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POTTS of course she reads a neat _ tramps. Tramps are the salva- of the daily papers. Without them would the "items" come from? It is rather late in the year for women be murdered in the woods--the ^vould-be murderers had rather sit be- fide glowing anthracite and smoke 3i>^phcir pipes, while the mercury is below ' iero; but tramps still flourish. v "•? Mrs. Potts, ever since the tramp dis­ ease broke out, has felt sure that she .-was to be the victim of a tramp. Every night, after her back hair is -<loue i»i & frog, and her front hair is gut up on crimping-pins, she travels -0ver the house, and looks in the closets, and under the beds and shouts up the attic stairs, in a very brave tone of . iMce: "If you are up there, you rascal, gbarch down here, or Fll fire!'* " The rascal had never responded: and few night ago * plan was formed in '•<&y head. Mrs. P. has always declared that she "ffeuld not hesitate to kill anybody that •she found prowling among her house- Ikolcl gods, and I have thoroughly dis­ believed it. 1 have always considered her a coward. She screeches at sight of a mouse, and a toad in the flower- Sirden will drive her almost into hys-rics. Kill a tramp, indeed! I ment|pned my plan to Furdy, and borrowed some of his old sailor clothes to perform my part in. Purdy used to jdow the briny deep after whales. I had a talk with Mrs. P. that day .about tramps. She talked well, but when I didn't take much stock in it. I told her I was going over to Carlisle -.after some workmen to fix the leaky foof of our domicil, and that I should atay all night at Aunt Polly's, if she Wasn't afraid of being left alone to the •mercy of the tramps. She laughed in a scornful way, and aaid if any tramps came round her they'd get their come-appance. •i What that means 1 don't exactly fcnow--I've never been to college, and jdpi not a man of letters. But she looked desperate when she «aid it. I did not leave town, but that night, about tea-time, I let myself into my own house like a thief, and crept np in­ to that attic, and hid behind a row of barrels. Purdy's clothes were hot, and the at- 12c was stifling, but I judged I could •stand it until the time arrived for Mrs. P. to go her nightly round should ar­ rive. Very slowly indeed the time passed, |but at last I heard her opening and shutting doors, and directly she Shout­ ed up the attic stairs: ^ " Are you up there, you rascal? If You are, march yourself down here, or #11 tire!" 'Tm here!" said I, in a voice which Was entirely different from the wonted telodious accents of Potts, and down e stairs I tumbled, two at a time. I expected she'd screech and run, but didn't! She stood firm. She braced herself and grabbed me tone leg as I came down, and if I is to die I couldn't help myself. She dragged me to the top of the cellar atairs, and then says she: "If you've got any prayers to say, , <%e about it! ana be lively, for I an go- viig to drown you in the cistern!" ,1 " You go to thunder!" says I, more * -^forcibly than politely, and I kicked at u*£ker, and hit the side of the house ittr sttead, and almost fainted right in my « Uracks, for that com of mine on my #big toe got the whole force of the blow. It maddened me. It would have had (he same effect on a minister! If I rere asked what would soonest rouse the lion in the nature of man, Ishould "reply, a blow on his sore corn! . I wrenched myself from the grasp of Araminta Maud, and fled like a young gazelle up the front stairs. At the back ; stairs she headed me off. "No, you don't!" she remarked, as s«he fixed her slender fingers in my ebon flocks, and dragged me back to the kitchen again. I jumped over theta- ble and got behind the cooking-stove in a corner. She told me to come forth, or take the consequences. I declined to make jmy debut. Then, the consequences came. They came thick and fast. A soup tureen, a pan of boiled potatoes, a hunk of white-oak cheese, a preserve- kettle, a basket of chips, what coal 'there was in the hod, and likewise the •hod, a pair of defunct ducks intended for the morrow's dinner, a packet of -red pepper, which burst and fell on Ithe stove, and a " rising" of bread, which hit me square in the face, and •effectually closed my eyes on sublunary things. I was mad. There is.no use in dis­ puting it, and I leaped forth froin my In mv mind's-eye I could see plainly the flaming paragraphs with wiich the papers would head their aooounts of the crime. I felt faint and sick. I con­ cluded to seek refuge in flight. But I wanted something to eat* first. I stole cautiously down cellar, and had just got at the peach preserves and fruit cake, which are only brought out for company, when I heard the door slam to, and the bolt slip into the socket I knew then that my wife still lived; and I was a prisoner. Then I heard my wife tell the cat-- she talks a great deal with the cat--that she was going to Purdy's to stay all night, ana in spite of my frantic ap­ peals to her to let me out, she went. There was no way out of the cellar except by the door, and I was in for it. If I were going to choose a life occupa­ tion, I would select wood-sawing in preference to tramping it. I laid down in the asn-bin as the soft­ est place, and had a troubled night of it. I repented in dust and ashes. In the morning I felt sore and stiff, and my nose running over with sneeaee; 1 thought I should raise the roof with'em. Nobody came near me. I veiled till I was hoarse. Then I got mad. And I vowed to eat ujp every grain of that fruit cake, or perish in the attempt. I did it. I would get even with Araminta Maud somehow. Then I took her oleander tree, which is the apple of her eye, and which had been put down cellar to keep from freezing, and I made a cane out of it, and put the roots of it in the cistern to wash the dirt off. About that time I heard somebody open the cellar door. I made a dive for it and met Araminta Maud, with the coal-scuttle, going after coal.. "Good-morning, Potts," said she, in her quietest tone of voice. " I hope you rested well. You had better take Purdy's clothes home to him before you eat your breakfast." "For the good gracious sake, Mrs. P.," says I, "how long have you known it was I?" 'All the time," says she, "You dratted old fool! did you suppose you could palm yourself off on me for a tramp? I know you too well. You was never more than half-baked!" And she went on her way after coal. Purdy asked me about the success of my enterprise, but 1 asked him not to speak of it. I showed him my bruised and scratched face, and represented to him that there are some things a man cannot talk about--too harrowing to his feelings. I tremble when Mrs. Potts shall dis­ cover the loss of the fruit-cake and pre­ serves, and the destruction of that ole­ ander. I am afraid it will be hot for Potts.--AT. Y. Weekly. • fa entrenchment, and seizing Mrs. Potts by the shoulders, I forced her into the pot-closet, and locked her in. Potts to -pots! To my utter surprise, she made no outcry. Not the slightest. It was so unlike Araminta Maud that I could not understand it. She usually made noise enough on any occasion. "Good Heavens!" said I, "it can't <be that I have killed her!" The closet was tight, I knew; but surely not enough so to suffocate her. But why did she not scream out? I never had dreamed that Araminta Maud ^ could be placed in any situation where' she would not use her tongue, unless she were dead. And if she were dead, then I was a widower, subject to have old maids a w??ws £e^ng sweet on me. There was Widow Hackett next door. She has had ^ designs on me for five vears! Every tini* Mrs. Potts complained «f i-Bwelliwiss, Wiuow llaAutt re­ newed her age. We used to be lovers in the halcyon days of youth, and the is widow, confound her! won't forget it I shuddered to think that if Mrs. F was / >dead, then the widow would have a -right to go for me, and what should I do? I had sooner die than marry her # ^iV^i "Araminta! Araminta Maud!" cried f 1, afraid to open the door lest she might ' t lie a cold corpus. No living voice replied. I was a murderer! Then the papers Would ring out with it: "Another wife murdered by her hus-v band! Preparations to lynch the villain! m- it Talking Across the British Channel. ON Saturday last some further exper­ iments were carried out on the tele­ graph cable connecting St. Margaret's Bay, near Dover, and the Village of Sandgatte, on the French coast. The Mayor of Dover and several other gen­ tlemen connected with the town drove over to the bay and assembled in the little telegraph hut erected on the beaeli within a few yards of the shaft of the borings connected with the proposed channel tunnel--a gross and material way of connecting the two countries compared with the delicate communication we were about to estab­ lish. Mr. BoYdeaux, the Superintendent of the Submarine Telegraph Company, at once established a communication with the opposite coast, and, at his request, conveyed by an ordinary pocket telegraph in-strument, the telephones were attached to the French end of the cable, and, in a few minutes, we were conversing across twenty-two and a half miles of wire at the bottom of the sea. The portable instruments, made in polished mahogany, and in shape like a cham­ pagne glass without a foot, were used. By placing one to the ear, and speak­ ing into the cup of the other, a continu­ ous conversation was kept up without difficulty. Although the wires were being used on the ordinary business of the station, and the clickings of the Morse instruments being worked at Dover and Calais were going on all the time, yet the voices could be plainly heard and the tones distinguished. The songs sung in that little wild hut on the French coast were reproduced note for note and word for word, piano and forte, like the distant murmur of a shell--a small far-oft' voice--in that, in which we stood. "Star of the Even­ ing" and "Auld Lang Syne" came rolling across that rough and stormy Channel, down which ships were stag­ gering with shortened sails, and through that tumbling surf, without the loss of a tone or a note. Whistling was tried with equal success, and the tunes were equally distinguishable with the songs. It was suggested that the pop­ ping of a cork might be made out, and our French friends were asked to listen attentively to what would happen. Un­ fortunately no bottles were at hand, but a reverend gentleman equal to the oc­ casion put his finger into his cheek and admiraDly itnitated the drawing of a cork. "You have just drawn a cork," came the voice from the other side, with just a shade of melancholy in its tone. A hearty laugh was raised by this mistake. After thanking our friends for their songs and other efforts to amuse an audience so far off, Mr. Bordeaux gave a short lecture on the construction of the instrument, and the party separated much impressed with the success of the experiments and of the important part it is likely to play in the communica­ tions of the future. At present it is clearly useless for military purposes, as the most perfect stillness is necessary not to drown the little voice.--London Times. [ TH* black bear that lately hung in front of Moynahan's Kestaurant, at 19 Park Row, has a history. Recently, that bear was roaming in the forests of Sullivan County, N. Y. Dave Avery, of the Mansion House, Monticello, was one of a party of deer-hunters that left Monticello to drive deer on the ridges a few miles from that place. Dave was standing on a runaway, blowing his fingers, with his gun cocked, ready to put lead into any buck, doe or fawn that ventured his way After he had stood guard for several hours, a Shawap- gunk mountaineer appeared on the 8C6D6* "ijallo," said he to Dave, "I've bin follenn' a b'ar track f or two days, 'n I can't ketch the b'ar." "I'll give you a two-dollar note to put me on that track," said Dave. The mountaineer jumped at the offer, and Dave forked over the cash; He was put on the track, and the mount­ aineer lent him his dog. Dave followed the dog a mile into a swamp, and began to think he had made & bad bargain, then he heard a noise in the brush.' He was on the left bank of a swamp ran, in an open space in the jungle. He had barely time to turn in the direction of the noise when the blackest kind of a bear came tear­ ing out of the bush straight for him. Dave says ke forgot all about his gun, and made for a chestnut tree that stood near. He had reached the lower branches before he looked around, and then he saw the bear going up the creek as fast as his legs could carry him, and the borrowed dog not more than three jumps behind. Dave thought of the two-dollar note and dropped out of the tree. By the time he had picked up his gun the dog had caught up with the bear, and seized him in the rear. This brought bruin to a stop, and he turned on the dog. Dave ran to within thirty feet of the spot where the bear was trving to get the dog in his " hug," and, taking good aim, let a ball behind the fore-shoulder of the bear. Bruin whisked about and started at full speed up the creek. As he disappeared in the swamp, Dave sent his buckshot after him. The dog followed the bear. Dave loaded ana hurried on, believing that he had in­ flicted a mortal wound. He had no dif­ ficulty in following the bear, as there was a trail of blood through the swamp. It was at least a quarter of an hour before he came again in sight of the bear, and then just in time to see the wounded animal capture the borrowed dog in his grasp and crush him into a lifeless mass. Dave put another ball into the bear, which again started off and disappeared in the swamp. The fate of the dog did not alter the deter­ mination of the hunter to get the worth of his two dollars, and he followed the bear. Not more than 300 yards further on the bloody trail ceased. It had followed the creek closely. Dave stopped, but no trace of the bear could be found.,. The hunter was mys­ tified, but suddenly a loud snort start­ led him, and he saw the head of the bear protruding from a deep place in the stream. His body was beneath the water, which was red on the surface from the blood that flowed from the bear's wounds. The bear did not wait for any overt act on the part of the hunter, but rushed from the water with distended jaws upon his foe. Dave dis charged a load of buck-shot from his gun as quickly as possible, but it had no deterring effect whatever upon the bear's advance. Dave knew that the animal must necessarily be badly wounded and his death only a matter of time. Dave ran as quickly as pos­ sible behind the roots of a fallen tree near by. • The bear followed him so closely that the hunter was unable to escape from the hole in the ground made by the tearing out of the roots before the bear leaped into the depres­ sion also. The distance between the hunter and bear was not over two feet, and Dave thought he was destined to share the fate of the dog. But his shots had been lodged in vital spots of the bear's body, and when the animal alighted in the gulley he fell. He raised partially upon his feet and fell again. At the third attempt he failed to clear his body from the ground. Dave then saw that the animal was in its death struggles. He climbed out of the hole, and in a few minutes had the satisfac­ tion of seeing the shaggy brute stretched dead before him. He turned to the turnpike and met his fellow- hpnters. They followed him to the spot where the bear was killed, and assisted in carrying it out to the road. It was bought by a New York gentleman of the party.--N. Y. Sun. KHify 1 --The day is only a few rods off when the hero who wants to die for his coun­ try won't rush into the army, but will slip down to Chicago and be elected Constable.--Detroit Free Press. --The cash system in business seems to have been highly in favor with the old poets. Young, after thinking over it several nights, wrote: " We take no note of time!"--jr. T. Graphic. the principal offenders--an order which only bv the merest accident failed to effect its purpose. This was too much for the President, and Segura, being sentenced to death by the Military Tribunal, was shot with the other con­ spirators on the 7th of November.--Pail Mall Gazette. J ' J Follow Your Taste.'•' ̂ ' The Force of Habit. AMONG the conspirators shot the other day for scheming the massacre of the President and his Ministers in Guate­ mala, was a young student, by name Rafael Segura, whose skill in forgery is represented as having been surprising. He had forged the signatures of the President and General-in-Chief to vari­ ous fraudulent documents and orders required for carrying the plot into ex­ ecution. On being arrested he was brought before the President, and pleaded in defence of his acts that he was without a father and absent from his mother, and that by promises of promotion under the new regime and of large sums of money, he had been induced to commit the forgeries in question. The President requested him to give a proof of his talent, wnich he di(T by immediately writing an order with the name of the President so ex­ actly imitated that even the President himself declared that unless he had seen it written he could not have told that it was not his own. Thinking that a youth possessed of such gifts might ultimately become a useful member of society and a good servant of the Re­ public, the President told him that he would give him a full pardon, and, further, would, if he wished it, assist him in his career by giving him em­ ployment under the Government. Segu ra, who was barely twenty-one years of age, warmly thanked the President for his generosity, and made the most earnest assurances of good conduct in future. The first use, however, I'e made of his liberty was to forge an or der for the release of Rhodas, onaof •1 " ffft "35?"' A ttfih generally succeeds be^ in the occupation of his natural taste or in­ clination. And this desire or fancy is soon developed in the boy. If he is in­ tent on being a preacher, a lawyer, a doctor or a merchant, it is useless to at­ tempt to make a farmer of him. Let him go. The instincts of his nature teach him' his position in life. A dose view of the world, however, will soon convince anyone that many have mis­ taken their calling. No "matter for that. The man who has failed in his first love would not have been happy had he been thwarted by others early in his choice. So in the various brandies of farm­ ing. Some have a love amounting to almost adoration for fine stock. They love to feed, tend and supply their wants.. They watch with pleasure their developing forms, and look with rapt­ ure into their kind and gentle eyes. They breathe etherial happiness in their presence. Let such men by all means pursue their labor of love. Others are equally as devoted to horticulture. Their thoughts and ambition all tend in that direction. Heaven for them will not be Heaven unless the streets are lined with noble trees bearing ambro­ sial fruits. They dream of wandering amidst gardens of the rarest fruits and flowers. It Would be sacrilege to turn away by force such minds and aspira­ tions from paying their daily devotions to their Goddess Pomona. Such men are blessing the world with their achievements in horticulture. There are others still more etherial in their natures who breathe the lan­ guage of flowers, and are happy only in tneir presence. If a parent discov­ ers this hallowed devotion in his child, let him not by word or action turn him away. " There is a lesson in each flower, • < A story in each Btream and bower; In every herb on which you tread Are written words which, rightly read. Will lead you from earth's fragrant sod To hope, and holiness, and God." It would be desecration to compel such a spirit to feed hogs, raise arti­ chokes or curry horses. They can only be happy in their true element, the one for which they were molded. Let them pursue their sacred calling, and while they cultivate the rose or train the vine, they should sing with that sweet-spirited poetess, Mrs. Hemans: i " Bring flowers, to crown the cup and lute: Bring flowers-the bride is near; Bring flowers to soothe the captive's cell; Bring flowers to strew the bier." There are others who take more pleasure in viewing their broad acres of corn and waving fields of golden harvest. They are as important and as honorable in their choice and add far more to the wealth and material hap­ piness of the world than those whose natures are attuned to finer sympho­ nies. Ceres is their deity, and they would be happy in no other field of en­ terprise. And in this they will be more successful than in others, for they have a love for it. The vegetable kingdom, too, has its devotees. Quench not the spirit. While they plant the tubers or cultivate the vines, the financial view of the sub­ ject makes them enjoy life equal to those who go down to the sea in great ships. Life's struggle and drudgery is a heavy burden at best, and when the boy, man or woman is diverted by pa­ rental force or over persuasion from the natural inclination, labor is ever a burden and life a servitude. And is such a situation muny a noble soul wearing out a strong constitution many times envies blind Samson when he was compelled to grind in his prison- house at Gaza. Consult tenderly with the promising boy--set before him in but not true highly colored pictures the advantages and objections to *the vari­ ous vocations of life; then let him care­ fully select his choice. But impress upon him the importance of. living hon­ estly, industriously, but to aim higher, with a determination to rise 'above all competitors in the quality of his work, and in the integrity, reetitude and vir­ tue of his life.--Iowa Slate Register. Bank of England Notes. FEW of the persons who handle Bank of England notes ever think of the amount of labor and ingenuity that is expended on their production. These notes are made from pure white linen cuttings, never from rags that have been worn. They have been manufac­ tured for nearly 200 years by the same family, the Portals, Protestant refu­ gees. So carefully is the paper pre­ pared that even the number of dips into the pulp made by each workman is reg­ istered on a dial by machinery, and the sheets are carefully counted and booked to each person through whose hands they pass. The printing is done by a most curious process in Mr. Coe's de­ partment within the bank building. There is an elaborate arrangement for securing that no note shall be like any other in existence. Consequently there never was a duplicate of a Bank of En­ gland note, cxcept by forgery. Accord­ ing to the City Press, the stock of paid notes of seven years is about 94,000,000 in number, and they fill 18,000 boxes, which if placed side by side would reach three miles. The notes, placed in a pile, would be eight miles high; or if joined end to end, would form a ribbon 15,000 miles long; their superficial ex­ tent is more than that of Hyde Park; their original value was over $15,000,- 000, and their weight over 112 tons.-- Scientific American. --The best way to mduee sleep is to shut your eyes and think of nothing. An old man told his minister that he did this one Sunday morning while he was preaching, and that it worked ad­ mirably. The minister asked him why he did not think of the sermon, and the old man replied naively that that was just what he was thinking about, and that it was so near to nothing that the difference could not be perceived, qnd so he dropped off into a quiet and refreshing slumber. -Kcligioas. PALMEB'S rm NOOK, o'er Judea! All the air was With the hot pubes of the day's g The birds were silent, and the rill retreating . Shrank in its covert and complained apart, When a lone pilgrim, with his scrip and burden, Dropped by the wayside weary and distressed, Hi* rinkinff heart grown faithless of its guerdon- The city of his recompense and reafc. No vision yet of Galilee and TWbor! No glimpse of distant Zion throned and . crowned! Behind him stretched his long and useless labor. Before him lay the parched and stony ground. He leaned against a shrine of Mary, casting Its balm of shadow on his aching head, And worn with toil, and faint witb cruel farting, Hesighed, " O God! \t liod, that I were dead! "The friends 1 loved are lost or left behind me; In penury and loneliness I roam; These endlesB paths of penance choke and blind me; Oh oome and take thy wasted pilgrim homel" Then with the form of Mary bending o'er him, • Her hands in changeless benedicttan stayed. The palmer slept, while a swift dream upbore him Tothe fair paradise for which he prayed., He stood alone, wrapt in divinest wonder; t - He saw the pearly gates and jasper walls ^ I 5 Informed with light, and heard the far-off thun­ der Of chariot wheels and mighty waterfalls! Prom far and near, in rhythmic palpitations Kose on the air the noise of shouts and psalms; And through the gates he saw the ransomed Na­ tions Marching and waving their triumphant palms! And white within the thronging Empyrean, A golden palm-branch in His kingly hand. He saw his Lord, the gracious Galilean, Amid the worship of His myriads stand! " O Jesus! Lord of glory! Bid me enter! I worship Thee! I kiss thy holy rood!" The pilgrim cried--when from the burning cen­ ter A broad-winged angel sought him where he stood. "Why art thou here?" in accents deep and ten­ der Outspoke the messenger. "Dost thou not know That none may win the city's rest and splendor Who do not cut their palms in Jericho? " Go back to earth, thou palmer empty-handed! Go back to hunger and the toilsome way! Complete the task that duty hath commanded. And win the palm thou hast not brought to­ day!" And then the sleeper woke and gazed around him;. _ Then springing to his feet with life renewed, He spurned the faithless weakness that had .nound him f. And, faring on, his pilgrimage pursued. The way was hard, and he grew halt and weary, But one long day, amid the evening hours. He saw beyond a landscape gray and dreary The sunset iiames on Salem's sacred towers! O fainting soul that readest well this story, Longing through pain for death's benignant Thiuk not to win a Heaven of rest and glory If thou shalt reach its gates without thy palm! --J. G. Holland, in tieribner's Monthly. The Teaching of Christ. NOTHING is more striking in the inanner of our Savior's teaching than the simplicity and naturalness of the metaphors which he employed. They were almost invariably drawn from familiar and homely sources. In this we discover the wisdom of the great Teacher, who thus sought to incorpo­ rate the vital truths of His divine doctrines with the images and objects ever present to the eye and the heart of His hearers. He, in whom are hid­ den all the treasures of wisdom, chose to exhibit them in the guise of the com­ monest natural objects; now illustrat­ ing the general providence of God in the sustenance of the birds, or in the blossoming of the lily, and again teach­ ing the precious lesson of a special divine care in the figure of the falling sparrows. He scattered His holy truths in the seed of the husbandman; enshrined them in the pearls of the merchant;fed them to the hungry in the bread of daily necessity, and to the thirsty in the cool and refreshing water; declared their abundance in the bounty of the great supper, and ttyeir freenesss in the bringing into it of the halt and the lame and the blind of the highway. He^ disdained to employ no figures which could reach and touch the popu­ lar feeling; doubtless because He Knew that great truths conveyed in simple aspects, arrest and impress the mind far more than they do when presented in strange and complex forms. There is a lesson here for all to whom is committed the rich treasure of the gospel^ that they may communi­ cate it to others. The preacher in the pulpit, the tcacher in the Sabbath- School, the wayside evangelist, the father at the family altar, the mother at the fireside, should all alike learn it, and learning it, heed and practice it in their various spheres of duty. Truth, divine truth especially, is too precious in itself to be displayed in a casket whose curious workmanship, or costly embellishment, will usurp the interest and attention that belong to the truth itself. The precious gospel is food for the starving, healing for the sick, life for the dying, and it should be presented at all times in its divine and severe simplicity. The physician, watching eagerly every breathing of his patient, does not choose a gilded cup in which to offer him the healing draught, nor would you put the bread of charity for the beggar at your door upon a silver tray. The glorious gospel cannot be made more glorious, more precious, more efficacious, by all the pomp of imagery and all the affluence of rhet­ oric in which it may be arrayed. Ought we not, then, in setting forth its divine­ ly-inspired truths to our dying fellow- men, to make thgm always prominent, and to be sure that we do so, avoid all curious and obscure and far-fetched modes of utterance.--Chicago Standard. 'f m m. m Mother's Vacant Chair. I oo a little farther on in your house and I find the mother's chair. It is very apt to be a rocking-chair. Slio had so many cares and troubles to soothe, that it must have rockers. I remember it well. It was an old chair, and the rockers were almost worn out; fpr I was the youngest, and the chair had rocked the whole family. It made a creaking noise as it moved, but there was music in the sound. It was just high enough to allow us children to put our heads into her lap. That was the bank where we deposited all our hurts and worries. Oh, what a chair that was! It was different from the father's chair--it was entirely different. You ask me how? I cannot tell, but we all felt it was different. Perhaps there was about this chair more gentleness, more tenderness, more grief . done wrong.. When we father scolded, but mother _ ^ was a very wakeful chair. In the sick; day of children, other chairs could, no# keep awake; that chair always kept awake--kept easily awake. Tfiatcmw# knew all the old lullabies, all4'ill%ose worldless songs which mothers sing tof their sick children--songs in whifthf ilKj pity and compassion and sympatfife^eiSf: influences are combined. That oMfc.* '• chair has stopped rocking for a good| many years. It may be set up In the loft or the garret, but it holds a Queen­ ly power yet. When at mi^ipit yoii went into that grog-shop to get the in­ toxicating draught, did you not hear a voice that said. "My why in there?" and a louder than tl boisterous encore of the theater, if voice saying, "My son what do you here?" And when you went into ,thep house of sin, a voice saying, " What^ would your mother do if sheknew you were here?" and you were provoked at yourself, and you charged yourself with superstition and fanaticism, Ahd your head got hot with your own thoughts, and you went home, and'you went to bed, and no sooner had you touched the bed than a voice said, "What a prayerless pillow!" Man! what is the matter? This. You are too near your mother's rocking-chair. |*Oh, pshaw!" you say, " there'Snol.h- ing in that. I'm 500 miles oft frQm where I was born--I'm 3,000 miles off from the Scotch kirk whose befl was the first music I ever heard." I can­ not help that. You are too near your mother's rocking-chair. "Oh!'*,you say, "there can't be anything in that; that chair has been vaeant a;great while." I cannot help that* It , is all the mightier for that; it is omnipotent,, that vacant mother's chair. It wliis- pere. It speaks. It weeps. It carols. It mourns. It prays. It warns. It thunders. A voung man went of? and broke his mother's heart, and while he was away from home his mother <Hted, and the telegraph brought the son, and he came into the room where she«lay, and looked upon her face, and cried out, " O mother, mother, what your life could not do your death shall effect. This moment I give my heart to God." And he kept his promise. Another vic­ tory for the vacant chair. With refer­ ence to your mother, the words of my text were fulfilled: "Thou shall be missed, because thy seat will be empty." --T. De Witt Talmage. t #o to the Country. , ( THE American *Agri§kUwrist makes the statement that there is , a vast amount of labor which ought to be done, and howls piteously over, the situation. He calls the farmers seri­ ously to account for their negfe&t to employ this labor. Hear him: "The vast field in fact which is opened up by the absolute need for the best and Jhighest culture of our soil, and the most profitable exercise of the farmer's art, one is amazed as he ponders over the results that might and would be attained were all this labor employed and all these improvements set in operation and made. What fruitful fields, where now are barren wastes or worthless weeds; what, wealth, where now is poverty; what populous villages, where now are wretched hamlets; what comfort and enjoyment where now misery and desti­ tution prevail. Here is the labor, and there is the work to be done; what keeps these apart and hinders the de­ sirable result? Certainly, every farmer in the land can do something, at this time to change all this, and hasten the looked-for prosperity." The answer is plain'and easily wider stood. There is already an over-pro- duction of the staple products of the farm, so that farming will not pay hired help. There are occasionally cases where farms pay, and they al­ ways get into the papers as samples of the profits of farming, while a hundred cases of failure in the same neighbor­ hood are never mentioned in the public prints. Let us quote the opinion of Judge Luse, as given at the late Stock Breeders' Association. He stated that farming was in a deplorable condition, traceable to the fact that farmers had to borrow large amounts of money, to pay hands, buy machinery, and the high interest was eating them up. He said one Eastern insurance company had mortgages on Iowa farms to the extent of ten million dollars. This is not confined to the Northwest. It is East, West, North and South the same. For the past ten years farming has not paid, attributable to the low price of produce, the high price of labor, and the intolerable price of agricultural implements. No. The Agriculturist, of New York, need not , expect the farmers to employ all the idle and in­ efficient hands thrown out of all other employments, when our own business is already so much overdf>i|e---Joioa State Register. "FATHER" and "Mother;*" these noble and darling names are conse­ crated by Scripture, and embalmed in our rich English store of poetry and of prose. Ana therefore every lover of the pathos and the power which they contain--every reverer of the associa­ tions which they enshrine* should be­ come as it were a member of a great society for preserving them from the encroachments and inroads of those contemptible and trivial appellations which are more and more gaining ground upon these stately and tender words, and, by degrees, banishing them to books, exiles from the language of our homes. And is not the lightness of speech which obtains in our day, concerning the* venerable relations of parent ana child, partly the cause, and partly also the effect, of those frivolous words which are now, even in the homes of the poor, gradually ousting the graver diction of a less flippant age, and taking the place of the beauti- ful names which combine in themselves both affection and reverence? Two things which, in the most intimate re­ lations of life, should never be di­ vorced; and yet this is done in the case of some of the names which, though sometimes expressing endearment, yet studiously avoid respect.--N. Y. Ob­ server. JL ..,.,