I am not gwine to tell you edzactly whar my tex may be found; suffice to say, it's in the leds of the Bible, and you'll find it somewhar between the first chapter of the book of Generations, and the last chapter of the book of Revolutions, and ef you'll go and search the Scriptures, you'll not only find my tex thar, but a great many other texes as will do you good to read, and my tex, when you shall find it to read thus:

"And he played on a harp uv a thousand strings—sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

My text, my brethring, leads me to speak of sperits. Now, thar's a great many kinds of sperits in the world-in the fuss place, thar's the sperits as some folks call ghosts, and thar's the sperits uv turpentine, and thar's the sperits as some folks call liquor, an' I've got as good an artikel of them kind of sperits on my flatboat as ever was fotch down the Mississippi river; but thar's a great many other kinds of sperits, for the tex says, "He played on a harp uv a t-h-o-u-s-and strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

But I'll tell you the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex, is FIRE. That's the kind uv sperits as is meant in the tex, my brethering. Now thar's a great many kinds of fire in the world. In the fuss place there's the common sort of fire you light your cigar or pipe with, and then thar's foxfire and camphire, fire before you're ready, and fire and fall back, and many other kinds uv fire, for the tex says, "He played on the harp uv a thousand strings, sperits of jest men made perfeck."

But I'll tell you the kind of fire as is ment in the tex, my brethring-it's Hell Fire! and that's the kind uv fire as a great many uy you'll come to, ef you don't do better nor what you have been doin'-for "He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

Now, the different sorts of fire in the world may be likened unto the different persuasions of Christians in the world. In the first place we have the Piscapalions, an' they are a high sailin' and high-falutin' set, and they may be likened unto a turkey buzzard, that flies up into the air, and he goes up, and up, and up, till he looks no bigger than your finger nail, and the fust thing you know, he cums down, and down, and down, and is a fillin' himself on the carkiss of a dead hoss by the

side of the road, and "He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

And then thar's the Methodis, and they may be likened unto the squirril runnin' up into a tree, for the Methodis beleeves in gwine on from one degree of grace to another, and finally on to perfection, and the squirrel goes up and up, and up and up, and he jumps from limb to limb, and branch to branch, and the fust thing you know he falls, and down he cums kerflumix and that's like the Methodis, for they is allers fallen from grace, ah! and "He played on a harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

And then, my brethring, thar's the Baptist, ah! and they have been likened unto a possum on a 'simmon tree, and thunders may roll and the earth may quake, but that possum clings thar still, ah! and you may shake one foot loose, and the other's thar, and you may shake all feet loose, and he laps his tail around the limb, and clings, and he clings furever, for “He played on the harp uv a thousand strings, sperits uv jest men made perfeck."

WIT, HUMOR, AND ANECDOTE

By CHAMP CLARK

1'Modern Eloquence,' volume X. By permission of John D. Morris and Co.]

MANY persons who never had a bright idea in their heads or a generous sentiment in their hearts, assuming an air of owlish wisdom, affect to disdain wit and humor and to be vastly superior to the practitioners thereof, forgetting, or most likely never having heard of the great truth enunciated by Charles Lamb: "A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."

In most instances it is a case of sour grapes. To be disparaged is the penalty which brilliancy must pay to dullness. It is natural for jealous souls to belittle those qualities which they do not possess. It is a mean sort of egotism, a vainglorious pride, which is apt to have a sudden fall.

As the non-humorous and unwitty constitute the overwhelming majority, they have succeeded, partially at least, by dint of ceaseless iteration, in propagating the idea that mental dryness is indicative of wisdom and that a wit or humorist is

lacking in the substantial qualities of mind-all of which is mere moonshine.

It was the success of the theory of the dry-as-dusts which forced Tom Corwin in his old days, in an address to a law class, to utter this pathetic plaint: "Young men, if you desire a reputation for wisdom, never joke; be as solemn as an ass!" Considering who said it, that is one of the saddest sentiments ever fashioned by human lips, for he went to his grave in the firm belief that his reputation as a wit and humorist had cost him the chief magistracy of the Republic. But in that he was mistaken; it was his speech against the Mexican War-by far the greatest he ever made, and one of the greatest ever delivered in the Senate of the United States-which removed him forever from the list of Presidential possibilities.

No sane person would elect to be cooped up with another who is witty or humorous on all occasions, any more than he would desire to dwell in a land of perpetual day; but sunshine is a good thing, nevertheless. So are wit and its cousin humor. King Solomon tells us that there is a time for every purpose under the heaven-a time to weep and a time to laugh.

Laughter is the sweetest music that ever greeted the human ear, and the chief purpose of wit and humor is to produce laughter.

Henry Ward Beecher, who was created for enjoyment, once said: "If a horse had not been intended to go, he would not have had the 'go' in him." Wit and humor, like all other of the numberless and precious gifts of God to man, undoubtedly have their proper uses. They help to float a heavy speech and give wings to solid argument. A brilliant sally, a sparkling epigram, a "fetching" simile, a happy mot, an apropos anecdote, may extricate one from a perilous predicament, where all else would utterly fail.

For example, take the case of Tom Corwin whose splendid genius lighted up and glorified the age in which he lived. While the anti-slavery agitation was becoming acute and the Abolitionists growing strong enough to defeat candidates, though still too weak to elect them, Corwin-who was swart as Othello-being a candidate for Congress, was once addressing an open-air meeting in Southern Ohio, and doing his best to offend no one, when a wily and malicious auditor, in

order to unhorse him, interrupted him with the query: “Are you in favor of a law permitting colored people to eat at the same tables with white folks in hotels and on steamboats?" "Black Tom" did not follow the Scriptural injunction: "Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay." That was too concise and direct for the end he had in view, which was to dodge, or, in prize-ring parlance, to "duck." If he should answer, "Yea," all the pro-slavery votes would be cast against him and he would be defeated. Should he answer "Nay," the Abolitionists would defeat him. He answered neither "Yea" nor "Nay," but his dark, mobile countenance shining with the gladness of certain victory-he replied: "Fellow citizens, I submit that it is improper to ask that question of a gentleman of my color!" The crowd, delirious with delight, yelled itself hoarse and the "Wagon-Boy" carried the day and election. Now, I propound to a candid world this pertinent question: Could any dry-as-dust statesman have escaped the net of the fowler as easily and gracefully as did Corwin? I think not.

The truth is that the man who is dowered with wit and humor is in first-class intellectual company-with Shakespeare and Bacon; Swift and Sheridan; Jerrold and Sydney Smith; with Dickens and Thackeray; Curran and Lamb; with Burns and Byron, and countless master-spirits of the older world; and with our own Washington Irving, Tom Marshall, and George D. Prentice; with Sargent S. Prentiss; with Lowell and Holmes and Lincoln; with "Sunset" Cox, Henry Watterson, and Proctor Knott; with Hoar, Ingersoll, and Thomas B. Reed; with Justice Harlan and George C. Vest; and with a bright and shining host of statesmen, orators, poets, and literati -not to mention all the professionals from "John Phoenix" to "Mark Twain."

It is a significant fact, pertinent here and well calculated to furnish food for reflection, that the three most distinguished living New York humorists are now comfortably located in these downy berths: Joseph H. Choate is Ambassador to Great Britain; General Horace Porter is Ambassador to France; Chauncey Mitchell Depew is United States Senator. It may also be interesting to state that one of the most illustrious New Yorkers of the last generation, William Maxwell Evarts, the

foremost lawyer of his time, owed his world-wide fame as much to his wit as to his legal attainments; and he filled the great offices of Attorney-General, Secretary of State, and Senator of the United States. It is safe to say that Dr. Talmage's humorous faculty has netted him over a quarter of a million on the lecture platform, and Governor Bob Taylor's has placed him in the ranks of rich Tennesseeans.

Unless Republicans as well as republics are ungrateful, they will some day erect a magnificent monument to their pioneer, Senator John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, whose irresistible humor compelled the attention of men who were ready to stone his sober-minded companions.

This is par excellence the land of orators. Here within the life of the Republic-a mere span in the history of the human race—the divine gift of moving the mind and heart by the power of spoken words has been bestowed upon more men than in all the rest of the world since the confusion of tongues at the unfinished Tower of Babel. By universal acclaim Demosthenes is the Grecian orator, Cicero the Roman orator, Mirabeau the French orator, Castelar the Spanish orator, and Edmund Burke, the English orator. Their "right there is none to dispute." Who is the American orator? Ask that question of any American audience and there will be a score of answers, precipitating a heated wrangle.

The universal gift of utterance in America renders appropriate, haply instructive, a discussion and illustration of the use of wit, humor, and anecdote in public speech, for all use them who can and they are found in every species of public speech-bar none. Henry Ward Beecher enlivened many of his sermons with them, as did John Smith of Kentucky and Missouri, commonly called "Raccoon" John Smith, because he was once remunerated in raccoon skins for pronouncing the marriage ceremony. He was famous in the Southwest as one of the great pioneers in the religious reformation with which the name of Alexander Campbell is forever associated in the nickname of "Campbellite." In our time Sam Jones has rivaled Beecher and Smith in this respect. Of course all three have been severaly criticised as innovators; but imitation is the sincerest flattery, and scores of young preachers pattern after them with various measures of success and applause.