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answered. Let faith and hope dictate the reply. Under God, faith and hope command the future. It stands before us solemn and veiled, its grief and its gladness alike hidden; for God is merciful to our feeble eyes, and keeps back what is to be on the morrow, because sufficient unto the day are the evil and the good thereof. And yet He who so baffles our foolish curiosity, is all light to guide our steps into the way of divine and human service, and we say blessed human life! Blessed year upon the earth, fresh from the Giver's infinite fulness! for faith and hope are offered to us with our new days, and they are empowered of God to transform all things. It is easy to draw a dark picture of the world, because it is a dark world; easy enough to shew that the skies are threatening and the times bad; but faith and hope live and rejoice in the very midst of darkness; the hour of struggle is especially theirs, and by virtue of them man stands up amidst the rush of years and the march of events, a living force. Come life or death, come joy or sorrow, this new year shall be a good year for all who are old enough, and mature enough, to believe and hope. The world is in his hands who made it; our business is not so much to speculate upon its fortunes and fate, as to obey Him. Our work lies very near home. Society advances but slowly, sometimes, as in the case of the heavenly bodies, with apparent retrograding. The smaller world, the individual man, may move on with rapid strides, and enter a state of freedom and blessedness, which does not come yet to the race.

FOR LITTLE CHILDREN.

Remarkable expressions of a child in Philadel phia, not more than seven years of age, related by his mother.

Reading the life of Fenelon, one first day morning in my bed, two of my children being with me, a son of seven years and a daughter of four years of age, I requested them to remain still while I read; and to induce them to be so, I proposed they should think for half an hour; and then tell me their thoughts. After a pause my little son replied, it was not possible to tell his thoughts, they were the same as those that had been in his mind more than a year, and that they were delightful; the more he thought, the more he wished to continue in that meditation, and if all the world could get into the same feelings, it would be impossible for any to be lost. Being very much startled at such an unexpected reply from so young a child, I enquired of him if he could recollect the first time he felt those serious impressions; he said they came on by degrees, and from a desire to serve God, and to be good. I then asked him if he was willing to die, and go to Heaven; he said he had Heaven already in his heart, therefore he believed if he should be called from this world, his spirit would unite with God his Father, but he wanted to live to pray for others who were wicked; and that many times when he was alone he burst into tears for the sins of the world, and wished it was in his power to bring them into the same feeling with himself. He also said he could not speak of these things to his companions at school, knowing he should be ridiculed; and that if I knew I know not whether such a communication as all he suffered in mind among such a set of the above would come within the limits of your wicked boys, I would weep for him continually. interesting paper, but having never seen it in I asked him what he meant? He said, grieving print, and having treasured it in my mind for for them lest they should continue hardened in more than forty years, I send it to you thinking, wickedness, and sorry that they should offend so perhaps, it may amuse some of your readers; we good a God, and distressed for himself in strug require amusement sometimes as well as instruc-gling against the temptations before him, and tion.

For Friends' Intelligencer.

R. E.

M. C.

Pleasant Ville, 1st month 17th, 1857. A number of years since, the following circumstance occurred in England. A Friend had a concern on his mind to have an appointed Meeting, and it was concluded to be held at a Theatre in the evening. When the company assembled, these lines were found posted on the door.

If, readers, you have time to spare,

Turn o'er St. Mathew's leaves,
And there you'll find the house of prayer
Was made a den of thieves.

But now the times are altered quite,
O, reformation rare:

This modern den of thieves, to night
Is made the house of prayer.

"Do nothing (said Lady Elizabeth Brooke) "upon which you dare not ask God's blessing."

afraid he should do something wrong; but that these thoughts which were continually with him were his comfort. I asked him if he knew from whence these thoughts proceeded? He said yes, from God, and that it was God's spirit in him, and that he sometimes enjoyed Heaven, without waiting for death.

1st mo. 1813.,

WHAT A DUMB GIRL SAID ABOUT PRAYER. -A little deaf and dumb girl was once asked by a lady, who wrote the question on a slate, "What is prayer ?"

The little girl took her pencil and wrote in reply, "Prayer is the wish of the heart."

And so it is. All fine words and beautiful verses said to God do not make real prayer without the sincere wish of the heart.

FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

The following sensible remarks are from a not only the waste of money thus incurred New York paper:

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Wh

the example which she is setting to her p The subject of reckless social expenditure in spicuous social position, others will strive t sisters; she will consider that, occupying as this city has recently engrossed the public at- as she is doing, and she will shrink from: tention, and with the evidence of luxurious living all around us, it could hardly have been tation. The dress mania is the most inevit ungrateful suspicion of leading others into te otherwise. We need not enter the palatial and incurable which can possess the female m residences of the avenues; we need not intrude upon the privacy of the household; we need not with no hope of competence; it leaves the reckon the ruinous cost of upholstery and of fur-ture of little children to the mercy of chars It keeps unhappy husbands toiling day by s niture, of troops of menials, of loaded tables, and it is almost sure to banish every noble a and of well-stocked wine-bins, to form an idea of ration and every generous impulse. the worse than waste of money which is going makes so many unions unhappy, it diminis on in this metropolis. Fashion flaunts her gaudy the aggregate of marriages, and, of course, t ensign in our faces as we walk the streets, and peers at us through the windows of the carriages; really at heart the progress and emancipas luxury loads the counters of our tradesmen with her sex will hardly assume the responsibi of public morality. A woman bari. heaped up temptations to squander; more than seducing, by the gratification of her ow half the goods which are exposed for sale are vanity, so many of her sisters into a path utterly useless, and the statistics of the Custom- can lead only to embarrassment and final r House show into what channels the public wealth Such a person will comprehend that it is be is flowing, never to return. because she has been willing to be a thing: woman has permitted herself to be made a top gewgaws, flounces and feathers, that she is inte present condition of subjugation and dependency While all benevolent and thoughtful persons a deploring the headlong extravagance of the day we believe that in no way can women of weal exert a more salutary influence than by making it fashionable to dress with taste certainly and with neatness, but prudently and economically They have it in their power to commence are form, the various blessings of which cannot be over-estimated. Of weak, silly and demoralized. flaunt to the end of the chapter; but are there women we expect nothing; they will giggle and not at least fifty sensible matrons in New-York who will initiate a retrenchment so necessary to social happiness?

Now there are two considerations which ought to be presented, and which we suppose we may present without being charged with leveling propensities. The rich, in the first place, owe a duty to themselves. Rich or poor, living in a brown-stone house or in a cellar, naked or clothed with the fabrics of Eastern looms, starving or stuffed, we are all beings accountable, not only to each other, but each to himself or herself, for the use of our faculties and endowments. It is not the mere pecuniary bankruptcy which so often follows reckless living; it is not the unavoidable temptation to sin which accompanies a love of display; it is the utter insolvency of mind and heart against which we would most solemnly protest. When we think what a life should be; when we estimate the possibility of human culture; when we reckon how great is a self-sustained, well-balanced and veracious nature, with what mingled feelings of sorrow and disgust do we regard this devotion to fripperies and to follies, to childish vanities and vulgar gratifications! Placed here to do a work which no man can by any possibility do for us, with unlimited capacity and with nothing unattainable which is worth hoping for, what madness is it to waste the little hour which is vouchsafed to us in continual efforts at scenic display, in small anxieties, and low, ambitious and despicable rivalries.

LIFE.

joice when it goes down; while they are uncon-
Men rejoice when the sun is risen; they re-
scious of the decay of their own lives. Men
rejoice at seeing the face of a new season, as
the arrival of one greatly desired. Nevertheless,
the revolution of the seasons is the decay of
human life. Fragments of driftwood, meeting
in the wide ocean, continue together a little
space; thus parents, wives, children, relatives,
friends, and riches remain with us but a short
table. No mortal man can escape the common
time-then separate, and the separation is inevi
lot; he who mourns for departed relatives has
no power to make them return. Knowing that
the end of life is death, every right minded man
ought to pursue that which is connected with
ultimate bliss.

But a second consideration is found in the duty which the wealthy owe to those less fortunate than themselves. A woman may be perfectly able, without danger of defrauding any one, to deck her person at the cost of thousands; to pay $200 for her dress, $1,200 for her shawl, $10,000 for her diamonds, and $100 for her handkerchief; but a conscientious woman will pause before she thus arrays herself, to consider, Isplendid ancestry. A truly great man borrows no lustre from

ICER.

WHAT THE WIND SAYS.

"Do you know what the December wind says, grandpa?" asked a little child at an old merchant's knee.

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No, puss; what does it?" he answered stroking her fair hair.

"Remember the poor grandpa: when it comes down the chimney, it roars Remember Fete the poor;' when it puts its great mouth to the keyhole, it whistles, Remember the poor;' when t it strides through a crack in the door, it whispers, sit; and grandpa, when it blows your beautiful silver hair about in the street, and you shiver and button up your coat, does it not get at your ear and say so too, in a still small voice, grand

Sapa ?"

they "Why, what does the child mean?" cried granpa, who, I am afraid, had been used to shut his heart against such words. "You want a new tippet, I reckon. A pretty way to get them out of your old grandfather.'

"No, grandpa," said the child earnestly shaking her head, "no; it's the no-muff-and-tippet children I'm thinking of; my mother always remembers them, and so do I try to."

After the next storm the old merchant sent fifty dollars to the treasurer of a relief society, and said, "Call for more when you want it.' The treasurer stared with surprise, for it was the first time he had ever collected more than a dollar from him, and that he thought came grudgingly.

"Why," said the rich merchant, afterward, "I could never get rid of that child's words; they stuck to me like glue."

And a little child shall lead them," says the Scripture. How many a cold heart has melted, and a close heart opened, by the simple earnestness and suggestive words of a child.

GRAMMAR.

1. Three little words we often see
Are Articles, a, an and the.
2. A Noun's the name of any thing,
As school or garden, hoop or swing.
3. Adjectives tell the kind of noun,

As great, small, pretty, white or brown. 4. Instead of nouns the Pronouns stand,John's head, his face, my arm, your hand. 5. Verbs tell of something being done,—

To read, write, count, sing, jump or run. 6. How things are done, the Adverbs tell, As slowly, quickly, ill or well.

7. Conjunctions join the words together. As men and children, wind or weather.

8. A Preposition stands before

A noun, as in, or through a door.

9. The Interjection shows surprise,

As Oh! how pretty! Ah! how wise!

The whole are called Nine Parts of Speech, Which Reading, Writing, Speaking teach.

SIMPLICITY OF ENGLISH DRESS.

In the families of many of the nobility and gentry of England, possessing an annual income which of itself would be an ample fortune, there is geater economy of dress and more simplicity in the furnishing of the dwelling, than there is in many of the houses of our citizens, who are barely able to supply the daily wants of their families by the closest attention to their business. A friend of ours, who sojourned not long since several months in the vicinity of some of the wealthy landed aristocracy of England, whose ample rent rolls would have warranted a high style of fashion, was surprised at the simplicity of manners practised. Servants were much more numerous than with us, but the ladies made more account of one silk dress than would be thought here of a dozen. They were generally clothed in good substantial stuffs, and a display of fine clothing and jewelry was reserved for great occasions. The furniture of the mansions, instead of being turned out of doors every few years for new and more fashionable styles, was the same which the ancestors of the families for several generations had possessed, substantial and in excellent preservation, but plain and without any pretension to elegance. Even the carpets on many suites of parlors had been on the floors for fifty years, and were expected to do service for another half century. With us how different is the state of things. We are wasting an amount of wealth in this country on fashion, which, rightly applied, would renovate the condition of the whole population of the world, and christianize, civilize and educate

all mankind.

COLOR-BLINDNESS.

The Royal Society of London has taken up the subject of color-blindness, and is now giving considerable attention to the question. Dr. George Wilson, Professor in the University of Edinboro, has published his researches upon the subject. Color-blindness has been studied now for two centuries or more, but it is only since John Dalton discovered infirmity in his own person, and was consequently induced to investigate the subject, and from whom it is sometimes called Daltonism, that it was made the subject of scientific inquiry. It is very common, especially among men, to be unable to distinguish the secondary and tertiary combinations of colors, but it is not generally known that the proportion of those who cannot even recognise the primary colors, is very great, even one in fifty. Red and green seem to be the primary colors most readily confounded by such persons. Many are unable to detect any difference in color between the red apples upon a tree, and its green leaves, or to distinguish the strawberries from the vines upon which they grow. And yet these are the very colors which have been chosen for signal lights

for railroads and steamboats, and in a late number of the Household Words, the importance of selecting men free from this infirmity, to take charge of such signals, is pointed out. Some English companies becoming acquainted with the extent of color-blindness, have instituted a rigid inquiry into the condition of the optical powers of their agents, and subject their candidates for the office of signal men, engineers, &c-, to a regular examination in this respect. Total color-blindness is very rare; but an instance is known of a painter who depended upon others to mix his colors, who upon one occasion, having no one to aid him, was found painting a house blue, thinking it was stone color. He knew white and black only.

FRIENDS' INTELLIGENCER.

PHILADELPHIA SECOND MONTH 7, 1857.

In our last number we published an interesting and instructive essay on "Christian Love and Family Harmony," by Priscilla Gurney, showing her appreciation of the beauty and excellency of Christian charity when exercised in the family circle. We united with her views, and could have gone further and recommended its introduction as the ruling principle, into every department of society--social, civil, and religious; remembering the Scripture testimony that the gifts of tongues, of prophecy, of faith, all profit us nothing, if we "have not charity."

The essay alluded to was taken from a memoir of Priscilla Gurney, compiled by Susanna Corder. The subject of the memoir was not in religious communion with us, but throughout the little volume, there is so much that is excellent, that we are disposed to take further extracts from it, commencing with the short preface written by the compiler.

We think such of our readers, who have not had access to the work, will peruse our extracts with pleasure and profit.

MARRIED, On the 22d ultimo, by the approbation of Alexandria Monthly Meeting of Friends, JOHN BALLINGER, of Woodlawn, Fairfax co., Va., to REBECCA, daughter of Daniel Walton, of the same place. DIED, On the 25th inst., RUTH PARRY, an aged

member of Green Street Monthly Meeting.

On the 25th ult., at Tyrone, Pa., ENOCH L. SPENCER, aged 49 years, a member of Centre Quarterly Meeting, a branch of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. Near his close he had a foretaste of the glory about to be revealed, and in reply to the remark of one of his family," that there was a bright prospect before him," he said, "just beginning."

CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN AFRICA.

The London Times not long since suggested, by way of damper to the idea of the introduction of cotton cultivation into Africa, that if the cultivation succeeded it could only be by the African chiefs forcing their subjects to labor at it for their own benefit, and that nothing would be gained in a philanthropical point of view by substituting slave cotton cultivation in Africa for the benefit of African chiefs in the place of slave cultivation in the United States for the benefit of Carolina planters. These remarks on the part of The Times have drawn out a letter addressed to that journal by David Livingston, the renowned African traveller, distinguished for his recent discoveries in the more southern part of that continent. This letter, though rather rambling and discursive-as is natural, perhaps, to such a traveller as the writer has been-contains, however, a good deal of information. We gather from it the following facts:

Dr. Livingston does not think that the constitution of African society is such as, in the case of the introduction into Africa of profitable branches of industry, whether cotton-growing or anything else, to put it in the power of the chiefs to convert themselves into slaveholders and their people into slaves laboring for their benefit. The government of most of the African tribes is patriarchal, each man becoming the head or chief of his own family and their dependants. Above these patriarchal chiefs are others, known in the African dialects as "little lords," whose authority extends over several families, and to whose as sistance, in case of any difficulty in managing their dependants, the family chiefs appeal. Above these is a head chief, having his cattle-pen and family dwelling in the center of the town, before whom are brought the cases of difference between families. In all cases of importance, the chief sends for all his "little lords"-generally his relations by blood or marriage-who give their opinions freely. If the chief is a man of energy, he decides according to his own ideas-otherwise

he is governed by the majority; but in very few cases does he act in opposition to a decided public opinion. Even one or two firm opponents will make him hesitate and waver, or perhaps have recourse to dice or divination. These remarks apply particularly to the country south of 18° South latitude. In the country of the true negro, which lies north of that point, the political relations are generally the same, though somewhat modified by female influence. But the general

relations of one tribe to another were the same in all parts of the country that came under Dr. Livingston's observation. One tribe is perfectly independent of every other, except by a sort of traditional bond of nominal subjection to a paramount chief, which becomes developed in case of invasion or common danger. Among the negroes

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north of 18° this system of paramount chiefs
prevails in somewhat greater force than in Caffre-
land, though even with them it is much more in

name than in substance.

But the chiefs, though nearly independent of each other, are by no means independent of their people. If a man is dissatisfied with one chief, he can easily transfer himself to another; and as a chief's importance increases with the number of his followers, fugitives are always received with open arms. Dr. Livingston knew of one instance, the parties of which he names, in which a chief sold some of his people; the consequence of which was that whole villages renounced his authority and joined themselves to a neighboring confederacy. In most parts of the country the facilities of escape are so great that the slave system would not work, even though it were desirable to establish it.

But in point of fact the real productive industry of the country is carried on by free laborers, and only requires the impulse of roads to be greatly extended. The 30,000 skins sent annually to the Cape, whence many of them find their way to China to purchase tea, are collected by the Bushmen and Bukuluhaori, the most free and independent persons in the country. Very large amounts of ivory, beeswax and palm and sweet oil are exported from Loando, almost the whole produced by perfectly free labor, and had the country roads, the export would be increased a hundred fold. These articles can be obtained at a very cheap rate in the interior, and the negroes all have a great proclivity to traffic. Formerly the traders went inland, and, along with beeswax, ivory, &c., purchased slaves sufficient to carry their merchandise to the coast, where both the goods and their carriers were Since the repression of the slave-trade free carriers have been substituted, whom the Government of Angola requires to render their services at a fixed rate. Angola contains a population of 600,000, and only from 30,000 to 40,000 are slaves. From all these facts, our African traveller is of opinion, first, that the African chiefs have no power to reduce their subjects to the condition of plantation laborers; and, secondly, that slavery is by no means necessary to the development of African industry, whether in cotton cultivation or otherwise.

Dr. Livingston states that he carried with him to Africa the idea picked up from the Parliamentary debates and elsewhere that the attempt at the supprossion of the African slave-trade was a failure, and that the cruisers by increasing the horrors of the middle passage did more harm than good. His observations in Africa have led him to a different conclusion. In Angola he found the time of the slave-trade spoken of in the past tense. He saw slaves sold for twelve shillings a head within a hundred miles of the coast, who would formerly have commanded

seventy dollars; and he travelled with companies of slaves (chiefly women,) not brought from the interior toward the coast, but carried from Angola into the interior to be bartered for ivory and wax. The foreign export of slaves is not entirely closed, but is so dangerous as to prevent any except a few very daring characters from risking their money in it.

As to the cultivation of cotton in Africa, it is produced there already, though of a short staple and inferior quality. In Lozengo, a district of Angola, twelve hundred cloths, each six feet long by three broad, is the annual tribute of the free population to the Government. Caffre labor can be had at Natal at 7s. 6d. a month; but even if it were necessary to supply Coolie labor for the cultivation of African cotton, the example of the little island of Mauritius, which lies off the East African coast, shows how much can be done by enterprise and capital without resorting to slave labor or trampling on the rights or happiness of anybody. That little island is but thirty-five miles long by twenty-five broad. It is a great piece of volcanic rock, with so little soil that the bowlders which cover it have to be placed in rows of stone walls in order to get space for the sugar-cane. The holes are made for the cane between the rows of stone, a little guano being added, without which, or some other manure, there would be no sugar. After a season of cultivation, to give the land time to rest, the stones must be moved, and the places which they had covered planted with sugar. The labor employed is mainly brought from India. The population of the island is two hundred thousand, entirely free. The Hindoo portion of themhappy, and comparatively delivered from the influence of caste-feel more friendly to Christianity and civilization, and in that state of mind often return home to spend the rest of their days in ease and quiet. Thus, without resorting to the stimulus of slavery, is produced, by the conjoint operation of capital, enterprise and wages-paid labor, a fourth part of the entire sugar consumption of Great Britain. With this successful experiment in his eye, Dr. Livingston is not so sure of the impossibility of supplying England with cotton, the joint production of British enterprise and capital and African free labor.-Tribune.

A COLORED MAN'S GRATITUDE.

J. B. Smith, the well-known colored caterer of Boston, was once a slave. When he first escaped he took refuge in a Quaker's family, where he was taught to read and write, and was otherwise assisted to an education by a lady in the family, who was then in affluent circumstances. During the course of time Smith became famed as a caterer. Though he was black, the fair goddess Fortune smiled on and favored him; while his

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