connected with Mormon disturbances in Illinois; the word "Nauvoo." "I will look its derivation out," he said; but before we met again, many months elapsed, and he crossed the Atlantic on a trip for health; yet the first associated thought in his mind, when I greeted him on the street one day after his return, was to give me the signification of that word Nauvoo as from a Chaldaic root, equivalent to "resting place." He had retained both question and answer, while both had left my memory.

Such preachers and such men as Theodore Parker are, unhappily, too rare. In politics he would have been a power in our land, as in religion he occupied a potential altitude among the clergy of his day, although such intellects as Channing and Chalmers divided sway in their respective fields of inquiry and discussion. Singularly, it might seem, the issues growing out of American slavery elicited no extended comment from him, though his sympathies burned for freedom and human progress with more ardor than ever gleamed from the eloquence of Channing in behalf of negro humanity, or in the pleadings of Dr. Chalmers for the oppressed and poor of his own race. But Parker could fulminate his bolts at wrong with strength akin to both those Boanerges of the church; and when he did discourse or write upon that anti-slavery theme which agitated New England pulpits, he was no less pronounced upon it than were Garrison or Wendell Phillips.

Fierce, indeed, could that mild reasoner be on occasions such as that, when standing in Faneuil Hall, before an excited and dissenting multitude, he recited that bitter summary of modern shortcoming, applicable in our day more than in his, to the apathy of churches in presence of wrongdoing. "Citizens of Boston," he exclaimed, "there was a day when the men of Massachusetts cherished the creed of their ancestors, I believe in the Father, Almighty, I believe in the Son, I believe in the Holy Ghost, and these Three make One God!' What faith are you professing now?” he demanded, and then paused for a minute to modulate those low tones which were always distinctly heard and deeply felt; "I will tell you your present faith, men of Massachusetts: 'I believe in the Golden Eagle, almighty, I believe in the Silver Dollar, I believe in the Copper Cent, and these three make one-money!'"'

A profound quiet succeeded these words; and then, as if writhing under them, men vented hisses on all sides, whereupon the orator lifted that impressive head of his, and said, in measured accents, thrillingly audible: "I have told you your creed in my language; you answer me in yours!"

And then the ancient rafters of that "Cradle of Liberty" rocked with electric applause; the response of humanity, appreciating manhood. Well for us and for our creeds, that such manhood dies not out when Theodore Parker leaves these fields of labor.

66

There are

various types of innocence. A babe sleeping in its cradle has long done good service as a stock illustration. Then again, among animals, there

is the lamb. Ever since the time when "Mary had a little lamb," that white-fleeced skipping creature has been supposed to embody more innocence than any other quadruped. Is this lovely type of innocence and all other types and illustrations that are akin to it to be superseded and consigned to oblivion? Yes; for all such are really innocent. Alas! we live in an age that prefers gilded shams to plain realities, and therefore, for the sake of consistency, we ought to set up as our

national type of innocence that which most emphatically seems to be what most emphatically it is not. Room for the hen in the niche dedicated to the goddess of innocence! New truths are often discovered by observation, and that process is sometimes a revealer of new views in regard to old truths. The fox has from time immemorial been considered a symbol of craftiness. But the hen has been considered a guileless bird-the perfect type of simple-mindedness. Ten months of careful observation have convinced me that a hen of average capacity, like many a human being of less than average capacity, has a good deal more craftiness in her than people think she has. Joe Bagstock was "devilish sly." So is a hen, notwithstanding her obstreperous cackling when she gives the neighborhood notice that one more egg has been brought into the world. When she wants to set, she knows enough to steal her nest, and the ability to steal from the people a sufficient amount to feather one's nest is a prime requisite to success in public life in our highly favored country. This ability to steal the nest cannot be exercised by the fancy hen of the period, who lives behind the pickets in seclusion like that of a nunnery or an Eastern harem, for her nest is located and numbered with as much precision as the state-rooms in a first-class steamboat. But what farmer's son was ever smart enough to find out where a crafty hen laid her eggs? No, no; she kept her secret as faithfully as ever modest maiden buried in her own fair bosom the secret of unrequited love, and her hiding-place was never discovered till the eggs were hatched, and hen and chicks came out to show themselves. You can no more keep her within the bounds that you have prescribed for her, than you can keep a fashionable woman within the bounds of her husband's income. Out she will come, and though you should build a picket fence as high as Haman's gallows, and then cover it with a lattice roof, you would find her promenading the garden at irregular hours, just as certainly as you will find hired girls promenading the streets in full dress when the lady of the house is out making calls, and thinks her kitchen a scene of quiet industry. Indeed to such an extent is this garden promenading carried that a friend of mine once perpetrated a joke that ought to be immortal, and told a solemn truth at the We were sitting at the dinnertable, and he said to me, "do please have some

same moment.

more of the chicken; it was raised in our own garden." The three points of a perfect farm fence were once given as follows: it should be horse high, bull strong, and pig tight. Can mortal man devise an enclosure that shall be hen tight? "Give me liberty, or give me death!" would be the imprisoned hen's quotation from Patrick Henry, if she could only speak.

ers.

It

Hens have angelic ways, as well as ways that are impish. Brentius, a learned divine, took refuge in a hayloft when pursued by hostile soldiers. was a good place to hide in, but not a good boarding-place. He could not eat hay. But for fourteen successive days a humane hen came to that hayloft and left an egg, and Brentius ate it. The fifteenth day she stopped laying, and then Brentius found that the soldiers had left the place and he was safe. If that was not angelic, what could be? Have hens impish qualities? An imp is a little young devil, and if you would see impishness in full play, notice for a moment a fight with no apparent "casus belli," between two young roostNothing can surpass it except perhaps the deadly strife of a brace of young pullets just coming out into society. That has indeed more of impishness in it than the rooster fight, on the principle that a passage-at-arms, between two belligerent females has a higher spice of the devil in it than any other kind of encounter. And yet hens have their witching ways. They have not the talent of manners; but when in midwinter you hear a melodious cackle when least expected, and find fair, white, fresh-laid eggs in nests that have been for weeks as desolate as vacant chairs, these are positively witching ways. "Don't rise, madam, on my account," said a polite Frenchman to a setting hen, who was getting ready to show him just how repulsive a hen can be. The ways of a setting hen are variable, and often in the highest degree repulsive. As an exhibition of illnature, nothing can equal the spiteful expression with which she will peck at the hand that would feed her. Did "quills upon the fretful porcupine" ever betoken more intense fretfulness than the erect neck-feathers of a setting hen? No wonder that the last and greatest insult that can be offered to a man, is to say of him that he is a henpecked husband. Sometimes you shall see a hen manifest hopeful zeal in setting, and you trust her. Yes, you trust her to the extent of buying eggs for her to set on. You pay three dollars per

dozen for them, buying from the most select henyard in the State. The price of liberty is "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance;" the price of young chickens is eternal perseverance, and you believe in the perseverance of that hen as firmly as you do in the perseverance of the saints. But about the nineteenth day, lo! there comes a strike, sudden, unlooked-for and unconquerable. Your hen, that a few short hours ago nothing but death could have torn from her work, is coolly looking down upon her deserted nest. There are the eggs; but like Gallio," she cares for none of those things." Nothing can prevail upon her to resume. What a repulsive exhibition of fickleness! Almost a mother! "so near and yet so far" from a position in life that always is and always should be honored.

In the early part of this sketch of hen life, I threatened a partial record of their actions during about ten months of their existence as my hens. In attempting that task I am not embarrassed, as the writers of a good man's biography sometimes are, by the richness and variety of the material at hand. I find a comparatively barren field. It is true I might give loose rein to my imagination, and let it fly higher than even game-fowls fly. I might magnify little acts into actions of stupendous importance. But a scrupulous regard for truth forbids any such pandering to a depraved taste for sensational literature. Furthermore I am writing on a subject too serious to be trifled with. The fact is, hens have little taste for active, stirring scenes. They are meditative and introspective rather than dashing and heroic. Milton speaks of "quips and quirks and wanton wiles," and I have shown that hens have quirks enough, and wanton wiles enough; but of heroic endurance or endeavor, there is so little in the life of the ordinary hen that even ten months of observation have brought to light few actions worthy of record, and those few are, like the business transactions of excellent men who look after trust funds, of such a questionable character that it seems best to cover them with a mantle of charity and let them be forgotten.

Insanity is perpetually changing its form and adapting itself to the ever-changing conditions of society. But there is always a public craze of some kind. There is always a good deal of disordered mental action in communities where fancy hens are the rage. Deluded victims of hen fever

see in a hen yard "a light that never was on sea or land," and they never become quite rational until they have been bled profusely-in the pocket. There has been a revolution in the relation of hens to mankind within the past few years, and as revolutions never go backward, this movement, like the soul of the late lamented John Brown, "is marching on."

Some features of the case are worthy of careful study, and an age that is deeply interested in the study of transcendentalism, trying to formulate it with scientific precision, cannot ignore a movement that is producing such results as this last development of monomania. There was a time when hens were simply an adjunct to the farm. The time may not be far distant when the farm will be an adjunct to the hens. They were once allowed to roam over the fields at their own sweet will, and a hen has a sweet will of her own, as one who tries to drive her where she don't want to go will very soon discover. She can be coaxed; but has her full share of feminine aversion to being driven. Ranging over wheat stubble and banquetting upon fat grasshoppers, the old-fashioned hen, the plebeian dunghill bird, whose fine-grained meat was always a suitable companion piece for a Thanksgiving turkey-this humble bird always did well for herself and her owner. She stole her nest in the grass, and brought off healthy broods of chickens, her progeny usually far outnumbering those of the celebrated John Rogers. They never suffered from pip, wind on the stomach, cholera infantum, or in fact from any of the diseases of infancy and childhood. But that is all changed

now.

Hens have come to have blood and pedi

gree. There are as many varieties of them as there are orders of nobility in the old world. A misplaced feather, or one of an improper color on the breast of a hen is a blemish quite as damaging as a bar sinister in heraldry or the letting down of a bar in theology. These advanced ideas have wrought an entire change in methods of housing and feeding. No blooded hen can roost in an apple tree or run at large in a barnyard.

Let us glance for a moment at some of the points in a first-class modern hen-house. The site must be carefully chosen. It should be a slight elevation with a fine lawn surrounding it on every side. The owner of blooded fowls is supposed to find a higher pleasure in them than the vulgar, mercenary one of gathering eggs for the market, or the