If it is not more, this I will give you, right willingly! And, that you may see that I mean well toward you, I will yet give you something else into the bargain, which is worth, between brothers, a thousand dollars. It may make you rich! But how, my dear Mr. Witt? into the bargain? It is not much-only a little story. In my youth I had here a wine-merchant as a neighbor, a very droll little man, Mr. Grell was his name. This man had accustomed himself to use a peculiar specch. This ruined him! Hey! you dont say? That was? When any one asked him, at times, how is it, Mr. Grell! what did you make in that bargain? Oh, a trifle said he; the little sum of fifty dollars, about. What is that? Or when one said to him: Well, Mr. Grell, you also lost something by that bankruptcy? Oh pshaw it is not worth talking about, he said again. A trifle of a hundred or so. This man was in good circumstances. But, as I have said, this one mischievous way of speaking lifted him fairly out of his saddle. He had to go overboard. How much was it Mr. Wills, you wished to borrow? I?-I asked for one hundred dollars, Mr. Witt. Yes, right! My memory fails me. But I had also another neighbor, the grain dealer, Mr. Tomm. He, by another manner of speaking, built the large house he lives in, with the back-buildings and the warehouse. What think you that was? Hey! for goodness sake, that I would like to know. That was? When he was sometimes asked: How goes it, Mr. Tomm? What did you make in that bargain? Ah, a great deal of money, he would say, and then one could see how his heart laughed in his bosom-a full hundred dollars! Or when one said to him: What is the matter? Why are you so downcast, Mr. Tomm? Ah, he would say, I have lost much money! much money! Fully fifty dollars. He had begun small, this man; but, as I have said, this large house he built, with the back-buildings, and warehouse. Now, Mr. Wills, which mode of speaking do you like best? Hey, that is easily understood. The last! But-not fully up to my idea of things did Mr. Tomm show himself. For he also said: Much money! when he gave to the poor, or paid his tax to the government. In that case he should only have spoken like my other neighbor, Mr. Grell. I, Mr. Wills, who lived right in the middle between these two modes of speaking, was careful to observe both; and hence I am accustomed to speak, according to circumstances, sometimes like Mr. Grell, and sometimes like Mr. Tomm. No, I declare, I agree with Mr. Tomm. The house and the warehouse pleases me.. You wish therefore? Much money? Much money, my dear Mr. Witt. A whole hun dred dollars. Do you see, Mr. Wills? You will be all right. That was ex actly the thing. like Mr. Tomm; must speak like When we borrow from a friend we must speak and when we help a friend in time of need, we Mr. Grell. THE FUNERAL BELL. Hark! again in solemn tones the bell- Pealing forth its dirge-like funeral knell, On the tranquil breeze now loudly ring O what a baleful message doth it bring What twig is snatched from off the stem, 'Tis perchance a youthful, untried one, Or aged pilgrim, travel worn, Hath laid him down to rest. How sad and stricken are they now Who wiped the death-damp from the brow! Fainter, fainter, comes the mournful sound Soon 'twill cease and leave yon lonely mound The hearts of few forget it not All is hushed! in dreamy peace again Leaving us remember still with pain Methinks I hear the vesper sigh: "O when shall my last hour draw nigh?" "When a few more cherished hopes are crossed, For the early loved and early lost, Whose days on earth are fled; And past the years, aye, short and few, Sweet will be the peaceful, valley clod, And bear, when silvery cords are riven, E. M. K. MONEY! BY THE EDITOR. What a mystery is money! In one sense it is nothing, and in another it is a great power. How it stirs up human activities. How it puts up one and puts down another. How anxious are those destitute of it to possess it; and how sadly do many use it who have it. We have just read, in a newspaper, the following item: "Baron Rothschild has just erected, in his house in London, a staircase which cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars." Is not that a text to study? Methinks a sermon might be preached from it. But what should be said on such a text? That would depend upon the views of the preacher. Perhaps one would say 'This stair-case is no doubt a very exquisite artistic affair; and it is a very generous thing in this rich man to patronize the arts so munificently. He has afforded some artist an opportunity of displaying his genius; and his work will stand for the admiration of thousands.' It is not altogether vain to contend, that works of art have their place; and the devotion of large sums of money for purposes of art is not altogether unjustifiable. Paintings, statues, architectural buildings, costing large sums of money, may not be condemned. They are models of taste, which, lifted above the merely useful around them, may exert an elevating influence on minds and hearts, which would otherwise become too grovelling. But a stair-case in a private dwelling! We must confess this strikes us as a rather narrow interest. It seems too private and selfish to be easily justifiable. True, the money is his own; but a man has not exactly a right to do what he pleases with his own. He is accountable, not only to God, but also to his fellow men. He is properly held to an account. No law of God, and no just sense of human responsibility, will allow a man to consult his own self alone in the use of any talent with which he may have been endowed. Had he erected some public monumental work of art, he could have laid some claim to generosity at least; but all such ground of justification disappears, when he lays down so vast a sum as a mere means by which his own feet may ascend from one story of his mansion to another! We are no utilitarian. We do not hold that the useful alone has claims on us. We are not of those who would condemn the ornamental as profane in all cases. But there is something in us which protests against an expenditure like this. To us these one hundred and fifty thousand dollars laid under the rich man's feet, seem as much out of place as the wise man's "jewel in a swine's snout." Read, as in this case we do, in one paragraph how the poor are starving in Lancastershire, and in the next how Rothschild has made a stair-case for his wealthy feet costing one hundred and fifty thousand dollars-and then say, whether it is not "man's inhumanity to man," that "makes countless thousands mourn." Has any man a right, with the wants and woes of the world crying around him, to use his money merely for himself to tread on! If a man whom God has gifted with extraordinary talents should use those talents merely to write a eulogy on himself, the prostitution of his talents. would at once be seen and acknowledged by every one; but would such an act essentially differ from that wanton abuse of the moneytalent under review? In no sense whatever. In either case self rules. The interest alone of this amount of money would be $9,000 a year. The sum would be sufficient to endow a respectable college or seminary. The interest of it would build a good church every year in some destitute region. The interest would comfortably maintain from forty to forty-five poor young men in a course of preparation for the holy ministry. This money would establish and endow an orphan asylum. In short, what an amount of positive good would it not accomplish? What right has any man to lay such a power for good under his feet! The papers in our own country are not yet through passing round the shameful and disgusting act of a miser in Lancaster county, Pa., who had hoarded some forty to fifty thousand dollars of gold and silver in his house, to be found by his executors! Such facts are commentaries on the deep depravity of human nature. They show how entirely the natural heart is alienated from God, loving and worshipping the creature in the very presence of the Creator, who is God over all, and blessed forever. The gold and the silver are the Lord's. It is His by every right. It is plainly declared, that, as a fruit of the triumph of Christianity, it shall be freely laid at the feet of Christ, to be used in the spread of His glory over the earth. As Christ's spirit conquers human hearts, it will conquer all human possessions. For willing hearts, blest by His grace, will cheerfully lay their gifts before him, even to the extent of personal self-denial. But how much remains, in this respect, for the spirit of Christianity to win! How extensively still does the spirit of Judas hold the purse, counting all waste which is not for its own dear self! True, there is much given to the cause of Christ year after year. But mostly with such a stinted hand as to be the mere drippings of abundance the mere rakings after the harvest has been gathered in. When large sums are given, as is occasionally the case, the very surprise which it creates is an evidence that such gifts are the exception, and not the rule. Thousands of wealthy men, even in Christian lands, lie down in the bosom of their accumulated riches and die, having had no will in life, and leaving no will at death, that shall secure some portion of their wealth to good and pious purposes. There is yet much for Christianity to conquer and sanctify in the money-loving spirit of even professing Christians. How few fulfill the vow, contained in the communion prayer, by which we profess to "consecrate ourselves, on the altar of the Gospel, in soul and body, property and life, to His most blessed service and praise." THE CHRISTMAS BELLS. The bells-the bells-the Christmas bells, As if they felt the joy they tell To every human thing. The silvery tones, o'er vale and hill, As wave on wave, the tide of sound The bells--the merry Christmas bells, They ring when sunshine tips the hills, And gilds the village spire When, through the sky, the sovereign sun Rolls his full orb of fire. The Christmas bells--the Christmas bells, To weary hearts a pulse of joy, A kindlier life they bring. The poor man on his couch of straw, The rich, on downy bed, Hail the glad sounds, as voices sweet The bells the silvery Christmas bells, And household tones are answering them Voices of childhood, blithe and shrill, The bells the solemn Christmas bells, And hark, the voice of worshippers Anthems of noblest praise there'll be, TE DEUMS loud--and GLORIAS: Come, to the church-away. |