And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants hath my father on the farm with bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. And he resigned his position in the lunch business and arose and went unto his father. But when he was yet a great way off he telegraphed to his father to kill the old cow and make merry, for behold! he had struck it rich, and the old man paid for the telegram. Now the elder son was in the north field plowing with a pair of balky mules, and when he came and drew nigh to the house he heard music and dancing. And he couldn't seem to wot why these things were thus. And he took the hired girl by the ear and led her away, and asked her, Whence cometh this unseemly hilarity? And she smote him with the palm of her hand and said: "This thy brother hath come, that was dead and is alive again," and they began to have a high old time. And the elder son kicked even as the government mule kicketh, and he was hot under the collar, and he gathered up an armful of profanity and flung it in among the guests, and gat him up and girded his loins and lit out. And he gat him to one learned in the law, and he replevied the entire ranch whereon they were, together with all and singular the hereditaments, right, title, franchise, estate, both in law and in equity, together with all dips, spurs, angles, crooks, variations, leads, veins of gold or silver ore, mill-sites, damsites, flumes, and each and every of them firmly by these presents. And it was so. THE INDIAN AND THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. |William Henry Kersikes, D.D., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dear Sir:--Your esteemed favor of the 25th instant, is at hand, asking me to throw some light upon a few Indian conundrums propounded by you. I thank you most heartily for the unfaltering trust in me expressed by your letter. One of my most serious difficulties through life has been a growing tendency on the part of mankind, to refuse to trust me as I deserved. It has placed me in an extremely awkward position several times. But your letter is trust and reliance and childish faith personified. You have done wisely in writing to me for my views on this important national question, and I give them to you cheerfully and even hilariously. If they were all the views I had it would be the same. I would squeeze along without any rather than refuse you. _First_ I agree with you in your ideas relative to the cause of failure on the part of the Peace Commission. It was not calculated to soothe the ruffled spirits of the hostiles and produce in their breasts a feeling of rest and friendship and repose, but it was more in the nature of an arrogant demand for those who had in an unguarded moment snuffed out the light of the White river agent and the employes. This was not right or even courteous on the part of the Commission.