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W. F. uiiiSiH, Pnblisher.
VOLUME IX.
AT LAST,
BT JOHN GRBEHLEAF WHITTTK*.
town on my day of life the night ia failing,
And, in the winds from unsunned spaces blown,
I hear far voices out of darkness calling
My feet to paths unknown.
Thou who hast made nay home of life so pleasant,
Leave notits tenant when its walls decay.
0 Love divine, O Helper ever present,
Be Thou my strength and stay I
Be near me when all else is from me drifting,
Earth, sky, hoine’B pictures, days of shade and
shine,
And kindly faces to my own uplifting
The love which answers mine.
I have but Thee, O Father 1 Let Thy spirit
Be with me then to comfort and uphold ;
No gate of pearl, no branch of palm, I merit,
Nor street of shilling gold.
Suffice it if—my good and ill unreckoned,
And both forgiven through Thy abounding grace—
I find myself by hands familiar beckoned
Unto 111} fitting place.
■ome humble door among Thy many mansions,
Borne sheltering shade, where sin and striving
cease,
And flows forever through Heaven’s green expan
sions,
The river of Thy peace.
Thore, from tho music round about me stealing,
I fuin would learn the now and holy song,
And find, at last, beneath Tliy trees of healing,
The life for which I long.
COL. COYOTE CL AUK,
When I told the officers of my church
in that newest city of the Southwestern
States that Mrs. Clark had called upon
mo with a view of joining our society,
those officials w r ero struck with dismay,
for tho Colonel had shot her former hus
band.
“lam glad to know her,” I insisted.
“And you would like to have her hus
band, Coyote Clark, call, would you ?”
Mr. Jones asked it derisively, but I re
plied as promptly, “I will be glad to
have him do so ! He shall bo welcome.
That is what lam hero for. It is the
Worst people who nood me most.”
“Do they? Well, I am anxious to
Beo what will come of it. Col. Coyote
Clark 1” and Mr. Brown evidently coin
cided in the sarcastic exclamation of Mr.
Jones. As soon as they were gone I
planted the dreaded reprobate in imag
ination before me.
“It is plain,” I said to myself, “ that
ho is a large, red-faced, bushy-whisk
ered, boisterous man, a bully and a
blackguard. Doubtless the sobriquet of
Coyote, prairie fox, lias come to and
clings to him as naturally as the name
of Bob, Tom, Bill to other men. lam
not afraid of the ruffian,” and if my fists
did not instinctively clench themselves
my manner became in anticipation, froz
en and defiant. .
A few weeks afterward, and when I
had forgotten the disreputable Colonel,
tkero called upon me one afternoon a
gentleman whom I knew at a glance to
be a book or insurance agent. He was
an undersized man, but well-formed and
remarkably well-dressed, closely-shaven,
and whose singularly youthful face was
made the more engaging by a pair of
frank and laughing eyes. There was
that in them which grasped me as cor
dially as did his hand, which I observed
was as small and white as that of a lady,
and which adhered to my own with a
curious magnetic warmth. His voice,
too, and whole bearing had such an in
nocent and childlike sincerity as won me
at once. No one could be less intrusive
or more respectable, and during our
conversation upon general topics I ob
served that he listened more attentively
to me, and with more than his eyes
fastened upon mine. “ I will subscribe
for his book, whatever it is,” I mur
mured to myself at last. “If he is an
insurance agent how can I refuse to take
out a policy ? ” But he only remarked,
as after a very pleasant visit he arose
to leave, “I am pleased to know, sir,
that my wife desires to unite with the
church.”
“Your wife,” I stammered.
“Yes. sir; Mrs. Clark. My name is
CoL Clark. I dare say,” he added with
the laugh of a school-boy, “ that you
have heard of me as Coyote Clark. That
is only their fun. For although lam
not myself a Christian, as I regret to
no man, sir, has a deeper respect
for religion,” and his face had token on
bio siuoerest seriousness.
That was the way we began our more
than mutual acquaintance. Every day
I heard of some fresh rascality of my
new friend. He was a gambler, wa3
horribly profane when enraged, could
become more thoroughly intoxicated
over night, and show less signs of it next
morning than any other. When crossed
his plans he could and did kill his
°ian without a symptom of regret for it
afterward. It is absurd to suppose that
I liked him notwithstanding all this be
cause he named a race horse after me.
Mb- Was a Bkfcia©. hut I did like him,
most men I was born twins, not
like Chang and Eng, for mine in the in
Duntti) to industrial latwat, th< Diffusion of Tratlt. tho gutaUishiMt of Jutioo, aid tho Presomtioa of a People’* Gowiatnt
nermost dual ty of Jacob and Esau in
eternal strife, and the hidden Esau in
me, as it i3 to confess, sprang
forth to greet him every time we met, as
we often did. It may have been be
cause I had so intense a desire to save
the man from nimself and impending
doom. “He is sure to be killed in the
end,” I urged upon myself; “he is apt
to be shot down any moment; whatever
he does I will not break with him—will do
my best to win him over.”
He gave me every opportunity to do
bo. After a very long probation his wife
became a member of my church. Not
only was she a regular attendant, but
she 1 trought her husband with her. On
prayer-meeting nights, when it was too
cold or the rain was falling in torrents,
whoever else was absent it was not Col.
Coyote Clark nor his wife. Every child
was in the Sunday school. During ser
mons the Colonel gave me his, if pot
devout, at least undivided attention. I
met a cordial reception when I visited
at his hou.se. I was a little surprised
when, on calling one hot August even
ing, two or three of his youngest child
ren raced in and out of the parlor as
naked as the hour they were born, but
they were very beautiful children, and
were soon hustled off to bed; and the
father sat listening for an hour after,
and with sympathetic eyes, to all I
could urge upon him as to a chaise of
life.
As I knew at the outset, I cannot con
dense into limits so brief a tenth of what
I would like to say of my friend. For.
notwithstanding everything, I liked
him; yes, and I like him to this hour !
I recall the picnic dinner he gave to the
Sunday school in the woods on a bright
October day, the profuse generosity of
the man, then as always, who for some
occult reason wore a raffled shirt and
was apparently the ideal of a refined
gentleman. We had to repress and re
fuse his pecuniary gifts to the church.
I believe he would have built us anew
edifice had we allowed it.
“ And you still think you can make a
Christian of him ?” The question was
continually dashed upon me like cold
water, and from, it seemed to me, every
quarter. ‘‘ I can but try 1” I always
said so, but it was with a sinking heart.
My friend seemed to belong to a wholly
different species somehow, always so
cordial, so attentive, so open to ojn
viction, so frankly boyish and bright
faced, yet all along, as I could but
know, the same unmitigated reprobate.
Disasters befell mm in quick succession.
His house was burned down, but he
tracked the incendiary, killed him, and
was as cheerful .s ever. His favorite
son was blown up and burned to a crisp
in his Christmas pyrotechnics. Another
son, a handsome fellow, accidentally
shot and killed a young negro with
whom he was playing. A daughter not
15 was assisted out of a back window
one night by a lad not much older, and
eloped to be married by me some weeks
after to her abductor. A third son not
10 years old had his clothes hidden
while bathing in the river, and searched
and found them only to take a small re
volver out of the pockets, run, still
naked, after his mischievous companion
and dangerously wound him. Through
everything Col. Coyote Clark remained,
as far as I could see, the same pleasant
faced, sincere-spoken, innocent-man
nered and hopelessly wicked desperado.
“ Now, is there anything I can do for
you ?” he reined in his horse at my gate
one morning to ask, looking the picture
of a cavalier, for he was Captain of the
Hangers, and was off on a scout after the
Indians. I made a request, but forgot
all about it until, months after, he
stopped on his return at my gate to give
me the ox-hide quiver full of arrows, the
medicine bag and bow of a Comanche.
“He was a big chief,” he said, “ and I
picked him off on purpose for you.”
One morning, not long after, I saw him
on the roof of a burning house helping
to put out the flames at the peril of his
life. The next day I heard the rapid
cracking of revolvers down street. It
was a little “ difficulty” he was having,
and I hastened past his dead enemy to
j find him dying on the sidewalk. His
face brightened like that of a child
when he saw me, and he gave me the
same cordial and sympathetic attention
as of old to all I had to say. I see his
boyish and innocent-seeming face this
moment, as smilingly unconscious of
what concerned him most as a squirrel,
without the faculty to care. “ Anyhow,
| I fetched him !” he laughed—and was
dead.
But why is it that I liked him so
much, so very much, more than I do peo
ple so very much better? Why, oh,
why is it ?- -Our Continent,
INDIAN SPRINGS, GEORGIA.
STATISTICS OK SUICIDE.
A Gradual Increase of Self-Murders in
Recent Tears,
It has been stated by a writer in a late
English magazine that there has been a
marked revival of suicides during the
last hundred years. It is estimated that
the rate has quintupled in Europe sinoe
the middle of the last century. Ninety
thousand persons are said to die by their
own hand each year on the Continent
and the British Isles. One-fourth of
these are put down as mad; the rest
perform the act knowingly, with a view
to some presumed advantage.
The rates vary a great deal in differ
ent countries in Europe. The figures
are higher in the north (excepting only
Russia) than in the south, and more
people kill themselves in town than in
the country. It is said that this sort
of mortality is greatest among the Danes,
and least among the Portuguese, the
figures being as thirty-five to one.
The popular theory that people hold
more and more to life as they approach
its natural conclusion is contradicted
by statistics, which show that gray hair
brings with it, in many cases, a disgust
for existence, whioh renders those affected
by it impatient to wait till death comes
to them of its own accord. Suicides are
about twice as frequent above 70 as
they are between 20 and 30. The num
ber of children under 16 in the list is
comparatively small, but it is growing
rapidly.
Nearly 2,000 boys and girls commit
self-murder each year in Europe. So
far, they do not seem to begin before
they are 9. That is the moment, appa
rently, when the ills of this world are
unbearable to them, as happened to the
boy who drowned himself because of
grief at the death of his canary. At the
age of 13, however, motives grow to b©
more stupendous, as was the case with a
boy in France, who hanged himself at
that age, after bequeathing his soul to
Rousseau and his body to the earth.
The returns from all Europe prove
this is a prevailing rule : That where
three men kill tiiemselves, only one
woman follows their example. Instruc
tion is said to predispose to suicide,
while professions do not. A man does
not kill himself because of his trade, but
a good many men kill themselves be
cause of their knowledge. Suicide is most
abundant in the regions where schooling
is most expanded. The inhabitants of
countries in which every one can read
are those who commit the most self
murder.
Hereditary influences oontinue, in cer
tain cases, to reveal their curious force.
Two cases are on record, in each of
which seven brothers have hanged them
selves, one after the other. One case
was in Saxony and the other in Tyrol.
Climate, it has recently been established,
has nothing to do with suicide, but the
seasons exercise a great effect on it.
Spring and summer are the great sui
cidal periods everywhere. November is
the most innocent month in the year,
and May, June and July are the worst
—so much so, indeed, that twice as
many suicides happen in each of them
as in any winter month.
THE NOBLE WARRIORS IN OUR NA
TION AX ARENA.
LsjtUe de w® reek as we proceed with
me hum drum of our uneventful lives
at home, how our Congressmen, several
hours each day, are calling up the pre
vious question and rising to a point of
privilege, in order that we may enjoy
the priceless boon of liberty.
Day after day, while you, gentle
reader, are dawdling the precious hours
away selling goods or sawing wood,
these patriots, far from their homes and
loved ones, with aching heads and tear
ful eyes, are making motions to recon
sider, and with clarion voice demanding
the floor and battling on over the vital
question of mileage.
And yet, while these men have their
shoulders under the national fabric, and
are fearlessly referring things to com
mittees, or with warlike front and defi
ant tone moving to lay them on the
table, there are croakers at home, with
nothing to do but support their families,
who speak jeeringly of the labors per
formed by these noble warriors in the
national arena. It is not right— Nye’s
Boomerang.
When Robertson, the dramatist, after
many hard struggles, saw fame and fort,
une at last within his grasp, he said to
a friend-: “ I have just got everything I
want. I have known every kind of
trouble, disappointment and discour
agement, even hunger, and now Z have
every luxury—just as I am going aw ay.’*
He died a month afterward,
SOME SHAKES.
Experience With the Arkansas Ague.
“ Speakin’ ’bout the Arkansaw ager,”
said the man with the sandy goatee and
squint eyes as he leaned back in his
chair, “ that’s whar you saw my heart
strings, in case I’ve got any left to saw
on. Gentlemen, gaze on me.”
The crowd gazed.
“ When I moved down into Arkansaw
from Tennessee risin’ of sixteen years
ago I was purty—l was, for a fact. I
had a dozen skulemarms in love with me
to once, and hang me up if every gal in
the ball-room wouldn’t break her neck
for the honor of dancin’ with me ! Yes,
I waa purty, and I wa3 good. I was so
purty that children cried for me, and so
good that I was taken fur a preacher on
more’n a hundred occashuns. Whar has
my purty gone ? Why, I’ve got to be
the infemalist alligator in the hull
swamp, and I’m growin* meaner at the
rate of a mile a day I Fact—solemn
fact, and that cantankerous ager is to
blame for the hull of it. I’ve got a
squint to my eyes, my nose has been
driven buck an inch, and what teeth I’ve
got left have to be wedged in every Sun
day with pine pegs or I’d swallow ’em.
Purty? Why, the sight of my phiz
down in St. Louis killed a Texas steer
dead’rn a door nail, and I was tryin’ to
look handsome at that! ”
“You said you had the ague.”
“ Said so! Do you s’pose all the
other calamities in this hull kentry
could have busted me up this way?
You bet I had ’er. I struggled with ’er
right along for 'leven straight y’ars
without a let up. Gentlemen, let me
harrer your souls with a few timely re
marks. Your Michigan ager is a grass
hopper, and one dose of kyneen knocks
’er dead. Out in Hlinoy the ager is big
ger—about like a squirril. In Missouri
she’s about the size of a woodchuck, and
when she strikes down into Arkansaw
she’s a wolf three feet high, seven feet
long, and built to take hold like a thou
sand buzz-saws. Great slams ! but wliat
tussles I’ve had with that ere critter I
Say, did ye ever ride in a one-hoss
wagin over a stone quarry ? Was ye
ever seated on the top rail of a fence
when a hurricane moved it at the rate
of six miles a minit ? Did ye ever have
a cyclone pick ye up and mop you over
forty acres of river bottom, and wallop
ye through ten acres of woods and use
ye for a tool to knock down a hundred
acres of cane brake ? Well, that ain’t
the ager—not the Arkansaw kind; it’s
only the first faint preliminaries.”
He stopped to relight his cigar, and
then continued:
“I hain’t long to live, and don’t keer
to stretch this thing any. Tellin’ the
truth has alius bin my strong pint, and
alius will be. Maybe ye’ll get some
idea of the Arkansaw ager when I tell
ye that I once unjinted both shoulders
in shakin’, and it was a light shake at
that. When I had on one of my reg’lar
double-back-action shakes I could jar a
jug of whisky out of the crutch of a tree
twenty-eight rods off. Nobody dast pile
up cord wood within half a mile of my
cabin, and that’s a solemn fact. I de
voured kyneen just as you eat com’ beef,
and my hull system finally got so bitter
that a dog who smelt my leg couldn’t
get the pucker out of his mouth inside
of ten days. Gentlemen, Ido not wish
to prolong this agony. My failin’ is
grub. Fust I know I’ll jump the ager
and begin on Arkansaw skeeters, and
when I get there I’d harrer yer souls till
ye couldn’t sleep fur two weeks. We
will now have some licker, and I will
seek a few needed reposes.” —lAttle
Book Gazette .
A LEFT-HANDED LUNG-TESTER.
At a singing school at Three Springs,
Me., the other night, a young man was
bragging about the strength of his lungs,
and invited a girl in the company to hit
him in the breast She said she was
left-handed, had been washing all day,
was tired, didn’t feel very active, but at
Ims urgent request let go at him. When
his friends picked him up he thought he
would die easier lying down. He had
lost every recollection of having any
lungs, but the young woman consoled
him by admitting that she didn’t lnt
him as hard as she might have done, be.
eause she rather liked him.
Ijocise KelxiOGo says she can
make good hash, and Annie Louise Gary
announces that she can make delicious
buckwheat cakes. This is all well
enough as far as it goes ; but can either
one of the sweet singers sew qn a sus
pender button to stay two days in one
inning, and make a fire without getting
Boot on her nose ’i—Norritiown Herald,
MORMON TEACHINGS.
The Blood Atonement—Doctrines of Brigham
Young and His Followers.
[Extracts from Brigham Young’s Sermons.]
I could refer you to plenty of instances
where men have been righteously slain
in order to atone for their sins.
But now I say, in the name of the
Lord, that if this people will sin no
more, but faithfully live their religion,
their sins will be forgiven them without
taking life.
Now, when yon hear my brethren
telling about cutting people off from the
earth, you consider it is strong doctrine;
but it is to save them, not to destroy
them.
All mankind love themselves; and let
these principles be known by an indi
vidual, and he would be glad to have
his blood shed. That would be loving
themselves even unto an eternal exalta
tion.
This is loving our neighbor as our
selves; if he needs help, help him; if he
wishes salvation, and it is necessary to
spill his blood upon the ground in order
that he be saved, spill it.
Any of you who understand the prin
ciples of eternity, if you have sinned a
sin requiring the shedding of blood, ex
cept the sin unto death, would not be
satisfied or rest until your blood should
be spilled, that you might gain the sal
vation you desire. This is the way to
love mankind.
It is true the blood of the Son of God
was shed for sins through the fall and
those committed by men, yet ye men
can commit sins which it can never re
mit. As it was in the ancient days so
it is in our day; and, though the prin
ciples are taught publicly from this
stand, still the people do net under
stand them; yet the law is precisely the
same.
I have known a great many men who
have left this church for whom there is
no chance whatever of exaltation ; but
if their blood had been spilled it would
have been better for them. The wick
edness and ignorance of the nations for
bids this principle being in full force,
but the time will come when the laws of
God will be in full force.
Will you love your brothers and sis
ters likewise When they have committed
a sin that cannot be atoned for without
the shedding of blood ? Will you love
that man or woman well enough to
shed their blood ? That is what Jesus
Christ meant. He never told a man or
woman to love their enemies in their
wickedness. He never intended any
such thing.
I have known scores and hundreds of
people for whom there would have been
a chance in the last resurrection if
their lives had been taken and their
blood spilled upon the ground as a
smoking incense to the Almighty, but
who are now angels to the devil, until
our elder brother, Jesus Christ, raises
them up, conquers death, hell and the
grave.
There are sins that can be atoned for
by an offering upon an altar as in ancient
days, and there are sins that the blood
of a lamb, of a calf or of turtle doves
cannot remit, but they must be atoned
for by the blood of the man. This is
the reason why men talk to yon as they
do from this stand; they understand the
doctrine and throw out a few words
about it. You have been taught that
doctrine, but you do not understand.
HIGH NOTES.
A countryman climbed out of a wagon
on Austin avenue, entered a music store,
and said he wanted to buy a piece of
music for his son.
“If your son is not very far advanced,
perhaps this would do,” said the clerk,
handing over a piece of sheet music.
“ How much does it cost ?”
“Fifty cents.”
“Well, that’s too easy for him. The
last piece I bought for him cost 75 cents.
I reckon he knows enough of music to
play a piece worth a dollar and a quarter
at least A 50-cent piece is toe low. I
want a high piece.”
The clerk accidentally found an oper
atic piece that was difficult enough, and
the proud father shelled out the cash.—
Texas Siftings.
Women do not possess logical minds,
and, being very imaginative, are, there
fore, not fitted for debate, so Emerson
says, but we say that when it comes to a
debate as to whether it is necessary or
proper for a man to go down town after
supper, a woman can give the most log
ical man a half-mile start, and not only
beat him with her imagination, but fix it
so that he won’t leave the house till
after breakfast next morning.
SU3S&RIPTIOM--tI.SU.
NUMBER 35.
PLEASANTRIES.
Asaoe hen—On© who avoids the hawk.
When a pretty Irish girl is stolen
away they suspect some boycotter.
The man who works without recom
pense gets no hire in his profession.
If it takes 10 mills to make a cent,
where are the profits on a barrel of flour?
Columbus made the egg stand, but
Italians of lees renown have made tho
peanut stand.
She told him that she could read his
mind like an open book, and then softly
added : “ Blank book.”
Sweet Evelina from the suffocating
embrace of her lover cried out: “ Give
me liberty or give mo breath. ”
Plump girls are said to be going out
of fashion. If this is true, the plumper
the girl the slimmer her chances.
A fashion writer says : * ‘ Short skirts
are de riguewr for dancing.” By this a
girl will know how to rigueurself for a
ball.
Patrick (dressing for a party)—“Be
dad now, and I sha’n’t be able to git oh
these boots till I’ve worn thim a fcoime
or two.”
“ That’s what beats me,” as the boy
said when he saw his father take the
skate strap down from its accustomed
nail.”
It may be right occasionally to take
a bull by the horns, but it is always well
to keep in mind that the horns belong to
the bull.
The editor of the Sauquoit (N. Y.)
Register suggests that persons sending
in big eggs will please accompany them
by several ordinary-sized ones, not for
publication, but as a guarantee of good
faith.
“I do love a fool! ” said Ophicleide,
with a scornful glance at his neighbor.
“You conceited egotist! ” replied Fog
horn with scathing calmness, and the
fight was over before the police could
get there.
“I tell you,” exclaimed the theater
manager, “that Miss Buskin had a
splendid reception. The house was fair
ly ablaze with enthusiasm.” “Yes,”
said Fogg, dryly, “as the house was all
paper it was easily set ablaze.”
Her loving salutation—“l thought,
Miss S., that you hated that flirty minx.
Yet you went up and kissed her.” Miss
S.—“ I do hate her, and that is why I did
it. Look at the big freckles on her cheek
where I kissed the powder off.”
“I don’t mind the pi-anner much/'
said a fond but perplexed mother, re
cently, “ but when Marier gets to sally
in’ around in front of the lookin'-glass
and disputin’ in French with her own
shadder, it makes me right nervous.”
A person described by a Kansas pa
per as a “ bald-headed Judge ” rubbed
hjs pate daily with a fresh raw onion,
and in two months his hair grew out.
It probably came out to ascertain why
its proprietor always had the whole room
to himself.
A BAD COUPLING.
She married a railroad man,
A locomotive spark;
He told her of his little plan
At the gate, out in the dark.
But long ere a year had gone,
The fire it died alack!
Their coupling apart was drawn
And he switched her off his track j
An old toper offered his 10-year-old
boy anew nickel if he would fetch him
a dark bottle that stood in the comer of
the pantry shelf, without his mother’s
discovering it. The lad secured the
prize and was making off with it when
his mother suddenly yelled: “ What
have you got in that bottle, Johnny ?’*
“ I don’t know,” answered the innocent
boy; “ it’s labeled tomato sauce, but it
smells inst like dad’s breath.”
DIDN’T WANT TO BE PABTICULAB•
A Detroit lady, with a heart full of
charity toward the poOr, received a call
a few days since to visit an old man in
the eastern part of the city who was
represented to be greatly in need of
nourishing food. She found a poverty
stricken family in need of relief, and, as
she was taking her departure from the
house, she said to the woman:
“ What can I send you that will please
the old man’s appetite ?”
“ Well, he’s all the time talking about
quail on toast,” was the reply.
The lady went out with a dim sus
picion in her mind that she had fallen in
very particular family, but in the middle
of the next block she was overtaken by
the woman, who had run after her to
say;
"We dor’* want to put you to any
great trouble abeut this. If it isn’t
handy to send quail an toast, you can
send him some on sweet sake, and well
coax him to put up with it 1”