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sit around the fire until their chill has passed off, and then resume their work."

In reference to the number and progress of her pupils, she states, "I have counted fortythree or forty-five every day, and flatter myself that I can see an improvement daily. I have some scholars who have never missed a single day since I first came to South Carolina.

"I enjoy the opening exercises in the morning. The colored teacher we have assisting us is a very good singer, and we have taught the children a number of beautiful little hymns, which they sing very sweetly."

ISABEL LANAIR, a colored teacher at Mount, Pleasant, is still supplying the place of Esther Hawks, (who, at last report, was still delayed from reaching her school by impassable roads in that portion of Florida from which she is to come ;) and is giving satisfaction to our other teachers located there, who have a supervision over her school. Her report is confirmatory of the estimation in whi h she is held. She has 70 pupils-all between 6 and 16 years of age41 write, 43 read, with 27 in the alphabet.

every week for that abomination. The progress of the school is very encouraging, and they are governed easily. My health is good, and though almost entirely cut off from all society, I am contented and very happy, and much pleased to be here."

CAROLINE THOMAS, at Leesburg, Va., writes, "My evenings are very much occupied since I have commenced teaching night-school, but it is well to be so, as I am better satisfied to be doing something. There is so much to do here that I sometimes feel worried, and as though I had just commenced. O! if the people here would arouse to a sense of this great work—take hold of it, and help me along-it seems as though we could do much more.

"At times when I look ahead, I am almost discouraged, and must needs take a glance at the past, and with this contrast I can then see and know it is well for me to be here. The improvement in the children has been such that one can scarcely believe they are the same. I have so many little creatures who require so much patience, and who have not the right kind. of home training, as playful as kittens, but a great deal naughtier, that daily my prayer goes up for patience, patience."

MARY MCBRIDE, at Fairfax Court House, Va., gives a very satisfactory account of her school, and states, that in addition to the 39 pupils she reports as in the first, second and PHILENA HEALD, at Falls Church, Va., third readers, she has "four who can read any-states: "The anxiety to gain knowledge, manithing set before them; they have been through fested by many of the pupils, is a constant inthe fourth reader long since."

centive to renewed effort and increased earnest

She also informs, that in consequence of in-ness on my part. My interest has been esdisposition for one or two days, she had to place the school under the entire care of Maggie Lewis, (her colored assistant,) and that, during her absence, her school was visited by two cler gymen, who subsequently reported to her that they found the school in excellent order. Although apparently a trifling circumstance, it is gratifying to know that one who has received er instruction under our auspices, is not only capable of imparting her knowledge to others, but also of maintaining discipline in a school.

SARAH ANN STEER, at Waterford, Va., in addition to her satisfactory report, remarks, "Since my last report, I had a pleasant visit from D. F. W., of Philadelphia. She expressed herself pleased with the appearance of my school, which was truly gratifying to me.

SARAH M. ELY, located near Lewinsville, Va., regrets the small size of her school, but looks forward to an increase when the fall work is completed; and in reference to the attendance states that four pupils have beer present every day, and three absent only one day each adding

"I have a deep interest in the school and the people. I have tried, and shall try again, to get them to place something every week in my hands, if it is only half what they spend for tobacco, but so far they will not consent to that arrangement, although they spend considerable

pecially awakened in a young woman who has commenced coming to school lately. She has no mother, keeps house for her father and brothers, but comes to school whenever she can possibly leave. She did not know her alphabet, but in less than a week she has learned to read in four letters, and is trying hard to learn how to write and cipher. She is a fine, noble girl, and is very grateful for the privilege of schools, never before having had an opportunity to attend. My heart goes out to her in tender sympathy." She adds:

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Joseph Horner and Charles Kirk have visited us most acceptably since last I wrote to you. The former is visiting the colored people in a religious capacity, and his concern extends in a special manner to South Carolina and Georgia. They had a meeting in my school room, and the advice given was truly excellent and very practical. I am sure the people must have been benefited thereby. To me this visit was a most welcome one, and it seemed very home like to have those with me who used the plain language. Their presence did my heart good, and the precious season of silence, ere the words of encouragement were uttered, was to me rich in blessings."

FRANCES E. GAUZE, at Hermion Station, speaks of a prospective increase in the size of her school after Christmas, and feelingly alluded

to a "great loss" they have sustained by the death of one of her pupils, a girl of 13 years of age; adding, that her schoolmates feel it deeply "The day before she died, she sang a beautiful hymn that she had been accustomed to sing with her playmates at school. At her funeral, which took place on Thanksgiving day, my pupils stood around her coffin and sang the same hymn. They sang it so mournfully, and seemed to feel it so deeply, that there were but few dry eyes present." She also speaks of some of the little ones not being able to come to school for want of shoes and stockings, and acknowledges the receipt of a barrel and box of sundries for them; remarking, "My Kennett friends are certainly very kind to remember us, and to send so many articles of warm clothing for the poor and needy. They are lending to the Lord, and will be amply repaid."

CATHARINE E. HALL, at Vienna, Va., reports a considerable increase in her school, but regrets the roof and weatherboarding of the house are insufficient to keep out the rain and snow. Consequently on very stormy days no school can be held.

very considerable interest, having a tendency as some of us think, to "stir up the pure mind by way of remembrance," and a feeling of regret is oftimes experienced that more of our friends are not present with us to share our enjoyment.

Philadelphia, 12th mo., 1867. J. M. E.

A WONDERFUL SPINNING MACHINE.

The stratagems employed by insects for the capture of their prey are very curious, and af- . ford to naturalists an exceedingly entertaining and interesting study. The ant lion digs a tunnel shaped pit in the loose sand, and fixing itself in the depressed apex, catches and devours the ant or spider which is so unfortunate as to fall into its snare. But no species of insects excel the different kinds of spiders, in their ingenious devices for securing their prey. The spider, though wingless, feeds on flies, and its food must be captured on the wing. But how can it accomplish such a task? Were we. not familiar with its web sand nets, the structure of such snares, by an animal so minute, would not fail to excite our admiration and wonder. As it is, we look upon the spider web as evidence of a neglected room, and, instead of making its structure a study, and admiring the wonderful wisdom it displays, we sweep it from the wall with manifest delight.

MARY PERRY (late Brosius) is still at Manassas, Va., awaiting the completion of her school-room, but has been advised to do what she can, in the way of teaching, in the dwellings of the Freedmen, until the building is finished. From DEBORAH K. SMITH, at Gum Springs, If that which we regard with so little respect, and SARAH E. LLOYD, at Woodlawn, the Cor- because it is the work of a spider, were done responding Secretary of the Educational Com- with the same perfection by some of the larger mittee has received neither letter nor report for animals, we would never cease to wonder." Eleventh month. When these omissions take" How would the world crowd to see a fox place, it is always a matter of regret, as they render it impossible to make a correct record of what the Association is doing.

which would spin ropes, weave them into an accurately-meshed net, and extend the net between two trees for the purpose of entangling birds in their flight!" But there would be nothing more marvelous in this, than there is

The three SOUTH CAROLINA schools number 151 scholars, 114 of whom read, 122 write, 95 are in arithmetic, and only 27 are in the alpha-in what the spider is doing every day; and just bet, while all of them are between 6 and 16 years of age.

The VIRGINIA schools, as far as heard from, number 295 scholars, 208 of whom read, 217 write, 163 are in arithmetic, with only 18 in the alphabet, while of the whole number 239 are between 6 and 16 years of age.

The whole number under the care of the Association for the Eleventh month, as far as heard from, was therefore four hundred and forty-six.

It may be well to add to the above summary, that the Association continues to meet on the third Fourth-day evening in each month, in the Monthly Meeting Room of Race Street Meeting House, at half-past seven o'clock, on which occasions, in addition to the transaction of the ordinary business of the Society, the entire letters from our teachers (of which the extracts published in the Intelligencer form but a small portion) are read. These letters possess

because of the minuteness of the little ropemaker and weaver, the work ought to excite in us the great wonder.

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We always judge of the ingenuity of any piece of machinery by the simplicity of its parts, and its adaption to the services for which it has been constructed. Now, judging by this rule, we find the spider possessed of Spinning machine," far surpassing, in the perfection of its work, all the inventions of man. I once heard a gentleman express his astonishment at the perfec ion of the machinery by which man had succeeded in drawing out brass wire to the fineness of a human hair. How much greater was his astonishment when I told him, that there was a very minute spider which spun a thread so fine that it required 4,000,000 of them to equal in thickness one of the hairs of his beard, and that every one of these threads was composed of not less than 400 separate strands!

As

on a stand about twenty inches distant.
soon as it ascertained that its threads had
found a connection with some object beyond
the basin, it fastened the end of the line next
it to the paper, ascended its pontoon, and made
its escape.

This remarkable machinery is exceedingly lines of gossamer threads attached to the books simple. If you examine the hinder extremity of the abdomen of the common house-spider, you will find, on its under side, four or six protuberances of a cylindrical shape, which are called spinnerets, or spinners. Each spinneret is furnished with tubes so exquistitely fine, that, in a space not much larger than the point of a pen, are found a thousand other distinct tubes. From each of these tubes proceeds a single strand, which unites with all the other strands to make that which is ordinarily known as the spider's thread. So you perceive that this thread, often so fine as to be almost imperceptible to our senses, is not, as is commonly supposed, a single line, but a rope, composed of at least 400 strands.

Human art has never attained such wonderful perfection as this. It is truly astonishing, and were it not a matter of daily observation, the most credulous would hesitate to believe the statement.

But you ask, is it necessary for the spider to spin such a compound thread? This question is very naturally suggested, and admits of two probable answers. First the dividing of the thread into so many strands, just at its exit from the spinnerets, favors the rapid drying of the gum used in its manufacture an important consideration to the spider, as it is under the necessity of putting its thread into immediate use. Secondly: the combination of so many threads into one, vastly strengthens the web, and enables it to sustain the shock of the flying insect it is intended to capture, or to bear the heavy body of the spider while it struggles with its captive, or in its passage through the

air.

The only other instruments used in spinning are its feet, with the claws of which it guides, or separates into two or more, the line from behind. Two of the claws of the spider's foot are toothed like a comb. It is with these two claws that it keeps the threads apart. When the spider ascends the line by which it has dropped itself from an eminence, it winds up the superfluous cord into a ball. For this purpose it uses the third claw, which I have called the thumb of the spider's hand.

A few days ago, I brought a garden spider into my study, and placed it upon a small slip of paper surrounded by water in a basin. At first, it traversed its paper island, and, by reaching out its arms on all sides, found that there was no escape across the water. Then, after trying to ascend the sides of the vessel without success, it raised itself upon its legs, and elevated its spinnerets to a horizontal position. I observed it intent upon something. It was throwing out its lines, upon which it designed to make its escape across the water. In a short time, I discovered about half a dozen

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This artifice has been observed by many naturalists, and accounts for the way in which these animals, though destitute of wings, trans-" port themselves from tree to tree, across brooks, and frequently through the air itself, without any apparent starting point.-Family Treasure.

ITEMS.

CONGRESS. In the Senate, a memorial from the So

ciety of Friends in six States in regard to the treatment of the Indians by the Government was presented and referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs.

General Miles, Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner for North Carolina, has written a strong letter to General Howard, urging that the bureau must not be discontinued till reconstruction is fully accomplished. He says that, in his judgment, at no period since the close of the war has the bureau been of greater advantage than now. He is sure that its immediate withdrawal from North Carolina would result in great public and private pecuniary losses; spiritually; school houses would decay; teachers the freedmen would suffer physically, morally, and would be driven out of the State; jails and penitentiaries would be filled; idleness and prodigality and want would take the place of industry and prosperity. The labor of the freedman would become unlaboring man, with no roof to cover his starving profitable to him, and the poor dependent colored family, or foot of ground to call his own, would be reduced to a state of serfdom. He concludes by saying that he feels it his duty, as a commissioner for North Carolina, on behalf of that portion of its directly involved, earnestly to appeal to you to use population whose interest and welfare are most your influence to continue the bureau until the great political changes and experiments now going on in this State have been completed and their successful working is assured.-New York Express.

A daring attempt was made on the 13th inst. to effect the release of Col. Burke, a Fenian, confined ploded beneath the walls, and a whole side wall, in Clerkenwell prison, London. Powder was exand three adjoining buildings, were destroyed. Forty persons were injured, and it is reported three lives were lost, but the object was not gained, and Burke was removed to a place of greater safety.

ca.

IN ENGLAND a loan of $5,000,000 has been proposed to open a new route for transit across Central AmeriThe proposed route is through Honduras, and Panama transit, but it is so much farther north that measures 230 miles. It is much longer than the it lessens the distance from New York or London 10 San Francisco over 1100 miles. It is said that the new route can be constructed for $40,000 a mile.

FULLY ONE-THIRD of the whole amount of sugar consumed in the world is manufactured from beets; and immense quantities of raw beet sugar are imported into England for their refineries, competing very successfully with the care sugar from the West Indies and elsewhere.

FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

"TAKE FAST HOLD OF INSTRUCTION; LET HER NOT GO; KEEP HER; FOR SHE IS THY LIFE."

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TERMS:-PAYABLE IN ADVANCE

The Paper is issued every Seventh day, at Three Dollars per snuum. $2.50 for Clubs; or, four copies for $10.

Agents for Clubs will be expected to pay for the entire Club.
The Postage on this paper, paid in advance at the office where
It is received, in any part of the United States, is 20 cents a year.
AGENTS-Joseph S. Cohu, New York.

Henry Haydock, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Benj. Stratton, Richmond, Ind.

William H. Churchman. Indianapolis, Ind.
James Baynes, Ballimore, Md.

THE PENNS AND PENINGTONS.

(Continued from page 675.)

OBITUARY...

A Voice from Southampton-
Business Thoughts..

POETRY.....

Stereoscopic Pictures...

How the Glaciers Purify Themselves....
The Bird of Two Songs..

The Value of Petroleum to Mankind....
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carefully examining the texts of Scripture that bore on the point, this conviction continued to When dwelling on Sir William Springett's deepen in his mind till he felt constrained to character and religious convictions, his wife discontinue partaking of it. Respecting his mentions some points on which a change had having turned from the use of forms of prayer, gone forward in his mind, from the time when his wife says, "This turning in him proceeded with so much solemnity he had carried his in- from a glimpse of the dawning of the day when fant son to the baptismal font. Having in vain prayer is to be offered up in the spirit and with looked for any declaration in the New Testa the understanding; also that there was a spirit ment that recommends infant baptism, he at of prayer and supplication, in which any one length came to the conclusion that it was an who felt it might mentally engage without unauthorized rite. Again arose the thought, form, yet with true acceptance to God, seems if infant baptism be incorrectly looked on as to have been made clear to him. "He also producing regeneration-the being born again saw," she says, "in the little measure of light -without which, our Lord declared to Nicode-accorded him, that priests were not to preach mus, a man cannot enter into the Kingdom for hire, but were to be sent of the Lord to of God," then it was not merely an uninfluential and unauthorized rite, but, by giving a false meaning to Christian regeneration, it had become a positive evil. Its tendency and influence, leading away from the true meaning of Scriptural regeneration, had done great harm in the church.

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reach the consciences of the hearers. This made him decline false dead ways, and cleave in heart to the people called Puritans (for in that day those that heard the Lord were nicknamed Puritans). Amongst them it was his delight to be exercised in the worship of God, and to mingle in their chaste conversation."

Sir William Springett was one of those indomitable soldiers of the Covenant, who, in their zeal for the Lord, brought their energies into action against the use of priestly vestments as well as against Papal idolatry. The Puritanical glasses they looked through in that day represented almost every work of art as daugerous that had been imported from any country under the Papacy; hence much was sacrificed which in another age would have been

sons in power, of houses and goods both in London and elsewhere, of those called delinquents; all which he refused, and rather chose, whilst his family was with him in the city, to pay twenty shillings a week for lodgings than touch any of them. One considerable place offered him was Leeds Castle in Kent. It was

spared. Sir William's wife tells us her hus- do, never in any case converting confiscated I band commanded his soldiers to break down property or sequestered estates to his own use. and destroy every vestige of those objects that She adds, "He even refused to buy any goods he regarded as Popish idols, whether crosses, that were plundered from the enemy; nor ever statues, pictures, or gold ornaments. It mat- made any use of one pound's worth, I dare tered not with what exquisite art the marble aver, that belonged to them who were configures had been chiseled, or with what elab-quered. He had very great offers from perorate and successful skill the painting represented life, if it depicted or attempted to embody fanciful representations of the Lord Jesus, of his apostles, or of Romish saints, from the fury of the Puritan soldier nothing could shield it. "Be they ever so rich," says Lady Springett, "he destroyed them, and reserved not one for its comeliness or costly workman-seized by the Parliament party, and made a ship." Looking back from our stand-point upon that wholesale destruction of works of artistic genius, some of us may be more inclined to cry out against the iconoclastic furor of our Puritan forefathers, than to commend their destructive proceedings. Whatever we may think, wives like Lady Springett in that day regarded them as evidences of Christian faithfulness, and no doubt they did imply faithfulness to the conscientious views they had adopted. In Sir William's crusade against idolatry there was not only true conscientious earnestness, but a commendable impartialitynot saving what was his friend's property and destroying his euemy's; as is manifested by the following statement from his wife :-"I find freedom," she says, "to mention one passage in this pursuit of destroying Popish relics and pictures. There was a parliament-man who was also a deputy-lieutenant of the county, a great stirrer in the Parliament cause, and his wife a zealous Puritan. This man was assisting him (Sir William) and was his companion in the searching of Popish houses, and in destroying their pictures and trumpery. Going one day to their house to visit them, as he passed through the hall, he spied several superstitious pictures, as of the crucifixion of Christ, his resurrection, and such like; very large pictures they were, and a great ornament to the hall. They had been moved out of the parlor to manifest neglect. He, looking upon it as a very unequal thing to destroy such things in Popish houses, and have them in those of their opposers, drew out his sword, and cut them all out of their frames, and, spearing them on the sword's point, he went into the parlor with them. The mistress of the house being there, he said to her, What a shame thy husband should be so zealous a prosecutor of Papists, and spare such things in his own house! But,' saith he,' thou seest I have acted impartially, and have destroyed them here also.""

His wife says, and no doubt she had good reason to say it, that he was just and merciful in doing the work which as a soldier he had to

garrison, and he was intended to be the commander of it, and greatly pressed to make use of the goods and furniture, and have his family live in the Castle, but he refused it. Another house offered him was Hollingborn, which was very well furnished, and within a few miles of Leeds Castle; but he refused it also, giving them an answer to this effect, that he durst not make use of any man's estate or goods, nor dwell in any man's sequestered home, much less this, which was his uncle Sir Thomas Culpepper's. His mind throughout life was ever for the exercise of compassion and charitableness, of which there have been many instances given me by persons who have observed him in the places where he was quartered, beside what I have seen myself, and I had converse with him from the time he was 12 years old to his dying day. One instance I shall mention that I had from the Mayor of Maidstone, in Kent. He brought me a bill for three pounds after his death, with my husband's hand to it, telling me that as he was walking in the street with him, a poor man was had to prison, who made miserable moan; whereat Sir William stopped the bailiff, and asked what they were taking him to prison for? He answered for debt. He replied, You shall not carry him there. Mr. Mayor, lay you down the money, and I will see it discharged.'

(To be continued.)

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Our friend H. M. will observe that we have

availed ourselves of the liberty granted by her, and in the abridgment we trust we have retained the substance of her concern and not robbed it of its life. We acknowledge with pleasure the manifestations of an increase of interest among our members in the welfare of our religious Society.

For Friends' Intelligencer.

"BE NOT WEARY IN WELL DOING." The deep interest I feel in First-day schools makes me wish to encourage those engaged in the work to look after localities in which there are no such schools, for I believe it is a good work-one for which the wants of the Society

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