would stop, but he didn't. He drove straight at the door. It was a low door, just high enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room for me. I saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be a very brief one. I thought this all over in an instant, and then, spreading ont my arms and legs, emitted a scream, and the next moment I was bounding about in the filth of that stable yard. All this passed through my mind as Stiver's horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs. Perkins dreadfully. "Why, you old fool!" she said, "why don't you get rid of him?" How can I?" said I in desperation. "Why, there are a thousand ways," said she. This is just like a woman. would have answered. How different a statesman But I could think of only two ways to dispose of the beast, I could either swallow him where he stood and then sit down on him, or I could crawl inside of him and kick him to death. But I was saved either of these expedients by his coming toward me so abruptly that I dropped the rope in terror, and then he turned about, and, kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping the clothes line in two, and went on down the street at a horrible gallop, with two of Mrs. Perkins's garments, which he hastily snatched from the line, floating over his neck in a very picturesque manner. So I was afterwards told. I was too full of mud myself to see the way into the house. Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at home to care for him. Mrs. Perkins has gone to her mother's to recuperate, and I am healing as fast as possible. LIFE'S CONFLICT.-WILLIAM WHITEHEAD, Let's fight life's battle bravely, Nor yield to doubting fear; The Truth will make us freemen, And win the victory here; Our fathers fought before us, And taught us how to die. The soldier doth his scabbard We must fight! Foes are round us, To yield us is to die; And spirits that have triumphed, watch The conflict from on high! There are no hours of pleasure, Nor must we bend to sorrow, Though loved ones round us lie; Their's is no fearful morrow, Marshall'd to strive and die! Our day is only given To press the conquered way, And watch where we have striven, Lest sin the soul betray. What though the field be rugged, Rough guerdon cheer our toiling, THE RAINBOW. I sometimes have thought in my loneliest hours, When my heart was as light as a blossom in June; As I threw back my tresses to catch the cool breeze With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea. How calm was the ocean! how gentle its swell! How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings! As the thoughts of the rainbow that circled my soul- It bent from the cloud, and encircled the world. There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives And fluttering with pleasure, and fluttering with love. I know that each moment of rapture or pain POLITICAL CORRUPTION.-GEORGE MCDUFFIE. We are apt to treat the idea of our own corruptibility as utterly visionary, and to ask, with a grave affectation of dignity-what! do you think a member of Congress can be corrupted? Sir, I speak what I have long and deliberately considered, when I say, that since man was created, there never has been a political body on the face of the earth that would not be corrupted under the same circumstances. Corruption steals upon us in a thousand insidious forms, when we are least aware of its approaches. Of all the forms in which it can present itself, the bribery of office is the most dangerous, because it assumes the guise of patriotism to accomplish its fatal sorcery. We are often asked, where is the evidence of corruption? Have you seen it? Sir, do you expect to see it? You might as well expect to see the embodied forms of pestilence and famine stalking before you, as to see the latent operations of this insidious power. We may walk amid it, and breathe its contagion, without being conscious of its presence. All experience teaches us the irresistible power of temptation, when vice assumes the form of virtue. The great enemy of mankind could not have consummated his infernal scheme for the seduction of our first parents, but for the disguise în which he presented himself. Had he appeared as the devil in his proper form-had the spear of Ithuriel disclosed the naked deformity of the fiend of hell, the inhabitants of paradise would have shrunk with horror from his presence. But he came as the insinuating serpent, and presented a beautiful apple, the most delicious fruit in all the garden. He told his glowing story to the unsuspecting victim of his guile "It can be no crime to taste of this delightful fruitit will disclose to you the knowledge of good and evil-it will raise you to an equality with the angels." Such, sir, was the process; and, in this simple but impressive narrative, we have the most beautiful and philosophical illustration of the frailty of man, and the power of temptation, that could possibly be exhibited. Mr. Chairman, I have been forcibly struck with the similarity between our present situation and that of Eve, after it was announced that Satan was on the borders of paradise. We, too, have been warned that the enemy is on our borders. But God forbid that the similitude should be carried any further. Eve, conscious of her innocence, sought temptation and defied it. The catastrophe is too fatally known to us all. She went "with the blessings of heaven on her head, and its purity in her heart," guarded by the ministry of angelsshe returned covered with shame, under the heavy denuncintion of heaven's everlasting curse. Sir, it is innocence that temptation conquers. If our first parent, pure as she came from the hand of God, was overcome by the seductive power, let us not imitate her fatal rashness, seeking temptation when it is in our power to avoid it. Let us not vainly confide in our own infallibility. We are liable to be corrupted. To an ambitious man, an honorable office will appear as beautiful and fascinating as the apple of paradise. I admit, sir, that ambition is a passion, at once the most powerful and the most useful. Without it human affairs would become a mere stagnant pool. By means of his patronage, the President addresses himself in the most irresistible manner, to this, the noblest and strongest of our passions. All that the imagination can desire-honor, power, wealth, ease, are held out as the temptation. Man was not made to resist such temptation. It is impossible to conceive, Satan himself could not devise,-a system which would more infallibly introduce corruption and death into our political Eden. Sir, the angels fell from heaven with less temptation. |