Thee, kind heavenly Father, who has so constantly watched over this work, through many years past. Let Thy most gracious blessing still follow it in the future! In Thy name it was commenced, for Thine honor continued from year to year, and to Thy favor Í now commend it, with a thankful, hopeful and believing heart. Accept of my poor work for Thy name's glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." A year after this was written, on the 28th of December, 1867, he fell gently asleep, leaving a disconsolate widow and six children to mourn his departure. Dr. Harbaugh had the qualities of a popular speaker. His clear, round, musical voice he could control and use with marvellous power. A good voice is a rare advantage to a public speaker. Whether this gift was wholly natural or the result of elocutionary study, I cannot tell. He could be distinctly heard in every part of the largest church, even when speaking on the lowest key. His utterance was always slow and distinct; indeed sometimes it seemed slow to a fault. Fluency, as some men count it, he had not. lacked that rapidity of utterance so common among public speakers, which allows syllables and ideas to tread on each other's heels in hurried confusion. His deliberateness of articulation sometimes made him seem awkward and hesitating. With slow and measured accent, effective and well-chosen emphasis, and few gestures, he rolled out his short sonorous sentences, like pleasant music. He Few men combine depth with clearness, as he did. He dealt in short sentences, and short Saxon words. His sermons were aglow with life. You felt his warm heart in every sentence. He could see truth in the most trivial themes and subjects, and knew how to show it to others. Often when he announced an odd text or subject, his hearers wondered how anybody could tell people anything worth listening to on such a theme. To the tiniest flower, and the most insignificant animal, he could give a tongue to utter an impressive sermon. He abounded in apt illustrations; preached frequently by parables taken from common life. He dealt much in likes." GOLD AND SILVER.-The relative value of gold and silver in the days of patriarch Abraham was 1 to 8; at the period B. C. 1000 it was 1 to 12; B. C. 500 it was 1 to 13; at the commencement of the Christian era it was 1 to 9; A. D. 500 it was 1 to 18; A. D. 1100 it was 1 to 8; A. D. 1400 it was 1 to 11; A. D. 1613 it was 1 to 151, which latter ratio, with but slight variations, it has maintained to the present day. SENTENCING AN OLD SCHOOL-MATE. BY THE EDITOR. Many years ago, Harry Flippin and Samuel H. Poston were playmates in a southern village. Their parents lived neighbors. The boys frolicked about on the village green, went to the same school and the same church. Their chances and prospects for coming life were nearly equal, and their characters seemingly differed little. They were fondly attached to one another. As they grew up their paths diverged. Flippin was industrious, studied diligently, and strove to improve the lessons of his boyhood. Poston chose a way of idleness and sin. Step by step, he went the slippery downward path. He forgot the lessons of his boyhood, forsook the church of his early years, selected fast youths for his comrades. In short, he trod the way of the transgressor, and as in all cases, it proved a hard way. Now follow us from their boyhood village home, to a court room, where a criminal is to be sentenced. The judge is Harry Flippin, the criminal Samuel H. Poston. The scene is thus described: A very affecting incident recently occurred in a Memphis courtroom, the judge being under the painful duty of sentencing an old school-mate to death. He addressed the prisoner as follows: "Samuel H. Poston, this is one of the saddest eras in my life. Our parents and their children knew each other. We grew up together, went to the same school, the same church, and played on hill and in valley the same innocent games in boyhood. Years have passed since then. Our roads in life have diverged. You now stand convicted of a great capital crime, and I, as the minister of the law, have imposed upon me, the painful duty of passing upon you the sentence of death. Were it consistent with my official duties, I would that this cup could pass from me.' But I cannot now shrink from the performance of this sad official requirement, and must not, and will not in the future, though other victims may fall to avenge a violated law." He then passed sentence of death. When Poston was called, both he and the judge were very much moved. Poston shook like an aspen leaf, and had to grasp a chair for support. At the conclusion of the sentence, Judge Flippin was in tears, as was also nearly all the large crowd gathered there. It was a most affecting scene, and will be remembered by those who witnessed it. Editor's Drawer. LOST HIS TEXT. At Plymouth church, Brooklyn, last Sunday, for a minute or more, Mr. Beecher looked over his Bible silently. It finally became evident to the congregation that their minister had got a little mixed. With the utmost sang froid he turned over leaf after leaf, hunting with his finger verse after verse, and finally said, without looking up, in that peculiar nasal tone of his, which his voice always takes on when he is about to say a funny thing: "I find I have made the wrong entry for my text. Please be patient a moment. I have known ministers to lose their texts after they had begun their serI think it is better to lose it before. There!" as his eyes finally lit upon the passage-"I got the wrong book, the wrong chapter, and the wrong verse. Ephesians, 2d chapter, from the 19th to the 22d inclusive." mons. SOME curious investigator has been trying to find out how many great men smoked, and how many rejected the weed. Ben Jonson was a connoisseur in the art. Hobbes smoked after his early dinner pipes innumerable. Milton never went to bed without a pipe and a glass of water. Sir Isaac Newton was smoking in his garden at Woolsthorpe when the apple fell. Addison had a pipe in his mouth at all hours. Fielding both smoked and chewed. Shelley never smoked, nor Wordsworth, nor Keats. Coleridge, when cured of opium, took to snuff. Campbell loved a pipe. Sir Walter Scott smoked in his carriage, and regularly after dinner. Byron wrote about "sublime tobacco," but was not an excessive smoker. Goethe did not smoke, nor did Shakspeare. Carlyle, now past seventy, has been a sturdy smoker for years. Alfred Tennyson is a persistent smoker of some forty years. Dickens, Jerrold, and Thackeray all puffed. Lord Lytton loves a long pipe at night and cigars by day. Lord Houghton smoked moderately. The late J. M. Kemble, author of "The Seasons in England," was a tremendous smoker. Moore cared not for it; indeed. Irish gentlemen smoke much less than English. Wellington shunned it; so did Peel. D'Israeli loved the long pipe in his youth, but in his middle age pronounced it "the tomb of love." MARRIAGES a hundred years ago in England are described in an old paper thus: "Married in June, 1760, Mr. Wm. Donklin, a farmer of Great Tossom, near Bothbury, in the county of Cumberland, to Miss Eleanor Shotten, an agreeable young gentlewoman of the same place. The entertainment on this occasion was very grand, there being no less than 120 quarters of lamb, 44 quarters of veal, 20 quarters of mutton, and a great quantity of beef; 12 hams, with a suitable number of chickens, &c., which was concluded with eight half-ankers of brandy made into punch; 12 dozen of cider, a great many gallons of wine, and 90 bushels of malt made into beer. The company consisted of 550 ladies and gentlemen, who concluded with the music of 25 fiddlers and pipers, and the whole was conducted with the utmost order and unanimity." In person Dr. Harbaugh was of medium height, inclined to corpulency. His florid face gave evidence of a vigorous constitution, which he by no means possessed. "What a pity that such a powerful preacher should be a drunkard," said a gentleman who had just heard him preach in Pottsville, Pa. His red face misled the man. The temperance cause had no abler champion than Dr. Harbaugh. He was simple, in his style of dress no less than in his style of writing and speaking. He despised the dandy, above all the literary and clerical dandy. Whilst he often gave his clothes to the poor, his own garments not unfrequently bore the marks of long use. Although one of the most earnest of men, he was, on all proper occasions, brim full of fun. Would that some one could collect his "table talk," his sayings around the festive board, and among the circles of his more intimate friends. Few have such a fund of anecdotes as he had, and few could tell them with such dramatic effect. Many of these have passed into current use; and are often quoted by his friends, in conversation. With a sort of humorous abandon, he could throw himself on the study lounge, and entertain a group of friends by the hour, amid roars of mirthful laughter. During one of his vacations spent at Lewisburg, he visited the Hall of the University. With the greatest gravity he ascended the stage, and with hat in hand made a bow to his audience of half a dozen friends, and repeated one of his boyhood declama tions. The bow, gestures, and manner of speaking, were such as a very awkward country boy would use in his first declamation, and delivered with all the gravity of which he was capable, made it a piece of inimitable drollery. We We appear most like ourselves in our letters. In familiar friendly correspondence, we throw aside the restraints and conventionalities of our more formal and official intercourse. put more of our real selves, of our hearts, the good and evil that in us is, in our letters than in any other medium of communication with our fellow-beings. Kindly reader, hast ever read over those old-time epistles of earlier friendships, penned by hands now cold in death? Too young perhaps, you are to feel their soothing power. How they bring back the face and form, the voice and heart, of those long gone to better lands! Very glad I am, that I have preserved such letters from this faithful friend and counsellor, as others doubtless have gathered similar treasures. With almost breathless interest and a tender heart, one reads over such memorials of the departed. In them we again live over the past, hear again the ringing laugh, and the sad sigh, the solemn prayer and the impressive sermon of those who "rest in God.” Save the letters of your true friends; they will furnish pleasing mementoes and useful reading in latter life. "One hour amongst my treasures! Oh 'tis sweet- To pass one hour amid the treasured gems * Whose pledges of a never-fading love Where are the hands that wrote these loving lines That bent their burning beams or tearful gaze In this sketch, I will here and there let Dr. Harbaugh speak himself, in letters into which he poured the sincere and simple outgushings of his warm, loving heart. Here is an extract from one |