John Ploughman’s Talk and Pictures

In “John Ploughman’s Talk” I have tried to talk for ploughmen and common people. Hence refined taste and words have been discarded for strong old proverbial expressions and homely phrases. I have aimed my blows at the vices of the many, and tried to inculcate those moral virtues without which men are degraded and miserable. Much that needs be said to the toiling masses would not suit well the pulpit and the Sabbath; these lowly pages may teach thrift and industry all the days of the week in the cottage and the workshop; and if some learn these lessons I shall not repent the adoption of the rustic style.

Ploughman is a name I may justly claim. Every minister has put his hand to the plough: it is his business to break up the fallow ground and cast in good seed. That I have written in a semi-humorous vein shall need no apology, if thereby sound moral teaching wins a hearing from the million. There is no particular virtue in being seriously unreadable. — C. H. Spurgeon.

‘JOHN PLOUGHMAN’S TALK” AND

‘^ PICTURES.”

IF THE CAP FITS, WEAR IT.

FRIENDLY READERS, — Last time I made a book I trod on some people’s corns and bunions, and they wrote me angry letters, asking, “Did you mean me?” This time, to save them the expense of a halfpenny card, I will begin my book by

saying, —

Whether I please or whether I tease,

I ’11 give you my honest mind;

If the cap should fit, pray wear it a bit;

If not, you can leave it behind.

No offence is meant; but if anything in these pages should come home to a man, let him not send it next door, but get a coop for his own chickens. What is the use of reading or hearing for other people? We do not eat and drink for them: why should we lend them our ears and not our mouths? Please then, good friend, if you find a hoe on these premises, weed your own garden with it.

I was speaking with Will Shepherd the other day about our master’s old donkey, and I said: “He is so old and stubborn, he really is not worth his keep.” “No,” said Will, “and worse still, he is so vicious, that I feel sure he ’11 do somebody a mischief one of these days.” You know they say that walls have ears; we were talking rather loud, but we did not know that there were ears to haystacks. We stared, I tell you, when we saw Joe Scroggs come from behind the stack, looking as red as a turkey-cock and raving like mad. He burst out swearing at Will and me, like a cat spitting at a dog. His monkey was up and no mistake. He ‘d let us know that he was as good a man as either of us, or the two put together, for the matter of that. Talk about Jiiin in that way; he ‘d do — I don’t know what. I told old Joe we had never thought of him, nor said a word about him, and he might just as well save his breath to cool his porridge, for nobody meant him any harm. This only made him call me a liar and roar the louder. My friend Will was walking away holding his sides; but when he saw that Scroggs was still in a fume he laughed outright, and

turned round on him and said: “Why, Joe, we were talking about master’s old donkey, and not about you; but, upon my word, I shall never see that donkey again without thinking of Joe Scroggs.” Joe puffed and blowed, but perhaps he thought it an awkward job, for he backed out of it, and Will and I went off to our work in rather a merry cue, for old Joe had blundered on the truth about himself for once in his life.

The aforesaid Will Shepherd has sometimes come down rather heavy upon me in his remarks, but it has done me good. It is partly through his home-thrusts that I have come to write this new book, for he thought I was idle; perhaps I am, and perhaps I am not. Will forgets that I have other fish to fry and tails to butter; and he does not recollect that a ploughman’s mind wants to lie fallow a little, and can’t give a crop every year. It is hard to make rope when your hemp is all used up, or pancakes without batter, or rook-pie without birds; and so I found it hard to write more when I had said just about all I knew. Giving much to the poor doth increase a man’s store, but it is not the same with writing; at least I am such a poor scribe that I don’t find it come because I pull. If your thoughts only flow by drops, you can’t pour them out in bucketfuls.

However, Will has ferreted me out, and I am obliged to him so far. I told him the other day what the winkle said to the pin: “Thank you for drawing me out, but you are rather sharp about it.” Still, Master Will is not far from the mark; after three hundred thousand people had bought my book it certainly was time to write another: so, though I am not a hatter, I will again turn cap-maker, and those who have heads may try on my wares; those who have none won’t touch them. So, friends, I am.

Yours, rough and ready,

John Ploughman.

HOPE.

Eggs are eggs, but some are rotten; and so hopes are hopes, but many of them are delusions. Hopes are like women, there is a touch of angel about them all, but there are two sorts. My boy Tom has been blowing a lot of birds’ eggs, and threading them on a string; I have been doing the same thing with hopes, and here’s a few of them, good, bad, and indifferent.

The sanguine man’s hope pops up in a moment like Jack-in-thebox; it works with a spring, and does not go by reason. Whenever this man looks out of the window he sees better times coming, and although it is nearly all in his own eye and nowhere else, yet to see plum-puddings in the moon is a far more cheerful habit than croaking at everything like a two-legged frog. This is the kind of brother to be on the road with on a pitch-dark night, when it pours with rain, for he carries candles in his eyes and a fireside in his heart. Beware of being misled by him, and then you may safely keep his company. His fault is that he counts his chickens before they are hatched, and sells his herrings before they are in the net. All his sparrows’ eggs are bound to turn into thrushes at the least, if not partridges and pheasants. Summer has fully come, for he has seen one swallow. He is sure to make his fortune at his new shop, for he had not opened the door five minutes before two of the neighbors crowded in: one of them wanted a loaf of bread on trust, and the other asked change for a shilling. He is certain that the squire means to give him his custom, for he saw him reading the name over the shop-door as he rode past. He does not believe in slips between cups and lips, but makes certainties out of perhapses. Well, good soul, though he is a little soft at times, there is much in him to praise, and I like to think of one of his odd sayings: “Never say die till you are dead, and then it ’s no use, so let it alone.” There are other odd people in the world, you see, besides John Ploughman.

My neighbor Shiftless is waiting for his aunt to die; but the old lady has as many lives as nine cats, and my notion is that when she does die she will leave her little money to the Hospital for Diseased Cats or Stray Dogs, sooner than her nephew Jack shall have it. Poor creature, he is dreadfully down at the heel, and lays it all on the dear old lady’s provoking constitution. However, he hopes on, and gets worse and worse, for while the grass grows the horse starves. He pulls at a long rope who waits for another’s death; he who hunts after legacies had need have iron shoes. He that waits for dead men’s shoes may long go barefoot; he who waits for his uncle’s cow need not be in a hurry to spread the butter. He who lives on hope has a slim diet. If Jack Shiftless never had an aunt, he might have tucked up his shirt-sleeves and worked for himself; but they told him that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and that made a spoon of him, so that he is no more use at work than a cow at catching hares. If anybody likes to leave John Ploughman a legacy, he will be very much obliged to them, but they had better not tell him of it for fear he should not plough so straight a furrow; they had better make it twice as much, and take him by surprise. On the whole, it would be better to leave it to the Pastors’ College or the Stockwell Orphanage, for it will be well used in either case. I wish people would think less about windfalls, and plant more apple-trees. Hopes that grow out of graves are grave mistakes; and whc-n they cripple a man’s own energies, they are a sort of hangman’s rope, dangling round a man’s neck.

Some people were born on the first of April, and are always hoping without sense or reason. Their ship is to come home, they are to dig up a pot of gold, or to hear of something to their advantage. Poor sillies, they have wind on the brain, and dream while they are awake. They may hold their mouths open a long while before fried ham and eggs will come flying into them, and yet they really seem to believe that some stroke of luck, some windfall of golden apples, will one day set them up and make gentlemen of them. The)’ hope to ride in their coaches, and by and by find themselves shut up in a place where the coaches won’t run over them. You may whistle a long while before goldfinches will hop on to your thumb. Once in a while one man in a million may stumble against a fortune, but thousands ruin themselves by idle expectations. Expect to get half of what you earn, a quarter of what is your due, and none of what you have lent, and you will be near the mark; but to look for a fortune to fall from the moon is to play the fool with a vengeance. A man ought to hope within the bounds of reason and the promises of the good old Book. Hope leans on an anchor, but an anchor must have something to hold by and to hold to. A hope without grounds is a tub without a bottom, a horse without a head, a goose without a body, a shoe without a sole, a knife without a blade. Who but Simple Simon would begin to build a house at the top? there must be a foundation. Hope is no hope, but sheer folly when a man hopes for impossibilities, or looks for crops without sowing seed, and for happiness without doing good. Such hopes lead to great boast and small roast; they act like a jack-o’-lantern, and lead men into the ditch. There ’s poor Will at the workhouse, who always declares that he owns a great estate, only the right owner keeps him out of it; his name is Jenyns, or Jennings, and somebody of that name he says has left enough money to buy the Bank of England, and one day he is to have a share of it; but meanwhile poor Will finds the parish broth poor stuff for such a great gentleman’s stomach; he has promised me an odd thousand or two when he gets his fortune, and I am going to build a castle in the air with it, and ride to it on a broomstick. Poor soul, like a good many others he has windmills in his head, and may make his will on his thumb-nail for anything that he has to give. Depend upon it, ploughing the air is not half so profitable as it is easy: he who hopes in this world for more than he can get by his own earnings hopes to find apricots on a crab-tree. He who marries a slovenly, dressy girl, and hopes to make her a good wife, might as well buy a goose and expect it to turn out a milch cow. He who takes his boys to the beer-shop, and trusts that they will grow up sober, puts his coffee-pot on the fire and expects to see it look bright as new tin. Men cannot be in their senses when they brew with bad malt and look for good beer, or set a wicked example and reckon upon raising a respectable family. You may hope and hope till your heart grows sick; but when you send your boy up the chimney, he ’11 come down black for all your hoping. Teach a child to lie, and then hope that he will grow up honest; better put a wasp in a tar-barrel and wait till he makes you honey. As to the next world, it is a great pity that men do not take a little more care when they talk of it. If a man dies drunk, somebody or other is sure to say, “I hope he is gone to heaven!” It is all very well to wish it, but to hope it is another thing. Men turn their faces to hell and hope to get to heaven: why don’t they walk into the horse-pond, and hope to be dry? Hopes of heaven are solemn things, and should be tried by the Word of God. A man might as well hope, as our Lord

says, to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, as look for a happy hereafter at the end of a bad life. There is only one Rock to build good hopes on, and that is not Peter, as the Pope says, neither is it sacraments, as the old Roman beast’s cubs tell us, but the merits of the Lord Jesus. There John Ploughman rests, and he is not afraid, for this is a firm footing, and gives him a hope sure and stedfast, which neither life nor death can shake; but I must not turn preacher; so please remember that presumption is a ladder which will break the mounter’s neck; and don’t try it as you love your soul.

A HANDSAW IS A GOOD THING, BUT NOT TO SHAVE WITH.

Our friend will cut more than he will eat, and shave ofif something more than hair, and then he will blame the saw. His brains don’t lie in his beard, nor yet in the skull above it, or he would see that his saw will only make sores. There ’s sense in choosing your tools, for a pig’s tail will never make a good arrow, nor will

his ear make a silk purse. You can’t catch rabbits with drums, nor pigeons with plums. A good thing is not good out of its place. It is much the same with lads and girls; you can’t put all boys to one trade, nor send all girls to the same service. One chap will make a London clerk, and another will do better to plough and sow, and reap and mow, and be a farmer’s boy. It ’s no use forcing them; a snail will never run a race, nor a mouse

drive a wagon.

•’ Send a boy to the well against his will,
The pitcher will break and the water spilL’*

With unwilling hounds it is hard to hunt hares. To go against nature and inclination is to row against wind and tide. They say you may praise a fool till you make him useful: I don’t know so much about that, but I do know that if I get a bad knife I generally cut my finger, and a blunt axe is more trouble than profit. No, let me shave with a razor if I shave at all, and do my work with the best tools I can get.

Never set a man to work he is not fit for, for he will never do it well. They say that if pigs fly they always go with their tails forward, and awkward workmen are much the same. Nobody expects cows to catch crows, or hens to wear hats. There ’s reason in roasting eggs, and there should be reason in choosing servants. Don’t put a round peg into a square hole, nor wind up your watch with a corkscrew, nor set a tender-hearted man to whip wife-beaters, nor a bear to be a relieving-ofiicer, nor a publican to judge of the licensing laws. Get the right man in the right place, and then all goes as smooth as skates on ice; but the wrong man puts all awry, as the sow did when she folded the linen.

It is a temptation to many to trust them with money: don’t put them to take care of it if you ever wish to see it again. Never set a cat to watch cream, nor a pig to gather peaches, for if the cream and the peaches go a-missing you will have yourself to thank for it. It is a sin to put people where they are likely to sin. If you believe the old saying, that when you set a beggar on horseback he will ride to the devil, don’t let him have a horse of yours.

If you want a thing well done, do it yourself, and pick youi tools. It is true that a man must row with such oars as he has, but he should not use the boat-hook for a paddle. Take not the tongs to poke the fire, nor the poker to put on the coals. A newspaper on Sunday is as much out of place as a warming-pan on the first of August, or a fan on a snowy day: the Bible suits the Sabbath a deal better.

He who tries to make money by betting uses a wrong tool, and is sure to cut his fingers. As well hope to grow golden pippins on the bottom of the sea as to make gain among gamblers if you arc an honest man. Hard work and thrifty habits are the right razor, gambling is a handsaw.

Some things want doing gently, and telling a man of his faults is one of them. You would not fetch a hatchet to break open an egg, nor kill a fly on your boy’s forehead with a sledge-hammer, and so you must not try to mend your neighbor’s little fault by blowing him up sky-high. Never fire off a musket to kill a midge, and don’t raise a hue and cry about the half of nothing.

Do not throw away a saw because it is not a razor, for it will serve your turn another day, and cut your ham-bone if it won’t shave off your stubble. A whetstone, though it cannot cut, may sharpen a knife that will. A match gives little light itself, but it may light a candle to brighten up the room. Use each thing and each man according to common-sense, and you will be uncommonly sensible. You don’t milk horses nor ride cows, and by the same rule you must make of every man what he is meant for, and the farm will be as right as a trivet.

Everything has its use, but no one thing is good for all purposes. The baby said, “The cat crew, and the cock rocked the cradle;” but old folks knew better: the cat is best at mousing, and the cock at rousing. That ’s for that, as salt is for herrings, and sugar for gooseberries, and Nan for Nicholas. Don’t choose your tools by their looks, for that ’s best which does best. A silver trowel lays very few bricks. You cannot curry a horse with a tortoiseshell comb, or fell oaks with a penknife, or open oysters with a gold toothpick, fi/ie is not so good as yf, when work is to be done. A good workman will get on pretty well with a poor tool, and a brave soldier never lacks a weapon; still, the best is good enough for me, and John Ploughman does not care to use a clumsy tool because it looks pretty. Better ride on an ass that carries you than on a steed which throws you; it is far better to work with an old-fashioned spade which suits your hand than with a new-fangled invention you don’t understand.

In trying to do good to your fellow-men the Gospel is out of sicrht the best instrument to work with. The new doctrine which they call ‘’ modern thought” is nothing better than a handsaw, and it won’t work a bit. This fine new nothing of a gospel would not save a mouse, nor move the soul of a tomtit; but the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ is suited to man’s need, and by God’s grace does its work famously. Let every preacher and teacher keep to it, for they will never find a better. Try to win men with its loving words and precious promises, and there ’s no fear of labor in vain. Some praise the balm of Gilead, or man’s morality; many try the Roman salve, or the oil of Babylon; and others use a cunning ointment mixed by learned philosophers; but for his own soul’s wounds, and for the hurts of others, John Ploughman knows but one cure, and that is given gratis by the Good Physician to all who ask for it. A humble faith in Christ Jesus will soon bring you this sovereign remedy. Use no other for no other is of use.

ON PATIENCE.

Patience is better than wisdom: an ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains. All men praise patience, but few enough can practise it; it is a medicine which is good for all diseases, and therefore every old woman recommends it; but it is not every garden that grows the herbs to make it with. When one’s flesh and bones are full of aches and pains, it is as natural for us to murmur as for a horse to shake his head when the flies tease him, or a wheel to rattle when a spoke is loose; but nature should not be the rule with Christians, or what is their religion worth? If a soldier fights no better than a ploughboy, oft” with his red coat. We expect more fruit from an apple-tree than from a thorn, and we have a right to do so. The disciples of a patient Saviour should be patient themselves. Grin and bear it is the old-fashioned advice, but sing and bear it is a great deal better. After all, we get very few cuts of the whip, considering what bad cattle we are; and when we do smart a little, it is soon over. Pain past is pleasure, and experience comes by it. We ought not to be afraid of going down into Egypt, when we know we shall come out of it with jewels of silver and gold.

Impatient people water their miseries and hoe up their comforts; sorrows are visitors that come without invitation, but complaining minds send a wagon to bring their troubles home in. Many people are born crying, live complaining, and die disappointed; they chew the bitter pill which they would not even know to be bitter if they had the sense to swallow it whole in a cup of patience and water. They think every other man’s burden to be light, and their own feathers to be heavy as lead; they are hardly done by in their own opinion; no one’s toes are so often trodden on by the black ox as theirs; the snow falls thickest round their door, and the hail rattles hardest on their windows; and yet, if the truth were known, it is their fancy rather than their fate, which makes things go so hard with them. Many would be well off if they could but think so. A little sprig of the herb called content put into the poorest soup will make it taste as rich as the Lord Mayor’s turtle. John Ploughman grows the plant in his garden, but the late hard winter nipped it terribly, so that he cannot afford to give his neighbors a slip of it; they had better follow Matthew xxv. 9, and go to those who sell and buy for themselves. Grace is a good soil to grow it in, but it wants watering from the fountain of mercy.

To be poor is not always pleasant, but worse things than that happen at sea. Small shoes are apt to pinch, but not if you have a small foot; if we have little means it will be well to have little desires. Poverty is no shame, but being discontented with it is. In some things the poor are better off than the rich; for if a poor man has to seek meat for his stomach, he is more likely to get what he is after than a rich man who seeks a stomach for his meat. A poor man’s table is soon spread, and his labor spares his buying sauce. The best doctors are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman, and many a godly ploughman has all these gentlemen to wait upon him. Plenty makes dainty, but hunger finds no fault with the cook. Hard work brings health, and an ounce of health is worth a sack of diamonds. It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. There is more sweet in a spoonful of sugar than in a cask of vinegar. It is not the quantity of our goods, but the blessing of God on what we have that makes us truly rich. The parings of a pippin are better than a whole crab; a dinner of herbs with peace is better than a stalled ox and contention therewith. ‘’ Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.” A little wood will heat my little oven; why, then, should I murmur because all the woods are not mine?

When troubles come, it is of no use to fly in the face of God by hard thoughts of providence; that is kicking against the pricks and hurting your feet. The trees bow in the wind, and so must we. Every time the sheep bleats, it loses a mouthful, and every time we complain we miss a blessing. Grumbling is a bad trade and yields no profit, but patience has a golden hand. Our evils will soon be over. After rain comes clear shining; black crows have wings; every winter turns to spring; every night breaks into morning.

“Blow the wind never so fast,
It will lower at last.”

If the door shall be shut God will open another; if the peas do not yield well, the beans may; if one hen leaves her eggs, another will bring all her brood; there ’s a bright side to all things, and a good God everywhere. Somewhere or other in the worst flood of trouble, there always is a dry spot for contentment to get its foot on, and if there were not, it would learn to swim.

Friends, let us take to patience and water-gruel, as the old folks used to tell us, rather than catch the miserables, and give others the disease by wickedly finding fault with God. The best remedy for affliction is submitting to Providence. What can’t be cured must be endured. If we cannot get bacon, let us bless God that there are still some cabbages in the garden. Must is a hard nut to crack, but it has a sweet kernel. “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Whatever falls from the skies is, sooner or later, good for the land; whatever comes to us from God is worth having, even though it be a rod. We cannot by nature like trouble any more than a mouse can fall in love with a cat, and yet Paul by grace came to glory in tribulations also. Losses and crosses are heavy to bear, but when our hearts are right with God, it is wonderful how easy the yoke becomes. We must needs go to glory by the way of Weeping Cross; and as we were never promised that we should ride to heaven in a feather-bed, we must not be disappointed when we see the road to be rough, as our fathers found it before us. All ’s well that ends well; and therefore let us plough the heaviest soil with our eye on the sheaves of harvest, and learn to sing at our labor while others murmur.

ALL ARE NOT HUNTERS THAT BLOW THE HORN.

He does not look much like a hunter! Nimrod would never own him. But how he blows! Goodness gracious, what a row! as the linnet said when he heard a donkey singing his evening hymn.

There’s more goes to ploughing than knowing how to whistle; and hunting is not all tally-ho and horn-blowing. Appearances are deceitful. Outward show is not everything. All are not butchers that carry a steel, and all are not bishops that wear aprons. You must not buy goods by the label, for I have heard that the finer the trade-mark the worse the article. Never have we seen more horn or less hunter than in our picture. Blow away, my hearty, till your toes look out of your boots; there ’s no fear of your killing either fox or stag!

Now, the more people blow, the more they may, but he is a fool who believes all they say. As a rule, the smallest boy carries the biggest fiddle, and he who makes most boast has least roast. He who has least wisdom has most vanity. John Lackland is wonderfully fond of being called Esquire, and there ’s none so pleased at being dubbed a doctor as the man who least deserves it. Many a D. D. is fiddle-de-dee. I have heard say, “Always talk big, and somebody will think you great;” but my old friend Will Shepherd says: ‘’Save your wind for running up a hill, and don’t give us big words ofi” a weak stomach. Look,” said he once to me, “there ’s Solomon Braggs holding up his head like a hen drinking water, but there ’s nothing in it! With him it ’s much din and little done.”

“Of all speculations the market holds forth,
The best that I know for a lover of pelf
Were to buy up this Braggs at the price he is worth,
And sell him — at that which he sets on himself.”

Before honor is humility; but a prating fool shall fall, and when he falls very few will be in a hurry to pick him up.

A long tongue generally goes with a short hand. We are most of us better at saying than doing. We can all tattle away from the battle, but many fly when the fight is nigh. Some are all sound and fury, and when they have bragged their brag all is over, and amen. The fat Dutchman was the wisest pilot in Flushing, only he never went to sea; and the Irishman was the finest rider in Connaught, only he would never trust himself on a horse, because, as he said, “he generally fell off before he got on.” A bachelor’s wife is always well managed, and old maids always bring up their children in prime style. We think we can do what we are not called to, and if by chance the thing falls to our lot we do worse than those we blamed. Hence it is wise to be slow in foretelling what we will do, for, — “Thus saith the proverb of the wise, ‘Who boasteth least tells fewest lies.’”

There is another old rhyme which is as full of reason as a pod is

full of peas, —

“Little money is soonest spended;

Fewest words are soonest mended.”

Of course, every potter praises his own pot, and we can all toot a little on our own trumpet; but some blow as if nobody ever had a horn but themselves. “After me the flood,” says the mighty big man, and whether it be so or no we have floods enough while he lives. I mean floods of words, words, words, enough to drown all your senses. Oh that the man had a mouth big enough to say all he has to say at one go, and have done with it! But then one had need get to the other end of the world till his talk had run itself dry. Oh for a quiet ha’loft, or a sawpit, or a dungeon, where the sound of the jawbone would no more be heard! They say a brain is worth little if you have not a tongue; but what is a tongue worth without a brain? Bellowing is all very well, but the cow for me is that which fills the pail. A braying ass eats little hay, and that ’s a saving in fodder; but a barking dog catches no game, and that ’s a loss to the owner. Noise is no profit, and talk hinders work.

When a man’s song is in his praise, let the hymn be short metre, and let the tune be in the minor key. He who talks forever about himself has a foolish subject, and is likely to worry and weary all around him. Good wine needs no bush, and a man who can do well seldom boasts about it. The emptiest tub makes the loudest noise. Those who give themselves out to be fine shots kill very few birds, and many a crack ploughman does a shorter day’s work than plain John, though he is nothing ofi” the common; and so on the whole it is pretty clear that the best huntsmen are not those who are for everlastingly blowing the horn.

HE LIVES UNDER THE SIGN OF THE CAT’S FOOT.

The question was once asked, When should a man marry? and the merry answer was, that for young men it is too soon, and for old men it is too late. This is all very fine, but it will not wash. Both the wisdom and the folly of men seem banded together to make a mock of this doctrine. Men are such fools that they must and will marry, even if they marry fools. It is wise to

marry when we can marry wisely, and then the sooner the better. How many show their sense in choosing a partner it is not for me to say, but I fear that in many cases love is blind, and makes a very blind choice. I don’t suppose that some people would ever get married at all if love had its wits about it. It is a mystery how certain parties ever found partners; truly there ’s no accounting for tastes. However, as they make their bed they must lie on it, and as they tie the knot they must be tied by it. If a man catches a tartar, or lets a tartar catch him, he must take his dose of tartaric acid, and make as few ugly faces as he can. If a three-legged stool come flying through the air, he must be thankful for such a plain token of love from the woman of his choice, and the best thing he can do is to sit down on it and wait for the next little article.

When it is said of a man, “He lives under the sign of the cat’s foot,” he must try and please his pussy, that she may not scratch him more than such cats generally do. A good husband will generally have a good wife, or make a bad wife better. Bad Jack makes a great noise about bad Jill, but there ’s generally twenty of one where there’s a score of the other. They say a burden of one’s own choosing is never felt to be heavy; but I don’t know, some men are loaded with mischief as soon as they have a wife to carry. Yd

A good woman is worth, if she were sold,
The fairest crown that ’s made of gold.

She is a pleasure, a treasure, and a joy without measure. A good wife and health are a man’s best wealth; and he who is in such a case should envy no man’s place. Even when a woman is a little tart, it is better than if she had no spirit, and made her house into a dirt pie. A shrew is better than a slut, though one can be quite miserable enough with either. If she is a good housewife, and looks well after the children, one may put up with a Caudle lecture now and then, though a cordial lecture would be a deal better. A husband is in a pickle indeed if he gets tied up to a regular scold; he might as well be skinned and set up to his neck in a tub of brine. Did you ever hear the scold’s song? Read it, you young folks who think of committing matrimony, and think twice before you get married once.

When in the morn I ope mine eyes

To entertain the day,
Before my husband e’en can rise,

I scold him, — then I pray.

When I at table take my place,

Whatever be the meat,
I first do scold, — and then say grace,

If so disposed to eat.

Too fat, too lean, too hot, too cold,

I always do complain;
Too raw, too roast, too young, too old, —

Faults I will find or feign.

Let it be flesh, or fowl, or fish,

It never shall be said
But I’ll find fault with meat or dish,

With master or with maid.

But when I go to bed at night

I heartily do weep.
That I must part with my delight, —

I cannot scold and sleep.

However, this doth mitigate

And much abate my sorrow.
That though to-night it be too late,

I ’11 early scold to-morrow.

When the husband is not a man, it is not to be wondered at if the wife wears the top-boots: the mare may well be the best horse when the other horse is a donkey. Well may a woman feel that she is lord and master when she has to earn the living for the family, as is sometimes the case. She ought not to be the head, but if she has all the brains, what is she to do? What poor dawdles many men would be without their wives! As poor softy Simpkins says, if Bill’s wife becomes a widow, who will cut the pudding up for him, and will there be a pudding at all? It is grand when the wife knows her place, and keeps it, and they both pull together in everything. Then she is a helpmeet indeed, and makes the house a home. Old friend Tusser says, —

“When husband is absent let housewife be chief,
And look to their labor who live from their sheaf;
The housewife ’s so named for she keepeth the house.
And must tend on her profit as cat on a mouse.”

He is very pat upon it that much of household affairs must rest on the wife, and he writes:

“Both out, not allow.
Keep home, housewife thou.”

Like the old man and woman in the toy which shows the weather, one must be sure to be in if the other goes out. When the king is abroad the queen must reign at home, and when he returns to ft his throne he is bound to look upon her as his crown, and prize her above gold and jewels. He should feel, “If there’s only one good wife in the whole world, I Ve got her.” John Ploughman has long thought just that of his own wife, and after five and twenty years he is more sure of it than ever. He never bets, but he would not mind wagering a farthing cake that there is not a better woman on the surface of the globe than his own, very own beloved. Happy is the man who is happy in his wife. Let him love her as he loves himself, and a little better, for she is his better half, -t

Thank God that hath so blest thee,
And sit down, John, and rest thee.

There is one case in which I don’t wonder if the wife does put ner mate under the cat’s foot, and that is when he slinks off to the public and wastes his wages. Even then love and gentleness is the best way of getting him home; but, really, some topers have no feeling, and laugh at kindness, and therefore nobody can be surprised if the poor wife bristles up and gives her lord and master a taste of tongue. Nothing tries married love more than the pothouse. Wages wasted, wife neglected, children in rags: if she gives it him hot and strong, who can blame her? Pitch into him, good woman, and make him ashamed of himself, if you can. No wonder that you lead a cat-and-dog life while he is such a sorry dog.

Still, you might as well go home and set him a better example, for two blacks will never make a white, and if you put him in hot water he ’s sure to get some spirits to mix with it.

A GOOD WORD FOR WIVES.

We pulled up the horses at the sign of the “Good Woman;” and as there is good entertainment for man, if not for beast, under that sign, we will make a stay of it, and dip our pen into some of that superfine ink which has no galls in it. When he writes on so fair a subject, John Ploughman must be on his best behavior.

It is astonishing how many old sayings there are against wives: you may find nineteen to the dozen of them. The men years ago showed the rough side of their tongues whenever they spoke of their spouses. Some of these sayings are downright shocking; as, for instance, that very wicked one, “Every man has two good days with his wife, — the day he marries her and the day he buries her;” and that other, “He that loseth his wife and a farthing, has a great loss of the farthing.”

I recollect an old ballad that Gaffer Brooks used to sing about a man’s being better hung than married; it shows how common it was to abuse the married life. It is almost too bad to print it; but here it is as near as I remember it, —

“There was a victim in a cart,
One day for to be hanged,
And his reprieve was granted,
And the cart made for to stand.

“* Come, marry a wife and save your life,’
The judge aloud did cry;
* Oh, why should I corrupt my life? ’
The victim did reply.

“‘For here ’s a crowd of every sort.

And why should I prevent their sport?
The bargain ’s bad in every part,

The wife ’s the worst, — drive on the cart.’”

Now this rubbish does not prove that the women are bad, but that their husbands are good for nothing, or else they would not make up such abominable slanders about their partners. The rottenest bough cracks first, and it looks as if the male side of the house was the worse of the two, for it certainly has made up the most grumbling proverbs. There have, no doubt, been some shockingly bad wives in the world, who have been provoking enough to make a man say, —

*’ If a woman were as little as she is good,

A peashell would make her a gown and a hood.”

But how many thousands have there been of true helpmeets, worth far more than their weight in gold! There is only one Job’s wife mentioned in the Bible and one Jezebel, but there are no end of Sarahs and Rebekahs. I am of Solomon’s mind, that, as a rule, he that findeth a wife findeth a good thing. If there ’s one bad shilling taken at the grocer’s, all the neighbors hear of it, but of the hundreds of good ones report says nothing. A good woman makes no noise, and no noise is made about her; but a shrew is noted all over the parish. Taking them for all in all, they are most angelical creatures, and a great deal too good for half the husbands.

It is much to the women’s credit that there are very few old sayings against husbands, although in this case sauce for the goose would make capital sauce for the gander; and the mare has as good reasons for kicking as the horse has. They must be very forbearing, or they would have given the men a Roland for every Oliver. Pretty dears, they may be rather quick in their talk, but is it not the nature of bells and belles to have tongues that swing easy? They cannot be so very bad after all, or they would have had their revenge for the many cruel things which are said against them; and if they are a bit masterful, their husbands cannot be such very great victims, or they would surely have sense enough to hold their tongues about it. Men don’t care to have it known when they are thoroughly well henpecked, and I feel pretty certain that the old sayings are nothing but chaff, for if they were true men would never dare to own it.

A true wife is her husband’s better half, his lump of delight, his flower of beauty, his guardian angel, and his heart’s treasure. He says to her: “I shall in thee most happy be. In thee, my choice, I do rejoice. In thee I find content of mind. God’s appointment is my contentment.” In her company he finds his earthly heaven; she is the light of his home, the comfort of his soul, and (for this world) the soul of his comfort. Whatever fortune God may send him, he is rich so long as she lives. His rib is the best bone in his body.

The man who weds a loving wife,
Whate’er betideth him in life.

Shall bear up under all;
But he that finds an evil mate,
No good can come within his gate,

His cup is fill’d with gall.

A good husband makes a good wife. Some men can neither do without wives nor with them; they are wretched alone in what is called single blessedness, and they make their homes miserable when they get married; they are like Tompkin’s dog, which could not bear to be loose, and howled when it was tied up. Happy bachelors are likely to be happy husbands, and a happy husband is the happiest of men. A well-matched couple carry a joyful life between them, as the two spies carried the cluster of Eshcol. They are a brace of birds of Paradise. They multiply their joys by sharing them, and lessen their troubles by dividing them: this is fine arithmetic. The wagon of care rolls lightly along as they pull together; and when it drags a little heavily, or there’s a hitch anywhere, they love each other all the more, and so lighten the labor.

When a couple fall out, there are always faults on both sides, and generally there is a pound on one and sixteen ounces on the other. When a home is miserable, it is as often the husband’s fault as the wife’s. Darby is as much to blame as Joan, and sometimes more. If the husband won’t keep sugar in the cupboard, no wonder his wife gets sour. Want of bread makes want of love; lean dogs fight. Poverty generally rides home on the husband’s back, for it is not often the woman’s place to go outworking for wages. A man down our parts gave his wife a ring with this on it: ‘* If thee don’t work, thee sha’n’t eat.” He was a brute. It is no business of hers to bring in the grist, — she is to see it is well used and not wasted; therefore, I say, short commons are not her fault. She is not the bread-winner, but the bread-maker. She earns more at home than any wages she can get abroad.

It is not the wafe who smokes and drinks away the wages at the “Brown Bear” or the “Jolly Topers.” One sees a drunken woman now and then, and it’s an awful sight; but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is the man who comes home tipsy and abuses the children, — the woman seldom does that. The poor drudge of a wife is a teetotaler, whether she likes it or no, and gets plenty of hot water as well as cold. Women are found fault with for often looking into the glass, but that is not so bad a glass as men drown their senses in. The wives do not sit boozing over the taproom fire; they, poor souls, are shivering at home with the baby, watching the clock (if there is one), wondering when their lords and masters will come home, and crying while they wait. I wonder they don’t strike. Some of them are about as wretched as a cockchafer on a pin, or a mouse in a cat’s mouth. They have to nurse the sick girl, and wash the dirty boy, and bear with the crying and noise of the children, while his lordship puts on his hat, lights his pipe, and goes off about his own pleasure, or comes in at his own time to find fault with his poor dame for not getting him a fine supper. How could he expect to be fed like a fighting-cock, when he brought home so little money on Saturday night, and spends so much in worshipping Sir John Barleycorn? I say it, I know it, there’s many a house where there would be no scolding wife if there was not a skulking, guzzling husband. Fellows not fit to be cut up for mops drink and drink till all is blue, and then turn on their poor hacks for not having more to give them. Don’t tell me, I say it and will maintain it, a woman can’t help being vexed when with all her mending and striving she can’t keep house, because her husband won’t let her. It would provoke any of us if we had to make bricks without straw, keep the pot boiling without fire, and pay the piper out of an empty purse. What can she get out of the oven when she has neither meal nor dough? You bad husbands, you are thoroughbred sneaks, and ought be hung up by your heels till you know better.

They say a man of straw is worth a woman of gold, but I cannot swallow it; a man of straw is worth no more than a woman of straw, let old sayings lie as they like. Jack is no better than Jill, as a rule. When there is wisdom in the husband, there ’s generally gentleness in the wife, and between them the old wedding wish is worked out: “One year of joy, another of comfort, and all the rest of content.” Where hearts agree, there joy will be. United hearts death only parts. They say marriage is not often merry-age, but very commonly mar-age; well, if so, the coat and waistcoat have as much to do with it as the gown and petticoat. The honeymoon need not come to an end; and when it does, it is often the man’s fault for eating all the honey, and leaving nothing but moonshine; when they both agree that whatever becomes of the moon they will each keep up their share of honey, there ’s merry living. When a man dwells under the sign of the cat’s foot, where faces get scratched, either his wife did not marry a man, or he did not marry a woman. If a man cannot take care of himself, his wit must be as scant as the wool of a blue dog. I don’t pity most of the men martyrs; I save my pity for the women. When the Dunmow-flitch is lost, neither of the pair will eat the bacon; but the wife is the most likely to fast for the want of it. Every herring must hang by its own gill, and every person must account for his own share in home quarrels; but John Ploughman can’t bear to see all the blame laid on the women. Whenever a dish is broke the cat did it, and whenever there is mischief, there ’s a woman at the bottom of it: here are two as pretty lies as you will meet with in a month’s march. There ’s a why for every wherefore, but the why for family jars does not always lie with the housekeeper. I know some women have long tongues, then the more ’s the pity that their husbands should set them going; but for the matter of talk, just look into a bar parlor when the men’s jaws are well oiled with liquor, and if any women living can talk faster or be more stupid than the men, my name is not John Ploughman.

When I had got about as far as this, in stepped our minister, and he said, “John, you ‘ve got a tough subject, a cut above you; I ’11 lend you a rare old book to help you over the stile.” “Well, sir,” said I, “a little help is worth a great deal of fault-finding, and I shall be uncommonly obliged to you.” He sent me down old William Seeker’s “Wedding Ring,” and a real wise fellow that Seeker was. I could not do any other than pick out some of his pithy bits; they are very flavory, and such as are likely to glue themselves to the memory. He says: “Hast thou a soft heart? It is of God’s breaking. Hast thou a sweet wife? She is of God’s making. The Hebrews have a saying, ‘He is not a man that hath not a woman.’ Though man alone may be good, yet it is not good that man should be alone. ‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.’ A wife, though she be not a perfect gift, is a good gift, a beam darted from the Sun of mercy. How happy are those marriages where Christ is at the wedding! Let none but those who “have found favor in God’s eyes, find favor in yours. Husbands should spread a mantle of charity over their wives’ infirmities. Do not put out the candle because of the snuff. Husbands and wives should provoke one another to love, and they should love one another notwithstanding provocations. The tree of love should grow up in the midst of the family as the tree of life grew in the garden of Eden. Good servants are a great blessing; good children a greater blessing; but a good wife is the greatest blessing; and such a help let him seek for her that wants one; let him sigh for her that hath lost one; let him delight in her that enjoys one.”

To come down from the old Puritan’s roast beef to my own pot herbs, or, as they say, to put Jack after gentleman, I will tell my own experience, and have done.,

My experience of my first wife, who will, I hope, live to be my last, is much as follows: matrimony came from Paradise, and leads to it. I never was half so happy before I was a married man as I am now. When you are married, your bliss begins. I have no doubt that where there is much love there will be much to love, and where love is scant faults will be plentiful. If there is only one good wife in England, I am the man who put the ring on her finger, and long may she wear it! God bless the dear soul! if she can put up with me, she shall never be put down by me.

If I were not married to-day, and saw a suitable partner, I would be married to-morrow morning before breakfast. What think you of that? “Why,” says one, “I think John would get a new wife if he were left a widower.” Well, and what if he did, how could he better show that he was happy with his first? I declare I would not say as some do, that they married to have some one to look after the children; I should marry to have some one to look after myself. John Ploughman is a sociable soul, and could not do in a house by himself. One man, when he married his fourth wife, put on the ring, —

“If I survive, I ’11 make it five.”

What an old Bluebeard! Marriages are made in heaven; matrimony in itself is good, but there are fools who turn meat into poison, and make a blessing into a curse. “This is a good rope,” said Pedley, “I ’11 hang myself with it.” A man who has sought his wife from God, and married her for her character, and not merely for her figure-head, may look for a blessing on his choice. They who join their love in God above, who pray to love and love to pray, will find that love and joy will never cloy.

He who respects his wife will find that she respects him. With what measure he metes, it shall be measured to him again, good measure, pressed down and running over. He who consults his spouse will have a good counsellor. I have heard our minister say, “Women’s instincts are often truer than man’s reason;” they jump at a thing at once, and they are wise off-hand. Say what you will of your wife’s advice, it ’s as likely as not you will be sorry you did not take it. He who speaks ill of women should remember the breast he was nursed at, and be ashamed of himself. He who ill treats his wife ought to be whipped at the cart-tail, and would not I like a cut at him! I would just brush a fly or two off, trust me for that. So no more at present, as the thatcher said when he had cleared every dish on the table.

STICK TO IT AND DO IT.

Set a stout heart to a stiff hill, and the wagon will get to the top of it. There ’s nothing so hard but a harder thing will get through it; a strong job can be managed by a strong resolution. Have at it and have it. Stick to it and succeed. Till a thing is done, men wonder that you think it can be done, and when you have done it they wonder it was never done before.

In my picture the wagon is drawn by two horses; but I would have every man who wants to make his way in life pull as if all depended on himself. Very little is done right when it is left to other people. The more hands to do work the less there is done. One man will carry two pails of water for himself; two men will only carry one pail between them; and three will come home with

T

never a drop at all. A child with several mothers will die before it runs alone. Know your business and give your mind to it, and you will find a buttered loaf where a sluggard loses his last crust.

In these times it s no use being a farmer if you don’t mean work. The days are gone by for gentlemen to make a fortune off

of a farm by going out shooting half their time. If foreign wheats keep on coming in, farmers will soon learn that, —

“He who by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive.”

Going to Australia is of no use to a man if he carries a set of lazy bones with him. There ’s a living to be got in old England at almost any trade if a fellow will give his mind to it. A man who works hard and has his health and strength is a great deal happier than my lord Tom Noddy, who does nothing and is always ailing. Do you know the old song of “The Nobleman’s Generous Kindness “? You should hear our Will sing it. I recollect some of the verses. The first one gives a picture of the hard-working laborer with a large family, — “Thus careful and constant, each morning he went, Unto his day labor with joy and content; So jocular and jolly he ‘d whistle and sing, As blithe and as brisk as the birds in the spring.”

The other lines are the ploughman’s own story of how he spent his life, and I wish that all countrymen could say the same, —

“I reap and I mow, I harrow and I sow,
Sometimes a-hedging and ditchmg I go;
No work comes amiss, for I thrash and I plough.
Thus my bread I do earn by the sweat of my brow.

*’ My wife she is willing to pull in a yoke,
We live like two lambs, nor each other provoke;
We both of us strive, like the laboring ant.
And do our endeavors to keep us from want.

“And when I come home from my labor at night,
To my wife and my children in whom I delight,
I see them come round me with prattling noise.
Now these are the riches a poor man enjoys.

“Though I am as weary as weary may be,
The youngest I commonly dance on my knee;
I find in content a continual feast,
And never repine at my lot in the least.”

So, you see, the poor laborer may work hard and be happy all the same; and surely those who are in higher stations may do the like if they like.

He is a sorry dog who wants game and will not hunt for it: let us never lie down in idle despair, but follow on till we succeed.

Rome was not built in a day, nor much else, unless it be a dog-kennel. Things which cost no pains are slender gains. Where there has been little sweat there will be little sweet. Jonah’s gourd came up in a night, but then it perished in a night. Light come, light go; that which flies in at one window will be likely to fly out at another. It ’s a very lean hare that hounds catch without running for it, and a sheep that is no trouble to shear has very little wool. For this reason a man who cannot push on against wind and weather stands a poor chance in this world.

Perseverance is the main thing in life. To hold on, and hold out to the end, is the chief matter. If the race could be won by a spurt, thousands would wear the blue ribbon; but they are short-winded, and pull up after the first gallop. They begin with flying, and end in crawling backward. When it comes to collar work, many horses turn to jibbing. If the apples do not fall at the first shake of the tree, your hasty folks are too lazy to fetch a ladder, and in too much of a hurry to wait till the fruit is ripe enough to fall of itself. The hasty man is as hot as fire at the outset, and as cold as ice at the end. He is like the Irishman’s saucepan, which had many good points about it, but it had no bottom. He who cannot bear the burden and heat of the day i.* not worth his salt, much less his potatoes.

Before you begin a thing, make sure it is the right thing to do: ask Mr. Conscience about it. Do not try to do what is impossible: ask Common Sense. It is of no use to blow against a hurricane, or to fish for whales in a washing-tub. Better give up a foolish plan than go on and burn -our fingers with it: better bend your neck than knock your forehead. But when you have once made up your mind to go a certain road, don’t let every molehill turn you out of the path. One stroke fells not an oak. Chop away, axe, you ’11 down with the tree at last! A bit of iron does not soften the moment you put it into the fire. Blow, smith! Put on more coals! Get it red hot and hit hard with the hammer, and you will make a ploughshare yet. Steady does it. Hold on, and you have it! Brag is a fine fellow at crying “Tally-ho!” but Perseverance brings home the brush.

We ought not to be put out of heart by difficulties: they are sent on purpose to try the stuff we are made of; and depend upon it they do us a world of good. There ’s a sound reason why there are bones in our meat and stones in our land. A world where everything was easy would be a nursery for babies, but not at all a fit place for men. Celery is not sweet till it has felt a frost, and men don’t come to their perfection till disappointment has dropped a half-hundred weight or two on their toes. Who would know good horses if there were no heavy loads? If the clay was not stiff, my old Dapper and Violet would be thought no more of than Tomkins’s donkey. Besides, to work hard for success makes us fit to bear it: we enjoy the bacon all the more because we have got an appetite by earning it. When prosperity pounces on a man like an eagle, it often throws him down. If we overtake the cart, it is a fine thing to get up and ride; but when it comes behind us at a tearing rate, it is very apt to knock us down and run over us, and when we are lifted into it we find our leg is broken, or our arm out of joint, and we cannot enjoy the ride. Work is always healthier for us than idleness; it is always better to wear out shoes than sheets. I sometimes think, when I put on my considering cap, that success in life is something like getting married: there ’s a very great deal of pleasure in the courting, and it is not a bad thing when it is a moderate time on the road. Therefore, young man, learn to wait, and work on. Don’t throw away your rod, the fish will bite some time or other. The cat watches long at the hole, but catches the mouse at last. The spider mends her broken web, and the flies are taken before long. Stick to your calling, plod on, and be content; for, make sure, if you can undergo you shall overcome.

If bad be your prospects, don’t sit still and cry,
But jump up, and say to yourself, “I will try.”

Miracles will never cease! My neighbor, Simon Gripper, was taken generous about three months ago. The story is well worth telling. He saw a poor blind man, led by a little girl, playing on a fiddle. His heart was touched, for a wonder. He said to me, “Ploughman, lend me a penny, there’s a good fellow.” I fumbled in my pocket, and found two halfpence, and handed them to him. More fool I, for he will never pay me again. He gave the blind fiddler one of those halfpence, and kept the other, and I have not seen either Gripper or my penny since, nor shall I get the money back till the gate-post outside my garden grows Ribstone pippins. There’s generosity for you! The old saying which is put at the top of this bit of my talk brought him into my mind, for he sticks to it most certainly: he lives as badly as a church-mouse, and works as hard as if he was paid by the piece and had twenty children to keep; but I would no more hold him up for an example than I would show a toad as a specimen of a pretty bird.

While I talk to you young people about getting on, I don’t want you to think that hoarding up money is real success; nor do I wish you to rise an inch above an honest ploughman’s lot, if it cannot be done without being mean or wicked. The workhouse, prison as it is, is a world better than a mansion built by roguery and greed. If you cannot get on honestly, be satisfied not to get on. The blessing of God is riches enough for a wise man, and all the world is not enough for a fool. Old Gripper’s notion of how to prosper has, I dare say, a good deal of truth in it, and the more ’s the pity. The Lord deliver us from such a prospering, I say. That old sinner has often hummed these lines into my ears when we have got into an argument, and very pretty lines they are 7iot, certainly: —

“To win the prize in the world’s great race,
A man should have a brazen iface;
An iron arm to give a stroke,
And a heart as sturdy as an oak;
Eyes like a cat, good in the dark,
And teeth as piercing as a shark;
Ears to hear the gentlest sound,
Like moles that burrow in the ground;
A mouth as close as patent locks,
And stomach stronger than an ox;
His tongue should be a razor-blade,
His conscience india-rubber made;
His blood as cold as polar ice,
His hand as grasping as a vice.
His shoulders should be adequate
To bear a couple thousand weight;
His legs, like pillars, firm and strong,
To move the great machine along;
With supple knees to cringe and crawl.
And cloven feet placed under all.”

It amounts to this: Be a devil in order to be happy. Sell yourself outright to the old dragon, and he will give you the world and the glory thereof. But remember the question of the old Book: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

MEN WITH TWO FACES.

Even bad men praise consistency. Thieves like honest men, for they are the best to rob. When you know where to find a man, he has one good point at any rate; but a fellow who howls with the wolves, and bleats with the sheep, gets nobody’s good word, unless it be the devil’s. To carry two faces under one hat is, however, very com.mon. Many roost with the poultry, and go shares with Reynard. Many look as if butter would not melt in their mouths, and yet can spit fire when it suits their purpose. I read the other day an advertisement about reversible coats: the tailor who sells them must be making a fortune. Holding with the hare and running with the hounds is still in fashion. Consistency is about as scarce in the world as musk in a dog-kennel.

You may trust some men as far as you can see them, but no

further, for. new company makes them new men. Like water, they

boil or freeze according to the temperature. Some do this because

they have no principles; they are of the weathercock persuasion,

and turn with the wind. You might as well measure the moon for

a suit of clothes as know what they are. They believe in that

which pays best. They always put up at the Golden Fleece.

Their mill grinds any grist which you bring to it if the ready

money is forthcoming; and they go with every wind, north, south,

east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, nor’-nor’-

east, southwest-by-south, or any other in all the world. Like

frogs, they can live on land or water, and are not at all particular

which it is. Like a cat, they always fall on their feet, and will stop

anywhere if you butter their toes. They love their friends dearly,

but their love lies in the cupboard, and if that be bare, like a

mouse, their love runs off to some other larder. They say,” Leave

you, dear girl? Never, while you have a shilling.” How they

scuttle off if you come to the bad! Like rats, they leave a sinking

ship.

When good cheer is lacking,

Such friends will be packing.

Their heart follows the pudding. While the pot boils they sit by the fire; when the meal-tub is empty they play at turnabout. They believe in the winning horse; they will wear anybody’s coat who may choose to give them one; they are to be bought by the dozen, like mackerel, but he who gives a penny for them wastes his money. Profit is their god, and whether they make it out of you or your enemy, the money is just as sweet to them. Heads or tails are alike to them so long as they win. High road or back lane, all ’s the same to them so that they can get home with the loaf in the basket. They are friends to the goose, but they will eat his giblets. So long as the water turns their wheel, it is none the worse for being muddy; they would burn their mother’s coffin if they were short of firing, and sell their own father if they could turn a penny by the old gentleman’s bones. They never lose a chance of minding the main chance.

Others are shifty because they are so desperately fond of good fellowship. “Hail fellow, well met!” is their cry, be it traveller or highwayman. They are so good-natured that they must needs agree with everybody. They are cousins of Mr. Anything. Their brains are in other people’s heads. If they were at Rome they would kiss the Pope’s toe, but when they are at home they make themselves hoarse with shouting, “No Popery!” They admire the Vicar of Bray, whose principle was to be the Vicar of Bray, whether the Church was Protestant or Popish. They are mere time-servers, in hopes that the times may serve them. They belong to the party which wears the yellow colors, not in their buttonholes, but in the palms of their hands. Butter them, and, like turnips, you may eat them. Pull the rope, and, like the bells, they will ring as you choose to make them, funeral knell or wedding peal, come to church or go to the devil. They have no backbones; you may bend them like willow wands, backwards or forwards, whichever way you please. Like oysters, anybody may pepper them who can open them. Sweet to you and sweet to your enemy. They blow hot and cold. They try to be Jack-o’-bothsides, and deserve to be kicked like a football by both parties.

Some are hypocrites by nature; slippery as eels, and piebald like Squire Smoothey’s mare. Like a drunken man, they could not walk straight if they were to try. Like corn-dealers, they are rogues in-grain.^ They wind in and out like a Surrey lane. They were born of the breed of St. Judas. The double shuffle is their favorite game, and honesty their greatest hatred. Honey is on their tongue, but gall in their hearts. They are mongrel bred, like the gypsy’s dog. Like a cat’s feet, they show soft pads, but carry sharp claws. If their teeth are not rotten, their tongues are, and their hearts are like dead men’s graves. If speaking the truth and lying were equally profitable, they would naturally prefer to lie, for, like dirt to a pig, it would be congenial. They fawn, and flatter, and cringe, and scrape; for, like snails, they make their way by their slime; but all the while they hate you in their hearts, and only wait for a chance to stab you. Beware of those who came from the town of Deceit. Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Fairspeech, and Mr. Two-tongues are neighbors who are best at a distance. Though they look one way, as boatmen do, they are pulling the other; they are false as the devil’s promises, and as cruel as death and the grave.

Religious deceivers are the worst of vermin, and I fear they are as plentiful as rats in an old wheatstack.

They are like a silver pin,
Fair without but foul within.

They cover up their black flesh with white feathers. Saturday and Sunday make a wonderful difference in them. They have the fear of the minister a deal more before their eyes than the fear of God. Their religion lies in imitating the religious; they have none of the root of the matter in them. They carry Dr. Watts’s hymn-book in their pocket, and sing a roaring song at the same time. Their Sunday coats are the best part about them; the nearer you get to their hearts the more filth you will find. They prate like parrots, but their talk and their walk do not agree. Some of them are fishing for customers, and a little pious talk is a cheap advertisement; and if the seat at the church or the meeting costs a trifle, they make it up out of short weights. They don’t worship God while they trade, but they trade on their worship. Others of the poorer sort go to church for soup and bread and coal tickets.

They love the communion because of the alms’ money. Some of the dear old Mrs. Goodbodies want a blessed almshouse, and so they profess to be so blessed under the blessed ministry of their blessed pastor every blessed Sabbath. Charity suits them if faith does not; they know which side their bread is buttered on.

Others make a decent show in religion to quiet their consciences; they use it as a salve for their wounds, — and if they could satisfy heaven as easily as they quiet themselves, it would be a fine thing for them. It has been my lot to meet with some who went a long way in profession, as far as I could see, for nothing but the love of being thought a deal of. They got a little knot of friends to believe in their fine talk, and take all in for gospel that they liked to say. Their opinion was the true measure of a preacher’s soundness; they could settle up everything by their own know, and they had gallons of XXX experience for those who liked something hot and strong. But dear, dear! if they had but condescended to show a little Christian practice as well, how much better their lives would have weighed up! These people are like owls, which look to be big birds, but they are not, for they are all feathers; and they look wonderfully knowing in the twihght, but when the light comes they are regular boobies.

Hypocrites of all sorts are abominable, and he who deals with them will rue it. He who tries to cheat the Lord will be quite ready to cheat his fellow men. Great cry generally means little wool. jMany a big chimney in which you expect to see bacon and hams, when you look up it, has nothing to show you but its empty hooks and black soot. Some men’s windmills are only nutcrackers — their elephants are nothing but sucking-pigs. It is not all who go to church or meeting that truly pray, nor those who sing loudest that praise God most, nor those who pull the longest faces who are the most in earnest.

What mean animals hypocrites must be! Talk of polecats and

weasels, they are nothing to them. Better be a dead dog than a

live hypocrite. Surely when the devil sees hypocrites at their

little game, it must be as good as a play to him; he tempts

genuine Christians, but he lets these alone, because he is sure of them. He need not shoot at lame ducks; his dog can pick them Mp any day.

Depend upon it, friends, if a straight line will not pay, a crooked one won’t. What is got by shuffling is very dangerous gain. It may give a moment’s peace to wear a mask, but deception will come home to you, and bring sorrow with it. Honesty is the best policy. If the lion’s skin does not do, never try the fox’s. Be as true as steel. Let your face and hands, like the church clock, always tell how your inner works are going. Better be laughed at as Tom Tell-truth than be praised as Crafty Charlie. Plain dealing may bring us trouble, but it is better than shuffling. At the last the upright will have their reward; but for the double-minded to get to heaven is as impossible as for a man to swim across the Atlantic with a millstone under each arm.

ALL IS LOST THAT IS POURED INTO A CRACKED DISH.

Cook is wasting her precious liquor, for it runs out almost as fast as it runs in. The sooner she stops that game the better. This makes me think of a good deal of preaching; it is labor in vain, because it docs not stay in the minds of the hearers, but goes in at one ear and out at the other. When men go to market they are all alive to do a trade, but in a place of worship they are not more than half awake, and do not seem to care whether they profit or not by what they hear. I once heard a preacher say, “Half of you are asleep, half arc inattentive, and the rest —” He never finished that sentence, for the people began to smile, and here and there one burst out laughing. Certainly, many only go to meeting to stare about.

“Attend your church, the parson cries:
To church each fair one goes;
The old ones go to close their eyes,
The young to eye their clothes.”

You might as well preach to the stone images in the old church as to people who are asleep. Some old fellows come into our meeting, pitch into their corner, and settle themselves down for a quiet snooze as knowingly as if the pew was a sleeping-car on the railway. Still, all the sleeping at service is not the fault of the poor people, for some parsons put a lot of sleeping stuff into their sermons. Will Shepherd says they mesmerize the people. (I think that is the right word, but I ‘m not sure.) I saw a verse

in a real live book, by Mr. Cheales, the vicar of Brockham, a place which is handy to my home. I ’11 give it you: —

“The ladies praise our curate’s eyes:
1 never see their light divine,
For when he prays he closes them.
And when he preaches closes mine.”

Well, if curates are heavy in style, the people will soon be heavy in sleep. Even when hearers are awake, many of them are forgetful. It is like pouring a jug of ale between the bars of a gridiron, to try and teach them good doctrine. Water on a duck’s back does have some effect, but sermons by the hundred are as much lost upon many men’s hearts as if they had been spoken to a kennel of hounds. Preaching to some fellows is like whipping the water or lashing the air. As well talk to a turnip, or whistle to a dead donkey, as preach to these dull ears. A year’s sermons will not produce an hour’s repentance till the grace of God comes in.

We have a good many hangers-on who think that their duty to God consists in hearing sermons, and that the best fruit of their hearing is to talk of what they have heard. How they do lay the law down when they get argifying about doctrines! Their religion all runs to ear and tongue: neither their heart nor their hand is a scrap the better. This is poor work, and will never pay the piper. The sermon which only gets as far as the ear is like a dinner eaten in a dream. It is ill to lie soaking in the gospel like a bit of coal in a milkpan, never the whiter for it all.

What can be the good of being hearers only? It disappoints the poor preacher, and it brings no blessing to the man himself. Looking at a plum won’t sweeten your mouth, staring at a coat won’t cover your back, and lying on the bank won’t catch the fish in the river. The cracked dish is never the better for all that is poured into it: it is like our forgetful heart, it wants to be taken away, and a new one put instead of it.

TRY.

Of all the pretty little songs I have ever heard my youngsters sing, that is one of the best which winds up, —

“If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try, try again.”

I recommend it to grown-up people who are down in the mouth, and fancy that the best thing they can do is to give up. Nobody knows what he can do till he tries. “We shall get through it now,” said Jack to Harry, as they finished up the pudding. Everything new is hard work, but a little of the “Try” ointment rubbed on the hand and worked into the heart makes all things easy.

Can’t do it sticks in the mud, but Try soon drags the wagon out of the rut. The fox said Try, and he got away from the hounds when they almost snapped at him. The bees said Try, and turned flowers into honey. The squirrel said Try, and up he went to the top of the beech-tree. The snowdrop said Try, and bloomed in the cold snows of winter. The sun said Try, and the spring soon threw Jack Frost out of the saddle. The young lark said Try, and he found his new wings took him over hedges and ditches, and up where his father was singing. The ox said Try, and ploughed the field from end to end. No hill too steep for Try to climb, no clay too stiff for Try to plough, no field too wet for Try to drain, no hole too big for Try to mend.

“By little strokes
Men fell great oaks.”

By a spadeful at a time the navvies digged the cutting, cut a big hole through the hill, and heaped up the embankment.

“The stone is hard, and the drop is small,
But a hole is made by the constant fall.”

What man has done man can do, and what has never been may be. Ploughmen have got to be gentlemen, cobblers have turned their lapstones into gold, and tailors have sprouted into Members of Parliament. Tuck up your shirt-sleeves, 3’oung Hopeful, and go at it. Where there’s a will there’s a way. The sun shines for all the world. Believe in God and stick to hard work, and see if the mountains are not removed. Faint heart never won fair lady. Cheer, boys, cheer, God helps them that help themselves. Never mind luck: that ’s what the fool had when he killed himself with eating suet-pudding; the best luck in all the world is made up of joint-oil and sticking-plaster.

Don’t wait for helpers. Try those two old friends, your strong arms. Self’s the man. If the fox wants poultry for his cubs he must carry the chickens himself None of her friends can help the hare; she must run for herself, or the greyhounds will have her. Every man must carry his own sack to the mill. You must put your own shoulder to the wheel and keep it there, for there ’s plenty of ruts in the road. If you wait till all the ways are paved, you will have light shining between your ribs. If you sit still till great men take you on their backs, you will grow to your seat. Your own legs are better than stilts: don’t look to others, but trust in God and keep your powder dry.

Don’t be whining about not having a fair start. Throw a sensible man out of a window, he ’11 fall on his legs and ask the nearest way to his work. The more you have to begin with, the less you will have at the end. Money you earn yourself is much brighter and sweeter than any you get out of dead men’s bags. A scant breakfast in the morning of life whets the appetite for a feast later in the day. He who has tasted a sour apple will have the more relish for a sweet one; your present want will make future prosperity all the sweeter. Eighteenpence has set up many a pedler in business, and he has turned it over till he has kept his carriage.

As for the place you are cast in, don’t find fault with that. You need not be a horse because you were born in a stable. If a bull tossed a man of mettle sky-high, he would drop down into a good place. A hard-working young man with his wits about him will make money while others do nothing but lose it.

Who loves his work and knows to spare
May live and flourish anywhere.

As to a little trouble, who expects to find cherries without stones, or roses without thorns? Who would win must learn to bear. Idleness lies in bed sick of the mulligrubs where industry finds health and wealth. The dog in the kennel barks at the fleas; the hunting dog does not even know they arc there. Laziness waits till the river is dry, and never gets to market; “Try” swims it and makes all the trade. “Can’t do it,” could n’t cat the bread and butter which was cut for him, but Try made meat out of mushrooms.

Everybody who does not get on lays it all on competition. When the wine was stolen they said it was the rats; it’s very convenient to have a horse to put the saddle on. A mouse may find a hole, be the room ever so full of cats. Good workmen are always wanted. There ’s a penny to be turned at the worst booth in the fair. No barber ever shaves so close but another barber will find something left. Nothing is so good but that it might be better; and he who sells the best wins the trade. We were all going to the workhouse because of the new machines, so the prophets down in the taproom were always telling us; but, instead of it, all these threshing and reaping and hay-making machines have helped to make those men better off who had sense enough to work them. If a man has not a soul above clodhopping, he may expect to keep poor; but if he opens his sensebox, and picks up here a little and there a little, even Johnny Raw may yet improve. “Times are bad,” they say; yes, and if you go gaping about and send your wits wool-gathering, times always will be bad.

Many don’t get on, because they have not the pluck to begin in right earnest. The first pound laid by is the difficulty. The first blow is half the battle. Over with that beer-jug, up with the “Try” flag, then cut to your work, and away to the savings-bank with the savings, and you will be a man yct. Poor men will always be poor if they think thc’ must be. But there ’s a way up out of the lowest poverty if a man looks after it early, before he has a wife and half-a-dozen children; after that he carries too much weight for racing, and most commonly he must be content if he finds bread for the hungry mouths and clothes for the little backs. Yet, I don’t know, some hens scratch all the better for having a great swarm of chicks. To young men the road up the hill may be hard; but at any rate it is open, and they who set stout heart against a stiff hill shall climb it yet. What was hard to bear will be sweet to remember. If young men would deny themselves, work hard, live hard, and save in their early days, they need not keep their noses to the grindstone all their lives, as many do. Let them be teetotalers for economy’s sake; water is the strongest drink; it drives mills. It’s the drink of lions and horses, and Samson never drank anything else. The beer money would soon build a house.

If you want to do good in the world, the little word “Try” comes in again. There are plenty of ways of serving God, and some that will fit you exactly, as a key fits a lock. Don’t hold back because you cannot preach in St. Paul’s; be content to talk to one or two in a cottage; very good wheat grows in little fields. You may cook in small pots as well as big ones. Little pigeons can carry great messages. Even a little dog can bark at a thief, and wake up the master and save the house. A spark is fire. A sentence of truth has heaven in it. Do what you do right thoroughly, pray over it heartily, and leave the result to God.

Alas! advice is thrown away on many, like good seed on a bare rock. Teach a cow for seven years, but she will never learn to sing the Old Hundredth. Of some it seems true that when they were born Solomon went by the door, but would not look in. Their coat-of-arms is a fool’s cap on a donkey’s head. They sleep when it is time to plough, and weep when harvest comes. They eat all the parsnips for supper, and wonder they have none left for breakfast. Our working people are shamefully unthrifty, and so old England swarms with poor. If what goes into the mashtub went into the kneading-troughs, families would be better fed and better taught. If what is spent in waste were only saved against a rainy day, workhouses would never be built.

Once let every man say “Try,”
Very few on straw would lie,
Fewer still of want would die;
Pans would all have fish to fry;
Pigs would fill the poor man’s sty;
Want would cease and need would fly;
Wives and children cease to cry;
Poor-rates would not swell so high;
Things would n’t go so much awry, — You ‘d be glad, and so would I.

BEWARE OF THE DOG!

John Ploughman did not in his first book weary his friends by preaching; but in this one he makes bold to try his hand at a sermon, and hopes he will be excused if it should prove to be only a ploughman’s preachment.

If this were a regular sermon, — preached from a pulpit, of course, — I should make it long and dismal, like a winter’s night. for fear people should call me eccentric. As it is only meant to be read at home, I will make it short, though it will not be sweet, for I have not a sweet subject. The text is one which has a great deal of meaning in it, and is to be read on many a wall. ‘* Beware of the Dog!” You know what dogs are, and you know how you beware of them when a bull-dog flies at you to the full length of his chain; so the words don’t want any clearing up.

It is very odd that the Bible never says a good word for dogs: I suppose the breed must have been bad in those eastern parts,

or else, as our minister tells me, they were nearly wild, had no master in particular, and were left to prowl about half starved. No doubt a dog is very like a man, and becomes a sad dog when he has himself for a master. We are all the better for having somebody to look up to; and those who say they care for nobody and nobody cares for them, are dogs of the worst breed, and, for a certain reason, are never likely to be drowned.

Dear friends, I shall have heads and tails like other parsons, and I am sure I have a right to them, for they are found in the subjects before us.

Firstly, let us beware of a dirty dog, — or, as the grand old Book calls them, “evil workers,” — those who love filth and roll in it. Dirty dogs will spoil your clothes, and make you as foul as themselves. A man is known by his company; if you go with loose fellows your character will be tarred with the same brush as theirs. People can’t be very nice in their distinctions; if they see a bird always flying with the crows, and feeding and nesting with them, they call it a crow, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred they are right. If you are fond of the kennel, and like to run with the hounds, you will never make the world believe that you are a pet lamb. Besides, bad company does a man real harm, for, as the old proverb has it, if you lie down with dogs you will get up with fleas.

You cannot keep too far off* a man with the fever and a man of wicked life. If a lady in a fine dress sees a big dog come out of a horse-pond, and run about shaking himself dry, she is very particular to keep out of his way; and from this we may learn a lesson, — when we see a man half gone in liquor, sprinkling his dirty talk all around him, our best place is half a mile ofl” at the least.

Secondly, beware of all snarling dogs. There are plenty of these about; they are generally very small creatures, but they more than make up for their size by their noise. They yap and snap without end. Dr. Watts said, —

“Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God has made them so.’’

But I cannot make such an excuse for the two-legged dogs I am writing about, for their own vile tempers and the devil together have made them what they are. They find fault with anything and everything. When they dare they howl, and when they cannot do that they lie down and growl inwardly. Beware of these creatures! Make no friends with an angry man; as well make a bed of stinging-nettles or wear a viper for a necklace. Perhaps the fellow is just now very fond of you; but beware of him, for he who barks at others to-day without a cause will one day howl at you for nothing. Don’t ofl”er him a kennel down your yard unless he will let you chain him up. When you see that a man has a bitter spirit, and gives nobody a good word, quietly walk away and keep out of his track if you can. Loaded guns and quick-tempered people are dangerous pieces of furniture; they don’t mean any hurt, but they are apt to go off and do mischief before you dream of it. Better go a mile out of your way than get into a fight; better sit down on a dozen tin-tacks with their points up than dispute with an angry neighbor.

Thirdly, beware of fawiiijig dogs. They jump up upon you and leave the marks of their dirty paws. How they will lick your hand and fondle you as long as there are bones to be got: like the lover who said to the cook, “Leave you, dear girl? Never, while you have a shilling!” Too much sugar in the talk should lead us to suspect that there is very little in the heart. The moment a man praises you to your face, mark him, for he is the very gentleman to rail at you behind your back. If a fellow takes the trouble to flatter he expects to be paid for it, and he calculates that he will get his wages out of the soft brains of those he tickles. When people stoop down it generally is to pick something up, and men don’t stoop to flatter you unless they reckon upon getting something out of you. When you see too much politeness you may generally smell a rat if you give a good sniff. Young people need to be on the watch against crafty flatterers. Young women with pretty faces and a little money should especially beware of puppies!

Fourthly, beware of a greeeiy elog, or a man who never has enough. Grumbling is catching; one discontented man sets others complaining, and this is a bad state of mind to fall into. Folks who are greedy are not always honest, and if they see a chance they will put their spoon into their neighbor’s porridge; why not into yours? See how cleverly they skin a flint; before long you will find them skinning you, and as you are not quite so used to it as the eels are, you had better give ]Ir. Skinner a wide berth. When a man boasts that he never gives anything away, you may read it as a caution, “Beware of the dog!” A liberal, kind-hearted friend helps you to keep down your selfishness, but a greedy grasper tempts you to put an extra button on your pocket. Hungry dogs will wolf down any quantity of meat, and then look out for more; and so will greedy men swallow farms and houses, and then smell around for something else. I am sick of the animals: I mean both the dogs and the men. Talking of nothing but gold, and how to make money and how to save it, — why, one had better live with the hounds at once, and howl over your share of dead horse. The mischief a miserly wretch may do to a man’s heart no tongue can tell; one might as well be bitten by a mad dog, for greediness is as bad a madness as mortal can be tormented with. Keep out of the company of screw-drivers, tight-fists, holdfasts, and blood-suckers: “Beware of dogs!”

Fifthly, beware of a yelping dog. Those who talk much tell a great many lies,, and if you love truth you had better not love them. Those who talk much are likely enough to speak ill of their neighbors, and of yourself among the rest; and therefore if you do not want to be town talk, you will be wise to find other friends. Mr. Prate-apace will weary you out one day, and you will be wise to break off his acquaintance before it is made. Do not lodge in Clack Street, nor next door to the Gossip’s Head. A lion’s jaw is nothing compared to a tale-bearer’s. If you have a dog which is always barking, and should chance to lose him, don’t spend a penny in advertising for him. Few are the blessings which are poured upon dogs which howl all night and wake up honest householders, but even these can be better put up with than those incessant chatterers who never let a man’s character rest either day or night.

Sixthly, beivarc of a dog that worries the sheep. Such get into our churches, and cause a world of misery. Some have new doctrines as rotten as they are new; others have new plans, whims, and crotchets, and nothing will go right till these are tried; and there is a third sort which are out of love with everybody and everything, and only come into the churches to see if they can make a row. Mark these, and keep clear of them. There are plenty of humble Christians who only want leave to be quiet and mind their own business, and these troublers are their plague. To hear the gospel and to be helped to do good is all that the most of our members want; but these worries come in with their “ologies” and puzzlements and hard speeches, and cause sorrow upon sorrow. A good shepherd will soon fetch these dogs a crack of the head; but they will be at their work again if they see half a chance. What pleasure can they find in it? Surely they must have a touch of the wolf in their nature. At any rate, beware of the dog.

Seventhly, beware of dogs ivJio haz’e returned to their vomit. An apostate is like a leper. As a rule, none are more bitter enemies of the cross than those who once professed to be followers of Jesus. He who can turn away from Christ is not a fit companion for any honest man. There are many abroad now-a-days who have thrown off religion as easily as a ploughman puts off his jacket. It will be a terrible day for them when the heavens are on fire above them, and the world is ablaze under their feet. If a man calls himself my friend, and leaves the ways of God, then his way and mine arc different; he who is no friend to the good cause is no friend of mine.

Lastly, finally, and to finish up, beware of a dog that has no master. If a fellow makes free with the Bible and the laws of his country and comrrion decency, it is time to make free to tell him we had rather have his room than his company. A certain set of wonderfully wise men are talking very big things, and putting their smutty fingers upon everything which their fathers thought to be good and holy. Poor fools, they are not half as clever as they think they are. Like hogs in a flower-garden, they are for rooting up everything; and some people are so frightened that they stand as if they were struck, and hold up their hands in horror at the creatures. When the hogs have been in my master’s garden, and I have had the big whip handy, I warrant you I have made a clearance, and I only wish I was a scholar, for I would lay about me among these free-thinking gentry, and make them squeal to a long-metre tune. As John Ploughman has other fish to fry and other tails to butter, he must leave these mischievous creatures, and finish his rough ramshackle sermon.

Beware of the dog! “Beware of all who will do you harm. Good company is to be had; why seek bad? It is said of heaven, “without are dogs.” Let us make friends of those who can go inside of heaven, for there we hope to go ourselves. We shall go to our own company when we die; let it be such that we shall be glad to go to it.

A BLACK HEN LAYS A WHITE EGG.

The egg is white enough, though the hen is black as a coal. This is a very simple thing, but it has pleased the simple mind of John Ploughman, and made him cheer up when things have gone hard with him. Out of evil comes good, through the great goodness of God. From threatening clouds we get refreshing showers; in dark mines men find bright jewels; and so from our worst

troubles come our best blcsslncrs. The bitter cold sweetens the ground, and the rough winds fasten the roots of the old oaks. »God sends us letters of love in envelopes with black borders. Many a time have I plucked sweet fruit from bramble-bushes, and taken lovely roses from among prickly thorns. Trouble is to believing men and women like the sweetbrier in our hedges, and where it grows there is a delicious smell all around, if the dew do but fall upon it from above.

Cheer up, mates, all will come right in the end. The darkest night will turn to a fair morning in due time. Only let us trust in God, and keep our heads above the waves of fear. When our hearts are right with God everything is right. Let us look for the silver which lines every cloud, and when we do not see it let us believe that it is there. We are all at school, and our great Teacher writes many a bright lesson on the blackboard of affliction. Scant fare teaches us to live on heavenly bread, sickness bids us send off for the good Physician, loss of friends makes Jesus more precious, and even the sinking of our spirits brings us to live more entirely upon God. All things are working together for the good of those who love God, and even death itself will bring them their highest gain. Thus the black hen lays a white egg.

“Since all that I meet shall work for my good,
The bitter is sweet, the medicine is food;
Though painful at present, ‘t will cease before long,
And then, oh how pleasant the conqueror’s song!”

HE HAS A HOLE UNDER HIS NOSE, AND HIS MONEY

RUNS INTO IT.

This is the man who is always dry, because he takes so much heavy wet. He is a loose fellow who is fond of getting tight. He is no sooner up than his nose is in the cup, and his money begins to run down the hole which is just under his nose. He is not a blacksmith, but he has a spark in his throat, and all the publican’s barrels can’t put it out. If a pot of beer is a yard of land, he must have swallowed more acres than a ploughman could get over for many a day, and still he goes on swallowing until he takes to wallowing. All goes down Gutter Lane. Like the snipe, he lives by suction. If you ask him how he is, he says he would be quite right if he could moisten his mouth. His purse is a bottle, his bank is the publican’s till, and his casket is a cask: pewter is his precious metal, and his pearP is a mixture of gin and beer. The dew of his youth comes from Ben Nevis, and the comfort of his

1 Purl. soul is cordial gin. He is a walking barrel, a living drain-pipe, a moving swill-tub. They say “loath to drink and loath to leave off,” but he never needs persuading to begin, and as to ending, — that is out of the question while he can borrow twopence. This is the gentleman who sings, —

He that buys land buys many stones,
He that buys meat buys many bones,
He that buys eggs buys many shells,
He that buys good ale buys nothing else.

The old Scotchman said, “Death and drink-draining are near neighbors,” and he spoke the truth. They say that drunkenness

makes some men fools, some beasts, and some devils; but according to my mind it makes all men fools, whatever else it does. Yet when a man is as drunk as a rat he sets up to be a judge, and mocks at sober people. Certain neighbors of mine laugh at me for being a teetotaler, and I might well laugh at them for being drunk, only I feel more inclined to cry, that they should be such fools. Oh that we could get them sober, and then perhaps we might make men of them! You cannot do much with these fellows, unless you can enlist them in the Coldstream Guards.

He that any good would win,
At his mouth must first begin.

As long as drink drowns conscience and reason, you might as well talk to the hogs. The rascals will promise fair and take the pledge, and then take their coats to pledge to get more beer. We smile at a tipsy man, for he is a ridiculous creature; but when we see how he is ruined, body and soul, it is no joking matter. How solemn is the truth that “No drunkard shall inherit eternal life.”

There ’s nothing too bad for a man to say or do when he is halfseas over. It is a pity that any decent body should go near such a comm.on sewer. If he’ does not fall into the worst of crimes it certainly is not his fault, for he has made himself ready for anything the devil likes to put into his mind. He does least hurt when he begins to be top-heavy and to reel- about: then he becomes a blind man with good eyes in his head, and a cripple with leg’s on. He sees two moons and two doors to the public-house, and tries to find his way through both the doors at once. Over he goes, and there he must lie, unless somebody will wheel him home in a barrow or carry him to the police-station.

Solomon says the glutton and the drunkard shall come to poverty; and that the drinker does in no time. He gets more and more down at the heel, and as his nose gets redder and his body is more swollen, he gets to be more of a shack and more of a shark. His trade is gone, and his credit has run out, but he still manages to get his beer. He treats an old friend to a pot, and then finds that he has left his purse at home, and of course the old friend must pay the shot. He borrows till no one will lend him a groat, unless it is to get off lending him a shilling. Shame has long since left him, though all who know him are ashamed of him. His talk runs like the tap, and is full of stale dregs; he is very kind over his beer, and swears he loves you, and would like to drink your health, and love you again. Poor sot! much good will his blessing do to any one who gets it; his poor wife and family have had too much of it already, and quake at the very sound of his voice.

Now, if we try to do anything to shut up a boozing-house, or shorten the hours for guzzling, we are called all sorts of bad names, and the wind-up of it all is,” What! rob a poor man of his beer?’’ The fact is that they rob the poor man by his beer. The ale-jug robs the cupboard and the table, starves the wife and strips the children; it is a great thief, housebreaker, and heartbreaker; and the best possible thing is to break it to pieces, or keep it on the shelf bottom upward. In a newspaper which was lent me the other day I saw some verses by John Barleycorn, jr., and as they tickled my fancy I copied them out, and here they are, —

What! rob a poor man of his beer,

And give hhn good victuals instead!
Your heart ’s very hard, sir, I fear,

Or at least you are soft in the head.

What! rob a poor man of his mug,

An(^ give him a house of his own,
With kitchen and parlor so snug!

‘T is enough to draw tears from a stone.

What! rob a poor man of his glass,

And teach him to read and to write!
What! save him from being an ass!

‘T is nothing but malice and spite.

What! rob a poor man of his ale,

And prevent him from beating his wife, —

From being locked up in a jail,
With penal employment for life!

Having given you a song, I now hand you a handbill to stick up in the “Rose and Crown” window, if the landlord wants an advertisement. It was written many years ago, but it is quite as good as new. Any beer-seller may print it who thinks it likely to help his trade.

DRUNKARDS, READ THIS!

«

DRUNKENNESS

EXPELS REASON,

DISTEMPERS THE BODY,

. DIMINISHES STRENGTH,

INFLAMES THE BLOOD;

INTERNAL

^»T,^x~o / EXTERNAL (
CAUSES <( WOUNDS;

ETERNAL 1

INCURABLE /

IS

A WITCH TO THE SENSES,

A DEMON TO THE SOUL,

A THIEF TO THE PURSE,

A GUIDE TO BEGGARY, LECHERY, AND VILLANY.

IT IS

THE wife’s WOE AND

THE children’s SORROW,

MAKES A MAN

WALLOW WORSE THAN A BEAST, AND

ACT LIKE A FOOL.

HE IS

A SELF-MURDERER

WHO DRINKS TO ANOTHER’S GOOD HEALTH,

AND
ROBS HIMSELF OF HIS OWN.

HE HAS GOT THE FIDDLE, BUT NOT THE STICK.

It often comes to pass that a man steps into another’s shoes, and yet cannot walk in them. A poor tool of a parson gets into a good man’s pulpit, and takes the same texts, but the sermons are chalk, and not cheese. A half-baked young swell inherits his father’s money, but not his generosity, his barns, but not his brains, his title, but not his sense, — he has the fiddle without the stick, and the more’s the pity.

Some people imagine that they have only to get hold of the

plough-handles, and they would soon beat John Ploughman. If

they had his fiddle they are sure they could play on it. J. P.

presents his compliments, and wishes he may be there when it

is done.

“That I fain would see.

Quoth blind George of Hollowee.”

However, between you and me and the bedpost, there is one secret which John does not mind letting out. John’s fiddle is poor enough, but the stick is a right good one, too good to be called a fiddlestick. Do you want to see the stick with which John plays his fiddle? Here it is — Looking to God for help, John always tries to do his best, whatever he has to do, and he has found this to be the very best way to play all kinds of tunes. What little music there is in John’s poor old fiddle comes out of it in that way. Listen to a scrape or two, —

If I were a cobbler, I ‘d make it my pride

The best of all cobblers to be;
If I were a tinker, no tinker beside

Should mend an old kettle like me.

And being a ploughman, I plough with the best,

No furrow runs straighter than mine;
I waste not a moment, and stay not to rest,

Though idlers to tempt me combine.

Yet I wish not to boast, for trust I have none

In aught I can do or can be;
I rest in my Saviour, and what He has done

To ransom poor sinners like me.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHT.

This paper is very little of it to be set down to the account of John Ploughman, for our minister, as I may say, found the horses and held the plough-handles, and the ploughman only put in a smack of the whip every now and then, just to keep folks awake. “Two heads are better than one,” said the woman when she took her dog with her to market; begging his pardon, our minister is the woman, and the only sensible head in the whole affair. He is a man who is used to giving his people many things of a very different sort from anything which a ploughman is likely to turn out of his wallet; but I have, at his request, dropped in a few homely proverbs into his thoughts, as he says, by way of salt; “which is his very kind way of putting it. I only hope I have not spoiled his writing with my rough expressions. If he thinks well of it, I should like a few more of his pieces to tack my sayings to; and the public shall alwa’s be honestly told whether the remarks are to be considered as altogether ‘* John Ploughman’s Talk,” or as the writing of two characters rolled into one.

There are not so many hours in a year as there may be thoughts in an hour. Thoughts fly in flocks, like starlings, and swarm like bees. Like the sere leaves in autumn, there is no counting them; and like the links in a chain, one draws on another. What a restless being man is! His thoughts dance up and down like midges in a summer’s evening. Like a clock full of wheels with a pendulum in full swing, his mind moves as fast as time flies. This makes thinking such an important business. IMany littles make a muckle; and so many little thoughts make a great weight of sin. A grain of sand is light enough, but Solomon tells us that a heap of sand is heavy. Where there are so many children, the mother has need to look well after them. We ought to mind our thoughts, and if they turn to be our enemies, they will be too many for us, and will drag us down to ruin. Thoughts from heaven, like birds in spring, will fill our soul with music; but thoughts of evil will sting us like vipers.

There is a notion abroad that thought is free; but I remember reading, that although thoughts are toll-free, they are not hell-free; and that saying quite agrees with the good old Book. We cannot be summoned before an earthly court for thinking; but depend upon it we shall have to be tried for it at the Last Assizes. Evil thoughts are the marrow of sin; the malt that sin is brewed from; the tinder which catches the sparks of the devil’s temptations; the churn in which the milk of imagination is churned into purpose and plan; the nest in which all evil birds lay their eggs. Be certain, then, that as sure as fire burns brushwood as well as logs, God will punish thoughts of sin as well as deeds of sin.

Let no one suppose that thoughts are not known to the Lord; for He has a window into the closest closet of the soul, a window to which there are no shutters. As we watch bees in a glass hive, so does the eye of the Lord see us. The Bible says, “Hell and destruction are before the Lord: how much more then the heart of the children of men?” Man is all outside to God. With heaven there are no secrets. That which is done in the private chamber of the heart is as public as the streets before the All-seeing eye.

But some will say that they cannot help having bad thoughts; that may be, but the question is, Do they hate them or not? We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but if we open our doors to them and receive them joyfully, we are as bad as they. Wc cannot help the birds flying over our heads; but we may keep them from building their nests in our hair. Vain thoughts will knock at the door, but we must not open to them. Though sinful thoughts rise, they must not reign. He who turns a morsel over and over in his mouth, does so because he likes the flavor; and he who meditates upon evil, loves it, and is ripe to commit it. Think of the devil, and he will appear; turn your thoughts toward sin, and your hand will soon follow. Snails leave their slime behind them, and so do vain thoughts. An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace; but an ill thought always leaves a trail like a serpent. Where there is much traffic of bad thinking, there will be much mire and dirt; every wave of wicked thought adds something to the corruption which rots upon the shore of life. It is dreadful to think that a vile imagination once indulged gets the key of our minds, and can get in again very easily whether we will or no, and can so return as to bring seven other spirits with it more wicked than itself; and what may follow, no one knows. Nurse sin on the knees of thought, and it will grow into a giant. Dip tow in naphtha, and how it will blaze when fire gets to it! Lay a man asoak in depraved thought, and he is ready to flame up into open sin as soon as ever opportunity occurs. This shows us the wisdom of watching, every day, the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts. Good thoughts are blessed guests, and should be heartily welcomed, well fed, and much sought after. Like rose-leaves, they give out a sweet smell if laid up in the jar of memory. They cannot be too much cultivated; they are a crop which enriches the soil. As the hen broods her chickens under her wings, so should we cherish all holy thoughts. As the poor man’s ewe lamb ate of his own bread and lay in his bosom, even so should godly meditation be very dear to us. Holy thoughts breed holy words and holy actions, and are hopeful evidences of a renewed heart. Who would not have them? To keep chaff out of a bushel, one sure plan is to fill it full of wheat; and to keep out vain thoughts, it is wise and prudent to have the mind stored with choice subjects for meditation: these are easy to find, and we should never be without them. May we all be able to say with David, “In the multitude of my thoughts within me, Thy comforts delight my soul.”

‘’GREAT CRY AND LITTLE WOOL,” AS THE MAN SAID

WHO CLIPPED THE SOW.

Our friend Hodge does not seem to be making much of an out at shearing. It will take him all his time to get wool enough for a blanket, and his neighbors are telling him so: but he does not heed them, for a man never listens to reason when he has made up his mind to act unreasonably. Hodge gets plenty of music of a sort: Hullah’s system is nothing to it, and even Nebuchadnezzar’s flutes, harps, sackbuts, and dulcimers could not make more din. He gets “cry” enough to stock a Babylon of babies, but not wool enough to stop his ears with.

Now is not this very like the world with its notions of pleasure? There is noise enough: laughter and shouting and boasting; but where is the comfort which can warm the heart and give peace to the spirit? Generally there’s plenty of smoke and very little fire in what is called pleasure. It promises a nag and gives an egg.

Gayety is a sort of flash in the pan, a fifdi-of-November squib, all fizz and bang and done for. The devil’s meal is all bran, and the world’s wine turns to vinegar. It is always making a great noise over nutshells. Thousands have had to weep over their blunder in looking for their heaven on earth; but they follow each other like sheep through a gap, not a bit the wiser for the experience of generations. It seems that every man must have a clip at his own particular pig, and cannot be made to believe that, like all the rest, it will yield him nothing but bristles. Men are not all of one mind as to what is best for them; they no more agree than the clocks in our village, but they all hang together in following after vanity, for to the core of their hearts they are vain.

One shears the publican’s hog, which is so fond of the swill-tub, and he reckons upon bringing home a wonderful lot of wool; but everybody knows that he who goes to the ‘* Woolpack “for wool will come home shorn; the ‘’Blue Boar” is an uncommonly ugly animal to shear, and so is the “Red Lion.” Better sheer off as fast as you can; it will be sheer folly to stop. You may loaf about the tap of the “Half-moon” till you get the full moon in your noddle, and need a keeper; it is the place for men whose wits go wool-gathering, but wool there is none.

Another is covetous, and hopes to escape misery by being a miser: his greedy mind can no more be filled than a lawyer’s purse: he never has enough, and so he never has a feast. He makes money with his teeth, by keeping them idle. That is a very lean hog to clip at, for poverty wants some things, luxury many things, but covetousness wants all things. If we could hoard up all the money in the world, what would it be to us at last? To-day at good cheer, to-morrow on the bier: in the midst of life we are in death.

Some, like old Mrs. Too-good, go in for self-righteousness, and their own mouths dub them saints. They are the pink of perfection, the cream of creation, the gems of their generation, and yet a sensible man would not live in the same house with them for all the money you could count. They are saints abroad, but ask their maids what they are at home. Great cry and little wool is common enough in religion: you will find that those who crack themselves up are generally cracked, and those who despise their neighbors come to be despised themselves.

Many try wickedness, and run into bad company, and rake the kennels of vice. I warrant you they may shear the whole sty-ful of filthy creatures and never find a morsel of wool on the whole lot of them. Loose characters, silly amusements, gambling, wantonness, and such like, are swine that none but a fool will try his shears upon. I don’t deny that there ’s plenty of swinish music, — who ever expected that there would be silence in a piggery? But then noise cannot fill the heart, nor laughter lighten the soul.

John Ploughman has tried for himself, and he knows by experience that all the world is nothing but a hog that is not worth the shearing: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” But yet there is wool to be had; there are real joys to be got for the asking if we ask aright. Below, all things deceive us, but above us there is a true Friend. ‘’ Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not?” This is John Ploughman’s verdict, which he wishes all his readers to

take note of, —

“Faith in Jesus Christ will give

Sweetest pleasures while we live;

Faith in Jesus must supply

Solid comfort when we die.” /

YOU CAN’T CATCH THE WIND IN A NET.

Some people get windmills in their heads and go in for all sorts of silly things. They talk of ruling the nation as if men were to be driven like sheep, and they prate of reforms and systems as if they could cut out a world in brown paper with a pair of scissors. Such a body thinks himself very deep, but he is as shallow as a milkpan. You can soon know him as well as if you had gone through him with a lighted candle, and yet you will not know a great deal after all. He has a great head, and very little in it. He can talk by the dozen or the gross, and say nothing. When he is fussing and boasting of his fine doings, you soon discover that he makes a long harvest of very little corn. His tongue is like a pig’s tail, going all day long and nothing done.

This is the man who can pay off the national debt, and yet, in his little shop he sells two apples in three days; he has the secret of high farming, and loses more at it than any man in the county. The more he studies the more he misses the mark; he reminds me of a blind man on a blind horse, who rode out in the middle of a dark night, and the more he tried to keep out of ditches the more he fell in.

When they catch live red herrings on Newmarket Heath he will bring out a good thing, and line his pockets with gold; up till now, he says, he has been unlucky, and he believes that if he were to make a man a coffin he would be sure not to die. He is going to be rich next year, and you will then see what you shall see: just now he would be glad of half a crown on account, for which he will give you a share in his invention for growing wheat without ploughing or sowing.

It is odd to see this wise man at times when his wits are all up in the moon: he is just like Chang the Chinaman, who said, “Here ’s my umbrella, and here ’s my bundle; but zuhere am I?” He cannot find his spectacles, though he is looking through them; and when he is out riding on his own ass, he pulls up and says, “Wherever is that donkey?”

I have heard of one learned man who boiled his watch and stood looking at the tgg, and another who forgot that he was to be married that day, and would have lost his lady if his friend had not fetched him out of his study. Think of that, my boy, and don’t fret yourself because you are not so overdone with learning as to have forgotten your common sense.

The regular wind-catcher is soft as silk and as green as grass, and yet he thinks himself very long-headed; and so indeed he would be if his ears were taken into the measurement. He is going to do — well — there ’s no telling what. He is full of wishes but short of will, and so his buds never come to flowers or fruit. He is like a hen that lays eggs, and never sits on them long enough to hatch a single chick.

Moonshine is the article our friend deals in, and it Is wonderful what he can see by it. He cries up his schemes, and it is said that he draws on his imagination for his facts. When he is in full swing with one of his notions, he does not stick at a trifle. Will Shepherd heard one of these gentry the other day telling how his new company would lead all the shareholders on to Tom Tiddler’s ground to pick up gold and silver; and when all the talk was over, Will said to me, “That ’s a lie with a lid on, and a brass handle to take hold of it.” Rather sharp this of Will, for I do believe the man was caught on his own hook and believed in his own dreams; yet I did not like him, for he wanted us poor fellows to put our little savings into his hands, as if we could afl’ord to fly kites with laborers’ wages.

What a many good people there are who have religious crazes! They do nothing, but they have wonderful plans for doing everything in a jiffy. So many thousand people are to give half a crown each, and so many more a crown, and so many more a sovereign, and the meeting-house is to be built just so, and nohow else. The mischief is that the thousands of people do not rush forward with their money, and the minister and a few hard-working friends have to get it together little by little in the old-fashioned style, while your wonderful schemer slinks out of the way and gives nothing. I have long ago found out that pretty things on paper had better be kept there. Our master’s eldest son had a plan for growing plum-trees in our hedges as they do in Kent; but he never looked to see whether the soil would suit, and so he lost the trees which he put in, and there was an end of his damsons.

“Circumstances alter cases;
Different ways suit different places.”

New brooms sweep clean, but they mostly sweep up dirt. Plough with what you please, I stick to the old horses which have served me so well. Fine schemes come to nothing; it is hard work that does it, whether it be in the world or in the Church.

“In the laborious husbandman you see
What all true Christians are or ought to be.”

ON THE PREACHER’S APPEARANCE.

A GOOD horse cannot be a bad color, and a really good preacher can wear what he likes, and none will care much about it; but though you cannot know wine by the barrel, a good appearance is a letter of recommendation even to a ploughman. Wise men neither fall into love nor take a dislike at first sight; but still the first impression is always a great thing, even with them; and as to those weaker brethren who are not wise, a good appearance is half the battle. What is a good appearance? Well, it’s not being pompous and starchy, and making one’s self high and mighty among the people, for proud looks lose hearts, and gentle words win them. It’s not wearing fine clothes either, for foppish dress usually means a foul house within, and the doorstep without fresh whitened: such dressing tells the world that the outside is the best part of the puppet. When a man is proud as a peacock, all strut and show, he needs converting himself before he sets up to preach to others. The preacher who measures himself by his looking-glass may please a few silly girls, but neither God nor man will long put up with him. The man who owes his greatness to his tailor will find that needle and thread cannot long hold a fool in a pulpit. A gentleman should have more in his pocket than on his back, and a minister should have more in his inner man than on his outer man. I would say, if I might, to young ministers, Do not preach in gloves, for cats in mittens catch no mice; don’t curl and oil your hair like dandies, for nobody cares to hear a peacock’s voice; don’t have your own pretty self in your mind at all, or nobody else will mind you. Away with gold rings and chains and jewelry; why should the pulpit become a goldsmith’s shop? For ever away with surplices and gowns, and all those nursery dolldresses, — men should put away childish things. A cross on the back is the sign of a devil in the heart; those who do as Rome does, should go to Rome and show their colors. If priests suppose that they get the respect of honest men by their fine ornamental dresses, they are much mistaken, for it is commonly said, “Fine feathers ne’er make fine birds,” and

“An ape is ne’er so like an ape
As when he wears a Popish cape.”

Among us Dissenters the preacher claims no priestly power, and therefore should never wear a peculiar dress; let fools wear fools’ caps and fools’ dresses, but men who make no claim to be fools should not put on fools’ clothes. None but a very silly sheep would wear wolf’s clothing. It is a singular taste which makes honest men covet the rags of thieves. Besides, where ’s the good of such finery? Except a duck in pattens, no creature looks more stupid than a Dissenting preacher in a gown which is of no manner of use to him. I could laugh till I held my sides, when I see our doctors in gowns and bands, pufi’ed out with their silks, and touched up with their little bibs, for they put me so much in mind of our old turkey-cock when his temper is up and he swells to his biggest. They must be weak folks indeed who want a man to dress like a woman before they can enjoy his sermon; and he who cannot preach without such milliner’s trumpery may be a man among geese, but he is a goose among men. At the same time, the preacher should endeavor, according to his means, to dress himself respectably; and as to neatness, he should be without spot, for kings should not have dirty footmen to wait at their table, and they who teach godliness should practise cleanliness. I should like white neckties better if they were ahvays white, but dirty brown is neither here nor there. From a slovenly, smoking, snuft“-taking, beer-drinking parson, may the Church be delivered! Some that I meet with may, perhaps, have very good manners, but they did not happen to have them about them at the time: like the Dutch captain with his anchors, they had left them at home. This should never be the case, for if there be a well-behaved man in the parish, it should be the minister. A worn coat is no discredit, but the poorest may be neat, and men should be scholars, rather than teachers, till they are so. You cannot judge a horse by his harness; but a modest, gentlemanly appearance, in which the dress is just such as nobody could make a remark upon, seems to me to be the right sort of thing. This little bit of my mind is meant to warn you young striplings who have just started in the ministry, and if any of you get cross over it, I shall tell you that sore horses cannot bear to be combed, and again, “those whom the cap fits must wear it.” John Ploughman, you will say, had better mend his own smock and let the parsons alone; but I take leave to look about me and speak my mind, for a cat may look at a king, and a fool may give wise men good advice. If I speak too plainly, please remember that an old dog cannot alter his way of barking; and he who has long been used to plough a straight furrow is very apt to speak in the same straightforward manner.

NEVER STOP THE PLOUGH TO CATCH A MOUSE.

There ‘S not much profit in this game. Think of a man and a boy and four horses all standing still for the sake of a mouse! What would old friend Tusser say to that? I think he would rhyme in this fashion, —

A ploughman deseneth a cut of the whip,
If for idle pretence he let the hours slip.

Heaps of people act like the man in our picture. They have a great work in hand which wants all their wits, and they leave it to squabble over some pretty nothing, not worth a fig. Old Master Tom would say to them, —

No more tittle-tattle, go on with your cattle.

He could not bear for a farmer to let his horses out for carting even, because it took their work away from the farm, and so I am sure he would be in a great stew if he saw farmers wasting their time at matches and hunts and the like. He says, —

“Who slacketh his tillage a carter to be,
For groat got abroad, at home shall lose three;
For sure by so doing he brings out of heart
Both land for the corn and horse for the cart.”

The main chance must be minded, and the little things must be borne with. Nobody would burn his house down to kill the blackbeetles, and it would never answer to kill the bullocks to feed the cats. If our baker left off making bread for a week while he cracked the cockroaches, what should we all do for breakfast?

If the butcher sold no more meat till he had killed all the blowflies, we should be many a day without mutton. If the water companies never gave the Londoners a drink till they had fished every gudgeon out of the Thames, how would the old ladies make their tea? There ’s no use in stopping your fishing because of the seaweed, nor your riding because of the dust.

Now, our minister said to me the other day: “John, if you were on the committees of some of our societies you would see this mouse-hunting done to perfection. Not only committees, but whole bodies of Christian people go mouse-hunting.” “Well,” said I, “minister, just write me a bit, and I will stick it in my book; it will be beef to my horse-radish.” Here ’s his writing: —

“A society of good Christian people will split into pieces over a petty quarrel, or mere matter of opinion, while all around them the masses are perishing for want of the gospel. A miserable little mouse, which no cat would ever hunt, takes them off from their Lord’s work. Again, intelligent men will spend months of time and heaps of money in inventing and publishing mere speculations, while the great field of the world lies unploughed. They seem to care nothing how many may perish so long as they can ride their hobbies. In other matters a little common sense is allowed to rule, but in the weightiest matters foolishness is sadly conspicuous. As for you and me, John, let us kill a mouse when it nibbles our bread, but let us not spend our lives over it. What can be done by a mousetrap or a cat should not occupy all our thoughts.

“The paltry trifles of this world are much of the same sort. Let us give our chief attention to the chief things, — the glory of God, the winning of souls for Jesus, and our own salvation. There are fools enough in the world, and there can be no need that Christian men should swell the number. Go on with your ploughing, John, and I will go on with my preaching, and ’ in due season we shall reap if we faint not.’”

HOME.

That word Jiome always sounds like poetry to me. It rings like

a peal of bells at a wedding, only more soft and sweet, and it

chimes deeper into the ears of my heart. It does not matter

whether it means thatched cottage or manor-house, home is home,

be it ever so homely, and there ’s no place on earth like it. Green

grow the houseleek on the roof for ever, and let the moss flourish

on the thatch. Sweetly the sparrows chirrup and the swallows

twitter around the chosen spot which is my joy and rest. Every bird loves its own nest; the owl thinks the old ruins the fairest

spot under the moon, and the fox is of opinion that his hole in the

hill is remarkably cosey. When my master’s nag knows that his

head is towards home he wants no whip, but thinks it best to put

on all steam; and I am always of the same mind, for the way

home, to me, is the best bit of road in the country. I like to see

the smoke out of my own chimney better than the fire on another

man’s hearth; there ’s something so beautiful in the way in which

it curls up among the trees. Cold potatoes on my own table taste

better than roast meat at my neighbor’s, and the honeysuckle at

my own door is the sweetest I ever smell. When you are out,

friends do their best, but still it is not home. ‘’ Make yourself at

home,” they say, because everybody knows that to feel at home is

to feel at ease.

“East and west,

Home is best.”

Why, at home you are at home, and what more do you want? Nobody grudges you, whatever your appetite maybe; and you don’t get put into a damp bed. Safe in his own castle, like a king in his palace, a man feels himself somebody, and is not afraid of being thought proud for thinking so. Every cock may crow on his own dunghill; and a dog is a lion when he is at home. A sweep is master inside his own door. No need to guard every word because some enemy is on the watch, no keeping the heart under lock and key; but as soon as the door is shut it is liberty hall, and none to peep and pry. There is a glorious view from the top of Leith Hill, in our dear old Surrey, and Hindhead and Martha’s Chapel and Boxhill are not to be sneezed at; but I could show you something which to my mind beats them all to nothing for real beauty, — I mean John Ploughman’s cottage, with the kettle boiling on the hob, singing like an unfallen black angel, while the cat is lying asleep in front of the fire, and the wife in her chair mending stockings, and the children cutting about the room, as full of fun as young lambs. It is a singular fact, and perhaps some of you will doubt it — but that is your unbelieving nature — our little ones are real beauties, always a pound or two plumper than others of their age; apd yet it don’t tire you half so much to nurse them ft TrZJ-KT T3Tr^T’/^U>C V» C T J ZT * * AV^T^ as it does other people’s babies. Why, bless you, my wife would knock up in half the time, if her neighbor had asked her to see to a strange youngster, but her own children don’t seem to tire her at all. Now my belief is that it all comes of their having been born at home. Just so is it with everything else: our lane is the most beautiful for twenty miles round, because our home is in it; and my garden is a perfect paradise, for no other particular reason than this very good one, that it belongs to the old house at home.

I cannot make out why so many working men spend their evenings at the public-house, when their own fireside would be so much better, and cheaper too. There they sit, hour after hour, boozing and talking nonsense, and forgetting the dear good souls at home, who are half starved, and weary with waiting for them. Their money goes into the publican’s till, when it ought to make their wives and children comfortable; as for the beer they get, it is just so much fools’ milk to drown their wits in. Such fellows ought to be horsewhipped; and those who encourage them and live on their spendings deserve to feel the butt end of the whip. Those beershops are the curse of this country; no good ever can come of them, and the evil they do no tongue can tell. The publics were bad enough, but the beershops are a pest: I wish the man who made the law to open them had to keep all the families that they have brought to ruin. Beershops are the enemies of home, and therefore the sooner their licenses are taken away, the better. Poor men don’t need such places, nor rich men either; they are all worse and no better, like Tom Norton’s wife. Anything that hurts the home is a curse, and ought to be hunted down as gamekeepers do the vermin in the copses.

Husbands should try to make home happy and holy. It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest, a bad man who makes his home wretched. Our house ought to be a little church, with holiness to the Lord over the door; but it ought never to be a prison, where there is plenty of rule and order, but little love and no pleasure. Married life is not all sugar, but grace in the heart will keep away most of the sours. Godliness and love can make a man, like a bird in a hedg* sing among thorns and briers, and set others a-singing too. It should be the husband’s pleasure to please his wife, and the wife s care to care for her husband. He is kind to himself who is kind to his wife. I am afraid some men live by the rule of self, and when that is the case home happiness is a mere sham. When husbands and wives are well yoked, how light their load becomes! It is not every couple that is a pair, and the more ’s the pity. In a true home all the strife is which can do the most to make the family happy. A home should be a Bethel, not Babel. The husband should be the house-band, binding all together like a corner-stone, but not crushing everything like a millstone. Unkind and domineering husbands ought not to pretend to be Christians, for they act clean contrary to Christ’s demands. Yet a home must be well ordered, or it will become a Bedlam, and be a scandal to the parish. If the father drops the reins, the family-coach will soon be in the ditch. A wise mixture of love and firmness will do it; but neither harshness nor softness alone will keep home in happy order. Home is no home where the children are not in obedience: it is rather a pain than a pleasure to be in it. Happy is he who is happy in his children, and happy are the children who are happy in their father. All fathers are not wise. Some are like Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross our children is the way to make a cross of them Those who never give their children the rod must not wonder if their children become a rod to them. Solomon says: “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight to thy soul.” I am not clear that anybody wiser than Solomon lives in our time, though some think they are. Young colts must be broken in, or they will make wild horses. Some fathers are all fire and fury, filled with passion at the smallest fault; this is worse than the other, and makes home a little hell instead of a heaven. No wind makes the miller idle, but too much upsets the mill altogether. Men who strike in their anger generally miss their mark. When God helps us to hold the reins firmly, but not to hurt the horses’ mouths, all goes well. When home is ruled according to God’s Word, angels might be asked to stay a night with us, and they would not find themselves out of their element.

Wives should feel that home is their place and their kingdom, the happiness of which depends mostly upon them. She is a wicked wife who drives her husband away by her long tongue. A man said to his wife the other day, “Double up your whip.” He meant, keep your tongue quiet: it is wretched living with such a whip always lashing you. When God gave to men ten measures of speech, they say the women ran away with nine, and in some cases I am afraid the saying is true. A dirty, slatternly, gossiping wife is enough to drive her husband mad; and if he goes to the public-house of an evening, she is the cause of it. It is doleful living where the wife, instead of reverencing her husband, is always wrangling and railing at him. It must be a good thing when such women are hoarse, and it is a pity that they have not as many blisters on their tongues as they have teeth in their jaws. God save us all from wives who are angels in the streets, saints in the church, and devils at home! I have never tasted of such bitter herbs, but I pity from my very heart those who have this diet every day of their lives.

Show me a loving husband, a worthy wife, and good children, and no pair of horses that ever flew along the road could take me in a year where I could see a more pleasing sight. Home is the grandest of all institutions. Talk about parliament, give me a quiet little parlor. Boast about voting and the Reform Bill if you like, but I go in for weeding the little garden and teaching the children their hymns. Franchise may be a very fine thing, but I should a good deal sooner get the freehold of my cottage, if I could find the money to buy it. Magna Charta I don’t know much about; but if it means a quiet home for everybody, three cheers for it.

I wish our governors would not break up so many poor men’s homes by that abominably heartless Poor law. It is far more fit for a set of Red Indians than Englishmen. A Hampshire carter told me the other day that his wife and children were all in the union and his home broken up, because of the cruel working of the Poor law. He had eight little ones and his wife to keep on nine shillings a week, with rent to pay out of it; on this he could not keep body and soul together. Now if the parish had allowed him a mere trifle, a loaf or two and a couple of shillings a week, he would have jogged on; but no, not a penny out of the house: they might all die of starvation unless they would all go into the workhouse. So, with many bitter tears and heartaches, the poor soul had to sell his few little bits of furniture, and he is now a houseless man, and yet he is a good, hard-working fellow, and served one master nearly twenty years. Such things are very common, but they ought not to be. Why cannot the really deserving poor have a little help given them? Why must they be forced into the union house? Home is the pillar of the British Empire, and ought not to be knocked to pieces by these unchristian laws. I wish I was an orator and could talk politics: I would not care a rush for Whigs or Tories, but I would stand up like a lion for the poor man’s home, which, let me tell the Lords and Commons, is as dear to him as their great palaces are to them, and sometimes dearer.

If I had no home the world would be a big prison to me. Englajid for me a country, Surrey for a county, and for a village give me — no, I sha’n’t tell you, or you will be hunting John Ploughman up. Many of my friends have emigrated, and are breaking up fresh soil in Australia and America. Though their stone has rolled, I hope they may gather moss, for when they were at home they were like the sitting hen which gets no barley. Really these hard times make a man think of his wings, but I am tied by the leg to my own home, and, please God, I hope to live and die among my own people. They may do things better in France and Germany, but old England for me, after all.

DON’T CUT OFF YOUR NOSE TO SPITE YOUR FACE.

Anger is a short madness. The less we do when we go mad the better for everybody, and the less we go mad the better for ourselves. He is far gone who hurts himself to wreak his vengeance on others. The old saying is: “Don’t cut off your head because it aches;” and another says: “Set not your house on fire to spite the moon.” If things go awry, it is a poor way of mending to make them worse, as the man did who took to drinking because he could not marry the girl he liked. He must be a fool who cuts off his nose to spite his face; and yet this is what Dick did when he had vexed his old master, and because he was chid must needs give up his place, throw himself out of work, and starve his wife and family. Jane had been idle, and she knew it; but sooner than let her mistress speak to her, she gave warning, and lost as good a service as a maid could wish for. Old Griggs was WTong, and could not deny it; and yet because the parson’s sermon fitted him rather close, he took the sulks, and vowed he would never hear the good man again. It was his own loss, but he would n’t listen to reason, but was as wilful as a pig.

Do nothing when you are out of temper, and then you will have the less to undo. Let a hasty man’s passion be a warning to you: if he scalds you, take heed that you do not let your own pot boil over. Many a man has given himself a box on the ear in his blind rage; ay, and ended his own life out of spite! He who cannot curb his temper carries gunpowder in his bosom, and he is neither safe for himself nor his neighbors. When passion comes in at the door, what little sense there is indoors flies out at the window. By and by a hasty man cools and comes to himself, like MacGibbon’s gruel when he put it out of the window; but if his nose is off, in the mean time, who is to put it on again? He will only be sorry once, and that will be all the rest of his life. Anger does a man more hurt than that which made him angry. It opens his mouth and shuts his eyes, and fires his heart and drowns his sense, and makes his wisdom folly. Old Tompkins told me that he was sorry that he lost his temper, and I could not help thinking that the pity was that he ever found it again, for it was like an old shoe with the sole gone and the upper leathers worn out, only fit for a dunghill. A hot-tempered man would be all the better for a new heart and a right spirit. Anger is a fire which cooks no victuals and comforts no household: it cuts and curses and kills, and no one knows what it may lead to; therefore, good reader, don’t let it lodge in your bosom, and if it ever comes there, pass the vagrant on to the next parish.

Gently, gently, little pot;
Why so hasty to be hot.’*
Over you will surely boil,
And I know not what you ’11 spoil.

The old gent in our picture has a fine nose of his own, and though he will be a fool to cut it off”, he would be wise to cut off* the supplies which have made it such a size. That glass and jug on the table are the paint-pots that he colors his nose with, and everybody knows, whether he knows it or knows it not, that his nose is the outward and visible sign of a good deal of inward and spirituous drink, and the sooner he drops his drops the better. So here we will cut oft”, not our nose, but the present subject.

LIKE CAT LIKE KIT.

Most men are what their mothers made them. The father is away from home all day, and has not half the influence over the children that the mother has. The cow has most to do with the calf. If a ragged colt grows into a good horse, we know who it is that combed him. A mother is therefore a very responsible woman, even though she may be the poorest in the land, for the bad or the good of her boys and girls very much depends upon her. As is the gardener, such is the garden; as is the wife, such is the family. Samuel’s mother made him a little coat every year, but she had done a deal for him before that: Samuel would not have been Samuel if Hannah had not been Hannah. We shall never see a better set of men till the mothers are better. We must have Sarahs and Rebekahs before we shall see Isaacs and Jacobs.

Grace does not run in the blood, but we generally find that the Timothies have mothers of a goodly sort.

Little children give their mother the headache; but if she lets them have their own way, when they grow up to be great children they will give her the heartache. Foolish fondness spoils many, and letting faults alone spoils more. Gardens that are never weeded will grow very little worth gathering; all watering and no hoeing will make a bad crop. A child may have too much of its mother’s love, and in the long run it may turn out that it had too little. Soft-hearted mothers rear soft-hearted children; they hurt them for life because they are afraid of hurting them when they are young. Coddle your children, and they will turn out noodles. You may sugar a child till everybody is sick of it. Boys’ jackets need a little dusting every now and then, and girls’ dresses are all the better for occasional trimming. Children without chastisement are fields without ploughing. The very best colts want breaking in. Not that we like severity; cruel mothers are not mothers, and those who are always flogging and fault-finding ought to be flogged themselves. There is reason in all things, as the madman said when he cut off his nose.

Good mothers are very dear to their children. There ’s no mother in the world like our own mother. My friend Sanders, from Glasgow, says, “The mither’s breath is aye sweet.” Every woman is a handsome woman to her own son. That man is not worth hanging who does not love his mother. When good women lead their little ones to the Saviour, the Lord Jesus blesses not only the children, but their mothers as well. Happy are they among women who see their sons and their daughters walking in the truth.

He who thinks it easy to bring up a family never had one of his own. A mother who trains her children aright had need be wiser than Solomon, for his son turned out a fool. Some children are perverse from their infancy: none are born perfect, but some have a double share of imperfections. Do what you will with some children, they don’t improve. Wash a dog, comb a dog, still a dog is but a doq;: trouble seems thrown awav on some children. Such cases arc meant to drive us to God, for He can turn blackamoors white, and cleanse out the leopard’s spots. It is clear that whatever faults our children have, we are their parents, and we cannot find fault with the stock they came of. Wild geese do not lay tame eggs. That which is born of a hen will be sure to scratch in the dust. The child of a cat wifl hunt after mice. Every creature follows its kind. If we are black, we cannot blame our offspring if they are dark too. Let us do our best with them, and pray the mighty Lord to put His hand to the work. Children of prayer will grow up to be children of praise; mothers who have wept before God for their sons will one day sing a new song over them. Some colts often break the halter, and yet become quiet in harness.

God can make those new whom we cannot mend, therefore let mothers never despair of their children as long as they live. Are they away from you across the sea? Remember, the Lord is there as well as here. Prodigals may wander, but they are never out of sight of the Great Father, even though they may be “a great way off.”

Let mothers labor to make home the happiest place in the world. If they are always nagging and grumbling they will lose their hold of their children, and the boys will be tempted to spend their evenings away from home. Home is the best place for boys and men, and a good mother is the soul of home. The smile of a mother’s face has enticed many into the right path, and the fear of bringing a tear into her eye has called off many a man from evil ways. The boy may have a heart of iron, but his mother can hold him like a magnet. The devil never reckons a man to be lost so long as he has a good mother alive. Oh, woman, great is thy power! See to it that it be used for Him who thought of His mother even in the agonies of death.

VERY IGNORANT PEOPLE.

I HAVE heard tell of a man who did not know a great A from a bull’s foot, and I know a good many who certainly could not tell what great A, or little A either, may mean; but some of these people are not the most ignorant in the world for all that. For instance, they know a cow’s head from its tail, and one of the election gentlemen said lately that the candidate from London did not know that. They know that turnips don’t grow on trees, and they can tell a mangel-wurzel from a beet-root, and a rabbit from a hare, and there are fine folk who play on pianos who could hardly know as much as that. If they cannot read they can plough and mow, and reap and sow, and bring up seven children on ten shillings a week, and yet pay their way; and there ’s a sight of people who are much too ignorant to do that. Ignorance of spelling-books is very bad, but ignorance of hard work is worse. Wisdom does not always speak Latin. People laugh at smock-frocks, and indeed they are about as ugly garments as could well be contrived; but some who wear them are not half such fools as people take them for. If no ignorant people ate bread but those who wear hobnail shoes, corn would be a fine deal cheaper. Wisdom in a poor man is like a diamond set in lead, only judges can see its value. Wisdom walks often in patched shoes, and men admire her not; but I say, never mind the coat, give me the man: nutshells are nothing, the kernel is everything. You need not go to Pirbright to find ignoramuses, there are heaps of them near St. Paul’s.

I would have everybody able to read and write and cipher; indeed, I don’t think a man can know too much; but, mark you, the knowing of these things is not education, and there are millions of your reading and writing people who are as ignorant as neighbor Norton’s calf, that did not know its own mother. This is as plain as the nose on your face, if you only think a little. To know how to read and write is like having tools to work with; but if you don’t use these tools, and your eyes and your ears too, you will be none the better off. Everybody should know what most concerns him and makes him most useful. It is little use for a horse to know how to fly, it will do well enough if it can trot. A man on a farm ought to learn all that belongs to farming, a blacksmith should study a horse’s foot, a dairymaid should be well up in skimming the milk and making the butter, and a laborer’s wife should be a good scholar in the sciences of boiling and baking, washing and mending; and John Ploughman ventures to say that those men and women who have not learned the duties of their callings are very ignorant people, even if they can tell the Greek name for a crocodile, or write an ode on a black-beetle. It is too

often very true, —

“Jack has been to school

To learn to be a fool.”

When a man falls into the water, to know how to swim will be of more use to him than all his mathematics; and yet how very few boys learn swimming. Girls are taught dancing and French, when stitching and English would be a hundred per cent more use to them. When men have to earn their Hvings in these hard times, a good trade and industrious habits will serve their turn a world better than all the classics in Cambridge and Oxford; but who now-a-days advocates practical training at our schools? Schoolmasters would go into fits if they were asked to teach poor people’s boys to hoe potatoes and plant cauliflowers. If you want a dog to be a pointer or a setter, you train him accordingly: why ever don’t they do the same w’ith men? It ought to be, “Every man for his business, and every man master of his business.” Let Jack and Tom learn geography by all means, but don’t forget to teach them how to black their own boots and put a button on to their own trousers; and as for Jane and Sally, let them sing and play the music if they like, but not till they can darn a stocking and make a shirt. When they bring on the new act for general education, I hope they will put in a clause to teach children practical common-sense home duties, as well as the three R’s and the folderols which I think they call “accomplishments.” There ’s poor Gent with six girls, and about fifty pounds a year to keep his family on, and yet not one of them can do a hand’s turn, because their mother would go into fits lest Miss Sophia Elfrida should have chapped hands through washing the family linen, or lest Alexandra Theodora should spoil her complexion in picking a few gooseberries for a pudding. It ’s enough to make a cat laugh to hear the poor things talk about fashion and etiquette, when they are not half so well off as the higgler’s daughters down the lane, who earn their own living, and are laying money by against the time when some young farmer will pick them up. Trust me, he who marries these highty-tighty young ladies will have as bad a bargain as if he married a wax doll. How the fat would be in the fire if Mrs. Gent heard me say it! but I do say it for all that: she and the girls are ignorant, very ignorant, because they do not know what would be of most service to them.

Every sprat now-a-days calls itself a herring; every donkey thinks itself fit to be one of the queen’s horses; every candle thinks itself the sun. But when a man with his best coat on, and a paper collar, a glass in his eye, a brass chain on his waistcoat, a cane in his hand, and emptiness in his head, fancies that people cannot see through his swaggers and brags, he must be ignoranty very ignorant for he does not know himself. Flats, dressed up to the top of the fashion, think themselves somebodies, but nobodyelse does. Dancing-masters and tailors may rig up a fop, but they cannot make a nothing into a man. You may color a millstone as much as you like, but you cannot improve it into a cheese.

When tradesmen put their earnings into companies and expect to see it again; when they take shares in railways and look for dividends; when they lend money at high interest and think to make their fortunes, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. As well hang a wooden kettle over the fire and get ready for tea, or sow beans in a river and look for a fine crop.

When men believe in lawyers and money-lenders (whether Jews or Gentiles), and borrow money and speculate, and think themselves lucky fellows, they are shamefully ignorant. The very gander on the common would not make such a stupid of himself, for he knows when any one tries to pluck him, and won’t lose his feathers and pride himself in the operation.

The man who spends his money with the publican, and thinks that the landlord’s bows and “How do ye do, my good fellow?” mean true respect, is a perfect natural; for with them it is, —

If you have money, take a seat
If you have none, take to your

your feet.

The fox admires the cheese, not the raven. The bait Is not put into the trap to feed the mouse, but to catch him. We don’t light a fire for the herring’s comfort, but to roast him. Men do not keep pot-houses for the laborer’s good; if they do they certainly miss their aim. Why, then, should people drink “for the good of the house”? If I spend money for the good of any house, let it be my own, and not the landlord’s. It ’s a bad well into which you must put water; and the beerhouse is a bad friend, because it takes your all, and leaves you nothing but heeltaps and headaches. He who calls those his friends who let him sit and drink by the hour together is ignoratit, very ignorant. Why, Red Lions and Tigers and Eagles and Vultures are all creatures of prey, and why do so many put themselves within the power of their jaws and talons?

He who believes that either Whigs or Tories will let us off with light taxes, must have been born on the day after the last of March; and he who imagines that parish boards and vestries will ever have either heads or bowels, must have been educated in an idiot asylum. He who believes in promises made at elections has long ears, and may try to eat thistles. Mr. Plausible has been round asking all the working men for their votes, and he will do all sorts of good things for them. Will he? Yes, the day after to-morrow, a little later than never. Poor men who expect the “friends of the working man” to do anything for them must be ignora7it, very ignorant. When they get their seats, of course they cannot stand up for their principles, except when it is to their interest to do so.

To lend umbrellas and look to have them sent home, to do a man a good turn and expect another from him when you want it, to hope to stop some women’s tongues, to try to please everybody, to hope to hear gossips speak well of you, or to get the truth of a story from common report, — is all evidence of great ignorance. Those who know the world best trust it least; those who trust it at all are not wise; as well trust a horse’s heel or a dog’s tooth. Trusting to others ruins many. He who leaves his business to bailiffs and servants, and believes that it will be well done, must be ignorant, very ignorant. The mouse knows when the cat is out of the house, and servants know when the master is away. No sooner is the eye of the master gone than the hand of the workman slackens. ‘’ I ’11 go myself,” and ‘’ I ’11 see to it,” are two good servants on a farm. Those who lie in bed and reckon that their trade will carry on itself are ignorant very ignorant, gr

Such as drink and live riotously, and wonder why their faces are so blotchy and their pockets so bare, would leave off wondering if they had two grains of wisdom. They might as well ask an elm-tree for pears as look to loose habits for health and wealth. Those who go to the public-house for happiness climb a tree to find fish. We might put all their wit in an eggshell, or they would never be such dupes as to hunt after comfort where it is no more to be found than a cow in a crow’s nest; but, alas! goodfor-nothings are common as mice in a wheat-rick. I only wish we could pack them off to Lubberland, where they have half a crown a day for sleeping. If some one could let them see the sure result of ill living, perhaps they might reform; and yet I don’t know, for they do see it, and yet go on all the same, like a moth that gets singed and flies into the candle again. Certainly, for loitering lushingtons to expect to thrive by keeping their hands in their pockets, or their noses in a pewter pot, proves them to be ignorant, very ignorant.

When I see a young lady with a flower garden on her head and a draper’s shop on her body, tossing her head about as if she thought everybody was charmed with her, I am sure she must be ignorant, very ignorant. Sensible men don’t marry a wardrobe or a bonnet-box; they want a woman of sense, and these dress sensibly.

To my mind, those who sneer at religion and set themselves up to be too knowing to believe in the Bible are shallow fellows. They generally use big words and bluster a great deal; but if they fancy they can overturn the faith of thinking people, who have tried and proved the power of the grace of God, they must be ignorant, very ignorant. He who looks at the sunrise and the sunset, and does not see the footprints of God, must be inwardly blinder than a mole, and only fit to live under ground. God seems to talk to me in every primrose and daisy, to smile upon me from every star, to whisper to me in every breath of morning air, and call aloud to me in every storm. They say that man is the god of the dog: that man must be worse than a dog who will not listen to the voice of God, for a dog follows at his master’s whistle. They call themselves philosophers, don’t they? Their proper name is fools, for the fool hath said in his heart, ‘* There is no God.” The sheep know when rain is coming, the swallows foresee the winter, and even the pigs, they say, can see the wind; how much worse than a brute must he be who lives where God is everywhere present, and yet sees Him not! So you see a man may be a great hand at learning, and yet be igiwraftt, very igjiorant.

HE LOOKS ONE WAY AND PULLS THE OTHER.

He faces the shore, but he is pulling for the ship: this is the way of those who row in boats, and also of a great many who never trust themselves on the water. The boatman is all right, but the hypocrite is all wrong, whatever rites he may practise. I cannot endure Mr. Facing-both-ways, yet he has swarms of cousins.

It is ill to be a saint without and a devil within, to be a servant of Christ before the world in order to serve the ends of self and the devil, while inwardly the heart hates all good things. There are good and bad of all classes, and hypocrites can be found among ploughmen as well as among parsons. It used to be so in the olden times, for I remember an old verse which draws out just such a character: the man says, — “I -11 have a religion all of my own, Whether Papist or Protestant shall not be known; And if it proves troublesome I will have none.”

In our Lord’s day many followed Him, but it was only for the loaves and fishes: they do say that some in our parish don’t go quite so straight as the Jews did, for they go to the church for the loaves, and then go over to the Baptist chapel for the fishes. I don’t want to judge, but I certainly do know some who, if they do not care much for faith, are always following after charity.

Better die than sell your soul to the highest bidder. Better be shut up in the workhouse than fatten upon hypocrisy. Whatever else we barter, let us never try to turn a penny by religion, for hypocrisy is the meanest vice a man can come to.

It is a base thing to call yourself Christ’s horse, and yet carry the devil’s saddle. The worst kind of wolf is that which wears a sheep’s skin. Jezebel was never so ugly as when she had finished painting her face. Above all things, then, brother laborers, let us be straight as an arrow and true as a die, and never let us be time-servers or turncoats. Never let us carry two faces under one hat, nor blow hot and cold with the same breath.

DEBT.

When I was a very small boy, in pinafores, and went to a woman’s school, it so happened that I wanted a stick of slate-pencil, and had no money to buy it with. I was afraid of being scolded for losing my pencils so often, for I was a real careless little fellow, and so did not dare to ask at home; what then was John to do? There was a little shop in the place, where nuts and tops and cakes and balls were sold by old Mrs. Dearson, and sometimes I had seen boys and girls get trusted by the old lady. I argued with myself that Christmas was coming, and that somebody or other would be sure to give me a penny then, and perhaps even a whole silver sixpence. I would therefore go into debt for a stick of slate-pencil, and be sure to pay at Christmas. I did not feel easy about it, but still I screwed my courage up, and went into the shop. One farthing was the amount, and as I had never owed anything before, and my credit was good, the pencil was handed over by the kind dame, and / zi’as in debt. It did not please me much, and I felt as if I had done wrong, but I little knew how soon I should smart for it. How my father came to hear of this little stroke of business I never knew, but some little bird or other whistled it to him, and he was very soon down upon me in right earnest. God bless him for it! He was a sensible m.an, and none of your children-spoilers; he did not intend to bring up his children to speculate and play at what big rogues call financing, and therefore he knocked m’ ““ettinc?; into debt on the head at once, and no mistake. He gave me a very powerful lecture upon getting into debt, and how like it was to stealing, and upon the way in which people were ruined by it; and how a boy who would owe a farthing might one day owe a hundred pounds, and get into prison and bring his family into disgrace. It “was a lecture indeed; I think I can hear it now, and can feel my ears tingling at the recollection of it. Then I was marched off to the shop like a deserter marched into barracks, crying bitterly all down the street, and feeling drcadfulh* ashamed, because I thought everybody knew I was in debt. The farthing was paid amid many solemn warnings, and the poor debtor was set free, like a bird let out of a cage. How sweet it felt to be out of debt! How did my little heart vow and declare that nothing should ever tempt me into debt again! It was a fine lesson, and I have never forgotten it. If all boys were inoculated with the same doctrine when they were young, it would be as good as a fortune to them, and save them wagon-loads of trouble in after life. God bless my father, say I, and send a breed of such fathers into old England to save her from being eaten up with villany; for what with companies and schemes and paper money, the nation is getting to be as rotten as touchwood.

Ever since that early sickening I have hated debt as Luther hated the Pope, and if I say some fierce things about it, you must not wonder. To keep debt, dirt, and the devil out of my cottage has been my greatest wish ever since I set up housekeeping; and although the last of the three has sometimes got in by the door or the window, for the old serpent will wriggle through the smallest crack, yet thanks to a good wife, hard work, honesty, and scrubbincf-brushes, the two others have not crossed the threshold. Debt is so degrading, that if I owed a man a penny I would walk twenty miles, in the depth of winter, to pay him, sooner than feel that I was under an obligation. I should be as comfortable with peas in my shoes, or a hedgehog in my bed, or a snake up my back, as with bills hanging over my head at the grocer’s and the baker’s and the tailor’s. Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible; a man might as well have a smoky house and a scolding wife, which are said to be the two worst evils of our life. We may be poor, and yet respectable, which John Ploughman and wife hope they are and will be; but a man in debt cannot even respect himself, and he is sure to be talked about by the neighbors, and that talk will not be much to his credit. Some persons appear to like to be owing money; but I would as soon be a cat up a chimney with the fire alight, or a fox with the hounds at my heels, or a hedgehog on a pitchfork, or a mouse under an owl’s claw. An honest man thinks a purse full of other people’s money to be w’orse than an empty one; he cannot bear to eat other people’s cheese, wear other people’s shirts, and walk about in other people’s shoes, neither will he be easy while his wife is decked out in the milliner’s bonnets and wears the draper’s flannels. The jackdaw in the peacock’s feathers was soon plucked, and borrowers will surely come to poverty, — a poverty of the bitterest sort, because there is shame in it.

Living beyond their incomes is the ruin of many of my neighbors; they can hardly afford to keep a rabbit, and must needs drive a pony and chaise. I am afraid extravagance is the common disease of the times, and many professing Christians have caught it, lo their shame and sorrow. Good cotton or stuff gowns are not good enough now-a-days; girls must have silks and satins, and then there ’s a bill at the dressmaker’s as long as a winter’s night, and quite as dismal. Show and style and smartness run away with a man’s means, keep the family poor, and the father’s nose down on the grindstone. Frogs try to look as big as bulls, and burst themselves. A pound a week apes five hundred a year, and comes to the county court. Men burn the candle at both ends, and then say they are very unfortunate; why don’t they put the saddle on the right horse, and say they are extravagant? Economy is half the battle in life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well. Hundreds would never have known wajit if they had not first known zvaste. If all poor men’s wives knew how to cook, how far a little might go! Our minister says the French and the Germans beat us hollow in nice cheap cookery. I wish they would send missionaries over to convert our gossiping women into good managers; this is a French fashion which would be a deal more useful than those fine pictures in Mrs. Frippery’s window, with ladies rigged out in a new style every month. Dear me! some people are much too fine now-a-days to eat what their fathers were thankful to see on the table, and so they please their palates with costly feeding, come to the workhouse, and expect everybody to pity them. They turned up their noses at bread and butter, and came to eat raw turnips stolen out of the fields. They who live like fighting-cocks at other men’s costs, will get their combs cut, or perhaps get roasted for it one of these days. If you have a great store of peas, you may put the more in the soup; but everybody should fare according to his earnings. He is both a fool and a knave who has a shilling coming in, and on the strength of it spends a pound which does not belong to him. Cut your coat according to your cloth is sound advice; but cutting other people’s cloth by running into debt is as like thieving as fourpence is like a groat. If I meant to be a rogue I would deal in marine stores, or be a pettifogging lawyer, or a priest, or open a loan office, or go out picking pockets, but I would scorn the dirty art of getting into debt without a prospect of being able to pay.

Debtors can hardly help being liars, for they promise to pay when they know they cannot, and when they have made up a lot of false excuses they promise again, and so they lie as fast as a

horse can trot.

“You have debts, and make debts still,

If you ‘ve not lied, lie you will.”

Now if owing leads to lying, who shall say that it is not a most evil thing? Of course there are exceptions, and I do not want to bear hard upon an honest man who is brought down by sickness or heavy losses; but take the rule as a rule, and you will find debt to be a great dismal swamp, a huge mud-hole, a dirty ditch. Happy is the man who gets out of it after once tumbling in, but happiest of all is he who has been by God’s goodness kept out of the mire altogether. If you once ask the devil to dinner it will be hard to get him out of the house again: better to have nothing to do with him. Where a hen has laid one egg, she is very likely to lay another; when a man is once in debt, he is likely to get into it again; better keep clear of it from the first. He who gets in for a penny will soon be in for a pound, and when a man is over shoes, he is very liable to be over boots. Never owe a farthing, and you will never owe a guinea.

If you want to sleep soundly, buy a bed of a man who is in debt; surely it must be a very soft one, or he never could have rested so easy on it. I suppose people get hardened to it, as Smith’s donkey did when its master broke so many sticks across its back. It seems to me that a real honest man would sooner get as lean as a greyhound than feast on borrowed money, and would choke up his throat with March dust before he would let the landlord make chalks against him behind the door for a beer-score. What pins and needles tradesmen’s bills must stick in a fellow’s soul! A pig on credit always grunts. Without debt, without care; out of debt, out of danger: but owing and borrowing are bramble-bushes full of thorns. If ever I borrow a spade of my next-door neighbor I never feel safe with it for fear I should break it; I never can dig in peace as I do with my own: but if I had a spade at the shop and knew I could not pay for it I think I should set to dig my own grave out of shame. Scripture says, “Owe no man anything,” which does not mean pay your debts, but never have any to pay; and my opinion is, that those who wilfully break this law ought to be turned out of the Christian Church, neck and crop, as we say. Our laws are shamefully full of encouragement to credit; nobody need be a thief now; he has only to open a shop and make a fail of it, and it will pay him much better; as the proverb is, “He who never fails will never grow rich.” Why, I know tradesmen who have failed five or six times, and yet think they are on the road to heaven. The scoundrels, what would they do if they got there? They are a deal more likely to go where they shall never come out till they have paid the uttermost farthing. But people say, “H’ow liberal they are!” Yes, with other people’s money. I hate to see a man steal a goose, and then give religion the giblets. Piety by all means, but pay your way as part of it. Honesty first, and then generosity. But how often religion is a cloak for deceiving! There ’s Mrs. Scamp as fine as a peacock, all the girls out at boarding-school, learning French and the piano, the boys swelling about in kid gloves, and G. B. Scamp, Esq., driving a fast-trotting mare, and taking the chair at public meetings, while his poor creditors cannot get more than enough to live from hand to mouth. It is shameful and beyond endurance to see how genteel swindling is winked at by many in this country. I ‘d off with their white waistcoats and kid gloves and patent-leather boots, if I had my way, and give them the county crop and the prison livery for six months. Gentlemen or not, I ‘d let them see that big rogues could dance on the treadmill to the same tune as little ones; I ‘d make the land too hot to hold such scamping gentry if I were a member of Parliament or a prime minister. As I ‘ve no such power, I can at least write against the fellows, and let off the steam of my wrath in that way.

My motto is: Pay as you go, and keep from small scores. Short reckonings are soon cleared. Pay what you owe, and what you ‘re worth you ’11 know. Let the clock tick, but no “tick’’ for me. Better go to bed without your supper than get up in debt. Sins and debt are always more than we think them to be. Little by little a man gets over his head and ears. It is the petty expenses that empty the purse. IMoney is round, and rolls away easily. Tom Thriftless buys what he does not want because it is a great bargain,’ and so is soon brought to sell what he does want, and finds it a very little bargain; he cannot say “No” to his friend who wants him to be security. He gives grand dinners, makes many holidays, keeps a fat table, lets his wife dress fine, never looks after his servants, and by and by he is quite surprised to find the quarter-days come round so very fast, and that his cre(3-

itors bark so loud. He has sowed his money in the field of

thoughtlessness, and now he wonders that he has to reap the

harvest of poverty. Still he hopes for something to turn up to

help him out of difficulty, and so muddles himself into more

trouble, forgetting that hope and expectations are fools’ income.

Being hard up, he goes to market with empty pockets, and buys

at whatever prices tradesmen like to charge him, and so he pays

them double, and gets deeper and deeper into the mire. This

leads him to scheming, and trying little tricks and mean dodges,

for it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. This is sure not

to answer, for schemes are like spiders’ webs, which never catch

anything better than flies, and are soon swept away. As well

attempt to mend your shoes with brown paper, or stop a broken

window with a sheet of ice, as try to patch up falling business

with manoeuvring and scheming. When the schemer is found out,

he is like a dog in church, whom everybody kicks at, and like a

barrel of powder, which nobody wants for a neighbor.

They say poverty is a sixth sense, and it had need be, for many debtors seem to have lost the other five, or were born without common sense, for they appear to fancy that you not only make debts, but pay them by borrowing. A man pays Peter with what he has borrowed of Paul, and thinks he is getting out of his difficulties, when he is putting one foot in the mud to pull his other foot out. It is hard to shave an egg, or pull hairs out of a bald pate; but they are both easier than paying debts out of an empty pocket, Samson was a strong man, but he could not pay debts without money, and he is a fool who thinks he can do it by scheming. As to borrowing money of loan societies, it’s like a drowning man catching at razors; both Jews and Gentiles, when they lend money, generally pluck the geese as long as they have any feathers. A man must cut down his outgoings and save his incomings if he wants to clear himself; you can’t spend your penny and pay debts with it too. Stint the kitchen if the purse is bare. Don’t believe in any way of wiping out debts except by paying hard cash. Promises make debts, and debts make promises, but promises never pays debts; promising is one thing, and performing is quite another. A good man’s word should be as binding as an oath, and he should never promise to pay unless he has clear prospect of doing so in due time; those who stave off payment by false promises deserve no mercy. It is all very well to say,” I ‘m

very sorry,” but

*’ A hundred years of regret

Pay not a farthing of debt.”

Now I ‘m afraid all this sound advice might as well have been given to my master’s cocks and hens as to those who have got in the way of spending what is not their own, for advice to such people goes in at one ear and out at the other. Well, those who won’t listen will have to feel, and those who refuse cheap advice will have to buy dear repentance; but to young people beginning life, a word may be worth a world, and this shall be John Ploughman’s short sermon, with three heads to it, — always live a little below your means, never get into debt, and remember

“He who goes a borrowing
Goes a sorrowing.”

A MAN IN A PASSION RIDES A HORSE THAT RUNS AWAY

WITH HIM.

When passion has run away with a man, who knows where it will carry him? Once let a rider lose power over his horse, and he may go over hedge and ditch, and end with a tumble into the stone-quarry and a broken neck. No one can tell in cold blood what he may do when he gets angry; therefore it is best to run no risks. Those who feel their temper rising will be wise if they rise themselves and walk off to the pump. Let them fill their mouths with cold water, hold it there ten minutes at the least, and then go indoors and keep there till they feel cool as a cucumber. If you carry loose gunpowder in your pocket, you had better not go where sparks are flying; and if you are bothered with an irritable nature, you should move off when folks begin teasing you. Better keep out of a quarrel than fight your way through it.

Nothing is improved by anger, unless it be the arch of a cat’s back. A man with his back up is spoiling his figure. People look none the handsomer for being red in the face. It takes a great deal out of a man to get into a towering rage; it is almost as unhealthy as having a fit, and time has been when men have actually choked themselves with passion, and died on the spot. Whatever wrong I suffer, it cannot do me half so much hurt as being angry about it; for passion shortens life and poisons peace.

When once we give way to temper, temper will claim a right of way, and come in easier every time. He that will be in a pet for

any little thing, will soon be out at elbows about nothing at all. A thunder-storm curdles the milk, and so does a passion sour the heart and spoil the character.

He who is in a tantrum shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, and very soon says what he will be sorry for. Better bite your lips now than smart for life. It is easier to keep a bull out of a china shop than it is to get him out again; and, besides, there’s no end of a bill to pay for damages.

A man burning with anger carries a murderer inside his waistcoat; the sooner he can cool down, the better for himself and all around him. He will have to give an account for his feelings, as well as for his words and actions, and that account will cost him many tears. It is a cruel thing to tease quick-tempered people, for, though it may be sport to you, it is death to them; at least, it is death to their peace, and may be something worse. We know who said, “Woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.”

Shun a furious man as you would a mad dog; but do it kindly, or you may make him worse than he would be. Don’t put a man out when you know he is out with himself. When his monkey is up be very careful, for he means mischief. A surly soul is sure to quarrel; he says the cat will break his heart, and the coal-scuttle will be the death of him.

“A man in a ra2:e
Needs a great iron cage;
He ‘II tear and he ’11 dash
Till he coraes to a smash;
So let ’s out of his way
As quick as we may.”

As we quietly move off, let us pray for the angry person; for a man in a thorough passion is as sad a sight as to see a neighbor’s house on fire, and no water handy to put out the flames.

Let us wish the fellow on the runaway horse a soft ditch to tumble in, and sense enough never to get on the creature’s back again.

It pleases me to see how fond the birds are of their little homes. No doubt each one thinks his own nest is the very best: and so it is for him, just as my home is the best palace for me, even for me, King John, the king of the Cottage of Content. I will ask no more if Providence only continues to give me

“A little field well tilled,
A little house well filled,
And a little wife well willed.”

An Englishman’s house is his castle, and the true Briton is alway fond of the old roof-tree. Green grows the houseleek on the thatch, and sweet is the honeysuckle at the porch, and dear are the gillyflowers in the front garden; but best of all is the good

wife within, who keeps all as neat as a new pin. Frenchmen may live in their coffee-houses, but an Englishman’s best life is seen at home.

“My own house, though small,
Is the best house of all.”

When boys get tired of eating tarts, and maids have done with winning hearts, and lawyers cease to take their fees, and leaves leave off to grow on trees, then will John Ploughman cease to love his own dear home. John likes to hear some sweet voice sing,

“‘Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there ’s no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there.
Which, wherever we rove, is not met with elsewhere.

Home! Home! sweet, sweet home!

There ’s no place like home!”

People who take no pleasure in their own homes are queer folks, and no better than they should be. Every dog is a lion at his own door, and a man should make most of those who make most of him. Women should be housekeepers, and keep in the house. That man is to be pitied who has married one of the Miss Gadabouts. Mrs. Cackle and her friend Mrs. Dressemout are enough to drive their husbands into the county jail for shelter; there can be no peace where such a piece of goods as either of them is to be found. Old Tusser said, —

‘* 111 buswifery pricketh

Herself up with pride;
Good huswifery tricketh
Her house as a bride.

“111 huswifery moveth

With gossip to spend;
Good huswifery loveth
Her household to tend.”

The woman whose husband wastes his evenings with low fellows at the beershop is as badly off as a slave; and when the Act of Parliament shuts up most of these ruin-houses, it will be an Act of Emancipation fur her. Good husbands cannot have too much of their homes, and if their wives make their homes comfortable they will soon grow proud of them. When good fathers get among their children they are as merry as mice in malt. Our Joe Scroggs says he’s tired of his house, and the house certainly looks tired of him, for it is all out of windows, and would get out of doors if it knew how. He will never be weary in well-doing, for he never began. What a different fellow he would be if he could believe that the best side of the world is a man’s own fireside. I know it is so, and so do many more.

“Seek home for rest,
For home is best.”

What can it be that so deludes lots of people who ought to know better? They have sweet wives and nice families and comfortable houses, and they are several cuts above us poor country bumpkins, and yet they must be out of an evening. What is it for? Surely it can’t be the company; for the society of the woman you love, who is the mother of your children, is worth all the companies that ever met together. I fear they are away soaking their clay, and washing all their wits away. If so, it is a great shame, and those who are guilty of* it ought to be trounced. Oh, that drink, that drink!

Dear, dear, what stuff people will pour into their insides! Even if I had to be poisoned I should like to know what I was swallowing. A cup of tea at home does people a sight more good than all the mixtures you get abroad. There ’s nothing like the best home-brewed, and there ’s no better mashtub for making it in than the old-fashioned earthenware teapot. Our little children sing, “Please, father, come home,” and John Ploughman joins with thousands of little children in that simple prayer, which every man who is a man should be glad to answer. I like to see husband and wife longing to see each other.

•’ An ear that waits to catch
A hand upon the latch;
A step that hastens its sweet rest to win.
A world of care without,
A workl of strife shut out,
A world of love shut in.”

Fellow workmen, try to let it be so with you and your wives. Come home and bring your wages with you, and make yourselves happy by making every one happy around you.

My printer jogs my elbow, and says, “That will do: I can’t get any more in.” Then, Mr. Passmore, I must pass over many things, but I cannot leave off without praising God for His goodness to me and mine, and all my brother ploughmen, for it is of His great mercy that He lets us live in this dear old country, and loads us with so many benefits.

This bit of poetry shall be my finish: I mean every word of it. Let us sing it together, —

‘’ What pleasant groves, what goodly fields 1
What fruitful hills and vales have we!
How sweet an air our climate yields!
How blest with flocks and herds we be 1
How milk and honey doth o’erflow!

How clear and wholesome are our springs!
How safe from ravenous beasts we so!

And oh, how free from poisonous things!

*’ For these and for our grass, our corn,

For all that springs from blade or bough,
For all those blessinics that adorn

Both wood and field, this kingdom through, — For all of these Thy praise we sing:

And humbly, Lord, entreat Thee too,
That fruit to Thee we forth may bring,

As unto us Thy creatures do.”

JESU’S PRESENCE DELIGHTFUL.

Amidst us our Beloved stands,
And bids us view His pierced hands;
Points to His wounded feet and side, — Blest emblems of the Crucified!

What food luxurious loads the board
When at His table sits the Lord!
The wine how rich, the bread how sweet,
When Jesus deigns the guests to meet!

If now, with eyes defiled and dim,
We see the signs, but see not Him,
Oh may His love the scales displace,
And bid us see Him face to face!

Our former transports we recount
When with Him in the holy mount;
These cause our souls to thirst anew,
His marred but lovely face to view.

Thou glorious Bridegroom of our hearts,
Thy present smile a heaven imparts;
Oh lift the veil, if veil there be.
Let every saint Thy beauties see.

C. H. Spurgeon.