CHAPTER X. THE TURTLE CLASS-MISS FLUKE ON PUNCH. WHEN We entered the class-room, we found all the pupils assembled. All, too, were in full dress. "They think a turtle an illustrious visitor," was our belief," and have resolved to do it all toilet honor." We admired, too, the rapidity of the change; in a very few minutes, many of the girls had turned morning into night-that is, had changed their early wrappers for evening silks and muslins. As for Fluke, she never looked so mischievously pretty. Miss Griffin, with much dignity, unfolded Lady M Thistle's letter, handing it to Corks. "You will be kind enough, Mr. Corks, to read her ladyship's missive in your own manner.' have a turtle presented to you. Ladies"-and Miss Griffin elevated her voice-" you are to consider that a turtle has entered your house. How will you dispose of it? What would be your first act?" Hang him up by the fore paws," said Miss Palmer, with some hesitation. 66 "By the hinder legs," cried Miss Candytuft, with great rapidity. "Very good; by the hinder legs;" said Miss Griffin. Take her down, Miss Candytuft ;" and Miss Palmer was taken down. "Well, we have the turtle hanging by his hinder legs-what next?" "Coax him, that he may n't draw in his neck," said Miss Barker, " and then"-and she smacked her lips-" and then cut off his head." "You cruel animal!" cried Miss Fluke. "Silence, Miss Fluke; Miss Barker is quite correct," said Miss Griffin; "cut off his head is perfectly right. No false sensibility, if you please. Well, the turtle's head is off. Go on.' It was Miss Winter's turn, who timidly proceeded. "Cut off his fins; divide his yellow plush-" Corks smiled at the delicacy of the emphasis, and began his task. His intonation was sweetly impressive, conveying in the subtlest manner all the hopes and fears of Miss Caroline Ruffler into the bosoms of his hearers, and ending with the hymeneal triumph of Lady M'Thistle. As Miss Griffin afterwards observed to ourselves, "It was "Callipash!" exclaimed Miss Winks. courtship and marriage set to the sweetest music." "Take her down," said Miss Griffin. "YellowTwo or three of the girls shed tears. Fluke, how-plush with a turtle! How do you think you'll get ever, as usual, clapt her hands, and crowed a laugh. Miss Griffin was again shocked. "What would I give," she whispered to us, "if I could only see her weep! But she has no sensibility; and a woman without tears, what a defenceless creature she is!" "Is the turtle to be brought in?" asked Carra- on, Miss Baker." ways. 66 through the world? Go on, Miss Green." "Of course you will go down, Miss Green," said Griffin. "After the pains, too, that I have taken! What will your parents say to me? Go "Break the bones and put 'em into a saucepan beef and veal bones-herbs, mace, and-" Why, Miss Baker, you 've got from real turtle to mock," cried Miss Griffin. 66 Certainly; laid here upon the table," answered-take Miss Griffin. "As you have very properly observed, Mr. Corks, the presence of the turtle itself may sharpen the sagacity and assist the imagination of the young ladies.' "Had I, ma'am?" asked Miss Baker, too innocent to know the difference. Assuredly," answered Corks. "They may see "But I see," said Miss Griffin, with a struggle in it the future alderman-the lord mayor-the hus- for resignation, "I see the examination is premaband in civic robes-the show on the 9th of Novem-ture. As yet, turtle goes quite over your heads. ber-the Easter ball-and the drawing-room at None of you can reach it." Here Miss Fluke court. Turtle, truly considered, ladies”—said | giggled. "But perhaps, Miss Fluke," said Griffin, Corks-" has great associations." with blighting sarcasm-"I wrong your intelligence. Perhaps you can dress a turtle." "And, ladies," said Miss Griffin, "I trust that the letter, so beautifully read by Mr. Corks, will convince you of the utility of what I have ever called cosmopolitan cookery. In this, our harlequincolored life, who knows to what far land your fate may call you? The first Mandarin of the first peacock's feather-the Sultan of both the Turkeysthe Emperor of Morocco-each may be caught by his national dish; even as Caroline caught Sir Alexander and therefore no young woman's education can be thought complete, who has not made, I may say it, a Cook's voyage round about the globe." At this moment Blossoms, assisted by the housemaid, bore in the turtle, and laid it on its back upon the table. 66 No, ma'am," said Fluke; " don't know that I can, ma'am, quite. But if you please, ma'am, I think I know all about the punch that's to be drunk with it." 66 66 "Oh, indeed!" said the cold Miss Griffin. Yes, ma'am ;" and Fluke for a moment took a long breath. Yes, ma'am. Two large lemons— rough skins-ripe; ripe as love, ma'am." Miss Griffin started, but was silent. "Sugar, large lumps; introduce sugar to skins of lemons-rub hard, as though you liked it. Drop lumps into bowl; drop, like dew-drops, lemon-juice. Squeeze lemon upon sugar; and mix as for lasting friendship. Mix with boiling water, hot as vengeance!" "Miss Fluke!" cried the governess. "Soft water 's best. Pour in rum blindfold, as you can't pour too much," said Fluke. "Did you ever hear such principles?" exclaimed Miss Griffin. "What an ugly thing!" cried Miss Fluke. "Pardon me, dear young lady," said Corks, looking affectionately at the turtle, "but, properly thought of, nothing in the whole expanse of nature is ugly. When I think of the soup dormant—I Ice, and drink with turtle," said Fluke, and she should say latent-in that magnificent piece of help-folded her arms with a sense of achieved greatness. lessness, I could bow to it." 66 "Did you ever hear the like-and from such a girl, too?" cried Miss Griffin. "The recipe is not quite correct," said Corks; and then his face was sunned with the blandest smile" not quite correct. But we may pardon few errors, where there is so much enthusiasm.” PARLIAMENTARY PLEDGES AND THE WOMEN OF A meeting of delegates from the married women of England took place yesterday, in the drawingroom of a distinguished authoress; the lady herself occupying the chair. The object of the assembly was to determine upon the pledges which the ladies should exact from candidates at the forthcoming election. The lady of the house, upon being voted into the chair remarked that now, for the first time in her life, she was acting in the capacity of chairwoman. As such, she would prove the advocate of sweeping reform. It was time that the voice of females should be heard in the house-in another sense than on washing days. Women could not catechize candidates at the hustings: no; but they could at the domestic hearth-before the fender-when gentlemen came canvassing, and voters were not at home. It was said that they had no political influence. Had they not? They formed the better half of the constituency, and she trusted that fact would appear at the next election. Another lady suggested that snuff should be included in the prohibition. The smoke-nuisance was bad enough, but the snuff-nuisance was beyond everything. duced, and the drawing-room doors thrown open to the sterner sex; after which there was a carpetwaltz, and the meeting separated. THE HEALTH OF TOWNS; IN A COLLOQUY BE 66 Says Leeds to Nottingham, "Ah! how d'ye do?" I sometimes almost fear my heart's cessation; I know what's killing me-bad ventilation. How are you, London, rolling in your wealth?" "Alas!" says London, " money is n't health. A lady had heard of a measure of great im-'T is true I roll in wealth, as in a flood, portance to females, particularly the married. It But, also, I'm compelled to roll in mud. was the Smoke Prevention Bill. The evil of smok- My cesspools, sinks, and sewers are neglected, ing existed to a disgusting extent. She proposed Hence by all kinds of ailments I 'm affected: that all candidates should be required to pledge I'm devastated by a host of fevers, themselves to the abolition of that odious practice, Which rage in Spitalfields amongst my weavers. and accordingly to support a prohibitory duty on In Clerkenwell, and Houndsditch, and about cigars. My filthy ward of Farringdon Without, Measles and small-pox-spite of vaccinationAre thinning fast my crowded population; Consumption, too, for want of air and water, Amid my denizens spreads wholesale slaughter. Then I've pneumonia, pleurisy, gastritis, Mumps and marasmus, jaundice, enteritis. Forth from my reeking courts and noisome alleys Breaks fatal pestilence in frequent sallies; Lurking meanwhile, like fire in smouldering embers I've erysipelas about my members. My children, too, have ricketty affections, And strumous constitutions and complexions. I'm always ill, in every kind of weather: In fact, I've all your ailments put together. Of physic I despair: I want ablution; My system needs a thorough revolutionAt least, a very sweeping reformation, Not only of my streets, but corporation." Quoth all the other towns, "That 's our condition; We want the scavenger-not the physician." A third lady observed that unfortunately the lawmakers were the snuff-takers, and also the smokers of cigars. She had heard that parliamentary discussions-like many others amongst gentlemen-often ended in smoke, and she quite believed it. It was shameful. A fourth lady had heard something of a Ten Hours' Bill. She had been told that this bill had been carried already, but she did not believe it. She could mention somebody-who ought to have known better-who came home from his club at three o'clock that very morning. When she told him he was liable to be fined, he laughed in her face. One of the pledges, she proposed, should be to vote for a law that all husbands should be obliged to be in by ten o'clock. This proposal led to a little discussion, in the course of which it was objected that the husband might possibly be out on business. The lady said a husband could have no business to be out later than ten. It was further objected that parties and the opera were sometimes not over till past midnight. The lady thought that the difficulty would be met by putting in the words, "out by themselves," before the word "husband." She thought the Ten Hours' Bill should also contain a clause against latch-keys. Pledges for the entire abolition of all duties on eau de Cologne, French gloves and shoes, foreign silks, lace, and feathers; and generally, for the removal of all restrictions upon feminine taste, were then proposed; and it was agreed that, together with the foregoing, they should be demanded directly or indirectly, of all candidates for seats in the next Parliament. Tea, coffee, and sweet-biscuits, were theu intro [The tail-piece to the above was a scavenger, sweeping out death and drugs.] BREAD VERSUS BULLETS.-The Americans having nobly supplied food for the Irish, we shall look at their flag with increased respect. Their stripes shall be to us significant of a gridiron, and their stars of sugared buns. Glad are we to find that the American subscriptions have been so nobly acknowledged in the House of Commons. These thanks for bread will go far to keep bullets out of fashion. The Indian Meal Book is, to our mind, a much more delightful volume than any History of the American War; and the directions therein written for the composition of hominy-cakes and slapjacks, far better than any talk of red-coat tactics. Bombs have had their day; let us henceforth try buns; and wherever America has battered our ships, let her, for all time to come, batter our frying pans. To paraphrase the pieman, "Brown Johnny-cakes is in-Congreve-rockets is out." PAY, OH! PAY US WHAT YOU OWE.-SONG FOR THE HIGHER classes, ere we part, By those orders unconfined, By those dresses of the best, By the opera, and the rout, By the fête and the soirée, Punch. CONSOLATION IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD."Whatever way I turned," says Mungo Park, in one of his Travels, "nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss irresistibly caught my eye. I mention it to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots and leaves without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image?-Surely not. I started up, and disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at hand; and I was not disappointed." NEW BOOKS AND REPRINTS. Messrs. C. S. Francis & Co., of New York, continue their new edition of the Arabian Nights. An American edition of Chambers' Miscellany is to be issued by Messrs. Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. This is a very good work, and we intended to have published it from our own office. Each number is 25 cents; three numbers will make a vol ume. Dombey and Son, Nos. 3 to 11, have been issued by Messrs. Bradbury and Soden. This is a good edition, and contains copies of the English plates. SCRAPS.-Burns and Copyright, 441--Origin of the French Academy, 450-The Drummond AGENCIES.-The publishers are desirous of making arrangements in all parts of North America, for increas The LIVING AGE is published every Saturday, by | twenty dollars, or two dollars each for separate volumes. E. LITTELL & Co., at No. 165 Tremont St., BOSTON. Any numbers may be had at 12 cents. Price 124 cents a number, or six dollars a year in advance. Remittances for any period will be thankfully received and promptly attended to. To insure regularity in mail-ing the circulation of this work-and for doing this a ing the work, remittances and orders should be addressed to the office of publication as above. Twenty dollars will pay for 4 copies for a year. COMPLETE SETS to the end of 1846, making eleven large volumes, are for sale, neatly bound in cloth, for liberal commission will be allowed to gentlemen who will interest themselves in the business. But it must be understood that in all cases payment in advance is expected. The price of the work is so low that we cannot afford to incur either risk or expense in the collection of debts LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 174.-11 SEPTEMBER, 1847. From the North British Review, with which work Dr. Chalmers record; but so close was that connection and so was associated from its beginning.] 1. Man's best Eulogy after Death. A Sermon Minister of that Church. 5. Dying in the Lord. Being the Substance of 8. The Righteous Man taken away from the Evil 11. The late Dr. Chalmers. By A. S. P., Glas gow. Extracted from the " Presby 12. Dr. Chalmers. CLXXIV. LIVING AGE. great were these obligations that our readers will not wonder if the earliest notice is but short. THOMAS CHALMERS was born at Anstruther, in Fife, on the 17th of March, 1780, and was early sent to study at St. Andrew's University. From traditions still plentiful in the north, his college career must have been distinguished by some of his subsequent peculiarities-energy, good humor, companionableness, and ascendency over others. And it was then that his passion for the physical sciences He studied mathematics, was first developed. chemistry, and some branches of natural history, with more than youthful enthusiasm, and with such success that besides assisting his own professor he made a narrow escape from the mathematical chair in Edinburgh. For these early pursuits he never lost a lingering taste, and in the summer holidays of his mellow age it was his delight to give lectures to youthful audiences on electricity and the laws of chemical combination. His attainments in these fields of knowledge were not those of a mere amateur; but in earlier life had all the system and security of an accomplished philosopher. And though for some years they engrossed him too much, they afterwards helped him amazingly. Mathematics especially gave him the power of severe and continuous thinking; and enabled him, unseduced by a salient fancy, to follow each recondite speculation to its curious landing-place, and each high argument to its topmost strong-hold. And whilst this stern discipline gave a stability to his judgment and a steadiness to his intellect, such as few men of exuberant imagination have ever enjoyed, the facts and laws of the natural sciences furnished that imagination with its appropriate wealth. They supplied the imagery, often gorgeous and august, sometimes brilliant and dazzling, by which in after days he made familiar truths grander or clearer than they had ever been before; and, linked together by a genius mighty in analogies, they formed the rope-ladder by which he scaled pinnacles of dazzling elevation, and told down to wondering listeners the new panorama which stretched around him. Consecrated and Christianized, his youthful science reappeared and was laid on the altar of religion in the Astronomical Discourses and Natural Theology. The first place where he exercised his ministry was Cavers, in the south of Scotland, where he was helper to the aged minister. It was here that he made the acquaintance of Charters of Wilton-a minister remarkable for this, that he did not preach anything which he did not understand. He did not fully understand the gospel, and he did not fully preach it; but those moral truths and personal duties which he did comprehend, he enforced with a downrightness, a simplicity and minuteness which cannot be sufficiently admired. To latest existence Dr. Chalmers retained a profound respect for the practical wisdom and lively sense of this Scottish Epictetus; and though it is comparing the greater with the less, those who have heard him in his more familiar sermons-discoursing the matter with a village audience, or breaking it down to the unlettered hearers of the West Port or the Dean-were just listening to old Charters of Wilton, revived in a more affectionate and evangelical version. In May, 1803, he was settled in the rural parish of Kilmany. This was to his heart's content. It brought him back to his native county. It gave him an abundance of leisure. It brought him near the manse of Flisk, and beside a congenial and distinguished naturalist. It was the country, with the clear stars above and the glorious hills around him; and it allowed him to wander all day long, hammer in hand and botanical box on his shoulders, chipping the rocks and ransacking the glens, and cultivating a kindly acquaintance with the outlandish peasantry. But all this while, though a minister, he was ignorant of essential Christianity. There was in nature much that pleased his taste, and he knew very well the quickened step and the glistening eye of the eager collector, as he pounces on some rare crystal or quaint and novel flower. But as yet no Bible text had made his bosom flutter, and he had not hidden in his heart sayings which he had detected with delight and treasured up like pearls. And though his nature was genial and benevolent-though he had his chosen friends and longed to elevate his parishioners to a higher level of intelligence, and domestic comfort, and virtuous enjoyment-he had not discovered any Being possessed of such paramount claims and overwhelming attractions as to make it end enough to live and labor for his sake. But that discovery he made while writing for an encyclopædia an article on Christianity. The death of a relation is said to have saddened his mind into more than usual thoughtfulness, and whilst engaged in the researches which his task demanded, the scheme of God was manifested to his astonished understanding, and the Son of God was revealed to his admiring and adoring affections. The Godhead embodied in the person and exemplified in the life of the Saviour, the remarkable arrangement for the removal and annihilation of sin, a gratuitous pardon as the germ of piety and the secret of spiritual peace-these truths flung a brightness over his field of view, and accumulated in wonder and endearment round the Redeemer's person. He found himself in sudden possession of an instrument potent to touch, and, in certain circumstances, omnipotent to transform the hearts of men; and exulted to discover a Friend all-worthy and divine, to whom he might dedicate his every faculty, and in serving whom he would most effectually subserve the widest good of man. And ignorant of their peculiar phraseology, almost ignorant of their history, by the direct door of the Bible itself he landed on the theology of the reformers and the puritans; and ere ever he was aware, his quickened and concentrated faculties were intent on reviving and ennobling the old evangelism. illumination which exploded weekly and lit up the Tron Church into a dome of colored fire-they were designed by their author and they told like a weekly bombardment. Into the fastnesses of aristocratic hauteur and commercial self-sufficiency-into the airy battlements of elegant morality and irreligious respectability they sent showering the junipers of hot conviction; and in hundreds of consciences were mighty to the pulling down of strong-holds. And though the effort was awful-though in each paroxysmal climax, as his aim pointed more and yet more loftily, he poured forth his very soulfor the gospel, and love to men, and zeal for God now mingled with his being, and formed his temperament, his genius, and his passion-though he himself was his own artillery, and in these selfconsuming sermons was rapidly blazing away that holocaust-himself-the effort was sublimely suecessful. In the cold philosophy of the Eastern capital and the coarse earthliness of the Western a breach was effected, and in its Bible dimensions and its sovereign insignia the gospel triumphant went through. Though the labors of Love and Balfour had been blessed to the winning of many, it was not till in the might of commanding intellect and consecrated reason Chalmers came up-it was not till then that the citadel yielded, and evangelical doetrine effected its lodgment in the meditative and aetive mind of modern Scotland; and whatever other influences may have worked together, it was then and there that the battle of a vitalized Christianity was fought and won. Patrons converted or overawed, evangelical majorities in synods and assemblies, Church of Scotland missions, the two hundred additional chapels, the Disruption, the Free Church, an earnest ministry and a liberal laity, are the trophies of this good soldier, and the splendid results of that Glasgow campaign. From that high service, worn, but not weary, he was fain to seek relief in an academic retreat. Again his native county offered an asylum, and in the University of St. Andrew's, and its chair of Moral Philosophy, he spent five years of calmer but not inglorious toil. Omitting that psychology, which in Scottish colleges is the great staple of moral philosophy lectures, with his characteristi intentness he advanced direct to those prime questions which affect man as a responsible being, and instead of dried specimens from ancient cabinets, instead of those smoked and dusty virtues which have lain about since the times of Socrates and Sen eca-instead of withered maxims from a pagan text-book, he took his code of morals fresh from Heaven's statute-book. It is not enough to say, that into his system of morality he flung all his heart and soul. He threw in himself-but he threw something better-he threw the gospel, and for the The heroism with which he avowed his change, first time in a northern university was taught an and the fervor with which he proclaimed the newly-evangelized ethics-a system with a motive as well discovered gospel, made a mighty stir in the quiet as a rule-a system instinct with the love of God, country round Kilmany; and at last the renown of and buoyant with noble purposes. And in the this upland Boanerges began to spread over Scot-warm atmosphere of his crowded class-roomland, till in 1815 the town council of Glasgow in- caught up by enthusiastic and admiring listeners, vited him to come and be the minister of their Tron the contagion spread; and as they passed from beChurch and parish. He came, and in that city for fore his chair, the élite of Scottish youth, Urqueight years sustained a series of the most, brilliant hart, Duff, and Adam, issued forth on the world, arguments and overpowering appeals in behalf of awake to the chief end of man, and sworn to lifevital godliness which devotion has ever kindled or long labors in the cause of Christ. Too often a eloquence ever launched into the flaming atmos- school for sceptics-when Chalmers was professor, phere of human thought. And though the burn- the ethic class became a mission college-the citadel ing words and meteor fancies were to many no of living faith, and the metropolis of active philanmore than a spectacle-the crash and sparkle of anthropy; and whilst every intellect expanded to the |