About The sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1875-1907 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1887)
6 THE SUNNY SOUTH, ATLANTA, GA„ SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 1, lW. That Calamus Farm. Something over two months ago we inserted an item about a small calamus patch, by which a Fayette county (Georgia) farmer had real ized a large profit from roots grown on a quar ter of an acre of swamp. Following the publi cation we received a number of letters from different parts ef the South, to a number of which we forwarded replies by mail; we also published an editorial, so that the general public might have the benefit of what informa tion we had obtained. We confess that the reported results from that plant and small area, rather overtaxed our credulity; but wishing to attract attention to all new industries promising diversity of in dustries and profit, we risked it. But the statement was entirely correct. The owner, however, permitted the prospective chances for a quickly acquired competency (fortune?) to entice him to almost entirely abandon regular farming, and give his atten tion to the cultivation of calamus. The owner of the farm and patch was Adam Story, and the farm was on Flint river. Hav ing done so well, he entered into a written contract with a Baltimore drug house to sup ply it with over .$5,000 worth of the root. We learn from the Griffin, Ga., News, in which the original item appeared, that late in August Col. Hammond and a friend visited the farm—and with the intention of buying it. It was just after the long-continued heat/ rains, and before the waters had subsided. On reselling the locality, they found that the river had overflowed its banks, and in cutting a new channel for itself, had swept away the “Cala mus Plant.” Mr. Story will he unable to com ply with his contract; which, in connection with neglect of other interests, has depressed and nearly ruined him. But the calamus enterprise was no myth— and its cultivation evidently opens up a busi ness in a new and important farm product, useful, necessary and profitable. But Mr. Story’s course teaches a lesson. He allowed this new production to absorb all his time and attention, and let his other farm operations suffer; when undoubtedly, he could have run his farm as before, and made this a surplus product. One should not let the “make haste to get rich,” blind one to the old reliable products and methods, and cast them aside too hastily. Shelter for Cows from Cold. It may seem to some strange to advice giving tome shel-er to cows at night thus early in the season. In clear weather even in July and August cows in fields will get under trees to lie down, so that there may be less radiation of their own warmth into space. If any one tries sleeping out of doors in summer, as cam pers sometimes do, he will be apt to feel a chilly sensation towards morning. Of course when old storms prevail, as they are liable to frem now onward, the necessity for shelter is greatly increased. Fine Cotton Sample. A neat job was put up on two of our local cotton buyers Thursday evening. A handful of cotton, which had been used in packing fiue dressing cases and lad'es’ work boxes, which was as white as snow and free from speck or blemish, which wn offered for sale by Billy Parr. The eyes of the first buyer bulged away out when he saw the sample and he pronounc ed it the prettiest yet brought to market. Fc offered a good price for it. The next buyer gave the sample a critical examination,admired it very much, want ed to know where it g.ew, what kind of cotton it was, saked if the wuole bale was like the sample, inquired tenderly in regard to the absence of mo.es, and finally broke the camel’s back by asking Billy how much he had like it. With tears in his eyes Billy admitted that the sample was e'l he had. —Alapaha (Ga.) Star. Wine from Apricots. In Califoruts, surplus apricots are to be made into wine. Experiments show that they make a richly flavored wine, clear and effervescent as the best champagne. Don’t Run or Worry the Cows. It is true that the milk of cows that are wor ried or frightened will sour much quicker than when not so worried. Infants fed with the milk of cows worried or heated by run oiug (which is sometimes caused by boys m bringing ; hem from the pasture) will suffer from colic, and often from diarrhoea. Cultivate Less Land. The American Cultivater says if every farmer would limit himself in ploughing to such an area as he can cultivate and manure in the most thorough manner, there won id soon cease to be any complaint about farming not paying. The best systems of cropping are invariably those which call for the most thorough prepaia- ri'on of the soil. Farmer’s Organizations. All departments of trade and industry are dependent upon the tillage of the soil. “The king himself is fed from the field.” There is no necessary conflict of interests between these various lines of pursuit. That which will conduct to the benefit of the produce - s must needs be advantageous to all depaiiments of legitimate trade. The merchant, the aui- san, the professional man, all alike are con cerned in that which concerns the farming in terests of the country. There need be no a prehensions felt by any, not farmers, as to the ends sought by the organizations of farming people and the results to other business likely to follow. Existing economic conditions make it imperative for farmers to organize with a view of protecting their inter- ns against the evils that have come from nnequaled legisla tion. The good of all the country and of eve y worthy interest in the country is involved in the success of their work. To secure such conditions as will put the farmer upon an eq rT footing with those who handle and transport his produce, and those who manufacture it into articles of use, will be to promote the ir terests of all other lines of business and every class of society. It will, by giving the pn lu cer a larger portion of the fruits of his labor, increase his ability to be useful and valuable as a citizen, while it w ; 'l largely augment the happiness of his home. No man need fear aught from the farmers’ organizations, Iney p.omise good to the count./. They promi hurt only to those things that are wrong and ought to die.—Progressive Farmer. of Cfrottggt. Philosophy is the art of living.—Plutarch. There is nothing useless to men of sense; clever people turn everthing to account.—Fon taine. There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom ot most marriages.— Th/reau. That beneficent harness of routine which enables silly men to live respectably and un happy men to live calmly.—George Eliot. Proverbs are potted wisdom.—Charles Bux ton. There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of it Goldsmith. Keep cool and yon command everybopy.- Just. The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world.—Antoine Lemierre. Virtue is the first title of nobility.—Moliere. Music can noble hints impart, engender fury, kindle love, with unsuspected eloquence can move and manage all men with secret art.— Addison. An outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.— Gibbon. According to the security you offer her, Fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous.—Bul- wer-Lylton. The right of commanding is no longer an ad vantage transmitted by nature like an inheri tance; it is the fruit of labors, the price ofcour age.—Voltaire. If I were to deliver np my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and tomorrow into a pick-pocket.—Bulwer-Lytton. Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise; it may exist without the breath of a word; it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt, but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel i.; feel it, and hate in silence.—Wash ington A list on. That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agree able consciousness. A peasant has not capa city for having equal happiness with a philoso pher.—Johnson. Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon, of mountain, ocean, rive* and plain, the clouds -nd stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.—Alcott. Curious Largest Apple Orchard. The largest apple orchard in the United States is claimed by Fairinount, in Leaven worth County, Ivan. It contains 437 acres and composed of 59,000 trees of the following varie ties: Seventy acres of Winesap*, 210 of Ben Davis, seventy acres of Missouri Pippins, forty acres of Genitans, eight acres of Cooper’s Early aad eight acres of Maiden’s Blush. Last year’s crop is estimated at 40,000 bushels. Corgratulate North Carolina. North Carolinians may now congratulate themselves upon an Agricultural College in the near future. The plans and specifications have arrived and S- Skinner, Esq., of Hauford county, has been eiected superintendent of the i allege farm. One word right her. -elect North Carolinians to the professorship there. It is to be a people's college and we have as competent men within our borders as come from Massachusetts or anywhere else. — li'iii- ston Sentinel Late Pruning of Crape Vines. The proper time to prune grapevines is in the Fall, after t.he leaves have dropped, or in early Winter. But if neglected then it is not too ia’.e to do the work, even though the vines bleed nrofusely. It is seldom if ever that any perceptible injury to the vires results from this bleeding. After the buds sihit into leaf the sap does no: run, as the xuDerior attraction of the leaves retains it. Much slashing of the vines at this time, however, is really more in jurious than pruning a little earlier, even i hough it involve some loss of sap. How to Improve Cattle. The most successful way to raise Jstseys, or any other tiue breed of cattle, is to cross 'he : million breed with a locomotive. This has been accomplished in Americas with flattering success, as the following will clearly show: A wide-awake citizen purchased a little measly calf recently, paying three dollars ’herefor, which he justly considered full value for the bovine. A few days afterwards, as the calf was grazing upon the railroad track, it wt < ruu over aad killed by a passing tram, where upon the disconsolate owner put in a claim for forty dollars against the company, which was paid. Anyone owning a pasture alongside a good railroad can easily acquire a fortune in th i<! ma..uer, and this simple means of “iia- pioving” common stock is as rapid as it is cer tain.—Americus (Ga.,) Becorder. Agricultural Items. A letter from San Diego says, “When I get peaches as I did on Saturday, three weighing two and a half pounds, I thought it was a shame to eat them, and that they should be in a horticultural show.” Is there any wonder there is a boom in real estate in San Diego, with Muscat grapes plenty at three or four cents par pound, oranges, letnous, plums, pruns and apricots in great abundance? H. V. Sanford, of Miiledgeville, has a sample of pure lye soap made by his mother in 1862. She hat quite a quantity of this soap on hand now. Making her own soap year to year she now has hundreds of pounds on hand that have accumulated during the past twenty-five years. Biver Platte, which is said to be a very suit able wheat for British millers, is more abun dant this year than ever before. The greatest portion of it goes to the Continent, where mil lers have for a long time recognized the excel lent milling qualities of this wheat. There is always a fair demand for the best products of the soil, and when they are obtain ed by skillful management there is also a fair margin of profit. The chinch bug eats the farmer’s grain, the bee moth spoils his honey, the bed bug fills him full of pain, the humbug scoops his money. The Dalrymple Farm of Dakota will use in this year’s harvest 100 tons or nine car-loads of binders’ twine. Men Who Own Themselves. Farming may be a laborious and irksome business, and the profits of agriculture discour aging, but there is one thing which the farmer may possess of which eve./ man in any other vocation may well envy him. and that is his absolute independence. Men engaged in trade frequently feel obliged to refrain fiom doing what they consider their duty lest in its per formance they may injure their business. In Kennett Square the house-to-house canvass for signers to a remonstrance against the granting of a license to our one hotel devel oped a number of cases of this kind, and two or three persons who signed the remonstrance were subsequently overcome by their fears and had their names stricken off, the fear of a boycott proving too poweriulfor their sense of duty. The farmer, however, has nothing of this kind to fear. He is absolutely his own master, and neither his religious, moral, polit ical or social beliefs or disbeliefs may in any way be used to the injury of his worldly pros pects. He wears no man’s collar. And, a, *er all, this is more desirable than riches or place. One’s manhood is something more to be de sired than something that has to be gained by constantly “crooking the pregnant hinges of the knee,” or bowing to the caprice and whim of people we may in our inmost soul loathe and despise. The grange is educating the farmer how 1■> use this independence not only for his own good in correcting existing ev : ’s, but in helping those who dare not help them selves 1 for the good ol our country and man kind.’’—Kocmelt. Food for Thought. We clip the following excellent article from the editorial columns of that valuable and en terprising journal. The Farm and Fireside. We commend its truths to the careful study of our readers: For ten years pr <t the margin between the market value of most k : nds of farm produce and i's cost of production has been steadily narrowing. The price of farm lands in the middle and eas* rn States has been at a stand still, or decreasing, and the time has come when farmers everywhere are crying “there’s no king in fanning!” thus intensifying by their influence the spirit of unrest which is driving the brightest of our young men from the farm and into the alrer ly over-crowded professions, and the time is not far distant, judging by present indications, when the country at large will pass through New England’s experience in the transfer of a large proportion of its farms into the hands of foreigners, and the fuii her depreciation in value of the remainder. Now, we believe there is one way and oily one way by which this consummation may be avoided, and that is by the better education of farmers, both as farmers and as citizens. That legislation is largely manipulated in the interests of other classes aud agaiust the in terests of farmers is a fact too patent for de nial; but there ia no one so much to blame for this as the farmer himself. Let farmers ob tain that broad knowledge of human affairs which shall enable them to understand and appreciate the relative importance of their calling among other human industries and its just and equitable rights; let them unitedly assert and maintain these rights at the ballot- box, and agriculture will have taken the grand est upward step its history has ever known. But before farmers can act effectively in this matter they must act intelligently. We have already had too much bungling by half-edu cated legislators; too much hoodwinking of such by sharpers who had their special axes to grind; too much throwing of sops to the farmer to keep him still while acts of vital importance to his business were being quietly passed: and too much of that practice by which demagogues have managed to keep the farmer vote divided by raking over the ashes of dead issues. A Strong Endowment is conferred upon that magnificent institution, the human system, by Dr. Pierce’s “Golden Medical Discovery” that fortifies it against the encroachments of disease. It is the great blood purifier and alterative, and as a remedy for consumption, bronchitis, and all diseases of a wasting nature, its influence is rapid, effica cious and permanent. Sold everywhere. Sauce for the Goose.—Mrs. Charles (decolle- tee, to husband dressed in trowsers anu under shirt)—“Whv, Charley, you are not going as you are!” Charles—“Why, yes, aren’t you?” _a. €2 To all who are suffering from the errors and indiscretions of youth, nervous weakness, early decay, loss of manhood, he., I will send a recipe that will cure you, FREE OF CHAEGE. This great remedy was discovered by a missionary In South America. Send a self-addressed envelope to the Bsv. JosETH T. I ft MAX, station D, *» Fori Cits. There is a rooster in Kentucky with three throats. One of the big redwood trees of California furnishes 24,000 feet of lumber for Pullman car interiors. A dog bitten by a rattlesnake in Nebraska, instead of dying developed hydrophobia, and bit fourteen head of cattle, all of which died, Sir William Armstrong's new gun to resist torpedo attacks is a thirty-pounder, and devel ops a muzzle velocity of 1,900 feet per second. A Treasury Department clerk has invented a lock which can be locked with any one of 10,- 000 keys, but can be unlocked only by the original key used to lock it. At the National Cat Show recently held at the Crystal Palace, near London, the prize for weight was taken by a puss of twenty-three pounds. Another gifted feline had white fur, and one blue and one hazel eye. Pasteur proves the value of his preventive of splenic fever by showing that in France, dur- the last five years, the mortality of inoculated sheep has ranged from 0.75 to 1.08 per cent, that ef non-inoculated being ten per cent. Only 0.28 to 0.50 per cent, of inoculated cattle died, and five per cent, of others. Some of the trees of Arkansas have peculiar properties. The fruit and root of the buckeye are used by Indians on their fishing excursions. They put the fruit and roots in a hag, which they drag through the water. In an hour or so the fish rise to the surface dead. Cattle die after eating of the fruit or leaves. Man eats the fruit of the pawpaw, but hogs won’t. Ropes and mats are made of its bark. The fioit and bark of the bay tree are supposed to be a cure for rheumatism and intermittent fever. Paper, rendered as tough as wood or leather, has been introduced abroad for roofing and other purposes. The method consists in mix ing chloride of zinc with the pulp, in the pre cess of manufacture, it being also found that the greater the degree of concentration of the zinc solution, the greater is the degree of tough ness, and, consequently, of durability, charac terizing the paper. The material is likewise adapted for making boxes, combs, etc. The municipality of St. Petersburg has de cided to plant two rows of tress in all the streets which are more than twenty-three metres broad. There are sixty-five such streets in the city. The Dutch linden tree will be selected for the purpose, as being best adapted to the climate of St. Petersburg and one of the most rapidly growing trees. It is estimated that the cost will be twenty-five roubles per tree, or 025,000 roubles in all, as about 25,000 trees will be required. It has recently been computed by an officer of the Ordnance Depaument in Washington that the weight carried by a soldier equipped with rod bayonets, rifle, and cartridge belt, three days’ cooked rations and 100 rounds of ball cartridges and complete “kit” of clothin is fifty-three pounds 2.58 ounces; with Spring field rifle, bayonet, scabbard, cartridge noxes and leather belt, clothing and ammunition, etc., is fifty-four pounds 1.95 ounces; with Spring- field rifle, bayonet, scabbard, cartridge belt, clothing, ammunition, etc.,is fifty-three pounds 15 90 ounces. TALMAGE’S SERMON. Brookltx, September, 25.—After the great congregation had sung the long meter doxol- ogy in the Brooklyn Tabernacle this morning, Dr. Talmage expounded the sixth chapter of the second epistle to the Corinthians, setting forth the importance of separation from bad fellowship, and saying that a man is no better than the company he keeps. Professor Henry Eyre Brown played an organ solo, Sonata No. I in D minor ty Guillmant. The subject of the sermon was “A straight-up-and-down re ligion,” and the text was Amos vii, v. 8: “And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what geest thou? and I said, A plumb line.” Dr. Tal mage said: The solid masonry of the world has to me a fascination. Walkabout some of the trium phal arches and the cathedrals, four or six hundred years old, and see them stand up erect as when they were builded, walls of great height for centuries not bending a quarter ot an inch this way or that. So greatly honored were the masons who builded these walls that they were free from taxation and called “free” masons. The trowel gets most of the credit for these buildings, and its clear ringing on stone and brick has sounded across the ages. But there is another implement of just as mu' *i importance as the trowel, and my text rei >g- nizee it. Bricklayers, and stonemasons r id carpenters, in the building of walls, use an in strument made of cord, at the end of which a lump of lead is fastened. They dropitove. 1 the side of the wall, and, as the plummet na urally seeks the center of gravity in the earl , the workman discovers where the wall recedes, and where it bulges out, and just what is the perpendicular. 'Slur text represents God ae standing on the tvall of character, which the Israelites had built, and in that way meas uring It. “And the Lord said unto me, Ames, what seest thou*’ and I said, A plumb line.” What tbe world wants is a straight u^-and- down religion. Much of the so-called piety of the day bends this way and that, to suit the times. It is horizontal with a low state of sen timent and morals. We have all been build ing a wall of character, and it is glaringly im perfect and needs reconstruction. How shall it be brought into the perpendicular? Only by the divine measurmeni. “And the Lord said to me, Amos, what geest thou? and I said, A plumb line.” The whole tendency of the times is to make us act by the standard of what others do. If they play cards, we play cards. If they dance, we daDce. If they read certain styles of book, we read them. We throw over the wall of our character the tangled plumb line of other lives, and reject the infalliable test which Amos saw. The question for me should not be what you think is right, but what God thinks is right. This petpetual reference to the behavior of others, as though it decided anything but hu man fallibility, is a mistake as wide as the world. There are ten thousand plumb lines in use, but only one is true aud exact, and that is the line of God’s eternal right. There is a mighty attempt being made to reconstruct and fix up the Tea Commandments. To many they seem too rigid. The tower of Pisa leans over about thb.een feet from the perpendicu lar, and people go thousands of miles to see i*s graceful inclination, and by extra braces and various architectural contrivances it is kept leaning from century to century. Why not have the t3n granite blocks of Sinai set a little aslant? Why ithe pillar of ttath a ^ijsftorical. The first British writers were Gildas, Nen- nine and Bede, in the seventh century. Amarath I. was the founder of the power of Turks, and reigned from 1357 till k'lled in 1390. The London Gazette, the earlieit English newspaper, was commenced at Oxford, Nov. 7, 1605, where the Court was then residing on ac count ot the plague. The star chamber tribunal in England was instituted in the third year of the reign of Henry VII. and abolished in the sixteenth year of the reign of Charles I. There is a difference of eighty-one years in the time which the Jews spent in Eg/pt in the account of Exodus and that of Josephus, the former making it a per.od of 430 years, and the latter 511. Cicero relates that the Chaldeans and Bac- trians claimed celestial observations for 470,000 years; but, taking a day as an astronomical period, it becomes 1,300 solar years, or, taking a moon lunar, 32,009 years. Julius Csesar was born 100 B. C.; became a member of the Triumvirate with Crassus and Pompey the Great in 60; in 45 assumed the title of imperator or perpetual dictator, and was as sassinated in March of the following year. King John of England was forced to grant the Magna Chartoa, June 15, 1215, when the great seal was affixed thereto at Bunaemede, a meadow between Staines and Windsor. The original Magna Charta is preserved in the Brit ish Museum. Till the fifteenth century no Christians were allowed to receive interest on money, anu Jews were the only usurers, and therefore often ban ished and persecuted. In England, under Ed ward VI. interest was forbidden entirely from religious motives. Didn’t Want It Known. Not many days ago a Horse Shoe (Hackett City, Ark.) representative happened to drop in at a house in this community where lives one of the smartest young ladies in Western Ar kansas. On arriving, he found the young lady was just completing the job of harnessing a horse and hitching him to a buggy. She at once insisted that the Horse Shoe must keep quiet about the matter, as she didn’t want it known that she coaid harness a horse. Our representative insisted that it could certainly do her no harm to let it be known that she could harness her own buggy horse. “Oh!’’ said she, “I am not afraid of that; I am only afraid that I may some day fall into the hands of a man who might want me to harness his horse and miue too So we feel bound lo'se- crecy in the matter. “Your Agency obtans lower rates from us than any other advertiser, for tbe good reasons that you send us more business and always pay promptly,” writes an Iowa publisher to Geo. P. R iwell & Co. ’s Newspaper Advertising Bureau, 10 Spruce street, New York. leaning tower? Why is not an ellipse as good as a square? Why is not an oblique as goci as straight up and down? My friends, we must have a standard; shall it be God’s or man’s? The divine plamb line needs to be thrown over all merchandise. Thousands of years ago Solomon discovered the tendency of buyers to depreciate goods. He saw a man beating down an article lower and lower, and saying it was not worth tbe price asked, and when he bad purchased at the the lowest point he told everybody what a sharp bargain hehadstiuck, and how he had outwittid the merchant. Proverbs, xx, 14:, “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he is gone his way then he boasteth.” So utterly zskew is socie ty in this matter that you seldom find a seller asking the price that he expects to get. He puts on a higher value than he propo :es to receive, knowing that he will have to drop. And if be wants fifty he asks seventy-five, and if he wants two thousand, he asks twenty-five hundred. “It is naught,” saith the buyer. “The fab ric is defective; the style of goods is poor; I can gel elsewhere a better article at a smaller price. It is out of fashion; it is damaged; it will fade; it will not wear well.” After awld'e the merchant, from over persuasion or from desire to dispose of that particular stock of goods, says: “Well, take it at your own price,” and the purchaser goes home' with light step aud ca'ls into his private office his confi dential friends, and chuckles while he tells how that for half price he got the goods. In other words, he lies and was proud of it. Nothing would make times as good, ; and the earning of a livelihood so easy, as the universal adoption of the law of rigM* Suspicion strikes through all bargain making. Men who sell know not whether they will ever get the money. Pur chasers know not whether the goods shipped will be according to the sample. And what, with the large number of clerks who are mak ing false entries and then absconding to Cana da, aud the explosion of firms that fail for millions of dollars, honest men are at their wit’s end to make a living. He who stands up amid ali the pressure and does right is accom plishing something toward the establishment of a high commercial prosperity. I have deep sympathy for the laboring classes who toil with hand and foot. But we must not forget the business men, who, without any complaint or bannered processions through the streets, are enduring a stress of circumstances terrific. The fortunate people of to-day are those who are receiving daily wages on regular salaries. And the men most to be pitied are those who conduct a business while prices are falling, aud yet try to pay their clerks and tmployes, and are m such fearful straits that they would quit business to-morrow if it were cot for the reck and ruin to others. When people tell me what a ruinous low price they purchased an article for, it gives me more dismay than satisfaction. I know it means the bankruptcy and defalca tion of men in many departments. The men who toil with the brain need full as much sympathy as those who toil with the hand. All business life is struck through with suspi cion, and panics are only the result of waat of confidence. The pressure to do wrong is all the stronger from the fact that in our day the large busi ness houses are swallowing up the smaller, the whales dining on bine fish and minnows. The large houses undersell the smaller ones, be cause they can afford it. They can afford to make nothing, or actually loose on some styles of goods, assured they can make it up on oth ers. So a great dry goods house gees outside of its regular line and sells hooks at cost, or less than cost, and that swamps the book sellers; or, the dry goods house sells bric-a- brac at the lowest figure, that swamps the small dealer in bric-a-brac. And tbe same thing goes on in other styles of merchandise, aDd the consequence is that all along the busi ness streets of onr cities there are merchants of small capital who are in terrific struggle to keep their heads above water. The Canarders ruu down the Newfoundland fishing smacks. This is nothing agaius: the man who has the big store, for every man has as large a store and as great a business as he can manage. To feel right aad do right under all this pressure requires martyr graces, requires divine sup port, requires celestial reinforcement. Yet there are tens of thousands of such men get ting splendidly through. They see others go ing up and themselves going down, bat they keep their patience, and their courage, and their Christian consistency, and after a while their turn of success will come. The owners ot the big business will die and their boys will get possession of the business, and with a cigar in their mouth, and full to the chin with the best liquor, aud behind a pair of spanking bay* they will pass everything on the turnpike road to temporal aad eternal perdition. Then the business will break op, and the smaller dealer* will have fair opportunity. Or the spirit ot contentment ana right feeling will take posseesion of the large firm, aa recently in the case of the great honae of A. A. Low & Co., and the firm will say: “We have enongh money for all onr needs, and the needs of onr children; now let ns dissolve business and make way for other men in the same line. Instead ef being startled at a solitary instance of magnanimity, as in the case just mentioned, it will become a common thing. I know of scores of great business houses that have bad their opportunity of vast accnmolation, and who ought to quit. But perhaps for all the days of this generation the struggle of small houses to keep alive under the overshadowing pressure of great houses will continue; there fore, taking things as they are, you will be wise to preserve your equilibrium and your honesty, and your faith, and throw over all the counters and shelves, and barrels and hogs heads, and cotton bales and rice casks the measuring line of divine right. “And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? and I said, a plumb line.” In the same way we need to measure our theologies. All sorts of religions are putting forth their pretensions. Some have a spiritu alistic religion, and their chief work is with ghosts, and others a religion of political econ omy proposing to put an end to human misery by a new style of taxation, and there is a hu manitarian religion that looks after the body of men, and lets the soul look after itself, and there is a legislative religion that proposes to rectify all wrongs by enactment of better laws, and there is an .esthetic religion that by rules of exquisite taste would lift the heart out of its deformities; and religions of all sorts, relig ions by the peck, religions by the square foot, and religions by tbe ton—all of them devices of the devil that would take the heart away from the only religion that will ever effect any thing for the human race, and that is the straight up and down religion written in the book, which begins with Genesis and ends with Revelation, the religion of the skies, the old religion, the God-given religion, the ever lasting religion, which says: “Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself." All relig ions but the one begin at the wrong end and in the wrong place. The Bible religion demands that we first get right with God. It begins at the top and measures down, while the other religions begin at the bottom and try to meas ure up. They stand at the foot of the wall, up to their knees in the mud of human theory and speculation, and have a plummet and a string tied fast to it. And they throw the plummet this way, and break a head there, and throw the plummet another way, and break a head there, and then they throw it np, and it comes down upon their own pate. Foolsl Why will you stand at the foot of the wall measuring up when you ought to stand at the top measuring down? A few days ago I was in the country, thirsty after a long walk. And I came in, and my child was blowing soap bubbles, and they rolled out of the cup, blue, and gold, and green, and sparkling, and beautiful, and or bicular, and in so small a space I never saw more splendor concentrated. But she blew once too often and ail the glory vanished into suds. Then I turned and took a glass of plain water, and was refreshed. And so far as soul thirst is concerned, I put against all the glow ing, glittering soap-bubbles of worldly reform and human speculation one draught from the fountain from under the throne of God, clear as crystal. Glory be to God for the religion that drops from above, not coming up from beneathl “And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest *hou? and I said a plumb line.” I want you to no .ice .bis fact, that when a man gives up the straight up-and-down reli gion in the Bible for some new-far ed religion, it is generally to suit his sins. You first hear of his change of religion, and then you hear of some swindle he has practiced in Colorado mining stock, telling some one if he will put in ten thou, .nd dollars he can take out a hun dred thousand, or he has sacrified his charity, or plunged into irremediable worldliness. His sins are so broad he has to broaden his reli gion, and he becomes as broad as temptation, as broad as the soul’s darkness, as broad as hell. They want a religion that will allow them to keep their sins, and then at death say to them: “Well done, good and faithful ser vant,” and that- tells them: “All is well, for there is no hell.” What a glorious heaven they hold before us! Come, let us go m and see it. There is Herod and all the babes he massacred. There is Charles Guiteau, and Jim Fiske, and Robespierre, the friend of the French guillotine, and ail the liars, thieves, house-burners, garroters, pick-pockets and lib ertines of all the centuries. They have all got crowns, and thrones, and harps, and sceptres, and when they chant they sing: “Thanksgiv ing, and honor, and glory, and power to the broad religion that let us all into heaven with out repentance and faith in those disgraceful dogmas of ecclesiastical old-fogvism.” My text gives me a grand opportunity of saying a useful word to all young men who are now forming habits for a lifetime. Of what use to a stonemason or a bricklayer is a plumb line? Why not build tbe wall by the unaided eye and hand? Because they are insufficient; because if there be a deflection in the wall it cannot further on he corrected; because, by the law of gravitation, a wall must be straight in order to be symmetrical and safe. A young man is in danger of getting a defect in his wall of character that may never be corrected. One of the best friends 1 ever bad died of delirium tremens at sixty years of age, though he had not since twenty-one years of age—before which he had been dissipated—touched intoxi cating liquor until that particular carousal that took him off. Not feeling well in a street on a hot summer day. he stepped into a drug-store, just as yon and I would have done, and asked for a dose of something to make him feet bet ter. And there was alcohol in the dose, and that one drop aroused the old appetite, and he entered the first liquor store and stayed there until thoroughly under the power of rum. He entered his home a raving maniac, his wife and daughters fleeing from his presence, until he was taken to the city hospital to die. The combustable material of early habit had lain quiet for nearly forty years, and that one spark ignited the conflagration. Remember that the wall may be one hundred feet high, and yet a deflection one foot from the founda tion affects the entire structure, and if you live a hundred years and do right the last eighty years, you may nevertheless do something at twenty years of age that will damage ail your earthly existence. Ail you who have built houses for yourselves or for others, am I not right in saying to these young men you cannot build a wall so high as to be independent of the character of its foundation? A man be fore thirty years of age may commit enough sin to last him a lifetime. A cat that has killed one pigeon cannot be cured. Keep it from killing the first pigeon. Now, Joan, or George, or Charles, or William, or Alexander, or Andrew, or Henry, or whatever be year Christian name or surname, say here and now: “No wild oats for me, no cigars or cigarettes for me, no wine or beer for me, no nasty stones for me, no Sunday sprees for me; I am going to start right and keep on right. Gcd help me, for I am very weak. From the throne of eternal righteousness let down to me the principles by which I can be guided in building everything from foundation to c ip- stone. Lord God, by the wounded hand of Christ, throw me a plumb line!” Lord Nelson's general direction when goiDg into naval battle was, no man can do wrong that places his ship close alongside that of the enemy. My friend, you will never do wrong if you keep your life close alongside the Ten Commandments. Do right, aud you can be as brave as Maria Theresa, who rode up the hill of Defiance and shook her sword at the four corners of the earth. Dr.pRJP_ es FLWORIHGEXTRAtf 5 MOST PERFECT MADE Dr. Price’s Extracts, Vanilla, Lemon. Orange, Etc., prepared from the true fruits, flavor deliciously. Scene hi one of the Departments of the PRICE BAKING POWDER COMPANY’S MANUFACTORY THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD. Preparing Dr. Price's Special Flavoring Extracts. Piedmont Exposition at Atlanta, Ga. Opens October 10th, Closes October 22d, 1887. PRESIDENT CLEVELAND WILL BE IN ATLANTA OCTOBER 18 AND 19. The Georgia Railroad Companj and Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern Railroad Will sell ROUND TRIP TICKETS at the following low rates from all Regular Stations. Tickets will include admission coupon to Exposition grounds for which an additional charge of 50 cents will be made. No tickets will be sold without the above named coupon is attached. The rates will be as follows from stations named, including admission to Exposition Grounds: Athens to Atlanta and return, • - - §3.10 I Augusta to Atlanta and return, - - §3.50 Washington “ “ - - - * 3.101 Miiledgeville “ “ - - - 3.50 Covington “ “ - - - - 1.30 I Madison “ “ - - - 1.85 Greensboro “ “ - - - - 2.251 Decatur “ “ - - 0.65 The sale of tickets will commence on Sunday, October 9th, and continue until October 22 , in clusive, limited to 5 days, including date of sale. JOE. W. WHITE, E. R. DORSEY, Traveling Passenger Agent. General Passenger A gent. AUGUSTA, GA. “But,” you say, “von shut us young folks out from ail fun.” O, no! I like fun. I be lieve in fun. I have had lots of it in my time. But I have not had to go into paths of sin to find it. No credit to me, but because of an ex traordinary parental example and influence 1 was kept from outward v transgressions, though my heart was bad enough and desperately wicked. I have had fun illimitable, though I never swore one oath, and never gambled for so much as the value of a pin, and never saw the inside of a haunt of sin save as when, ten years ago, with commissioner of police, and a detective and two elders of my church, I ex plored these cities by midnight, not out of cu riosity, but that I might in pulpit discourse set before the people the poverty and the horrors of underground city liie. Yet; though I never was intoxicated for an instant, and never com mitted an act of dissoluteness, restrained onlv by the grace of God, without which restraint I would have gone headlong to the bottom of infamy, I have had so much lun that I don’t believe that there is a man on the planet in the present time who has had more. Hear it, men and boys, women and girls, ail the fun is on the side of right. Sin may seem attractive, but it is deathful, and like the machlneel, a tree whose dews are poisonous. The only gen uine happiness is in an honest Christian nfe. The Caippewa, wanting to see God, blackens his face with charcoal and fasts till he has a vision of what he calls God. My God I can see best when I take my hat off and let the sunshine blaze in my face, and after a reason able breakfast. He is not a God of blackness and starvation, but of light and plenitude, and the glory of the noonday sun is Egyptian mid night compared to it. There they go—two brothers. The one was converted a year ago in church, one Sunday morning, during prayer, or sermon, or hymn. No one knew it at the time. The persons on either side of him suspected nothing, but iu that young man’s soul this process went on: “Lord, here I am, a young man amid the temptations of city life, and I am afraid to risk them alone; come and be my pardon and my help; save me from making the mistake that some of my com rades are making, and save me now.” And quicker than a flash God rolled Heaven into his soul. He is just as jolly as he used to be, is just as brilliant as he used to be. He can strike a ball or catch one as easily as before he was converted. With gun or fishing rod, in this summer vacation, he was just as skillful as before. The world is brighter to him than ever. He appreciates pictures, music, inno cent hilarity, social life, good jokes, and has plenty of fun—first class fun, glorious fun. But his brother is going down bill. In the morniDg his head aches trom the champagne debauch. Everybody sees he is in rapid de scent. What cares he for right or decency or the honor of his family name? Turned out of employment, depleted in health, cast down in spirits, the typhoid fever strikes him in the smallest room on tne fourth story of a fifth rate boarding house, cursing God, and calling for his mother, and fighting oack demons from his dying pillow, which is besweated and torn to rags. He plunges out of this world with the shriek of a destroyed spirit. Alas for that kindoffunl It is remorse. It is despair. It is blackness of darkness. It is woe unending and long reverberating, and crushing as though all the mountains of all continents rolled on him in one avalanche. My soul, stand back from such fun. Young man, there is no fun in shipwrecking your character, no fun in dis gracing your tattler’s name. There is no fun in breaking your mother’s heart. There is no fun in the physical pangs of the dissolute. There is no lun in the profligate’s death-bed. Tnere is no fun in an undone eternity. Para celsus, out of the ashes of a burnt rose, said he could re-create the rose, but he failed iu the alchemic undertaking; and roseate life, once burned down in sin, can never again be made to blossom. Oh! this plumb line of the everlasting right! God will throw it over ail our lives to snow us our moral deflections. God will throw it over all churches to show whether they are doing useful work or are standing instances of idle ness and pretense. He will throw that plumb line over all nations to demonstrate whether their laws are just or cruel, their rulers good or bad, their ambitions holy or infamous. He tnrew that piurnb fine orer the Spanish mon archy of other days; and what became of her? Ask the splintered hulks of her overthrown Armada. He threw that plumb line over French imperialism; and what was the result? Ask the ruins of ihe Tui 1 lies, aud the fallen column of the Place Venuowe, and the grave trenches of Sedan, aud the blood of revolutions at different times rolling through the Champs Elysees. He threw that piumb line over an cient Rome; and what became of the realm of the Csesars? Ask her war eagles, with Beak dulled and wings broken, flung helpless into the liber. He thre w it over the Assyrian Em pire of a thou,-and years, tne thrones of Semi- ramia and bardanapalus and Shalmaneser, of twenty-seven victorious expeditious, the cities of Phoenicia kntedrg to the scepter, and all the world blanched in the presence. What became of all the grandeur? Ask the fallen palaces of Khorsabad aud the corpses of her one hundred and eighty-five thousand soldiery slain by the angel of tne Lord in one night, and the Assyr ian sculpturers of the world’s museums, all mat now remains of that splendor before which na tions staggered and crouched. God is now throwing that plumb line over this American republic, ana it is a solemn time with this na tion. And whether we keep His Sabbaths or dishonor them; whether righteousness or in iquity dominate; whether we are Christian or inlidei; whether we fulfill our mission or re fuse it; whether we are for God or against Him, we’ll decide whether we shall, as a na tion, go on in a higher and higher career or go down in the same grave wnere Bacylon and Nineveh and Thebes and Assyria are sepul chred. and she went to Baden Baden and tried those waters, and went to Camsbad and tried those waters, and went to Homburg and tried those waters, and instead of getting better she got worse, and in despair she said to a physician: “What shall I do?” His reply was: “Medi cine can do nothing for you Yon have one chance in the waters of Pitt Kealthy, Scot land.” “Is it possible?” she replied. “Why, those waters are on my own estate!” She re turned and drank of the fountain at her own gate, and in two months completely recovered. Oh! sick, and diseased, and sinning, and dying hearer, why go trudging all ti e world over, and seeking here and there relief for your discour aged spirit, when close by a. d at your very feet, and at the very door of juur heart—aye, within ihe very estate of your own conscious ness—the healing waters of eternal life may be had, and had this very hour, this very minute, this very Sabbath? Blessed be God that over against the plumb line that Amos saw is the cross, through the emancipating power of which you and I may live, aad live forever. PLAIN HOME TALKS BY DR. E. B. POOTE. For three new subscribers we will send n copy of Dr. Foote’s Plain Home Talks about the human system, the habits of men and women, the cause and prevention of disease, our sextual relations and social natures, embracing medical common sense applied to causes, prevention and cure of chronic diseases, the natural relation of men and women to each other; society, love, marriage, parentage. &c., embellished with 200 illustrations. The book contains 6,00 pages, handsomely bound in cloth and gilt A Classical anil Mythological Dictionary. A new for popniar nas. Ej It. C. Faulkner. ltl»th» of tula volume to provide the orrtJnarj render with m 1e! an.l concise explanation ortho ancient Mythological. Classi- S Biographical Historical, and Geographical Allusions, moat equeutly met with In English Literature, in art representations frequently met with In English Literature of Classical D-ltlee and Heroes, In news paper discussions, and In ordinary apeecii. 70 Illustrations. Erie? a counts are given of all the clanslrnl heroes meritloned In ancient history ; nlso of all Mythological Deities, Bach as Achilles, 1 Adonis, Ammon, A mi bis, Apollo, Ataluuta. Atlas, Bacchus. Brahma. Buddha, Cerberus, Charon, Cupid. Dagon, Diana. Duiya, Escn- laplus, Euterpe, E bo, Iiulena, Hercules Indra, Isia. Juno, Jupiter, Krishna, liars’ Me<lu?o, Mercury, Minerva, Moloch, Nlohe Orpheus Os'.rla, Pan, Pluto, Psycho, Saturn, bybli. Sirens. Terpsichore. Thalia, Thor, Tnorh, Vuruna. Venus. Vesta, Vishnu, Vul can Tama, ar.d hundreds of others. A hand book for popular use—convenient, compro- _ __ . —very i understand these >uh- With whioh are combined the words opposite in meaning. By H. O. Faulkner. For the nse or all those who wonld speak or write the Eng lish Language fluently and oorreotly. With this book at hand any one may readily find a suitable word to express their exact meaning and convey a thought oorreotly. This book ia invaluable to speakers, writers, authors and the conversationalist. Handsomely bound in cloth. For two new subscribers we will send a oopy of either of these valuable books in paper bind ing. A manual ofsooial etiquette. By Franoes Stev ens. Nothing is given in this book that has not the sanotion of observance by the best sooiety— contains 21 chapters. Introductions and Salu tations, Visiting Cards and Visiting, Strangers and New-oomers, Engagements and Weddings, , „ Reoeptions and Debuts, Private Balls and Ger- to Isaiah, ‘God toall lay judgment to the line mans, Fanoy Dress and Masquerade Balia MtinPKH fn !h« ninmmot 9* ,f aK 2 m,, ^ w WV* “Bat,” say you, “if there be nothing but a plumb line, what can any of us do? for there is an old proverb which truthfully declares: ‘If the best man’s faults were written on his forehead it would make him pull his hat over his eyes ’ What shall we do w hen, according to Isaiah, ‘God toall lay judgment to the line aad righteousness to the plummet ?’ ” Ah, here is where the gospel comes ia with a Sa vior’s righteousness to make up for our defic its. And while I see hanging on the wail a plumb line, I see also hanging there a cross. And whiD the one condemns us, the other saves ns, if only we will hold to it. And here and now you may be sat free with a more glo rious liberty than Hampden or Sidney or a Kosciusko ever fought for. Not out yonder, _ . , or down there, or up here, but just where you I book is indispensible to all who wish to are you may get it. The invalid proprietress | obtain the most enjoyment from daily inter of a wealthy estate in Scotland visited the con- | course with their fellow beimw. ' tinentoi Europe to get ridot her maladies, I bound in cloth. Handsomely mg, Table Deoorations and Etiquette, Lunoh- eons, Breakfast and Teas, The Art of Enter taining, Letter Writing and Invitations, Musi cal ‘ At Homes” and Garden Parties, Travel ing Manners and Mourning Etiquette, Wedding and Birthday Anniversaries and Presents, New Year’s Day Receptions, Important General Considerations, Brief Hints for every day use.
