I once knew a woman of manners genteel,
Who, for the woes of humanity deeply did feel.
She was pretty, and witty, most winning and gay.
Accomplishments many, I'm sure you'll say;
And last, but not least, a "tongue" she could use
With the greatest of skill, whenever she chose.
Now this lovely woman was "very respectable",
And was also considered remarkably capable.
She had learned the full history and secrets of all
The old and the young, the great and the small;
And besides-"had a 'mission' on earth to perform,
Was the reason" she said, "for which she was born."
Well, I often have wondered, but never knew how,
She was every-where present to make the first bow.
You might travel the earth, or rise to the sky,
Yet still meet the glance of her meek looking eye.
And sometimes I've thought, (though it cannot be true,

A secret it is, so I'll only tell you,)

This same noted woman and most worthy dame,
Has a child or two some-where,--related by name.

Of her kindness in deeds, I also will mention,

And allude to the genius she possessed for invention.

She never forgot the same story to tell,

(Or if so a new one would do just as well.)
She knew all the "locals" before they were out,
And saw Mrs, Phillips go riding about.

And "knew how 'twould end. I told ye," said she,
It never would happened, if she'd listened to me!
Now it chanced one day, Madam Grundy espied
Some weeds that were growing, so over she hied
To Mrs. Love's garden, on her mission intent,
As on errands of kindness (?) she frequently went;
So with her large heart, and with her long tongue,
She toiled and she talked, till her labor was done.
Just then Mrs. Love, coming home from the farm,
Held upwards her hands with a cry of alarm:
"My dear Mrs. Grundy! O, what have you done!
You have ruined my garden, destroyed every one
Of the beautiful flowers I purchased of Vick;
If the veriest urchin had done such a trick,
I'd" Here Mrs. Grundy interrupted her speech,
By hastily taking herself out of reach.

And homeward she sped with crest-fallen air,
And seated herself in her own easy chair.
She thought how ungrateful people could be,

While she was so kind to everybody.

Then out of the window she happened to gaze.
And lo! what a sight filled her heart with amaze;
There, real weeds were growing in her garden at home,
While she on mistaken duty did roam.

MORAL.

If we would be honest, upright and true,
The bright path of virtue, strictly pursue.

If we would give wisdom and knowledge a place,
And thus truly bless the good of our race,
We must spend all our time, labor and toil,
To cultivate well our own mental soil,

And keep clean AT HOME, our own business mind,
Nor seek in another imperfections to find.

BATTLE CREEK, MICH.

If I should die to-night,

Even hearts estranged would turn once more to mo
Recalling other days remorsefully.

The eyes that chill me with averted glance
Would look upon me as of yore, perchance,
And soften, in the old familiar way.

For who could war with dumb, unconcious clay?
So I might rest, forgiven of all, to-night.

Oh, friends, I pray to-night,

Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow.
The way is lonely, let me feel them now.
Think gently of me; I am travel-worn:

My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.
Forgive, Oh, hearts estranged, forgive, I plead!
When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need
The tenderness for which I long to-night

For the very best Photographs go to Bradley & Rulofson's Gallery, with an elevator, 429 Montgomery Street, San Francisco.

For a stylish and well finished Photograph go to Kluit's New Photographic Estab lishment, No. 28 Third street. All work warranted superior to any in the city. Those suffering from that most annoying of the minor miseries of human life-8 cold in the head-or from catarrh in any form, should try Dr. Evory's Diamond Catarrh Remedy. Just try it-that's all. Sold at this office, and by all druggists. For a short time only, P. W. Poulson, M. D. the Scandinavian Physician, and Graduate of the Homcepathic Medical College of New York, can be found at his rooms No. 5 O'Farrell st., near the corner of Dupont and Market. His magnetic and homœopathic treatment is very potent in removing diseases of a painful and protracted standing.

Send Austin Kent one dollar for his pamphlets on Free Love and Marriage, etc. He has been seventeen years physically helpless, confined to his bed and chair, is poor and needs the money. He sends four or five well-written essays for one dollar. His address is AUSTIN KENT. Stockholm, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., Box 44.

AFTER THIRTY YEARS EXPERIENCE in the Roofing Business, and carefully

noting the weak points in the different styles of roofs, and the different materials composing them, I believe that I can offer to the public a roof that will combine all the qualities and points requisite to constitute a permanently Water-tight Roof, while at the same time it shall be the ne plus ultra of Fire-proof Roofs. H. G. Fiske, 809 Market st.

The Israelites of America contemplate the erection of a tribute to the country of their birth and adoption.

As was anticipated Beecher's self selected jury acquitted him of all blame in the Tilton affair, and the decision was endorsed by Plymouth Church. The end is not yet.

66

"Out of Her Sphere," is the title of a readable story by Lizzie Boynton Herbert, of Des Moines, Iowa. It is a book for our girls," and the lesson it teaches is that woman's sphere is a little larger than many suppose it to be. A Wyoming paper has an original way of writing obituary notices. Here it is: "Our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, have been called upon to contribute one to the little angel band' that has been so largely recruited from Laramie city during the last few months."

A "Woman's Peace Society" has recently been formed in London, which has published an offer of $100 for the best tract written by a woman on the subject of Peace. The title must be, "In what way do wars affect woman, and how may they best use their influence to prevent war." The money spent in New York City for liquors is put down at $50,000,000, and for public schools $3,000,000, a year. It may be set down, proportionately to the population, as the same here. Were these figures reversed, or the pro rata of fifty millions spent for education, and a fraction of the three millions only spent for liquors, the brood of hoodlums would be vastly diminished.

Scientists are now fast becoming converts to a belief in the appearance of spirits, a belief which scientific men a few years ago scouted as folly and delusion. Times change.

The office-holders, the speculators in currency, stockholders in National Banks and others interested in the re-election of Grant, have contributed $500,000 for the establishment of an Administration organ in New York City. The San Bernardino Gardian says: "All the advanced Protestant beliefs are fast gravitating toward spiritualism. The most skeptical can no longer deny that there are many manifestations in spiritualism which cannot be explained on any human hypothesis."

A widow in Mattoon county, Illinois, recently obtained $2,000 damages under the "Civil Damage Act," from three saloon keepers for contributing to deprive her of her means of support, having sold to her husband intoxicating drinks which caused his death.

The Christian Union, Beecher's paper, says, notwithstanding the present tumult, Beecher will one day shine out clear and noble in the eyes of the world; a man who made many mistakes, but never erred ignobly, who held himself throughout pure and upright, the friend of men and the servant of God.

Prof. Le Conte says it is proved that should the largest comet strike the earth no harm would ensue. Per contra,

one who met them were charmed with them both, and as for his young and pretty wife, her exceeding grace and distinction were the theme of general comment and admiration, the Italians being great connoisseurs in such

matters.

The Banner of Light says: "Spiritualism on both sides of the Atlantic, abandoning the mere defensive ground of a tolerated belief, is mustering its forces, through a deepening and multiplication of the phases of its phenomena, for a new, forward and aggressive movement, in the direction of demanding from the human intellect either a material solution for its wonders, or the acceptation of them on the ground claimed, viz: that they are the work of disembodied intelligences, once denizens of material forms, and as such, incontrovertible evidences of our own immortality."

in consequence would volatilize a part of the solid crust of our globe, and no human being could survive.

At a meeting of the Oberlin Theological Institute, recently, Rev. R. G. Hutchins of Columbus, read an essay on "The Law of Hereditary Transmission," which excited much interest, but the subject seems to have been shocking to the sensibilities of many of the Reverends and Professors, and it was condemened as improper for discussion in the pulpit.

While the churches of the country are increasing in wealth with astounding rapidity, they are relatively decreasing not only in numbers but in members. This, says the Banner of Light, is sufficient reason to show not only that church property ought to be taxed like other property, but that exemption from taxation is as unnecessary to the churches as it is unjust to the people.

For Common Sense.

THE NEWSPAPER, THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.

The World's mighty Thought Machine-Does its own Preaching-Contains no Obscene Literature and allows no Infidelity-Cheap-Makes every Man his own Lawyer, Doctor and Minister-Dismisses the old Clerical Machine-Common Sense a Workingman's Bible.

BY A. GAYLORD SPALDING.

That most ancient and venerated document entitled the Holy Bible is idolized by the church-going world, and claiming to come direct from heaven it is considered the book of books, and the source of all wisdom and perfection to mankind. Our schoolmaster in past generations, it is now getting so old that, like the deciduous tree, its sacred leaves are fast falling to the ground, and its trunk and branches are withering with age and decay. As a natural result, therefore, its faithful pupils are now rapidly graduating out of the old bible into the new, styled the Newspaper, or People's Bible.

The old bible is losing respect everywhere, even in the best society, being seldom used except on funeral occasions and for Sunday worship, and sometimes in family prayer it is read only as a very solemn duty, having reference to preparation for death. Then it may be laid away on the dusty shelf. As a matter of business the old book is mainly a priestly interest to gain a living out of the working class; while it really belongs to antiquarian literature, and is never wanted for common reading. It is taken somewhat as medicine, not for regular diet. But the new bible--the newspaper-is a daily, hourly and constant companion, welcomed by all, ministers and people, old and young, grave and gay, church members and non-church members. It is found in parlor and kitchen, in store and shop, in city and country, and in every man's pocket. It is everywhere, all the time, our instructor, preacher and lecturer, our lawyer, doctor and farmer.

The newspaper is the poor man's college, and does more for education, moral reform, philanthropy, and human freedom and progress, than all the holy bibles in christendom. It is the champion of the farmers' grange movement and social and labor reform-not the old bible. It is read by all intelligent persons a hundred times more than the old bible; for that is the way they become intelligent. The newspaper bible is a library on wings that flies like a carrier dove over all the nations. It is the bible of civilization, and the more civilized the more newspapers; and the children of the common people sing and dance in its genial sunshine. But the old bible travels like a Red river ox go-cart-heavy, slow, squeaky, rickety and clumsy, and with a most terrible cost for greasing the wheels, expounding and commentating. The one single item of meeting-houses is a world full of dead expense that alone would feed and clothe millions who now are paupers.

A family that never reads a newspaper is a herd of human cattle, amounting to very little in the social and business

world, no matter if their house be packed full of bibles. Our new bible is COMMON SENSE and other liberal papers. All the very best things in the old bible are copied into the new, leaving out only the mythical and traditional, the rubbish and old fogyism, about war and slavery, murders and seductions, polygamy and concubinage, and woman's subjugation; also the great frightful devil, the awful brimstone hell and everlasting damnation. But so much as relates to truth, right, love, justice, humanity and brotherhood are most carefully preserved. The new bible contains no obscene literature, but its style is so perfectly pure and chaste that it may be safely read in the most select and refined company; which cannot be said every time of the old. The old bible teaches the duty of blind faith, independent of the five senses of reason. But the new bible is a book of demonstrated truth, appealing to the highest thought and sense of man, to which there can be no infidels, for a man is always forced to believe his own wide-awake senses.

The world's past progress is a sure prophecy of the future; since the human race is progressive, and all that is good and beautiful in heaven will be realized by mankind on earth; because the quality of the heart and life makes heaven, and is heaven. The new bible is progressive, being filled daily and weekly with the fresh, glowing and divine inspirations of God and common sense through the human soul. The worship taught in the new bible is that of brotherly deeds and a good life. It requires no Sunday show of long faces nor long sermons, nor God-houses, nor sacraments of wine, nor baptisms of water, for the sake of passing the soul safely through death. Therefore it is a cheap religion-such as workingmen need-and does not cost a hundred millions a year for the nation, nor six or ten thousand dollars for a few churches in a small town.

In the days of the Apostles no printing press had been invented; therefore itinerating preachers and lecturers were quite proper and necessary to instruct the people. But the printing press, at the present period, is the Archimedean lever of the intellectual world; and, like our western threshing machine, which will do the work of a hundred men with the old flail, one press may be equal to a hundred clergymen-aye, perhaps many hundred-to teach and enlighten mankind. What farmer on our prairies would go back to hand-threshing? His grain would not pay the cost. So with the press. It is the wonderful thought machine, which saves the need and expense of oral professional speech, that costs a hundred times as much. The cheap avenue of all knowledge-religious, legal, medical, scientific and literary-is through newspapers, books, magazines and tracts; and what sensible man will pay a hundred dollars for a certain amount of information, when he can get the same by another method for one dollar? Or who will contribute to erect a ten or fifty thousand dollar church, when all the knowledge to be got in it may be obtained at home for nothing? No reasonable man, of course.

All wealth comes from productive labor. The professions generally produce no wealth, but only consume it. When working people come to realize this fact, it may tend to change their course of action. They will appreciate themselves more highly and protect their own in

terests.

No laboring man of good sense will give his hard and honest earnings to a professional minister, attorney or physician, for him to live in style and ease, when he may become his own preacher, lawyer and doctor. That he can do, and let these proud aristocratic professionals raise their own potatoes, and manufacture their own broadcloth. Let the workers combine and co-operate for self-employment, self-direction and self-protection.

The press is like the blazing sunlight to the mental and moral world, and its rays are for every human being; and, if it is to bless mankind, the time has come for it. Let no man be cheated out of it. The world is like a beehive-the working bees making all the honey, but the drones eating the most of it. The drones must be killed off, or forced to join the workers. The drone class, or monopolists and extortionists, consists of many sorts: Military drones, political drones, clerical drones, legal drones, gambling drones, speculating drones, office-holding drones, fashionable drones, etc. These favored ones always stand in the places of queen bees, kings and rulers, while the workers the producers-are merely their drudged and cringing servants.

But the day of revolution is at hand, a war portends, and is even now declared. The wars of the old bible, and of all past time, have been brutal and bloody, covering their fields with the mangled dead. But now we wage a new style of warfare altogether, for it will be bloodless. It will leave no widows nor orphans in its fiery trail, nor destroy any man's property; for our battle ground is the printed newspaper. Our powder is printer's ink, and our bullets the leaden type. Every thinking man or woman is a brave soldier, who will discharge effective shots of flaming ideas into the heavy brains of the stubborn enemy. Victory to our noble cause is assured. Yet no one can possibly be hurt, for it is a harmless battle of ideas.

"The pen is mightier than the sword!"

All hail then to the new bible! Magnify and extol the newspaper-the COMMON SENSE! It is a thousand-brain power machine for thought and for preaching. And it is so, so cheap! Dismiss then the antiquated and dilapidated clerical machine, and lay it away with the old barn flail. It belongs to a former age, before the printing press and COMMON SENSE were known. Circulate the good newspaper in every family, like the thick apple blossoms of spring, and it will teach every man to be his own minister, doctor and lawyer, and save the foolish waste of money that belongs to the old bible system. Disband the bloody army of the dark and cruel past, and fight henceforth with peaceful weapons only, on the fair battle field of the plucky newspaper. Carnal weapons are the old bible style.

The questions now are: The old or the new; the right or the wrong; blessings for the many or the few; equal rights or monopoly; manhood and labor, or capital and oppression; unity and co-operation, or wages, labor and slavery? Let it be settled by that grand tribunal of our glorious era-the People's Bible-COMMON SENSE. An extensive reading of this new COMMON SENSE Bible will develope a new church-the Newspaper Bible Church-which will overshadow and outweigh all others combined, and California will stand No. 1 in the new dispensation.

Champlin, Minn., August, 1874.

The readers of COMMON SENSE are under many obligations to A. Gaylord Spalding, a helpless, cripple printer of Champlin, Minnesota, for his excellent letters, which we would gladly pay for if the income of the paper warranted. As it is we rely enterely upon voluntary contributions from friends; but there are cases where justice seems to require some renumeration. We have no authority to ask aid for Mr. Spalding, yet we feel quite sure that if some generous California capitalist would volunter to send him a check for a hundred dollars, or less, it would be "accepted with thanks." We still have three or four letters by M. Spalding, on file, waiting for room. They are all good.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

EDITORS COMMON SENSE: In your edition of July 18th I find this sentence in a communication from a Virginia City correspondent. "Woman's present position in this country is a degrading one, notwithstanding the homes so dearly purchased-just how dearly the victims only know." Being myself a woman' I feel moved to say a few words upon the subject with this assertion as a starting point.

The correspondent writing thus pretends to be a strong advocate of female suffrage. I myself am also in favor of woman's having the right of the ballot, and I dont believe any man or set of men have any God given right to deny us said privilege, but if our present position is one that has degraded us, then are we unfit to take the right, even if granted, as we have had quite enough of laws made and enforced from a like condition of the opposite sex. I conclude if our position is a degrading one, we have most of the time had the company of the men in our degradation. If the men by their persecutions have placed us in such a position, they must have descended to that level in order to place us there, and are consequently voting from that region.

These are my sentiments regarding this question:

First-That woman is not ready to assume the right of ballot, not because of her degraded position, but, simply because all these years she has not made a proper use of the rights already belonging to and acknowledged as hers; and all of them, according to my views, of much more importance to themselves and the world at large, than this so much wrangled over question of female suffrage.

Second-The right which to me is the all important, the one which will lay the foundation for a world reform religiously, socially and politically, is for woman to know herself, to know and understand the working of the great creative power through her being. The total neglect or abuse of this right, has brought the earth to its present inharmonious conditon. This is a subject deemed unfit for public discussion, and I think should be lightly touched npon, but the place where it should be taught, is in the home circle, by the father and mother, just as the alphabet is taught, for I think it of vastly more importance than the a b c. It is the alphabet of life-the foundation of exterior life, the thing to be first learned truthfully by the parents; then taught to their children; and so in this way all future generations may be blessed. When this is accomplished, then will there be a perfect foundation for the building up of woman's rights, and no more discussions upon the subject, as every voter will be truthful, whether male or female. PEARL MELWOOD.

God made this beautiful world, which whirls on its axis the rate of sixty-eight thousand miles per hour; and he at the rate of 1000 miles per hour, and rolls in its orbit at made millions and billions of other worlds, now revolving through space, filled with men, plants and animals like ours; all, all by himself, without the interference of a single parson of priest; but he can not, or will not, so say of this nation's population, without the herculean labors the parsons, save a few pigmy souls, only one in a hundred of sixty thousand elaborate neck-ties!-Common Sense.

OPTIMISM.

[For Common Sense.]

DEAR SIR:-It is comparatively a simple thing for an optimist to confute an orthodox theologian. The latter sets out with the proposition that there is an all-powerful, all-good and all-wise God, i. e. a perfect God. The optimist also either agrees with him thus far, or substitutes perfect laws for a perfect God; which seems to me to be simply a denial of the personality of the supreme being; and personality seems to imply limitation and therefore negative infinity.

When, therefore, the theologian affirms the existence of evil, the optimist, starting from the common ground of the absolute perfection of the supreme power, objects, that if evil exists in God's universe, it follows either that God could not prevent it, or would not, or did not know how; the first theory disproving his omnipotence, the second his benevolence, the third his perfect wisdom; all which had been theretofore conceded. What we call evil is not seen as evil to a more perfect being, but only as good in an imperfect and undeveloped state. This is all plain sailing enough; but to disprove logically the arguments of a man who takes the very singular and unusual ground of Mr. Austin Kent, that both evil and good are equally real, coexistent, normal and eternal, is a very different matter indeed, and by no means so simple.

Throughout all historic ages, to man's sensations and perceptions, evil has always had an actual positive existence, and been a far more palpable ever-present entity than good. So to the perceptions and sensations of the Esquimaux, is cold a more palpable entity than heat. Yet it would be just as sensible and true (neither more so nor less) to speak of heat as less cold, as to speak of good as less evil. It is not at all unlikely that the inhabitants of the polar regions and Mr. Austin Kent would appear to be an inhabitant of the ethical polar regions-do thus speak of it; yet we know that cold and darkness have no existence whatever, in fact, any more than my property has when I say that I am worth $1,000 less than nothing; they are all equally minus quantities. Minus quantities are only imaginary quantities; they have no real existence; yet a good deal of that which makes up to us a very real and palpable external world is probably composed entirely of minus quantities, which to a being in a superior state, who sees the truth of things, have no actual existence. We are here in an imperfect state of sensation and perception. Our knowledge is all relative, not positive; and is therefore not the truth of things. I would illustrate what I mean by the example of a pencil landscape drawing. Here is a very fair and beautiful representation of our external world; nothing can be more realistic, and yet every pencil stroke that goes to make it up is, or may be, nothing but the equivalent of a shadow, a minus; somewhat less sunlight.

Mr. Kent ridicules the idea of heat and light being entities. We may be mistaken here as elsewhere, but assuredly these are as real entities as any forces with which we have to deal. To speak of them as forms of motion, merely, conveys no idea to my mind, and does not alter the case. They are motion of something, and not of the same thing, for you can have one without the other. As well talk of them, and all the other elements of our material universe, as mere forces. I have no objection to

that, but then these forces are certainly entities, and many of them distinct ones. If we know anything, we do know this, that light and heat are plus or positive, and darkness and cold are minus or negative, as far as we are concerned, and we know as much of goodness, and may reasonably predicate the same of its opposite. When a man stands in the sunlight, his shadow against the wall is a very real thing to him, and yet it is only a minus-the interception of so much sunlight.

In this state in which I now am, I find myself opposed on every side by what seem to be very real and positive obstructions, which I call material; and yet I am not at all sure that the quality-in me and them-which constitutes this material obstructiveness, may not be a minus, a negative quality, which has no real existence, but is a mere matter of state. Many of the manifestations of modern Spiritualism, such as placing a tight fitting iron ring around a medium's neck, would seem to favor this view. Gravity itself, which is so very real a law to us now, may be in the same category for all I know. So evil seems to us a very real and positive thing, and I don't know that I can prove logically that it is not so, any more than I can prove, when my hand strikes a table, that the obstruction I feel has merely a relative, and no positive nomena are only relative, mere matters of state, which Yet I do undoubtedly feel sure that both phehave no positive existence as such at all. However I have two other reasons for thinking that right is on our side. The universal instincts of mankind point to the existence laws governing this universe. Again, we are certainly of perfection somewhere: to a perfect God, or to perfect able to form an ideal of perfection. How could we do this if it did not pre-exist in the power that brought us and the universe into being? If we could prove this pre-existence, we could logically prove the truth of Opcannot prove this, I don't think that we can get further timism, but just here is the missing link. And since we than a very strong presumption in favor of the truth of our theory.

existence.

A still further argument in our favor I derive from the great lameness, and for the most part the very palpable absurdity, of all the theories that have been invented by priests since the world began to account satisfactorily for the origin and existence of evil. Priests and kings, since the beginning of historic times, have always used this belief in evil as the very potent means of enslaving to themselves the bodies and souls of men. Our explanation is simple and consistent; "the thing you fear is an illusion; it has no existence; evil is simply good in disguise." Power there must be somewhere at the head of things; if there be such a thing as evil then that power must be both good and evil. Either then no perfect power exists, which is, I believe, negatived by our acknowledged capability of conceiving of a perfect thing, or else there must be two distinct equal powers of good and evil.* Of all theories but that of the Optimist, this of the Ahriman and Ormuzd, of the ancient Persians, has always appeared to me to be the most consistent and philosophical. Almost all others which have supposed the existence of an allgood and omnipotent power, permitting that of an inferior power of evil, are not worthy for a moment the serious consideration of a philosopher.

I should be exceedingly sorry to believe with Mr. Austin Kent that evil and hatred are just as real and eternal as goodness and love; but in justice to him I would remark that the most widespread and philosophical religion that we know anything about appears to me to take just his

*A perfect power exists; and that is the law which inheres in matter. All matter and all spirit is controlled by law. Matter was never "created," nor was law created, but both have eternally existed.-Ed. C. S.