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nn 17 IT n PUBLISHED IN THE INTEREST OF METHODISM IN THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA- "Vol. II. EALEIGH, 1ST. C, NOV. 18, 1868. No. 44. SCOPAL MET J 4 r Christian Fruitful urns The whole force of the allegory of the vine and the branches is fruit The vine is planted for this; for this only it is watered, nourished and "pruned. If the want wp s1ln Ill Strength, or bpanfv tW n, KJilu,1.V and increasingly useful, tl , 7 " ' V-, liltT be no fruit, there is no use and but lit tle beauty, and the branch for it cannot be spared for what slight grace it possesses is cut off and withereth, and is burned. Such is the use of the Christian, that he may bring forth "the peaceable fruits of righteous- cess." He is God's workmanship, ! created in Christ Jesus unto good! Yvorks. Not to philosophy, systems of! politics or physics not to ideas, I Whether in prose or poetry, except I snbordinately is he called; but to holiness, the possession and manifes- j tation of the power of the Gospel in j holy tempers and acts. j If the Gospel is offered to the world j as the highest exhibition of the wis- j doni, love, and power of God, its claim to be thus regarJad in the esti mation of mankind must rest upon its effects as seen in its adherents. Fruit fcbrub.or the flower would be chosen, I :lbklinS in Christ and going on to per mit this is selected for the rich clus- j fection; hc is Jl trne brunch as eertain ters of luscious, life-givirg, life cheer-1 ly l Christ is the true i'1'- This is ing grapes which it bears. If there th,,t need concem tho hciiver to is the test of systems. This is the law j nteded respecting the same classes of of modern experimental philosophy; j auv olher peop!esave those of Ameri the mind is educated to it, and can j ca, The German lower classes are iu accept no other. Honor can be con- j comparably better off than those ot ceded to Christianity, and, tiro igh it, j England or France. Their education, to the infinite Father who originated ! ..t least, is better than that of th it onlv as it rotiilr'M hlirv--r.s 7 I n, mm i it-nuer.-5 ueiieuis. i oi , believers in Christ to increase in in- ! world, except, perhaps, New England teilectual acquirements, to grow in ; This single fact necessarily implies a worldly acquisitions, to advance in the j superior condition, in spite of anyspe multiplication of their social and po- j c;al drawbacks. litical rights, is well, but uoi enough. Iu all these respects, men have grown and may grow again without Christi anity; they must be ' rich in good works," iu those dispositions and deeds which spring distinctively from the Spirit of Christ, and overtop iu ; t heir sweep and majesty all the crea- j tlle am higher classes, especially in tions of natural impulse. The fruit j tllc northern sections of the country, which the Gospel produces, while , u.m. t t-laixxlc. a better physique than much of it will resemble the products tlje same .lsses iu England; for, as I of natural goodness, must yet be mar- , b;lvc heretofore said, they have the Iced in most of its attributes as essen- stontuess and vigor, without the ple lially Christian in origin; and its ten- ; tbora of the English. Nobler-looking dency must be to direct the miud of the beholder exclusively to God as its author. Thus, the appreciation of the fruit will reflect upon the husband man, and God will be glorified. The gardener docs not point to the thick ness of the vine a-d the luxuriance of the branches as the vindication of his 11 T 1 t 1 . il t 1 I 1 one of the clearest laws of God. Life j is nourished by the very activities to which it instinctively leads. "Seest thou how faith wrought with his j works, and by works was faith made j perfect?" A Christian can have en-; tire confidence either in his own ex perience or in the Gospel, on ly as he possesses the fruit of the Spirit in his heart and life. And as he finds the virtues of the Spirit enlarging will he be confirmed in the verity of both. Prayer, for example, is a fruit of the Holy Ghost, as no man can truly pray who does not do so in the Spirit. "For we know not what to pray for as wr nnrrbf. hnt. tbp. Soirit itself maketh j O intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." When one prays and the answer is given in the sweet assurance of divine acceptance, in an abiding sense of free and joyous moral power, in an additional readi ness and unction in talking of the things of God aud working for hi3 glo ry, how the faith is quickened! Conse quently, where a man of prayer is found, there is invariably to be seen a. Christian who neither questions his own discipleship nor the reality of the Master whom he follows. skio an.i caie, out 10 me quantity ana ; they are the hardest brain-workers in quality of the fruit. j thevorld, are notably healthful and In addition to the evidence which a j lon?livedf though not usually so ro large spiritual fruitfulness affords to j bust fla the other classes. There the real discipleship of a Christian, it j seemg to be in f.iet a liatUral tenden xhoald not be forgotten that a con- j cy in tbe rac0 to muscular develop Rtant growth is necesssary to establish j nent The universal attention to he believer. He will be confirmed in physical education among the middle discipleship in proportion as he finds I an j higher classes brings this tenden in himself the proper fruits of a new ! cy to splendid forms of size and svm life. The Apostles wrought miracles j metry. Among the peasants and ai by faith, and then believed all the j tisans, overwork rarely turns it so more firmly because of the miracles. ! much into forms of feebleness or dis The reflex influence of the productive j ease as into deformity an.i sioli.lnx. working of any principle upon itself is ; Their muscular system is not only lie, then, is most the disciple of Je sus, both for others and himself, who is the best and does the best. Doing good out of a full and loving heart is i the m, flsure of the Christian. To ' 2iU12e lie discipleship of any believer, j itis not Sf) necessaiT to inquire for i Iliscrcecl or his church as to ask if he hring forth much fruit. If the life be he is uu growing iu iruuriuuess. man would take care of his health by drop ping his hands and nursing his heart. The Christian will promote his vital power not by manipulating his faith, but by the obedience to which it im pels. JLife in Germany. BY THE REV. DR. STEVENS. the people. I have said that thev Germans are he most ' comfortable' people, know best how to enjoy material life, of any ruce in Europe: but I have been cart - ful to except the lower classes. Yet, even this exception needs qnalifiea- ' tion more, perhaps, than would be i it t c 4i same classes in any other part of the The peculiar German physique se cures superior general health, and, of course, this is an inestimable advan tage. A certain authority says l hat, 'in physical development, the Ger mans stand superior to either the La v- iu or the Sclavonic race.' The mid- men cannot be found than the mercan tile and financial classes of the great northern cities Bremen, Hamburg, etc. You see them largely represent ed, in summer, at the island of Heli goland; and no English watering place can match it for superb forms. The literary men, notwithstanding strong, but heavy. Among t.h ; ' r.u ai aud iaboring population,' says a good authority, ' stoutness and strength of ten approach to clumsiness.' The agility of the Latin race prevails in all it ciagses, and the walk of the French man or Italian is a semi-dance; but the German knows nothing of this alertness, except as a matter of scien tific study and oxperimentalism in his 'gymnastics' or his Turnvereiu; and there, as in all other matters of study, he beats the world, for he has the best original muscle for such training. But it never comes to him spontane ously, from wiry nerves, as with the i rencuman or xiaimu. The peasants and laborers generally are a depressed class; the density of the population and the lowuess of wa ges forbid any hope of their rising out of the material condition iu which they are born. Their very school ed ucation has to yield to his hard aud sad necessity, f r, by the time it is ad vanced enough to excite intellectual aspiration and open the vista of a higher career, the puasant youth must join his fath er, nay, even his sisters and mother, in the work of the field; and there, in most cases, hope, for anything besides the monotonous drudgery of his ancestors, vanishes. He becomes stunted by premature or excessive labor; his once awakened mental faculties become stolid, and he resigns himself to his fate, patiently but hopelessly, unless a hopeful call from across the Atlantic reaches him. The fate of the women in this re spect is indeed sad the saddest fact in Germany. You see more of them than of men in the fields, and, by some barbarous traditional custom, the hardest work seems to devolve srvpo'u them; at least, this is apparently the case in those beautiful regions of the Rhine and the Necker. All things here are beautiful but woman; even the charms of young girlhood are rare withered by hard field labor in ehild- j hood itself. You see women not only j digging, hoeing, or carrying on their ! backs large baskets of manure up the mountain-sides, but actually side by i side with dogs, mules, or cos (for .... ii i cows more tuau oxen or norses are draught animals here,) drawing heavy loads along the hot, dusty highways, j their skin tanned to leather, their fea tures shrivelled, and their contours changed to sinewy outlines, which, were it not for their hair and apparel, would render them undisf ingnishable from the overworked men of their suf fering class. This depressed condi tion of woman is the greatest detrac tion I know of from the honor of Ger many; a deplorable debasement of its national character a reproach which its rulers and learned classes should not be willing to tolerate. It is foun- ded chiefly, indeed, in the material ' condition of the lower classes, but the prejudices of caste life and the par tialities of government deepen and perpetuate these conditions. They coull be relieved, if the7 could not be ar once rectified, and the higher class es are m sUy responsible for this na tional shame. But, with this hard fate, the Ger man peasant contrives to enjoy life, more than the same class of popula tion in anv other European country. Though his cattle are usually under the same roof with himself, he keeps them at one end of his house; and the other, with its earthen or stone floor, is tidy w-ith cleanliness at least The people are universally and passiouate ly fond of flowers, and almost every house is decorated with them at its window's, or in little garden plats. They have all learned music at school, and they keep on singing if every oth er acquisition of their school days must goby the board; but itis not seldom thai they retain their love of books, and then the great poets and popular writers are a consolation to their hum ble lot. Perhaps no author has giv en them more of such entertainment than the American, Fenimore Cooper. He is incomparably more popular here than at home. Every village and ham let has its ' bier-garten,' or similar re sort, where these poor 4 boors,' with their wives and children, repose and regale themselves, especially on their festive days; not with the drunken clamors of similar places in England or America, but with social converse and decorous gayctv loving good mu sic, and keeping L-ood hours. Their beer, tobacco, and Sabbath notions may be condemned by the American spectator, but he cannot help rejoi cing with them in their rest and cheerfulness, and bid them God-speed in their almost solitary hope of refuge and deliverance in America. Da "iie Parents. A Scotchman, returned home from an American tour, gives some amu sing illustrations he met which helped to explain what a New England lady meant when she said, ' I am learning to be a docile parent:' 'Parents, obey 3'our children in all things,' is the new idea. It is not, af ter all, so great a stretch to anticipate, as somebody suggests, that we shall by-and-by see on the signboard of some American store: 'John Smith & Father." Let it nt be supposed, however, the American children are rude, or ill behaved. On the contrary, they struck me as more polite, more considerate, more ord'-rty, as a general rule, than our own; but- they need to be dealt with in a different way. You must ar- peal to their reason and good sense. If you appeal merely to your own au thority, you are apt to get a pert an swer. ' Remember who you are talking to, sir!' said an indignant parent to a fractious boy; 'I am your father, sir.' 4 Well, who's to blame for that?' said young impertinence; 'taint me!' One little boy, to whom I have al ready referred, was making himself very disagreeable on one occasion when his mother had him with her on a visit to some friends. She took him to the bedroom, and told him that if he did not behave himself she would shut him up in the closet. 'You can't. There ain't a closet here,' said the child triumphantly. 'I'll put you in to that wardrobe, then.' 'No, you won't,' 'I will.' 'You try it!' She took him instantly, put him in, aud turned the lock. Thereupon Young America began to kick up a tremen dous noise inside, battering the doors of the wardrobe as if he would have knocked them off their hinges. His mother, fearful that he would do mis chief, either to himself or to the furni ture, and remembering that the house was not hers, took him out and said, in great distress: 'O, George, I don't know what to do with 3-011 !' ' Don't you?' said he, looking up into her face. ' No, indeed, I don't.' ' Then,' said he, 'if that is so, I'll behave;' which he accordingly did, marching into the other room widi her, and con ducting himself for the rest of the evening like a little gentleman. She had capitulated given up the strug gle for authority. He was now beha ving on his own responsibility. This case suggests another which illustrates the same point, but has a grotesque feature of its own. A gen tleman in Northampton, with whom I spent a very delightful week, and who belongs to one of the old Puritan fam ilies, told me that for several years he had tried whipping with his boy, but found it ineffectual. On one occasion the bo' was caught in an oft-repeated fault. His father took him to his room; upbraided him for his persis - tent disobedience; reminded him ( which was probably unnecessary) that he had several times been obliged, in the way of parental duty, to apply the rod of correction; that it seemed to have as vet been in vain; that he was much disheartened, and was at a loss what to do with him. A bright thought occurred to the boy. 'Fath er,' said he, ' suppose you pray.' The father was a good man, and could not refuse to do this. But having a strong suspicion in his mind that the boy had susrerested this Christian exercise in order to escape punishment, he pray ed for the young reprobate first, and whipped him afterwards. He told me, however, that ho had never been able to make anything of the boy till he gave up flogging and appealed to the b-y's sense of what was right and proper. Englisla Farm Laliorers. Let Americans take new pride in their country as the asylum of the na tions, while they read these outlines of a farm laborer's life in the west of England. The statement is from a paper read before the British Scien tific Association, by a clergyman per sonally familliar with the facts of which he wrote: Nowhere has the improvement of the agricultural laborer kept pace with that of the land owner, the farmer, and the land itself. In the west of England the condition of the laborer is very' little improved, and in some respects is worse than it used to bj Wages are low; fuel and provisions J are dear; education has become a nec essary of life for a family; the poor rate is so administered as to quench every feeliug of independence. In the west, of England an agricultural laborer had, till latelv onlv 7s. or 8s. a week, and now only- 8s. or 9s., (about. $2 gold), Unless he is a horsekceper or a shepherd, he has to pay out of this Is. to Is. Gd. or more a week for house rent, and provide j food, clothing, medical attendance, fuel, and every other necessary for himself, wife and family. Potato ground he pays a high rent for, and fuel he seldoms gets, except at the cost of as many hours of hard work in getting it as its full value. j He has three pints or two quarts of . dustry, be made tributary to the Lap cider a day, and has a portion of piness and dignity of man. God has his wages often paid in quit, which, j imposed on man the necessity of ln when corn is dear, is an advantage, 1 hor. If he rebel against this ordi but otherwise a loss to him. He is j nance, want, the most inexorable of often not allowed to keep a pig or ! masters, will teach him subordination poultry, for fear of stealing food for ; and summon hunger, nakedness and them from his master. Ho works ( pain to enforce his instruction. To nominally ten or ten and a-half hours esteem labor lightly, then, is to ru a day, with an hour and a half deduct- ! proach the ordinance of God. Has ed for meals lie is almost always. however, in reality- kept much longer time than this, and is seldom paid anything for over-lime, except by bread and cheese in harvest iime. Women get 7d. or 8d. a day for out door work, with a quart of cider, and boys small sums in proportion. The men breakfast before they leave homo 011 tea-kettle broth, which consists of an infusion of bread and water, with a little milk, if, which is not often the case, it can be got. For luncheon and dinner, which they take with them, they have coarse bread and a little hard, dry skim milk cheese, at 3d. per pound. For supper, on their .letnrn hom e, they have potatoes or cabbages, with a very small slice of bacon, sometimes, to give it a flavor. Butcher's meat they seldom see, ex cept it is given to them. They are unable to lay by anything, and few comparatively belong to benefit socie ties. They are long lived, but even in their prime are feeble, and at the age of 50 often crippled with rheumatism, the result of poor living, sour cider, a damp climate, hard work and anx iety comb ined. There remains noth ing for fhem, then, but parish pay and the workhouse. HowrMr;cH.-How much better is your farm than it was onej'ear ago ? How much better are your implements ? How mnch more lovely have you made your home by the planting of trees and shrubs ? How much have you ad ded to the value, of your property by the planting of orchard trees and the small fruits ? How much better is your stock of horses, of sheep, of cat- tle? IIow mach of error have you discovered in your mode of treatment of the different crops you have grown ? How much have you learned from 3Tour neighbors, from your agricultur al papers, from your experience in relation to your farm operations? How much have you done to aid your wife and daughters in their house hold duties by furnishing them with improved household utensils and the bettei location and arrangement of wells, cisterns, walks, wood piles, cel lars and dairy rooms? How much of kindness and charity have you exer cised toward the needy and the help less ? How much better husband, father, brother, man are yon than you were one year ago ? Now is he time to reflect upon all these things. --Prairie Faioieu. Labor. He v. J. B. Jeter has writteu an ar ticle on this subject for the Seminary Magazine, from which the following extract is taken: A life of idleness is not only worth less, but contemntiblc. Neither ! wealth nor rank can efface this blot from human character. An idler is an excrescence on the body politic, in creasing in weight, but diminishing its stregth and beauty. An industri ous shoe-boy is more meritorious than an indolent prince. Why should not hone&t and useful labor of ev..ry kind be deemed respectable ? The Creator has ordained that man shall labor. When he came from His plastic hand, in a state of perfection and loveliness, he was placed amidst the bloom and fruits of praradise, to dress and to j keep it. When driven on account of transgressions from the bowers of Eden, he was doomed, as much in mercy as in judgemant, in the sweat of his face to earn bread. The au- thor of our being has endowed us j with faculties for laboring and our bodies are formed for exertion and the endurances of fatigue, and our hands are admirably constructed as s of art. We are surround- i instruments ed with means of useful toil. In obe dience to well directed effort, the earth will jield her bountiful increase to re ward the husbandman. And all the riches of the mineral, vegatabie and animal kingdoms, may, by skilful in- God made that essential to man which is derogatory to man ? It cannot bo He who ordained that man should la borwas worthy of him. - Random Readings. The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding sea of gore. It is as great a mercy to be preserv ed in health as to bo delivered from sickness. Knowledge, even of Gospel truth, U emptiness, unless love, practically ex ercised toward God, and man, accom- 1 panv it. If a man has any religion worth having, he will do his duty and not make a fuss about it. It is the empty kettle that rattles. An ill-natured woman at Saratoga says that "some women dress to please each other; some to please men, but the most dressy women don't dress to please anybody; they dress to worry women." A lady asked a minister whether a person might not bo fond of dress and ornaments without being proud: 'Mad am," said the minister, "when you seo a fox's tail peeping out of a holo you may bo sure the fox is with in." When the good and the lovely die, the memory of their good deeds, like the moonbeams on the stormy sea lights up our darkened hearts and lends to the surrounding gloom a beauty so sad and so sweet that tvo would not, if we could dispel the dark ness that environs it. To be insensible to the charms of piety, and the beauty of holiness, is to be entirely wanting in the best senso and taste a man can have. Whatever is excellent and desirable in the uni verse of God concentres in holiness. Holiness is the ultimatum of human hopes and happiness. 7 The pra ytr which Socrates taught his disciple Alcibiados deserves a placo in the devotions of every Christian: "That he should beseech the supremo God to give him what was good for him, though ho should not ask it, and to will hold from him whatever would he huriful, though he should be so foolish as to pray for it." Buskin says people's eyes are so in tensely fixed en the immediate opera tion of money as it changes hands that they hardly ever reflect on its first origin or final disappearance. They are always considering how to get it from somebody else, but never how to get it where that somebody else got it. Whereas, the real nation al question is not who is losing or gaining money, but who is making and who destroying it. The absurd effort at refinement by which would be genteel people speak of a gentleman's "lady" when they mean his "wife, thereby not only sac rificing definiteness, but actually al lowing a dubious meaning of unpleas ant character to be possible, is well shown up in this significant inci dent: "Can't pass, raarra," said a stern sentinel ol the navy to an officer's la dv. "But sir, I must pass; I am Captain W's lady." "Couldn't let you pass if you were his wife." Beautiful Extiuct. The following waif, afloat on the "sea of reading," we clip from an exchange. Wo do not know its paternity, but it contains some wholesome truths, beautifully set forth : Men seldom think of the great event of death until the shadow falls across their own path, hiding forever from their eyes the traces of the loved ones whose living smiles were the sunlight ' of their existence. Death is the great antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feast. We do not wish to go through tho j dark valley, although its passage may leod to paradiBo; and, with Charles Lamb, we do not want to lie down iu,. lilt. IJUUUltJT glitic Cicu iuui jiiua uu princes for our bed fellows. But tlio fiat of nature is inexorable. There is no appeal or relief from the great law which dooms us to dust. We flourish and we fade as the leaves of the forest, jand the flower that blooms. ( V
North Carolina Christian Advocate (Greensboro, N.C.)
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Nov. 18, 1868, edition 1
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