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the countryman.
39
What is Life ?
It seems to have been only a little while
ago that I was chasing the butterflies
From flower to flower, with childish glee :
but now I am in the prime of life. Yet a
few more years, and the bloom will fade
from my cheek, old age will come on apace,
and this frail, yet wonderful structure—this
“ tenement ot clay ”—will return toits moth
er dust—my spirit to the God who gave it,
and 1 shall be known no more among men,
save in the memory of a few friends.—Such
is life !
The genial vvaimth of spring glows on the
tender twig, tlie vital fluid begins to course
its delicate fibres, and the bud putteth forth.
Soon the blossom appears in all its beauty,
pleasing the fancy, and charming the eye
for a few days, until touched by the finger
of time, when it fades, loses its vigor and
beauty, and finally decays, and is known
no more.— Such is life !
The sun—the golden orb of light—rises
in the morning, ana peeping over the eas
tern hills, sends his glowing rays over the
earth to enliven and to cheer ; but soon he
reaches the zenith of his glory, where his
beams become more powerful, scorching the
tender plant, and burning the earth with
his heat. Now it is that all animated na
ture quaffs the refreshing draught with in
creasing pleasure, and seeks the inviting
shadow of the umbrageous oak. But ere
long, the king of day begins to wend his
way down the western skies, his power be
coming less and less, until finally he sinks
behind the western horizon, and is lost to
the sight. Darkness soon ensues, and all
nature is wrapped in the dark mantle of ob
livion and night !—Such is a picture of
human life.—Youth is the morning of exis
tence where all is hope and aspiration in
the budding mind ; manhood is the noou-
day, when the intellectual and physical
powers are fully developed ; and old age
is the evening-time, when the sands of ex
istence are nearly run out.—and how soon
the sun sets !—and the body disappears
beneath the sod and the individual is lost
in the oblivion of death, and quickly the
darkness of forgetfulness closes in upon the
scenes of earthly pilgrimage.—Such is life,
and such are its vicissitudes !—Sim. Alex-
SON.— Stockton, Tenn■
■ ■ —
Small Pox
There have been 1 or 2 cases of small
pox in our county, lately. The cases have
been light, however, and the patients have
gotten on very well. Efficient measures have
been adopted by our Inferior Court to pre-
rent the spread of the disease.
THE OLD CHURCH BELL.
ny w. n. SPARKS.
Ring on, ring on, sweet sabbath bell,
Thy mellow tones I love to hear!
I was a boy when first they fell
In melody upon my ear.
In those dear days, long past and gone,
When sporting here in boyish glee,
The magic of thy sabbath tone
Awoke emotions deep in me.
Long years have gone, and I have strayed
Out o’er the world, far, far away,
But thy dear tones have round me played,
On every lovely sabbath day.
When strolling o’er the mighty plains
Spread widely in the unpeopled west,
Each sabbath morn I’ve heard thy strains,
Tolling the welcome day of rest.
Upon the rocky mountain’s crest,
Where Christian feet have never trod,
In the deep bosom of the west,
I’ve thought of thee, and worshipped God.
Ring on sweet hell—I’ve come again
To hear thy cherished call to prayer:—
There’s less of pleasure now than pain,
In those dear tones which fill my ear.
Ring on, ring on, sweet bell, ring on—
Once more I’ve pome with whitened head
To hear thee toll:—The sounds are gone,
And ere this sabbath da' has sped
I shall be gone, and may no more
Give ear to thee, sweet sabbath bell—
Dear church and bell sc loved of yore.
Eatonton, Ga., July, 1862.
Eatonton, Georgia, is my native village.
Here 1 was reared and educated, and here
my heart lias ever lived. I was on a visit
to this place in July, 1854, after an absence
of 30 years, sojourning at the house of my
boyhood’s friend, Edmond Reid. I was
aroused by the ringing of the old church
bell, on sabbath morning. I bad not heard
it for 30 years, and yet it was as familiar
as though I bad listened to its tones each
consecutive sabbath through all these long
years. I wrote these lines at the mo
ment SPARKS.
Mr. Countryman :—I send the above
verses to you, thinking you might publish
them, for the sake of olden times, as a
courtesy to an old citizen, and as a tribute
to the sweetest-toned bell (it lias been
said) on this continent A. Reid.
The Countryman is delighted at having
an opportunity to publish the foregoing, and
returns his thanks to his fair correspondent
ior placing them at bis disposal.
“It is not so much through a fertility of
invention that we find many expedients in
any one affair, as through a poverty of judg
ment, which makes us listen to everything
that imagination presents, and hinders us
from discerning what is best at first.”
Yankee Episcopalians.
In a late yankee Episcopalian conven
tion, the ‘ Rev. Dr. Vinton’ introduced some
resolutions to the effect, “ That, the House
of Bishops concurring, this general con
vention of the Protestant Episcopal con
vention in the United States of America
pronounce the action of the bishops of Vir
ginia, Georgia, and South Carolina, in their
consecration of Richard Wilmer, D. D., to
the Episcopal See of the bishopric of Ala
bama, to be irregular, uncanonical, and
schismatic, and that liis jurisdiction in the
Diocese of Alabama is void and of no effect,
and that the special committee be instruc
ted to consider and leport what further ac
tion, if any, the general convention shall
take to assert the dignity and enforce the
lights of the Protestant Episcopal church
in the premises.”—Now is not here the
brazen-faced effrontery of the old-boy ]
The ‘ dignity’ of the Episcopal church
(yankee) must be ‘asserted,’ and the 'rights’
of the Episcopal church (yankee) be ‘enfoi-
ced.'
Why don’t the yankee Episcopalians
send down an army to conquer and subdue
the ecclesiastical rebels South, and hang
the rebel ecclesiastical leaders, the bishops
of Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina 1
Well, well, well! These resolutions of the
fanatic fool ‘ Vinton’ beat all the folly that
lias been enacted even by the government
of the idiot monkey.
“ The man who thinks he loves his mis
tress for her sake, is much mistaken.”
“ Envy is destroyed by true frienesliip,
and coquetry by true love.”
“The groat fault of penetration is, not
the falling short of, but the going beyond
its mark.”
“We may give advice, but we cannot
give conduct.”
ADVERTISEMENTS.
4 DMINIS 1 Ra iOR’is SALE. — W111 be solo, di iti6
late residence ot Mrs. Sarah Cox, on wedn sday,
5th November, all the perishable propeuty belonging
to said estate, consisting of horses, cattle, stock ana
pork bogs, sheep, corn, fodder, wheat, farming im
plements, household and kitchen furniture, and many
other articles too tedious to mention. — Terms on the
dav of sale. S. J. McMILLAN, Adrri’r.
Oct. 22, 1862. 3-5 2t
HAT SHOP.—I cannot take any more orders tor
1 hats, because I cannot get suitable iininsr, bind
ing, or bands. They are not to be had in the Con
federacy. But I will manufacture hats lined and
bound with homespun, and put them in Mr. Ellin-
ger’s store in Eatonton, where those who want them
at the price I have to pay for 2 pounds of wool can
get them. Four pounds of wool for 1 hat used to be
the old price —Persons who alrea y have wool at my
shop can have it returned to them, or receive the
highest cash price for it, if nay lining and b nding do
□ot suit them " J. A. TURNER.
Oct. 27, 1862, tf
*N EXCELLENT OVER-COAT FOR SALE, very
*■ cheap, at this office.
Oct 27, 1862.