THE MEN TO MAKE A STATE.-GEORGE W. DOANE.

The men to make a state must be intelligent men. I do not mean that they must know that two and two make four; or, that six per cent. a year is half per cent. a month. I take a wider and a higher range. I limit myself to no mere utilitarian intelligence. This has its place. And this will come almost unsought. The contact of the rough and rugged world will force men to it in self-defence. The lust of worldly gain will drag men to it for self-aggrandizement. But men so made will never make a state. The intelligence which that demands, will take a wider and a higher range. Its study will be man. It will make history its chief experience. It will read hearts. It will know men. It will first know itself. What else can govern men? Who else can know the men to govern men? The right of suffrage is a fearful thing. It calls for wisdom, and discretion, and intelligence, of no ordinary standard. It takes in, at every exercise, the interests of all the nation. Its results reach forward through time into eternity. Its discharge must be accounted for among the dread responsibilities of the great day of judgment. Who will go to it blindly? Who will go to it passionately? Who will go to it, as a sycophant, a tool, a slave? How many do! These are not the men to make a state.

The men to make a state must be honest men. I do not mean men that would never steal. I do not mean men that would scorn to cheat in making change. I mean men with a single face. I mean men with a single eye. I mean men with a single tongue. I mean men that consider always what is right; and do it at whatever cost. I mean men who can dine, like Andrew Marvel, on a neck of mutton; and whom, therefore, no king on earth can buy. Men that are in the market for the highest bidder; men that make politics their trade, and look to office for a living; men that will crawl where they cannot climb;-these are not the men to make a state.

The men to make a state must be brave men. I do not mean the men that pick a quarrel. I do not mean the men that carry dirks. I do not mean the men that call them

selves hard names-as Bouncers, Killers, and the like. I mean the men that walk with open face and unprotected breast. I mean the men that do, but do not talk. I mean the men that dare to stand alone. I mean the men that are to-day where they were yesterday, and will be there to-morrow. I mean the men that can stand still and take the storm. I mean the men that are afraid to kill, but not afraid to die. The man that calls hard names, and uses threats; the man that stabs, in secret, with his tongue, or with his pen; the man that moves a mob to deeds of violence and self-destruction; the man that freely offers his last drop of blood, but never sheds the first;-these are not the men to make a state.

The men to make a state must be religious men. States are from God. States are dependent upon God. States are accountable to God. To leave God out of states, is to be atheists. I do not mean that men must cant. I do not mean that men must wear long faces. I do not mean that men must talk of conscience, while they take your spoons. One has shrewdly called hypocrisy the tribute which vice pays to virtue. These masks and vizors, in like manner, are the forced concession which a moral nature makes to him whom, at the same time, it dishonors. I speak of men who feel and own a God. I speak of men who feel and own their sins. I speak of men who think the cross no shame. I speak of men who have it in their hearts as well as on their brows. The men that own no future, the men that trample on the Bible, the men that never pray, are not the men to make a state.

The men to make a state are made by faith. A man that has no faith, is so much flesh. His heart, a muscle; nothing more. He has no past, for reverence; no future, for reliance. He lives, so does a clam. Both die. Such men can never make a state. There must be faith, which furnishes the fulcrum Archimedes could not find, for the long lever that should move the world. There must be faith to look through clouds and storms up to the sun that shines as cheerily on high as on creation's morn. There must be faith that can lay hold on heaven, and let the earth swing from beneath it, if God will. There must be faith that can afford to sink the present in the future; and let

time go, in its strong grasp upon eternity. This is the way that men are made, to make a state.

The men to make a state are made by self-denial. The willow dallies with the water, and is fanned forever by its coolest breeze, and draws its waves up in continual pulses of refreshment and delight; and is a willow, after all. An acorn has been loosened, some autumnal morning, by a squirrel's foot. It finds a nest in some rude cleft of an old granite rock, where there is scarcely earth to cover it. It knows no shelter, and it feels no shade. It squares itself against the storms. It shoulders through the blast. It asks no favor, and gives none. It grapples with the rock. It crowds up toward the sun. It is an oak. It has been seventy years an oak. It will be an oak for seven times seventy years; unless you need a man-of-war to thunder at the foe that shows a flag upon the shore, where freemen dwell; and then you take no willow in its daintiness and gracefulness; but that old, hardy, storm-stayed and stormstrengthened oak. So are the men made that will make a

state.

The men to make a state are themselves made by obedience. Obedience is the health of human hearts; obedience to God; obedience to father and to mother, who are, to children, in the place of God; obedience to teachers and to masters, who are in the place of father and of mother; obedience to spiritual pastors, who are God's ministers; and to the powers that be, which are ordained of God. Obedience is but self-government in action; and he can never govern men who does not govern first himself. Only such men can make a state.

A COUNTRY COURTSHIP.-FRANCIS O'CONNOR.

It was a night in harvest time;

The full, clear moon was gleamin'
With light that leads a fellow straight
To where bright eyes are beamin';
And earth and air were bathed all round
In just such milky splendor

As soaks a fellow through and through,
And makes him soft and tender.
You'll see young lovers on such nights,
Paired like the lights and shadows,
And hear low voices on the paths
That lead across the meadows.

The hands had both gone up to bed,
Tired out with all day sweepin'
Their cradles through the heavy grain,
And you could hear them sleepin';
But somehow Cousin Jake hung round
As restless as a swaller,

Till I slunk by to leave him free
And watch a chance to foller,
Then off he struck across the fields
To see the parson's darter—
He thought he scooted mighty sly,
But I was right straight arter.
Well, now, you'd ought to seen him go,
Down by the old stone-quarry,
And out through Jones's pasture, like
A Shanghai in a hurry!

At last I saw the parson's house
A-peepin' through the maples,
While dark behind the orchard lay,
All loaded down with apples.
There wa'n't a light about the place,
Save one in the back kitchen,
And by it sat the parson's wife,
A-stitchin' and a-stitchin'.
Jake he stole round into the yard,
All this here time supposin'
That I was safe at home at dad's,
And snug in bed a-snoozin';

I crawled along close by the fence,
And through the rails kept peekin',
While he went dodgin' round the barn,
And through the garden sneakin';
You see the parson drove his folks
With a patent pious snaffle,

And was the sort of parent
That a feller's got to baffle.

Just then Jake whistled low and clear,
And then a little louder:
Thinks I, "If you wake up the dog,

He'll chaw you into chowder!"

I knew he was a surly brute;
One night he bit our Barney,

Who come to tip the hired girl
A little Irish blarney;
Another time when Gridley's steer
Broke in the parson's clover,

He jumped and ketched him by the nose
And keeled him right square over.
I heard a growl so awful deep,

I knowed at once 'twas Towser's,
And waited just to see him rush
And grab Jake by the trousers;
But no such thing: he wagged his tail
When Jake said, "Poor old fellow,"
And clapped him on his shaggy back,
All striped with black and yellow.
He nosed around a little while,
Pronounced the guest all right,
And just a kind o' doggedly

Wished him a pleasant night.

I watched Jake all this time, and saw
His eyeballs both a-glistenin',
And by the way his ears stuck up
I knew he was a-listenin’.

At last I heard the shed-door creak
Upon its rusty hinges,

And saw two little bright eyes peek
From out their silken fringes--
I heard him snicker as he took.
Her little hand in his'n;

She tried to draw it out, but no

Seemed 's though 'twas in State's-pris'n.
The moonlight was a-streamin' down
Too bright for Libbie's blushes,
And so they turned and took the seat
Beside the lilac-bushes;

Where sitting safely in the shade,
Among the moon-paled roses,
They got their heads so mighty close
I thought they'd bunk their noses;
And there they whispered for awhile,
As soft as kittens purrin':

Thinks I, "It's just about the time
For me to be a-stirrin'."

I stepped right back among the corn,
And got a rousin' punkin,

All rosy ripe, but soft in spots:

"By gum!" says I, "that's bunkin!
You'll never keep for cattle-feed
Nor makin' pies; but gosh!
Although you're spoiled for punkin,
You're exactly right for squash!"