ed, and awards the highest place on
the roll of our practical statesmanship to the regular army.

THE TOTAL DEPRAVITY OF INANIMATE THINGS.

I am confident, that, at the annunciation of my theme, Andover,
Princeton, and Cambridge will skip like rams, and the little hills of
East Windsor, Meadville, and Fairfax, like lambs. However
divinity-schools may refuse to "skip" in unison, and may butt and batter
each other about the doctrine and origin of _human_ depravity, all will
join devoutly in the _credo_, I believe in the total depravity of
inanimate things.

The whole subject lies in a nutshell, or rather an apple-skin. We have
clerical authority for affirming that all its miseries were let loose
upon the human race by "them greenins" tempting our mother to curious
pomological speculations; and from that time till now--Longfellow, thou
reasonest well!--"things are not what they seem," but are diabolically
otherwise,--masked-batteries, nets, gins, and snares of evil.

(In this connection I am reminded of--can I ever cease to remember?--the
unlucky lecturer at our lyceum a few winters ago, who, on rising to
address his audience, applauding him all the while most vehemently,
pulled out his handkerchief, for oratorical purposes only, and
inadvertently flung from his pocket three "Baldwins" that a friend had
given to him on his way to the hall, straight into the front row of
giggling girls.)

My zeal on this subject received new impetus recently from an
exclamation which pierced the thin partitions of the country-parsonage,
once my home, where I chanced to be a guest.

From the adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"--not the
howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the
whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is
invulnerable to weapons of human aggravation.

I paused in the midst of toilet-exigencies, and listened
sympathetically, for I recognized the probable presence of the old enemy
to whom the bravest and sweetest succumb.

Confirmation and explanation followed speedily in the half apologetic,
wholly wrathful declaration,--"The pitcher was made foolish in the first
place." I dare affirm, that, if the spirit of Lindley Murray himself
were at that moment hovering over that scene of trial, he dropped a
tear, or, better still, an adverbial _ly_ upon the false grammar, and
blotted it out forever.

I comprehended the scene at once. I had been there.