Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on, Thet shows the gret heart o' the People is sound: There's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' ketched a Tartar In the Law-'n'-Order Party of ole Cincinnater; An' the Compromise System ain't gone out o' reach, Long 'z you keep the right limits on freedom o speech. 'T warn't none too late, neither, to put on the gag, For he 's dangerous now he goes in for the flag. They 're mos' gin'lly argymunt on its las' legs, Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' refined, ary, Sech ez sophisms an' cant, thet 'll kerry convic tion ary Way thet you want to the right class o' men, An' are staler than all 't ever come from a hen:. Took the savor all out on 't for national ends; "Abolition "'ll work a spell yit, But I guess When the war's done, an' so will "Forgive-an' forgit." Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' all jint, I give up my faith in the free-suffrage system; An' But I've talked longer now 'n I hed any idee, An' ther''s others you want to hear more 'n you du me; So I'll set down an' give thet 'ere bottle a skrim mage, For I've spoke till I'm dry ez a real graven image. No. VI. SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. JAALAM, 17th May, 1862. GENTLEMEN,At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to enclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them," Heb. xiii. 3. But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty in selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge in the fervor of oral delivery, cannot always stand the colder criticism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend. Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustic animadversions, albeit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, and believe that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such Phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious than of merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done with it is to bury it. Ite, missa est. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other, were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs more than body. But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner. With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, HOMER WILBUR. ONCE git a smell o' musk into a draw, when, goodness To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read |