past, or of groveling superstitions that prevailed; such as we all wish had never disgraced the history of infant humanity or constituted the day-dreams of our ancestors.  They carefully select that which flatters and pleases the vanity of their fellows, and pass by unnoticed, everything else.  This course may tickle vain people, but it cannot meet with favor among those who love the truth, and the whole truth.  There are sins of omission as well as of commission, and writers betray and deceive the world as much by the former class as by the latter.  Some fastidious writers are afraid to call things by their proper names, considering it more appropriate to paint an African with a brownish color than to shock the beholder with a picture of a man with a black face!  I can not take the reader through Europe in that way.  To paint a negro we need black paint, and to describe scenes which are unfamiliar we need words and language that is not used in the drawing room or parlor every time we meet.  So much for the introduction to an episode that is characteristic of the profanity of some of the descendents of the old Teutonic stock, when they become exasperated.  The second day that I spent in Cologne, I went to a German barber to be put into trim for making my descend into the lower latitudes and consequently warmer countries.  Another customer was ahead of me.  While the barber was at work upon him, all the time in a rage and swearing barberously at some proceedings, a thunder storm came up very suddenly, and so obscured the light of the sun (though it was midday) that he could not see to go on with his work.  Hereupon he began first to swear at the clouds, then at the Lord himself, using all the epithets of abuse that he could find in his entire vocabulary of profanity, there were heavy peals of thunder and vivid flashes of lightning, but, the darker it became and the more tremendous the crashes of the thunderbolts, the more the senseless and exasperated barber cursed and swore.  After the shower and hail, I walked out into the pure fresh air and under the blue vault of heaven smiling down upon the refreshed vegetation, and tried to draw a picture of that profane man’s mental panorama, but I never succeeded even to this day.  Such behavior is not of rare occurrence, else I should not have related it; but even sacred history refers to similar incidents.  The wicked, it is recorded, danced and were merry even until the waters of the flood swept them away.

A certain divine related to me a similar story concerning the behavior of a large body of the passengers with him on the “Great Eastern,” when she was foundered at sea and obliged to return, after they had advanced 500 miles.  When the storm was assailing the great ship, breaking down its masts and tearing away its rigging, so that most of the passengers were in despair and expected to sink any hour, they kept prayer-meetings almost continually.  Another faction found fault with these, declared that praying was an intolerable nuisance and asked the Captain to prohibit it.  The Captain decided that he would not interfere, whereupon the party offended took to dancing, cursing and swearing, and tried their utmost in this way to break up the prayer-meetings,