ee ae ee ; $2.00 per Annum VOu,.. 1. 'MAL extremes ure error, the pamene of error is 'not truth but re tridh lies between the extr emes." an advance. s STRA'TFORD, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1863. NO. 14, Select Poetry. agony. We shrink from the mournful | the faults: of their neighbors, Innine | Fe heard my Grammer first.' Verbal {denied him alms. They would ' go nn ee ec nated scene of desertion and, death, which | cases out of ten they undertake the knowledge is of little value; unless | to work.' Whoever lends to the lazy, | -- More. than building showy mansions, More than dress and fine array, More than domes and lofty steeples, More than station, power and sway. Make your Home both neat and tasteful, Bright and pleasant, always fair, Where each heart shall rest contented, Grateful for each beauty there. More than lofty swelling titles, More than fashion's luring glare, More than mammon's guilded honors, More than thought can well compare, See that home is made attractive By surrounding pure and bright-- Trees arranged with taste and order-- Flowers with all their sweet delight. Seek to make your home most lovely ; Let it be a smiling spot, Where in sweet contentment resting, Care and sorrow are forgot ; Where the flowers and trees are waving Birds will sing their sweetest songs: Where the purest thoughts will linger, Confidence and love belongs. Make your home a little Eden; Imitate her smiling bowers ; Let a neat and simple cottage Stand among bright treés and flowers ; There what fragrance and what brightness Will each blooming rose display ; Here a simple vine-clad arbor Brightens through each summer day. There each heart will rest contented, Seldom wishing far to roam ; Or, if roaming, still will cherish Memories of that pleasant home. Such a home makes man the better, Pure and lasting its control ; Home, with pure and bright surroundings, Leaves its impress on the soul. The Family Circle. PLLBLL_ILIL__OPPLELOLOPFIIIIPIIIPOPIOOLPLOOPOOw™™ " Gawieel of Gethsemane. A garden ! our garden! Is it not a sacred enclosure from the rough joist- lings and the rude stare of the world? There is shade, shelter, greatness, beauty, retirement, rest. Hard and crooked' as are other roads to our weary feet, the flower-fringed curves and soft quiet of our garden paths bring only peace and sweet refresk- ment. The harsh discords of life die away in the distance,'and we open our hearts to the harmony of bird and bee, of leaf and breeze, and the low, sweet. undertone of God, who is all in all. And yet the world's great sorrow began in Eden, fairest garden in all the world, and the bitterness of the world's redemption was tasted 'in the night hush cf Gethsemane. So our Edens have their stings, our Gethse- manes their shame. No path in the Holy Land does the pious traveller traverse with a more reverend step than the rugged footway leading from the eastern gate of Jeru- salem down the hill-side Jehoshaphat, over the rocky bed of Kidron, on the rising steeps of Olivet, and into the sacred precints of Gathsemane. He finds it enclosed by a broken wall, shaded by eight olive-trees, whose gnarled roots obtrude through the wasted soil, and whose outstretching arms have stood the storms of centu- ries. Here stood the world's Saviour in his deepest agony, ' his soul exceed- ing sorrowful, even unto death.' In the deepest solitude of this spot he pressed the cold, damp earth, and prayed, ' Oh, my Father, if it be pos- sible, let this cup pass from me.' And in the importunate cry of his untold anguish his sweat was as it were great drops of blood. His disciples were with him, yet strangers to his followed. But let us not fear this gar- den of sorrow. .Thongh 'More pangs than tongue.or heart can frame Were suffered there without relief.' yet if we come penitent, believing, loving, adoring, we shall learn there that only through Gethsemane comes pardon and peace, only through the Cross, the Crown. <> Beautiful Reflection. It cannot be that earth is man's only abiding place--that our life is cast up by the ocean of eternity, to float a moment on its waves, and sink into nothingness. Else why is it that the high and glorious aspirations which leap like angels from the temple of our hearts, are forever wandering about unsatisfied? Why is it that the rain- bow and the cloud come over us with a beauty that is not of earth, and then pass off, and we muse upon their faded loveliness? Why is it that the stars, | who hold their 'festival around the mid- .| night throne,' are set above the grasp of our limited faculties, forever mock- ing us with their unapproachable lights? And, lastly, why is it that bright forms of human beauty are pre- sented to our sight and then taken from us, leaving the thousand streams to flow back in Alpine torrents upon our hearts? We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm where the rainbow never fades: where the stars will be spread out be- fore us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings who pass before us like shadows, will stay in our presence forever.--Iilustrated Visitor. ie @®ur Cistern almost full. There is in our house a central cis- tern, supplied from a spring yonder. From that cistern go many pipes, lead- ing to all parts of the house, carrying water to supply all the family wants, If it be nearly full, and yet not filled to the top so as to cover the mouth of the pipes, the pipe will remain dry, and none of the inmates will get any water. The cistern is almost full--a little more would make it overflow-- but for all practical purposes almost full is as bad as having iterrpty. Al- most full, yet the family get none of it. It is not full enough to flow into the branching pipes and gurgle along to the most distant extremities, ready at a touch to pour forth its liquid trea- sures. ' In this image we see why many a Christian is useless in the world. He is almost full, but not overflowing. He is concerned about the great things of eternity ; but he is not so complete- ly filled by the Spirit of Christ, that it flows into all the little channels of his daily life. These, alas, are dry. And yet it isthrough these that the currents of his influence overflow into the hands and hearts of those around him. There- fore, 1eal Christian as he may be, he does harm my misrepresenting Christ and himself likewise; for he seems more empty than he really is. Though not dry, for practical results he is so. Others are not watered and blessed by his influence. Ah, Christian, keep the cistern full. The Detectives of Private Life. 'Set a rogue to catch a rogue' has been a maxim in jurisprudence from time immemorial; but in social life it is unnecessary to set people who are not what they ought to be to ferret ont task voluntarily, and prosecute if, with a zeal and vigilance. that would enti- tle them to honorary medals if they; be- longed to the police. Eyil-minded themselves, they have little faith in the existance of virtue, and taking it for granted that there is 'a skeleton in every closet,' they make. it their business to search for the concealed anatomies, and, if found, to trot them out and shake their dry bones exulting- ly before the public. _ If these self-con- stituted, volunteer detectives are of known bad character, they find no small consolation in the idea of bring- ing others down. to their own status, and seem to entertain the idea that every crime or fault they can fix upon another lessens the magnitude of their own sins. The ordinary scoundrel who discoveres the extraordinary scoundrelism of somebody else, says to himself, complacently, ' Why, this fellow is worse than I am,'and straight- way begins to think himself a decent sort of person as the world goes, He "finds it more convenient and congeni- al to his nature to level men down to his own dirty and disreputable. plat- form, or below it, than to work his way up toa higher and moral position where he might rank among honest men. In fact, he takes the ground that honesty is a myth, that all man- kind are hypocrites, and that persons of good reputation are simple rascals who have not been found out. He hates instinctively, and with a deep and envious hatred, these in whom the keenest exercise of his prying' propen- sities can discover no spot or blemish, and compensates himself for his lost labor by endeavoring to defile their bonorable escutcheons with' the smut of slander. There are numbers of such Jonathan Wilds of private life in the communi- ty, and like the Southern turkey buz- zards, that feed on'oftal, they are some- times useful, though always disgust- ing. They unmask one another, and the' honest 'and de¢ent 'portion of 'so- ciety gain something by that; while, on the other hand,'the stabs they aim at Truth and Virtue, though they may wound for the moment, rarely leave a permanent scat. oo Youthful Prodigies. --_--, It is,.a great error to. suppose that what, are called juvenile prodigies-- in other words, children who can par- rot off with great volubility a stream of facts relating toa variety of subjects, and answer with precision questions in history, geogvaphy, arithmetic, &c., --are therefore wonderfully gifted in- tellectually. ~ To do all this an extra- ordinary memory is required--nothing more--and memory is not intellect. Such children are merely machines that emit through their.lips what they have received through the medium of theireyesand ears. Faber's speaking automaton had just as much idea of the meaning of what it uttered, as they have of the value and purport of the words they repeat by rote. The sys- tem of word-stuffing, by which the memory is overtaxed before the reason- ing powers are awakened, is worse than worthless. 'How is Europe bounded?' said a teacher who believed in early cramming, to one of his little pupils. 'I, thou, he, she, it,' was the reply. 'Forshame, Johnny, try again.' 'O! please,' sir, I remember now ; that is the answer to one of my Gram- mer questions, and I thought I was to | anchored in the mind of the learner to whys and wherefores. The practical application of every theory and princi- ple laid down by the tutcr should be clearly explained, and the utmost care taken not to overstrain the mind of the scholar by making too many demands upon it at once. ~---___--_----~> << ~-----__--_____-- Tavern Loungers. We have too many lazy, worthless, non-producers among us, and are too tolerant of such nuisances. In other countries a man without means who is capaple of performing any labor, mental or muscular, must work or starve. Here we are more indulgent to loaferism. The bar-rooms of the hotels and taverns of our large cities are constantly haunted by shabby- genteel do-nothings, on the watch for good-natured individuals with more money than brains, of whom they hope to obtain small loans. Many of these professional Jeremy Diddlers are per- sons of considerable talent, extensive information and good conversational powers. 'They understand the arts of flattering and amusing, and upon these arts they trade. Some of them are the prodigal sons of honorable and wealthy citizens; incorrigibles who have worn out parental generosity and forbearance, and who, unable to ob- tain further ' supplies' from ' the gover- nor,' have betaken themselves to that most contemptible of all the shifts of dissipated laziness, tavern loafing; justias the worthless and ruined scions of noble. European. families were. ac- customed to take to 'the road' for a livelihood, in the olden time. Upon the whole, however, we think the 'noble highwaymen' of two hundred years ago were less despicable than the tippling dollar-borrowers: of the present day. A good family name is not bad capital to swindle on. Men who would hesitate to give sixpence to a ragged, nameless pauper, not un- frequently open their purses to assist the ' black sheep' of a first family, who is too lofty to beg, but not too proud to borrow under the false pretence of returning the loan. he solicits in the course of aday or two, The habitual tavern loafer, when he has become too notorious to ply his game with success at one place, moyes off to another and begins to experiment upon a new set of victims. The parties who are fleeced, in these cases, are rightly served. They do not lend their money from benevolent motives. They do not expect it to be applied to good purposes. They know full well that if the hours wasted by the borrowers, in bar-rooms, were use- fully employed, they would be ina condition to help' the deserving poor instead of being applicants for unde- served help. It is neither wise nor prudent to visit the places where such vagabonds lounge ; and whoever does so isin danger of becoming a vaga- bond himself at last. If the society in which plausible drones pick up a living without lahor, had sufficient moral courage to meet their solicitations with a determined No, it would be a blessing to all con- cerned. Convince these pensioners upon a false generosity that they must depend upon the legitimate exercise of their own talents for support, or famish, and a large proportion of them would adopt the disagreeable alterna- tive whieh the -able-dodied beggar said Wé must resort to if the charitable dissipated and dishonest what he could otherwise afford to bestow 'in 'real charity, of so much robs the meritorious poor. <~ The Sailor Boy's Bible. 'O dear! I wish I-was a man,' ex- claimed Robert Stanley to his mother. 'Why so, my son?' said Mrs. Stan- ley, turning to Lim and laying down her sewing, ' Because, then, mother, | would be a sailor, and live all the year round on the bright blue sea. That would be splendid.' 'f hope you will not wish to go to sea when you are older,' answered Mrs. Stanley, ' for besides the many dangers attendant upon a sailor's life, 1 expect my only son to be the staff of my old age, and how can he be that and at the same time be away across the wide ocean! Did I ever tell you the history of your uncle Edward ?" 'No, mother, tell me now,' said Robert, drawing his stool nearer to his mother, and laying his curly head in her lap. 'Waen your uncle Edward wasa boy of about fourteen years, he had a great desire to go to sea, and teased his parents very often to ailow him to offer himself as a sailor to one of the captains who owned vessels in the Boston harbor. At first his parents refused even to think the matter over, but he importuned them so often, and seemed so unhappy about it, thatat last they gave their consent, though very reluctantly. 'Edward was wild with delight, and little did he think how much sor- row his wish cost his loving mother, or with what a heavy heart she pre- pared his little wardrobe for her sailor- boy's absence. I remember the last day' when mother was packing Ed- ward's trunk for his voyage, that he came in dressed for the first time in his sailor's rig. Mother held up a pretty brown Bible, and said to him, 'My son, here is the Book of books. I am about to place it in your trunk ; promise me to make it your guide throughout life, and never part with it on any occasion.' 'I promise, dear mother, if only for your sake,' respond- ed Eddie ; and the Bible was then -- carefully in the trunk. 'The next day Eddie left us, bud went sailing away over the dark blue- ocean; and how we missed his ring- ing laugh, and his merry voice about the house, Ineed not tell you. The next year, when the vessel returned, our Eddie came not. God had seen fit to take him to himself in the man- sion which He had prepared for him above, for Eddie died a Christian. | 'The captain, who came to see us, told us that he had noticed, the first few days that Eddie was with him, that he read from his Bible morning and evening, and that after a few weeks had passed, he seemed to grow so fond of his little book that he would gather the sailors together, on deck, and read aloud from it to them ; dina many a time, as he closed his Bible, more than one old sailor would ex- claim, ' God bless ye, Master Eddie !' 'When on his death-bed he told the captain that everything he then was he owed, next to God, to his mother, his good Christian thothet. His last words were, 'Tell father, mother, and sister to meet me in heaven," and then he fell peacefully asleep in the arms of his Saviour, and they ikea 'bis his SES Eo nen