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And treachery poured its tide upon our head.
Our little store for mammon’s filthy gold
Was by the hand of t craving avarice sold,
Which doomed our race o’er all the earth to
roam,
And, worst of all, Oh ! God, we lost our home!
Soon death relieved^my kinsmen of their wo,
And laid my father and my mother low,
And brothers bore to meet the silent tomb,
And sisters, where yon nodding violets bloom,
While I alone, sad relic of my race,
Review the memories of this sacred place,
Houseless and homeless, all a wanderer here,
W ith neither friend, nor even acquaintance near.
Oh! ye who, blessed with fortune's, sell your
homes,
To go where lucre’s fitful phantom roams,
Who catch at nothings which your gods propose,
Who, to caress the thorn, desert the rose.
Toll me can nauarht but worthless gold inspire,
Or kindle in your stolid hearts desire?
Where sleep your fathers, that ye sell their
graves,
To bow at mammon’s filthy alter—slaves?
Where do.your aged mothers find repose,
That to their memories you yoUr bosoms close'?
Where sleep your wives, where do ) our chil
dren sleep ?
Oh! go and how your shameless heads and weep!
Weep for your homes andbrokeu aharsspoiled !
Weep for your hearts by filthy lucre soiled!
TV eep tor your degradation, afid your shame!
To being men ye forfeit every claim !
No wonder that yotfr country barren grows,
No wonder that the thoru expe’s the rose,
When ye have robbed the laud of all its fruit,
To give penurious avarice high repute;
Since ye despoil the homesteads of the land,
And prowling priests round mammon’s altar
stand;
Since ye bear off ithe fatness of the soil,
And fertile valleys of their fruit despoil.
No wonder Heaven upon you seems to frown,
Since ye have broken all its altars down,
And .on their ruins rear your altars high,
Whose smoke ascends to greet a golden sky.
Enjoyment of Life.
“ How small a portion of our life it is
that we .enjoy ! In youth \v^ are looking
forward to things that are to come; in old
age we are looking backward to things that
are past; in manhood, altho’ we appear to
he move occupied in things that are present,
yet even that is too often absorbed in vague
determination to be vastly happy on some
future day, when we have time. When
young, we trust ourselves too much, and we
trust ourselves too little when old. Hashness
is the error of youth, timid caution of age.
Manhood istheisthmus between the two ex
tremes ; the ripe, the fertile season of action
when alone we caD hope to find the head
to contrive, united with the hand to exe
cute.” e. w. R.
“ Men sometimes think they hate flat
tery, but they hate only the manner of it.”
THE COUNTRYMAN.
Funny and Not Funny.
On the 28th uit., brother Clisby, under
the title of “ A Crash into the Extortion
ers,” got very nearly on his head, at the
idea of the fan which he was to see when
the seizing agents got among the manufac
turers, tanners, and owners of army sup
plies. His bull was then goring some one
else’s ox, and the unjust lawyer (so to
speak) of the Telegraph, was in ecstacies
over the piteous moans of the poor ox.
But 3 days afterwards, on the' 1st inst.,
somebody’s bull got to goring brother Clis-
by’s ox—(or at least somebody's dog got to
tearing his sheep)—and the lawyer straight
way took to “ laughing on the other side of
his month.”
It was very funny to brother Clisby to
see manufacturers and tanners suffer, be
cause he said he was a ‘ buyer’ and not a
‘ seller.’ But no doubt my friend lias had
to pay a high price for jeans, this winter, to
make his ‘unmentionables',* and lie no doubt
hoped that if the dog law passed, the in
creased supply of lambs whose lives would
be saved thereby, would make wool more
plentiful next season, arid he would be able
to get another pair of pants at diminished
rates. But the dog law failed, and some of
the legislators ‘ made fun of it.’
At. this, brother Clisby waxes exceeding
ly lacrymose, and-on the 1st, day of tins
month, in an article under the caption of
“ Dog Law Lost,” sends up a most lugubri
ous wail over his liSud fate (so I suppose)
in seeing his prospect for cheap pantaloons
blasted. He castigates most unmercifully
the House of Representatives for their “deal
of jest and mirth” over the corpse of the
d-»g law. He says, “ It does appear to us
that the House made a bad selection of a
mirthful subject” For Ids part, be “ don’t
see where the mirth comes in properly.”
Very good, brother Clisby. And do you
suppose that those who are to be robbed by
government officials, under the name of
seizure, can see that you made a good se
lection of a mirthful subject j when you
laughed so immoderately over their misfor
tune ? Do you suppose they can see where
the “ mirth comes in properly ?” Do you
not suppose they feel just as badly ovei;
the logs of their goods and chattels as you
do over the prospective high price of your
pantaloons, next winter, because the dogs
spared by the failure of Mr. Schley’s bill,
will kill so many sheep between now and
then ? *
But seriously : Though a great friend to
dogs, and very fond of field sports, if broth
er Clisby will help put down this unlawful j
seizure which is fast destroying all industrial
suits, as well as liberty, and government
itself, I shall be tempted to help him out
with the dog law.
An Error.
The Southern Presbyterian, in commen
ting upon Dr. Talmage’s letter in favor
of teaching negroes to read the bible, says
“If our legislators have put the Christian
Scriptures against our institutions, by put
ting our institutions against that Divine
Book, the sooner and more completely we
get them to repeal their laws, the better.”
It is evident that the Presbyterian has
fallen into the error of supposing that there
is a statute in, our code whose specific word
ing and purpose are to prevent negroes from
reading the bible. How often will this er
ror have to be corrected ?
There is no law on our statute book pre
venting the /fading of thehihle by negroes.
There is simply a statute against teaching
negroes to read, and the object was not to
“put our institutions against the Divine
Book,” but to prevent the evil influences
of abolition documents which the yankees
once proposed to circulate ameng our ne
groes, through the U. 8. mails.
Do those who talk about there being a
law in our code against negroes’ reading
the bible, reflect what they are saying and
doing ? Is it ignorance, or a loose way of
talking, that induces them thus to misrep
resent and virtually slander (without in
tending it) our laws?
lfow to Ask for a Penny.
“ It has often been said that the mem
bers of the society of Friends are possessed,
from their youth, of more than an ordinary
share of acuteness. The following fact
may serve as a proof of this assertion :
Some time ago, Mr , a most respecta
ble iron-founder, of Birmingham, discover
ed that his son, a hoy of 5 years of age,
was accustomed to ask those gentlemen
who came to his house to give him money,
and immediately extorted a promise from
him, under a threat of correction, that he
would not do so anv more. The next day
Mr , his father’s partner, called, and
the boy evaded a breach of his promise by
saying, ‘ Friend, dost thou know auyone
who would loan me a penny, and not re
quire it of me again V ”
Miss V. Pai.mer, M'lledgeville.—
You now have credit for The Countryman
up to the 29th Nov., 1863.
“ We confess small faults in order to in**
| sinuate that we have no great one.”