Gathered in groups at the gallows, behold Pick-pockets, plenty are-mark how they go Too much attention to that can't be paid. Good comes from hanging-from hanging! Hurrah! Look at the criminal! please ye to look, Standing beside him, the hangman you see: Thanks to the priests, who the hangman befriend, Cheers for the clergy, they're CHRISTIANS! Hurrah! Firmly and proudly, the culprit looks round, Down pops the priest with the felon to prayer. "How interesting his looks are ! says ANN. "Yes!" answers SAL, "and he'll die like a man!" Prayers are all finished, and now for the fun; Merrily dancing on nothing is he. Though there's no fiddler a hornpipe to saw, Light are his leaps-he's a hanging! Hurrah! After the rope had been severed in twain, Home go the people, and joyfully sing; Heaven will receive whom the gallows has slain Does not the clergyman settle the thing? Home go the people, and talk of it all, Rouse ye, good clergymen, servants of God! Stand by my side while I fight for your fun; You go for hanging-for hanging! Hurrah! SOCIETY. "Society at the present time is obviously an orchestra without a leader, where each man's ambition is to make his own part most prominent without any reference to the whole."-Mrs. Child. The difficulty with Society is not that it lacks leaders, but that it abounds in them, and that they are ignorant of the first principles of social harmony. The fact is, to quote the motto of the Globe," the world is governed too much," or rather is governed subversively of the laws of nature. The law of love is superseded by the law of force-and self-government is a thing not laid down in the books, unless with a penalty attached! It is the grand lesson of civilization, sucked in with our mother's milk, and made the leaven of our daily bread ever after, that self must be immolated on the altar of sect. Thus all the instincts which God has implanted in our bosoms as so many beautiful flowers, are early trampled under foot, or choked out of life, by the weeds and stones of our artificial treatment. This puts an end to all simplicity of character, with here and there a bright exception, which only increases the social discord of the community, just as the finest strain of music breaking in upon a discordant band makes "confusion worse confounded." Society is indeed in per fect dis-harmony, not, as Mrs. Child has it, because "each man's ambition is to make his own part most prominent without any reference to the whole," but because each man's ambition is to make his own part prominent with a view to the subordination of the whole. And so men get together in what they proudly call their legislative chambers, and vote away all individuality of character, all right of private judgment, all sanctity of conscience, all "freedom to worship God,"—and subject to the direst penalties every one who dare put so much as a pebble against the tide of their despotism. Hence the discord of Society. It is governed out of all government, ruled out of all rule, ordered out of all order, legislated out of all law. The sacredness of private belief is thrown upon the altar fires of civilization as so much stubble. The aspirations of the human soul for an untrammelled life are treated as the idle wind. Obedience to the most humane instincts of the soul is a crime visited with greater severity than felony or rape-and the protest of Humanity (roused, for an instant, from its Lethean torpor) against such outrage upon the spirit of God, is silenced by an appeal to the Statute Book, or drowned by the rattling of constitutional parchment. An appeal to the council chambers of God and to its immutable decrees, as superior to the council chambers of Man and their fickle enactments, is treated as the singing of grasshoppers or the buzzing of insects! The great God of the world is Human Government whose laws are written in blood; engrossed on the parched skins of its "subjects;" proclaimed from the powdered throat of Paixhan "Peace-makers"; enforced by organized cut-throats and pirates; and sanctified by the Judas-prayers, and baptized by the Dead-sea waters of the church. ་ The remedy for this dreadful state of things is not to seek for a new "leader," but to search out the principles of social harmony as they exist in the mind of the great Creator, who is Love-i. e. Harmony made perfect, and in our lives and conversations vindicate their divine beauty, and assert their eternal supremacy. And this is no child's play-except indeed as it unites the sim plicity and truthfulness of childhood with the wisdom and energy of the mature man. To say that God intended this vile discord, “making a nuisance of his blessed air," and leading us almost to pray that its jarring sounds may be swallowed up by the crack of doom,-is as profane as it is preposterous, although it is part and parcel of the hateful and vindictive theology of the age. No. It is plain that the destiny of man is a state of peace and plenty, of happiness and virtue-a destiny to be wrought out not by miraculous interposition, but by the illimitable energy of his own nature. CHILDHOOD. BY CHARLES LAMB. In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers, MISFORTUNE A CAUSE OF INTEMPERANCE. I think misfortune one great cause of intemperance. It is a common remark that "intemperance is the parent of poverty." But it is not often enough remarked that "poverty is the parent of intemperance.' It is true that the drunken man is on the road to poverty. In his drunken moments he is useless,—in his sober times, imbecile. He soon becomes helpless : "Our torments may, in length of time, Become our elements,—our temper Changed into their temper." But how often is it that grim want drives a man to despair,— and despair to intemperance. Solomon says:-"Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart." The troubled man, remembering these words, perhaps, and forgetting that Solomon in his better moments said:“Wine is a mocker: strong drink is a raging, and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise," and that at last "it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,"-deserts his home for the dram-shop, his children for tipplers,—his wife for the barmaid, —and is soon" swallowed up of wine." In his sober moments, when his reason struggles to be heard, and his heart beats with remorse, his little child, unconscious of her father's extremity of woe, looks up with streaming eyes, and asks for bread. The poor man's brain is maddened. HE HAS NO BREAD. He rushes, frantic, from the house, and is soon lost again in the dreadful unconsciousness of the sot. The bar has been his misfortune, and now his misfortune is his bar. Some cold night he steals homeward, temperate perhaps from necessity, and he asks himself:"What, what shall I do to be saved from poverty, intemperance, and death?" He meets an old, and more prosperous friend,—a neighbor perhaps. He is treated with ill-concealed contempt. A rebuke more biting than the frost, cuts his soul to the quick. |