Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, November 22, 1883, Image 1
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VOL. 29. YORKYILLE, S. C? THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1883. ~NO. 47.
Jtletted fuetfg. I
ANISE AND CUMMIN.
BY MARGARET J. PRESTON.
Weary with homely duties done.
Tired through treading day by day,
Over and over from sun to sun,
One and the same small round alway,
Under her breath I heard her say :
"O! for the sweep of the keen-edged scythe, |
O! for the swaths, when the reaping'so'er?
Proof of the toil's success. I titne
Anise and cummin?such petty store!
Cummin and anise?nothing more!
"Only a meagre garden-space,
Out of the world so rich and broad?
(>uly a strip of standing place,
Only a patch of herb-strewn sod
( liven, in which to work for (tod !
"Yet is my hand as full of care
Under the shine and frost and rain.
Tending and weeding and watching there.
Even as though I deemed a wain
Were to be piled with sheaves of grain.
"Then, when the work is done, what cheer
Have I to greet me, great or small ?
What that shall show how year by year
Patient I've wrought at duty's call ?
Anise and cummin?that is' all!"
Turning, I raised the drooping head.
Just as I heard a sob arise;
"Aniseand cummin and mint." I said,
(Kissing her over her aching eves,)
"Even our Lord doth not despise.
"Think you He looks for headed wheat
Out of your plot of garden ground?
Think you He counts as incomplete
Service that from such scanty bound
Yields Him the tithing He has found ?
"What are to Him the world's wide plains?
Him who hath never a need to till
Even one garner with our small gains?
Yet, if the plot is yours to till,
Tithe Him the anise and cummin still!"
Ibc j?t0ru idler.
ONE AFTERNOON.
"I presume," suid the minister's wife,
"you love Icla as though she was vour own
child."
A foreboding of age stuck to Marcia's
heart, as she gathered in the chill with
which the innocent remark seemed shiver
ing. It seemed tb her she turned old in an
instant, as though her face fell into wrinkles
and an impress as of the faded leaf set its
stamp upon her. The sunlight, fluttering
like a wing upon the wall, took a shade less
of gold ; and all the world darkened just so
much, as in the slight moment of pause
Marcia accepted her position, and decided
with a pang to be no longer young.
"I can imagine," she answered, just as
the minister's wife looked up in surprise at
the little piece of silence that had dropped
down between them?"lean imagine," said
Marcia, "how one must, perforce, love an
own child, though that joyous fountain of
pure water has bubbled unseen and uutasted
throughout my life. No; I do not love
Ida, dear enough she is to me, as I suppose
I would a child of my own."
The minister's wife went home, and in
discreet confidence asked of the minister
what provision there might possibly be in
the next world for an old maid whose heart
was filled with children.
After her visitor had gone Marcia went
through the house, looking for the young
girl Ida. The rooms were very dainty and
very pleasant, but to the mistress in her new
mood, seemed a trifle stiff and prim.
"Well,"she sighed softly, "it all partakes
of rne, 1 suppose. Strange that my eyes
should be made to open so suddenly ! I
should have wished the knowledge to steal
upon me gradually and gently, so that I
might have accustomed myself to the truth,
without this shock."
Wherever she found a reminder of J da,
there she thought something bright and
youthful livened and beautified the rooms;
while her own hat hanging in the hall, the
chair she sat in, her work-basket on the
stand, seemed suggestive of her own older
self. It was not pleasant thus to realize the
truth, but to this point must we all come at
last.
Stepping out upon the low and wide veranda,
Marcia could see Ida coming up the
shadowed walk, looking very young now
that Marcia felt the lack ot youth ; she noticed
how young and how sweet. Coming
so out of the distance, her step, though
slow, seemed elastic and full of life, and she
made a pretty picture. Her skirts were<
light and airy, a fleecy drapery half fell,'
half clung around her shoulders, and the
drooping brim of her hat just allowed a
glimpse of her sunny hair. By her side
walked their neighbor, Herman France, and
Ida's eyes were cast down toward the roses
in her hand, never once lifting to meet his
frank yet somewhat dreamy gaze.
A pang was thrust again through Marcia,
and she wondered that she should just be
regretting her loneliness, when she had the
knowledge pressed home upon her that she
was quite neyonu suen gamini auenuoii.
The two were doubtless born for each other,
and the solitary woman on the vineclinibecl
veranda was quick to confess how
well they walked together, how harmonious
they seemed, and what a pleasing contrast
they ottered.
"By and by they will marry," soliloquized
Marcia; "and what more natural or more
to be desired ? Then I shall be truly alone
again, and perhaps 1 had better indulge myself
in a little of that travel which has been
like the thread of a dream running through
my life. Now that I amgrowing old 1 must
take my travel or I shall never have it. I
I had better have taken it younger, perhaps,
as it is, for old bones are weary ones,
and they like resting better than wandering."
1
Marcia was doing a dreadful thing when
she cast herself loose from youth in this
way ; but the trouble was that, in contrast
with the fresh, girlish bloom of Ida, she j
felt her outside body must seem old and :
worn, and that she was bound in duty to j
age her spirits also.
Also unconscious that Marcia stood concealed
by the vines, the couple strolled up
the rose bordered path, Marcia exaggerated
to herself the appearance of interest they
seemed to have in each other.
"I.At ik ^t:iv nut siiirl Mr. France.!
"Every breath is a luxury among these
vines on such a perfect afternoon."
He took off his straw hat as he spoke, and
Marcia saw for the hundredth time how
white and how broad his forehead was, but
she had a peculiar notice for his manly j
strength of teature and outline to-day. She j
admired him more than she had ever done
till now.
"All lovers make such excuses," she murmured.
"He cares nothing whatever about
the luxurious air. He simply wants to be
alone with Ida, and he is afraid they will i
meet me as they come into the house."
Ida's laugh was like a little rill of music,
as she twirled her long-stemmed roses and
replied:
"One may have duties, you know, which
forbid yielding to temptation. I ought to
be practicing this moment, Mr. France, instead
of idly putting appendices to our walk
in this way."
Nevertheless, she swung her skirts lightly
round, and sat down on the lowest step, !
crossing her pink wrists, and flashing up at
her companion through her eyelashes one
of those swift and dar'ng glances in which
innocent girlhood often betrays its innocence.
"I can only imagine you as playing at
duty," he answered lightly. "Surely you
were made to do just what pleases you. No
must ever ought to come into your life, little
one."
"I don't fancy being called 'little one,' "
answered Ida, half pouting. "It's too patronizing
and too tender?a great deal too
tender."
"She is right," thought Marcia, determinedly.
It is eminently proper she should
keep him at a distance. When she is my !
age she will see how right she is."
"It is so easy b? shock a very young per-'
son's sense of propriety by hurting her dig
nity," he answered. "Now when you an
old, say as old as Marcia and I, you wil
wonder how at seventeen you could hav<
put much stress on the term 'little one.
See now, I am twice your age. I am thirty
four, and yet I abate the natural superiority
of ray years, and will ask you to be s<
friendly as to call me my first name wher
you speak to me. Will you call me Her
man?"
"Good gracious!" ejaculated Marcia, un
der her breath. The request seemed to hei
almost as equivalent to a proposal; but no
so Ida. That young lady responded very
composedly:
"Why, yes; Marcia and I always do cal
you Herman when we speak of you to eacl
other."
Marcia shuddered in her lair at this be
trayal; but in spite of the frankness of hei
speech, Ida seemed filled with quick no
tions akin to coquettishness. She player
with her roses, her color coming and going
with her breath, her head dropped in a half
bashful pose; and her shoulders seemeri
prominent to her, now her elbows, now hei
feet. and she recognized each in its turn
Marcia was not well acquainted with young
girls, and she accused this one of "bridling"?"bridling."
Then she wondered
how she could have developed such a feeling
against Ida, and berated herself as a
"horrid old maid."
"I never knew just your relationship te
Marcia," mused Herman, after a pause.
"Not any relationship at all," returned
Ida, warmly. "My father was only hei
step-brother, and that makes it seem the
kinder of her to make me so welcome here
doesn't it? I should have no home were
it not for Marcia?you see I never could say
Aunt Marcia, because she seems no older,
or much older than I. But she is a greal
deal older?she is thirty six. You wouldn'1
believe that Marcia was thirty-six, would
you? She is older than you are, even."
Poor Marcia ! she cowereel among the
leaves, and hot tears came to her eyes. "It
isn't that I'm not willing to acknowledge
myself old," she thought in sobs; "but il
seems so dreadful to tell him that 1 am
thirty-six, in cold blood."
"Marcia will never marry, I suppose,"
Ida gossippecl on, in an airy manner.
"There you may be mistaken, my little
friend," said Herman, languidly; "at any
rate, let us nope so."
"Oh, yes I hope so," assented Ida, biting
her roses.
"Because," he continued, looking at her
strangely, as if to see how she would construe
his words, "as people grow older they
feel the need of husband or wife. It is the
craving for intimate companionship, which
one may put off without being rid of. I)c
you fancy that because I am past thirty
years I shall never offer my ripe love, fearing
it may have gone to decay? Oh no,
Ida. I shall marry some time, though
this is premature confidence, into which
I should not have taken you. 1 may be
denied after all.
Ida still toyed with the blossoms in her
hand, as Marcia stole away on tiptoe, blushing
at herself to have been an eavesdropper
thus far into the conversation, and certain
that she ought at any rate to leave Herman
to approach the momentous question without
other listener than Ida, believing that
having gone so far he was sure to do so.
"He should have asked my permission,"
she thought, indignantly. "Since I am old
to Ida, my years should be respected. Yet
I remember now," and she warmed toward
him unconsciously, "that he seemed to
make nothing of my being thirty-six ; and
to be sure, I may marry, as he said." Then
she tossed her head, and laughed in a little
tri/.L-ln nf ninii?ompht "fill what, lion
sense!" she exclaimed within herself; but
she felt scarce so old as an hour before, and
she could not deny to herself that she was a
trifle pleased with Herman.
When she reached cover, a pang seized
her again, as she thought of the romantic
two left for a certainty alone with a sweet
breath of imaginative happiness blowing
about them, and she wondered just how
tender the words might be that passed from
one to the other. She would like to hear
Herman pleading and making sweet vows.
Herman had always been pleasing to her,
and she would like to view him once as a
pleading lover, because it would be so new,
and put him in a tender light.
Was it possible to think of Herman in a
tender light? Yes, she could in imagination
hear his voice low and vibrant; she
could see his eyes filled with hope, and hi?
outstretched hand; she could feel the grasp
of his love as it drew its object to itself.
And then she started, and put her hands 011
her burning cheek. Why, what was this?
Could it be that she could fancy it a delight
to know Herman thus ? '*( )h, what a shame
to thrust the confession through her heart
that she loved him! She scourged hersell
with reproaches. She was in her dotage,
she told herself; she was mad; she wa?
worse than a fool.
It was strange that she should have; loved
him and gone on knowing these several
years, and she was not a woman to no violent
in any passion. Her affection had
ripened like a slow fruit in its late season,
that needs but one warm day to bring it tc
its climax. Lo! her climax wits court', and
she stood apart, as a person might, viewing
it with a sort of awe. It was an hour
and more before she was calm enough tc
set about the matter collectedly. During
that hour she owned that she would have
taken Ida's place in that interview with
Herman, if she could, even to the complete
banishment of the young girl. She forced
herself to face 1 >are facts. With a deep sense
of humiliation she realized that she wa.jealous,
maliciously jealous of Ida for the
moment. She felt savage; she felt like overturning
and destroying, like turning and
putting to the trial; and wondered, as from
out of a sort of dream within whose strange
tangle she was inextricably involved. She
laughed and cried, then soothed herself like
a child, bathed her face, smoothed her hair,
put away all trace of emotion, and told herself
she had done with the whole thing,
and buried it as in a grave.
Feeling like a very aged person, Marcia
went down soberly to see after the young
people. She called Herman "young people,"
in her mind. She found Ida alone,
with her roses torn and scattered at her feet.
The young girl sat deep in thought, with
her eyes on vacancy, and she drew a deep,
unconscious sigh, which repeated itself, even
while Marcia observed her.
"I had a proposal myself once, when I
was young," thought Marcia. "Did I look
so lost Mild so sontimontnl jit'tor it. 1 won
der? Hut then, L didn't accept him, and
perhaps that's the difference. Ida must
have accepted Herman."
UI thought Herman was here, Ida." Hefore
she spoke even, Mareia's jealousy was
quite vanished, and she felt her old kindness
toward her young companion return.
"Herman? Oh, yes, Herman was here;
but he is gone now," answered Ida, starting;
and Marcia told herself he had proposed,
and Ida was evasive.
"Come and sit down, Marcia," continued
Ida by and by; then site laughed happily,
and blushed a bit at the secret she held.
"Herman just told me something; but it is
a confidence, mind, and he will tell you
himself whenever there is a best chance.
Hut you musn't hint to him, Marcia, until
he tells you, that I said anything at all."
She looked prettier than ever now, in a
twitter of liveliness.
"Are you happy, Ida in knowing this confidence?
Does it make you happy, dear?"
asked Marcia, soberly.
"Oh, Marcia, Marcia, I do believe you
guess it already. Yes, yes; it does make
me glad." Springing up, Ida crossed the
step, and kissed Marcia extravagantly with
little soft girish kisses, dabbing her lips, her
cheeks, her eyes, her hair, and wherever
else her mouth happened hit.
Suddenly the bitterness descended upon
Marcia again. "They put me aside like an
old woman," she thought, "till 'tis necessary
to speak to me tor form's sake. I'd
scarce have thought that of Herman, aftei
his speaking so kindly of mv being tliirtv
- I six. Well, of course he couldn't be expect- i
3 ed to think of my feelings."
1 "Oh Marcia, tell me, were you ever in j
3 love and what is it like?" said Ida, auda-j
' ciously, sitting down at Maicia's feet, and
- j crossing hands upon the old woman's knee. j
r | "It is the dreadfulest condition," began
> Marcia, and then she bit her silence off at
1 ; its beginning.
"I see you have had acquaintance with !
I it," said Ida, quickly. "And why is i t you
- never married ? It seems so right for you
r to be unmarried, I never thought to ask ;
t before."
j J "I suppose there are many men in this
world, some one of whom I might have
1 : loved and married," Marcia returned, findi
ing a comfort in generalizing thus: "but
providence never threw us into cireum.
stances which compelled love and marriage,
r It is all a happening, anyhow, you know.
. The man chance had in view for me marl
ried some other woman, I suppose, without
r waitiner to see me; and the man 1 might
! j have loved did the same."
[ "() Marcia! how cold blooded!" cried
Ida. "I believe it all a destiny?all meant
to be, and just as sure to come round light
I as the sun is. I wouldn't think otherwise
1 for the world."
I "That's very natural," said Marcia.
"Well," exclaimed Ida, after a pause, "if
l here Isn't Herman comirfg back again!"
Then she fluttered like a bird about to take
, wing, and oscillated from one side to the
other of her percli on the step. "Yes; I
[ think I'd better go in," she said, hastily,
. after watching him a moment. "Don't you
. come Marcia; maybe he's conic back feeling
that ho couldn't wait to tell you." Then
[ she nin away.
r "Very well," Marcia thought calmly, "he
couldn't wait, as Ida says, and he's come
back to ask my consent. 1 shall give it in
as few words as possible, and I hope he
1 will make a few words of it, too." But she
began to tremble when he sat down beside
? her.
The afternoon was falling to its close now,
1 but Herman was either very warm or else
; somewhat agitated.
i "I will wait for him to begin in the way
he pleases. ()f course he can't expect me to
i begin," Marcia said, silently.
"I have been here before, this afternoon,
, Marcia," he did begin presently, but he
- stopped there somewhat uncertainly.
"Yes, I saw you sitting here with Ida,"
. she said, with a sudden resolve to help him
out, and have it over.
"Ida is a pleasant nine giri?pretty, coo,
. don't you think so?" he .. .ked.
The interview was painful to Marcia, under
the circumstances naturally very painful,
and it could not fail to be distressing when
| he praised Ida so openly. So she answered
nothing at all to this. Bysonie imperceptible
motion he was coming closer to her, and
in less than a minute he sat almost next to
her. She raised her eyes to his face and observed
him with a clear gaze. Then he put
! out his hand and clasped her fingers. His
touch was very grateful to her and a feeling
. of pleasant warmth passed up her arm to
the shoulder, but she rigidly repressed it.
1 "He thinks of me as a sort of mother-inlaw,
and he is seeking to propitiate me by
taking my hand. I have heard that men
; try every means to win over their mothers'
in-law," thought Marcia, bitterly. "His
mother-in-law !"
"You need not go on, Herman. I give
mV/mncQiit \t-ifti/?nf *r/?n iisl'hinr fin1 if
: God bless you !"
"My dearest Marcia! You do! How g? >od
; of you to anticipate me!" he exclaimed, and
immediately put his disengaged arm around
her.
She drew back somewhat alarmed at this
strange outburst. "I think," she faltered,
. "Jda wouldn't like to have you hug me that
way." She felt that it was hard that he
should, after all, think she was so old it was
no harm to hug her.
I He laughed delightedly. ""VVhy should
Ida know?" he asked. "You wouldn't tell
her would you, dear?" and he laughed again.
"Of course I shall tell her!" she cried, indignantly;
"and you are beside yourself,
Herman, when vou Say dearand dearest, sir,
I to me!"
"I will speak to my wife as tenderly as 1
like," he said, firmly.
' A light brokelike a broad bar of sunshine
within her. A fragrance exhaled from all
1 the roses at once, and something very beautiful
touched her mouth. Herman had
; kissed her. Suddenly she felt the years
| dropping awav from her like leaves, and
, nut: ivnew tiuvt a new,), gjiunii ium
' leaped to her face. In spite of her, her gaze
dropped, loaded with bashfulness, and her
lingers toyed with the tassel that hung by
, its cord from her waist, as youthfully as Ida
had toyed with her rose. She was in. a
[ whirl, she could not think, and yet she re.
inembered that once she had fretted and
t called herself old. Old? Oh! she had never
been so young,
j "But I am thirty-six, you know. Herman,"
she said, doubtfully and dreading to
remind him.
"No," he answered, holding her at arms
length. "You are but twenty. If neither
[ spirit or body ages, what account should we
take of time ? I do not wish you a day
' younger; you are perfect as you are."
i * "Nevertheless," she replied, half sorrowfully,
"1 shall never forgive myself for hav!
ing been two years old when you were born."
) "It is a sin too small to be forgiven," he
. said, gently.
; "I am afraid Ida would have been better,"
she suggested. "I thought in the first place
[ it was Ida, you know, and that you bad \
asked my consent to marry her."
| He was highly amused. "In spirit and
. experience I am at least sixty years old," he
> i .4.:n 1.: .
t answered, miii hi jus ureamiu^, gi-imc ??,>
"If I had my rights I should be bald-headed
and afflicted with rheumatism. Fancy,
then, my marrying Ida! She is the very
newest of new milk; while with you, Mar,
cia, or at thirty-six, the cream just begins to
| rise."
"I do not feel old?not now." She smiled
contentedly.
A girlish voice wound merrily in between
1 their own.
"I)o you think it is destiny, Marcia, or
; circumstance?" it said; and when they
turned, in some confusion, Ida was standing
in the doorway. "I should judge that Herman
had confided in you!" she continued,
mischievously.
Ti i k Tax Collections.?Despite the bad
crops the receipts from taxes at the State
| treasury, so far, are ?111,000 more than the
j receipts for the corresponding period last
year.
This is a favorable and cheering fact. It
. { shows thatthe people are willing to pay the
| taxes though they have had serious losses
this year, and it shows, too, that there is
,' more money in the State than was supposed, i
|! The farmers must have been in a tolerably j
! strong position when the year opened, and i
| could not have had many debts. This will 1
| j account for their ability to withstand the!
; curtailment of income caused by the short j
; crops of lKS:h?Xeirs and Courier.
Ax Axcikxt Cavk.?We learn from a j
gentleman who has been upon the spot, that
. j in Gaston county, not far from the Wliet'
j stone Mountains, there is a very ancient
| tunnel, supposed to have been made by the
! early Spaniards. The probability is it is
; j even older. It is known to be a full hun'
dred years old by the testimony of aged peo- |
' I pie who were living twenty years ago, who j
I learned from their fathers that the .tunnel
IJ was in their boyhood as it was in their chil1
dron's time.? If "dniiinjtoii Star.
? - j
) fla?- A woman of Atlanta has brought suit
"! for $1(?,(MM) damages against a housekeeper, j
j in whose house she was bitten by a ret. j
1: The actual expense incurred by the injury I
'! inflicted was ?1,100. She wants the ?S,01)0 1
' ' to heal her lacerated feelings.
i sfegf A Philadelphia girl refused to marry a
i young man until she accidentally discovered
that his hair and moustache were dyed.
I | Then she blushinglv consented. She knew
! she could throw that up to him if he ever
i found out that she had a glass eve.
ipstcltactfus Reading.
From the Bible Society Record.
THE DEBT OF LIVING LITERATURES TO
THE BIBLE.
BY PROF. AUSTIN PHELPS, I). I)., FN* "MEN
AND BOOKS."
The debt of literature to the Bible is like
that of vegetation to light. No other volume
has contributed so much to the great
organic forms of thought. No other is fusing
itself so widely into the standards of libraries.
Homer and Plato and Aristotle
were long since absorbed in it as intellectual
powers. This volume has never yet numbered
among its religious believers a fourth
JUU L Ul II1U 11II11 Jill & i <%VATj 11 J icio iv
greater amount of mind than any other volume
the world has known. It has the singular
faculty of attracting to itself the thinkers
of the world, either as friends or as foes,
always, everywhere. The works of comment
upon it of themselves form a literature
of which any nation.might he proud. It is
more voluminous than all that remains to
us of the Greek and Roman literatures combined.
An English antiquarian, who has
had the curiosity to number the existing
commentaries upon the Scriptures, or upon
portions of them, found them to exceed sixty
thousand. Where is another empire of
mind to be found like this?
Here is a power, which, say what we may
of its results, has set the Christian world to
thinking, and has kept it thinking for nearly
two thousand years. The unpublished
literature of the Christian pulpit surpasses
in volume all the literatures of all nations.
"If the sermons preached in our land during
a single year were all printed," says a
living scholar^ "they would till a hundred
and twenty millions of octavo pages." The
Bible is read to-day by a larger number of
educated minds than any other book. The
late revision of the New Testament in our
own language is not yet one year old ; yet
its circulation amounts to two millions and
a half of copies. This sale, unprecedented
in the history of any other volume, indicates
an immense 'reserve of interest in the book,
which, till now, has had 110 such means of
rnt.?
f.X prt" SSI llfjf llAt'll. lilt: mum ui uivj
lisn-speaking races must have been saturated
with Biblical thought, and to a great
extent with Biblical faith, for a long time,
to account for such a phenomenon. Multitudes
are poring over the book, and are
feeling its elevating influence, who never
think of it otherwise than as an authority
for their religious faith.
Our own language owes, in part, the very
structure It has received to our English Bible.
No Englishman or American knows well his
mother tongue till he has learned it in the
vocabulary and idioms of King James's
translation. The language nrst cnrysianzeu
around this translation as the German language
did, in less degree, around Luther's
Bible. In English form the Bible stands at
the head of the streams of English eonquests
and of English and American colonization
and commerce. It must control, to a
great extent, the institutions which are to
spring up 011 the banks of those streams the
world over.
It is interesting to observe how the influence
of the Bible trickles down' into the
crevises in all other literature, and shows itself,
at length, in golden veins, and precious
gems of thought, which are the admiration
of all observers. The late Professor B. B.
Edwards, in illustration of this fact, notices
the following details, viz.: "An essay has
been written to prove how much Shakspeare
is indebted to the- Scriptures. The Bed
Cross Knight in the 'Faerie Queene,' of
Spencer, is the Christian, of the last chapter
of the Epistle to the Ephesians. The 'Messiah'
of Pope is only a paraphrase of some
passages in Isaiah. The highest strains of
Cowper in the 'Task' are an expansion of a
chapter of the same prophet. The 'Thanatopsis'
of Bryant is indebted to a passage
from the Book of Job. Lord Byron's celebrated
poem on 'Darkness' was founded on
a passage in Jeremiah."
Wordsworth's criticism of Milton, that,
"however imbued the surface might be with
classical literature, he was a Hebrew in
soul," is true of very much that is most inspiring
and most durable in our modern poetry.
Wordsworth's "Ode on Immortality"
could never have been written but for the
creative effect upon the poet's imagination
of such Scriptures as the fifteenth chapter of
the First Epistle to the Corinthians and the
eigntn cnuptor oi rne r-.pisue w me jtomuus.
Panthoism lias a cool way of appropriating
a great deal of Christian poetry. Thus it
claims Wordsworth. Hut the most autobigraphie
passages in "The Excursion," descriptive
of the communion of his soul with
nature, could never have been conceived but
by a mind which was permeated by the inspiration
of the One Hundred and Fortyeighth
Psalm.
"In such access of mind, in such high hour
of visitation from the living (tori,"
is the language in which he himself describes
that communion.
Shakspeare's conception of woman is another
illustration to the same effect. l)eQuincey
claims it as an absolute original
by no other genius than Shakspeare. Hut
in the last analysis Shakspeare's ideal is only
the Christian ideal, which suffuses with
refinement our modern life. We owe it ultimately,
not to poetry, nor to the drama,
hut to the Biblical fact of the atonement.
Nothing else has made the conception possible
of a Desdemona or an Ophelia growing
out of a sex degraded in all other than Christian
literatures.
The hymnology of all modern languages
has been absolutely created by the Hebrew
psalmody. The ancient classics have not,
so far as I know, contributed a stanza to it.
Not a line of it lives, through two generations,
in which the genius of the Psalm of
David does not over power and appropriate
all other resources of culture. The old English
and Scottish ballads never exerted on
the national mind a tithe of the influence of
the Hebrew psalm. The commonwealth of
England owed its existence, in part, to the
psalm singing of Cromwell's armies. On
the continent of Europe, also, the whole
hulk of the despotism of the middle ages
went down before the rude imitations of the
Hebrew psalmody by Clement Marot and
Hans Sachs. The battle-song of (lustavus
AUOipriUS WiUS originally puunsneu wmi
this title, "A Iieart-cheering Song of Coinfort
on the Watchword of the Evangelical
Army in the Battle of Leipsic, Sept. 7th,
ltitJl. God with Us."
The Bible has also formed the best standards
of deliberative eloquence in modern
times. The Karl of Chatham was sensible
of his own indebtedness to it. Patrick Henry
and James Otis were often likened in
tiieir lifetime to the Hebrew prophets.
Lord Brougham and Daniel Webster both
acknowledged their obligations to the same
models. Webster was for years the Biblical
concordance of the United States Senate.
His ablest opponents, in preparing their
speeches, used to resort to him to furnish
them with Scriptural passages and metaphors
to point their weapons against him.
Such was hiscominand of thesame resources,
that he could afford to give them liberally,
and without upbraiding.
To all departments of modern literature
the Scriptures have been what they have
been to modern art. It has been said that
the single cnrisrian conception or a virgin
and her child lias done more for the elevation
of art than all the exhumed models of
Greece and Rome. It is a well-known fact
that nothing in art itself succeeded in crushingout
the moral abominations which many
of those models expressed, until the Christian
religion Hooded the whole realm of
beauty with more intense ideas ; so that, to
the purest taste, the Greek Venus has become
imbecile by the side of the Christian
Madonna. So are tire literary models of the
Scriptures working, as gernis of power in
modern literature, beyond the depth of
Greek and J torn an thought in its choicest
and most durable forms.
T will name but one other form in which
the obligations of modern literature to the
Scriptures is illustrated; it is that of the
unconscious debt of infidelity to Biblical resources.
The infidel literature of our times
owes nearly all the vitality it has to its pil|
lerings of Christian nutriment. It lives by
its unconscious suction from Christian fountains.
"The Cotter's Saturday Night" is
not more palpably indebted to the Scriptures
than are sonic of the finest passages j
in Shelley's "Queen Ma!)." The "Paradise j
Lost" and the Pilgrim's Progress," are not!
more really the outgrowth of the old Hebrew
soul than are some of the sublimest
conceptions of Lord Byron's "Cain." No
man could have written "Cain" or "Queen
Mab" whose genius had not been developed
by a Christian civilization, and whose infidelity
had not been fired by collision with
the Kpistle to the Romans." The power to
be so blasphemous grew out of Christian
knowledge ; and the power to express the
blasphemy with such lurid grandeur sprang j
from the culture which Christianty had created.
The atheism of Great Britain, which is
working so disastrously among the artisan
classes of the kingdom, owes its chief resources
of power over the popular mind to
the fact that it holds on to so much of scriptural
thought. Its capital ideas are Biblical
ideas. Strip it of these, and it would
have no chance of a hearing in the workshops
of Birmingham. What else than i
Christianity ever gave to the human conscience
s]>r'inr/ enough to enable it to conceive
of such a thing as a practical religion
without a God? Vet this is English atheism
to-day. It is not vice; it is not conscious
blasphemy; it is not moral nihilism;
it is an aim at morality, moral culture,
moral principle, moral progress, even moral
worship, after its kind?all which it audaciously
proposes to support without a God
for the centre of the moral instincts. When
did the human soul ever before get force
enough of moral instincts to conceive of such
a moral project as that ?
Similar to the lesson taught by the atheism
of Great Britain is that taught by the
most powerful phases of infidelity in this
country. It would be entertaining, if it
were not too painfully solemn to observe the
depth to which Christian thought has penetrated,
and the extent to which Christian
colorings of speech have suffused the culture
exhibited by the most brilliant of the
infidel lecturers and writers among us.
Mark it anywhere on the platform, in the
newspapers, in magazines, in books; the
materials of thought which these men are
wielding, to the saddest hurt of an unthinking
faith, are at bottom Christian products.
Xo other class of literary men are
so profoundly indebted to the Scriptures, yet
so profoundly oblivious of the debt.
Open one of their books, turn to its most
captivating pages, silt its style, weign its
thought, and what do you find of good sterling
worth ? Wherever you find clear ideas
held in honest Saxon grip, you find them
vitalized by something or other which they
owe to Christianity. Here it is a truth as
old as Moses; there it is the power to conceive
of the opposite of a truth ; again it is
an antithesis of half truths; farther on it is
a dislocated quotation, or a warped and
twisted allusion, now it is a fungus overgrowing
a germ of truth which gives it a
power to grow; then it is a Pantheistic turn
to language which Pantheism never origi
miteri, Out WHICH, ill lis original, tnnsuaii
souls love. Even down to the indefinable
ingenuities of style, you find at work the
alert and sinewy fingers of a Christian culture.
The very sentences which express or
imply semi-Paganism in theology, but the
structure of which makes tliem play in the^
very heavens of beauty like the coruscations
of the northern lights, are, as specimens of
style, the product of our Oriental yet Saxon
Bible. Are Confucius, Zoroaster, Socrates,
at the root of the thoughts and the forms
which you feel in such pages? No: it is
Moses; it is Isaiah; it is David; it is St.
John; it is Christ. Take away the elements
of culture which these have contributed to
such literature, and no man would care what
heroes or philosophers might claim the residuum.
The most striking illustration, in my judgment,
which has exhibited the truth of the
fact before us, in our country, it is that given
by Rev. Theodore Parker. For twenty
years the most vital infidelity in this land
was personified in him. He brought to the
solitary altar at which he ministered in
Boston, a generous scholarship, a mercurial
genius, a versatile command of thought,
and a fascinating style. Taking him all in
all, his was a more earnest character than |
that of any other man who has gained any-!
thing like equal eminence in the ranks of I
active hostility to what he called "the pop- j
ular theology of New Kpgland." The puri- i
ty of his life was almost ascetic. For one, I
am compelled to concede the power of the |
man in his lifetime, whatever may be true j
of it now. I do not think that any candid i
man among us who knows the classes of
mind which were reached, and the inomenI
turn given to them, for twenty years, from ;
I that Twenty-eighth Congregational pulpit,;
j will feel, that, as a friend of truth, he can ;
i afford to ignore that power or underrate it. 1
j Hut it was not the power of his infidelity; I
! it was the power of his unconscious obliga- j
tions to truth. His vital and vitalizing!
I ideas were Christian ideas. He owed them j
j to tin; Hook which he disowned. He drank
them in from ail the living literatures which I
he mastered, lie maligned religion as we |
conceived of it. He ridiculed Scriptures
which to us are sacred. He denounced as |
barbaric the ground-work of our hope of j
heaven. He scoffed at our ideal of a He-1
deemer. He uttered words which from our ;
lips would be blasphemy. Vet the interior
forces which bore up as an oceanic ground-1
swell, this mass of error were forces, every j
'?r luliinll (Vnltl tll'lt <M'?>'ltl of ill
1/llt V? 11.111.. P,..Ul,h .. v.... .....V .....
spired thought whose great deeps were broken
up in the civilisation around him.
What were some of those forces? In what
ideas did they find their origin ? They were
' such as these: the fatherhood of (rod, the I
unity of the human brotherhood before God,
. the dignity of manhood, the intensity of I
. life as the prelude of immortality, and more
than all else, the application of these ideas !
to social and national reforms. These were j
the forces which he wielded. Without them
the world would not have heard of him. i
Yet these are, every one of them, Biblical
forces. He owed them to the Christian j
Scriptures, and he owed tiie susceptibility
to them in the popular mind on which he
worked so disastrously to that interpretation
of the Scriptures which has expressed
itself in our New England theology. Thus
it is with every development of infidelity j
which has force enough to make it respeeta-:
ble. It feeds on Christianity itself, and
grows lusty therefore.
-+
How Bananas auk Kaishd.?As everybody
knows who has eaten a banana, the
luscious pulp is seedless. The plants are
propagated from other plants, so that the
stock is not likely to run out. The plant
requires for vigorous growth a deep, rich
soil, abundantly watered. With these eon!
ditions present, there is said to be be no
I risk of a crop in hot regions where alone
| the fruit is produced. Nine months after
w. 1..W. vvl.,?t,w] ..nn.ln hurl
I (I UUllItl^ IlilD UCUII cv
i appears in the center of the unfolding
i leaves that shoot out from the head of the
i parent stem. The stem 011 which the bud
j appears grows rapidly above the main
stalk. As the bud increases in weight, the
j stem bends downward by a graceful curve,
1 on the extremity of which this bud contini
uses to grow still, the purple blossoms fallj
ing off, little shoots appear as the embryo
j fruit. Each fruit lias a yellow blossom at
j its outward extremity. At the end of three
I or four months the fruit has grown to ma!
turity, and is picked long enough before it
'1 is "dead ripe" to preserve it in marketable
! condition. From the roots of the parent
j stalk, other roots appear, which are trimmed
out or left to grow, as the cultivator
may deem best. A single stock, therefore,
bears only one bunch, or crop, as its
life work. Spaniards have a religious rev|
erence for the banana, believing it to be
: the fruit of which Adam partook. The
I fruit has long been regarded as extremely
' nutritious. It is recommended above ail
others for invalids who are unable to swal-;
low harder food. An estimate by Hum-! 3
bolt claims that 14,000 pounds of bananas J ^
can be produced on the soil that would be '
required for 1000 pounds of potatoes, and
that the area that would be required to raise j
wheat enough for one man would produce |
enough bananas to feed twenty-five men.
THE BAPTIST BI-CEXTUNNIAL.
The oldest Baptist Church in the South is !
the First Baptist Church in the city of!
Charleston. In was constituted in l(!83by
Rev. William Screven, who was its first
pastor. Bart of the original members came
from Maine with Mr. Screven and part came
direct from Knghuul. Mr. Screven labored
here for many years and late in life moved
to Georgetown, S. C.. where he died and
where lie was buried. He was succeeded
by such men as Oliver Hart, Richard Furman,
Basil Manly, \V. T. Brantley, N. M.
Crawford, .1. It. Kendrick and K. T. Winkler.
The Church has a remarkably interesting
history. It has lived through wars and
tires and various reverses, n was an organized
body a hundred years before Charleston
was an incorporated city. To give an extended
history of St. Michael's and the First
Baptist Church with their workings, would k;
lie to give much of the history of Charleston.
The Church has had only thirteen pastors.
They now occupy the third house of
worship the Church has owned. Their first Iri
house, a wooden building, stood where the ai
present house now stands. The present tl
house was built in 1821, while Dr. Richard ti
Furman was pastor. The Church has sent >
out over thirty preachers, some of whom are
now the leading preachers of the South. ?'
During the approaching session of the hi
Baptist State Convention, which meets with di
this Church on November 21st, the Church p.
will hold special services celebrating its e,
200th anniversary. Addresses will be made
by Drs. Basil Manly, 11. A. Tupper and J. a
C. Furman. The first two addresses will
cover the history of the Church from its or- ri
ganization to the present time. Dr. Fur- y
man will speak on the Church's connection ei
with the cause of education and missions.
Rev. (). F. Gregory will make an address ^
giving the history of the Sunday-school "
work of the Church. These gentlemen are h<
sons of the Church, two of them sons of for- tr
mer pastors. A short history of this Church t
was prepared a few years ago by the Rev. ^
Dr. Shuck, at that time the pastor, and published
in the "Charleston Year Book."
It is altogether proper for the Baptists of P
South Carolina, who communed with this G
Church and who are now so numerous and ui
influential throughout the State, to mark p
this era in their history by publicly celebrating
the 200th anniversary of this Church.
It is right for a people to gather and pre- ai
serve and hand down history when they "
have made it. As one of our oldest institu- tl
tions, its remarkable history should be pre- ai
served in some more permanent form.? ^
Nem and Courier, 14th. v
+ ? IN
TilK GOVERNOR ANI) THE WARDEN.?
When Houston was running for governor, n<
the warden of the penitentiary bitterly op- q
posed his election. After the election, when .
it was known that the old veteran had been
chosen, the warden became exceedingly 81
friendly. He came to General Houston and tl
endeavored to plead his own cause for a re- oi
appointment. The general received him r(
most cordially and expressed himself as very
much delighted to see him. lie inquired ?
in what way he could serve him. "Well," ^
said the warden, "I came to ask for a reap- ai
pointment." "Ah," said the general, "I t}
am glad you have done so; but what claims si
have you to the position ?" "Well, gover- e(
nor, I have held the place for a number of ,
years, and the prison has greatly prospered :
under my administration. I have main- "
tained the strictest economy in all expendi- ei
tures. I have been honest in all the years I a
have held the trust, and what more can a ti
man present as claims to office than hones- p
ty, ability and economy ?" After the war- '
den had sounded his praise for some time he <"'1
paused for breath, General Houston all the *
time paying the most earnest attention to tl
what he was saying. When he paused, the
I .. .1 1 . nn_
general UAMHI ; 1 uu nave uccn in mm pwsition
a long time?" "Yes, sir." "Certainly."
"You have been economical ?" 0
"I have." "And honest?" "No man can P
question my honesty." "And how many 11
years have you been there ?" "Six." "Six ?
years of faithful, economical honest work in *the
penitentiary?that is a long time, sir. Ci
Well, Mr. Warden, I believe I will pardon v
you out. I guess you have been there long ^
enough. I'll pardon you. Good day, sir."? *1
A iis/in (Texas) Statesman.
Ilow tit H ukvom'tfoxary altmv CEL- (1
khhatkd Pkace.?In an article on the "Last t<
Days of Washington's Army at Newburg," 1:
published in Harper's Monthly, the writer i<
says: Although the first formal celebration h
was to commence at 1? o'clock with prayer, t<
an anthem of praise, accompanied by the q
band, and followed by three hundred huz- t<
zas, the excited soldiers could not wait till r;
then, but ushered in the day with firing of h
guns and shouts and songs till hill and val- I
ley rang again. Heath says that the effect a
was grand when the army, with excited d
voices, thundered forth the anthem "nine- ti
peii(lenee,"*l>y Billings:
"The States, <) Lord, with songs of praise ti
Shall in Thy strength rejoice ; ^
And, blast with Thy salvation, raise i.
To heaven their cheerful voice,"
And from plain and hill-top, field and ?
forest, there rose strong and great against L
the sky,
"And all the continent shall ring,
Down with this earthly king ; j '
No king but (?od." j |When
night came the piles of combustible *
material that had been heaped on the sum- , ^
mits of Berean mountains and Storm King j P
to signal the advance of the enemy were ; ?
lighted up, not to herald the approach of i P
the foe, but blazed from their lofty tops like j 11
great altar fires to the God of peace. i P
- ? a
Politeness and its Place.?Probably "
one-half of the rudeness of youths of this si
day, that later in life will develop into bru- j it
talily, is due to the failure of parents to i a
enforce in the family.circle the rules of! ft
courtesy. The son or daughter who is (lis-' it
courteous to members of the family because {
of familiarity with them, is very likely to j
prove rude and overbearing to others, and I ci
very certain to prove a tyrant in the house- j c<
hold over which he or she may be called ; o;
oil to preside. There is at this day undeni- j y
ably among the rising generation a lack of o:
courteous demeanor in the family. Of all ai
places in the world let the boy understand bj
home is the place where he should speak tl
the gentlest and be the most kindly, and k
there is the place of all where courteous de- i h
meanor should prevail. The lad who is j n
rude to his sister, impertinent to his moth-1 ft
er, and vulgar in his house, will prove a i tl
sad husband for a suffering wife, and a j \\
cruel futher to unfortunate children. The ti
place for politeness, as Kelps puts it, is j gj
where we mostly think it superfluous. ; p
? ? ? *
Till-: Common Schools.?The common ?
people, the backbone and sinew of the State, tj
who are unable to give thotr children a J{.
higher education, are the ones who are to be
specially benefitted by the common schools, i
hot the State, as she increases in wealth and , IV
prosperity, increase the appropriation for
common schools and place the means of a :
common school education within the reach *
of every child within her borders. Let:
those who sneer at the public.schools and ; 111
refuse to send their children to them send i
to private schools, or Northern colleges, if | ^
they choose, but let the State keep up and i
improve her free public schools all the I |l4s
same.?Pickens Sentinel. ' *
? ! p(
Tin.' s;(ii-Tiii.'pvCr>T.finvTi'\ri"rvrnniST>;.? 1 In
In Now York, last Saturday, the Method- sh
ist Missionary Committee voted the follow-1 w
ing appropriations to support the colored ! bi
conferences of the South : Central Alabama j w
$2,500, East Tennessee $2,000, Little Rock | 'C
$.'1,000, Mississippi $5,500, Savannah, $.'1,150, j be
Tennessee $2,7(H), Delaware $1,500, Lexing-; be
ton $2,700, Louisiana $5,500, North Carolina ! m
$2,700, South Carolina $6,000, Texas $40,000, | T1
Washington $2,.'100, West Texas $4,000. ' m
JhHjPpliical fie part went.
HON. SAMUEL J. RANDALL,
X-SPEAKER AND CANDIDATE FOR SPEAKER
IN THE NEXT CONGRESS.
Samuel Jackson Randall is one of the
lany distinguished sons of Pennsylvania,
id is a prominent candidate for Speaker of
le next National House of Representaves.
He was born in Philadelphia, Octo?r
10,1828, the son of an eminent lawyer
' that city. His mother's maiden name
Ml been Ann Worrall, and she was the
lughter of James Worrall, a Democratic
ader in the days of Jefferson, so that the
c-Speaker may be said to be traditionally *
Democrat as well as by conviction a memjr
of that time-honored party. By marage,
Mr. Randall is connected with New
ork State, his wife being a daughter of Gen al
Aaron Ward, of Sing Sing. His first
jsition in public life was as a member of
le City Council of Philadelphia, wherein
s showed marked ability and was soon
ansferred to the Senate of his native State,
lie beginning of the Civil War, in his
lirty-third year, prompted Mr. Randall to
lilitary service in the Light Horse of
hiladelphia. His service under General
eorge II. Thomas for ninety days, and
ncler the command of General Robert
atterson followed, leading to his promoon
first as Quarter-master of his company
id then as Cornet, a rank corresponding to
lat of Captain in the Regular Army. In
le terrible year 18G3, Cornet Randall was
uong the troops advanced to Harrisburg
i the result of General Lee's invasion of
orthern territory.
When General Couch announced to Cor
et Randall, commanding, that Governor
urtin wonjd accept tlie active services of
is troop without swearing its members, lie
lid: "I know we can trust to the honor of
le corps without an oath." In the summer
f the same year, the Coronet made a
;connaissance, in which he captured several
risoners and established the presence of the
onfederates i n force between Cham bersburg
nd Williamsport. Duringthe battleofGetrsburg,
his rank was that of Provost Marlal
of the District of Columbia. He enter[1
the 38th Congress in December, 1863, and
as kept his seat in the House of Represenitivesever
since that time, llehasservi
in the Committees on Public Buildings
nd Grounds, Banking and Currency, Re enchment
and Expenditures in the State
(epartment. Mr. Randall is a ready, conise
speaker, without rhetorical affectations.
Ie was elected Speaker in 1876, and held
le position until 1880.
"Mu." and "Esq."?But now comes anther
of our anomalies, one which greatly
uzzles European continentals, and which is
ot always grasped even by our Ameriin
kinsfolk. This is the nature of the
Isquire. A class of people are habitually
illed plain "Mr." in ordinary talk who
;ould be greatly offended if their letters
ere so addressed. I am not speaking of
iiose who claim a higher adjective uesription.
I mean those who are spoken of
? 4 i> d ii'Ka 5m nntr foi??y?n I
9 iUl', -.'V. i)., mil \>JIU, IIJ uiij ii/iiimi
escription, from the addressing of a let?r
upward, must be described as "A.
I., Esq." In itself, Esquire, like Knight,
> a title, not of office; and it would not
ave been wonderful if it had been cusmiary
to call men "Knight A." and "Esuire
B." But "Knight A." seems never
5 have been in use; and "Esouire," or
iither "'Squire B." can hardly be said to
ave ever been in polite use. Men like
lampden, who would have been ranked
s nobles anywhere out of the British kingom,
were simply "Mr. Hampden," and
lie like.
To be sure "Mr." was then more of a dis- #
inct title than now. I have seen somewhere
in the early records of a New Engmd
colony an order, in which, among
ther pains and penalties decreed against
certain man, it is forbidden to speak of
im any longer as "Mr." Possibly, though
sed to he spoken of as "Mr.," he did not
old the technical rank of "Esquire." For
Isquire is a technical rank, as much as
!arl or Knight; and one odd thing is that
hen the word, in a contracted shape, is
ut before a name, it means something
ilferent from that technical rank. Many
eople put "Esq." after their names, not by
lore assumption or conventionality, but of
erfect right, to whom no living soul would
ver think of "'Squire" before their names.
'Squire A." marks a position which if not
:rictly official, certainly comes very near
?a position which is not held by all who
re described as esquires even by strict
)rmal right.?E. A. Freeman, in Longlon'.y
Magazine.
-
Companionable People.?In every soiety
we find that the people who are called
impanionable are those who have a knack
f making light of their tribulations and
exations, and a habit of putting them out
f sight; and who do not entertain their
cquaintances with the reciting of a bad
aking, a leaky pipe, the children's measles,
le short comings of the servants; who
now how to keep their melancholy, if they
ave any, out of the conversation ; whose
erves do not furnish them with material
>r a morning call ; who are not always on
le lookout for a draught, or a change of
eather, or a slight; who do not lament
leir poverty aloud, and make us feel re>onsible
for it and uncomfortable amid our
lenty. The companionable people never
K?k to make us dissatisfied with ourselves
> our belongings ; they talk about the
lines we like to hear, and are silent upon
le subjects on which we disagree ; they do
differ from us for the sake of differing,
id do not announce their opinions as if
iere was no appeal therefrom.
1ST This pretty story is told of the founder
' the Mendelssohn family. He was a
.impback, and a young Hamburg maiden
jeetedhis love suit in consequence. When
ishing her adieu, she said, "Do you really
link tliat marriages are made in heaven,
i they say?" "Yes, indeed," ho replied;
md something especially wonderful hap;ned
to me. At the birth of a child proc
mation is made in heaven that he or she
iall marry such and such a one. When I
as born iiiy future wife was also named;
it at the same time it was said, 'Alas, she
ill have a dreadful hump on her back!'
>h! God,' I then said, 'a deformed girl will
come embittered, whereas she should be
lautiful. Give me the hump and let the
aiden be well favored and agreeable.'"
ie sophistry had its reward; they were
arriod, says London Society.