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Banks County Gazette. VOL I.—NO. 42. Cheap. It has been a long time since I have written. I will try again. La Grippe has the people, or the people have the grippe. No work done in the farm yet in this section. Mr. J. W. Gillespie will be at home soon. Look out, girls. Miss Fannie Cochran has a fine school at Mount Pleasant, and she is giving universal satisfaction. Miss Fannie is a nice lady and a good teacher. Mr. W. H. T. Gillespie is having a house built on his place. He bought last year two thousand dollars worth of chickens and eggs. Nice fellow. In a previous issue you said that we had just- as well advocote the manufacture of liquor as the raising of tobacco. I don’t think so, for the Scriptures don’t say “touch not, han dle not, taste not” tobacco, but it does the whisky. Tobacco don’t send souls to hell like whisky, nor is it the cause of unhappy homes and bitter tears that whisky causes. True, tobacco is filthy, and really bad, but I had rather see a man take a chew of tobacco than a drink of liquor. Mr. Howel Garrison is suffering with the neuralgia but hope he wi.l be well soon. Cheap Boy. Family Manners. There is an artistry of life as well as of literature. The virtues are of various sizes. There are big, heroic virtues, to which youth is forever leap ing; atid there are little virtues which do not make much showing in our private Book of Martyrs. To the latter class belongs the virtue of po liteness. Some will even deny that it is a virtue. Wc all know the man who cares for nothing under heaven but Truth—spelled a I ways with a capital TANARUS; who looks upon fine manners as he would look upon the seductions of th<* Sirens; who tramps his way through society, possitive, self-assert ive, Laving a track of discomfort up to his own house door; from behind which we he .r his characteristic re mark: “My dear, I'm not scolding. I’m just telling you.” Good man! it is only that he lacks the sixth, saving sense of the artistry of life. It is a sense which should awake with the rest of the senses—in childhood. The manners one attempts to put on in after life are apt to fit as iiiy as the plowman’s Sunday suit. Worst of all, they leave one at the mercy of traitorous memory. We remember a young woman who had grown up in a wealthy but uncul tivated home. She was talented and noble hearted. But many kindly peo pie were forced to say of her, “She is not a lady.” She herself confessed it one day in a passionate outbust. “I know I’m rude, but I can’t help it. I never was taught to be polite at home and now to remember what I ought and ought not to do is difficult as walking on ice. When I’m excite l I’m sure to say or do something which shocks the very people I care most for, and they give me the cold shoul der, and take up with girls who I know are inferior.” And the worst of it is, it was all true. The thousand-and-one points of common good breeding which chil dren acquire in a well ordered, grac ious home, under the eye of a winning mother—to be gentle of manner; to walk, stand, and sit gracefully; not to fidget, grimace, yawn; in conversa tion to use low and pleasant tones; not to interrupt, or contradict, or brag; not to assert too .strongly or laugh too loudly—all this comes to the children, if at times slowly, still as suredly. Their minds open to the beauty of gentle, graceful living as naturally as to the beauty of the works of art upon their walk. If it were not so, if fine manners could be taught to children only by constant nagging, we might well pre fer that the poor innocents should be left to their ignorance and their bliss. What is demanded is the lifting ef the whole family life to a high level; and then the adoption of Froebel's noble motto: “Come and let us live with our children.” Hence it is that parents who have a code of company manners, and who are more shocked at some excrescence of animal spirits in the parlor than at the breaking of all the decalogue in the nursery, do not find the family growth in politeness satisfactory. And we shall lie likely to hear them a little later on, lamenting the ways of their careless and rough boys, and settling into the belief that the boys, at least, are by nature incorrigi bly rude, fit only to be kept out of sight until they assume responsibility for themselves. Your wise mother is not given to worrying over trifles. She does not expect perfection in a day. And she has put from her, as far as the east is from the west, the ghastly possibility of retting vanity up in tile room of love. So she does not begin with exhaustive attention to the minutice of etiquette, knowing that way lies the danger of making her boys pngs and her girls self conscious society misses before they are in their teens. She lays down, as the laws of her household, the broad principles of respect for elders, reverence for women, kindliness for all; and she permeates the home atmosphere with her finest conceptions of the deference and the sympathy due from soul to soul. Her children very early delight to place a chair for grandmother, and to save father steps. They learn to be proud of that restraint which enables them to keep self in the background, and to defer to brother ank sister. It never enters their heads that servants are less worthy of respect than other people. They are as unabashed in the presence of w ealth and power as they are tender toward suffering and pover ty. When she teaches them, from time to time, her code of manners— and she is careful to perfect it accord ing to her best judgment—she teaches it for home use, and it becomes fixed by beeoming,natur:il. Thus, over and above all formal rules, da trammeled by them, develop ing an individuality which is its own badge of distinction, there come to such a brood of brave girls and gentle boys a feeling for the charm of life, and a sweet humanity, that blossom spontaneously into Noble manners, or the flower And perfect fruit of noble mind. —Harper’s Bazar. A professor in a well-known univer sity says that the use of liquor and tobacco is decreasing among young men students, and even the use of tea and coffee. He believes the fact to. be due to the sense of pride in a fine physical condition, which affects by far the larger part of the students. Their experiment in training, which is undergone in one way or another by a very large part of the young men, gives them by experience a clear understanding as to the influ ence of hygienic conditions.—Nash ville Christian Advocate. Pure In Heart. To be pure in heart is to have pure loves. But that which we love we think about, nor is it possible for us to love any thing without first think ing that we love it. And we can choose our thoughts. We can sit in judgment upon them, decide which are good and which are evil—retain the good and discard the evil. The secret, then, of being pure in heart is to choose and retain pure thoughts. Ah, if bewildered humanity only knew this! If it odlv knew that the way ont of its tangle of vice and error was just to get hold of one pure, good thought, and cling to it until another came tojt by the law of at traction, and then cling to that, and so on until evil thoughts were dis placed and temptations disappear, because the soul lias cliined above them. But thoughts blossom into action and feeling, and thus our think ing controls our living. A human being cannot perform a single action without first thinking that he will perform it, nor can he love or hate HOMER, BANKS COUNTY, GEORGIA,WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2.5,1891. any thing without first thinking that lie loves or hates it. He cannot even feel too warm or too cold until he at first thinks about it. The wise man truly says that “as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” We cannot cher ish an evil thought without being hurt by it, nor can we entertain a pure thought without being helped by it. So the preacher, teacher, book picture, or paper that suggests pure thoughts to the world is a benefactor of the race. I feel profoundly sorry for the soul that is born in an environment of vice, sin and ignorance, One is so apt to entertain the thoughts that the surroundings suggest. Yet, after all, the soul is free. If it wills, it can no more be kept down by unfortunate surroundings than an eagle can be caged by fencing it in by high walls. As Jong as the top is left open the eagle can fly away; and so the soul, fenced in by unhappy encompass rnents, can always find the way out if it takes the upward route. And the soul’s freedom lies in its power to think what it pleases. Circumstances may control the body and force it to live in the sight and sound of vice and vulgarity; but the sounds may fall unheeded upon the ear, the sights pass unobserved before the eye, if the eye, if the mind be occupied with other things. A poor sewing girl was once obliged to work in a room full of rude women, where oaths and obscene language were constantly passing from mouth to mouth. At first she bent over her sewing machine with blushing face. Then she fell to singing as she worked, or repeating pleasant bits of poetry or prose. After a little she obtained such perfect con trol of her thoughts that she seldom heard what was going on around her unless personally addressed. Her thoughts remained pm;e, so her face lost none of its innoeenoe, her char acter none of its nobility by the try ing ordeal. Then we form habits of thinking which as time goes on be come fixed, and without conscious effort on our part, the mind takes up tlie thoughts suggested to it—that are along the line of previous thinking— and thus pure-heartedness becomes easy and natural. It is to such a heart, pure from long habits of pure thinking, that God reveals himself; for the reward of the pure-hearted is that they shall see God. One.of the saddest things about sin is its blinding power. The de bauchee cannot see any beauty in virtue, the gambler discerns no at traction in regular work, the inlidel beholds no reason in faith. But the pure hearted man sees that virtue is its own reward, that work is a con stant pleasure to those who engage in it rightly, and that faith is sweetly reasonable. Habits of pure thinking keep the mind open toward heaven, so that the light of the unseen world comes in and illumines the life, and is unconsciously reflected in the face. Sometimes in passing through a crowd we see a face that attracts us by its sweetness of expression. Per haps it is an old face, crowned with gray hair; yet love, joy and peace shine out of every dot and crinkle in it. But whether old or young, when we see that unmistakable soul light in a face, we know the heart behind it is pure, the life good. It was once my fortune to stand before an au dience of three hundred men in a state’s prison. Every man before me was a condemned criminal. As I stood and talked to them I was struck with the dark and dull expression of their faces. Afterward I stood before an audience of nearly the same num ber of young men belonging to the Salvation Army, and I conkl not help exclaiming to the companion who was with me, “How bright their faces are!” Neither audience was educat ed, and many of the Salvation Army boys came f#mi humble homes and miserable surroundings. What made their faces so bright ? It was because tney loved God and each other, and were just then thinking about these pure loves. To keep the mind occupied with good, pure, useful, and beautiful thoughts, precludes the possibility of thinking about, and thus being temrit ed by, any thing sinful, low or gross. It is because Paul knew this that he says so earnestly: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, think on these things.” In the well formed habit of think ing pure thoughts lies the secret of being pure in heart.—New York Ob s'arver. The Frozen Truth, devoted to the interests of no license in Cambridge, and edited in part by Mr. Edmund A. Whitman, refers to the fact that the doposite in the savings banks have increased during the last year, under no license $146,590.98, and notes the significant fact that t. e number of deposits of amounts of SSO and less | is much larger than last year, “show ing that tlie poorer people are saving more money.” The same paper gives a list of places formerly occupied as saloons, 123 in all, 104 of which are now used as groceries, stores, dwell ings, or for other such purposes. Two have been turned into coffee houses, and one into a reading room, kept open by the North Cambridge social club. Nashville Christian Advocate. If to your life, struggling in obedi ence to Christ, but not able to clear itself into light about Christ, there could come, as from the Christ, you long for, a command to you to strug gle oil still in hope because you must reach the light some day: and yet a command, while she light is withheld, to find satisfaction and growth in the ever deepening struggle, would not that be the command you need ? Pa ti nee and struggle, an earnest use of what we haxe now and all the ''time, an earnest discontent until we come to what we ought to be—are not these what we need, in just such a life as this with its delayed completions? Jesus does not blame Peter when he impetuously begs that he may follow him now. He bids him wait, and he may follow him some day. But \yc can see that the value of his waiting lies in the certainty that he shall fol low; and the value of His following, when it conies, will lie in the fact that he has waited.—Phillips Brooks. Words. Words seem to be little things, easily spoken, soon die. They pass out of mind, and seem to pass out of being. But they are not tittle things, they are great things, they do not pass out of being, but they pass into being. They preserve our thoughts, shape our tempers, abide in our char acters. They hold iu form our creeds. Our prayers and praises are set in the framework of words. God is ap proached by words, they are the offer ings of the soul, its intermediary with God. “Take with you words, and turn to the Lord,” said the prophet. Words will be weighty things in the day of judgment. In that great day “by thy words thou shalt be justi fied, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Words make spiritual character, and indicate its perfection. “If any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man.” As there are good and bad people, so there are good and bad words. The grievous sin of blasphemy is com mitted by words. The providence of God is arraigned by words; his attri butes are inveighed against by words, bis majesty dishonored, his name blasphemed by words. The unpar dona le sin is committed by words. Slander, calumny, backbiting, the long black list of evil speaking, is made up of words. The catalogue of evils is not ex hausted by this summary. There are corrupt communications which are not to bo in the mouth nor pi oceed out of it. There are filthy communi cations to be avoided. There is fool ish talking, random prating, words inflated by vanity and egotism, which must not be named among Christians. Jesting, which the Bible says is not convenient, that easy, accommodating talking, turning itself to suit the con ditions, like the chameleon its color. Flattery that corrupts both the flatter ed and the flatterer is done by words. Then there are idle words that do no good, work no benefit, of which Christ makes the solemn statement that “for every idle word that men speak shall they give account in the day of judgment.” These weigh against our souls by their very light ness. Then there are what Paul calls evil communications, words against sound doctrine, words that unsettle faith in the fundamental truths of the Bible; these, he says, corrupt good manners. This kind, he says, eat as doth a canker, they burn into faith and righteousness like a gangrene. An illustration of these cancer words are found in the following incident which appeared lately in a daily paper: “When I was a young girl of fourteen,” writes a lady, “I was at tending boarding school some dis tance from home. I was very proud and reticent; so, although nearly heart broken with home sickness, I did not confide my grief to any one. Under these circumstances, and while striving with all my heart to be good and truthful iu word and deed, I was told to write a composition on ‘Truthfulness.’ I did my best, writ ing down every noble and uplifting thought I had, making my composi tion the honest expression of tlie be lief of a young heart in goodness. The teacher took it for correction, and when she handed it back, she said, with a sneering little laugh, ‘That is what we call school girl re ligion.’ ” The writer added that she has never since been moved by a high ideal that this mocking laugh has not come baonomi: ftUI -os i • It is said ot JNero, u„ and tender, he regretted that he iniv. learned to write, because lie had to sign a death warrant. Many persons will, in the day of judgment, wish they had been bom dumb when they arc confronted with the poisoned fruit of the lips. There a'e words that help. It takes strength to comfort us in death, when our homes and hearts are desolate with a great desolation, and yet words do this great comfort for us. “Where fore comfort ye one another with these words,” says Paul. The truth of God coming through the agency of human words are the strength, light, and joy of these hours of weakness, darkness and sorrow. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire. A fire for good, for great good; a fire for evil ; for groat evil.—Nashville Christian Advocate. The Morning Star puts this head ing to an editorial, and says: “Some where in one of Charles Reade’s hooks occur the words: ‘To be always polite you must be sometimes insin cere.’ This seems to be a very popu lar doctrine. What swarming hypoc risies infest social intercourse! What numbers of ‘white lies,’ falling daily from the lips of men and women, to be repented in even the lisping accents of observant children, receive their only justification in such terms as these: ‘To be always polite, you must be sometimes insincere.” Danger to the Alliance. . As soon as the Alliance approaches the development of strength which indicates possibility of its principles bccomiug dominant in the govern ment, the tremendous power of wealtli*and political influence will be exerted to modify the policy of its leaders, When a man becomes prom inent and powerful by virtue of the votes back of him, he is brought face to face with new necessities. The power to talk and reason now becomes the power to act. The cour age to talk and write of vast reforms for the welfare of humanity, and the courage to act in the same line are two wholly distinct developments in human nature. It is like the difference between SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS, urging the troops to death and de struction behind the breastworks— and leading them in tlie charge after the hreastworks have been cleared. Few men have the power within them to face the toadyism of thirty one billion dollars of capital, with all that it implies! Few men, indeed, in a single’state have the name heroism to stand before the polished and cul tured princelings of an old civiliza tion and proclaim the truths envolved at the hearthstone of a desolate home. Here is the danger. We have readied it. The Alliance is now a power, and already wo find men who have posed as the leacers of revolu tion making their peace with the money power. The heroism of the platform becomes the conservatism of the lobby. Tlie hour demands men! It de mands iron walls and genuine cour age. It demands the spirit of the Master—men who in statecraft can pierce the present clouds into the future beyond—men who can make pathways as well as tread tnese already beaten. The hour of trial comes. Watch him who wavers—who trenches—who falters, and prepare to search anew for those wlio are equal to the Won drous times which dawn upon us.— The Great West. We read occasional newspaper edi torials on letters, which indicate that the writers are greatly exasperated over the killing of a few seals by British crows, in the waters of the North Pacific and Alaska seas. These writers even intimate that it might he well to expend a few thousand mil lion dollars, and kill scorns of thou sands of human beings to protect these srahs. Strange we do not hear these friends of the seal say anything ■t wanton destruction of “”’Jkaid in.wx.pt. if" legalized Tn our country. We commend these frothy seal pro tecting patriots to the calm consider ation of the word of our Savior: “How much, then is a mnn hblter than a sheep,” or a seal ?—Demorest Times. And liow much better would our country be if all tlie newspapers were Demorest Times, and all our cities and towns were Demorests? - God bless tlie Times and the city in which it is published. The aim which God assigns to ns as our highest is indeed tlie direct In verse of that which we propose to ourselves. He would have its in per petual conflict; we crave an unbroken peace. He keeps us ever on the march; we pace the gteen sod by the way with many a sigh for rest. He throws vis on a rugged universe. His resolve is to demand from us, without ceasing, a living power, a force fresh from the spirit he has given. He leaves in each man’s lot a thicket of sharp temptations, and expects him, though with bleeding feet, to pass firmly through, having given* him courage, conscience, and a guide divine to sustain him lest he faint.— James Martineau. Few things moro thoroughly extin guish the spirit of devotion in a church than long, dry prayers in the pulpit. Of these the New York Evan gelist says : “Again, what appear to be perfunctory and unemotional prayers of a preacher, pm, ere which seem to bear a sort of trade-mark, and to bo taken down from a shelf and dusted for use, are enough to spoil the very best of sermons, even when well delivered.” * Grove Level. Rain and mud are very plentiful. The roads are almost impassable on account of so much rain. Mr. Joe Bonnet's family are all vert sick. Mrs. Thomas Cartledge and her two sisters, Misses Maggie and Bir die Forbes, have returned to their home in Jefferson. Mrs. Porkins is sick with the grippe . Mrs. Watkins, who has been quite sick with pneumonia','is improving.