Why not have all our churches and denominations take a summer airing?  The breath of the pine woods or a wrestle with the waters would put an end to everything like morbid religion.  One reason why the apostles had such healthy theology is that they went-a-fishing.  We would like to see the day when we will have Presbyterian camp-meetings, and Episcopalian camp-meetings, and Baptist camp-meetings, and Congregational camp-meetings, or, what would be still better, when, forgetful of all minor distinctions, we could have a church universal camp-meeting.  I would like to help plant the tent-pole for such a convocation.

Quizzle.—­Do you not think, governor, that there are inexpensive modes of recreation which are quite as good as those that absorb large means?

Yes, said the governor; we need to cut the coat according to our cloth.  When I see that the Prince of Wales is three hundred thousand dollars in debt, notwithstanding his enormous income, I am forcibly reminded that it is not the amount of money a man gets that makes him well off, but the margin between the income and the outgo.  The young man who while he makes a dollar spends a dollar and one cent is on the sure road either to bankruptcy or the penitentiary.

Next to the evil of living beyond one’s means is that of spending all one’s income.  There are multitudes who are sailing so near shore that a slight wind in the wrong direction founders them.  They get on well while the times are usual and the wages promptly paid; but a panic or a short period of sickness, and they drop helpless.  Many a father has gone with his family in a fine carriage drawn by a spanking team till he came up to his grave; then he lay down, and his children have got out of the carriage, and not only been compelled to walk, but to go barefoot.  Against parsimony and niggardliness I proclaim war; but with the same sentence I condemn those who make a grand splash while they live, leaving their families in destitution when they die.

Quizzle.—­Where, governor, do you expect to recreate this coming summer?

Wiseman.—­Have not yet made up my mind.  The question is coming up in all our households as to the best mode of vacation.  We shall all need rest.  The first thing to do is to measure the length of your purse; you cannot make a short purse reach around Saratoga and the White Mountains.  There may be as much health, good cheer and recuperation in a country farmhouse where the cows come up every night and yield milk without any chalk in it.

What the people of our cities need is quiet.  What the people of the country need is sightseeing.  Let the mountains come to New York and New York go to the mountains.  The nearest I ever get to heaven in this world is lying flat down on my back under a tree, looking up through the branches, five miles off from a post-office or a telegraph station.  But this would be torture to others.