O foolish mortals;-poor, fallible souls!

Who keepeth the list of the great judgment rolls? Who knoweth His sheep? Who parteth the goats?

Who winnows the wheat from the chaff and the oats? We may all be surprised, though the sentiment shocks, When the Master decides who's the most orthodox. What are bishops and priests? What the high church or low? What the subtle disputes theologians know? One God and one faith for our sorrows' surcease,

The test is the heart, and the banner is Peace.

Let us honor them all, howsoever they climb

The grand ladder of Faith to that region sublime,

Where all sorrow subsides in its exquisite calm,

And the Church and the State are exchanged for a psalm.

Where Uncle Sam sat in his capitol porch

To write to King George by a blazing pine torch, And thought his expenses were vastly too dear

If he saved but a couple of millions a year;

Now that fine old American gentleman dines

With costly Havanas and fabulous wines,
And exults in a fact we are slow in confessing,
That a national debt is a national blessing.

Though racked by the pains that all flesh is heir to,
And dosed with the drugs of the quack parvenue,
For the popular ills of his social digestion,

The tariff, finances, the great woman question,
He has weathered the storm and is ripe for a frolic,
Though somewhat disturbed by a slight alien colic.

In the marches of progress no age is complete;

Where our forefathers stood in that terrible sleet, Undismayed by the tempest, unawed by its shock,

Cold, silent, sublime by the great Plymouth Rock, By the width of the sea which the Mayflower crossed, From the New England found to the Old they had lost; The hands on the dial of Time moved apace, And Liberty leaped to welcome a race.

Lo!

In glory and triumph they yet march along,

Each moment the people strike wrong after wrong, The wreck of false systems falls low at their feet;

Still the age moveth on, and is never complete.

Art, science and morals flit past on the wing,

And politics change with each line that I sing; By subtle deductions, philosophers show

How much we suppose, and how little we know: And topple our faiths, say the plausible critics,

By some hocus-pocus they call metaphysics. Earth's secrets are robbed after picking its locks,

With a key that is found in pre-Adamite rocks, And the wily geologist pays for his toil

By striking it rich in silver and oil.

Yes, the manners have changed! The times they are fast! E'en the doubter today, the old dreamer has passed,

All the prophecies seen in the vision of seers

Are coming to pass in these marvelous years. What are princes and earls but obsolete facts?

What the royal decree to the great public acts? What are minutes and miles when call answers call, Through the airy expanse or a hole in the wall? And Erebus flees in the garments of night,

Pursued by the flashes of Edison's light? But inventions are stale, yester triumphs are old,

Our wonder fades out like a tale that is told. Already we may, with perfect propriety,

Lay them by in the Livingston C. H. Society.

When around the Town Hall at the prim county seat
To gossip and argue the good people meet,
And the shrewd politicians are splitting their hairs,
In a knotty dispute over public affairs;

While the neighboring stump holds a garrulous man,
Explaining his views and unfolding his plan,
Whereby if elected, by grinding his axes,

He'll cut down the props of the tariff and taxes;
Does it ever occur to that crowd, d' you suppose,

That the axe he will grind is the good people's nose?

Or if he rides not into power on his hobby

He will still be content with a place in the lobby? There's a phrase so expressive I'm tempted to use it And begging your pardon, will venture to choose it. In matters of state there's "The Devil to pay",

And the rogue with the money runs always away. Oh, the manners and times! In the strife for high places The Pharisees slaughter the sweet Loves and Graces; And their corpses unburied in highway and mart

Prove that something is wrong with the popular heart, Some vital affection so subtle and deep,

That Honor and Conscience are lulled into sleep. Alas! for the manners! Alas for the times!

When the law is a shield for their follies and crimes, When the money king rules with an opulent will, And public opinion is paid to be still.

Right here on the banks of the fair Genesee,
The pioneer sat 'neath the mighty elm tree

Or the porch of his home when the day's work was done
And the shadows grew long in the slow, sloping sun.
On meadow and lawn, light and shadow were laid
In a picture no pencil of artist has made;
And the pioneer, lost in his dreams of delight,

Floated out of the day in the mantle of night.

Now and then in the rush of our mundane affairs,

I turn to the past, down the long winding stairs Of progress and culture the races have trod,

Toward the goal of the future, the Eden of God; And think, after all, does it pay when we miss

The quiet and peace of this pastoral bliss?

Though the old Ship of State have the north star above her, Yet my countrymen, sailing these stormy seas over, Kneel down on the deck, to the Master of Prayer;

Let your orisons rise through the troubulous air, That in safety at last for the whole commonwealth, She ride into port with a clean bill of health.

On her happy arrival, that halcyon day,

The good time a-coming, so long on the way, With its perfume of roses, its banquet of fruits, Its cymbals and songs and its echoing lutes, With its fairy surprises and jubilant dances,

Its laughter and love and its tender romances, With more too, I fancy, and something to spare,

There's not any doubt in the world will be there.

In that halcyon time, though it passes belief,

There'll be truth on the side of the barrister's brief, And Justice, once blind, may open her eyes,

And look through the witnesses stript of disguise.
Then the doctors will follow their patients and go
To complete some august anatomical show;
For the laws of hygiene will have banished all ills,
To the limbo that's keeping their powders and pills.
Then the clergy, white-robed in the mantle of Peace,
Will join the glad cry of our sorrow's surcease,
And hand clasped in hand, like brother and brother,

While flaying the Devil, cease to pommel each other.
Then the men in high places, who fashion the laws,
Will do more with their brains and less with their jaws,
And the leeches in office go down in the storm

Of a sweeping, high-toned civil service reform. Then the girl of the period, straight as a maple,

More of flesh and of blood than the great Southern staple, As rosy and fair as the morning Aurora,

The one perfect gem of the great human flora,
Will come like an angel, her silver wings crost,

And bringing the heaven her ancestress lost.
Though not in her secrets I know when we see her
We'll see the true woman, not one of veneer.
I know she will not wear the breeches at least,
Nor her temper provide all the family yeast.
I know she will not wear another girl's hair

Nor smoke cigarettes, with a nonchalant air;