THE apostle Paul uttered a great truth when he

said " none of us liveth to himself." It is a great law of God, this inter-dependence one upon another, and one of the countless blessings that are daily showered upon us by His unsparing hand; blessed are we if we realize it. And to aid and emphasize this blessing we have this Divine implanting of sympathy, which if we cultivate in our hearts we shall grow broader and deeper ourselves, and at the same time enrich the lives of others with whom we come in contact.

There is no life that is free from bereavements and sorrows, springing it may be from a variety of sources, but the gift of human sympathy comes like a healing balm, or a sustaining stimulus that helps us to bear our afflictions and bide the time of removal, or encourages us to wait for the strength that is given to live under them.

Various are the ways in which it can be manifested, and the occasions which demand its expression. It is easy to yield it when death comes, or great trials or calamities that cannot be averted. But in the more common occurrences of life, it is often withheld to the hurt of both giver and receiver.

Especially is this the case where the one or the two feel the call to try and uplift and turn into a higher channel the lives of the many, who yet do not realize the beauties of true living as seen by these devoted ones. How often such have to press on in the line of duty bereft of the feeling of sympathy, and how those friends are treasured who have “only to look up, to touch every chord of a breast choked by the stifling atmosphere of stiff and stagnant society." When our hearts are filled with that love that would penetrate into the hearts by which we are surrounded, in order to warm them into interest in the good and true, and we feel that it finds no lodgement, then it is we are thrown back upon ourselves, and we long for solitude, to be away from the obstruction of humanity, that, happily, we may lay hold of the Divine touch. When perchance there comes some "gentle transfusion of mind" revealing sympathy in a fellow being, then the warmth returns, courage again revives and we press forward, every sense refreshed; it is a quality we can

not understand though it is ever felt, and if we permit its growth it will exert a power over us, and we will enjoy a fulness of communion with our fellows that we cannot measure.

Alas! that we so often stifle and repress this noble gift, fearing lest it lead us to go counter to our preconceived opinions, usages and traditions, forgetting that, now, and here, the Divine light will enable us to see, if we watch closely, how far and how freely this precious gift may be used.

DEATHS.

BROSIUS.—At Kennett Square, Eighth month 1st, Edwin Brosius, aged 60.

HAMPTON.-Departed this life, at Quakertown, Hunterdon county, N. J., on Seventh month 27th, Amy Clifton, wife of Morris Hampton, in the 73d year of her age; member of Kingwood Monthly Meeting; the last of the chil dren of Amy Clifton, long an acceptable minister.

HARRY.-On Third month 17th, 1885, James Harry, in the 54th year of his age; a member of Farm Grove Particular and Deer Creek Monthly Meeting.

He spoke consolingly to those who gathered at his bedside, saying he was perfectly resigned and was going home to a better world.

man.

He was much respected as an upright and exemplary L. T. H. MERRITT.-On Seventh month 28th, 1885, at her residence, near South Charleston, Ohio, after a long illness, Maria Merritt, wife of Edward Merritt, in her 70th year; an elder of Green Plain Monthly Meeting of Friends.

PEARSON.—In Kennett Square, Pa., Seventh month 21st, Sarah T. H. Pearson, in her 88th year.

SMEDLEY.—Eighth month 4th, in Fulton township, Lancaster county, Pa., of heart disease, suddenly, Sophia C., wife of Thomas Smedley, aged about 50.

For Friends' Intelligencer and Journal. THE NATURAL BRIDGE OF VIRGINIA. N the first day of Eighth month, we, having completed our intended sojourn, take a morning flight from the lofty vale of the Warm Springs, southward down the valley and over its rock walls, and down their western slope to Clifton Forge, striking there the line of the Richmond and Alleghany railroad, which bears us onward to the Natural Bridge, in Rockbridge Co., where we elect to keep our Sabbath day. Here is a home-like hotel of many comforts, which with great but fashionable modesty calls itself the "Forest Inn."

We have had a most magnificent forest and mountain ride through scenery of astonishing beauty and grandeur-twenty-one miles of which was by a stage as comfortable and agreeable as a nabob's pleasure coach, with a driver so skilful and so heedful that we felt not one needless jolt, and even wished the way was longer rather than shorter.

We passed through McGraw's Gap they say, and, certainly when we are a long way off, there is discerned a notch in the mountain line which is pointed out as the Gap, but driving through it one is not conscious of the break. From the summit, the view is of the kind that I do not remember to have seen equaled

elsewhere. We look southward, I think, over a vast succession of mountain ranges from which the River James gathers its forces. I believe I could see eight ranges, and could trace the valleys that intervene, albeit they were filled up brimful with a sea of mist. The vast expanse from the elevation was of the most inspiring character, and as our good steeds dashed down the steep zig-zags on the other side I was conscious of a thrill of joyous exultation similar to what I have known on the glorious mountains of other uplifted lands of glory beyond the Atlantic main. There is a tenderness of beauty in the vast expanses of Appalachian scenery which is unique. This stage line gives one short glimpses of the Healing, Hot, and Warm Springs, known to have charge of waters beneficial to mankind, and able to charm away the sufferings which physical sin entails upon the children of men. Virginia's great ones of the early times found joy in the mountain ways, and their physical, mental and spiritual powers were nourished by such interviews with the spirits of the hills as we to-day have known. What shall I say of the lovely flowers which smiled down upon us from their high places:—a golden-fringed orchis whose gracious face I had never seen before, a mighty army of elegant familiar forms, all luxuriant and beautiful beyond their wont,-and the gay cardinal flower with the proud red hat of its superiority, multitudes of the bell flowers including the most graceful clustered species, and many sorts which in our rapid descent we could not immediately recognize. Yet this is not the season of flowers on these generous and rain bedewed mountains. The great laurel tribe are quietly maturing their fruitage, and have dropped their resplendent petals.

What a wealth of oaks salute us gravely and with dignity as we go frivolously onward, and occasionally a grave and battered hemlock which gloomily and silently seems brooding over sorrows that are incurable. Then again vast spaces of the mountain slopes have been swept by forest fires, and blackened trunks and blasted boughs reproach the noble Prometheus who taught to primitive man the use of firewhich has the power and beneficence, but the blasting vengefulness of the demon gods. There was not a single bridge I think-our steeds plunging boldly into the dashing mountain torrents, and getting a delightful baptism as they breast the floods and bear us onward to our goal.

And now we have reached Clifton Forge, and here is the line of the Richmond and Alleghany railroad which is to bear us onward to the Natural Bridgesome fifty miles further. O, swift and easy we go onward over the fair and wooded Piedmont lands, reaching Natural Bridge station in the burning glow of a midsummer afternoon. A comfortable coach takes us through the two and a half miles of noble park road to the tempting "Forest Inn." This park is a noble domain of some 2000 acres of forest and mountain, which has fallen into the hands of an enterprising New Englander, H. C. Parsons. And what a domain is this! The proprietor has built himself, not indeed a lordly pleasure house where he should live for aye, but a broad windowed and verandahed cottage in the midst of his own scenery, hard by the

wondrous bridge; has provided ample and delightful hostleries which he has placed under the management of an elegant and cultured man of the most honored blue blood of old Virginia; has constructed roads and stairways to every desirable point, and has invited his fellow-pilgrims of the earth to come and dwell beside him in this lovely place. Angora goats, -gentle eyed, beautiful creatures,-look up unscared from the meadow path, or downward from picturesque crags upon us.

A party of excursionists from Richmond arrived just after us, and at night the bridge is illuminated with fire-works. Chinese lanterns and pitch torches light the pathway down into the rock canon in the limestone hills which this turbulent and unresting little Cedar Creek has cut out for itself, and over which the bridge has been thrown by the hand of nature. We can see nothing of either beauty or grandeur by this dim lighting, and partly feeling our way down by stair and by rock, scramble into the canon, where we may sit down and see what is to come next. "I do believe it is only a sell!" exclaims one doubting pilgrim; but just then a burning ball of pitch is suspended by wire, seemingly from the high heavens, revealing the imposing bridge above us, with the pure star-gemmed sky gleaming both above and below it.

Then came a succession of rockets with fiery trains and of softly revolving balls of fire, making visible the turbulent trout stream which rushes over the rocks below, and we recall the fine phrases which introduce this Titan work to us officially: "A mighty monolith, graceful in all its lines, painted with many colors, glorious in its majesty, and awful in its mystery :-a bridge of stone so wide that tribes and armies have passed over it to the West; so high that migratory birds pass under it to the South; older than the Pyrmids; higher than Niagara; spanning a river and uniting mountains; it was planted by God himself in the wilderness before time was." We are reminded too of the fervid words of Jefferson, who was for a long time its owner: "It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here; so beautiful the arch, so elevated, so springing as it were up to heaven." Hither came our Washington in his eager youth, and prefigured his career among the men of his generation by writing his name on this lofty tablet of the rocks, higher than any before him. Hither also, it is claimed, came Marshall, Monroe, Clay, Benton, Jackson, Van Buren, Houston and many other of the eminent in our country's history, and found their spirits uplifted and awed.

As we return up the rock stair we are met by a rushing cataract which plunges into the channel beside our path and by the light of many torches seeks its bed in the canon of Cedar Creek. We pause in pleased surprise, and wait till this mimic fury is spent and then return to our rest in the chambers at the Forest Inn, where is sleep and where are happy dreams.

The succeeding day is one of pure radiance and beauty. We have seemed to descend a long way from the valley of the Warm Springs, but are yet at an elevation of 1500 feet, and from our hotel we can see the

Peaks of Otter, and from the observatory on the neighboring top of Mt. Jefferson can count, they say, 100 peaks. It is an amphitheatre of mountains-of

For Friends' Intelligencer and Journal. A MOUNTAIN VILLAGE.

which are cornfields and homesteads, intervale meadows and brooks which hasten to replenish evermore the tranquilly rolling rivers which bear the commerce of other lands over the granite ledges of the Old Dominion. What tossing, and crushing and upheaval of the earth's crust in that far off time when these hills were formed from common earth, and scattered thus in perplexed artistic confusion, which is æsthetic harmony, perhaps to teach men aspiration, heroism, and the worship of the highest good!

"The groves were God's first temples," we know, and go forth in the dewy morning to ramble in admiration, wonder and joy up the canon of the Bridge; to find out the lovely Greek profile which has been sculptured from of old in the lofty outline of the bridge against the blue heaven, and which glances down in contemplative grace from its height into the troubled and muddy brook below; to take note of the mass of the waters which find an exit into the caverned depths of the earth from the very base of the bridge; to peer into cool unknown recesses of the saltpeter cavern, so serviceable to the Confederates in their struggle against fate; to seek the murmurous mystery of the Lost River which wanders on, forever unseen, by the pathway, and from which we may drink the delicious mysterious waters. There are seats at convenient distances, and here we rest, as we may, cozily, and at length return a little after noon-day deeply penetrated with a sense of the beauty, mystery, and majesty of scenes which I here visit for the first time.

The next day we take a comprehensive drive over some of the mountain knobs which constitute this astonishing possession of a modest private citizen. They tell us that this park has at least ten miles of carriage way as well as bridle and foot paths in abundance. We wonder how the enterprise of this liberal

carpet bagger" will get its proper pecuniary reward, but we can recommend any of our friends who want a period of summer rest in an elevated region, with noble mountain scenery, forest and stream, to try a week at the delightful hostelry of the Natural Bridge of Virginia.

Charles Dudley Warner, scribe and humorist of renown, was a guest here at the same time as we, and we had the pleasure of an introduction to him. I think he was (C writing the locality up," and probably his article on the topic of the Natural Bridge will present worthily the subject. I shall expect to see it in the Atlantic Monthly. Judging from his past record he will not over-state anything.

On the afternoon of Eighth month 3d, we took our departure on the Shenandoah Valley road to its terminus at the miraculous new city of Roanoke,where are an excellent hotel and other beautiful improvements the work of the same Philadelphia company that created the Luray Inn and its beautiful and valuable adjuncts; and here we spend our last night in Virginia.

S. R.

parts of Cambria and Somerset counties, Pa., there lies on the boundary line of these counties, a little village, which runs picturesquely up one hill and down another, and crosses by three bridges the two mountain streams which wind about it. This village, nestled down so snugly, quite off the line of any railroad, and far removed from the bustle and stir of the world, has been for many years a chosen retreat of Pittsburg artists. Thither they flock for their summer inspiration, and they find in this lovely country, so richly varied, abundant stores from which they gather their treasures.

tive, and very peaceful now, whatever it may have The village itself is quaint, and quiet and primibeen in by-gone days when men first called it “Scalp Level," the name it keeps yet, though no legends remain to tell how or where it came by it. Scalp Level troubles itself about neither the past nor the future, but lives on, year after year, with little change. In almost every house is the spinningwheel, and the women still spin the wool for their blankets, and carpets and stockings. In the evenings you may see them in their door-ways smoking their pipes; and on the Sabbaths when the preacher comes, (for he is only here once or twice a month), the young girls flock along the road to church, each in her plain calico gown, and stiffly starched calico sun-bonnet. Most of their faces are quiet and stolid, though one sees here and there a little country beauty whose bonnet is more coquettish than the rest, or a face whose modest sweetness recalls the poet's picture of the "faire Custance," when he says:

'Humblesse hath slayn in hire tirannye,
Hir herte is verray chambre of holynesse."
(Chaucer.)

On these Sabbaths, and on the three days of the week when the mail arrives, the farmers ride in from the surrounding country, a shrewd, sturdy set of men, mostly of German origin and speaking "Pennsylvania Dutch." They are mounted generally on good horses; for this is a stock-raising country, and the cattle and horses are fine. In spite of the abundance of excellent riding horses, the visitors to Scalp cannot often indulge in the luxury of a ride, for the farmers are loth to let their horses out to "city folks." But rare and delightful is the pleasure when it does come. The roads are good, and riding over these hills, past well-kept farms, through lovely woodlands, catching frequent inspiring views of the distant blue mountains, and breathing the invigorating air, make merely living, a delight. Many a queer, dark by-road is explored, and many uncanny nooks are peered into. A favorite ride is along the dusky road by the clear shady creek, across from which the long line of woodland stretches back unbroken for twenty miles. The deer and bear are still tenants of these forests.

The streams which run through the village are the Big and Little Paint,-suggestive names to us who long ago were introduced by Natty Bumppo to “ painters," and their cruel ways. However, to-day we can wander undisturbed by these true mountain streams

full of falls and rapids and pools, bordered by beautiful woods whose "fairy lanes" are one of the delights of Scalp.

Yet another delight is climbing the steep hill opposite. From its top we command a view of a magnificent country and our whole horizon is bounded by blue mountains stretching away ridge beyond ridge. The time to see this at its best is just as the sun goes down. But our most frequent twilight pleasure is going to the beech woods, to hear the thrushes sing. When we arrive we generally hear just one clear note deep in the woods: gradually as we go further in, we hear, one after another, song answering to song on every side, until at last we seem to stand within the very centre of the charmed circle, and are quite enchanted. We stay long to listen, and as we walk slowly back we say that in the press of our winter work, when we think of Scalp, the sight we shall oftenest see in our imaginings will be this splendid old forest of beech and hemlock, and the sound we shall oftenest hear will be the thrushes' twilight chorus.

Seventh mo. 30th, 1885.

COMMUNICATIONS.

C. E. B.

NOTE FROM GEORGE H. BRAITHWAITE.

Editor FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER AND JOURNAL:

AM obliged by thy courtesy in sending me a copy

of thy journal, containing a short notice of my "Refutation" of "A Reasonable Faith, by Three Friends." Wilt thou kindly permit me to correct an expression, probably the result of an oversight, which occurs in the notice, and does me an injustice? The sentence is as follows: "And the absence in his pages of any insistence upon the communication of Divinity with the human soul marks him as one who cannot trust himself to navigate the waves of this world's existence without a close dependence upon the letter of the Scriptures."

In several places in the "Refutation," I have endeavored to indicate very clearly that the guidance, illumination, and quickening power of the Holy Spirit is essential to a right understanding of the Scriptures, and that without it the Bible is a locked book, however great our intellectual attainments may be. No mere knowledge of Greek or Hebrew can enable any one to savingly understand them. It is the office and prerogative of the Holy Spirit to do this, as stated by me on page 23, where I say that "it is only through Him who gave forth the precious truths in the Scriptures that we can correctly understand them." Again, on page 51, I say that "He who is the centre and fountain of all true knowledge is the best and only safe guide to it.”

Further, I say, on page 13, "A Wickliffe, a Luther; and a George Fox all rejoiced in the truths which were revealed to them through the Scriptures; and under the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit they will ever remain the precious treasury of truth and as a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path of every real traveler to another and a better country.' I think these quotations from my Refutation" will prove beyond doubt that I only claim for the

Scriptures the power to "make wise unto salvation," when accompanied by a genuine faith in Christ Jesus, and when they are interpreted and applied by the Holy Spirit himself who inspired and moved the "holy men of old" to speak and write them.

This is clearly taught by our Lord, in John, xiv: "If a man loves me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine but the Father's which sent me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you, but the Comforter, [parakletos, one called alongside for help], which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you." (Verses 23-26).

I believe as strongly as did the early Friends that the greatest of all privileges under the Gospel is to be partakers of the quickening, sanctifying, illuminating and guiding power of the Holy Spirit, and without which none are truly qualified to teach and preach its precious truths. All Gospel truths are, however, relative, bearing each an inseparable relation to each other, and what is so much needed is the gift to rightly divide the word of Truth," (2 Tim. 11: 15), which power is not of man, but of God. Thine sincerely,

GEO. H. BRAITHWAITE. Horsforth, near Leeds, England, 24th of 7th mo., 1885.

[WE print, with pleasure, the note of our English friend. Whether he makes it plain that he does not primarily and chiefly depend upon the printed word of the Scriptures, we will leave without farther discussion. But we may explain that the feature in his pamphlet which was remarked in our notice is the absence of another and distinct thing from that which he shows to be contained in it. He points out above that he does insist that to read the Scriptures profitably, the mind must have Divine light. This all of us declare. But it is the foundation principle of our religious body that Divine light seeks entrance to the human consciousness, without any regard to Scripture, and that this direct communication is first and foremost, highest and most important. There are those who believe in and confide in it, and who, therefore, however much they value the Scriptures as additional proof that the Eternal One has in all ages communicated with His creatures, consider them as necessarily secondary. They are not the thing itself; they testify of it. Now, we thought, in noticing his pamphlet, that G. H. B. did not plant himself on that ground, firmly and conspicuously, but that, in sailing over this stormy main, he steered more by the chart which he found printed in the Scriptures than by the illuminating light "which lighteth every man." That was our impression.—EDs.]

TOTAL ABSTINENCE A CENTURY OLD. FRIENDS EDITORS:-In your paper of 7th month 18th, you speak of Joseph Livesay, of England, as being the first Teetotaler. He may have been for aught I know, so far as England is concerned, but many

Friends in Baltimore Yearly Meeting must have upheld this testimony more than a hundred years ago, for I have a distinct recollection of hearing, sixty years ago, the venerable Esau Thomas, then nearly ninety years old, at the head of that Yearly Meeting, while speaking in support of this testimony, say that he had not permitted a drop of distilled ardent spirits to pass his lips for more than sixty years. It is true that Friends of that day did not join with outsiders in trampling on the command of Jesus, in taking oaths, or pledges to abstain, their "Nay," guided by the light within, being an all sufficient support, as it is for all.

New York, 8th Mo. 2d.

I

MY CALL.

T.

HAVE a happy home. No shadow falls

Across the threshold of my peaceful life-
Love's labors light keep me in tuneful song,
And sweet contentment maketh rich my heart,
In this dear nest I thought to pass my days
Unmindful of the wider world beyond.

Walled round from wrong by true affection's hands,
I marveled much that any woman could
Seek more that this, if God had blessed her so.

I did not need to toil; and it was sweet
To sit and watch my lad and lassie grow;
To feel their loving arms about my neck,
And plan their future with a mother's hope,

But once, when they had gathered round my knee,

To hear the stories of the twilight hour.

I told them of the world's great misery

Of little children, who were,cold and starved,
And had no tender care, because a wrong,
Like the great monster of their fairy tales,
Had entered in and spoiled their pretty homes,
Killed all the love, and broke the mother's heart.
Then up my brave lad spoke, with flashing eye:
"Oh! mamma, can't you go and make them stop,
And I will go myself when I am grown."

That night when I had kissed their fair, sweet brows,
And said my prayers beside their sleeping forms,

I thought to rest, but all about my couch
Were little children's faces, starved and pale,

And weeping mothers praying me to come

And cry against this evil in the land.

No more my soul can sit in selfish ease;

At morn and noon and night I hear my call;
And when my children nestle in my arms
A voice says, sweet and clear," "Tis motherhood
Can feel for motherhood. Go forth and cry,
And these, thine own, shall catch thy spirit's call
And do a mighty work when thou art gone."
And I will go. It matters not if you
Who hear my voice shall say it is not best;

I follow on a form you cannot see.

And only thus my soul shall find its rest.

MARIA L. DRAPER in Salem (Mass.) Gazette.

And in our meadows, low and cold,
White violets bloom.

But some resplendent morn of June,
When sunbeams thrill with fervid power,
And sea-waves chant a murmurous rune,
Come, see our perfect flower.

From sunset skies of molten red

Her deeply glowing hues were wrought;
From pearly shell in ocean's bed

Her paler tints were caught.
Her tender greenery gently fills
With graceful, softened shape
The outline of the rugged hills
All round our Cape.

She flashes in the deepest wood;

We trace her by the brooklet's edge;
But most where billows harsh and rude
Beat on the cruel ledge.

Her dauntless smile we love to greet;
Life's central radiance through her flows;
Her fragrance makes the east wind sweet-
Our beautiful Wild Rose.

So, to our Duty's sober days,

By salt waves lapped, by sharp crags tornSo, to our sombre shaded ways,

Set round by brake and thorn

In modest pride of gracious youth,
With heart of love, with soul serene,
With dewy purity and truth.

She comes, our Eglantine.

-ELIZA SCUDDER, in Harper's Magazine for August.

BELIEF.

HE who holds a sincere trust

In the wise, the true, the just,
In the worth of noble deeds:
His belief is all he needs.

He who holds to truthfulness,
Dares be true and lose success,
Fears no scoff, if duty leads:
His belief is all he needs.

Know, O men, the light divine,
Not on one, but all doth shine;
Who in love life's lesson reads,
His belief is all he needs.

-Unity.

From the Chicago Inter-Ocean. NEGRO SELF-EDUCATION IN ALABAMA. CAME to Tuskegee, a characteristic Southern village of about 3,000 inhabitants, for the sake of seeing the most successful effort of the negro at selfeducation in this country. Candor compels the admission that, when, left to his own resources, the negro is apt to do slack work. This is the natural result of his residence in this country during the last two unhappy centuries. But there is one large school which has been under negro control from its inception, at which everything is done neatly, thoroughly, and with intelligent despatch. That school is the Tuskegee Normal Colored School. Here you have a small Hampton, which was founded and has always been managed by the colored race. This baby