m
r
VOL. III.
OXFORD, N. G., WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1877
NO. 31.
EVEKSOKG.
Prom caeii day’s care vro gladly flee
To find) O Lord, our rest id tlioe;
Our burden to Thy feet ttc bring,
Our sins to Mercy’s healing Spring,
We know that at Thy gracious voice
The evening’s outgoings rejoice;
To ns assembled in Thy Sight,
At eventime may there be light.
In Christ accepted, Lord, may we
The light of Thy salvation see;
Transformed by Thy free Spirit’s grace,
■Walk in the brightness of Thy face.
Thy favor crown each peaceful day,
Thy presence cheer each pleasant
way;
And when we walk through sorrow’s
night,
At eveiiingdime maj' there be light.
By every joy or grief wo find
Oiir hearts to Thee more closely
bind;
Trial and blessing, peace and pain,
All link out in Mercy’s golden chain,
And when life’s closing shadows como,
O may they find us nearer home! ^
Then in our souls. With heavOn in
siglit. , 1 ,
At evening-time may there be light.
—Fresbyterian.
XEMPEBANCE.
At a certain town meeting in
Pennsylvania, the question came
up wliether any persons sLotW
be licensed to sell fum. The
clergyman, the deacon, the physi
cian, strange as it may now ap
pear, all favored it. One man
only spoke against it, because of
the mischief it did. The question
was about to be put, when there
arose from one corner of the room
a miserable woman. She was
thinly clad, and lier appearance
indicated the utmost wretched
ness, and that her moital career
was almost closen. After a ino-
ment’s silence, and all eyes being
fixed upon her, she stretched hei
attenuated body to its Utmost
height, and then her long arms to
their greatest length, and raising
her voice to a shrill pitch, she
called to all to look upon her.
“ Yes 1” she said, “ look upon
me, and then, hear me._ All that
the last speaker has^ said relative
to temperate drinking, as being
the father of drunkenness, is true.
All practice, all experience, de
clares its truth, All drinking of
alcoholic poison, as a beverage m
health, is excess. Look upon me !
You all know me, or once did.
You all know I was once the
mistress of the best farm in the
town ; you all know, too, I had
one of the hest^—the most devoted
of husbands. You all know I
had fine, noble-hearted, industri
ous boys. Where are they now I
Doctor, where are they now?
You all know. You all know
they lie in a row, side by side, in
yonder churchyard ; all—every
one of them filling the drunkard’s
grave! They were all taught to
believe that temperate drinking
was safe—that excess alone ought
to bo avoided; and they never
acknowledged excess. They quo
ted you, and you, and you,
pointing with her shred of a
finger to the minister, deacon, and
doctor, as authority. They thought
themselves safe under such teach
ers. But I saw the gradual
change coming over my family
and its prospects, with dismay
and horror. I felt we were all to
l>e overwhelmed in one common
ruin. I tried to ward off the
blow ; I tried to break the spell,
the delusive spell, in which the
idea of the benefits of temperate
drinking had involved my hus
band and sons. I begged, I
prayed j but the odds were against
me.
“The minister said the poison
that was destroying my husband
and boys was a good creature of
God; the deacon who sits under
the" pulpit there, and took our
farm to pay fiis rum hills, sold
them the poison; the doctor said
a little was good, and the excess
only ought to be avoided. My
poor husband, and my dear boys
fell into the snare, and they could
not escape t and one after another
were conveyed to the sorrowful
grave of the drunkard. Now look
at me again. You probably see
me for the last time. My sands
have almost run. I have dragged
my exhausted frame from my
present home^—your poor house
—to warn you all; to wain you,
deacon ! to warn you, false teacher
of God’s word 1” And with her
arms flung high, and her tall form
stretched to its utmost, and _ her
voice raised to an unearthly pitch,
slie exclaimed, “ I shall soon
stand before the judgment seat of
God. I shall meet you there,
you false guides, and be a witness
against you all!”
The miserable woman vanished.
A dead silence pervaded the as
sembly ; the minister, the deacon
and physician, hung their heads;
and when the president of the
meeting put the question, “ Shall
any license he granted for the
sale of spirituous liquors ?” the
unanimous response was, “No!”
—Church Union.
EEE IN VIKGIMIA.
How He Came to SupekBede
Generai. Loking—His Boldness
IN Reconnoiteeing.
A FEAV AVOKDS ON BOBKOW-
ING.
What can be more annoying
to the careful housewife than a
borrowing neighbor? and who
can blame such an one if she
grows churlish at last, and refus
es the oft-repeated favor.
The borrowers, as a rule, are
the ‘ shiftless ’ ones of the world
-imprudence, rather than pov
erty, is the secret of their destitu
tion. This is probably the reason
why borrowers excite more con
tempt than passion, and why
they are so universally accepted
as fair marks for ridicule.
The woman who is always ‘just
out of’tea, flour, or sugar; the
man who has ‘just broken’ hoe,
spade, or plough, and therefore
claims his neighbor’s, have been
used in all times to ‘ point a moral’
as well as,‘adorn a tale.’ True,
the borrower is found oftener, one
may say always, in small towns
or villages; in large cities the
many changes of residence and
the close vicinity of their inhabi
tants tend to extinguish that sense
of neighborly obligation and mu
tual dependence upon which the
habitual borrower counts so
largely.
—Tasso, being told that he had
a fair opportunity of taking ad
vantage of a very bitter enemy,
replied> “I wish not to plunder
him; but there is something I
wish to take away from him^not
his honor, his wealth, nor his life
—but his ill-will.”
—The current coin of life is
plain, sound sense. We drive a
more substantial and thriving
trade with that than aught else.
When General Lee arrived at
Huntersville he found General
Loring busily engaged forming
his depot of supplies and organi
zing his transportation train. Sev
eral daj^s had already elapsed,
and several da}fs more would be
necessary before he could com
plete his preparations for an ad
vance. The arrival of General
Lee at Huntersville, as comman
der of the department, took Gen
eral Loring by surprise. Having
been his superior in rank in the
old army, he could not suppress
a feeling of jealousy. General
Lee was accompanied by his
aides-de-camp, Colonel John A.
Washington and Captain Walter
H. Taylor, After remaining sev
eral days at Huntersville without
gaining any positive information
from General Loring in regard
to the time of his probable ad
vance, he proceeded to join Col
onel Gilliam at Valley Mountain.
He took with him Major Lee’s
cavalry, not as an escort, but for
the purpose of scouting and re-
connoiterihg. It had now been
eight or ten days since Colonel
Gilliam first arrived at Valley
Mountain Pass. At that time he
learned from the inhabitants and
his scouts that the road to Bever
ly was unocupied. But within
the last day or two, a force of
Federals had advanced within
less than a mile of his front and
then retired. Gen. Lee at once
busied himself about gaining hi
formation respecting the position
of the enemy. He soon learned
the Federalsdiad taken possession
of a strong pass, ten miles in front
of Valley Mountain, and were
actively engaged in fortifying it.
When Gen. Loring arrived, about
the 12th of August, the iTederals
had been reinforced, and this po
sitionhad been so greatly strength
enod that Gen. Lee deemed it un-
advisable to attempt a direct at
tack, so the only course now to
be pursued was to gain the Fed
eral flank or rear, and strike them
when they least expected an at
tack.
General Lee had been distin
guished in the Mexican war as a
reconnoitering officer, and Gener
al Scott had been mainly indebted
to his bold reconnoissances for
the brilliant success of his Mexi
can campaigns. Rank and age
had not impaired the qualities
that had formerly rendered him
so distinguished. He brought
them with him to the mountains
of Virginia. There was not a
day when it was possible for him
to be out, that the General, with
either Colonel Washington or
Captain Taylor, might be seen
crossing the monutains, climbing
over rocks and crags, to get a
view of the Federal position.
Ever mindful of the safety of his
men, he would never spare him
self toil or fatigue when seeing
the means to prevent unnecessary
loss of life. By vvay of illustra
ting his boldness as a reeonnoit-
ering officer, 1 will relate an an
ecdote told me by Captain Pres
ton, adjutant of the Forty-eighth
Virginia Regiment (Col. Camp
bell’s). The Regiment being on
picket, seeing three..,men on an
elevated point about half a mile
in advance of the line of pickets,
and believing them to be Yan
kees, he asked his colonel to let
him capture them. Permission
being obtained, and selecting two
men from a number of volunteers
who offered to accompany him,
he set forth to capture the Feder
al scouts. Dashing through the
brushwood, and over the rocks,
he suddenly burst upon the un
suspecting trio, when lo! to his
amazement, General Lee stood
before him..—Philadephia Times.
in succession withoilt fain.
In the summer of 1749, 108
days in succession without rain.
in the summer of 1755, 42 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1762, 123
days in succession without fain.
In the summef of 1763, 80 daj^s
in succession without rain-.
In the suiiintef of 1791, 82 days
in succession without rain. '
POSSIBLE BETEBN OF THE
JEWS TO EGYPT.
Even before tlie destruction of
Jerusalem, the Jews, with theif
cosmopolitan instincts, were at
home in Egypt. Alexandria at
one time had an immense syna
gogue, which was regarded as a
rival Temple. The Jews of the
city seemed to imagine that Al
exandria was a new Jerusalem.
Its temple has been described as
an edifice of stupendous propor
tions, with a service of majestic
solemnity. Afterwards the posi
tion of the Jews, like the influ
ence of the patriarch Joseph, de
clined in Egj^pt. There are now
signs, however, of a revival of
their importance. Except the
Holy Land, Egypt is undoubtedly
“ the one land of all the land of
the earth ” most intimately con
nected with their history, and it
is possible she may yet play a
great part in the future. Accord
ing to the Jewish Chtonicle, a fine
new synagogue has been estab
lished in Alexandria, and it is
believed that if the industrial en
terprise of European countries
meets adequate return Egi^pt
may yet be a home for Jewish
emigrants, “to develop their
talents and exercise their industi’v
for greater work and with greater
renown, and with greater freedom
and profit, than did their enslaved
ancestors in bygone days which
have been enshrined in histoiy.
—N. Y. Observer.
In the summer of 1802, 23 da}’s
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1812, 28
days in succession wuthout rain.
In the summer of 1886, 24 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1871, 42 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1874, 23 days
in succession without rain.
It will be seen that the longest
drought that ever occurred in
America was in the summer of
1762. No rain fell from the first
of May to the first of September,
making 123 days without rain.
Many of the inhabitants sent to
England for hay and grain.—»
Greensboro Patriot.
WHAT THE BIBDS ACCOttK
PEISIli
POISONED BY EATING
matches.
As a caution to parents, we
would mention the fact that a
little colored child in Brunswick
county, a few days ago, was
playing on the floor with a box
of parlor matches, some of which
it managed to extract from the
box, placing them in its mouth
and gnawing off the heads, which
it swallowed. The child was
soon afterwards seized with con
vulsions, which ended in its death
the next evenini?.
DBY TIMES.
In the/ummer of 1662, 80 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1674, 45 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1689, 81 days
in succession without rain.
In-the summer of 1694, 62 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1704, 40 days
in succession without rain,
In the summer of 1720, 45 days
in succession without rain.
In the summer of 1730, 92 days
in succession without rain.
1 In the summer of 1742, 72 days
Tho swallow, swift, and night-
hawk are the guardians of the
atmosphere. They check the in
crease of insects that otherwisa
would overload it, Woodpeckers,
creepers, and chickadees are the
guardians of the trunks of trees.
Warblers and fly catchers protect
the foliage, Blackbirds, crows,
thrushes and larks protect the
surface of tho soil. Snipe and
woodcock protect the soil under
the surface. Each tribe has its
respective duties to perform in
tlie economy of nature, and it is
an undoubted fact that if the birds
were all swept off the face of the
earth, man could not live upon it;
vegetation would wither and die,
insects would become so numer
ous that no living thing could
withstand their attack. Tho
wholesale destruction occasioned
by grasshoppers, which have
lately devastated the West, is
undoubtedly caused by tbe thin
ning out of -the birds, such as
grouse, prairie hens, etc., which
feed upon them. The great and
inestimable service done to tho
farmer, gardener, and florist by
the birds is only becoming known
by sad experience. Spare the
birds and save your fruit; the
little corn and fruit taken by
them is more than compensated
by the quantities of noxious in
sects they destroy. The long
persecuted crow has been found,
by actual experience, to do far
more good by the vast quantities
of grubs and insects he devours,
than the little harm he does in
the few grains of corn he pulls
up. He is one of the farmer’s
best friends.—N. Y. Home Jour
nal.
The A-Tlantic Cable was elev
en-sixteenths of an inch in diam
eter—about the size of a dime.
The outside was composed of
eighteou strands of small wire;
next, six strands of yarn; next
three coats of gulta percha ; and
inside of all, seven copper wires
for telegraphing. The telegraph
ic cable weighed eighteen hun
dred pounds to the mile.
l!
v.i
Vi
lifli
ii
ii
hi-'
■ill
ti ^5
1.1