: MY HEARERS: Savages go through life easily enough, without any hard grunting, sweating, or swearing. They are just about so, at all times-contented, sure to have a living, and, consequently, happy but we, civilized sons of sin, care, and sorrow, have to fight against our fellow kind for a fo'pence to get us food. We have to twist and turn-make our way among the crowd-stick our elbowS into the ribs of others-and, perhaps, knock down a dozen or two, to get decently through the world. SICH IS LIFE! Brutes have a living prepared for them-the table of nature is bountifully spread before them, and all they have to do is to eat, drink, sleep, and be satisfied; but man, having brains to contrive, and hands to execute, has to make a living, and not be satisfied at that. He is never satisfied, nor woman either. Give me so much, says he, and I will ask no more; but, when he gets it, his avaricious appetite is as insatiate as ever. You can no more supply to satisfaction the mammoth capaciousness of human desire than you can fill the bottomless pit by the dropping-in of pebble-stones. The future doesn't always deceive us; but the deuce of it is, we are too apt to find fault with the fulfilment of what our most ardent hopes had promised. 'Taint good enough, after all! say we, with a snuff and a snivel: give us something better. And so, at last, we go whining to our graves, exclaiming, Vanity! vanity!-all is deception double-distilled deception! Man's existence is a beautiful humbug! "Sich is life!" My friends it is up hill and down hill with us in this RE-probationary sphere. Every one of us seem to be kicked about as if we were each a foot-ball for the fates. Through a hypocritical courtesy, we don't exactly put the blame upon Providence, but lay it to our own ill-luck, and be d-d to it. "Sich is life!" And yet, when, upon the ebb tide of prosperity, man finds his frail bark cast back into dangerously-troublesome waters, he foolishly imagines that all the winds of heaven have conspired against him; and rather than resort to the paddle of perseverance, he gives up for lost, and says, There's no use in trying, for "sich is life!" On the other hand, an unfortunate philosopher, in tattered vest and forlorn financial condition, doesn't altogether give way to despair, but patiently contents himself with the idea that sich is life;" and that, in the process of mundane mutations, there is "a good time coming," which, some day or other, it will be his good fortune to experience. 66 My worthy friends: how many there are who, having to dig through the world, and finding it hard digging at the best, will not philosophically consider that "sich is life;" but they must rail at everybody and everything, distractedly imagining that all of mankind are set against them, My hearers: there are certain truisms which need no ghost from the grave to tell us about, and establish. He that hath no money hath few friends, and the fur upon the friendship of these few is hardly worth gathering. The moneyless must expect to be pushed about, rode over and trodden upon-for “sich is life!" The dandified puppy, with features of brass, brains of frog-jelly, and a heart made of putty and bee's-wax-submits to the scoffs and jeers of boys; is barked at by dogs; "be dem'd" if he knows how it is; but "sich is life!" He that tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, now-a-days, is pelted with the brickbats of persecution by moralists, religionists, politicians, and the people at large, for "sich is life!" ECCE SIGNUM, LIGNUM VITE! My hearers: imagine, as did my friend Shakspeare, a locomotive shadow; a poor player, that frets his brief hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more-and consider that "sich is life :" a tale told by an idiot [Shakspeare], full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But learn to live well; keep the stomach well supplied with roast beef, the heart with true religion, and the head free from all foolish fancies-and verily you shall be rewarded in a life to come, which, at the worst, can't help but be better than the miserable sublunary existence allotted to us here below. So mote it be! MY HEARERS: The spirit of the age is DRIVE AHEAD, if you upset your wagon and spill your milk-keep up with the popular crowd, and leave the old slow, careful coaches in the lurch, "Get out o' the way, old Dan Tucker!" is all the go now-a-days, musically, morally, and mechanically speaking. A flood is upon us that is fast washing all the works of the old music-masters into the dead sea of oblivion. The old, heavy drama is too slow a coach altogether for the present day. A lighter and faster one we must have-a regular trotting concern. Poor Shakspeare! his house is sold, and has stepped out. His taper shines with a sickly glare in the misty moonlight of the past a mere glowworm upon a dark and distant moor. Alas! I am afraid he was not for a time, but for all day ;" and it is now about to be all day with him. But, good-bye, Bill: I must drive on my horses, or take the dust of unpopularity. My friends: we are a fast people, and live in a fast age. Perhaps you may say we are only riding down hill on a hand-sled: the more we increase in velocity, the sooner we shall reach the bottom, and then have to get back again the best way we can. Shouldn't wonder! shouldnt wonder! No, by thunder! no, by thunder! the way is comparatively level, and the road is clear. All we have to do is to keep up the steam, and push ahead-PROPEL. When I speak of keeping up the steam, brethren, I do not mean that you shall fire up with liquid damnation which feeds the flames of hell, for thereby you may burst your boilers; but I have reference to maintaining that ambitious spirit of rapid progression to which neither the everlasting mountains nor the eternal hills can set any bounds. Ours is already a great country, but we want to make it a big country. No pent-up Blackwell's Island shall contract our powers; but the whole boundless continent must belong to us. Republicanism, with his new big boots, is bound to travel!-and no power on earth shall say, Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther. Emperors, kings, princes, and potentates! get out of the way, for we are coming with our fast horses! Clear the track for young America! We intend honestly to vote ourselves farms; but if voting don't get them, by General Jupiter Jackson, we'll take them, whether or no! Shall we lumber along the road, and allow other nations to pass us with a whiz? No -never. Our horses ARE fast, and we must give the world an awing specimen of their speed. Take care, then, by Basil! we are running a race with Britain for Cuba; and, if you don't look out, you may get injured. We must progress-advance-expatiate-till two-thirds of the globe is ours; and then if we are compelled to stop by some unforeseen circumstance, what will be the consequence? Why, we shall fall to fighting among ourselves and be brought back to the borders of primitive insignificance. I speak the words of truth and soberness; and I care not who endorses my sentiments. My friends: the world plays a grab game, and every man must look out for his handful. For my part, I take my time, and cheerfully accept of what Providence assigns me. But don't be guided by me, a poor pensioner of heaven-a pauper dependent upon chance. Drive on your horses; keep ahead, if possible, and let "the devil take the hindermost." So mote it be! MAN A SHADOW-LIFE A DREAM. TEXT.-For man a shadow only is, And life is but a dream. MY HEARERS: Did it ever occur to your stagnant minds that you are nothing more than mere shadows ?-intangible, without substance, and (I might say) without subsistence? Well, you are "nothing else," at any rate. One thing is certain: you Come like shadows, so depart; and whence you come, or whither you go, is known only to that great Shadow of which you are but a feeble shade. Pretty-looking shadows, though, some of you are, I must say !-weigh two hundred and fifty, and annihilate a pound of pork at each repast! If such are mere visions-"airy nothings"-I should like to know what you would think of cousin Abraham, who is so tall, slim, feeble, that he dares not stoop to pick up a pin without first putting a couple of brickbats in his coat pockets to preserve an equilibrium. He is thin as blotting-paper, and never trusts himself to stand long out-doors without putting one foot upon the other to prevent the wind from blowing him away. But, my dear friends, in a metaphorical sense, we are nothing but shadows, after all: visible for a moment, and then invisible for ever! "What shadows we are!" (exclaimed the wise Shadow,) and what Shadows we pursue !"-meaning that the women are also shadows, and that we men are in the habit of running after them: and verily there be much truth in the observation. My friends: what is life but a dream ?-an empty dream; as empty as a contribution box of a Saturday. We imagine we live, and move, and have a being; but how is this FACT to be determined? There is no way of ascertaining it to a certainty. You go to bed at night; you sleep; you dream. That dream appears to you to be a reality; but you awake in the morning and find it all a delusion; and so, on the morn of the Resurrection, you will probably find out that you have been but dreaming all through this sublunary existence. Well, friends, if you ever thought of it, all our greatest delights and principal pleasures lie wrapped in silken dreams. It is the anticipation, and not the possession, that yields us bliss. It is the ideality-not the reality. Some folks say, however, that there is greater pleasure in eating a nice beefsteak when you are hungry, than in anticipating it; but I am inclined to doubt that FACT. Eating takes away a body's appetite, and makes him feel dull—as dull as a hatchet used for splitting kindling wood upon a hearth-stone: but to dream about indulging in gastronomic pleasures is quite another thing. It makes me feel good to think of it," says John; "it is better than partaking." John is right: hope, that is not hopeless, is sweeter than honey. All is in the imagination. You acquire riches, and become possessed of whatever the heart, head, or fancy may order; and yet such wont set a broken limb, nor administer to a mind diseased;" nor do anything further than affording pleasant, and at the same time uneasy, dreams. There is no reality in riches a comfortable cot conduces to as much contentment as a stately mansion-and a LEETLE more too. As for purchasing happiness in this world, with the RHINO, the CHINK, or the ACTUAL, you might as soon think of winning a woman's affections at a raffle. All our joys, pleasures, and blisses, claim residence only in the dreamy mind. If that be ill at rest, no gold, silver, nor tickling under the ribs can make a man cheerful and happy. It is the Unreal-not the Real that gives zest to existence. : 66 My hearers: life is nothing more nor less than an empty dream. We imagine we speculate-we fancy-we hope, and are ever dwelling in the ethereal atmosphere of ideality. "Man never is but always to be blest," says my friend Pope; and I have a pewter sixpence saved for him who first acknowledges, with his hand upon the Book, that he is contented with the REAL. Now, all you married folks know that your happiest hours were those spent in courtship -when you were allowed to take only a smell at a glorious fodder, without even nibbling at a spear. So it is joyment: we prize at a distance; but when it isn't half so fat as we thought it was. basswood world. So mote it be! with every earthly enonce in our possession, And so it is with this CLACKING WOMEN. TEXT.-O! steep my feet in boiling oil, But save me, while I tarry here, From yonder woman's clack! MY HEARERS: Perhaps we male mortals ought not, generally speaking, to brag мUCH about our faculties for restraining that "unruly member" called the tongue; but I do think that women have no good reason to say ANYTHING-for, if we are incompetent, in a certain degree, women most certainly are, in a very uncertain degree. Their tongues are reeds shaken by the wind-splinters upon a chesnut rail, that keep up a buzzing and a jarring so long as there is a breath to move them. The least breeze of passion that springs up in their bosoms, sets their mill-clacks in operation; and as for stopping them, you might as well fire a popgun against thunder, or blow a hand-bellows against a hurricane. They will talk, like a poll-parrot, merely for the sake of the noise, and (giving them credit for no evil intention) they persevere in jabbering, without once reflecting that what is music to them may be murder to others. Oh! woman, woman! wherefore art thou gifted with such gigantic powers of gab! Thou wouldst have been an angel, hadst thou an angel's whisper. My hearers I have been speaking of women as a whole. As regards their noisy loquaciousness, there are many beautiful exceptions. I know some whose words have fine fur, instead of doghair, upon them-whose tones are as soft and musical as the mild breathings of the Eolian harp-to whom it is soothing to listen, and whose society is as sunshine to a storm-beaten flower. But, oh! make my bed under a tinned roof during a night of incessant hail; place forty tom-cats at my window, all in "full feather" (fur, I should have said) for a row; bid me deliver an impressive discourse in a grist-mill; soak my corns in a boiling solution of potash; bore my ears with a two-inch auger, or a congressional speech upon the tariff; compel me to endure the infliction of a fashionable opera; grate loaf sugar by my side while I am preparing a sermon on Sunday; put me on the rack, if you choose-do anything you like, if you will only save me from the everlasting clack of that woman, whose MILDEST tones are enough to harrow up a man's soul, [Shakspeare!] freeze his warm blood, and make each particular hairwhiskers, moustaches, and imperial included-to stand on “eend,” like bristles upon the back of a pup-worried boar-pig! |