sands who want to "make money when they can." Suppose it is some business at which "several dollars per day" may be made, who knows that it is not some scheme to circulate the very vilest corruption! If it should be nothing at all, each letter stamp will put three cents into the hand of the advertisers. Small as the sum is, it will bring in enough to pay the advertising, and besides this, a boarding bill every week at least, which is an attainment not to be despised! If it is any thing that may live in the light, why does it put the veil of mystery over its face? Ought such doubtful schemes, of which darkness is the element, live in the bosom of a religious paper? This is designed only as a specimen of its kind.

Do these observations not justify the remark that our religious papers have degenerated under the influence of a secular spirit? This, however, as we believe, is the gentlest charge that can be made. We have much more grievous defects and evils to point out, which, on account of the length of our present article, we must defer till next month. Meanwhile let it be remembered that we speak only of religious papers in general, in regard to which we are confident our remarks will be received as neither uncharitable or unjust. Wherever there are individual exceptions, in whole or in part, to them we do not wish our strictures to apply,

We have

Nor let it be thought that we undervalue religious papers. already spoken of the mighty influence which it is in their power to exert. We ask only for a reformation, not a destruction: and for the accomplishment of this end, if we wish one thing more than another, it is that our voice might go much farther than we have any hope that it will reach.

GONE HOME.

THOMAS JEFFERSON GROSS.-This excellent young man, for several years one of the assistant Teachers of the Allentown Seminary, on the 14th of February last departed this life at the early age of 20 years, 6 months and 18 days. It was touching to see the whole school, to the pupils of which he had greatly endeared himself, follow his remains to the Cemetery, bearing in their hands bunches of evergreen, which they cast into his grave-at once a mark of their affection, and an emblem of their hope in the blessed resurrection. What an example to the young! This youth was yet in the early morning of life, and yet, by his piety and his industry in the service of others, he bound many hearts to his, and his grave is illumined with love and hope.

MAN AND WOMAN.

As unto the bow the cord is,
So unto the man is woman,

Though she bends him, she obeys him,

Though she draws him, yet she follows,

Useless each without the other.-SONG OF HIAWATHA.

GOOD FRIDAY.

FROM THE GERMAN-BY THE EDITOR.

The

GRADUALLY the sound of the church bells died away on the air. multitude of devout worshippers flowed forth from the house of God, and quietly dispersed, and a deep, solemn stillness proclaimed that holy Good-Friday evening had come. Dark and heavy over the earth hung the clouded heaven, and the pulse of nature scarcely awakened from the sleep of winter, seemed again to pause in fear and earnest expectation.

Anxiously the careful Pastor's wife sought the airy balcony of the parsonage to view the rising storm in the West. Here she perceived Minona, her tender blooming daughter leaning upon the railing, gazing out into the dim distance. Her eyes were filled with tears!

"What saddens you thus, my beloved?" asked the kind-hearted mother, as she took the hand of her sorrowing child.

But Minona said, "only let me weep, beloved mother, till my tears shall moisten the earth which once drank the innocent blood of the holiest Love! See! I have meditated on the time when the Godhead was a pilgrim on earth in human form. I have thought on that time of infinite blessing when the Eternal manifested himself to the gaze of mortal eyes. Bowed in deepest prayer my spirit was absorbed in the greatness of the offering, the remembrance of which we this day renew, while we call to mind that divine art which no human mind can fathom or exhaust and I shed blessed tears!"

Silently the mother pressed her child to her bosom, and Minona continued: "Let us, my dear mother, remain here yet a while longer. My spirit is full of sacred sorrow and longing; and here on this balcony it seems as if we were nearer heaven, where the Divine Saviour is, who has so infinitely loved us."

They sat by each other's side, and looked forth silently over the landscape. Closer and still more close the clouds drew together, and a sweltry breeze like that which precedes a thundergust moved the tops of the trees.

"What a gloomy stillness," began Minona. "So, perhaps, did the heavens mourn as they led the innocent One away to the heights of Golgotha!"

The horizon grew still darker. At length the somber canopy of clouds broke: flames of lightning spread over the gloomy firmament, and the thunder rolled in majesty through the vault of heaven. Minona, seized with holy awe, buried her face. "The Holy One is dying!" she sighed; "the rending heavens proclaim the hour of his death!"

The bursts of thunder grew still more terrible. The strife of the elements continued without rest along the firmament. At length the dark bosom of clouds opened; great drops fell to the earth; the angry heavens grew calm, and the thunder ceased. Peacefully echoed the evening bells through the dripping rain, like words of heavenly consolation that fall into the tears of sorrow.

"It is finished," exclaimed Minona, and she lifted her countenance in prayer to heaven. The cloud-arch was divided; the evening sun shone mildly out through the vista, and a sweet fragrance breathed over the earth, like the breath of spring.

"Do you see the heavenly light?" said the mother; "the night of the storm is past, and the blessed spring-time of earth is born!"

"Truth bursts forth triumphantly from the night of the grave, and sits upon its blazing throne!" exclaimed the joyfully revived Minona. For us her eternal kingdom is won!"

"Amen!" said the pastor, who had come softly near, "Amen," and they caught each other's hands; and their hearts were as full of blessedness and joy as if they had just heard the greeting of the Saviour: Peace be with you!

LOSSES.

UPON the white sea-sand
There sat a pilgrim band.

Telling the losses that their lives had known,
While evening waned away

From breezy cliff and bay,

And the strong tides went on with weary moan.

One spoke, with quivering lip,

Of a fair freighted ship,

With all his household to the deep gone down;
But one had wilder woe,

For a fair face long ago

Lost in the darker depths of a great town.

There were, who mourned their youth
With a most loving truth,

For its brave hopes and memories ever green!
And one upon the West

Turned an eye that would not rest

For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.

Some talked of vanished gold,

Some of proud honors told,

Some spoke of friends that were their trust no more,
And one of a green grave

Beside a foreign wave

That made him sit so lonely on the shore.

But when their tales were done,
There spoke among them one,

A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free-
"Sad losses have ye met,

But mine is heavier yet,

For a believing heart hath gone from me."

"Alag!" these pilgrims said,
"For the living and the dead,

For fortune's cruelty, for love's sure cross,
For the wrecks of land and sea!
But, however it came to thee,
Thine, stranger, is life's heaviest loss!"

SOME CHAPTERS ON HUMBUG.

BY THE EDITOR.

NO. II.

The big shark opened wide his mouth,
The small fish thought it wondrous fun:
"Come in, dear children," said the big shark,
"And let us love and all be one!"

WE shall make progress in our subject, and at the same time still fruther illustrate its nature by attempting an outline sketch of the history of Humbug.

The first humbug of which we have any account in history was the swarm of Babel-builders in the plain of Shinar. Here was the evil purpose here was the attempt to trick God-here was the humming swarm of poor deluded men.

The magicians of Egypt were humbugs. They imitated and counterfeited the true power. They deceived the people with sham wonders. They caused them to swarm around them to their own injury and destruction.

What a graphic specimen of humbug we have in Absalom. It is as if one of our modern political demagogues had sat for the picture. He wished to steal the hearts of the people in order to dethrone his father David, and sit as king in his place. Now mark how he proceeds: "Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate and it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel. And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him, and kissed him And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment: so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel." O, the dear people! How despicable, mean, and ridiculous his fulsome flattery of the people. How deeply dark and devilish his conspiracy against his father's honor and throne! He met his just fate. There dangles the humbug by the hair in the branches of the oak! Let all such as seek the office, instead of modestly waiting for the office to seek them, take warning! It will be a blessed thing for our country when our politics will have become more silent-when voters shall think more and swarm less.

In the time of our Saviour, humbug had a complete embodiment in the Pharisees. Mysterious and awe-inspiring! Complete tricksters; making prayers long for pretense! Blowing their trumpets to call at

tention to their holiness; and advertising themselves on their broad phylacteries. Paying tithes even to the mint, and giving alms to the poor to inspire confidence, and thus causing the widows to make them the depositories of their dowries, and the guardians of their children, and then devouring the widow's house and the orphan's bread-closing always with prayer! Here is humbug in its highest and truest form. A true humbug must always call in the aid of religion-he must cover his impositions with the cloak of seeming right. Even Barnum tells us that he always carried his Bible with him.

We cannot follow down the history of the world-though its annals are rich in specimens. It may be sufficient to remark that they are generally of the type of the ones mentioned. The hoary ruins of the Past show how extensively a humbugged race has been engaged in Babel-building. The annals of history are filled with the sham exploits of cunning magicians, who, in the employ of the Pharaohs in power, blinded the people, and if they did not hinder, they delayed the time of the people's deliverance. In the dim picture of the Past, if not by the hair upon the oak, then by the neck upon a gibbet, is seen many an Absalom who kissed the dear people for the sake of his own power and pocket, till they found him out. And can any one fail to trace, in the history of all ages and all lands, the generation of the Pharisees, who,

"In holy phrase, transacted villanies

That common sinners durst not meddle with."

Those who have not sufficient humility to confess the faults and follies of their native land, must excuse us when we say ours is the classic land of Humbug. In the circumstance of its being a country of motley inhabitants, with few ties to bind them to each other's interests, is to be sought and seen one reason for the prevalence of the spirit of humbug Then there is also the greatest amount of freedom enjoyed, opening the door for the great grab of cunning. To this must be added the great liberty and facility of newspaper advertising, enabling a puck to hum in the ears of millions in a very short time, from among which he cannot fail to call out a swarm to buzz around the wildest folly. Nor must we forget that American society and civilization, cut off in a way from the stream of the deep solemn past, and being in a sense an independent phenomenon, has as yet somewhat of a by-rote, light, rattling, and floating character. It is more active than earnest-more busy and bustling than sound and serious-its power is more extensive than intensive. It has the "do-duty" of the English, the variety and vivacity of the French; but not yet sufficiently the earnest inwardness of the Germans. Hence, as not in deep streams but in broad and shallow ones, we find innumerable funnel-like wire-suckers, so do we find the true power and glory of humbug, in that stage and state of civilization where the channel of history is not yet sufficiently deep to bring to us the steady treasures of the past-the well-tried wisdom of ages. The fact is, a nation resembles an individual: when it is a child, it is childish, whether that be the first or the second childhood. In a new country, therefore, or in one old and worn out, must we seek for the classic soil of humbug.

There is a philosophy in humbug which, however, is easily learned.