ON NOTING TIME. TEXT.-The bell strikes one-we take no note of time! MY HEARERS: It occurs to me that Time is shoving us on towards our last resting-places at the most rapid rate. Yesterday I took a retrospective survey of the distance between the Present and a certain post stuck up in the Past, and, to my utter astonishment, it measured full fourteen years! Can it be possible, inquired I of myself, that what seems to be of yesterday only should be found so astonishingly in the rear ? Yet it was so; and I have now come to the conclusion that the Past, Present and Future are all equally deceiving. Put not your trust in any of them: if you do, you will be taken in and done for, about as "slick" as Jonah. Wiggle yourselves, brethren, among the three, and make headway the best way Fond Recollection holds us by the coat-tail, and joyous Anticipation pulls us by the hair, while Reality gets us about the middle, from whose rough grasp we are ever struggling to escape. Somehow, all we mortals seem to want is to get ahead, reckless of economizing the little strip of time between here and hereafter. But there is no use in being in a hurry: we shall all reach the end of life's journey sooner than is desirable-and, I am afraid, before half of us have earned a pint of gracious salt for the pickling of our precious souls. you can. 66 My friends: we take no note of time;" and a good reason why -time never gives a note; never wants to be trusted, and trusts nobody. Why, it is enough to make a weeping willow laugh to see how nicely innocent people are cheated out of hours, minutes-ay, seconds. Good souls, they think that because there is a multitude stored away for them in the Future, they can afford to squander as extravagantly as they please; but they will find out, too late I fear, that minutes are precious gems, and hours worth their circumference in gold. Time flies with the swiftness of a swallow-days, months, and years glide by with the rapidity of a locomotive upon the Great Western Railroad, and we take matters just as cool and easy as though decline, decrepitude, and death were all a romance! But, let me tell you, dear friends, that there is a reality in all these, which you will but too suddenly experience. If you can't take time by the forelock, make a grab at his fetlock, and hang on like a Dutchman's dog to the tail of a mad bull. If there be anything in this world that I particularly despise, it is an indolent, lazy loafer, who lies down in the sunshine of self-content, and permits himself to be bitten by bugs and beset by flies, regardless of the scoffs and sneers of those who happen to be a little better dressed. Heaven knows that I am lazy enough to produce general stagnation throughout a neighbourhood; but I must say that thousands of my fellow-creatures, in this little city alone, are far less concerned for their temporal welfare than your very humble and most obse quious preacher. So little do I care about money, that while the hat is being passed round, I shall close my eyes and think up a text for the next sermon. Meanwhile, however, let me impress upon your hearts-let me instil into the minds of your children that moments are to be prized above rubies, and hours more valuable than the richest mines of Mexico, or all the wealth of the Indies. Time, my friends, as has been truly remarked by one of the Eastern sages, is a great deal "shorter than it is long." It is as much shorter than pie-crust as pie-crust is briefer than the summing up of a district attorney in behalf of the PEEBLES; and, therefore, it behooves us all that we should stretch it to its utmost possible tension -for there is nothing like making as much as we can of the little we have. So mote it be! BLIND FOOLISHNESS. TEXT.-I saw a mouse within a trap, Pray tell me, mousey-why?" MY HEARERS: Mice are foolish little animals; they sacrifice their souls for a crumb of cheese, the same as you do yours for a few lumps of gold. I can cobble up an excuse, however, for the mice: it is absolute hunger that drives them to destruction; but you jump into a pit of misery for the sake of something that you WANT, but don't NEED any more than a white bear needs mittens and an overcoat. Why will you ?-oh! why will you, brethren, for the sake of a shiny dollar, allow yourselves to be entrapped by the arch-enemy of mankind? My friends: in every path of life the devil sets his traps: and it is curious to see the funny beasts, birds, and reptiles he catches. Poor penniless creatures are driven in by necessity, and men of wealth and apparent respectability are caught by their own indiscretion at last. Many a priest has he counted as game; and it is but two or three years since he caught a bishop by the tail, in the state of New York; but as to how he escaped, thereby still hangs a tale -most probably by a compromise. What are the traps? you inquire. Why, my friends, every rum-mill, groggery, and tipplingshop (where they don't sell GOOD liquor) is a trap set by the devil to catch those who are guilty of not having over three cents in their pockets for the time being. My hearers: far be it from me to advise you to go to the devil, in any emergency; but avoid his traps. Keep out of Wall-street, Church-street, and never enter the doors where they retail distilled damnation-liquid hell-fire at three cents a go; and I wouldn't insure your souls, under a heavy per centage, were I certain that you imbibed alcohol at even a shilling a nip. Young men! look out for the traps and snares of the world, or you may have a chance to 66 squeal when it is too late for succour. Every pleasure hath its poison, and each sweet a snare, as hath been truly said by somebody. It was ever thus from childhood's hour"-yea, it always has been so since Nature was a little girl and wore pantalettes. And you, ye grey-haired worshippers at the shrine of Mammon! if you allow your avaricious propensities to get and keep the better of that divine creature called Conscience, you will worry out the remainder of your days in a cage of misery and torment-in a trap-cage set by Satan and baited with a sixpence. Brethren!one and all-don't be caught with chaff, sawdust, nor gold-dust; but pursue the even course of prudence and beauty; and should you happen to get into the mire of misfortune, Heaven, Hope, Patience, and Perseverance will as surely put you upon solid ground again as (by the looks of the weather) it will be a fair day tomorrow. So mote it be! TEXT. ON THE PRACTISED ARTS OF LOVE. Do anything but love; Or if thou lovest, and art a woman, Hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship, Never let him know how dear he is! Flit like a bird before him; lead him from tree to tree, Or thou wilt, like that bird, when caged and caught, MY HEARERS: I've found it all out-I have been teetotally bamboozled. I said, while under the hydrophobia of revenge, a few Sundays ago, that women hadn't any love; but now I begin to feel a little sorry about it. I've had all the girls, from the Bull's Head to the Battery, in my flax since then. One thought me real mean for uttering such super-diabolical sentiments; another said I didn't know anything about the nature of woman, or was too old to appreciate the influence of love in anybody; and others stuck to it that I must have been disappointed in some love scrape, and only wanted to fall out, for the sake of kissing and making it up again; and so I've catched it right and left. Now the fact of the matter is, I have been deceived. I was under the impression that, if there was any such thing as love in the girl kind, it would stick out so as to be seen with half an eye. But I see how it is. They hide their love, as my text says-I wouldn't have thought it—but Miss Landon has told them to do it; and she knows what's what, as well as that woman who broomed me out of the house a spell ago. O, these girls are cunning creatures! Well, I like 'em the better for their seeming coldness, since I am fully convinced that they actually possess a quantum sufficient of that exhilarating gas, called love,. which diffuses itself throughout this oviparous, sublunary world of ours, and impregnates the whole human race with witching symptoms of ideality, and engenders a spirit of good will among the gregarious sexes! As old as I am, I even LOVE the fair sex, for the shrewdness and scientific tricks they display when admirers are trying to coax them into the rat-traps of their affections. If further proof than my text offers is needed, that women are tinctured with the pure essence of love, I will quote a passage from Ovid, whose veracity is uncomoverable, and can't be disputed: "Girlandum qui loveabus, cupiderandum, et posse comitatus flirtie femini, hoc homo quid tobacco-juice con amoriso kissandum pro sighandum, sine desperando nihil faintabit." Now, my dear female auditors, having proved, fairly, directly, perpendicularly, horizontally, and collaterally, that Cupid is the fledgling of your bosoms, and true love the offspring of your hearts, I mean to go half the figure with you and my text in speaking of its exercise. It tells you to do anything but love-a stumper to begin with-can't go in for that. You ought to love, because it is the soul of that religion which cherishes peace and harmony on earth, and adds lustre to the diadems of angels in heaven. But you may conceal this love as long as you think proper. It is often the best way to make admirers think you don't care much about them, for they are sure to love you the more, and will use greater exertions to win you over into the moonshine of their affections. It's no use of telling you to hide your love under a bushel, because I know you oftentimes do it, whether or no. As my old friend Shakspeare says, you don't always tell your love, but let concealment, like a moth in a red woollen blanket, feed upon your damask cheeks. It's all right— perfectly right-go it, girls, with a deer-like shyness! Lead the lover on, from tree to tree, and flower to flower, like the eastern bird of hope, but don't let him come near enough to sprinkle salt on your necks, or you are gone sparrows. Keep just such a distance before him-and this distance will lend a very peculiar enchantment to his view; your defects, if you have any, will wholly disappear, and your beauties will glisten, like a tin teapot on the summit of a heavenkissing hill. [SHAKSPEARE.] Yes, as you recede from the lover's gaze, your charms will increase in splendour, inasmuch as the golden atmosphere of love will fall between, and you will appear before his treacherous vision like beings of light surrounded by a halo of glory. You should follow up this game till you find your pursuer is dead set on taking you into the ark of connubial happiness; and then you may allow yourself to be cornered up, but don't give up too suddenly, or it may spoil all the fun; rather contrive some way to get into close quarters-and even then, you must dodge round and try to elude every earnest grasp, till you find you can't struggle any longer with the giant impulses of the heart. Then yield at once in the blissful agony of submission, and say, Here, sir, I give myself away, 'Tis all that I can do. Follow this method, and you will secure to yourself such matrimonial peace and comfort as an abrupt union can neither give nor take away. I don't care what my text says-depend upon it, you will not be left to pine neglected, like a maiden robin in a solitary cage. No, my dear young females-a person who has experienced so much trouble, and used such persevering exertions to coax his dear turtle-dove to his bosom, will never forsake it, when once secure in his affectionate embrace. He will press it to his heart in times of danger, sorrow, and affliction, support and cherish it as the companion of his lonely hours, and cling to him even when the shears of Death are about to clip the conjugal thread, and separate them for ever. My hearers: happy unions may sometimes agree with hasty marriages; but the best way to ensure happiness is to live as though we were married but yesterday; and add to the present enjoyment the firm resolution of becoming more moral, more virtuous, more pious, and consequently more happy, till we are called upon to give in the sum total of all our virtues and vices, at the bar of Heaven. mote it be! So ON DANCING. TEXT.-Lost they not then all sense of present woe, In that wild dance? Thus musing as I gazed, Oh, it was beautiful to see them throw Up their sinister leg, and, with hands raised, Politely intimate, while poised so, At each gyration's close, that they did "jump Jim Crow." MY DEAR HEARERS: I have no doubt but the subject before me might be a source of bunkum delight to young men afflicted with levity, and girls of hyperbolical giddiness, were I to descant upon it according to their notions of fun, pleasure, and happiness, in this take-in sort of a world. I wouldn't have you think that I am teetotally opposed to dancing in every shape-for the very plain reason that I used to heel and toe it a trifle, ere my old legs had refused to perform the bidding of the will, as is now the case. But the fact is, I was wont to cut it down too strong altogetherI carried the step too far-went the double shuffle too mightilybut I couldn't help it. I was obliged to mind the music and keep up with my partner; and the way she would balance up, and rightand-left, was significant of something more than nothing. I soon began to lose health, flesh, cash, and morality; and finally told all the frivolities of the world to go to pot, and I would go to preaching preach good morals, moderation, temperance, love, and a particular cautious step in the scientific practice of dancing. I don't like the looks of such ball-rooms as they have lately, nor the way they manage matters. Artificial corruptness covers over and destroys all that beautiful simplicity which graces the domestic circle. The girls are all so titivated off with false beauty and flipperjigs, that a fellow loses his heart before he knows it; and the plague of it is, he don't know which of the fair ones has got it. Generally speaking, it's much better for him if he never finds it out; for he |