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.. I. , iU ‘ ‘ ‘S’ A’ BY SAMUEL BOYKIN. 50 xN T OS. IN A VOL. *"■ 1 r -'J you WHAT WILL YOU ASK? Oh, ask not for wealth : Th# gaudy bubble giittero to deceive : It hath a thorn to press thee when asleep: , It.naketh wings,,and leaveth thee to weep: ! ‘ ...Ask hot what wealth can give. Arc not ft.- r-tote r. “'’Tue eh if.’ :.ii ! ,V.e breaks at e * cry‘£ate: Its taiighty shadow stalks in midnight gloom; * It kills its hero, ikm it hnunts his tomb, Where all its triumphs fail. Ask not for love ; “The fond heart’s idol” breuketh the fond heart: Ills siuile is felt in sorrow's darkest hour; Ask not his treacherous dart. *** ~ * * Ask not for life ; “ Not even life itself makes good the name,” How oft its victim craves the boon of death, When gijt or sorrow yearns to yield the breath; Ask not the fitful flame. Ask for a beoken heart ; A grief for all the ills thy hand hath done ; A pang for wasted life, for useless breath ; A hope that triumphs o’er the fear of death : Ask, and the goal is won. Ask for a quiet mini* ; A heart at rest from all the jars of strife ; A humble heart, that never so.as to fall; A brui t to bless the Haud that gives its all, That priceless gilt of life. * * * * •* Ask for a home in heaven ; l’oor lonely wanderer on life's troubled sea, When wealth and fame aud power are wreck ed ami gone, And all earth's blandishments forever flown, • . Ask for a home in heaven, where grief cau never be. , . For the Christian Index. TWO SCENES IN A HOSPITAL. HX MRS. MARX A MeCRIMMOV. Let us go, this line afternoon, and see some ot the brave defenders of eur country, who lay wounded in yonder largo and well lilled hospital. First we will visit the young Tennesseean, who has a wound in his left shottldyr. What a Gnc, athletic ‘form he }i and noble Grecian features; but ah! toe deu h-glazo has dimmed the light of his fine grey eye. lie was attacked with sec ondary hemorrhage a few days ago, and now his life is fast ebbing away. Tread softly so as not to disturb him. Hark! be is t peaking, and his tones are full of agony. What does ho say? “God be merciful to me a sinner, a wretched, miserable sinner! Oh, Lord, he merciful to me right now! Jlijht now! oh, Lord, for I am sinking, sinking, sinking! Oh, for mercy, mercy!'’ Poor lei lo w ! perhaps we can say something to comfort him; so we will speak to him. “ Do you fear to die, my friend ? “ “ Death would he a relief to me if I could only reach heaven; blit ah! the way is dark.” “‘ I ;:m the way, and the truth, and the life,’ ” says Jesus; ‘“Ho that cometh unto me I will iu no wise cast out.’ ” “ Ah ! if I ouly could believe; but I am such a sinner.” “‘Christ came not to call the righteous, hut sinners, to repentance’; then why not believe he is willing to save you. Don’t you believe, if your father were here, he would relieve your sufferings, if he could?” “ Oh, yes; of course I do.” “‘Like as a father pifcieth Jus children, so the Lord pitictli those who fear- him.’ Cau you trust him now ? ” “I will try; but 1 have prayed so long to no purpose, lam almost iu despair.” 4 “God’s word can never fail, and you must believe before lie will hear you.” “ I will try; do pray for me, for lam most gone.” Promising to do as lie wished, we turn reflecting on the folly of puttiug off repentance tea dying hour. When the body is weak and the nerves unstrung, the mind is incapable ol grasping the difficulties .of repentance. But wc are now approaching the room of ano her dying mau—-one of whose patience and gentle manly courtesy all the surgeon* and nurses speak iu praise. As we catch a glimpse of his high intellectual forehead and fine classic features, we are convinced that he is a man of no ordinary mind. -His eyes are closed, and from the gentle expres sion of his face, we at first imagine that he is asleep; but no, his- lips are moving.— STread gently and sec what he says, for he is speaking in a very low tone r- “Precious Jesus! Blessed. Saviour!— Keep .them in the hollow of thy hand, as thou didst keep me that bitter night upon the battle field. Bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me bless Ids holy name.” A pain seems to shake his fine frame at this point, for his handsome lips quiver, and drops of perspiration gather upon his noble brow, while his hands clench and jerk con vulsively. How much he suffers ! Let us try to comfort him. “ My brother, do you love the Savior ? ” Instantly a smile of heavenly sweetness lights up his countenance as he- replies, “ Oh ! yes.” i “ do not fear to die then ? ” “ No, my trust is in God, and I know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, I have a building, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.” Another spasm of pain shivers’ over his manly frame, and we leave him, feeling that all is well with him. He has not been ashamed of Jesus in his life", and now Je sus will not be ashamed of him before His father and the holy angels. Gentle reader, learn a lesson from these two scenes. OUR NORTH CAROLINA CORRES PONDENCE. Mysterious visitor —Prices and trade—Buffa-. loes and their depradations—Mail communi cations cutoff—Two Editors differ— Thoughts on the condition of our country —Shall the son of man find faith on the earth. Murfreesboro, N. C., Jan. 13th, ‘65. Dear Index: —Since I last wrote you a strange 4 visitor made its appear .uce in the waters of our beautiful Chowan two weeks ago. Quite a large steamer freighted, as is affirmed, with candies, molasses, coffee and sugar , with a small quantity of cheese be longing to the ship’s crew, steamed up the wide waters of the above mentioned river escort ed by a gunboat, entered the narrow stream Nottaway and made her moorings in about .three miles of the Seaboard and Roanoke R. R. Here she discharged her cargo and for the articles mentioned, received our cot ton gi exchange. The mystery that this performance produces is caused by the fact, that no one seems to know anything about the affair farther than “ outside ” obsunrau tion “ except officials.” The boat is said to have left the wharf in Philadelphia, Penn , with said goods owned by the yankees. She was protected by them till she met the kind embrace of the Confederates. Here she ex changed commodities in” our linos. Her captain visited Weldon, passed usual civil ities and returned. Our people are piping about this thing. Some thinking one thing, some another. Each saying, “ I can’t trade with the yankees, but the commissaries can.” Would you like to know what we who are so near “in the line” have to pay for food, Ac., and how we trade for foreign articles ? Pork is now $5 per pound, wheat SSO per bushel, corn SIOO per barrel, sorghum $25 per gallon, calico $22 per yard, coffee $18,75 per pound. Sometimes a friend goes into the neutral ground from Chowaa river east to the ocean. Before going he prepares himself with N. C. bank money for which i he gives “high enough,” now ‘7s for one/ ne goes to the neutralonerchant in Elizabeth City and Edenton and there he pays iu bank money §2,50 per pound for coffee, $1,50 for ernment tradesman who deal very largely for themselves “ run across cotton for which they exchange bacon “ pound for pound.” There -is a great deal of foul play in “ these parts,” upon the government, communities and in dividuals. You have read and heard of buffaloes'. Did you ever see the creature of this war which is known in North Carolina parlance as buffalo? As you may not be well acquaint ed with the shape and character of the btast I will simply -say that they are the native born North or citizens of the State, who have chosen a middle ground in this war, who never fight but always ste4 and prey upon any property; that of the Confederacy preferred. It is a low band of robbers and thieves who watch their oppor tunity to cross the river and steal whatever they can. Sometimes making excursions ten or twelve miles “ over the lines.” They claim protection from the Federals, as they are ostensibly their friends. The origin of their name seems to have been kmong the yankees. As they would not join the yan kees to fight they were not “ horse,” as they would not join the Connfederates they were not “ cow ” so says the yankees, who gave them their name, you are “’buffalo.” Our mail communications have been cut off for a day or two past. The heavy fresh ets in Roanoke river having washed away a portion of the rail road bridge over the river at Weldon. I notice quite a difference of opinion and THE PASTOR’S AID; THE CHRISTIAN’S GUIDE: THE SINNER'S FRIEND. MACON, GEORGIA, THUKSBAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1865. ■pirit in two of the leading papers of one of our important Southern cities in Georgia. The one saying “ We are on the verge of ruin.” The other “Our prospects for in dependence was never brighter”—or the same in substance. I notice tlmtthe former editor is an anti-administration man ; tri< latter, one who labors to hold up the. hands of him in authority. The one thinks times terribly gloomy and seems to sink under it. The other one views the chastening hand of divine Providence, and bounds up above the storm with the patriotism of a revolutionary sire, and says “wu can, and by the help oj God, we will be free.” Georgia ought to be proud of that editor. I know him, not personally, but as a man for the times, be is in the right place. Shall we despond at the present juncture of affairs in our couutry’s history? Was not Israel held by Midiali seven years and then freed ? Was she not overrun, pillaged and was not her people driven to dens and caves ? and yet did not the youth from the threshing floor deliver her? Were not many desponding too ? Did they not say that they could not see how or why God would dcliv them since “ all this has befallen us ?” Was not the army of thirty-two thousand reduc ed to three hundred ? and did'not God de liver his people thus that they might give him the glory ? Are we right in this great struggle is the question, notareweall Chris tians and all doing right; but is that princi ple of “ eternal right” of which Washing ton speaks in his farewell address, with us ? If so, God being for us theWime is coming when he will avenge his elect. . Soon we will see that he has taken a great name to himself in all our troubles, and as I believe will make us a free and happy people. How deplorable tlig, sight now to see the empty benches at our daily prayer meetings all over our country! Surely the people are blind and mad men who profess to believe in God, in prayer, &c., now seldom ‘darken’ -rtro diumh doer sh-T -—-A ty lucre of this world, laying up treasures here instead of laying them up in heaven. We have a faithful few in this place who are as regular as the suu to set, if no prov idential hinderance, to the prayer meeting. Notwithstanding these promises of God to his people, their blessings and the many manifestations of his presence with, us as a people, to-day those favored people live as ‘if there was no God. Surely it does now .seem that if the Sou of Man were to come he would not find faith on the earth, if we judge the vast majority for the church. May God have mercy upon us and turn us by his mighty power, that instead of practical infidelity we may have true relig ion. J- E. Carter. • * For the Christian Index. LETTER FROM THE LOW COUNTRY Thomas Cos., Ga., Jan. 16th, 1865. The papers of your city insist upon loca ting Kilpatrick and his raiders in this county, but as yet we have’ been spared a visit from the miserable brigands. We have had a few thousandyankce prisoners here in trans itu to another locality 7 . They were detained over here for a week or two awaiting trans portation, and were objects of curious inter est to many who had never before seen a yankee prisoner. While these people were among us rumors became rife in the commu nity that Sherman and his •army were on their way here to liberate them. As soon as the report began to gain credence, and peo ple feared that the* enemy would soon he in their midst, it was suddenly discovered that the prisoners were in a very pitiable condi tion and demanded sympathy. Some few ladies who possessed such gushing sympa thies and overflowing benevolence that they could not begin to find scope for their exer cise in the few Confederate siok and wound ed who were objects of their c.are, decided that the sick yankees ought to have nourish ing broths and soups, and such were furnish ed by some parties while others gave clean clothing to replace their garments which weie filthy even to loathsomeness, though this looks very much like “casting pearls be fore swine,” for their clothing was not black er than their persons, their faces and hands being so begriiumed with dirt that even ne groes who saw them inquired whether they were black men or white. These benevolent ladies argued, “suppose our husbands and sons should be taken prisoners, we would like to have them kindly cared for;” but it was a little remarkable that those who were fore most in th# movement had neither husbands nor sons in danger of being made captive. The yankees returned the kind offices shown them by insolence apd theft as we might naturally suppose-they would, while the few Confederate soldiers in the place, true warm hearted patiots, some of them smarting un der/wounds inflicted by these very people, atj4 more than one crippled for life by their murderous bullets, looked on with amaze meht and disgust at the unwonted proceed ings. But the prisoners were removed, and if what we hear of their whereabouts be true, they are ere this beyond the reach even of Sherman's raiders, and as what govern ment property was brought here from Sa vannah, previous to the cutting of the Gulf railroad has been taken farther into the in terior, and there is so littlefleft to tempt the cupidity of the foe'we may hope to be ex empt from their marauding expeditions, as they would hardly travel two or three hun dred miles through a sandy pine barren to attack a little country town with scarcely a thousaud people in it. We share in the common sorrow at losing our beautiful sea-board city; but we cannot help feeling that it is better for the Confed eracy that Sherman should be there than in Atlanta, and far better for us as Georgians. While in Atlanta he was in the heart of our wheat lands, and threatening in four direc tions the productive aud manufacturing in terests of the State, on the other hand the compartively barren lands around Savannah “will give him little foraging ground; and there are no manufacturing interests in that section of the country. Meanwhile he.will have to feed fr-oin twenty to thirty thousand of our people, seventeen of them it is true are traitors whom we would just as soon see starve as any other way, but thousands of them are women and children and very many of them helplessly poor. There are three agencies to which we look for the accomplishment of our independence. The army, the press and the church. The army has fulfilled and is fulfilling nobly its „* r lh q - tuxuggfak-...Hi story gives.-acuia-. cord ■jT" any army ever ii'L petted by a purer and loftier patriot.sm, and from the begin iug of this war to the present time its course, has been marked by deeds of lofty daring and self sacrifice, suen xs could be the growth alose of devotion t® a ,-j and holy cause. Tht very name of soldier has become to our people a hallowed word. The press has been equally faithful in its sphere. The newspa per of this Confederacy, dailies and week lies, secular, religious and literary, have with singular unanimity, upheld with the string arm of their influence the cause of human rights and the God-given liberty for which we are contending; and with the ex ception of some few papers edited by par ties who are among us but not of us, neith er by birthright noi; in sentiment-and Feel ing, all have breathed forth to us such words ;. f cheer, such incentivea to exertion, such iunflagging hope and confidence in the ulti mate triumph of our cause as to demand our bratitude, and when our independence is ‘r ebieved and we shall proudly take our stand Imong the recognized nationalities of earth, text to the army our success will have been :ue to the faithful efforts of the press, more ban to any other human agency. The next uestion which arises is has the Church per brmed her share of the obligation ?* Is her record as clean and pure as that of the army fend the press ? Alas ! for the reply. The God we serve has taught,us in his word that we must expect his blessings only in an swer to prayer It is the mighty lever which moves the arm of Jehpvah. Even our great and Divine Exemplar while on earthy was not unmindful of its power, nor regardless of its obligations. He spent -whole nights is prayer to God, and if it became Kim thus to agonize before the mercy seat in beKalf of a sinful suffering race, does it not much more become us to prostrate ourselves before Him when we desire blessings at His hand ? We bring our individual sorrows aud bur thens and anxieties to the foot of the cross, are we as faithful in presenting the wants of our bleeding land ? When smarting un der personal bereavements God is our refuge and strength. Do we commend to his shel tering care the country that we love? When God’s chastisements are resting oh our fam ilies, how earnestly and how humbly we be seech him for their withdrawal. Is the du ty less binding on us to pray that the rod of his anger may be turned away from our people. How cold and formal are our pe titions for peace, when uttered at all. How often is it in the -tone of one who expects not the blessing, rather than the anguished cry for deliverance to Him who alone is able to accomplish it ? There has been many a fervent prayer offered that the Lord would give us power to resist onr foes and he has given us such power, that he would make our soldiers God-fearing men and -they have been converted by thousands and tens of thousands; but we seem to forget in a great measure can hfitig usp&bA It has been my lot since the commencement of this war to many different con gregations, yet everywhere I have noticed this remarkable defect in public pfaycr. We seem to consider that we have nothing to do with the question of peace-making, that it rests alone with our enemies, true it does in a certain scene; yet the hearts of men are in the hands of the Lord, and 110 turns them as the rivers of water are turned, and it be comes us to implore Ilim that he will influ ence them to cease this unnatural and fatii cidal war against us and leave us to enjoy the independence we have asserted and are determined to secure. Every Christian heart knows that Qod is the hearer and an swerer of prayer; and if we are watchful Christians we see it exemplified every day of our lives. How ought we to be encour aged by it to present our wants to Him who has said that “ Like as a father pitieth his children .so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” I was in Richmond when McClellan with his vast army was besieging that city. It was my privilege to attend the special prayer meetings which were held in view of the threatened danger, a-nd as the hour of prayer came around from time to time, spacious church edifices would be filled until not. a vacant seat was left, and often many would be standing in the broad aisles participating in the devotions of the hour. So earnest Were the pleadings for help to Him who alone could aid in that hour of peril that they seemed to take hold of the mercy-seat and bring down the felt presence of the De ity, and inoro than once on these occasions my.heart felt as if standing at the very por portals of Heaven’s gate, and even then, not on my mind tlic shadow of a doubt, but the city would for that time at least be spar ed. The spirit manifested in those prayers was the earnest of the blessing sought. I know not if the zeal of those Christians has cooled ; hut if it lias not, if similar petitions are now going forth and with like believing earnestness, not all the a* mies of earth, nay not if combined with the powers of dark ness can overthrow that city. The prayer of faith -will save it. I know it for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. A spir it of like believing prayer in the hearts ot Christians and directed to peace as the ob ject would surely bring us peace. Shall we cultivate it, shall we not pray for it and la bor to obtain it. Let every one who has power with God arouse themselves to this sacred duty, not in the sanctuary alone, not only in the house of social prayer, but at the fireside altar, and in the lonely closet morn ing, noon and night. Let us cry mightily unto God for peace and independence, then shall our wasted homes smile again in beau ty a3 of yore, and the desecrated altars of our land freed from the control of -vandal foes shall send forth anew song of praise and thanksgiving to our Lord. Joan. STEWARDS OF THE LORD. It is a lamentable fact that .-many Chris tians seem incapable of understanding that they arc stewards of the Lord, and that themselves, and all they have belong to him. The selfish luxury in whidh so many who have taken upon them the “Suviour’s name are content to live, the absence of real effort on the part of the rieff to help the poor, at their very doors; the meagreness of the contributions which many Christian congre gations make towards the support of the great missionary cause of the Church, all testify to this fact. ‘Jfce-late Arthur Hugh Clough oiioe said, in the spirit of true Chris tian philanthropy, that “the possession of riches is a call, not to self-indiligence, but to self-denial.” The saying, seems in these days, strangely paradoxical; bUTt by those. early Christians who “ had all things com mon,” it would have been counted truism.— Epis. Recorder. Expressive. —A young Irish girl, who was rendering testimony against an individ ual in a court of law, said, —“I am -sure he never made his mother smile.” a comprehensiveness and intensity of express ion, in this simple sentence, to which wc have scarcely, if ever, seen a parallel. Such a his tory ot hard-heartedness and depravity., was surely never compressed into eight words before! TERMS? 415.00 FOR SIX MO'S VOL. XUVr-m ti THE ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. An astonishing feature of the Word o God is, notwithstanding the time at which its compositions were written, -ahd the mul titude of topics to which it alludes, there is not one physical error, not one assertion or allusion disapproved byttfS prog¥os'6f tired- ‘ ern science. None of those mistakes which the science of each succeeding age discover ed in the books of the proceeding; above all, none of those absurdities which modern astonomy indicates in such great numbers in the writings of the ancients in their sa cred codes, in their philosophy, and the fin est pages of the fathers of the Church; none of these errors are to be found in any *of its books. Nothing there will ever con tradict that which, after so many ages, the investigations of the learned world have been able to reveal to us on the state o’s our globe or that of the heavens. Peruse with care our Scriptures from one end to the oth er to find there such spots, and whilst you apply yourself to this examination, remem ber, that it is a book which speaks of every thing; which describes nature, which re . cites its creation, which tells us of the wa ter, of the atmosphere, of tlic mountains, of the valleys, of the animals, and of the plants. It is a book which teaches us of the first revolutions of the world, and foretells its last. It recounts them 4n the circumstan tial language of history, it extols them ip. the sublimest strains of poetry, and it chants them in the charm of glowing song. It is a book whieh is full of Oriental rapture, ele vation, variety and boldness. . It is a book which spreaks of the heavenly and invisible world, whilst it also speaks of the earth and things visible. It is a book which nearly fifty writers of nearly every degree of civil ization, of. every state, of every condition, aud living through the course of fifteen hun dred years have concurred .to make. It is a book which was writteu in ,the center of Asia, oh the sands of Arabia, and in the deserts of Arnica : i • ooeri. of tha-Gm pie df the Jews, in the music schools of the prophets of Bethel and' 1 Jericho, in the sumptuous palaces of Babylon, and on the idolatrous banks of Chebar: and, finally, in the centre of Westefrn civilization, in the midst of polytheism and its idols, and in the bosom of pantheism and its sad philosophy. It is a book whose first writer hud been for years a pupil of.the magicians oi Egypt; . in whose opinion the sun, the stars and the elements were endowed with intelligence. It is a book whose first writer proceeded by more than nine hundred years the most an cient philosophers of ancient Greece and Asia; the Thaleses and the Pythagorases, Zaleucuses, the Xenophons, and the Confu ciuses. It is a book which carries its narra tions to the hierarchies of angels; even to the most distant epoch of the fuAire, and • the glorious scene ot the last day. Well, s®ach among its'fifty authors, search among its sixty-six books, its 1,189 chapters, and 31,713 verses; search for one of the thou sand errors which'the ancients and moderns committed when they spake of the heavens, of the earth, of their revolutions, or tlieir elements —search; you will find none. — Bi ble Society Record. THE BROKEN WING. A gentleman, who saw and conversed with Dr. Payson in Boston, when he visited that city towards the latter part of his life, was led by his preaching and* conversation to a degree of serious concern for his soul. His wife was still in a great measure indifferent to the subject. One day, meeting her in company,he said to her, “Madam, I think your husband is* looking upwards; making some efforts to rise above tlic world, towards heaven. You must not let him try alone. Whenever I see .the husband struggling alone in such efforts, it makes me think of a dove endeavoring to fly upwards while it has one broken wing. It leaps and flutters, and perhaps raises itself a little way, and then it becomes wearied, and drops back again to the ground. If both wings co-operate, then it mounts easily.” How many such families there are in the world, with one broken wing! It seems as though an irreligious husband, whpse wife and perhaps children, are struggling to raise the family so God, would not dare to go on, acting as a dead weight, to bring not only - himself, but those connected with him, again and again to the ground. Contention. — When the husband is fire, and the wife is tow, the devil easily sets them iu a flame. *