DEACON MUNROE'S STORY.-N. S. EMERSON. Yes, surely the bells in the steeple Were ringin'. I thought you knew why. Some twenty odd members, I calc'late, Beside him, his wife, aged fourscore, And long ago laid on the shelf, Had wedged herself next; and beside her The meetin' was soon called to order, The parson looked glum as a text; We silently stared at each other, And every one wondered, "What next!" When straightway uprose Deacon Hartley; His voice seemed to tremble with fear As he said: "Boy and man, you have known me, "And you scarce may expect a confession The winter went by long and lonely, "My children were wilder than rabbits, "She had only run in of an errand; "So the summer went by sort o' cheerful, I was tired with my day's work and sleepy, ""Twas just then I heard a soft rapping, "So I staid here to-night, to get breakfast; What a nice little man he will be!' "Her arms were both holding the baby, Her eyes by his shoulder was hid; But her mouth was so near and so rosy, That I-kissed her. That's just what I did." Then down sat the tremblin' sinner, The sisters they murmured "For shame." And "She shouldn't oughter a let him. No doubt she was mostly to blame." When slowly uprose Deacon Pryor. "We've heard brother Hartley's confession, "And if my house needed attention, And make the place seem more like home; But cried out at midnight and woke me, "And if Patience came in to hush him, Perhaps, then, the matronly sisters The solemn old bells in the steeple Were ringing a bridal to-day. -Appleton's Journal LITERARY PURSUITS AND ACTIVE BUSINESS. A. H. EVERETT. Heed not the idle assertion that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life. Reject it as a mere imagination, inconsistent with principle, unsupported by experience. Point out to those who make it the illustrious characters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes forging, by the light of the midnight lamp, those thunderbolts of eloquence, which "Shook the arsenal, fulmined over Greece, To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne." Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Cæsar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from heaven and the sceptre from the hands of the oppressors. Do they say to you that study will lead you to skepticism? Recall to their memory the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure? Tell them they are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. Repeat to them the ancient apologue of the youthful Hercules, in the pride of strength and beauty, giving up his generous soul to the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in the wrong with Plato, than in the right with Epicurus. Tell them that a mother in Sparta would have rather seen her son brought home from battle a corpse upon his shield, than dishonored by its loss. Tell them that your mother is America, your battle the warfare of lips, your shield the breastplate of Religion. ARTEMUS WARD ON WOMAN'S RIGHTS. C. F. BROWN. I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day last seeson, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a deppytashun of ladies came up & sed they wos members of the Bunkumville Female Moral Reformin & Wimin's Rite's Associashun, and thay axed me if thay cood go in without payin. "Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in." "Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimin- -a tall and feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton umbreller under her arm-'do you know who we air Sir?" "My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that you air females." 'We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman-"we belong to a Society whitch beleeves wimin has rites-which beleeves in razin her to her proper speer—whitch beleeves she is indowed with as much intelleck as man is-whitch beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed-& who will resist hense4th & forever the incroachments of proud & domineering men." Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabed me by the coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly over my hed. "I hope, marm, sez I, starting back, "that your intensions is honorable? I'm a lone man hear in a strange place. Besides, I've a wife to hum." "Yes," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she never dream of freedom-doth she never think of throwin off the yoke of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself? -Doth she never think of these here things?" |