summit, through a large round opening, into the basin below. A mass of rock jutting out at one side, iust within the fa 1,intercepted the water,and sent it dancing wildly in a thousand fantastic jets of spray, to be sobered down as they mingled with the long, steady ' - ' i" i. ml stream oi iamng water, mere ia au immense quantity of honey in these caves, and the people collect it from the honey nests in the interstices of the rock, letting each other down from above by means of thongs, or, more generally, by climbing and clinging among the monkey-rope that grows luxuriantly in parts. Our guides also pointed out some curious rock paintings, the work of the early Bushman inhabitants." Wall Street Bears. Brokers and operators are "bears" when they have sold stock, and particularly stock that they did not own, contracting to deliver it at some future time. They are then "short of the market." The disposition of the bear is to pull things down. The Wall street bear is often found "gunning a stock" by put_ 1. 3 x - ting lortn au nis sirengm uuu urun break down the price, and especially -when aware that a certain house is heavily loaded and cannot resist his attack. He "buys in" by purchasing stock to meet a "short" contract, or to return borrowed j stock; "covers,"-or "covers- his shorts," I by buying stock to fulfill his contract on the day of delivery. This a self-protective measure, and iscalled "covering short sales." A "drop" in the price of a stock is to a bear the next best thing to a "break." He rejoices in an "off" market when prices fall. He "sells out" a man by forcing down the price of a stock that the person is carrying so low that he is obliged to let it go, and perhaps to fail. He groans lustily when the bulls get a "twist on the shorts" by artificially raising prices, and "squeezing," or compelling the bears to settle at ruinous rates. Neither "bull" nor "bear" is an altogether safe "critter." The latter, however, is reputed to be about four times as mischievous as the former, inasmuch as he sells another man's property, whereas the bull contents himself with carrying his own. The bear occasionally finds himself in a "corner" where it is impossible to buy the stock of which he is "short," and which he must deliver at a specified time. He growls and begs, but must pay what the holders of his contracts are willing to accept. Some relief is afforded by a "letup," or the withdrawal from the market of the "clique," or "pool," or combination of operators that cornered him. A "squeal in the pool" is the revelation of its secrets by one of its members, and a "leak in the pool" is when one of the parties sells out his interest without the knowledge of the others. Either form of defection yields some mitigation to the bear's sullenngs. ?Uarjjer's Magazine. Long Life in Mexico. The other day an old fellow named Jose Onoire Ojeda, died over in a town of the State of Jalisco, aged 115 years, writes a correspondent of the Boston Herald. He had been married twice, | thought seriously of the third wife, when , death came along to stop his matrimo; nial schemes. Some time ago an old ! fellow was living at San Miguel de Allendc, aged 135 years, a man still vigorous. The records of the parish church I confirm his claims to a great age. Not I long ago, down in the pretty little tropi, cal village of Orizaba, there died an old I woman aged 140 years, and a few months ago a woman named Martina Riviera died ! here at the age of 150 years, a fact thoroughly attested. The Indians have a provI erb that their hair is black when that of the Spaniards is growing gray. A local paper noted the other day the case of the Indian, Juan Santiag, who died in 1844, at the age of 143 years. This old chap left two dependent grandchildren, both aged men, whose years were respectively I 111 and 109 years. The grandfather married as the Indians do, very young, and it is not surprising that he should have left descendants who were themselves centenarians. The secret of this extraordinary longevity among the Indians is their simple diet ! and regular habits. They themselves j say that when an Indian goes into service i and eats the food of the white man the ! Indian's teeth begin to decay. Their J perpetual grinding on tortillas keeps j their teeth white and the lime in the torilla makes teeth bone. There are 7o0.000 more Methodists than Baptists in the United States. FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS. There were 7,000.000 inhabitants ii Rome in the days of Emperor Hadrian In Genoa the policemen wear silk hati and carry silver-headed walking-sticks Among the negroes of the Carolins coast telling ghost stories is a favorit< "1 ..V _ _ J I j amusement, auci me stories uru uui spoken, but chanted with a flavor of ex altation. An ordinary hen's egg weighs fron one and one-half to two ounces; a duck's two to three ounces; a turkey's, three t< four ounces, while that of a goose weigh from four to six ounces. In ancient times the carrying of th< four-leaved clover was believed to brinj luck in play and busiress, safety on i journey and the power of detecting evi spirits. In Germany the clover was helt almost sacred, wnetner u naa two o four blades. The Seven Dials is a celebrated locali ty in St. Giles', London, formerly noto torious-for its degraded condition, bu now much improved. It was so namec from a pillar, removed in 1773, bearing a seven-faced dial, and standing at th< point of divergence of seven streets. A wreath of laurel or olive leaves, i small quantity of oil, a tripod or othe: similar rewards of victory, as prizes ii the athletic games of Olympia, Delphi Nemea and Athens, conferred alraos divine honor in Greece, even the year being known by the temporary hero o Olympia. G. L. Thomas, of Albany, N. Y., i said to own the largest mastiff in thi world. His name is Senator, his age i thirteen month's, weight 100 pounds licighth 35J inches over the withers length from tip of nose to end of tai seven feet eight inches, and he is valuet at $1,500. Crabs thoroughly dried in a hot ovci and then pulverized are used as medi cine in a malarial locality in Ivharkoi government in Russia. A teaspoonful i regarded as a dose, effective in mos T'V.Ja *-v/\TTT/3nr ia iicorl 11 Laocs, xuio j>/vnuwi 4B %?ww? .. preference to quinine, preceded invaria bly with a glas9 of aloe brandy. "Why are barrels painted? Because sharp fellow, having noticed the leak ing of oil through wood, painted a bar rel blue on the outside and then tilled i with water and allowed it to stand unti it had soaked up all it would. Thei the oil was put in. The water kept th oil from soaking into the wood, and th paint on the outside kept the water fror coming out. The largest cheese ever manufacture! in this country has been made at Eas Aurora, N. Y. It wa? ordered by prominent grocer of Buffalo, who, dui ing the process of manufacture, thre^ ten five-dollar gold pieces into the lac teal mass. Its weight is 3,300 pounds The milk was taken from 2,600 cows and it took three hundred hands to mill them. An excursion of between fou hundred and five hundred promincn citizens left Buffalo and was present t witness the novel ceremony of construct ing: so Luge a mass of cheese. Si cheese, weighing from 1,500 to 3,00 pounds, were made in the same factor for an English firm, which will offe them for sale during Christmas week i London and Liverpool. An Orchard of 26,000 Peach Trees Mr. Mcllroy Jackson is the elder c two brothers, who are known a! through the peach districts of Delaware Maryland peninsula, as "the Jackso boys." Gilder Jackson i3 the othe brother. Twenty years ago they wen boys in Kent county without a penny' worth ot property to their names. 2ioi thev have a fortune that is popularly es timatedjat a good many thousands of dol lars. They have made it all out c peaches. Their good fortune has beei phenomenal. Gilder is on a farm nea Magnolia, which, under his management has increased wonderfully iu worth til it is rated as the most valuable piece o real estate in that part of the Stat< Mcllroy is on another farm, owned b the firm, near Harrington, which i worth a good many dollars more an acr than the property of his neighbors. Bu the "boys" have made an investmen wihch outreaches anything of the soi ever yet known in Delaware. Near Mil ford they have bought a big tract of land the combination of two or three farm: covering in ail about 300 acres, and thi fall the Messrs. Jackson, who have put: tenant in charge to look after affairs ur der their direction, will begiu to set on a peach orchard far larger than any othc orchard iu this country. This fall, nes nnrinrr And nr>xfc fall tliev will lllant 25 -rm?n? j 5 acres in peach trees. "With ail averag of 105 trees to the acre this will giv their orchard a total of over 20,000 trees It is their plan to includc about twenty five varieties of peaches. They have ex tensive nurseries of their .own from whic they will choose the young trees wit! which they will cover their big tratfl This farm is further down in the stat than the peach centre now lies, but th Messrs. Jackson are convinced that th peach belt is rapidly moving southward and they believe that within a few years in three years at most, when the nei orchard will come into the period c bearing, the best fruit producing regio will be closc at hand.?New York Timet The Fatal State Department. The state department, which at th hponnninor nf nur rmvnrnmnnt was lookei ?r> "?o ~ upon as the stepping stone to the pres dency, became later on singularly fats to the ambitions of almost" every ma who took charge of it, and its possessio in many cases has been the forcruunc of disaster, disease and death. Upshui one of Tyler's secretaries of state, ws blown up on the Princeton while he wa in office, and Hugh S. Lcgare, the secr( tary of state who preceded Upshur, die at Boston at the celebration of th Bunker Hill monument, which ho wa attending with the President in his ce pacity as secretary. Daniel Webstei while acting as Fillmore.s secretary c state, was in 1852 thrown from his cai riage and there received the iujurie which caused his death the folio win Octobcr. Secretary William II. Sewan never recovered fully from the blow c the assassin Payne, which he received o the night Lincoln was killed, and hi r\Alt+i/>ol fnhiro troa ininrnrl hv Vila nnn I'UU"VU1 '"J"? ~J uection with Johnson in the state dc partment in the following adrainistrt tion. James G. Blaine narrowly cs caped receiving Guiteau's bullet whe he was walking down to the depot an in arm with President Garfield to see hir oil to Long Branch. Had Ilenry Cla not accepted the state portfolio fror John Quincy Adams the "bargain" am "corruption" cry would never have bee i raised, and Clay would probably no have died disappointed in his am'bitio i to be President. John C. Calhoun' future was largely affected by the fight i he had while secretary of state,by whic he became estranged from Jackson an his party, and Marcy and Cass droppe out of the state department into exis' i ing nonentitvness.?Cleveland (Ohi< Leader. TEMPERANCE TOPICS, 1 Tlie Ecad March. , Tramp, tramp, tramp, in lha drunkard's way March the feet of a million men; i If none shall pity and none shall save, ? "Where will the march they are making l end ? The young, the strong, and the old are there, In woeful ranks as they hurry past, Ivvitn not a mulueub lu wiii& ui wc, What is tho fate that come3 at last, , Tramp, tramp, tramp, to a drunkard's doom, 3 Out of a boyhood pure and fair? Over the thoughts of love and homePast the chock of a mother's prayer; Onward swift to a drunkard's crime, > Over tho piea of wife and child, y Over tho holiest ties of time? 5 Reason dethrone J, and soul3 gone wild. ; ?Alary T. Latiirop, in the Bulletin. i What the Tcmpcranco Cau?e Hav r Done* "* Rev. Newman Hall, of London, has beautifully said of the temperance cause: t It is "an enterprise that has fed the hun. 1 gry, and clothed the naked, ana iicaiea = tne sick, and taught the ignorant, and elevated the degraded, and gladdened j the sorrowful, and led to the cross mulr titudes that had been wandering far i away; an enterprise that lia3 gathered ' ajjain the fortune that had been scatt s tered, and built again the home that had f been ruined, and raised again the character that had been blasted, and bound 3 up again the heart that had been broken; 0 an enterprise that has given peace where there was discord, and gladness where ' there had been woe, that has broken ) # 1 1 open many a prison door, and restored * to his right mind many a maniac; an enterprise that has prevented many a sui1 cide, and that has robbed the galIow3 of 3 many a victim that would otherwise s have been there; an enterprise that has t thinned the work-house, and the hos a pital, and the jail, but that ba9 helped | to fill the school, and the lecture-room, and the industrial exhibition; an enterprise that has turned into useful citizens - those that were the pests of society? t one of the best educators of the masses, '* one of the very chief pioneers of the g Gospel, an enterprise which is not Christ, e but which is one of the holy angels that a go upou his mission. Like some fair spirit from another world, our great en^ terpri8e has trodden the wilderness, and * flowers of beauty have sprung up upon .. her track. She has looked around,gladv dening nil on whom her smiles have fal len;she has touched the captive, and his fetters have fallen off; she ha3 i ' ? apoken, and the countenance of despair r has been lighted up with hope; waved t her magic wand, and tho wilderness has 0 rejoiced and blossomed as the rose. ? Like the fabled Orpheus, she ha3 0 warbled her song of mercy, and wild y beasts, losing their ferocity, have folr lowed gladly and gratefully in her n train. She has raised up thoss who ; have been worse than dead, sepulchred in sin, and she has led multitudes to the ' living waters of salvation. if Eyils of Lager Beer. !- The chemis; of the Brooklyn health 11 department has been investigating some r of the beer sold in that city, and hasarg rived at results that are anything but rejf assuring to those who drink it. He re ports, in the first placc, that the common j practice of drawing beer through bra93 a or copper faucets is highly injurious to x the consumer. The melal becomes corroded, and deposits of it are found in ^ the liquid in quantities large enough to [ be dangerous. This danger is small, v however, compared to others which the s beer drinker undergoes. Dr. Bartlcy goes e on to speaK ot "tue practice, so common with some brewers, of adding bicarbonit ? ,t ate of soda to the beer, so as to make it - foam when drawn. Two ounces of the I, drug are compressed into a cartridge and '? dropped into the keg at the time of filling. a Thirty glasses of beer thus charged will [. contain nearly three teaspoonfu's of it aoda." Further than this, he finds that ,r most of the beer made in Brooklyn is q sent out from the brewery in about e fourteen days after ths brewing, and is e necessarily unwholesome. It is a little strange if Dr. Bartley found 110 other adulteration in the beer uf Brooklyn than ^ bicarbonate of soda. As the readers of fcl trie JU.HU (l'III Ih-CjJrtiss icuicLuuci, uu t. inrestigation made by us nearly three e years ago showed that various noxious ? drugs were used by brewers to impart a [ bitter taste to the beer, to counteract J, its constipating influence, and to "age" n it. Among these substances were aloes, ^ quassia and. nux vomica.?New York Mail and Express. Liquor Statistic*. The consumption of liquor in thiscounc try is officially reported by the authoriJ -4. rv+ ?n oo nmAtinfinff trt U. Lies EftU TT asiuu^bvu uo uuawuuvauq ?V i* 69,156,903 gallons of spirits, 19,185,953 lq barrels of fermented liquor, and 20,508,n 345 gallons of wine. Estimating the ir population at about 58,000,000, the av '? erage consumption appears to be about g 1.2 gallons of whisky for each person yearly, over 10.25 gallons of beer, and d .35 of a gallon of wine. The quantity e of beer consumed appeals to be about ;S 595,000,000 gallong. In other words, the people of this favored land drink >f about two gallons of liquor for every bushel of wheat that they consume?a :9 striking text for our temperance friends. ?JSew TorJc Tribune. ,f j* Temporal!ce Topics* is Water is the changer of the earth; l" rum is the changer of mankind. Eighty-eight in-??jn.rut*.* companies in j. England h iv> n total abstinence departn mi'iit and give premium, in some shape, n to that class. The Adams Express Company forbids n the use of liquor to its employes. The :1 Chicago, Burlington and (Juincy R. 11. n will not eveu permit them to board where liquor is sold. 1 am acquainted with a man who be3 came utterly broken down from driuk, h but took the pledge and kept it for ten ^ years. At the end of this time he was t swept back by simply seeing his clergyman take one glass of wine.?Colonel T IF. Ilifjginson. DR. TMJAGE'S SERMON. THE HIRED RAZOR." Text: "In the same day shall the Lord have with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria." Isaiah vii., 20. The Bible is the boldest book ever written. The similitudes in Ossian, in the Iliad, in the Odyssey, are not half so daring. The imagery of the Bible sometimes seems on the verge of the reckless, but only seems eo. The fact is that God would startle, arouse and propel men and nations in the right direction, and tame and limping similitude will not do tne work. Sometimes we find in the Bible illustrations drawn from the gentle dew, and the morning cloud, and the dove, and the daybreak, and the rose, and the lily; but often we find illustrations drawn from the iron chariot, and the lightning, and the storm, aud the earthquake, and the sword, and the spear, and, in ray text, the razor. This sharpedged instrument has advanced in usefulness with the ages. In Bible times the beard remained uncut except in times of great mourning and humiliation; but the razor has always been a significant illustration. David fays of Doeg, his antagonist, "thy tongue is like a sharp razor, working deceitfully;" that is, while it pretends to clear the face, it makes deadly incision. In my morning's text, this domestic implement is employed amid the following circumstances: Judah must have its pride and glory cut down. God sends against it three Assyrian generals. First, Sennachareb, then Esarheddon, then Nebuchadnezzar. These three invasions cut across the land, brineiner down its Drosneritv. and it is com pareS to so many sweepings with a razor across the face of Judah. The circumstances in the t?xt are compared to a hired razor because God employed the Assyrian kin^s, with whom He had no sympathy, to do His work, paying for that work in palaces and spoils and annexations. God hired these kings to execute the divine behest. So you see that though at the first reading of the text it might have seemed almost trivial and inapt.now the text is charged with thoughts of stupendous import and moment. "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria." Well, if God's judgments are razors, we had better l:e careful how we use them on other people. These useful implements are encased, and they are put beyond the reach of childhood, and they are put where no accident can touch them. Everybody understands that a razor, if handled at all must bo cautiously handled. And yet, how many men there are who take the judgments of God, which are in my text compared to razors, and deal with them very carelessly, and very recklessly. There is a business man who goes down. How many people there are ready to cry out: ''That is a judgment of God upon the fact that he was unscrupulous, that he was arrogant, that he was miserly, that he was extortionate. What a keen stroke of Providence it was that took him down. His city house gone, his country house gone, all his stables emptied of the fine * 1- J 1 iL.i. . 1 4 ^ grays ana so ire is ana uays uiau useu iu prance at his doorway. All his resources cut off. Thrown into comp'iote demolition. Good for him!" My brother, be careful how you handle the Lord's razors. Sometimes the wicked have great prosperity, and they live and die in prosperity, and many an honest and conscientious man has Leen driven into bankruptcy. Perhaps the man is unfortunate in his manner and is not as proud as you think be is, for some men havo a natural way of being very erect, and they have an imperial manner when at the samo time they are as humble as a little child; and there is rnanv a man who goes with seedy coat and slouched hat and unblackened shoes who is proud as Lucifer. You cannot tell by any man's looks. Perhaps the man of whom you speak was not unscrupulous in his dealings, for there are two sides to every question, and if a man achieve f/M* for nf.linrc Via n 1. lllljr LLllll? ^ICOU AVI luiuovu Wl VVMW*^ MW M. ways geta industriously lied about! Perhaps that man's business misfortune was not sent as a punishment, tub as fatherly discipline by -which he is to be prepared for heaven, and God may really love that unfortunate business man more than He loves you wbo can pay dollar foe dollar, and whose name in the commercial catalogue stands AL "Whom the Lord loveth he giveth $400,000 a year, and lets die on an embroidered pillow. No; I have misquoted the passage. "Whom the Lor"1 loveth He chasteneth." Better keep your hands off the Lord's razors. If you want to jhave off some of the bristling pride of your own heart and life, do so, but look out how you put the sharp edge ou 'others. I cannot tell how much I dislike the behavior of those people who, when any one is unfortunate, always say: "Just as I expected. I told you so. Why, didn't you know that before? Why, I knew that long ago!" If these I told you so's had had their dessert they would have been in hell long ago! They have more trouble":'- about the mite, the mote ir a neighbor's eye, though you havo to use a microscope to discover it, than they have about the shiptimber that obscures oheir optics. They have an air sometimes supercilious and sometimes Pharisaical and always blasphemous, with which they tako the razor of God's judgments and try to harpen it on the hone of their own hard hearts, ana tnen wnen tney cau gee a man sprawled out in disaster they begin to cut mercilessly. They first begin with words of sympathy and pity and half pmis?, and put the lather on thick before they begin with the sharp edge. Better look out how you shoot at others lest you bring down the wrong one, as when the servant of King Willian Kutns shot at a deer, but the arrow glanced from a tree and killed the king, Instead of going at Tne world with sharp shafts that pierce, and razors that cut. let u& go out into th? world with the spirit of the friend of Richard Coeur de Lion, who in'the war of the crusades was captured and imprisoned and his friend did not know where he was imprisoned. This friend went from fortress to fortress and from penitentiary to penitentiary and sang at every window a verse of a song which Richard in nfiior Hoiro imH tnncht him Coming1 to a win dow of a prison where he supposed Richard might be incarcerated he sang two lines of the hymn, and from inside tho wall Richard sang "the other two lines, and so his whereabouts were discovered and prompt and successful movement was made for his liberation. Ob, my friends, let us go forth in tho world with the music of kind words and sympathetic hearts, serenading the unfortunate and trying to help out of trouble noble creatures that by unforseen circumstances have been incarcerated, and so we will be liberating kings, kings. More hymn books and less razors. Especially ought we be apologetic and merciful toward those, who, though they have great faults, have also great virtues. Some men barren of faults are also barron of virtues. No weeds, verily, but no flowers. I must not be too much engaged at a nettle which I find in the field near the fence when in that same field there are forty acees of ripe Michigan wheat Scientists say now there is a spot on tho sun 20,000 miles long, but from the warmth and brightness to-day I think it is|considerable of a sun yet! The sun can afford to have a very large spot upon it, though it be 20,000 miles long. And i am very apologetic for thoso men who have great faults, while at the same time they have magnificent virtues. My subject also impresses me with the fact as I road "tho Lord shall shave with a razor," that God's dealings have great precision. A razor carelessly swung the tenth part of an inch out of the right line means either failure or laceration. God's razor has not slipped the thousandth part of an inch in a thousand years. Precision. Oh, I hear people talk every day as though things in this world were nt looso ends. Cholera sweeps over Marseilles and Palerino and Madrid, and we all wonder if it is coming to America, ana 11 it is going across Europe. "Well, that entirely depends," says some one, "upon the quarantine regulations." "Well, that entirely depends," says some one, "on whether inoculation is a successful experiment." "Well," says some one, "that entirely depends upon whether we have an early or late frost" Cholera iust tumbled into the world and it goes rolling over tho nations, and it is all guesswork as to where it shall strike, and it is awful and appalling perhaps. Has it over occurred to you that God may have had something to do with it; that perhaps His mercy may have protected us: that perhaps uoiv we really may bo as much indebted to tho Lord as wo aro to tho quarantine and the health officers. It was right that we | should have continued precaution, but there has coino enough maccaroni from Italy and enough grapes from South France, and enough rags from foreign tellerdemalions, and thore might have beonin these articles of transportation onough cholera germs to have sent all Brooklyn weeping to Greenwood,and all Philadelphia weeping to Laurel Hill, and all Boston weeping to Mount Auburn. I thank the doctors, I thank tho quarantine officers; but more than all, and first of all, and last of all, and all the time, I thank God. PreS cision, precision or Providence. la tho G.OOJ rears of the world's existence there has never been one event that merely happened so. God is not an anarchist, but a father as well as a king. Little Tad, son of President Lincoln, died, and all the land wa3 sympathetic with that sorrow in the White House. That lad used to run into the cabinet session, and he saw his father and the eminent men of the land discuss the questions of national existence. God is dealing like a razor skillfully swung, cutting that which ought to be cut and avoiding that which ought to be avoided Timepieces often strike wroner, and they strike one when it is two and they strike two when it is three; but God's clock always strikes rightly, and when it is twelve it strikes twelve, and when it is one it strikes one, and the seoond-hand is as accurate as the minute-hand. I preach no fatalism. I preach good government, fatherly government, divine government. Precision. Precision to a hair-breadth. That is the teaching of my text. But I find also in my text that the Lord sometimes shows motives. "In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired." With one cut he went clear across the land erf Judah. In 1862 God shaved this nation. We had allowed to grow in this country oppression, Sabbath-breaking, fraud, uncleanness. and all forms of turpitude. The North had its sins, the South had its sins, the East had its sins and the West had its sins. God warned us, but we did not heed. Then the sword of war came and cut clear through from tho St. Lawrence to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic beach to the Pacific. The pride of the land, not the oowardice, but the heroes on both sides went down. We thought it was the sword of war. No, it was the Lord's razor. In 1863 it swept across the land again, ? J_ * 1 i.1 4.U . in loos again, m j.000 uguui, uua uucu uu? terrible instrument was put up and put away. But, my friends, if we ao not quit our inai* vidual and national sins the Lord may again take us in hand. He has other razors beside the razor of war. Epidemic, flood, draught, plague, locust and grasshopper, or our over towering prosperity as a nation may excite the jealousy of all the great nations of Europe and of Asia, and if all the great nations of Europe and Asia in jealousy against us should corao up, what a power! Our nation is so easily approached from the north, and so easily approached from the south, and so easily approached from the Atlantic beach and from the Pacific beach, that if the great nations of Europe and Asia should rise up, what a hostility 1 Insulted China, outraged Cbina, the wealthiest land on earth, as shall be proved when her resources are fully developed?China, insulted Cbina, will, after a while, have all the modes of modern warfare, and may at the Golden Gate be discussing the question whether Americans must go! I pray God there never may be such a combination of the great nations of Europe and Asia against us; but I only say this to show you that as Assyria was the hired razor against Judah, and as Cyrus was the hired razor against Babylon, and as the Huns were the liirivl form, norftinct.f.ho sn ftnd maV filld a hired razor with which to chastise us if we do not give up our individual sins our national sins and turn unto the Lord. In 1870 Germany was the hired razor with which the Lord shaved France. England will be the hired razor with which the Lord will shave Russia. But nations sometimes repent, nations will repent in a day, and I pray God that by a sudden coming together of all nations, of all lands on both sides the Atlantic, all national calamities may be averted the world over. But do not let us by unrighteous enactment at Washington, or by baa lives among ourselves defy the Almighty. One would think that our national symbol, the eagle, might sometimes suggest to us another eagle, the eagle that ancient Rome carried as its staudard. That eagle, that Roman eagle atone time clutched in its talons Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Dalmatia, Rhoetia, Novicum, Pannoma, Moesia, Dacia, Syria, Greece, Asia Minor, Thrace, Datra, Marcedonia, Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt, all Northern Africa, all the Islands of the Mediterranean?indeed, all the earth that was worth having. One hundred and twenty millions of subjects under the wings of that one eagle. Where is she now i Ask Gibbon, the historian, in his prose poem "Toe Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Ask her gigantic ruins, straggling their sadness across the centuries; the screech-owl at tho windows from which the eonauerors of the whole earth looked out. Ask the Day of Judgment when her crowned debauchers, commanders and Pertinal and Caligula and Diocletian shall be called to# answtr for their infamy. Oh, as individuals and as nations let us repent and depend upon a pardoning God rather than upon any past success as an immunity. Of fourteen of the greatest battles of the world Napoleon had lost only one before he lost Waterloo. Pride goeth before destruction, and they often ride in the same saddle. Once more, and more than all, I want you to notice in this text that God is so loving and so kind that when it is necessary to cut He has to go to others to get the edged, the sharpest edged weapon. "The Lord shall shave with a razor that is hired." God is love, God is pity, God is help, God is shelter, God is rescue. If you want.balm for wounds, Ho has it. If you want salve for blind eyes, He has that. If you want a helping hand, He bos that. But He has no sharp edges about Him, no thrusting points, no instrument of laceration. When in His Providence it is a dire necessity that He cut, He goes to others to get the sharp edged weapon. The Lord shaves with a razor that is hired. Ah! this divine geniality is no surprise to you who have pondered the Calvarian massacre, whoro God submerged Himself in human tears and crimsonod Himself from punctured arteries,and allowed the terrestrial world and the infernal world to maul Him until it was necessary to turn out the chandelier of the sky, because the universe could not staud the inrlHrancv. Illustrious love that must have been that brought Him out as our substitute, and caused Him out of the blood of His heart to pay the crimson price for our admission at the selestial gate. Henry II. crowned his />wn son, and on the day of coronation the king, the father, put on the garb of a servant and waited at the table, and waited upon his son, and all the princes were amazed. But i hear the more wondrous story that the king of beaven and earth this day offers you, His child, a crown of life, and offers as a servant to bear your blessing. Install that love with everything best in painting, in sculpture, in music, in architecture, in worship. In Dresdenian gallery let Raphael hand Him up as a child, and in Antwerpian gallery let Rubens hand him down from the cross as a martyr, and let Handel mako all his oratorios vibrate around that one chord. He was wounded for our transgressions and He was bruised for our iniquities, bat not until all the redeemed i??v,,i fpAm th? mountains of L'llUlt) uuiug anu ?v>u the piled up galleries of the ransomed shall be reflected the wonders of redemption not until then shall man or seraph, or archangel understand the height, the depth, the length, the breadth of the love of Goa. The monument in the capital to the one who did more than any other man for the achievement of our "American independence- that monument was going up at the capital scores and scores of years, and many of us were discouraged about it, and said the work would never be done; but whon at last in the presence of the officials of the nation, that monument was pronounced as completed, how glad we all were. But my friends, the monument | to Him who suffered for the eternal liberation of the human race will never be comI pleted. It has been going up for many ages, j this monument. Exangelists and apostles { and martyrs have added to the heavenly pile, j Everyone of the millions of souls gone up to elorv has made contribution of gladness. Weight and glory swings to th*. ?op of weight . and glory. Layer of hosanna on layer of hosanna. Higher and higher up as the centuries go by, higher and higher up as whole miUftniuma Dass. Sapphire on the top of jacinth, sardonyx on the top of chalcedony, chrysoframs on the top of topaz, until far beneath are domes and towers and walls and the great capital, the monument forever and forever, rising yet never, never done, unto Hira who hath loved us and washed ua from our sins in His own blood and made us kings and priests unto God and the lamb. Hallelujah, ameu! GROW.X. Sho is a woman grown, to-day; It seems but yestermorn That she lay sleeping in my arms A tiny babe, just born. And now she's grown to womanhood, To beauty rare, my pet: Her heart is 'stowed upon young Joan And his upon Janet. I nope tnat int'ji uuij utr, But, oh, it grieves me sore That she?my babe 'til yesterevo? "Will be my babe no more. She is a woman grown to-day, Yet scarcely out her teens; Too soon, too soon my child is grown, Too soon her heart is Jean's. ?Flora N. Montgomery. MORNING SONG. J Turn thy face to me, my love, I I come from out the morning; r.irn +h-cr Vmnri to ma mtr lnvo I'm dewy from the dawning. j| Touch my lips with thine, my lore, * 'M I've tasted air at daybreak; Gaze into my eyes, my love, 1 At the sky's waking they wake. | Oh, golden wave upon thy brow, g Oh, color of thy smiling; I Oh, glance of eyes that like the stars Lead through the world's beguiling! ?HarperWeekly RELIGIOUS READING, .8 Doofdlns-Doinsi a It is always well when one decides -V.IeM to do a right thing. But decision by Itself alone is worthless. Decision 1 must be followed by doing, or nothing I is accompnsnea. iu? pruuigui w mo far-off land among the swine said, "I J will arise and go to my father." That ^ was a right decision, one that it would . ?| have been grievously foolish and wrong for him not to make. But that 4 decision, by itself alone, still left him I in the far-off land among the swine. I It was when the decision was followed j by doing that "he arose and came to ; '3^ his father," leaving the land of his ||| misery and the brutish companions of - 41a his hunger behind him. j A great deal is gained when tho 1 convicted sinner decides to turn to J Christ. Until that decision there is I no hope of pardon. It is a decision | reached under the impulse of the di- j^S vtna Grkirlt ?"NTn man ran sav that . Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." It is the great preliminary step. But there must be the doing of j what is involved in the decision, or it | is void. The prodigal must set out on j his journey, as well as decide to ariso There is in some casos great , danger that men will rest in what they call 4|| their decisions, and not take the nec- I j essary steps which those decisions in- | volve. The result is, of course, disastrous. It is not enough to resolve to be a Christian. One must be a . 1 Christian. That is to say, firmly resolving, in humble dependence upon divine grace, to live the life of a child of God, the believer must go* for- <f| ward d%y by day doiDg his Heavenly Father's will. The Christian life does^jJe^S| not consist in mer? resolutions, though ^ they may be the beginning. The . . -I'M Christian life is living. j There may be some of our readers \ who are thinking seriously of their '/A souls' condition. They may be wish- ,|$1 ing that they were Christians. ros- :.~*a sibly they have got so far as to resolve | to be Christians. But the work is not ? complete till, day by day and duty by ~ duty, they are living the Christian life. ,&afi Resolutions, decisions even, that Qpd in themselves, are useless?worse than _ ^ useless, because sometimes proving the ^ flatterers.that lull and bind conscience. i If they are to avail, they must lead to vvjlH action. If you say, '*1 will arise and go to my father," let it also and im- iql mediately be said of you, "And h$ arose and came to his Father."?Messenger. +< The City or God. My friends, it is a sweet and lofty thought that, if we are Christian disciples, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, we need not fear lest the | good promised for us in the Scripture . should not be realized. I think we do fear it. We believe that there may be -? advancement there to the society of elect spirits, and larger knowledge andsweeter purity, but when we read of the wonders of the heavenly city, it seems impossible that they can bo for us. Unreal they seem; fantastic, fan- : ciful, a poetic dream, and not descriptions of a transcendent and tangible fact. We sometimes see some image of the city of God in the splendor of the sunset. We sometimes seem to ^ ^ catch just a glimpse, but it disappears, and we come back to the thought that '"*<3 it is too vast and too glorious to be such as that. O my friends, but re- ;v?| membe.' that it is the city which God .'-y hath prepared for them that love I him. And then let the energy of human action encourage us. How men pre- ?^ pare their cities! "With what lavish expenditure of thought, and labor,and treasure, and life, to build the piers and palaces along the shores and the ' I -~j * ? great streets or warenouses, auu temples for their worship, and the libralies, and the galleries, and the public halls, till at last you have Venice on her lagoons, Queen of the Adriatic, beautiful as a dream, solid as mountains; Naples along her placid bay. Home along her seven hills, Florence on the Arno, Vienna on the Danube, Paris, London, the great metropolis of the English-speaking peoples of the world,with treasure hoards immeasurable. How men have prepared this city we are now in. After the great > fire what sumptuous and splendid resi- - ? dences, what" rehabitations for your traffic! Shall God, then, not adorn a city by his omnipotence? With the instrumentalities at his command what shall it not bel I do not marvel that all conceiveable beauties are there blended and combined. I do not marvel at any description of the palaces, since it is he'that buildeth the city. The texts which seems to have fallen from the sky like fragments from the jasper walls and the golden pavements, and that Hash before mo as I read them with almost blinding refulgence, do not tell me too much of that city of God. No, rather I get my brightest visions of it not from any texts, but from the cross of Christ. I know the glory above is to be measured by Vi/i nirtftm nf Pflluurv T knnw that*. tUC ^IVVUi Vfc 'I - ?? that transcendent sacrifice was for an end so august and immortal that it passes all computation and transcends all human thought They have the gates of pearl and the streets of translucent gold, and the sea of glass mingled with fire, and the rainbow like a halo roundabout the throne. They are all real to me because God has built them. My friends, the ex- ? pectation of that, let it be the inspiration of our life; the fulfillment of that trust, let it be the glory of our immortality. Let every one of us be so earnest and alive in God's service in the earth that we may join in the worship and the songs of that immortal city, and forever and forever more as we enter into its berfect blessedness our ^ words shall be in that heavenly consummation, the words of him who v spake in the Hebrew tongue, "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes."?Kev. Dr. Starrs. J