W

TO OUR KIND PATRONS.

E take pleasure in announcing to you, that the Lutheran Board of Publication, under whose auspices the HOME JOUR NAL is published, after mature and prayerful consideration, have resolved upon its continuance, and we accordingly issue the first number of the second volume. Candor, however, extorts from us the reluctant acknowledgment, that the patronage hitherto bestowed upon our magazine has not been of that liberal and extensive character, which the proprietors had been induced to anticipate. After a year's experience in the task of conducting such a periodical, we are compelled to bear testimony, that it is an office which involves a very considerable amount of the most patient, self-denying, ill-requited toil. Some kind friends, to whom we express our hearty thanks, both in and out the Lutheran Church, it is true, have generously cheered our hearts, by furnishing, from time to time, able and interesting contributions to our columns-nor have they been slack in sending us rial aid" in the shape of subscribers and money. We regret to add, however, that the interest manifested in our behalf has not been of that extensive and substantial character, which is imperiously requisite to place the Home Journal on a sure and permanent basis. To speak in plain terms, the Board will find themselves, at the end of the first year, on account of the printing of the Home Journal, considerably minus, unless the outstanding arrearages shall yield unexpectedly well.

VOL. II. No. 1.

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So gloomy, indeed, at one time, was the aspect of affairs, that the more cautious of our membership felt disposed to retreat from an enterprise apparently so unpromis ing. But more sanguine counsels have prevailed. The Board have reached the conclusion, that not their honor alone, but the honor of the whole Lutheran Church is measurably involved. Although not, in the strict party sense, a denominational journal, it nevertheless bears the Lutheran name, is issued under Lutheran auspices, and to a very great extent must depend upon the support of Lutherans for its patronage and support. This is a wide field, and sufficiently copious and ample are our resources, to sustain all our publications, honorably and well. The Board could not, therefore, in the maintenance of an upright conscience, abandon the ONLY periodical of the kind issued by their beloved mother Church in the United States, unless driven to it by imperious necessity. Nothing daunted by the past, then, but in humble reliance upon GOD, and upon the kind friends we hope He will raise up in our behalf, the Board launches the Home Journal upon the sea of experiment for another year, in the fond trust, that by the triple forces of enterprise, energy, and assiduity, their frail bark may not suffer shipwreck, but be wafted by auspicious gales into a pleasant haven.

The general tendency and design of the Home Journal, we would fain apprehend, are now well understood. If conducted with discretion, we verily believe, it will continue, not alone to interest and instruct the general reader, but in the family circle

prove a valuable auxiliary to the pious labors of our devoted clergy. The place of publication, also, is unquestionably eminently auspicious,-a magnificent metropolis, distinguished by the possession of unri valled libraries, memorable as the bounteous patroness of religion, genius, science, literature, and art-continually widening her sphere of splendor—and, above all, the very heart and centre of Lutheranism in the United States. The time, too, is pregnant with deep and solemn interest. It is an age of PROGRESS, when no one denomination can be suffered, without evident detriment, to lag in the rear, but when the most confident and enlarged expectations are cherished of all.

As we enter upon the second volume of the LUTHERAN HOME JOURNAL, therefore, we invoke the cordial and efficient aid of our friends, not in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania alone, but throughout the whole country. Many gentlemen, both of the Clergy and Laity, belonging to our Church, are distinguished alike for their literary powers and their liberal spirit. These, surely, should constitute a sure guarantee alike for the merit, the fair character, and the durability of a periodical like the present. That all such will take pleasure in confederating with us in an enterprise so highly becoming and praiseworthy, we would fain hope and believe.

E. W. HUTTER,
T. STORK,

C. W. SCHAEFFER.

PHILADELPHIA, January, 1857.

PERS

ERSONAL SECURITY.-"Will you do me a favor?" says young George Brooks to his wealthy friend Simon Hanson. "What is it, George?" says Hanson. "I wish you to lend me a hundred pounds, sir," replies George. "Call at my countinghouse," rejoined Hanson. George was not long in paying his respects. "What security can you give me, young gentleman ?" "My own personal security, sir." "Very well; get in here," says Hanson, lifting up the lid of a large iron chest. "Get in there!" exclaimed George in astonishment; "what for?" Why, that is the place where I always keep my securities."

A

AMERICAN LIFE.

MERICAN life is but the agony of a

We

fever. There is no repose for us. We push on in frenzied excitement through the crowd, the noise, the hot glare and dust of the highways, without turning for a moment to refresh ourselves in the quiet and shade of the by-paths of life. have but one object in our rapid journey, and that is to get the start of our fellowtravellers. Our political equality, offering to all a chance for the prizes of life, and thus encouraging every one to try his speed in the race, is no doubt a spur to the characteristic hurry of Americans. Our institutions, however, are not responsible for the prize we choose to strive for. There is no reason that we know of why a republican should have no other aim in life but to get richer than his neighbor; but there are a thousand good reasons, if we value health and happiness, why we should pursue other and higher objects. When the pursuit of wealth is the great purpose of life in so rapidly a progressive state of material prosperity as exists in our commercial communities, it requires exclusive devotion, and the highest strain of the faculties, to succeed. A fair competence, however, is easily reached; and if we had learned to care for better things, we would not strive for more.

SONI

THE WORD "DUN."

OME erroneously suppose that it comes from the French word donnor, to give, implying a demand; but the true origin of this word, too frequently used, is from one John Dunn, a famous bailiff, or sheriff's officer of the town of Lincoln. So extremely active and dexterous was he at the management of his rough business, that it became a proverb, when a man refused or perhaps could not pay his debts, "Why don't you Dunn him?"—that is, "Why don't you send Dunn to arrest him?" Hence it became a proverb, and is as old as the days of Henry the Seventh. But the word Dun is not merely confined to demanding payment with importunity, but to any other thing demanded in a similar manner.

WINTER.

and we may add philosophical style: "Winter has come at last. A mighty evil to the shivering hypochondriacs, who are glad to catch at any excuse to be miserable, but a visitation which, by those who are in no actual danger of dining with a friend, or of being driven by lack of raiment to join in the exclamation of poor Tom, may very appropriately be hailed in the language of Satan: Evil, be thou my good.' The Spaniards have a proverb that God sends the cold according to the clothes; and though the callousness and hardihood acquired by the ragged be the effect of exposure, and not an exemption from the general susceptibility, the adage is not the less true, and

rich into severe correctives, and thus pretty nearly equalizes, through the various classes of mortals, the individual portion of suffering and enjoyment. In the distribution of the seasons care seems to have been taken that mankind should have the full benefit of this system of equivalents. To an admirer of nature it is certainly melancholy to be no longer able to see the lusty green boughs wrestling with the wind, or dancing in the air to the sound of their own music; or to lose the song of the lark, the nightingale, the blackbird, and the thrush; the sight of the waving corn, the green and flowery fields, the rich landscape, the blue and sunny skies. It appears a woful contrast, when the

glorious sun and the azure face of heaven are perpetually hidden from us by a thick veil of fog; when the poached and swampy fields are silent and desolate, and seem with a scowl to warn us off their premises; when the leafless trees stand like gaunt skeletons, while their offspring leaves are lying at their feet buried in a winding sheet of snow. There is a painful sense of imposition, too, in feeling that you are paying taxes for windows which afford you no light; that for the bright and balmy breathings of heaven you are presented with a thick yellow atmosphere, which irritates your eyes without assisting them to see. Well, I admit that we must betake ourselves indoors to our shaded lamps, and our snug firesides. There is no great hardship in that, but our minds are driven indoors also, they are compelled to look inward, to draw from their internal resources. And I do contend that this is the unlocking of a more glorious mental world, abundantly atoning for all our external an noyances, were they even ten times more offensive. That man must have a poor and frozen fancy who does not possess a sun and moon obedient to his own will, which he can order to arise with much less difficulty than he can ring up his servants on these dark mornings. And as to woods, lakes, and mountains, he who cannot conjure them up to his mind's eye, with all their garniture and glory, as glibly as he can pronounce the words, may depend upon it that he is no conjuror. It is well known that in our dreams objects are presented to us with more vivid brilliancy and effect than they ever assume to our ordinary perceptions, and the imaginary landscapes that glitter before us in our waking dreams are, unques tionably, more enchanting than even the most picturesque reality. They are poetical exaggerations of beauty, the beau ideal of nature. Then is it that a vivacious and creative faculty springs up within us, whose omnipotent and magic wand, like the sword of Harlequin, can convert a Lapland hut into the Athenian Parthenon, and transform the desolate snow-clad hills of Siberia, with their boors and bears, into the warm and sunny vale of the Thessalian Tempe, where, through the glimpses of the pines, we see a proces

sion of shepherds and shepherdesses march. ing to offer sacrifice in the Temple of Pan, while the air brings to us at intervals, the faint sound of the hymn they are chanting. The corporeal eye puts out the mental one. I am obliged to take pastoral objects as they present themselves, and to believe the handwriting on the finger-posts, which invariably assert that I am within four miles of the metropolis, and not in 'Arcady's delicious dales,' on the 'vine-covered hills and gay valleys of France,' or in Italy's 'love-breathing woods and lute-resounding waves.' But when the fields around me are covered with snow, and fogs and darkness are upon the land, I exclaim with Milton, 'So much the rather thou shine, inward light divine,' and betaking myself to my fireside, lo! the curtain is drawn up, and all the magnificent scenery of classic realms and favored skies bursts upon my vision with an overpowering splendor. Talk not to me of the inspiration and rapture diffused around Parnassus and Helicon; of the poetic intoxication derived from quaffing the 'dews of Castaly'-'the true, the blushful Hippocrene,' or 'Aganippe's rill.' I boldly aver that Apollo himself, walking amid the groves of the musehaunted mountain, never shook such radiant inspiration from his locks as often gushes from the bars of a register-stove when the Pierian 'Wall's End,' or 'Russel's Main' has had its effulgence stimulated by a judiciously applied poker. And as to potable excitement of genius, I will set the single Port of Canton against the whole of European and Asiatic Greece, and am prepared to prove that more genuine Parnassian stimulus has emanated from a single chest of 'dollar black tea,' than from all the rills and founts of Arcady, Thessaly, and Boeotia. I am even seriously inclined to doubt whether the singing of the nightingale has ever awakened so much enthusiasm, or dictated so many sonnets as the singing of the teakettle."

It is lamentable to think what a gulf of impracticability must ever separate men of principle, whom offices want, from men of no principle, who want offices.