1858.] My Spelling Book. 203 MY SPELLING BOOK. BY THE EDITOR. WHEN this number of the Guardian reaches its readers, mid-summer will be upon us. The farmer will be in his fields amid the smell of hay and the waving of the golden harvest. The scene before him comes, it is true, by the kind hand of Him who is the Lord of the harvest, and yet it comes only through his own industry and care. He has toiled, and now the fruits of his labor are before him as the rich reward which always awaits the diligent. This is the fit time to give in our spellingbook reminiscences, the graphic story of "Thrifty and Unthrifty." How often have we seen men who might have sat for this picture. How true it is to the life. How full of instructive hints. We must especially wonder that as early as 1816, before the modern temperance reformation began, there should have existed such deep and clear convictions in regard to the great ruin caused by strong drink. Who can tell how many, now thriving farmers, have been guided aright by these lessons of the spelling book. Well do we remember the deep impression made on our youthful mind by this picture. But here is the story-let not the moral be lost. THE HISTORY OF THE THRIFTY AND UNTHRIFTY. "THERE is a great difference, among men, in their ability to gain property; but a still greater difference in their power of using it to advantage. Two men may acquire the same amount of money, in a given time; yet one will prove to be a poor man, while the other becomes rich. A chief and essential difference in the management of property, is, that one man spends only the interest of his money, while another spends the principal. "I know a farmer by the name of THRIFTY, who manages his affairs in this manner: He rises early in the morning, looks to the condition of his house, barn, home-lot and stock-sees that his cattle, horses and hogs are fed; examines the tools to see whether they are all in good order for the workmen takes care that breakfast is ready in good season, and begins work in the cool of the day when in the field, he keeps steadily at work, though not so violently as to fatigue and exhaust the body-nor does he stop to tell or hear long stories. When the labor of the day is past, he takes refreshment, and goes to rest at an early hour-in this manner he earns and gains money. "When Thrifty has acquired a little property, he does not spend it or let it slip from him, without use or benefit. He pays his taxes and debts when due or called for, so that he has no officers' fees to pay, nor expenses of courts. He does not frequent the tavern and drink up all his earnings in liquor that does him no good. He puts his money to use; that is, he buys more land, or stock, or lends his money at interest-in short, he makes his money produce some profit or income. These savings and profits, though small by themselves, amount in a year to a considerable sum, and in a few years, they swell to an estate-Thrifty becomes a wealthy farmer, with several hundred acres of land, and a hundred head of cattle. "Very different is the management of UNTHRIFTY. He lies in bed till a late hour in the morning-then rises, and goes to the bottle for a dram, or to the tave: n for a glass of bitters-thus he spends six cents before breakfast for a dram that makes him dull and heavy all day. He gets his breakfast late, when he ought to be at work-when he supposes he is ready to begin the work of the day, he finds he has not the necessary tools, or some of them are out of order-the plow-share is to be sent half a mile to a blacksmith to be mended; a tooth or two in a rake or the handle of a hoe, is broke; or a scythe or an axe is to be ground-now, he is in a great hurry, he bustles about to make preparation for work-and what is done in a hurry is ill done-he loses a part of the day in getting ready-and perhaps the time of his workmen. At ten or eleven o'clock, he is ready to go to work-then comes a boy and tells him, the sheep have escaped from the pasture-or the cows have got among his corn-or the hogs into the garden-he frets and storms and runs to drive them out—a half hour or more time is lost in driving the cattle from mischief, and repairing a poor broken fence-a fence that answers no purpose but to lull him into security, and teach his horses and cattle to be unruly. After all this bustle, the fatigue of which is worse than common labor, Unthrifty is ready to begin a day's work at twelve o'clock. Thus half his time is lost in supplying defects, which proceed from want of foresight and good management. His small crops are damaged or destroyed by unruly cattle. His barn is open and leaky, and what little he gathers, is injured by the rain and snow. His house is in like condition-the shingles and clapboards fall off and let in the water, which causes the timber, floors and furniture to decay—and exposed to inclemencies of weather, his wife and children fall sick-their time is lost, and the mischief closes with a ruinous train of expenses for medicines and physicians. After dragging out some years of disappointment, misery and poverty, the lawyer and the sheriff sweep away the scanty remains of his estate. This is the history of UNTHRIFTY-his principal is spent he has no interest. "Not unlike this, is the history of the Grog-drinker. This man wonders why he does not thrive in the world; he cannot see the reason why his neighbor Temperance should be more prosperous than himself-but in truth, he makes no calculations. Ten cents a day for grog, is a small sum, he thinks, which can hurt no man! But let us make an estimate-arithmetic is very useful for a man who ventures to spend small sums every day. Ten cents a day amount in a year to thirty-six dollars and a half-a sum sufficient to buy a good farm horse! This surely is no small sum for a farmer or mechanicBut in ten years, this sum amounts to three hundred and sixty-five dollars, besides interest in the meantime! What an amount is this for drams and bitters in ten years! it is money enough to build a small house! But look at the amount in thirty-years! One thousand and ninety-five dollars! What a vast sum to run down one man's throat in liquor-a sum that will buy a farm sufficient to maintain a small family. Suppose a family to consume a quart of spirit in a day, at twenty-five cents a quart. The amount of this in a year, is ninety-one dollars and a quarter-in ten years, nine hundred and twelve dollars and a half-and in thirty years, two thousand, seven hundred and thirty-seven dollars and a half! A great estate, may thus be consumed, in single quarts of rum! What mischief is done by the love of spirituous liquors ! "But," says the laboring man, "I cannot work without spirits-I must have something to give me strength." Then drink something that will give durable nourishment. Of all the substances taken into the stomach, spirituous liquors contain the least nutriment, and add the least to bodily vigor. Malt liquors, molasses and water, milk and water, contain nutriment, and even cider is not wholly destitute of it-but distilled spirituous liquors contain little or none. "But says the laborer or the traveller, "spirituous liquors warm the stomach and are very useful in cold weather." No, this is not correct. Spirits enliven the feelings for half an hour-but leave the body more dull, languid and cold than it was before. A man will freeze the sooner for drinking spirits of any 1858.] The Prairie Fire and the Rum Fire. 205 kind. If a man wishes to guard against cold, let him eat a biscuit, a bit of bread or a meal of victuals. Four ounces of bread will give a more durable warmth to the body, than a gallon of spirits-food is the natural stimulant or exciting power of the human body-it gives warmth and strength, and does not leave the body, as spirit does, more feeble and languid The practice of drinking spirits gives a man red eyes, a bloated face, and an empty purse. It injures the liver, produces dropsy, occasions a trembling of the joints and limbs, and closes life with slow decay or palsy.-This is a short history of the drinker of distilled spirits. If a few drinking men are fonud to be exceptions to this account, still the remarks are true, as they apply to most cases. Spirituous liquors shorten more lives than famine, pestilence and the sword! THE PRAIRIE FIRE AND THE RUM FIRE. BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT. THE prairie fire! at midnight hour A form of terror and of power, That walks the earth and licks the sky. The wild deer, on his grassy bed, Wakes from his dream of breaking day, Snuffs the hot blast, and bounds away. Where that destroying angel goes, Borne on the wings of autumn's wind, And all is scorched and black behind. But there's a fire along whose track As midnight in a hopeless tomb. Alike upon the low and high Falls this strange fire; it feeds and plays And melts down manhood in its blaze. In youth and age-its power is such- Is shriveled, and to ashes turned. Quench, holy Father, by thy power, By love and law, with spring and well, WHAT IT IS TO LIE, AND HOW EASY. BY D. THE Holy Word records many fearful warnings against lieing. In their twin fate, who of old, fell dead before the breath of the Divine wrath, we are awfully reminded of this sin's blackness, in the eye of the Infinite Truth. The plagues which carried terror and torture into Egyptian homes, were not less to punish the perfidy, than to subdue the stubbornness of that Pharaoh, whose repeated refusals after repeated false promises to "let Israel go," were remembered when the returning sea buried him and his hosts. Even the all-zealous Peter, who earnestly vowed his ardent attachment, and his eagerness to die with his Lord and master, rather than deny him-and after, in the hour of dire extremity, sealed his thrice base denial with cursing and swearing, when he remembered the prophetic words of the Saviour, and his own false professions, was seized with the keenest remorse and anguish, "he went out and wept bitterly." How dreadful was the self-executed doom of the traitor, who imprinted the lieing kiss on the pure brow of Holy innocence, and after that, returned to the temple, bringing the thirty pieces of silver, for which he had bartered away his soul, and saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood," cast down the detested treasure, and while the pangs of hell were torturing his soul, "departed, and went and hanged himself." The event again fulfilled the fearfully portentous words of the Saviour, "Wo unto that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born." These instances are adduced only to illustrate the fact that lieing is an all-prevailing human infirmity, to show how easy it is to fall into this temptation, and even from the highest pinnacle of sanctity to tumble into perdition; and to show how it is viewed and warned against in that inspired Word, which represents it as the very child and darling of the devil. The reader will pardon our adoption of the vulgar, unclassical Saxon word lieing, when it is considered in view of its fitness, its expressive force, and its universal use and sanction. We will not therefore attempt a definition, nor oppress the subject with gorgeous verbiage, nor convey such a simple thing to the reader's mind in such polished, spacious vehicles, as "false speaking," "perversions of fact," "deviations from truth," 'departures from verity," etc. We use rather that familiar word, which is coeval with the Saxon tongue, and coming down from the immemorial past, has ripened into a hoary hatefulness, which makes the quick resenting of "the lie," the first dictate of honor. Daring speculation may venture an answer to Pilate's question, "What is truth?" This question is irrelevant, although not foreign to our subject; for truth and falsehood are nearly related. Falsehood is only the negative of truth; if there were no truth there could be no falsehood. Before the world, truth was. It is a truth that the earth turns round 1858.] What it is to Lie, and How Easy. 207 on its axis once in twenty-four hours. It is a truth that it revolves round the sun once in a year. It is a trut thath water boils at 2120, and Petroleum at 320°. But how these truths are connected with the abstract truth which was before the world, is not clearly perceptible. All the truths of philosophy and science, the laws of nature are only cœval with this world, and had no existence before. All our rules and axioms, in relation to the "measurement of extension," however, may be excepted from this limitation; for they were true before the world as they are now. Space even is and was the same. It is to be presumed that in the Infinite and chaotic void, prior to the creation, an imaginary straight line was the shortest distance between two imaginary points; that then as now parallel lines would never meet, and that the three angles of a right-angled triangle are equal to two right angles. All such vagaries, however, are of no practical interest here. Although man's mind may not pierce into the eternal past, and learn what absolute truth is, for it is co-existent with God, he yet knew enough truths for the happiness of his immortal being; he knows that whatever violates any truth is a falsehood; that all truths are related; that they are the same in essence; and that every falsehood is at war with all truth. Every falsehood disturbs and violates the harmony of the universe, and strikes a discord, which vibrates through eternity. "Every truth agrees with every other truth, whereas falsehoods not only conflict with truth, but quarrel among themselves." It is not natural to lie. It requires an effort. It is an off-shoot of the corruption and perversion of human nature. A standard authority on the law of evidence, maintains truly that the most inveterate and habitual liar, tells the truth a hundred times to once that he lies; that unlimited credulity marks the age of infancy-that early childhood knows only truth-until it bears a falsehood, and has discernment to detect it -that it must learn to lie. Like many other things, the proclivity to falsehood is greatly modified by early training. Mothers often, unconsciously give their children the first start in falsehood. The fond and foolish mother practices many little deceptions upon the child; makes a hundred threats which she never puts in execution; promises the importunate urchin a hundred sweet things, which he never sees. He thus learns at the same time to doubt and to deceive. It is wonderful how the seeds of evil grow and strike root in the quick soil of the child's heart. He gets his initiation lesson in lieing from the maternal lips. In the course of time he gets to school, and there he is afforded many chances to progress in the subtle art. There is nothing to restrain him but the fear of detection and punishment. He finds it is a common thing with his playmates and he yields. To do a clever trick and get out of it is a master-stroke. To tell on another boy is cowardly and mean; to "lie him out of it" is the test of honor. To divulge the truth, often puts the poor lad under ban below par, until he redeems himself by some bold stratagem, which, perhaps, being the first essay of a novice, subjects his back to the inexorable birch. As he grows older, and travels farther on the journey of life, he finds falsehood and deceit to be the order of the world. I need not say how falsehoods increase and multiply-how many it takes to conceal one, &c.; this is all an old song to the school-boy. Lieing may become so habitual through long practice and encourage |