We

"Every man should be sober sometimes. I once knew one so unfortunate as to be sober all the time, and yet an honest man! have known men that never smiled, or seldom, whose face was rigid as an iron mask, and yet they were kind, simple, and really reliable. But such are exceptional cases. Uniform sobriety is presumptively very much against a man. He who gives no play to the gentler feelings, has something the matter with him that should be looked into before one trusts him far.

"Mirth itself is not always honest. But it tends to openness, to sincerity, to sweetness. Mirth has better stuff in it to make a man of than sobriety has. It, too, is used sometimes as a mask for hypocrisy; but not half so often' as sobriety is.

"Only consider how many men quite empty and worthless, inwardly neither rich nor forceful, are kept agoing by the mere trick of gravity. When some men come to you it is like sunrise. Everything seems to take new life, and shines. Other men bring night with them. The chill shadow of their sobriety falls upon every innocent gaiety, and your feelings, like birds at evening, stop singing and go to their roost. Away with these fellows who go owling through life, all the while passing for birds of paradise! He that can not laugh and be gay should look well to himself. He should fast and pray until his face breaks forth into light!

Here, too, are the immortal dullards who, it is to be feared, will never forsake the earth. Dull good men! They live with the uniform consistency of stagnation. They are said to be reliable. You always know where to find them. Safe men they are. They are none of your highflyers, never extravagant, always where you found them last! Over their blessed faces hangs the twilight of sobriety. They are immense negatives. Nothing saves them from pity but their sobriety. Men worship that; and so dullness passes for consistent piety.

"Behind the mask of sobriety how many

pretenders pass themselves off! Every one knows how wretchedly inconsistent with honor their out-door life is, but they have such a power of gloom in meetings, that men respect their religious experience! And so the young are taught that one can be eminently religious without being strictly honest or reliable.

"Public sentiment is purifying itself. Men are beginning at last to understand that nothing is so cheerful, so full of liberty, so genial, and joyous, as true religion. Christ called this sort of men children of LIGHT. He ridiculed and denounced the long-faced hypocrites who ostentatiously prayed and prayed, and got further from grace and humanity the longer they prayed. After Him came the Apostles, who cry out to all good and true men, 'Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, Rejoice.'

"With all this, sobriety ought not to be denounced. Men have a right to be solemn, in spots, and on just occasion. If men of inelastic natures and of rigid face live truly kind and upright lives, their sobriety should be considered a misfortune and not a fault. But such men are not the types of Christianity. The typical Christian hangs full of the fruit of every faculty which God planted in the soul. A man of reason he is; a man of instinct and intuition too; a man capable of suffering, full of light and shadows; stern if need be, but relenting, placable, and mild; capable of hating, choosing rather to love; strict with himself, lenient with all others; loving this world dearly, but loving the other even better; abhorring wickedness, and yet the best friend of wicked men; gay and guileless as a child, sensitive as woman; loving joy in himself, inspiring it in others; a lover of activity, and a lover of rest; full of thunder and full of peace after it--this is the man which the true Gospel breeds. Ascetics, cynics, eremites, mere sobriety-mongers are all bastards.

"Whatsoever things are kind, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report *** think on (ponder) these things."

[We commend the above to all those whose mouths take the shape of a half-moon, turning down at the outer corners. A little

mirthfulness would turn the corners of their mouths the other way; and instead of looking like crying babies, they would look like happy, laughing babies. Try it.]

UP IN THE SKIES.

BY MISS FRANCES L. KEELER.

NIGHT after night, when all is hushed, With claspéd hands and wondering eyes I kneel at the window, striving to solve The mysteries written up in the skies.

Up in the skies! so far away

That my soul is lost in its upward flight! And my heart stands still as my inner life Goes groping round for a gleam of light!

Sometimes I wait till my spirit hears,
As it ripples down through the blue abyss,
Such music sweet from the silvery spheres,
That I know no thoughts save those of bliss.
And angels float in heavenly grace,

So near the earth, to my glad surprise,
That their snowy pinions brighten my face
Till I lift my hands, and the vision flies.
Still, night after night, I watch intent
As the constellations set and rise,
Striving, though striving in vain, to translate
The language traced in the far-off skies.

But of this I'm sure: though the shadows fall,
And the glory is hid from my longing eyes,

Yet, by-and-by, I shall know it all,

For Christ hath prepared me a home in the skies.

TITHOUT being symmetrical, reg

ular, or handsome, there is something striking and attractive in this face. One peculiarity of it is its unusual length. The nose is a conspicuous feature, and so are the prominent brows and the mobile mouth. The heavy jaws and high cheek-bones indicate constitutional energy and strength.

The mental character of the man is exhibited in sharpness, scrutiny, liveliness and facility of expression, quickness of apprehension, and readiness of adaptation. The brain is well built up in the crown, and relatively narrow in the region between the ears; hence his energy partakes chiefly of the nature of ambition, into which his marked positiveness largely enters, imparting to it thoroughness, steadfastness, and directness.

He is a man of powerful will; all his undertakings are conducted, by reason of the frankness and openness of his nature, in a way that leaves no doubt or uncertainty in the minds of others as to his object. He is successful by reason. of the very directness and audacity of his effort, rather than because he brings to bear any particular shrewdness or policy. He weighs well whatever he thinks

conducive to success. He can not be said to be an off-hand judge of men and things, for although he is remarkably quick in judgment, yet he has a due regard to the bearings of the several matters which relate to them.

Some men are said to have comprehensive minds because they gather in at one view the whole of a subject, no matter how extensive it may be, and are incapable, as it were, of dissecting it, and drawing inferences from the separate parts. Governor Palmer is of that, or der of mind which, unconsciously it may be at times, analyzes whatever may be brought to his notice, and frames an opinion with the conclusions drawn from the scrutiny of the whole. He thinks in the abstract rather than in the concrete, although his final conclusion is, as it were, a concreted idea. There is great flexibility, versatility, and perseverance in this organization.

Within a few years comparatively, Illinois has taken a leading position among the States of the Great West, and now bids fair to become the Metropolitan State-if one may be allowed to use such a designation-of the Union. In the politics of the nation she has exercised, through the able statesmen

sent by her voters to Washington, a very conspicuous influence. Her representatives in Congress have done honor to her and the principles they advocated, by their broad and comprehensive judgment, their liberal mental culture, and practical insight into the fitness of things. By "liberal mental culture" we do not mean so much the intellectual training and acquirements of the schools and colleges, as that general development of the faculties which the varied employments of a new and a rapidly growing country foster in naturally clever and impressible minds. It is but necessary to mention the names of such men as Stephen A. Douglas, Richard J. Oglesby, ex-Governor Trumbull,Senator Yates, and the lamented President Lincoln to indicate our meaning on this point.

The subject of this sketch has no small claim to rank among the leading spirits of Illinois if the following brief record of his private

Illinois, but matters of high political interest, especially the speeches of leading men, were printed and circulated, and much of such matter formed the reading of the young men who aimed at something higher than the mere drudgery of a farm.

Palmer resolved to become a lawyer, and studied and read with so much zeal that in 1840 he had been admitted to the bar, and commenced to practice.. He settled in the town of Carlinville, Macoupin County, and

and public career be no perversion of the truth, and certainly we have no warrant for thinking otherwise.

John McCauley Palmer was born in Scott County, Kentucky, September 13, 1817. Up to his fifteenth year his life was passed in the varied round of farming operations, with very meager advantages for study; then his father removed to Madison County, Illinois, and there recommenced his agricultural pursuit. Young Palmer was industrious and ambitious, and made the most of the opportunities for mental culture which were afforded by the change of residence. He attended school when he was able to do so, and read what books fell in his way. At that time there was no paper published in the State of

there has remained to the present time. In his chosen profession he soon gained 8 good reputation, not on account of his oratorical powers, but rather on account of his superior mental ability and earnestness.

Like most Western lawyers, he took an active part in politics, and in 1847 was elected a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of Illinois. He held the office of Probate Judge in his county for several years, and

was elected to the State Senate more than once before he had attained the age of thirty-eight. For fourteen years he was a warm and diligent worker in the Democratic ranks; but when the famous Kansas-Nebraska bill agitated the country he felt himself compelled to choose between two courses, either to relinquish his well-known antislavery sentiments, or to withdraw from his connection with the Democratic party. He chose the latter course, and became prominent as a leader in the organization of the new political party which grew out of the Kansas-Nebraska bill controversy.

In 1859 he contested the special election to fill the vacancy in Congress caused by the death of Hon. Thomas L. Harris, but was

defeated by John A. McClernand, who afterward distinguished himself as a general officer. In 1860 he was one of the Presidential electors, and in 1861 was sent as a delegate to the Peace Convention which met at Washington, and sought to avert the threatening calamities of war.

The conflict once begun, Mr. Palmer abandoned the olive branch for the sword. He responded to the President's second call for troops by enlisting in the ranks; but no sooner was this action known, than he was elected Colonel of the Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. His regiment was ordered to Northern Missouri, where it was subjected to some severe service. Although Colonel Palmer had taken part in no actual battle, yet he exhibited so much soldierly capacity, that in December, 1861, he was appointed a Brigadier-General, and assigned to another department. In March, 1862, having a division under his command, he participated in the laborious operations of General John Pope against Island No. 10, and in the advance of the Union forces consequent upon the brilliant successes won there.

In the siege of Corinth he operated under Gen. Halleck, and contributed in no small degree, by his boldness and sharp discernment, to the favorable results recorded of that campaign. At the hard-fought battle of Stone River he commanded a division which, for several hours on the 31st of December, held the advance of the right wing, and maintained its position unflinchingly, while other portions of that part of the army were swept away by the foe. For his gallantry in this great battle Palmer was appointed a Major-General, and served under General Thomas, and subsequently under General Sherman. In the Grand Army of the latter he commanded the Fourteenth Army Corps, until Atlanta was abandoned by the Confederate forces; and shortly after the occupation of that city he asked to be relieved.

In leaving the theater of active hostilities, however, he was not permitted to relinquish everything military, for not long afterward the disturbed state of affairs in Kentucky called for Congressional interference, and to General Palmer was intrusted the administration of its government, a post which he faithfully and discreetly filled. In fact, he

evinced so much sound statesmanship in that and other important political positions, which he was called upon to occupy, that in 1868 the Republicans of Illinois nominated him as their candidate for Governor, notwithstanding his earnest declination of the honor when it was proposed to him. The result is known; he was carried into the office by a very large majority, and his firm and manly administration of the affairs of state have given general satisfaction to all parties.

"Governor Palmer," in the language of the Western Monthly, "is in a peculiar manner a Western man. The fine sunshine and the free winds of our Western prairies have warmed and liberalized a character manly and large by nature. There has been no dwarfing process brought to bear upon him. He develops and grows like the Northwest, not knowing what it is to remain stock-still. He was considerable of a man twenty years ago; but ten years ago he was a marked man among a thousand. Those who heard him at Crosby's Opera House, or on the hustings in 1868, or have read his messages of 1869, will agree that he has become a person who has reached the full stature of a statesman. His military record shows that he has the genius of command.*

LOCALITY OF THE STATES.

IT

T is an old maxim that "time makes ancient good uncouth." One of the ancient goods that time has certainly made uncouth is the geographical distinction of the States of the Union. Hitherto they have been distinguished as the Eastern States, which comprise Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut; the Middle States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; the Southern States, comprising those which lie along the Atlantic coast south of Delaware and on the Gulf of Mexico; and the Western States and Territories, comprising all the rest of the Union.

At the time that this geographical division came into use, it was no doubt a perfectly appropriate one. The New England States lie east of the others, the Middle States lie between the Eastern and the Southern, and so on. At

*Our portrait is a copy of the excellent steel engraving which appeared in the number for November last of the Western Monthly.