not sent into the air, which were enjoyed with an equal relish, if not in honor of the liberties of our country, still for the support of the (physical) constitution. Long live Mr. Faber and his kind lady-and long shall we remember that pleasant fourth of July at his rural country home. Passing on our return to the city the numerous revelling crowds that swarmed the lager beer saloons and low hotels, we could not help praying that the time may soon come, when to the many other blessings we enjoy in our happy land, shall be added this-that our national festal day shall be rationally celebrated in the sweet peaceful circles of happy, sober, social and domestic life, instead of amid the froth and fumes of low and rude dissipation. The following day after a ride of forty miles on the Allegheny Valley Railroad, we found ourselves, in the pleasant afternoon, on a packet, floating on the quiet water of the Allegheny. What charming rural pictures do its hilly shores present! If ever you come to Pittsburg, and have a few hours to spare, do not fail to take a ride on the rail up this beautiful river. The Allegheny Road is finished to Kittanning, quite a considerable town on the river, forty miles above Pittsburg. It is in nice running order, and managed by a careful and polite corps of officers and employees. We shall never forget that calm and peaceful afternoon spent rounding the romantic bluffs of this clear and lovely river while the eye fed at each turn on scenery "ever charming, ever new." This calm and pleasant floating came, however, soon to an end. Having been landed at the mouth of the Mahoning, quite a different kind of travel began. Placed in a stiff, springless stage, we were carried, amid much tribulation, over ten miles of up and down, to the inland village of Reimersburg. Next day, July 6th, was a pleasant time for the citizens of Reimersburg and vicinity. The corner-stone of the Clarion Collegiate Institute was laid with appropriate solemnities. This institution has been founded by the Clarion Classis of the Germam Reformed Church. The Classis includes the congregations located in that and four or five surrounding counties, and this Institute is designed to furnish to the sons and daughers of the members (and of course to all others who may avail themselves of the privilege) an opportunity of a liberal education-and to prepare such as desire to take a full collegiate course for one of the higher classes in College. There are some here now, and there will be many more when the Institute shall have gotten into complete operation, who expect to finish their educational course in Franklin and Marshall College. The people in this region are far more intelligent than is dreamed of in the eastern counties, where this western part of the State is very incorrectly regarded as "back woods" and behind the time. In good, fresh, solid sense, and especially in vigorous inlellectual nerve, this region yields to none in our State. This Institute will do wonders in developing this excellent mine of mental wealth. It is entirely under the control of the Classis, is based on the Christian idea of Education, and is to be conducted with the religious element underlying it in all respects. What a blessing must accrue to that whole region from talent thus developed, and consecrated to the earnest service of God and man! The building itself, will be a noble specimen of architecture. It is being put up by Mr. Gilbert, architect and builder, and a talented and enter prising young man. The address on the occasion was delivered to a vast crowd. The subject of it was-"The relation between Christianity and mental development." As to the character of the address, we forbear to speak, out of delicacy, being somewhat nearly related to the one who delivered it. The Clarion Collegiate Institute is under the care of Rev. Prof. Lucian Cort, and Prof. Nix, who graduated at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, a few years ago. It was a matter of surprise to us to find that the best of boarding is afforded to students at Reimersburg, in private families, at $1.50 per week; and we were informed by the citizens that this can be afforded. This is an item for young men of limited means. The reader well knows how one is transferred from one place to another by rail in great haste. What takes place on the way is generally common-place, and though interesting to the traveler, is not worth putting down for the reader. A very brief period has intervened, and here we are at Mendota, Illinois, 88 miles west of Chicago, and over 600 west of the new literary village of Reimersburg, of which we have just spoken. On being suddenly set down beside the track, after such a long rail-road trip, one feels as if he had been dropped out of a storm. However well acquainted we may be with the geographical extent of this vast West, it is impossible to form any conception of its vastness except by passing over it. We think, for instance, of the Lakes, when we are at a distance from them, and in so doing imagine them large, it is true, but still we seem to ourselves to see the shores all around. Only when we stand on the shore and look into the dim blue distance, are we practically convinced of what we knew before in theory-that the end lies beyond our vision. So it is here. We think of the west-we let our mind's eye run hastily along its main boundary features, and have it all in reach, bounding it, and looking over it as we do a field whose fences are all in sight. But, how different is the fact? On we go-over county after county-prairie after prairie-State after State-whistling, whirling, jolting, jostling, on-on-on-night and day-and still before you are new prairies, new States-on-on; and as you enter a depot on the east side, behold a rail and a train, still waiting for you on the other, and the familiar cry of "All aboard," greets you as before. What farms, homes, hearts, joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, lie spread over the wide, wide extent of surface we leave behind! And such is our country or rather a small part of it; for leaving out of reckoning the small strips which we call "the East," (for so it seems when viewed from here, and so it really is when compared with the whole) what a world. lies West. We could not have credited it, did we not know it to be so, that two hundred miles west of the Mississippi river is only the centre of the United States, and that after all the space we have been whirled over, we are yet about four hundred miles east of the middle! What a platform for a nation! to be the pride of the world, or to be a piece of cheese for political mice to nibble at. The best point to steer for when one wishes to get into the West, is Chicago that wonder of the West, and the best way to get there is by the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad, which is a kind of extension of the Pennsylvania Central of which we have already spoken, and is under the same excellent supervision. We found the road in the best running order; and over that long stretch of road we moved along with a steadiness which makes a traveler always feel comfortable. We left Pittsburg at one o'clock at night; and our car being provided with berths for sleeping, we went to bed and made ourselves at home. So comfortable was our ride that the first thing we knew was the streaming into the car of broad daylight, and hearing the call: "Massillon." The washing and dressing-room, with its marble basin, glass and all other hotel dressing-room fixtures, were at hand in an adjoining apartment. We soon came out fresh and finished, saying within ourselves, "what next?" The road west lies through a beautiful country, which keeps one constantly engaged in viewing the ever new objects of interest which present themselves. Have you ever seen a prairie? We do not mean one of the small three or five, or even ten mile over meadows, such as we see in the north western part of Ohio, and other places, but one of the great, grand, glorious prairies which lie in silent grandeur, like vast grassy lakes, in the great bosom of the mighty West. Here is this immense Illinois prairie in the midst of which we spent about a week exiled from almost every vestige of that kind of scenery to which we have been ever accustomed. Whatever may be the effect of such a location on others, for our part we feel all the time as if we were in mid-ocean, and were ever saying within ourself: "Take me to the shore that I may land" A dime for the sight of a tree, and a dollar for the sight of a hill or nountain!—that is the way our taste and desire ran all the while. Though it is one hundred and thirty years since our great-great-ancestor left Switzerland, we found that the Swiss was still alive in us in all his ancient vigor and peculiar taste, crying out unceasingly, "Give me mountains or I die!" Though in places dotted with small "groves," as they are called, of scrubby trees, and here and there strips of wood-land along rivers and water courses, yet in the end the whole interior of Illinois is one vast prairie one hundred and fifty miles in width, and three hundred and fifty miles in length. What a paradise this must become in fifty years. But oh, the dead level--who can endure it? We doubt whether they will ever raise poets on this soil. Pleasant as this prairie life was to us in many respects, yet we felt a kind of relief when the time came to be up and away. Our course lay towards St. Louis, and the south western part of Illinois. As the pleasantest route by which to get there, we took the great Illinois Central Railroad to Sandoval, and thence by the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad to St. Louis. The Illinois Central is in many respects the most remarkable road in the United States. It is the longest-starting at Dunleith, in the north-western corner of the State, extending the whole length of the State through the middle, south to Cairo on the Ohio, and thence, branching at Centralia, back north-east to Chicago; its entire length being seven hundred and nine miles-all owned by one company. It is also the straightest road in the country-in one part of it we run forty-one miles without a curve, and there are many sections of bee lines on it from fifteen to twenty-five miles. You can easily imagine how safe and pleasant it must be to run on such a road; should you even get off the track, you would merely get on the level prairie, which stretches out into the dim distance at once to the pleasure and pain of the eye, and then the train would merely be taken for Fawkes' Steam Plow, which will, no doubt, soon be seen playing over those myriads of fertile acres. Judging from what I saw of the management of this road, and from the intelligence of General Superintenent John C. Jacobs, Esq., a Marylander, whose acquaintance I incidentally made at Amboy, of whom I learned the principles by which it is conducted, I am convinced that this vast company have the greatest regard to the comfort and lives of the multitudes who pass over it. On account of the heavy capital required to complete this road at a time when parts of the State through which it passes were still unsettled, the United States government gave the company a grant of every alternate section within six miles on either side. One and a half million acres of this land is still for sale, and at such rates, I have been told, as present a great inducement to farmers wishing to locate where market facilities lie at their door. Lying across this road, and branching from it are numbers of fine railroads in all directions. Indeed, a glance at the map of Illinois, will show at once that no State in the Union is so finely netted with railroads. This, with its rich soil, gives it in itself the elements of an empire. From St. Louis we went into the country about twenty-five miles south-east, Monroe county, Illinois, by stage, a mode of traveling of which you can read in the annals of the past, but which it is hoped will soon be in the case of Campbell's Last Man. We crossed the great American Bottom, which is an average of six miles wide and one hundred long, on which we at that early season saw corn ten to twelve feet high, hung with enormous enlargements projecting from the main stem, commonly called "roasting ears." This bottom is fertile beyond description; the only drawback being the fact that a freshet in the Mississippi sometimes lays it in most places six to fifteen feet under water. But those who farm it say this occurs only on an average once in seven years—and that they can well afford to lose a crop at such intervals. In this bottom we saw in abundance the pecan nut, which I had never seen before. It is the size of a hickory-nut, and grows on a tree resembling that. It is not so thick as a hickory-nut, but much longer, smooth and nicely rounded, with a thin shell, which may be broken as easily as the soft-shell almond.. It has a large kernel, in a double cell, but slightly joined, from which the shell is removed with the greatest ease. The nut tastes something like the shell-bark, but has a much finer and more delicate flavor. It is highly prized, and sells at from three to four dollars per bushel. I wonder that our nursery men do not raise this tree, as it would, beyond doubt, ripen in Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. Besides it would make a beautiful shade tree. The large trumpet-flowered creeper, which we have domesticated at home grows wild in this bottom. We saw entire trees crowned with this beautiful vine in full bloom. But oh the blackberries which here do flourish. I suppose we saw along the road about nine hundred and and ninety-nine bushels and a half, more or less! As the bending bushes bowed to us invitingly from either side of the road, the passengers were willing to accept the kind invitation, but the driver "carried the United States mail!" which cannot stop for blackberries; and whilst it may be grateful to our "illustrious fellow-citizen," the President, to know that he has one of the most faithful servants in the American bottom, noth ing but a supreme desire to pass in like manner as law-abiding subjects, could save us from open rebellion in such tantalizing circumstances. Dispute our patriotism, if you may, when you know that we counted the blackberries but loss, that "the United States mail" might proceed. Back from the American Bottom, along its whole length lies a rolling well-wooded country, quite different from the prairies-and more like our Pennsylvania country--to which you rise by a ridge called "the bluff" from seventy-five to one hundred and twenty-five feet higher than the Bottom. To us this country was far more home-like and grateful than the prairies. The land is good-yielding richly all the same kinds of grain raised in this part of Pennsylvania. This year the crop is excellent. Besides, the Catawba grape ripens here; and the people are turning their attention much to wine-growing. One man in Monroe county last year raised about eight thousand gallons from six acres, which he sells readily at $2 per gallon-the pure juice of the grapecertainly an extraordinary return in solid cash from a few acres. Land rates from 10 and 20, to 50 and 60 dollars an acre. Fruits, such as apples, peaches, plums, are very plentiful-and seems not as yet to have been injured by the many enemies which prey, of late years, on our orchards. St. Louis reminded me more of Pittsburg than any city which I have ever seen. It has the same dark, iron and coal like appearance; the whole giving one the impression of great wealth, enterprise and business. The southern part of the city is a kind of Germany, where, judging from the signs, one-half make their living by selling Lager, and the other half by drinking it. I should not wonder that the greatest number of Germans in the Western cities should remain forever poor, amid all the chances of wealth which present themselves. To sustain the number of beer houses I saw in St. Louis, is enough to keep 50,000 persons poor. All other vehicles are thrown in the shade by the beer-wagons. I felt like calling out like the Irishman: "Gintlemen, if ye must have bare, be aisy with it; and if ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can!" It is a cheap drink, it is true; but there are few who get off at less than 25 cents a day-some $90 a year. This, or the half of it, is enough to secure to any laboring family a neat home in a few years. Besides, this beer business must forever cultivate low aims and perpetuate a low state of society. We enter not into the question whether it can intoxicate; but this we know from observation, that it keeps the drinker in a boosy state as if he had been shot with poppy and makes him look as if he had been pickled in effete vinegar. The days we spent in and around St. Louis, were the hottest I have ever endured-and besides the heat there was great drought, and much dust. In these circumstances, that I shall soon leave for home began to be a pleasant thought to me. It was only a matter of 1,000 miles, and 48 hours on the rail, which I took "in one sitting," sighing inwardly as we flew over counties and states, as on the wings of the wind : "If solid happiness we prize, And those are fools who roam; |