The Leace-Maker.

A TALE OF MASONIC CONCILIATION.

Inscribed to R. W. Bro. Hiram Bassett,

OF MAYSVILLE, KENTUCKY.

Blessed are THE PEACE-MAKERS, for they shall be called the children of God."

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HE county of Barrett, State of long been the scene of bickering and strife. Viewing its lovely plains and fertile valleys, the admiring traveler would little have imagined that the residents of those peaceful cottages and more aspiring halls were the subjects of feuds, scarcely less bitter than those which brought ravage and death to the other continent in days. of old. Yet so it was, and we will rehearse the cause.

A few years before our story opens, there had been a presidential contest. The numbers in the opposing ranks were nearly equal, and the contest was sustained with a virulence remarkable even in this quadrennially agitated, though always prosperous, republic. Though the fever of the strife was broken, evil results remained. Like other fevers, it had left the system in a state of chronic derangement, that

threatened every hour a new and fatal outbreak. To change the figure, the parties whose votes and voices had been employed in the effort to build up or pull down, had become known as acknowledged enemies to each other, even to the bitter end. It is rarely the case in our political history that a presidential election leads to such lasting consequences.

The secret of this state of affairs may be found in that peculiarly anti-republican and demoralizing vice, which has sprung up within a half-score years past, known as betting upon the election. Colonel Hoganny, for instance, had laid a wager of his finest horse, the roan that had borne him in safety so long, that Mwould be elected, while Squire Seaver put in his, the large black mare, pride of his soul, against it. Stimulated by this desperate issue on the part of the two most prominent men in the county, the followers and imitators of both backed up their judgment until many a horse, which its owner ill could spare, and many another piece of property, was staked upon a question to be decided by millions of votes over half a continent. Settlement day came, and while one party was elated to ridiculous pride, which offended the losing party, and extravagance, which soon wasted the ill-gotten gains, the other was depressed foolishly low by the loss, and ready, morosely, to quarrel upon the slightest provocation with the winners. Quarrels led to fights, which had cost one valuable life already, and threatened more.

A year had rolled around, and the election of sheriff reäwakened the evil spirit which could hardly

be said to have slumbered, so easily was it aroused by the slightest cause. An extraordinary amount of electioneering, and a corresponding looseness of morality, had been practiced, and now that the day of voting was only a week distant, it was a matter of nice discrimination which of the two contending candidates would command the largest suffrage. Betting had been practiced here also, and thousands of property was involved in the question. One man had bought a cow of his neighbor, to be paid for at a double price if Ayres should win in the race for the sheriffalty, but at no price at all if defeated; another, an enterprising storekeeper, had sold out a handsome assortment of moth-eaten hats upon the same noble principle. Schoolmasters had bet the amount of their school bills; blacksmiths their shop accounts; nay, Colin Schlump, the fisherman who seined Lake Lively three times a week, and peddled the spoils, was peddling his spoils at fifty cents a fish if Zaney got the biggest vote, and nothing if he didn't. This was the state of affairs in the good county of Barrett a week before the election. Bad enough it was.

Nor must the reader suppose there were none who labored to change this aspect of things for the better. There were many good men, Christians, Christian ministers, men of note, and philanthropy, and eloquence, who spared no pains to show up the inevitable consequences of these foolish feuds, and to point out the sin before God the parties were committing in pursuing their fatal quarrels. It amounted, however, to but little. If convinced, the parties only

yielded sufficiently to promise in a surly and hopeless manner. "If the other party would make acknowledgments, and own up," they would do so and so; but as they very well knew the other party would do no such thing, the pledge counted for nothing, and was so understood.

Now, there had moved into Barrett county, the present year, an old man, who was originally styled Charles Barlough, but for euphony, or, as the westerners call it, for short, he had received from hist friends the agreeable appellation of Charley Barley, by which name, not to be out of the fashion, we will call him likewise. Charley Barley had been a landsurveyor all his life, and fortunately for the little Barleys, of which he had a glorious crop, had early invested a large portion of his surveying fees in lands, which, when he quit the "stick-stuck" business, and began to look after them a little, he found to be valuable beyond his wildest expectations. In fact, Charley Barley was rich geologically—that is, "by the rise of the soil"-and he had moved his family, as aforesaid, to take care of his lands.

Charley was a Freemason. Of course he was that, or we never should have selected him for our hero. But he was a genuine Freemason, such as the Callises, the Geislers, the Bertisors, the Welds, the Scribes, and others, of whom we love to write. Charley Barley being a Freemason, was likewise a peacemaker. Whether he thought he had a mission that way, we do not know nor care, but if he had, and if he knew that he had, he couldn't have performed

the duties of the missionary office more faithfully, unremittingly and unselfishly than he did. Just ask about him in Madison county, where he moved from, will you? and count if you can, the number of reference cases and compromises in which he was concerned there for twenty years. Ask Blacklock, the leading lawyer at the county seat, and he will curse when he speaks of the promising cases that Charley's propensities nipped in the bud. Having said this much of Charley Barley, we need not add that he was a Christian. A man reared up in this Christian land, who was educated from the Bible, and loved it, and prayed over it, and practiced upon it, as Charley Barley did, was bound to be a Christian, and so he was. He may not have been very deep in his theory, but he was very broad in his practice, so 't was well balanced at last.

Charley Barley had suffered many a heartache in witnessing the miserable state of things, politically speaking, in Barrett county. He saw that Church influence was a nullity; that old friendships were severed like tow, and the moral and social interests of the county were all going to the dogs under this foolish political excitement. He saw and he grieved. How was it to be remedied?

He had been to both parties, the Hogannys and the Seavers, and plead with them for peace' sake, and for virtue's sake, and for God's sake, to stop the thing where it was. Seaver only said, "he'd quit if Hoganny would," while Hoganny merely intimated,