After the Black-Hawk War, the Indian title being extinguished, and the

country open to settlers, Northern Illinois attracted great attention,

and increased wonderfully in wealth and population.

In 1830, the population of the State amounted to 157,445; in 1840, to

476,183; in 1850, to 851,470; in 1860, to 1,719,496.

* * * * *

Situated in the centre of the United States, the State of Illinois

extends from 37° to 42° 30' N. latitude, and from 10° 47' to 14° 26' W.

longitude from Washington. The State is 378 miles long from North to

South, and 212 miles broad from East to West. Its area is computed at

55,408 square miles, or 35,459,200 acres, less than two millions of

which are called swamp lands, the remaining thirty-three millions being

tillable land of unsurpassed fertility.

The State of Illinois forms the lower part of that slope which embraces

the greater part of Indiana, and of which Lake Michigan, with its

shores, forms the upper part. At the lowest part of this slope, and of

the State, is the city of Cairo, situated about 350 feet above the

level of the Gulf of Mexico, at the confluence of the Ohio and the

Mississippi; hence, the highest place in Illinois being only 800 feet

above the level of the sea, it will appear that the whole State, though

containing several hilly sections, is a pretty level plain, being, with

the exception of Delaware and Louisiana, the flattest country in the

Union.

The State contains about twenty-five considerable streams, and brooks

and rivulets innumerable. There are no large lakes within its borders,

though it has some sixty miles of Lake Michigan for its boundary on the

east. Small clear lakes and ponds abound, particularly in the northern

portion of the State.

As to the quality of the soil, Illinois is divided as follows:--

First, the alluvial land on the margins of the rivers, and extending

back from half a mile to six or eight miles. This soil is of

extraordinary fertility, and, wherever it is elevated, makes the best

farming land in the State. Where it is low, and exposed to inundations,

it is very unsafe to attempt its cultivation. The most extensive tract

of this kind is the so-called American Bottom, which received this name

when it was the western boundary of the United States. It extends from

the junction of the Kaskaskia and Mississippi, along the latter, to the

mouth of the Missouri, containing about 288,000 acres.

Secondly, the table-land, fifty to a hundred feet higher than the

alluvial; it consists principally of prairies, which, according to their

respectively higher or lower situations, are either dry or marshy.

Thirdly, the hilly sections of the State, which, consisting alternately

of wood and prairie, are not, on the whole, as fertile as either the

alluvial or the table-land.

There are no mountains in Illinois; but in the southern as well as the

northern part, there are a few hills. Near the banks of the principal

rivers the ground is elevated into bluffs, on which may be still found

the traces left by water, which was evidently once much higher than

it now is; whence it is inferred, that, where the fertile plains of

Illinois now extend, there must once have been a vast sheet of water,

the mud deposited by which formed the soil, thus accounting for the

great fertility of the prairies.

* * * * *

As we have said, the entire area of Illinois seems at one period to

have been an ocean-bed, which has not since been disturbed by any

considerable upheaval. The present irregularities of the surface are

clearly traceable to the washing out and carrying away of the earth. The

Illinois River has washed out a valley about two hundred and fifty feet

deep, and from one and a half to six miles wide. The perfect regularity

of the beds of mountain limestone, sandstone, and coal, as they are

found protruding from the bluffs on each side of this valley, on the

same levels, is pretty conclusive evidence that the valley itself owes

its existence to the action of water. That the channels of the rivers

have been gradually sunken, we may distinctly see by the shores of the

Upper Mississippi, where are walls of rock, rising perpendicularly,

which extend from Lake Pepin to below the mouth of the Wisconsin, as if

they were walls built of equal height by the hand of man. Wherever the

river describes a curve, walls may be found on the convex side of it.

The upper coal formation occupies three-fifths of the State, commencing

at 41° 12' North latitude, where, as also along the Mississippi, whose

banks it touches between the places of its junction with the Illinois

and Missouri rivers, it is enclosed by a narrow layer of calcareous

coal. The shores of Lake Michigan, and that narrow strip of land, which,

commencing near them, runs along the northern bank of the Illinois

towards its southwestern bend, until it meets Rock River at its mouth,

belong to the Devonian system. The residue of the northern part of the

State consists of Silurian strata, which, containing the rich lead mines

of Galena in the northwest corner of the State, rise at intervals into

conical hills, giving the landscape a character different from that of

the middle or southern portion. Scattered along the banks of rivers, and

in the middle of prairies, are frequently found large masses of granite

and other primitive rocks. Since the nearest beds of primitive rocks

first appear in Minnesota and the northern part of Wisconsin, their

presence here can be accounted for only by assuming that at the time

this region was covered with water they were floated down from the

North, enclosed and supported in masses of ice, which, melting, allowed

the rocks to sink to the bottom. A still further proof of the presence

of the ocean here in former times is to be found in the sea-shells which

occur upon many of the higher knolls and bluffs west of the Mississippi

in Iowa.

Illinois contains probably more coal than any other State in the Union.

It is mined at a small depth below the surface, and crops out upon the

banks of most of the streams in the middle of the State. These mines

have been very imperfectly worked till within a few years; but it is

found, that, as the work goes deeper, the quality of the coal improves,

and in some of the later excavations is equal to the best coals of Ohio

and Pennsylvania, and will undoubtedly prove a source of immense wealth

to the State.

The two northwestern counties of the State form a part of the richest

and most extensive lead region in the world. During the year 1855, the

product of these mines, shipped from the single port of Galena, was

430,365 pigs of lead, worth $1,732,219.02.

Copper has been found in large quantities in the northern counties, and

also in the southern portion of the State. Some of the zinc ores are

found in great quantities at the lead mines near Galena, but have not

yet been utilized. Silver has been found in St. Clair County, whence

Silver Creek has derived its name. It is said that in early times the

French sunk a shaft here, from which they obtained large quantities of

the metal. Iron is found in many parts of the State, and the ores have

been worked to considerable extent.

Among other valuable mineral products may be mentioned porcelain and

potter's clay, fire clay, fuller's earth, limestone of many varieties,

sandstone, marble, and salt springs.

* * * * *

Illinois has an average temperature, which, if compared with that of

Europe, corresponds to that of Middle Germany; its winters are more

severe than those of Copenhagen, and its summers as warm as those of

Milan or Palermo. Compared with other States of the Union, Northern

Illinois possesses a temperature similar to that of Southern New York,

while the temperature of Southern Illinois will not differ much from

that of Kentucky or Virginia. By observations of the thermometer during

twenty years, in the southern part of the State, on the Mississippi, the

mercury, once in that period, fell to-25°, and four times it rose above

100°, Fahrenheit.

The prevailing winds are either western or southeastern. The severest

storms are those coming from the west, which traverse the entire space

between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic coast in forty-eight hours.

There are on an average eighty-nine rainy days in the year; the quantity

of rain falling amounts to forty-two inches,--the smallest amount

being in January, and the largest in June. The average number of

thunder-storms in a year is forty-nine; of clear days, one hundred and

thirty-seven; of changeable days, one hundred and eighty-three; and of

days without sunshine, forty-five.

* * * * *

The vegetation of the State forms the connecting link between

the Flora of the Northeastern States and that of the Upper

Mississippi,--exhibiting, besides the plants common to all the States

lying between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, such as are,

properly speaking, natives of the Western prairies, not being found

east of the Alleghany Mountains. Immense grassy plains, interlaced with

groves, which are found also along the watercourses, cover two-thirds of

the entire area of the State in the North, while the southern part is

garnished with heavy timber.

No work which we have seen gives so good an account of the Flora of the

prairies as the one by Frederick Gerhard, called "Illinois as it is." We

have been indebted to this work for a good deal of valuable matter, and

shall now make some further extracts from it.

"Before we finally turn our backs on the last scattered houses of the

village, we find both sides of the road lined with ugly worm-fences,

which are overtopped by the various species of Helianthus, Thistles,

Biennial Gaura, and the Illinoisian Bell-flower with cerulean blossoms,

and other tall weeds. Here may also be found the coarse-haired

_Asclepias tuberosa_, with fiery red umbels, the strong-scented _Monarda

fistulosa_, and an umbelliferous plant, the grass-like, spiculated

leaves of which recall to mind the Southern Agaves, the _Eryngo._ Among

these children of Nature rises the civilized plant, the Indian Corn,

with its stalks nearly twelve feet high."

"Having now arrived at the end of the cultivated lands, we enter upon

the dry prairies, extending up the bluffs, where we meet the small

vermilion Sorrel _(Rumex acetosella)_ and Mouse-ear, which, however, do

not reside here as foreigners, but as natives, like many other plants

that remind the European of his native country, as, for instance, the

Dandelion _(Taraxacum officinale)_; a kind of Rose, _(Rosa lucida,)_

with its sweet-scented blossoms, has a great predilection for this dry

soil. With surprise we meet here also with many plants with hairy,

greenish-gray leaves and stalk-covers, as, for instance, the _Onosmodium

molle, Hieracium longipilum, Pycnanthemum pilosum, Chrysopsis villosa,

Amorpha canescens, Tephrosia Virginiana, Lithospermum canescens;_

between which the immigrated Mullein _(Verbuscum thapsus)_ may be found.

The pebbly fragments of the entire slope, which during spring-time

were sparingly covered with dwarfish herbs, such as the _Androsace

occidentalis, Draba Caroliniana, Plantago Virginica, Scutellaria

parvula,_ are now crowded with plants of taller growth and variegated

blossoms. _Rudbeckia hirta_, with its numerous radiating blossoms of a

lively yellow, and the closely allied _Echinacea purpurea_, whose long

purple rays hang down from a ruddy hemispherical disc, are the most

remarkable among plants belonging to the genus _Compositoe_, which

blossom early in summer; in the latter part of summer follow innumerable

plants of the different species,_Liatris, Vernonia, Aster, Solidago,

Helianthus, etc."_

"We approach a sinuous chasm of the bluffs, having better soil and

underwood, which, thin at first, increases gradually in density.

Low bushes, hardly a foot high, are formed by the American Thistle,

_(Ceanothus Americanus,)_ a plant whose leaves were used instead of tea,

in Boston, during the Revolution. Next follow the Hazel-bush, _(Corylus

Americana,)_ the fiery-red _Castilleja coccinea,_ and the yellow

Canadian Louse-wort; the _Dipteracanthus strepens_, with great blue

funnel-shaped blossoms, and the _Gerardia pedicularia_, are fond of

such places; and where the bushes grow higher, and the _Rhus glabra,

Zanthoxylum Americanum, Ptelea trifoliata, Staphylea trifolia,_ together

with _Ribes-Rubus Pyrus, Cornus, and Cratoegus,_ form an almost

impenetrable thicket, surrounded and garlanded by the round-leaved,

rough Bindweed, _(Smilax rotundifolia,)_ and _Dioscorea villosa_, the

Climbing Rose, _(Rosa setigera,) Celastrus scandens_, remarkable for its

beautiful red fruits, _Clematis Virginiana, Polygonum, Convolvulus, and

other vines, these weedy herbs attempt to overtop the bushes."

"We now enter upon the illimitable prairie which lies before us, the

fertile prairie, in whose undulating surface the moisture is retained;

this waits for cultivation, and will soon be deprived of its flowery

attire, and bear plain, but indispensable grain. Those who have not yet

seen such a prairie should not imagine it like a cultivated meadow, but

rather a heaving sea of tall herbs and plants, decking it with every

variety of color.

"In the summer, the yellow of the large _Composite_ will predominate,

intermingled with the blue of the Tradescantias, the fiery red of the

Lilies, (_Lilium Philadelphicum_ and _Lilium Canadense_,) the purple of

the Phlox, the white of the _Cacalia tuberosa, Melanthium Virginicum,_

and the umbelliferous plants. In spring, small-sized plants bloom here,

such as the Anemone, with its blue and white blossoms, the Palmated

Violet, the Ranunculus, which are the first ornaments of the prairies in

spring; then follow the Esculent Sea-Onion, _Pentaloplius longiflorus,

Lithospermum hirtum, Cynthia Virginica,_ and _Baptisia leucophaea_.

As far as the eye reaches, no house nor tree can be seen; but where

civilization has come, the farmer has planted small rows of the quickly

growing Black Acacia, which affords shelter from the sun to his cattle

and fuel for his hearth."

"We now enter the level part of the forest, which has a rich black soil.

Great sarmentous plants climb here up to the tops of the trees: wild

Grapes, the climbing, poisonous Sumach, (_Rhus toxicodendron,_) and the

vine-like Cinque-foil, which transforms withered, naked trunks into

green columns, Bignonias, with their brilliant scarlet trumpet-flowers,

are the most remarkable. The _Thuja occidentalis,_ which may be met

with in European gardens, stands in mournful solitude on the margins of

pools; here and there an isolalod Cedar, (_Juniperus Virginiana_)

and the low Box-tree, (_Taxus Canadensis_) are in Illinois the only

representatives of the evergreens, forests of which first appear in the

northern part of Wisconsin and Minnesota."

"Flowers of the most brilliant hues bedeck the rivers' banks; above

all, the _Lobelia cardinalis_ and _Lobelia syphilitica_, of the deepest

carmine and cerulean tinge, the yellow _Cassia Marilandica_, and the

delicate _Rosa blanda_, a rose without thorns; also the _Scrophularia

nodosa_."

"On the marshy ground thrive the _Iris versicolor, Asclepias incarnata_,

the Primrose-tree, Liver-wort, the tall _Physostegia Virginiana_, with

rosy-red blossoms, and the _Helenium autumnale_, in which the yellow

color predominates. In spring, the dark violet blossom of the _Amorpha

fruticosa_ diffuses its fragrance."

"Entering a boat on the river, where we cannot touch the bottom with the

oar, we perceive a little white flower waving to and fro, supported

by long spiral halms between straight, grass-like leaves. This is the

_Vallisneria spiralis_, a remarkable plant, which may be also met with

in Southern Europe, especially in the Canal of Languedoc, and regarding

the fructification of which different opinions prevail."

"Nearer to the land, we observe similar grass-like leaves, but with

little yellow stellated flowers: these belong to the order of _Schollera

graminea_. Other larger leaves belong to the Amphibious Polygony, and

different species of the _Potamogeton,_ the ears of whose blossoms rise

curiously above the surface of the water. Clearing our way through a

row of tall swamp weeds, _Zizania aquatica, Scirpus lacustris, Scirpus

pungens_, among which the white flowers of _Sparganium ramosum_ and

_Sagittaria variabilis_ are conspicuous, we steer into a large inlet

entirely covered with the broad leaves of the _Nymphaea odorala_ and the

_Nelumbium luteum_, of which the former waves its beautiful flower on

the surface of the river, while the latter, the queen, in fact, of

the waters, proudly raises her magnificent crown upon a perpendicular

footstalk. On the opposite bank, the evening breeze lifts the triangular

leaves and rosy-red flowers of the Marsh-Mallow, overhung by Gray

Willows and the Silver-leaved Maple and the Red Maple, on which a flock

of white herons have alighted."

In all the rivers and swamps of the Northwest grows the Wild Rice,

(_Zizania aquatica,_) a plant which was' formerly very important to the

Indians as food, and now attracts vast flocks of waterfowl to feed upon

it in the season. In autumn the squaws used to go in their canoes

to these natural rice-fields, and, bending the tall stalks over the

gunwale, beat out the heads of grain with their paddles into the canoe.

It is mentioned among the dainties at Hiawatha's wedding-feast:--

"Haunch of deer, and hump of bison,

Yellow cakes of the Momdamin,

And the wild rice of the river."

The Fruits of the forest are Strawberries, Blackberries, Raspberries,

Gooseberries, in some barren spots Whortleberries, Mulberries,

Grapes, Wild Plums and Cherries, Crab-Apples, the Persimmon, Pawpaw,

Hickory-nuts, Hazel-nuts, and Walnuts.

The Timber-trees are,--of the Oaks, _Quercus alba, Quercus macrocarpa,

Quercus tinctoria, Quercus imbricaria,--Hard and Soft Maples_,--and of

the Hickories, _Carya alba, Carya tomentosa, and Carya amara_. Other

useful timber-trees are the Ash, Cherry, several species of Elm, Linden,

and Ironwood (_Carpinus Americana_).

Of Medicinal Plants, we find _Cassia Marilandica, Polygala Senega,

Sanguinaria Canadensis, Lobelia inflata, Phytolacca decandra,

Podophyllum peliatum, Sassafras officinale_.

Various species of the Vine are native here, and the improved varieties

succeed admirably in the southern counties.

The early travellers in this region mention the great herds of wild

cattle which roamed over the prairies in those times, but the last

Buffalo on the east side of the Mississippi was killed in 1832; and now

the hunter who would see this noble game must travel some hundreds of

miles west, to the head-waters of the Kansas or the Platte. The Elk,

which was once so common in Illinois, has also receded before the white

man, and the Deer is fast following his congener. On the great prairies

south of Chicago, where, fifteen years ago, one might find twenty deer

in a day's tramp, not one is now to be seen. Two species of Hare occur

here, and several Tree Squirrels, the Red, Black, Gray, Mottled, and the

Flying; besides these, there are two or three which live under ground.

The Beaver is nearly or quite extinct, but the Otter remains, and the

Musk-Rat abounds on all the river-banks and marshes.

Of carnivorous animals, we have the Panther and Black Bear in the wooded

portions of the State, though rare; the Lynx, the Gray and Black Wolf,

and the Prairie Wolf; the Skunk, the Badger, the Woodchuck, the Raccoon,

and, in the southern part of the State, the Opossum.

Mr. Lapham of Wisconsin has published a list of the birds of that State,

which will also answer for Northern Illinois. He enumerates two hundred

and ninety species, which, we think, is below the number which visit the

central parts of Illinois. From the central position of this State,

most of the birds of the United States are found here at one season or

another. For instance, among the rapacious birds, we have the three

Eagles which visit America, the White-Headed, the Washington, and

the Golden or Royal Eagle. Of Hawks and Falcons, fourteen or fifteen

species, among which are the beautiful Swallow-tailed Hawk, and that

noble falcon, the Peregrine. Ten or twelve Owls, among which, as a rare

visitor, we find the Great Gray Owl, (_Syrnium cinereum_,) and the Snowy

Owl, which is quite common in the winter season on the prairies, preying

upon grouse and hares. Of the Vultures, we have two, as summer visitors,

the Turkey-Buzzard and the Black Vulture.

Of omnivorous birds, sixteen or eighteen species, among which is the

Raven, which here takes the place of the Crow, the two species not being

able to live together, as the stronger robber drives away the weaker. Of

the insectivorous birds, some sixty or seventy species are found here,

among which is the Mocking-Bird, in the middle and southern districts.

Thirty-five to forty species of granivorous birds, among which we

occasionally find in winter that rare Arctic bird, the Evening Grosbeak.

Of the _Zygodachyli_, fourteen species, among which is found the Paquet,

in the southern part of the State. _Tenuirostres_, five species. Of the

Kingfishers, one species. Swallows and Goat-suckers, nine species. Of

the Pigeons, two, the Turtle-Dove and the Passenger Pigeon, of which the

latter visit us twice a year, in immense flocks.

Of the gallinaceous birds, the Turkey, which is found in the heavy

timber in the river bottoms; the Quail, which has become very abundant

all over the State, within twenty years, following, it would seem, the

march of civilization and settlement; the Ruffed Grouse, abundant in the

timber, but never seen on the prairie; the Pinnated Grouse, or Prairie

Hen, always found on the open plains. These birds increased very much in

number after the settlement of the State, owing probably to the increase

of food for them, and the decrease of their natural enemies, the prairie

wolves; but since the building of railroads, so many are killed to

supply the demands of New York and other Eastern cities, that they are

now decreasing very rapidly, and in a very few years the sportsman will

have to cross the Mississippi to find a pack of grouse. The Sharp-tailed

Grouse, an occasional visitor in winter from Wisconsin, is found in the

timbered country.

Of wading birds, from forty to fifty species, among which the Sand-Hill

Crane is very abundant, and the Great White or Whooping Crane very rare,

although supposed by some authors to be the same bird in different

stages of plumage.

Of the lobe-footed birds, seven species, of which is the rare and

beautiful Wilson's Phalarope, which breeds in the wet prairies near

Chicago.

Of web-footed birds, about forty species, among which are two Swans and

five Geese. Among the Ducks, the Canvas-Back is found; but, owing to the

want of its favorite food in the Chesapeake, the _Vallisneria_, it is,

in our waters, a very ordinary duck, as an article of food.

The waters of Illinois abound with fish, of which class we enumerate,--

Species Species

Percidae, 3 Pomotis, 2

Labrax, 3 Cottus, 2

Lucioperca, 2 Corvina, 1

Huro, 1 Pimelodus, 5

Centrarchus, 3 Leuciscus, 6

Hydrargea, 2 Corregomus, 3

Esox, 3 Amia, 1

Hyodon, 1 Lepidosteus, 3

Lota, 2 Accipenser, 3

Of these, the Perch, White, Black, and Rock Bass, the Pike-Perch, the

Catfish, the Pike and Muskalonge, the Whitefish, the Lake Trout, and the

Sturgeon are valuable fishes for the table.

Of the class of Reptiles, we have among the Lizards the Mud-Devil,

(_Menopoma Alleghaniensis_,) which grows in the sluggish streams to

the length of two feet; also _Triton dorsalis_, _Necturus lateralis_,

_Ambystoma punctata_.

Of the Snakes, we find three venomous species, the Rattlesnake, the

Massasauga, and the Copper-Head. The largest serpents are the Black

Snake, five feet long, and the Milk Snake, from five to six feet in

length.

Among the Turtles is _Emys picta_, _Chelonura serpentina_, and _Cistuda

clausa_.

Of the Frogs, we have _Rana sylvatica_, _Rana palustris_, and _Rana

pipiens_, nearly two feet long, and loud-voiced in proportion,--a

Bull-Frog, indeed!

Various theories and speculations have been formed as to the origin of

the prairies. One of them, is, that the forests which formerly occupied

these plains were swept away at some remote period by fire; and that the

annual fires set by the Indians have continued this state of things.

Another theory is, that the violent winds which sweep over them have

prevented the growth of trees; a third, that want of rain forbids their

growth; a fourth, that the agency of water has produced the effect;

and lastly, a learned professor at the last meeting of the Scientific

Convention put forth his theory, which was, that the real cause of the

absence of trees from the prairies is the mechanical condition of the

soil, which is, he thinks, too fine,--a coarse, rocky soil being, in his

estimation, a necessary condition of the growth of trees.

Most of these theories seem to be inconsistent with the plain facts of

the case. First, we know that these prairies existed in their present

condition when the first white man visited them, two hundred years ago;

and also that similar treeless plains exist in South America and Central

Africa, and have so existed ever since those countries were known. We

are told by travellers in those regions, that the natives have the same

custom of annually burning the dry grass and herbage for the same reason

that our Indians did it, and that the early white settlers kept up the

custom,--namely, to promote the growth of young and tender feed for the

wild animals which the former hunted and the cattle which the latter

live by grazing.

Another fact, well known to all settlers in the prairie, is, that it is

only necessary to keep out the fires by fences or ditches, and a thick

growth of trees will spring up on the prairies. Many fine groves now

exist all over Illinois, where nothing grew twenty years ago but the

wild grasses and weeds; and we have it on record, that locust-seed, sown

on the prairie near Quincy, in four years produced trees with a diameter

of trunk of four to six inches, and in seven years had become large

enough for posts and rails. So with fruit-trees, which nowhere flourish

with more strength and vigor than in this soil,--too much so, indeed,

since they are apt to run to wood rather than fruit. Moreover, the soil

in the groves and on the river bottoms, where trees naturally grow, is

the same, chemically and mechanically, as that of the open prairie; the

same winds sweep over both, and the same rain falls upon both; so that

it would seem that the absence of trees cannot be attributed wholly to

fire, water, wind, or soil, but is owing to a combination of two or more

of those agencies.

But from whatever cause the prairies originated, they have no doubt been

perpetuated by the fires which annually sweep over their surface. Where

the soil is too wet to sustain a heavy growth of grass, there is no

prairie. Timber is found along the streams, almost invariably,--and,

where the banks are high and dry, will usually be found on the east bank

of those streams whose course is north and south. This is caused by the

fact that the prevailing winds are from the west, and bring the fire

with them till it reaches the stream, which forms a barrier and protects

the vegetation on the other side.

If any State in the Union is adapted to agriculture, and the various

branches of rural economy, such as stock-raising, wool-growing, or

fruit-culture, it must surely be Illinois, where the fertile natural

meadows invite the plough, without the tedious process of clearing off

timber, which, in many parts of the country, makes it the labor of a

lifetime to bring a farm under good cultivation. Here, the farmer who is

satisfied with such crops as fifty bushels of corn to the acre, eighteen

of wheat, or one hundred of potatoes, has nothing to do but to plough,

sow, and reap; no manure, and but little attention, being necessary

to secure a yield like this. Hence a man of very small means can soon

become independent on the prairies. If, however, one is ambitious of

raising good crops, and doing the best he can with his land, let him

manure liberally and cultivate diligently; nowhere will land pay for

good treatment better than here.

Mr. J. Ambrose Wight, of Chicago, the able editor of the "Prairie

Farmer," writes as follows:--

"From an acquaintance with Illinois lands and Illinois farmers, of

eighteen years, during thirteen of which I have been editor of the

'Prairie Farmer,' I am prepared to give the following as the rates of

produce which may be had per acre, with ordinary culture:--

Winter Wheat, 15 to 25 Bushels.

Spring " 10 to 20 "

Corn, 40 to 70 "

Oats, 40 to 60 "

Potatoes, 100 to 200 "

Grass, Timothy and Clover, 1-1/2 to 3 Tons.

"_Ordinary culture_, on prairie lands, is not what is meant by the term

in the Eastern or Middle States. It means here, no manure, and commonly

but once, or at most twice, ploughing, on perfectly smooth land, with

long furrows, and no stones or obstructions; where two acres per day

is no hard job for one team. It is often but very poor culture, with

shallow ploughing, and without attention to weeds. I have known crops,

not unfrequently, far greater than these, with but little variation in

their treatment: say, 40 to 50 bushels of winter wheat, 60 to 80 of

oats, and 100 of Indian corn, or 300 of potatoes. _Good culture_, which

means rotation, deep ploughing, farms well stocked, and some manure

applied at intervals of from three to five years, would, in good

seasons, very often approach these latter figures."

We will now give the results of a very detailed account of the

management of a farm of 240 acres, in Kane County, Illinois, an average

farm as to soil and situation, but probably much above the average in

cultivation,--at least, we should judge so from the intelligent and

business-like manner in which the account is kept; every crop having a

separate account kept with it in Dr. and Cr., to show the net profit or

loss of each.

23 acres of Wheat, 30 bushels per acre, net profit $453.00

17-1/2 " " on Corn ground, 22-1/2 " " " 278.50

9-1/2 " Spring Wheat, 24 " " " 159.70

2-1/2 " Winter Rye, 22-7/12 " " " 10.25

5-1/2 " Barley, 33-1/4 " " " 32.55

12 " Oats, 87-1/2 " " " 174.50

28-1/2 " Corn, 60 " " " 638.73

1 " Potatoes, 150 " " " 27.50

103 Sheep, average weight of fleece, 3-1/2 lbs., " 177.83

15 head of Cattle and one Colt " 103.00

1500 lbs. Pork " 35.00

Fruit, Honey, Bees, and Poultry " 73.75

21 acres Timothy Seed, 4 bushels per acre, " 123.00

--------

$2287.31

A farm of this size, so situated, with the proper buildings and stock,

may, at the present price of land, be supposed to represent a capital of

$15,000--on which sum the above account gives an interest of over 15 per

cent. Is there any other part of the country where the same interest can

be realized on farming capital?

But this farm of 240 acres is a mere retail affair to many farms in the

State. We will give some examples on a larger scale.

"Winstead Davis came to Jonesboro', Illinois, from Tennessee, thirty

years ago, without means of any kind; now owns many thousand acres of

land, and has under cultivation, this year, from 2500 to 3000 acres."

"W. Willard, native of Vermont, commenced penniless; now owns more than

10,000 acres of land, and cultivates 2000."

"Jesse Funk, near Bloomington, Illinois, began the world thirty years

ago, at rail-splitting, at twenty-five cents the hundred. He bought

land, and raised cattle; kept increasing his lands and herds, till he

now owns 7000 acres of land, and sells over 840,000 worth of cattle and

hogs annually.

"Isaac Funk, brother of the above, began in the same way, at the same

time. He has gone ahead of Jesse; for _he_ owns 27,000 acres of land,

has 4000 in cultivation, and his last year's sales of cattle amounted to

$65,000."

It is evident that the brothers Funk are men of administrative talent;

they would have made a figure in Wall Street, could have filled cabinet

office at Washington, or, perhaps, could even have "kept a hotel."

These are but specimens of the large-acred men of Illinois. Hundreds of

others there are, who farm on nearly the same scale.

The great difficulty in carrying on farming operations on a large scale

in Illinois has always been the scarcity of labor. Land is cheap and

plenty, but labor scarce and dear: exactly the reverse of what obtains

in England, where land is dear and labor cheap. It must be evident that

a different kind of farming would be found here from that in use in

older countries. There, the best policy is to cultivate a few acres

well; here, it has been found more profitable to skim over a large

surface. But within a few years the introduction of labor-saving

machines has changed the conditions of farming, and has rendered it

possible to give good cultivation to large tracts of land with few men.

Many of the crops are now put in by machines, cultivated by machines,

and harvested by machine. If, as seems probable, the steam-plough

of Fawkes shall become a success, the revolution in farming will be

complete. Already some of the large farmers employ wind or steam power

in various ways to do the heavy work, such as cutting and grinding food

for cattle and hogs, pumping water, etc.

Although the soil and climate of Illinois are well adapted to

fruit-culture, yet, from various causes, it has not, till lately, been

much attended to. The early settlers of Southern and Middle Illinois

were mostly of the Virginia race, Hoosiers,--who are a people of few

wants. If they have hog-meat and hominy, whiskey and tobacco, they are

content; they will not trouble themselves to plant fruit-trees. The

early settlers in the North were, generally, very poor men; they could

not afford to buy fruit-trees, for the produce of which they must wait

several years. Wheat, corn, and hogs were the articles which could be

soonest converted into money, and those they raised. Then the early

attempts at raising fruit were not very successful. The trees were

brought from the East, and were either spoiled by the way, or were

unsuited to this region. But the great difficulty has been the want of

drainage. Fruit-trees cannot be healthy with wet feet for several months

of the year, and this they are exposed to on these level lands. With

proper tile-draining, so that the soil shall be dry and mellow early in

the spring, we think that the apple, the pear, the plum, and the cherry

will succeed on the prairies anywhere in Illinois. The peach and the

grape flourish in the southern part of the State, already, with very

little care; in St. Clair County, the culture of the latter has been

carried on by the Germans for many years, and the average yield of

Catawba wine has been two hundred gallons per acre. The strawberry grows

wild all over the State, both in the timber and the prairie; and the

cultivated varieties give very fine crops. All the smaller fruits do

well here, and the melon family find in this soil their true home; they

are raised by the acre, and sold by the wagon-load, in the neighborhood

of Chicago.

Stock-raising is undoubtedly the most profitable kind of farming on

the prairies, which are so admirably adapted to this species of rural

economy, and Illinois is already at the head of the cattle-breeding

States. There were shipped from Chicago in 1860, 104,122 head of live

cattle, and 114,007 barrels of beef.

The Durham breed seems to be preferred by the best stock-farmers, and

they pay great attention to the purity of the race. A herd of one

hundred head of cattle raised near Urbanna, and averaging 1965 pounds

each, took the premium at the World's Fair in New York. Although the

Durhams are remarkable for their large size and early maturity, yet

other breeds are favorites with many farmers,--such as the Devons, the

Herefords, and the Holsteins, the first particularly,--for working

cattle, and for the quality of their beef. There is a sweetness about

the beef fattened upon these prairies which is not found elsewhere, and

is noticed by all travellers who have eaten of that meat at the best

Chicago hotels.

In fact, Illinois is the paradise of cattle, and there is no sight more

beautiful, in its way, than one of those vast natural meadows in June,

dotted with the red and white cattle, standing belly-deep in rich grass

and gay-colored flowers, and almost too fat and lazy to whisk away

the flies. Even in winter they look comfortable, in their sheltered

barn-yard, surrounded by huge stacks of hay or long ranges of

corn-cribs, chewing the cud of contentment, and untroubled with any

thought of the inevitable journey to Brighton.

Where corn is so plenty as it is in Illinois, of course hogs will be

plenty also. During the year 1860, two hundred and seventy-five thousand

porkers rode into Chicago by railroad, eighty-five thousand of which

pursued their journey, still living, to Eastern cities,--the balance

remaining behind to be converted into lard, bacon, and salt pork.

The wholesale way of making beef and pork is this. All summer the cattle

are allowed to run on the prairie, and the hogs in the timber on the

river bottoms. In the autumn, when the corn is ripe, the cattle are

turned into one of those great fields, several hundred acres in extent,

to gather the crop; and after they have done, the hogs come in to pick

up what the cattle have left.

Sheep do well on the prairies, particularly in the southern part of the

State, where the flocks require little or no shelter in winter. The

prairie wolves formerly destroyed many sheep; but since the introduction

of strychnine for poisoning those voracious animals, the sheep have been

very little troubled.

Horses and mules are raised extensively, and in the northern counties,

where the Morgans and other good breeds have been introduced, the horses

are as good as in any State of the Union. Theory would predict this

result, since the horse is found always to come to his greatest

perfection in level countries,--as, for instance, the deserts of Arabia,

and the _llanos_ of South America.

There are two articles in daily and indispensable use, for which the

Northern States have hitherto been dependent on the Southern: Sugar

and Cotton. With regard to the first, the introduction of the Chinese

Sugar-Cane has demonstrated that every farmer in the State can raise

his own sweetening. The experience of several years has proved that the

_Sorghum_ is a hardier plant than corn, and that it will be a sure crop

as far North as latitude 42° or 43°.

An acre of good prairie will produce 18 tons of the cane, and each ton

gives 60 gallons of juice, which is reduced, by boiling, to 10 gallons

of syrup. This gives 180 gallons of syrup to the acre, worth from 40 to

50 cents a gallon,--say 40 cents, which will give 72 dollars for the

product of an acre of land; from which the expenses of cultivation being

deducted, with rent of land, etc., say 36 dollars, there will remain a

net profit of 36 dollars to the acre, besides the seed, and the fodder

which comes from a third part of the stalk, which is cut off before

sending the remainder to the mill. This is found to be the most

nutritious food that can be used for cattle and horses, and very

valuable for milch cows. These results Lave been obtained from Mr. Luce,

of Plainfield, Will County, who has lately built a steam-mill for making

the syrup from the cane which is raised by the farmers in that vicinity.

In this first year, he manufactured 12,500 gallons of syrup, which sells

readily at fifty cents a gallon. A quantity of it was refined at the

Chicago Sugar-Refinery, and the result was a very agreeable syrup, free

from the peculiar flavor which the home-made Sorghum-syrup usually

has. As yet, no experiments on a large scale have been made to obtain

crystallized sugar from the juice of this cane, it having been, so far,

used more economically in the shape of syrup. That it can be done,

however, is proved by the success of several persons who have tried it

in a small way. In the County of Vermilion, it is estimated that three

hundred thousand gallons of syrup were made in 1860.

As to Cotton, since the building of the Illinois Central Railroad has

opened the southern part of the State to the world, and let in the

light upon that darkened Egypt, it is found that those people have

been raising their own cotton for many years, from the seed which they

brought with them into the State from Virginia and North Carolina. The

plant has become acclimated, and now ripens its seed in latitude 39° and

40°. Perhaps the culture may be carried still farther, so that cotton

may be raised all over the State. The heat of our summers is tropical,

but they are too short. If, however, the cotton-plant, like Indian corn

and the tomato, can be gradually induced to mature itself in four or

five months, the consequences of such a change can hardly be estimated.

But whether or not it be possible to raise cotton and sugar profitably

in Illinois, that she is the great bread- and meat-producing State no

one can doubt; and in 1861 it happens that Cotton is King no longer, but

must yield his sceptre to Corn.

The breadstuffs exported from the Northwest to Europe and to the Cotton

States will this year probably amount to more money than the whole

foreign export of cotton,--the crop which to some persons represents all

that the world contains of value.

Probable export of Cotton in 1861, three-fourths

of the crop of 4,000,000 bales, 3,000,000 bales,

at $45 . . . . . . . . . $135,000,000

Estimated export of Breadstuffs

to Europe . . . . . . . . $100,000,000

Estimated export of Breadstuffs

to Southern States . . . . . . $45,000,000

------------

$145,000,000

We are feeding Europe and the Cotton States, who pay us in gold; we

feed the Northern States, who pay us in goods; we are feeding our

starving brothers in Kansas, who have paid us beforehand, by their

heroic devotion to the cause of freedom. Let us hope that their troubles

are nearly over, and that, having passed through more hardships than

have fallen to the lot of any American community, they may soon enter

upon a career of prosperity as signal as have been their misfortunes, so

that the prairies of Kansas may, in their turn, assist in feeding the

world.

Nothing has done so much for the rapid growth of Illinois as her canal

and railroads.

As early as 1833 several railroad charters were granted by the

legislature; but the stock was not taken, and nothing was done until the

year 1836, when a vast system of internal improvements was projected,

intended "to be commensurate with the wants of the people,"--that is,

there was to be a railroad to run by every man's door. About thirteen

hundred miles of railroads were planned, a canal was to be built from

Chicago to the Illinois River at Peru, and several rivers were to be

made navigable. The cost of all this it was supposed would be about

eight millions of dollars, and the money was to be raised by loan. In

order that all might have the benefit of this system, it was provided

that two hundred thousand dollars should be distributed among those

counties where none of these improvements were made. To cap the climax

of folly, it was provided that the work should commence on all these

roads simultaneously, at each end, and from the crossings of all the

rivers.

As no previous survey or estimate had been made, either of the routes,

the cost of the works, or the amount of business to be done on them, it

is not surprising that the State of Illinois soon found herself with a

heavy debt, and nothing to show for it, except a few detached pieces

of railroad embankments and excavations, a half-finished canal, and a

railroad from the Illinois River to Springfield, which cost one million

of dollars, and when finished would not pay for operating it.

The State staggered on for some ten years under this load of debt,

which, as she could not pay the interest upon it, had increased in 1845

to some fourteen millions. The project of repudiating the debt was

frequently brought forward by unscrupulous politicians; but to the honor

of the people of Illinois be it remembered, that even in the darkest

times this dishonest scheme found but few friends.

In 1845, the holders of the canal bonds advanced the sum of $1,700,000

for the purpose of finishing the canal; and subsequently, William B.

Ogden and a few other citizens of Chicago, having obtained possession of

an old railroad-charter for a road from that city to Galena, got a few

thousand dollars of stock subscribed in those cities, and commenced the

work. The difficulties were very great, from the scarcity of money and

the want of confidence in the success of the enterprise. In most of the

villages along the proposed line there was a strong opposition to having

a railroad built at all, as the people thought it would be the ruin of

their towns. Even in Chicago, croakers were not wanting to predict that

the railroad would monopolize all the trade of the place.

In the face of all these obstacles, the road was built to the Des

Plaines River, twelve miles,--in a very cheap way, to be sure; as a

second-hand strap-rail was used, and half-worn cars were picked up from

Eastern roads.

These twelve miles of road between the Des Plaines and Chicago had

always been the terror of travellers. It was a low, wet prairie, without

drainage, and in the spring and autumn almost impassable. At such

seasons one might trace the road by the broken wagons and dead horses

that lay strewn along it.

To be able to have their loads of grain carried over this dreadful place

for three or four cents a bushel was to the farmers of the Rock River

and Fox River valleys--who, having hauled their wheat from forty to

eighty miles to this Slough of Despond, frequently could get it no

farther--a privilege which they soon began to appreciate. The road had

all it could do, at once. It was a success. There was now no difficulty

in getting the stock taken up, and before long it was finished to Fox

River. It paid from fifteen to twenty per cent to the stockholders,

and the people along the line soon became its warmest friends,--and no

wonder, since it doubled the value of every man's farm on the line. The

next year the road was extended to Rock River, and then to Galena, one

hundred and eighty-five miles.

This road was the pioneer of the twenty-eight hundred and fifty miles of

railroads which now cross the State in every direction, and which have

hastened the settlement of the prairies at least fifty years.

Among these lines of railway, the most important, and one of the longest

in America, is the Illinois Central, which is seven hundred and four

miles in length, and traverses the State from South to North, namely:--

1. The main line, from Cairo to La Salla 308 miles

2. The Galena Branch, from La Salle to Dunleith 146 "

3. The Chicago Branch, from Chicago to Centralia 250 "

This great work was accomplished in the short space of four years and

nine months, by the help of a grant of two and a half millions of acres

of land lying along the line. The company have adopted the policy of

selling these lands on long credit to actual settlers; and since the

completion of the road, in 1856, they have sold over a million of acres,

for fifteen millions of dollars, in secured notes, bearing interest. The

remaining lands will probably realize as much more, so that the seven

hundred and four miles of railroad will actually cost the corporators

nothing.

There are eleven trunk and twenty branch and extension lines, which

centre in Chicago, the earnings of nineteen of which, for the year 1859,

were fifteen millions of dollars. As that, however, was a year of great

depression in business, with a short crop through the Northwest, we

think, in view of the large crop of 1860, and the consequent revival of

business, that the earnings of these nineteen lines will not be less

this year than twenty-two millions of dollars.

In the early settlement of the State, twenty-five or thirty years ago,

the pioneers being necessarily very liable to want of good shelter, to

bad food and impure water, suffered much from bilious and intermittent

fevers. As the country has become settled, the land brought under

cultivation, and the habits of the people improved, these diseases have

in a great measure disappeared. Other forms of disease have, however,

taken their place, pulmonary affections and fevers of the typhoid type

being more prevalent than formerly; but as most of the immigrants into

Northern Illinois are from Western New York and New England, where this

latter class of diseases prevails, the people are much less alarmed by

them than they used to be by the bilious diseases, though the latter

were really less dangerous. The coughs, colds, and consumptions are old

acquaintances, and through familiarity have lost their terrors.

The census of 1850 gives the following comparative view of the annual

percentage of deaths in several States:--

Massachusetts, . . 1.95 per cent.

Rhode Island, . . 1.52 "

New York, . . . 1.47 "

Ohio, . . . . 1.44 "

Illinois, . . . . 1.36 "

Missouri, . . . 1.80 "

Louisiana, . . . 2.31 "

Texas, . . . 1.43 "

This table shows that Illinois stands in point of health among the very

highest of the States.

Having sketched the history and traced the material development of the

Prairie State to the present time, we will close this article with a few

words as to its politics and policy.

As we have seen, the early settlers of Illinois were from Virginia

and Kentucky, and brought with them the habits, customs, and ideas of

Slaveholders; and though by the sagacity and virtue of a few leading

men the institution of Slavery was kept out, yet for many years the

Democratic Party, always the ally and servant of the Slave-Power, was in

the ascendant. Until 1858, the Legislature and the Executive have always

been Democratic, and the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, from

Jackson down to Buchanan, was sure of the electoral vote of Illinois.

But the growth of the northern half of the State has of late years been

far outstripping that of the southern portion, and the former now has

the majority. We have now a Republican Legislature and a Republican

Governor, and, by the new apportionment soon to be made, the Republican

Party will be much more largely in the ascendant,--so much so, indeed,

that there is no probability of another Democratic Senator being chosen

from Illinois in the next twenty years, Mr. Douglas will be the last of

his race.

The people of Northern Illinois, who are in future to direct the policy

of the State, are mostly from Western New York and New England.

"Coelum, non animum mutant."

They bring with them their unconquered prejudices in favor of freedom;

their great commercial city is as strongly anti-slavery as Worcester

or Syracuse, and has been for years an unsafe spot for a slave-hunter.

Their interests and their sympathies are all with the Northern States.

What idle babble, then, is this theory of a third Confederacy, to be

constructed out of the middle Atlantic States and the Northwest!

If, as one of our orators says, New England is the brain of this

country, then the Northwest is its bone and muscle, ready to cultivate

its wide prairies and feed the world,--or, if need be, to use the same

strength in crushing treason, and in preserving the Territories for free

settlers.

CONCERNING FUTURE YEARS

Does it ever come across you, my friend, with something of a start, that

things cannot always go on in your lot as they are going now? Does not a

sudden thought sometimes flash upon you, a hasty, vivid glimpse, of what

you will be long hereafter, if you are spared in this world? Our common

way is too much to think that things will always go on as they are

going. Not that we clearly think so: not that we ever put that opinion

in a definite shape, and avow to ourselves that we hold it: but we live

very much under that vague, general impression. We can hardly help it.

When a man of middle age inherits a pretty country-seat, and makes up

his mind that be cannot yet afford to give up business and go to live

there, but concludes that in six or eight years he will be able with

justice to his children to do so, do you think he brings plainly before

him the changes which must be wrought on himself and those around him

by these years? I do not speak of the greatest change of all, which may

come to any of us so very soon: I do not think of what may be done

by unlooked-for accident: I think merely of what must be done by the

passing on of time. I think of possible changes in taste and feeling,

of possible loss of liking for that mode of life. I think of lungs that

will play less freely, and of limbs that will suggest shortened walks,

and dissuade from climbing hills. I think how the children will have

outgrown daisy-chains, or even got beyond the season of climbing trees.

The middle-aged man enjoys the prospect of the time when he shall go to

his country house; and the vague, undefined belief surrounds him, like

an atmosphere, that he and his children, his views and likings, will be

then just such as they are now. He cannot bring it home to him at how

many points change will be cutting into him, and hedging him in, and

paring him down. And we all live very much under that vague impression.

Yet it is in many ways good for us to feel that we are going on,

--passing from the things which surround us,--advancing into the

undefined future, into the unknown land. And I think that sometimes we

all have vivid flashes of such a conviction. I dare say, my friend, you

have seen an old man, frail, soured, and shabby, and you have thought,

with a start, Perhaps _there_ is Myself of Future Years.

We human beings can stand a great deal. There is great margin allowed by

our constitution, physical and moral. I suppose there is no doubt that

a man may daily for years eat what is unwholesome, breathe air which is

bad, or go through a round of life which is not the best or the right

one for either body or mind, and yet be little the worse. And so men

pass through great trials and through long years, and yet are not

altered so very much. The other day, walking along the street, I saw a

man whom I had not seen for ten years. I knew that since I saw him last

he had gone through very heavy troubles, and that these had sat very

heavily upon him. I remembered how he had lost that friend who was the

dearest to him of all human beings, and I knew how broken down he had

been for many months after that great sorrow came. Yet there he was,

walking along, an unnoticed unit, just like any one else; and he was

looking wonderfully well. No doubt he seemed pale, worn, and anxious:

but he was very well and carefully dressed; he was walking with a brisk,

active step; and I dare say is feeling pretty well reconciled to being

what he is, and to the circumstances amid which he is living. Still, one

felt that somehow a tremendous change had passed over him. I felt

sorry for him, and all the more that he did not seem to feel sorry for

himself. It made me sad to think that some day I should be like him;

that perhaps in the eyes of my juniors I look like him already, careworn

and aging. I dare say in his feeling there was no such sense of falling

off. Perhaps he was tolerably content. He was walking so fast, and

looking so sharp, that I am sure he had no desponding feeling at the

time. Despondency goes with slow movements and with vague looks. The

sense of having materially fallen off is destructive to the eagle-eye.

Yes, he was tolerably content. We can go down-hill cheerfully, save at

the points where it is sharply brought home to us that we are going

down-hill. Lately I sat at dinner opposite an old lady who had the

remains of striking beauty. I remember how much she interested me. Her

hair was false, her teeth were false, her complexion was shrivelled, her

form had lost the round symmetry of earlier years, and was angular and

stiff; yet how cheerful and lively she was! She had gone far down-hill

physically; but either she did not feel her decadence, or she had grown

quite reconciled to it. Her daughter, a blooming matron, was there,

happy, wealthy, good; yet not apparently a whit more reconciled to life

than the aged grandam. It was pleasing, and yet it was sad, to see how

well we can make up our mind to what is inevitable. And such a sight

brings up to one a glimpse of Future Years. The cloud seems to part

before one, and through the rift you discern your earthly track far

away, and a jaded pilgrim plodding along it with weary step; and

though the pilgrim does not look like you, yet you know the pilgrim is

yourself.

This cannot always go on. To what is it all tending? I am not thinking

now of an outlook so grave, that this is not the place to discuss it.

But I am thinking how everything is going on. In this world there is no

standing still. And everything that belongs entirely to this world, its

interests and occupations, is going on towards a conclusion. It will

all come to an end. It cannot go on forever. I cannot always be writing

sermons as I do now, and going on in this regular course of life. I

cannot always be writing essays. The day will come when I shall have no

more to say, or when the readers of the Magazine will no longer have

patience to listen to me in that kind fashion in which they have

listened so long. I foresee it plainly, this evening,--even while

writing my first essay for the "Atlantic Monthly,"--the time when

the reader shall open the familiar cover, and glance at the table of

contents, and exclaim indignantly, "Here is that tiresome person again:

why will he not cease to weary us?" I write in sober sadness, my friend:

I do not intend any jest. If you do not know that what I have written is

certainly true, you have not lived very long. You have not learned the

sorrowful lesson, that all worldly occupations and interests are wearing

to their close. You cannot keep up the old thing, however much you may

wish to do so. You know how vain anniversaries for the most part are.

You meet with certain old friends, to try to revive the old days; but

the spirit of the old time will not come over you. It is not a spirit

that can be raised at will. It cannot go on forever, that walking down

to church on Sundays, and ascending those pulpit-steps; it will change

to feeling, though I humbly trust it may be long before it shall change

in fact. Don't you all sometimes feel something like that? Don't you

sometimes look about you and say to yourself, That furniture will wear

out: those window-curtains are getting sadly faded; they will not last a

lifetime? Those carpets must be replaced some day; and the old patterns

which looked at you with a kindly, familiar expression, through these

long years, must be among the old familiar faces that are gone. These

are little things, indeed, but they are among the vague recollections

that bewilder our memory; they are among the things which come up in the

strange, confused remembrance of the dying man in the last days of life.

There is an old fir-tree, a twisted, strange-looking fir-tree, which

will be among my last recollections, I know, as it was among my first.

It was always before my eyes, when I was three, four, five years old: I

see the pyramidal top, rising over a mass of shrubbery; I see it always

against a sunset-sky; always in the subdued twilight in which we seem to

see things in distant years. These old friends will die, you think;

who will take their place? You will be an old gentleman, a frail old

gentleman, wondered at by younger men, and telling them long stones

about the days when Lincoln was President, like those which weary you

now about the War of 1812. It will not be the same world then. Your

children will not be always children. Enjoy their fresh youth while it

lasts, for it will not last long. Do not skim over the present too fast,

through a constant habit of onward-looking. Many men of an anxious turn

are so eagerly concerned in providing for the future, that they hardly

remark the blessings of the present. Yet it is only because the future

will some day be present, that it deserves any thought at all. And many

men, instead of heartily enjoying present blessings while they are

present, train themselves to a habit of regarding these things as merely

the foundation on which they are to build some vague fabric of they know

not what. I have known a clergyman, who was very fond of music, and in

whose church the music was very fine, who seemed incapable of enjoying

its solemn beauty as a thing to be enjoyed while passing, but who

persisted in regarding each beautiful strain merely as a promising

indication of what his choir would come at some future time to be. It is

a very bad habit, and one which grows, unless repressed. You, my reader,

when you see your children racing on the green, train yourself to regard

all that as a happy end in itself. Do not grow to think merely that

those sturdy young limbs promise to be stout and serviceable when they

are those of a grown-up man; and rejoice in the smooth little forehead

with its curly hair, without any forethought of how it is to look some

day when overshadowed (as it is sure to be) by the great wig of the Lord

Chancellor. Good advice: let us all try to take it. Let all happy things

be not merely regarded as means, but enjoyed as ends. Yet it is in the

make of our nature to be ever onward-looking; and we cannot help it.

When you get the first number for the year of the magazine which you

take in, you instinctively think of it as the first portion of a new

volume; and you are conscious of a certain, though alight, restlessness

in the thought of a thing incomplete, and of a wish that you had the

volume completed. And sometimes, thus looking onward into the future,

you worry yourself with little thoughts and cares. There is that old

dog: you have had him for many years; he is growing stiff and frail;

what are you to do when he dies? When he is gone, the new dog you get

will never be like him; he may be, indeed, a far handsomer and more

amiable animal, but he will not be your old companion; he will not be

surrounded with all those old associations, not merely with your own

by-past life, but with the lives, the faces, and the voices of those who

have left you, which invest with a certain sacredness even that humble,

but faithful friend. He will not have been the companion of your

youthful walks, when you went at a pace which now you cannot attain. He

will just be a common dog; and who that has reached your years cares

for _that_? The other, indeed, was a dog too; but that was merely the

substratum on which was accumulated a host of recollections: it is _Auld

Lang Syne_ that walks into your study, when your shaggy friend of ten

summers comes stiffly in, and after many querulous turnings lays himself

down on the rug before the fire. Do you not feel the like when you

look at many little matters, and then look into the Future Years? That

harness,--how will you replace it? It will be a pang to throw it by;

and it will be a considerable expense, too, to get a new suit. Then you

think how long harness may continue to be serviceable. I once saw, on a

pair of horses drawing a stage-coach among the hills, a set of harness

which was thirty-five years old. It had been very costly and grand when

new; it had belonged for some of its earliest years to a certain wealthy

nobleman. The nobleman had been for many years in his grave, but there

was his harness still. It was tremendously patched, and the blinkers

were of extraordinary aspect; but it was quite serviceable. There is

comfort for you, poor country parsons! How thoroughly I understand your

feeling about such little things! I know how you sometimes look at your

phaëton or your dog-cart; and even while the morocco is fresh, and the

wheels still are running with their first tires, how you think you see

it after it has grown shabby and old-fashioned. Yes, you remember,

not without a dull kind of pang, that it is wearing out. You have a

neighbor, perhaps, a few miles off, whose conveyance, through the wear

of many years, has become remarkably seedy; and every time you meet it

you think that there you see your own, as it will some day be. Every dog

has his day: but the day of the rational dog is overclouded in a fashion

unknown to his inferior fellow-creature; it is overclouded by the

anticipation of the coming day which will not be his. You remember how

that great, though morbid man, John Poster, could not heartily enjoy the

summer weather, for thinking how every sunny day that shone upon him

was a downward step towards the winter gloom. Each indication that the

season was progressing, even though progressing as yet only to greater

beauty, filled him with great grief. "I have seen a fearful sight

to-day," he would say,--"I have seen a buttercup." And we know, of

course, that in his case there was nothing like affectation; it was only

that, unhappily for himself, the bent of his mind was so onward-looking,

that he saw only a premonition of the snows of December in the roses of

June. It would be a blessing, if we could quite discard the tendency.

And while your trap runs smoothly and noiselessly, while the leather is

fresh and the paint unscratched, do not worry yourself with visions of

the day when it will rattle and creak, and when you will make it wait

for you at the corner of back-streets when you drive into town. Do not

vex yourself by fancying that you will never have heart to send off the

old carriage, nor by wondering where you shall find the money to buy a

new one.

Have you ever read the "Life of Mansie Wauch, Tailor in Dalkeith," by

that pleasing poet and most amiable man, the late David Macbeth Moir?

I have been looking into it lately; and I have regretted much that the

Lowland Scotch dialect is so imperfectly understood in England, and that

even where so far understood its raciness is so little felt; for great

as is the popularity of that work, it is much less known than it

deserves to be. Only a Scotchman can thoroughly appreciate it. It is

curious, and yet it is not curious, to find the pathos and the polish of

one of the most touching and elegant of poets in the man who has

with such irresistible humor, sometimes approaching to the farcical,

delineated humble Scotch life. One passage in the book always struck me

very much. We have in it the poet as well as the humorist and it is a

perfect example of what I have been trying to describe in the pages

which you have read. I mean the passage in which Mansie tells us of a

sudden glimpse which, in circumstances of mortal terror, he once had of

the future. On a certain "awful night" the tailor was awakened by cries

of alarm, and, looking out, he saw the next house to his own was on fire

from cellar to garret. The earnings of poor Mansie's whole life were

laid out on his stock in trade and his furniture, and it appeared likely

that these would be at once destroyed.

"Then," says he, "the darkness of the latter days came over my spirit

like a vision before the prophet Isaiah; and I could see nothing in the

years to come but beggary and starvation,--myself a fallen-back old man,

with an out-at-the-elbows coat, a greasy hat, and a bald brow,

hirpling over a staff, requeeshting an awmous; Nanse a broken-hearted

beggar-wife, torn down to tatters, and weeping like Rachel when she

thought on better days; and poor wee Benjie going from door to door with

a meal-pock on his back."

Ah, there is exquisite pathos _there_, as well as humor; but the thing

for which I have quoted that sentence is its startling truthfulness. You

have all done what Mansie Wauch did, I know. Every one has his own way

of doing it, and it is his own especial picture which each sees; but

there has appeared to us, as to Mansie, (I must recur to my old figure,)

as it were a sudden rift in the clouds that conceal the future, and

we have seen the way, far ahead,--the dusty way,--and an aged pilgrim

pacing slowly along it; and in that aged figure we have each recognized

our own young self. How often have I sat down on the mossy wall that

surrounded my churchyard, when I had more time for reverie than I have

now,--sat upon the mossy wall, under a great oak, whose branches came

low down and projected far out,--and looked at the rough gnarled bark,

and at the pacing river, and at the belfry of the little church, and

there and then thought of Mansie Wauch and of his vision of Future

Years! How often in these hours, or in long solitary walks and rides

among the hills, have I had visions, clear as that of Mansie Wauch, of

how I should grow old in my country parish! Do not think that I wish or

intend to be egotistical, my friendly reader. I describe these feelings

and fancies because I think this is the likeliest way in which to reach

and describe your own. There was a rapid little stream that flowed, in

a very lonely place, between the highway and a cottage to which I often

went to see a poor old woman; and when I came out of the cottage, having

made sure that no one saw me, I always took a great leap over the little

stream, which saved going round a little way. And never once, for

several years, did I thus cross it without seeing a picture as clear to

the mind's eye as Mansie Wauch's,--a picture which made me walk very

thoughtfully along for the next mile or two. It was curious to think how

one was to get through the accustomed duty after having grown old and

frail. The day would come when the brook could be crossed in that brisk

fashion no more. It must be an odd thing for the parson to walk as an

old man into the pulpit, still his own, which was his own when he was a

young man of six-and-twenty. What a crowd of old remembrances must be

present each Sunday to the clergyman's mind, who has served the same

parish and preached in the same church for fifty years! Personal

identity, continued through the successive stages of life, is a

commonplace thing to think of; but when it is brought home to your own

case and feeling, it is a very touching and a very bewildering thing.

There are the same trees and hills as when you were a boy; and when each

of us comes to his last days in this world, how short a space it will

seem since we were little children! Let us humbly hope, that, in that

brief space parting the cradle from the grave, we may (by help from

above) have accomplished a certain work which will cast its blessed

influence over all the years and all the ages before us. Yet it remains

a strange thing to look forward and to see yourself with gray hair, and

not much even of that; to see your wife an old woman, and your little

boy or girl grown up into manhood or womanhood. It is more strange still

to fancy you see them all going on as usual in the round of life, and

you no longer among them. You see your empty chair. There is your

writing-table and your inkstand; there are your books, not so carefully

arranged as they used to be; perhaps, on the whole, less indication than

you might have hoped that they miss you. All this is strange when you

bring it home to your own case; and that hundreds of millions have felt

the like makes it none the less strange to you. The commonplaces of life

and death are not commonplace when they befall ourselves. It was in

desperate hurry and agitation that Mansie Wauch saw his vision; and in

like circumstances you may have yours too. But for the most part such

moods come in leisure,--in saunterings through the autumn woods,--in

reveries by the winter fire.

I do not think, thus musing upon our occasional glimpses of the Future,

of such fancies as those of early youth,--fancies and anticipations of

greatness, of felicity, of fame; I think of the onward views of men

approaching middle age, who have found their place and their work in

life, and who may reasonably believe, that, save for great unexpected

accidents, there will be no very material change in their lot till that

"change come" to which Job looked forward four thousand years since.

There are great numbers of educated folk who are likely always to live

in the same kind of house, to have the same establishment, to associate

with the same class of people, to walk along the same streets, to look

upon the same hills, as long as they live. The only change will be the

gradual one which will be wrought by advancing years.

And the onward view of such people in such circumstances is generally a

very vague one. It is only now and then that there comes the startling

clearness of prospect so well set forth by Mansie Wauch. Yet sometimes,

when such a vivid view comes, it remains for days, and is a painful

companion of your solitude. Don't you remember, clerical reader of

thirty-two, having seen a good deal of an old parson, rather sour in

aspect, rather shabby-looking, sadly pinched for means, and with powers

dwarfed by the sore struggle with the world to maintain his family and

to keep up a respectable appearance upon his limited resources; perhaps

with his mind made petty and his temper spoiled by the little worries,

the petty malignant tattle and gossip and occasional insolence of a

little backbiting village? and don't you remember how for days you felt

haunted by a sort of nightmare that there was what you would be, if you

lived so long? Yes; you know how there have been times when for ten days

together that jarring thought would intrude, whenever your mind was

disengaged from work; and sometimes, when you went to bed, that thought

kept you awake for hours. You knew the impression was morbid, and you

were angry with yourself for your silliness; but you could not drive it

away.

It makes a great difference in the prospect of Future Years, if you are

one of those people who, even after middle age, may still make a great

rise in life. This will prolong the restlessness which in others is

sobered down at forty: it will extend the period during which you will

every now and then have brief seasons of feverish anxiety, hope, and

fear, followed by longer stretches of blank disappointment. And it will

afford the opportunity of experiencing a vividly new sensation, and of

turning over a quite new leaf, after most people have settled to the

jog-trot at which the remainder of the pilgrimage is to be covered. A

clergyman of the Church of England may be made a bishop, and exchange a

quiet rectory for a palace. No doubt the increase of responsibility is

to a conscientious man almost appalling; but surely the rise in life

is great. There you are, one of four-and-twenty, selected out of near

twenty thousand. It is possible, indeed, that you may feel more reason

for shame than for elation at the thought. A barrister unknown to fame,

but of respectable standing, may be made a judge. Such a man may even,

if he gets into the groove, be gradually pushed on till he reaches an

eminence which probably surprises himself as much as any one else. A

good speaker in Parliament may at sixty or seventy be made a Cabinet

Minister. And we can all imagine what indescribable pride and elation

must in such cases possess the wife and daughters of the man who has

attained this decided step in advance. I can say sincerely that I never

saw human beings walk with so airy tread, and evince so fussily their

sense of a greatness more than mortal, as the wife and the daughter of

an amiable but not able bishop I knew in my youth, when they came to

church on the Sunday morning on which the good man preached for the

first time in his lawn sleeves. Their heads were turned for the time;

but they gradually came right again, as the ladies became accustomed to

the summits of human affairs. Let it be said for the bishop himself,

that there was not a vestige of that sense of elevation about him. He

looked perfectly modest and unaffected. His dress was remarkably ill put

on, and his sleeves stuck out in the most awkward fashion ever assumed

by drapery. I suppose that sometimes these rises in life come very

unexpectedly. I have heard of a man who, when he received a letter from

the Prime Minister of the day offering him a place of great dignity,

thought the letter was a hoax, and did not notice it for several days.

You could not certainly infer from his modesty what has proved to be the

fact, that he has filled his place admirably well. The possibility of

such material changes must no doubt tend to prolong the interest in

life, which is ready to flag as years go on. But perhaps with the

majority of men the level is found before middle age, and no very great

worldly change awaits them. The path stretches on, with its ups and

downs; and they only hope for strength for the day. But in such men's

lot of humble duty and quiet content there remains room for many fears.

All human beings who are as well off as they can ever be, and so who

have little room for hope, seem to be liable to the invasion of great

fear as they look into the future. It seems to be so with kings, and

with great nobles. Many such have lived in a nervous dread of change,

and have ever been watching the signs of the times with apprehensive

eyes. Nothing that can happen can well make such better; and so they

suffer from the vague foreboding of something which will make them

worse. And the same law reaches to those in whom hope is narrowed down,

not by the limit of grand possibility, but of little,--not by the fact

that they have got all that mortal can get, but by the fact that they

have got the little which is all that Providence seems to intend to give

to _them_. And, indeed, there is something that is almost awful, when

your affairs are all going happily, when your mind is clear and equal

to its work, when your bodily health is unbroken, when your home is

pleasant, when your income is ample, when your children are healthy and

merry and hopeful,--in looking on to Future Years. The more happy

you are, the more there is of awe in the thought how frail are the

foundations of your earthly happiness,--what havoc may be made of them

by the chances of even a single day. It is no wonder that the solemnity

and awfulness of the Future have been felt so much, that the languages

of Northern Europe have, as I dare say you know, no word which expresses

the essential notion of Futurity. You think, perhaps, of _shall_

and _will_. Well, these words have come now to convey the notion of

Futurity; but they do so only in a secondary fashion. Look to their

etymology, and you will see that they _imply_ Futurity, but do not

_express_ it. _I shall_ do such a thing means _I am bound to do it, I am

under an obligation to do it. I will_ do such a thing means _I intend to

do it. It is my present purpose to do it_. Of course, if you are under

an obligation to do anything, or if it be your intention to do anything,

the probability is that the thing will be done; but the Northern family

of languages ventures no nearer than _that_ towards the expression of

the bare, awful idea of Future Time. It was no wonder that Mr. Croaker

was able to east a gloom upon the gayest circle, and the happiest

conjuncture of circumstances, by wishing that all might be as well that

day six months. Six months! What might that time not do? Perhaps you

have not read a little poem of Barry Cornwall's, the idea of which must

come home to the heart of most of us:--

"Touch us gently, Time!

Let us glide adown thy stream

Gently,--as we sometimes glide

Through a quiet dream.

Humble voyagers are we,

Husband, wife, and children three;--

One is lost,--an angel, fled

To the azure overhead.

"Touch us gently, Time!

We've not proud nor soaring wings:

_Our_ ambition, our content,

Lies in simple things.

Humble voyagers are we,

O'er life's dim, unsounded sea,

Seeking only some calm clime:--

Touch us gently, gentle Time!"

I know that sometimes, my friend, you will not have much sleep, if, when

you lay your head on your pillow, you begin to think how much depends

upon your health and life. You have reached now that time at which you

value life and health not so much for their service to yourself, as for

their needfulness to others. There is a petition familiar to me in this

Scotch country, where people make their prayers for themselves, which

seems to me to possess great solemnity and force, when we think of

all that is implied in it. It is, _Spare useful lives!_ One life, the

slender line of blood passing into and passing out of one human heart,

may decide the question, whether wife and children shall grow up

affluent, refined, happy, yes, and _good_, or be reduced to hard

straits, with all the manifold evils which grow of poverty in the case

of those who have been reduced to it after knowing other things. You

often think, I doubt not, in quiet hours, what would become of your

children, if you were gone. You have done, I trust, what you can to care

for them, even from your grave: you think sometimes of a poetical figure

of speech amid the dry technical phrases of English law: you know what

is meant by the law of _Mortmain_; and you like to think that even your

_dead hand_ may be felt to be kindly intermeddling yet in the affairs of

those who were your dearest: that some little sum, slender, perhaps, but

as liberal as you could make it, may come in periodically when it is

wanted, and seem like the gift of a thoughtful heart and a kindly hand

which are far away. Yes, cut down your present income to any extent,

that you may make some provision for your children after you are dead.

You do not wish that they should have the saddest of all reasons for

taking care of you, and trying to lengthen out your life. But even after

you have done everything which your small means permit, you will still

think, with an anxious heart, of the possibilities of Future Years. A

man or woman who has children has very strong reason for wishing to live

as long as may be, and has no right to trifle with health or life.

And sometimes, looking out into days to come, you think of the little

things, hitherto so free from man's heritage of care, as they may some

day be. You see them shabby, and early anxious: can _that_ be the little

boy's rosy face, now so pale and thin? You see them in a poor room, in

which you recognize your study-chairs with the hair coming out of the

cushions, and a carpet which you remember now threadbare and in holes.

It is no wonder at all that people are so anxious about money. Money

means every desirable material thing on earth, and the manifold

immaterial things which come of material possessions. Poverty is the

most comprehensive earthly evil; all conceivable evils, temporal,

spiritual, and eternal, may come of _that_. Of course, great temptations

attend its opposite; and the wise man's prayer will be what it was long

ago,--"Give me neither poverty nor riches." But let us have no nonsense

talked about money being of no consequence. The want of it has made many

a father and mother tremble at the prospect of being taken from their

children; the want of it has embittered many a parent's dying hours.

You hear selfish persons talking vaguely about faith. You find such

heartless persons jauntily spending all they get on themselves, and then

leaving their poor children to beggary, with the miserable pretext that

they are doing all this through their abundant trust in God. Now this is

not faith; it is insolent presumption. It is exactly as if a man should

jump from the top of St. Paul's, and say that he had faith that the

Almighty would keep him from being dashed to pieces on the pavement.

There is a high authority as to such cases,--"Thou shalt not tempt the

Lord thy God." If God had promised that people should never fall into

the miseries of penury under any circumstances, it would be faith to

trust that promise, however unlikely of fulfilment it might seem in any

particular case. But God has made no such promise; and if you leave your

children without provision, you have no right to expect that they

shall not suffer the natural consequences of your heartlessness and

thoughtlessness. True faith lies in your doing everything you possibly

can, and _then_ humbly trusting in God. And if, after you have done your

very best, you must still go, with but a blank outlook for those you

leave, why, _then_ you may trust them to the Husband of the widow and

Father of the fatherless. Faith, as regards such matters, means firm

belief that God will do all He has promised to do, however difficult or

unlikely. But some people seem to think that faith means firm belief

that God will do whatever they think would suit them, however

unreasonable, and however flatly in the face of all the established laws

of His government.

We all have it in our power to make ourselves miserable, if we look

far into Future Years and calculate their probabilities of evil, and

steadily anticipate the worst. It is not expedient to calculate too far

ahead. Of course, the right way in this, as in other things, is

the middle way: we are not to run either into the extreme of

over-carefulness and anxiety on the one hand, or of recklessness and

imprudence on the other. But as mention has been made of faith, it may

safely be said that we are forgetful of that rational trust in God which

is at once our duty and our inestimable privilege, if we are always

looking out into the future, and vexing ourselves with endless fears as

to how things are to go then. There is no divine promise, that, if a

reckless blockhead leaves his children to starve, they shall not starve.

And a certain inspired volume speaks with extreme severity of the man

who fails to provide for them of his own house. But there is a divine

promise which says to the humble Christian,--"As thy days, so shall thy

strength be." If your affairs are going on fairly now, be thankful,

and try to do your duty, and to do your best, as a Christian man and a

prudent man, and then leave the rest to God. Your children are about

you; no doubt they may die, and it is fit enough that you should not

forget the fragility of your most prized possessions; it is fit enough

that you should sometimes sit by the fire and look at the merry faces

and listen to the little voices, and think what it would be to lose

them. But it is not needful, or rational, or Christian-like, to be

always brooding on that thought. And when they grow up, it may be hard

to provide for them. The little thing that is sitting on your knee may

before many years be alone in life, thousands of miles from you and from

his early home, an insignificant item in the bitter price which Britain

pays for her Indian Empire. It is even possible, though you hardly for a

moment admit _that_ thought, that the child may turn out a heartless

and wicked man, and prove your shame and heartbreak: all wicked and

heartless men have been the children of somebody; and many of them,

doubtless, the children of those who surmised the future as little as

Eve did when she smiled upon the infant Cain. And the fireside by which

you sit, now merry and noisy enough, may grow lonely,--lonely with the

second loneliness, not the hopeful solitude of youth looking forward,

but the desponding loneliness of age looking back. And it is so with

everything else. Your health may break down. Some fearful accident may

befall you. The readers of the magazine may cease to care for your

articles. People may get tired of your sermons. People may stop buying

your books, your wine, your groceries, your milk and cream. Younger

men may take away your legal business. Yet how often these fears prove

utterly groundless! It was good and wise advice, given by one who had

managed, with a cheerful and hopeful spirit, to pass through many trying

and anxious years, to "take short views":--not to vex and worry yourself

by planning too far ahead. And a wiser than the wise and cheerful Sydney

Smith had anticipated his philosophy. You remember Who said, "Take no

thought"--that is, no over-anxious and over-careful thought--"for the

morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself."

Did you ever sail over a blue summer sea towards a mountainous coast,

frowning, sullen, gloomy: and have you not seen the gloom retire before

you as you advanced; the hills, grim in the distance, stretch into sunny

slopes when you neared them; and the waters smile in cheerful light,

that looked so black when they were far away? And who is there that has

not seen the parallel in actual life? We have all known the anticipated

ills of life--the danger that looked so big, the duty that looked so

arduous, the entanglement that we could not see our way through--prove

to have been nothing more than spectres on the far horizon; and when

at length we reached them, all their difficulty had vanished into air,

leaving us to think what fools we had been for having so needlessly

conjured up phantoms to disturb our quiet. Yes, there is no doubt of

it, a very great part of all we suffer in this world is from the

apprehension of things that never come. I remember well how a dear

friend, whom I (and many more) lately lost, told me many times of his

fears as to what he would do in a certain contingency which both he

and I thought was quite sure to come sooner or later. I know that the

anticipation of it caused him some of the most anxious hours of a very

anxious, though useful and honored life. How vain his fears proved! He

was taken from this world before what he had dreaded had cast its most

distant shadow. Well, let me try to discard the notion which has been

sometimes worrying me of late, that perhaps I have written nearly as

many essays as any one will care to read. Don't let any of us give way

to fears which may prove to have been entirely groundless.

And then, if we are really spared to see those trials we sometimes

think of, and which it is right that we should sometimes think of, the

strength for them will come at the time. They will not look nearly so

black, and we shall be enabled to bear them bravely. There is in human

nature a marvellous power of accommodation to circumstances. We can

gradually make up our mind to almost anything. If this were a sermon

instead of an essay, I should explain my theory of how this comes to

be. I see in all this something beyond the mere natural instinct of

acquiescence in what is inevitable; something beyond the benevolent law

in the human mind, that it shall adapt itself to whatever circumstances

it may be placed in; something beyond the doing of the gentle comforter

Time. Yes, it is wonderful what people can go through, wonderful what

people can get reconciled to. I dare say my friend Smith, when his hair

began to fall off, made frantic efforts to keep it on. I have no doubt

he anxiously tried all the vile concoctions which quackery advertises in

the newspapers, for the advantage of those who wish for luxuriant locks.

I dare say for a while it really weighed upon his mind, and disturbed

his quiet, that he was getting bald. But now he has quite reconciled

himself to his lot; and with a head smooth and sheeny as the egg of

the ostrich, Smith goes on through life, and feels no pang at the

remembrance of the ambrosial curls of his youth. Most young people,

I dare say, think it will be a dreadful thing to grow old: a girl of

eighteen thinks it must be an awful sensation to be thirty. Believe me,

not at all. You are brought to it bit by bit; and when you reach the

spot, you rather like the view. And it is so with graver things. We grow

able to do and to bear that which it is needful that we should do and

bear. As is the day, so the strength proves to be. And you have heard

people tell you truly, that they have been enabled to bear what they

never thought they could have come through with their reason or their

life. I have no fear for the Christian man, so he keeps to the path of

duty. Straining up the steep hill, his heart will grow stout in just

proportion to its steepness. Yes, and if the call to martyrdom came, I

should not despair of finding men who would show themselves equal to it,

even in this commonplace age, and among people who wear Highland cloaks

and knickerbockers. The martyr's strength would come with the martyr's

day. It is because there is no call for it now, that people look so

little like it.

It is very difficult, in this world, to strongly enforce a truth,

without seeming to push it into an extreme. You are very apt, in

avoiding one error, to run into the opposite error; forgetting that

truth and right lie generally between two extremes. And in agreeing with

Sydney Smith, as to the wisdom and the duty of "taking short views," let

us take care of appearing to approve the doings of those foolish and

unprincipled people who will keep no outlook into the future time at

all. A bee, you know, cannot see more than a single inch before it; and

there are many men, and perhaps more women, who appear, as regards their

domestic concerns, to be very much of bees: not bees in the respect of

being busy; but bees in the respect of being blind. You see this in all

ranks of life. You see it in the artisan, earning good wages, yet with

every prospect of being weeks out of work next summer or winter, who yet

will not be persuaded to lay by a little in preparation for a rainy day.

You see it in the country gentleman, who, having five thousand a year;

spends ten thousand a year; resolutely shutting his eyes to the certain

and not very remote consequences. You see it in the man who walks into a

shop and buys a lot of things which he has not the money to pay for,

in the vague hope that something will turn up. It is a comparatively

thoughtful and anxious class of men who systematically overcloud the

present by anticipations of the future. The more usual thing is to

sacrifice the future to the present; to grasp at what in the way of

present gratification or gain can be got, with very little thought of

the consequences. You see silly women, the wives of men whose families

are mainly dependent on their lives, constantly urging on their husbands

to extravagances which eat up the little provision which might have been

made for themselves and their children when he is gone who earned their

bread. There is no sadder sight, I think, than that which is not a very

uncommon sight, the careworn, anxious husband, laboring beyond his

strength, often sorrowfully calculating how he may make the ends to

meet, denying himself in every way; and the extravagant idiot of a wife,

bedizened with jewelry and arrayed in velvet and lace, who tosses away

his hard earnings in reckless extravagance; in entertainments which

he cannot afford, given to people who do not care a rush for him; in

preposterous dress; in absurd furniture; in needless men-servants; in

green-grocers above measure; in resolute aping of the way of living of

people with twice or three times the means. It is sad to see all the

forethought, prudence, and moderation of the wedded pair confined to one

of them. You would say that it will not be any solid consolation to the

widow, when the husband is fairly worried into his grave at last,--when

his daughters have to go out as governesses, and she has to let

lodgings,--to reflect that while he lived they never failed to have

Champagne at his dinner-parties; and that they had three men to wait at

table on such occasions, while Mr. Smith, next door, had never more than

one and a maidservant. If such idiotic women would but look forward, and

consider how all this must end! If the professional man spends all he

earns, what remains when the supply is cut off; when the toiling head

and hand can toil no more? Ah, a little of the economy and management

which must perforce be practised after _that_ might have tended

powerfully to put off the evil day. Sometimes the husband is merely the

careworn drudge who provides what the wife squanders. Have you not known

such a thing as that a man should be laboring under an Indian sun, and

cutting down every personal expense to the last shilling, that he might

send a liberal allowance to his wife in England; while she meanwhile

was recklessly spending twice what was thus sent her; running up

overwhelming accounts, dashing about to public balls, paying for a

bouquet what cost the poor fellow far away much thought to save,

giving costly entertainments at home, filling her house with idle and

empty-headed scapegraces, carrying on scandalous flirtations; till

it becomes a happy thing, if the certain ruin she is bringing on her

husband's head is cut short by the needful interference of Sir Cresswell

Cresswell? There are cases in which tarring and feathering would soothe

the moral sense of the right-minded onlooker. And even where things are

not so bad as in the case of which we have been thinking, it remains

the social curse of this age, that people with a few hundreds a year

determinedly act in various respects as if they had as many thousands.

The dinner given by a man with eight hundred a year, in certain regions

of the earth which I could easily point out, is, as regards food, wine,

and attendance, precisely the same as the dinner given by another man

who has five thousand a year. When will this end? When will people

see its silliness? In truth, you do not really, as things are in this

country, make many people better off by adding a little or a good deal

to their yearly income. For in all probability they were living up to

the very extremity of their means before they got the addition; and in

all probability the first thing they do, on getting the addition, is so

far to increase their establishment and their expense that it is just

as hard a struggle as ever to make the ends meet. It would not be a

pleasant arrangement, that a man who was to be carried across the

straits from England to France should be fixed on a board so weighted

that his mouth and nostrils should be at the level of the water, thus

that he should be struggling for life, and barely escaping drowning

all the way. Yet hosts of people, whom no one proposes to put under

restraint, do as regards their income and expenditure a precisely

analogous thing. They deliberately weight themselves to that degree that

their heads are barely above water, and that any unforeseen emergency

dips their heads under. They rent a house a good deal dearer than they

can justly afford; and they have servants more and more expensive than

they ought; and by many such things they make sure that their progress

through life shall be a drowning struggle: while, if they would

rationally resolve and manfully confess that they cannot afford to have

things as richer folk have them, and arrange their way of living in

accordance with what they can afford, they would enjoy the feeling of

ease and comfort; they would not be ever on the wretched stretch on

which they are now, nor keeping up the hollow appearance of what is

not the fact. But there are folk who make it a point of honor never to

admit, that, in doing or not doing anything, they are actuated for an

instant by so despicable a consideration as the question whether or not

they can afford it. And who shall reckon up the brains which this social

calamity has driven into disease, or the early paralytic shocks which it

has brought on?

When you were very young, and looked forward to Future Years, did

you ever feel a painful fear that you might outgrow your early home

affections, and your associations with your native scenes? Did you ever

think to yourself,--Will the day come when I shall have been years away

from that river's side, and yet not care? I think we have all known the

feeling. O plain church, to which I used to go when I was a child, and

where I used to think the singing so very splendid! O little room, where

I used to sleep! and you, tall tree, on whose topmost branch I cut the

initials which perhaps the reader knows! did I not even then wonder to

myself if the time and would ever come when I should be far away from

you,--far away, as now, for many years, and not likely to go back,--and

yet feel entirely indifferent to the matter? and did not I even then

feel a strange pain in the fear that very likely it might? These

things come across the mind of a little boy with a curious grief and

bewilderment. Ah, there is something strange in the inner life of a

thoughtful child of eight years old! I would rather see a faithful

record of his thoughts, feelings, fancies, and sorrows, for a single

week, than know all the political events that have happened during that

space in Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Turkey. Even amid

the great grief at leaving home for school in your early days, did you

not feel a greater grief to think that the day might come when you would

not care at all; when your home ties and affections would be outgrown;

when you would be quite content to live on, month after month, far from

parents, sisters, brothers, and feel hardly a perceptible blank when you

remembered that they were far away? But it is of the essence of such

fears, that, when the thing comes that you were afraid of, it has ceased

to be fearful; still it is with a little pang that you sometimes call to

remembrance how much you feared it once. It is a daily regret, though

not a very acute one, (more's the pity,) to be thrown much, in middle

life, into the society of an old friend whom as a boy you had regarded

as very wise, and to be compelled to observe that he is a tremendous

fool. You struggle with the conviction; you think it wrong to give in to

it; but you cannot help it. But it would have been a sharper pang to the

child's heart, to have impressed upon the child the fact, that "Good Mr.

Goose is a fool, and some day you will understand that he is." In those

days one admits no imperfection in the people and the things one likes.

You like a person; and _he is good. That_ seems the whole case. You do

not go into exceptions and reservations. I remember how indignant I

felt, as a boy, at reading some depreciatory criticism of the "Waverley

Novels." The criticism was to the effect that the plots generally

dragged at first, and were huddled up at the end. But to me the novels

were enchaining, enthralling; and to hint a defect in them stunned one.

In the boy's feeling, if a thing be good, why, there cannot be anything

bad about it. But in the man's mature judgment, even in the people he

likes best, and in the things he appreciates most highly, there are many

flaws and imperfections. It does not vex us much now to find that this

is so; but it would have greatly vexed us many years since to have

been told that it would be so. I can well imagine, that, if you told a

thoughtful and affectionate child, how well he would some day get on,

far from his parents and his home, his wish would be that any evil might

befall him rather than that! We shrink with terror from the prospect of

things which we can take easily enough when they come. I dare say Lord

Chancellor Thurlow was moderately sincere when he exclaimed in the House

of Peers, "When I forget my king, may my God forget me!" And you will

understand what Leigh Hunt meant, when, in his pleasant poem of "The

Palfrey," he tells us of a daughter who had lost a very bad and

heartless father by death, that,

"The daughter wept, and wept the more,

To think her tears would soon be o'er."

Even in middle age, one sad thought which comes in the prospect of

Future Years is of the change which they are sure to work upon many of

our present views and feelings. And the change, in many cases, will be

to the worse. One thing is certain,--that your temper will grow worse,

if it do not grow better. Years will sour it, if they do not mellow it.

Another certain thing is, that, if you do not grow wiser, you will be

growing more foolish. It is very true that there is no fool so foolish

as an old fool. Let us hope, my friend, that, whatever be our honest

worldly work, it may never lose its interest. We must always speak

humbly about the changes which coming time will work upon us, upon even

our firmest resolutions and most rooted principles; or I should say for

myself that I cannot even imagine myself the same being, with bent less

resolute and heart less warm to that best of all employments which is

the occupation of my life. But there are few things which, as we grow

older, impress us more deeply than the transitoriness of thoughts and

feelings in human hearts.

Nor am I thinking of contemptible people only, when I say so. I am not

thinking of the fellow who is pulled up in court in an action for breach

of promise of marriage, and who in one letter makes vows of unalterable

affection, and in another letter, written a few weeks or months later,

tries to wriggle out of his engagement. Nor am I thinking of the weak,

though well-meaning lady, who devotes herself in succession to a great

variety of uneducated and unqualified religious instructors; who tells

you one week how she has joined the flock of Mr. A., the converted

prize-fighter, and how she regards him as by far the most improving

preacher she ever heard; and who tells you the next week that she has

seen through the prize-fighter, that he has gone and married a wealthy

Roman Catholic, and that now she has resolved to wait on the ministry of

Mr. B., an enthusiastic individual who makes shoes during the week and

gives sermons on Sundays, and in whose addresses she finds exactly what

suits her. I speak of the better feelings and purposes of wiser, if not

better folk. Let me think here of pious emotions and holy resolutions,

of the best and purest frames of heart and mind. Oh, if we could all

always remain at our best! And after all, permanence is the great test.

In the matter of Christian faith and feeling, in the matter of all our

worthier principles and purposes, that which lasts longest is best.

This, indeed, is true of most things. The worth of anything depends much

upon its durability,--upon the wear that is in it. A thing that is

merely a fine flash and over only disappoint. The highest authority has

recognized this. You remember Who said to his friends, before leaving

them, that He would have them bring forth fruit, and much fruit. But

not even _that_ was enough. The fairest profession for a time, the most

earnest labor for a time, the most ardent affection for a time, would

not suffice. And so the Redeemer's words were,--"I have chosen you, and

ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that _your

fruit should remain."_ Well, let us trust, that, in the most solemn of

all respects, only progress shall be brought to us by all the changes of

Future Years.

But it is quite vain to think that feelings, as distinguished from

principles, shall not lose much of their vividness, freshness, and

depth, as time goes on. You cannot now by any effort revive the

exultation you felt at some unexpected great success, nor the

heart-sinking of some terrible loss or trial. You know how women, after

the death of a child, determine that every day, as long as they live,

they will visit the little grave. And they do so for a time,

sometimes for a long time; but they gradually leave off. You know how

burying-places are very trimly and carefully kept at first, and how

flowers are hung upon the stone; but these things gradually cease. You

know how many husbands and wives, after their partner's death, determine

to give the remainder of life to the memory of the departed, and would

regard with sincere horror the suggestion that it was possible they

should ever marry again; but after a while they do. And you will even

find men, beyond middle age, who made a tremendous work at their first

wife's death, and wore very conspicuous mourning, who in a very few

months may be seen dangling after some new fancy, and who in the

prospect of their second marriage evince an exhilaration that approaches

to crackiness. It is usual to speak of such things in a ludicrous

manner; but I confess the matter seems to me anything but one to laugh

at. I think that the rapid dying out of warm feelings, the rapid

change of fixed resolutions, is one of the most sorrowful subjects of

reflection which it is possible to suggest. Ah, my friends, after we

die, it would not be expedient, even if it were possible, to come back.

Many of us would not like to find how very little they miss us. But

still, it is the manifest intention of the Creator that strong feelings

should be transitory. The sorrowful thing is when they pass and leave

absolutely no trace behind them. There should always he some corner kept

in the heart for a feeling which once possessed it all. Let us look at

the case temperately. Let us face and admit the facts. The healthy body

and mind can get over a great deal; but there are some things which it

is not to the credit of our nature should ever be entirely got over.

Here are sober truth, and sound philosophy, and sincere feeling

together, in the words of Philip van Artevelde:--

"Well, well, she's gone,

And I have tamed my sorrow. Pain and grief

Are transitory things, no less than joy;

And though they leave us not the men we were,

Yet they do leave us. You behold me here,

A man bereaved, with something of a blight

Upon the early blossoms of his life,

And its first verdure,--having not the less

A living root, and drawing from the earth

Its vital juices, from the air its powers:

And surely as man's heart and strength are whole,

His appetites regerminate, his heart

Reopens, and his objects and desires

Spring up renewed."

But though Artevelde speaks truly and well, you remember how Mr.

Taylor, in that noble play, works out to our view the sad sight of the

deterioration of character, the growing coarseness and harshness,

the lessening tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come with

advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over us, may influence

us either for the worse or the better; and unless our nature is a very

obdurate and poor one, though they may leave us, they will not leave us

the men we were. Once, at a public meeting, I heard a man in eminent

station make a speech. I had never seen him before; but I remembered an

inscription which I had read, in a certain churchyard far away, upon the

stone that marked the resting-place of his young wife, who had died many

years before. I thought of its simple words of manly and hearty sorrow.

I knew that the eminence he had reached had not come till she who would

have been proudest of it was beyond knowing it or caring for it. And I

cannot say with what interest and satisfaction I thought I could trace,

in the features which were sad without the infusion of a grain of

sentimentalism, in the subdued and quiet tone of the man's whole aspect

and manner and address, the manifest proof that he had not shut down the

leaf upon that old page of his history, that he had never quite got over

that great grief of earlier years. One felt better and more hopeful for

the sight. I suppose many people, after meeting some overwhelming loss

or trial, have fancied that they would soon die; but that is almost

invariably a delusion. Various dogs have died of a broken heart, but

very few human beings. The Inferior creature has pined away at his

master's loss: as for _us_, it is not that one would doubt the depth

and sincerity of sorrow, but that there is more endurance in our

constitution, and that God has appointed that grief shall rather mould

and influence than kill. It is a much sadder sight than an early death,

to see human beings live on after heavy trial, and sink into something

very unlike their early selves and very inferior to their early selves.

I can well believe that many a human being, if he could have a glimpse

in innocent youth of what he will be twenty or thirty years after, would

pray in anguish to be taken before coming to _that!_ Mansie Wauch's

glimpse of destitution was bad enough; but a million times worse is a

glimpse of hardened and unabashed sin and shame. And it would be no

comfort--it would be an aggravation in that view--to think that by the

time you have reached that miserable point, you will have grown pretty

well reconciled to it. _That_ is the worst of all. To be wicked and

depraved, and to feel it, and to be wretched under it, is bad enough;

but it is a great deal worse to have fallen into that depth of moral

degradation and to feel that really you don't care. The instinct of

accommodation is not always a blessing. It is happy for us, that, though

in youth we hoped to live in a castle or a palace, we can make up our

mind to live in a little parsonage or a quiet street in a country town.

It is happy for us, that, though in youth we hoped to be very great and

famous, we are so entirely reconciled to being little and unknown. But

it is not happy for the poor girl who walks the Haymarket at night that

she feels her degradation so little. It is not happy that she has come

to feel towards her miserable life so differently now from what she

would have felt towards it, had it been set before her while she was the

blooming, thoughtless creature in the little cottage in the country. It

is only by fits and starts that the poor drunken wretch, living in a

garret upon a little pittance allowed him by his relations, who was once

a man of character and hope, feels what a sad pitch he has come to. If

you could get him to feel it constantly, there would be some hope of his

reclamation even yet.

It seems to me a very comforting thought, in looking on to Future Years,

if you are able to think that you are in a profession or a calling from

which you will never retire. For the prospect of a total change in your

mode of life, and the entire cessation of the occupation which for many

years employed the greater part of your waking thoughts, and all this

amid the failing powers and flagging hopes of declining years, is both a

sad and a perplexing prospect to a thoughtful person. For such a person

cannot regard this great change simply in the light of a rest from toil

and worry; he will know quite well what a blankness and listlessness and

loss of interest in life will come of feeling all at once that you have

nothing at all to do. And so it is a great blessing, if your vocation be

one which is a dignified and befitting one for an old man to be engaged

in, one that beseems his gravity--and his long experience, one that

beseems even his slow movements and his white hairs. It is a pleasant

thing to see an old man a judge; his years become the judgment-seat. But

then the old man can hold such an office only while he retains strength

of body and mind efficiently to perform its duties; and he must do all

his work for himself: and accordingly a day must come when the venerable

Chancellor resigns the Great Seal; when the aged Justice or Baron must

give up his place; and when these honored Judges, though still retaining

considerable vigor, but vigor less than enough for their hard work, are

compelled to feel that their occupation is gone. And accordingly I

hold that what is the best of all professions, for many reasons, is

especially so for this, that you need never retire from it. In the

Church you need not do all your duty yourself. You may get assistance to

supplement your own lessening strength. The energetic young curate or

curates may do that part of the parish work which exceeds the power of

the aging incumbent, while the entire parochial machinery has still the

advantage of being directed by his wisdom and experience, and while the

old man is still permitted to do what he can with such strength as is

spared to him, and to feel that he is useful in the noblest cause yet.

And even to extremest age and frailty,--to age and frailty which would

long since have incapacitated the judge for the bench,--the parish

clergyman may take some share in the much-loved duty in which he has

labored so long. He may still, though briefly, and only now and then,

address his flock from the pulpit, in words which his very feebleness

will make far more touchingly effective than the most vigorous eloquence

and the richest and fullest tones of his young coadjutors. There never

will be, within the sacred walls, a silence and reverence more

profound than when the withered kindly face looks as of old upon the

congregation, to whose fathers its owner first ministered, and which has

grown up mainly under his instruction,--and when the voice that falls

familiarly on so many ears tells again, quietly and earnestly, the old

story which we all need so much to hear. And he may still look in at the

parish school, and watch the growth of a generation that is to do the

work of life when he is in his grave; and kindly smooth the children's

heads; and tell them how One, once a little child, and never more

than a young man, brought salvation alike to young and old.

He may still sit by the bedside of the sick and dying, and

speak to such with the sympathy and the solemnity of one who does

not forget that the last great realities are drawing near to both. But

there are vocations which are all very well for young or middle-aged

people, but which do not quite suit the old. Such is that of the

barrister. Wrangling and hair-splitting, browbeating and bewildering

witnesses, making coarse jokes to excite the laughter of common

jury-men, and addressing such with clap-trap bellowings, are not the

work for gray-headed men. If such remain at the bar, rather let them

have the more refined work of the Equity Courts, where you

address judges, and not juries; and where you spare clap-trap and

misrepresentation, if for no better reason, because you know that these

will not stand you in the slightest stead. The work which best befits

the aged, the work for which no mortal can ever become too venerable and

dignified or too weak and frail, is the work of Christian usefulness and

philanthropy. And it is a beautiful sight to see, as I trust we all have

seen, _that_ work persevered in with the closing energies of life. It

is a noble test of the soundness of the principle that prompted to its

first undertaking. It is a hopeful and cheering sight to younger men,

looking out with something of fear to the temptations and trials of the

years before them. Oh! if the gray-haired clergyman, with less now,

indeed, of physical strength and mere physical warmth, yet preaches,

with the added weight and solemnity of his long experience, the same

blessed doctrines now, after forty years, that he preached in his

early prime; if the philanthropist of half a century since is the

philanthropist still,--still kind, hopeful, and unwearied, though with

the snows of age upon his head, and the hand that never told its fellow

of what it did now trembling as it does the deed of mercy; then I think

that even the most doubtful will believe that the principle and the

religion of such men were a glorious reality! The sternest of all

touchstones of the genuineness of our better feelings is the fashion in

which they stand the wear of years.