THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. BY HOOD. WITH fingers weary and worn, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch, She sang the "Song of the Shirt." "Work! work! work! While the cock is crowing aloof! And work-work-work, Till the stars shine through the roof. Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If this is Christian work! "Work! work! work! Till the brain begins to swim! Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Band, and gusset and seam, "O men, with sisters dear! O men, with mothers and wives! It is not linen you're wearing out But human creatures' lives! Stitch-stitch-stitch, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A shroud as well as a shirt. "But why do I talk of death? O God! that bread should be so dear, HAND-SHAKING. BY THE EDITOR. "Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart? 2 Kings 10: 15. The young King Jehu is engaged in a bloody mission. Seventy sons of Ahab, king of Samaria, and the brethren of Ahaziah, king of Judah, had he slain. On his way to Samaria, to slay other victims, as the Lord had commanded, he met Jehonadab, a prominent Nazarite, in good repute for piety. This man bound his descendants not to drink wine, nor build houses, nor plant vineyards, nor possess lands, but that they should live in tents all their lives. These rules his posterity strictly observed for a period of three hundred years. This man, so strict and zealous in his habits of piety, is met and saluted by Jehu; with the invitation: "Come and see my zeal for the Lord." His salutation is instructive. In such a perilous time and place, it would not be safe to grasp every one's hand. might happen to be the hand of an enemy, bearing a deadly weapon. Thus Joab greeted Amasa. (2 Sam. xx. 9-10.) "And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab took Am sa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him." "But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand: so he smote him therewith in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again, and he died." At this critical time, Jehu must know how a man's heart is towards him, before he gives him his hand. Every true greeting must be cordial-heart-felt. Selfishness and insincerity make it an empty, and often a mischievous form. The custom of hand shaking prevails more or less among all civilized nations. It is intended to declare a feeling of friendship and good-will. It is supposed to have originated in barbarous times. When every savage was his own government, law, lawyer, judge and policeman, he had to be wide awake in making or meeting real or supposed friends. Each bore a deadly weapon, and was not slow to use it. When persons met, they offered each other the open right hand, to show that there was no weapon in it -that they bore neither club, dagger, sword nor tomahawk. Among God's people the custom acquired a deeper meaning. The right hand became the symbol of power, help, protection and labor. With it the scribe wrote, and the workman chiefly wrought. With it the warrior wielded the sword in defence of his country and his home. Left-handed people have ever been the rare exception to a general rule. (Judges iii. 15; xx. 16.) A long list of Scripture passages speak symbolically of God's right hand. Hand shaking is an expression of friendship, as well as a pledge of the same. Solomon says: "A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left." A left-handed greeting, save in rare and very peculiar cases, is discourteous. An artful, sly or secretly ill-natured act we call "sinister;" which is the Latin word for left-handed. Deceitful and selfish motives, we call "sinister motives"-left-handed motives. And we all know what is meant by a "left handed compliment." All this shows the importance of Jehu's caution, in offering his hand to Jehonadab. Why should it be considered improper to shake hands without removing the glove? This idea, too, has come down to us from barbarous times. For, since under the large glove of the savage or warrior, the dangerous weapon might be hid, the hand had to be uncovered as a proof of good faith. It is interesting to notice the different styles, and study the physiology of hand-shaking. An observant mind can study character from it, almost as well as can the phrenologist by feeling the bumps. Some people touch your hand as they would touch a cock-roach or caterpillar, which they are trying to throw out of the windowjust tip it timidly and drop it as soon as possible. Some offer you one or two fingers instead of the hand. Others instead of grasping your hand, let theirs limberly fall into yours, as powerless and dead as the withered hand of the paralytic in the Gospel. Some of the best men I know of, vigorously shake your hand with a horizontal motion, work it like the piston of a locomotive. So much like it is the action, that you almost expect the puffing to begin. So far as I can remember, these are energetic go-a-headative men. Very impressive is the vertical shake, which treats your hand as though it were the handle of a worn-out pump in a deep well, which required the full swing to bring up the water. Possibly this is symptomatic of a friendship that is very deep and hard to get at. A strange effect is produced by the pendulum style of hand-shaking, which jerks your hand hither and thither, like the rapid swinging of a pendulum. Ladies never shake hands as vigorously as men, except with each other. Some one says, not with the cordiality of men, but that is incorrect. Cordiality means heartiness; and every body knows that they put more heart in their greetings than men do. Woman excels in feeling. With the stronger sex, she is poorly matched in this ceremony. Her delicate small, tender hand cannot vie with the strong muscular force of a man's hand. And perhaps it ought not to attempt it. But when ladies come to greeting one another, the heart seeks expression, not only by the warm grasp of the hand, but through the ringing voice and the agreeable service of the lips. And often when we salute one another at a distance; standing at the depot, and seeing through the car window a dear one where the hand can no longer be grasped, rapidly borne away to a far-off home; standing at the wharf and seeing loved ones on a steamer's deck, borne away out of our sight, out into and over the wide ocean, when hands and lips can no longer express the emotions of the heart; even then love ceases not to breathe after them a tender "God be with you," or as we have it, good-by. "The heart feels most, when the lips move not AN UNPUBLISHED CHAPTER. BY CHRONICLER. The Shenandoah Valley, in Virginia, and its extension through Maryland and Pennsylvania, where it is successively known as the Cumberland, Lebanon, and Lehigh Valley, is bounded on the Southeast by the South Mountain. This is a beautiful range, with here and there a "gap," allowing the waters to pass, the travelers to find a highway, and affording in modern times, excellent openings for the iron-horse, to go a puffing and smoking with cargoes of bales and boxes, and the thousands of human freight, some intent on business, some on pleasure, and some without any definite purpose or aim. Franklin county in Pennsylvania borders on Maryland, and its eastern boundary is the summit of the South Mountain, fourteen miles northeast of Hagerstown. The Western Maryland R. R., running from Hagerstown to Baltimore, touches the base of the mountain at Cavetown, and thence commencing the ascent, bearing towards Pennsylvania, reaches the summit at a gap just as it gets to Mason |