OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 7926, 31 July 1886, Page 2

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

[from otjb OWN CORRESPONDENT. J : Keokuk, lowa, U.S.A., June'3o; OUR MINI6TEBB OF THE GOSPEL GO FISHING. ' The early season has brought the annual exodus of our city clergy a month earlier than usual, and our city pulpits have gone into abeyance for the heated term. Some of our city pastors ate off for Europe, some for the sea-shore, some for the fashionable watering place, some for' the quiet mountains of New England, and still others for the quiet but attractive resorts of the North-west. One takes a bicycle journey of several hundred miles, another will explore our Bister Eepublic in a Palace car, after the manner of the modern explorer of strange lands; and some will seek for rest, health, recreation, and wholesome vigour in a cruise about our Northern lakes. Many of these clergymen will go armed and equipped for a war of extermination upon divers and sundry vertebrates that dwell in the sea, the lakes, and the streams, as well as those that move upon dryland, and the " winged fowl" of the air. Terrible, no doubt, will be the destruction carried into the animal kingdom by this army of clerical invaders. Great will be the slaughter of " speckled beauties," and dire the panic among the finny tribes, as the predatory parsons, armed with rod and reel and all the paraphernalia of piscatorial warfare, swoop down upon their prey. And think of the stories the good brethren will have to tell when they return! No doubt, they will be astounding, and all of them true. "All that are lovers of virtue," it is written, "be quiet and go a-angling." The pastime has been a favourite one with the American clergy. It seems to harmonise with their tastes and modes of life; it is, conducive to calm meditation; it is restful to mind and body; it is peaceful, contemplative, tranquillising. Fresh from the thick of battle against the powers of evil, the warrior will rest from weariness and gather inspiration for future conflicts. His mind is brought into closer communion with Nature ; his vision is opened to new scenes, filled with the beauty and the grandeur of the Creator's handiwork; his mind is diverted into fresh channels of thought, and his intellectual capacity is enlarged and filled with higher and nobler conceptions of life and duty. He whose eyes and heart are open can gather many wise lessons of true religion from a practical study of Nature, that cannot be found in the ponderous tomes of theological lore and doctrinal expositions. The depar tin g preachers will return in time from travel, from the streams, the mountains, the lakes, and the woods, with renewed energy and freshened zeal. Their vacation will be to them merry, healthful and profitable. '' If they are honest anglers, the east wind may never blow when they go a' fishing." What becomes of their flocks in the meantime ? The absence of the shepherds off duty is full of danger to the flock. The wolf indulges in no vacation. In our large cities the devil is very busy, constantly busy, summer, winter, night and day, week-day and Sunday, twelve months of the year. God sayß somewhere, "Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion." BENEDICT V. BACHELOR. The agony is over! President Cleveland is married, and American curiosity is now satisfied on that point. While the President's marriage may be in many respects a matter of congratulation, it would have been better in many other respects had he waited until the expiration of his term cf office. There is not necessarily a female side to the Presidency or the Godhead. Each position is complete in itself without any woman alloy in it. The worst factor in Washington society now, as in Paris just before the outbreak of the French Eevolution in the eighteenth century, is the women. The nation would be better governed, the nation's capital would be more fully representative of the beßt character, the best measures, the best influences of the American people, if there were no women allowed to enter the district of Columbia. The American women in Washington are virtuous, chaste, and pure. But they are out of place in the national capital. Their worst qualities' all ccme to the front there. The natural nobility and goodness of women, there give place to all the smallest vanities and weaknesses of their sex. Their intolerance of one another, their inordinate desire for display, their silly striving to outrank and outshine each other, their foolish making of Government into a mere matter of social display and precedence, comes to a nead there, and offends the entire nation against the seat of Government and the men at the head of affairs. American civilisation, as all civilisation, is based on the home. And so from that standpoint it is well that the Presidential mansion should be a home along with the other homes of the land. And yet the trouble is that marrying now neither Mr Cleveland nor his fair young bride, try as they would, can make their marriage and their home like the other marriages and other homes in our land. Do what they may the event works supremely in the line , that makes Washington a seat of social display and the contests of feminine vanities. And it places public men and their work in the Government at a serious disadvantage. The American women are as noble and pure as women anywhere, but in Washing- <

ton they do more harm than good. Mr Cleveland has been Mayor of Buffalo, Governor of the State of New York, and is now President of the United States, as an unmarried man, but as a married man and head of a family, he will find—environed by demands which, in comparison, will be ' simple and puerile—that tor govern ai city, a State and a nation is mere child's play 1 beside the effort to rule a woman. He should enter upon the undertaking with due humility. If he fancies that because he has in some degree managed the affairs of a people, he can with equal facility manage a wife, he is entertaining himself with a disastrous delusion. As the head of a nation he may be a brilliant success ; as the head of a home he may prove an egregious failure. The and possibly the world, will watch his venture with, interest, hoping always for the very best results. THE SILK HIT. The good people of Scotland have started a discussion that is reverberating on this side of the water. It would seem, from reading recent Glasgow newspapers, that the people of Bonnie Scotland, The land o' cakee and fconnie lasses, bave laid aside the condition of the crofters, the claims of the Free Kirk and Home Eule, and purpose devoting undivided attention to the silk hat, as a covering for the head. The papers before me are almost filled with letters from correspondents, presenting arguments for and against its use, with a preponderance largely in its favour. The commercial travellers can sell more goods. A merchant states that it helped him to a partnership, from an office boy. A woman states that she has watched for years the men taken to a police station $ that not one in one hundred wore a tall hat. Another has-observed that the men covered with high hats behave with more dignity and respectability-than those ' wearing caps or low hats. Another gives it as her opinion, from observation, that the men in tall hats are more charitable. A physician states that the high hat is the most healthful covering for, the head. A minister states that the best and purestminded members of his congregation are those who habitually wear tall hats. It would seem that the constructor of the first tall silk hat "builded better than he knew." He thought that he was making a thing of beauty, and he had some doubt about that. The idea never dawned upon him that he had invented a life-preserver, a headache preventative, and made a cool storage- J room for brains. He never dreamed of the moral influence of his invention, or of its great value in building up trade, securing rapid promotions and entrance into best society circles. It would seem that the stove-pipe hat is more potent in every department of progress and reform than we have yet realised. We Americans can now understand why there is so much wealth, refinement and intellectual activity in London, Paris and Glasgow. It is because the men who live in those cities wear stove-pipe hats. In view of the abundant testimony that is now at hand upon this important subject, it would seem that we have not yet discovered one-half the virtues of the tall hat. A test of its merits should be made at once in other directions. Ireland is suffering more for the lack of them than for Home Bale. The authorities of our larger cities should procure one for every Socialist. The newspaper reporters will bear testimony to the curious fact that the Socialist has an utter aversion and manifest hatred of the high hat. It would be well to supply each of our politicians with a Bilk hat, provided he will wear it, if, when under it, he feels more like a gentleman; that more is expected of him, and that now he must preserve his integrity. Ido not know what the fashion is in New Zealand, but I take pleasure in directing the attention of your reformers to this most interesting discussion.