divinity, and of the resemblance which the world of spirits hears to the earth, and its nearness to it.
In their church-yards, one often finds upon a white marble stone, beautiful inscriptions, such as,—
He (or she) entered the spiritual world, on such and such a day.
This is beautiful and true. For, I say with Tholuck, “Why say that our friend is dead. Dead, that word is so heavy, so lifeless, so gloomy, so unmeaning. Say that our friend has departed; that he has left us for a short time. That is better, and more true.”
Since I last wrote I have removed to the beautiful home, and into the beautiful family, of Senator A. A pretty young girl, the sister of the master of the house, has given me her room, with its splendid view over the Mississippi and Missouri valley. But the beautiful weather has now changed into cold and autumnal fog, so that I can see nothing of all the glory. The air is very thick. But such days are of rare occurrence in this sunbright America, and the sun will soon make a way for itself again. Mr. A. has calculated the number of sunny days in a year, for three several years, and he has found them to be about three hundred and fifteen, the remainder were thunder-storms and rainy days, and of the latter the number was the smaller.
Mr. A. is an interesting and well-informed young man, well acquainted with every movement in the state of which he is a Senator as well as an active participator in its development. Thus, during the past summer, he has delivered no less than five hundred “stump-speeches,”—[1]
- ↑ Such is the name given to occasional speeches which are delivered with the intention of agitating for or advancing any object, by men who travel about for that purpose, and assemble an audience here and there, often in the fields or the woods, when they mount a tree-stump or any other improvised platform, and thence address the people, the more vehemently the better. Short but highly seasoned speeches, which go at once to the point in question, have the greatest success. Stump-speeches and stump-orators belong to the characteristic scenes of the great West.
