These are bad times, and seem out of joint. All seems dead, dead, dead: but the age is not yet dead; it liveth as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion, the world does move nevertheless. Be hopeful. And now let us adjourn and appeal to the people. NOISE DON'T HURT. "When General Phelps took possession of Ship Island, near New Orleans, early in the war it will be remembered that he issued a proclamation, somewhat bombastic in tone, freeing the slaves. To the surprise of many people, on both sides, the President took no official notice of this movement. Some time had elapsed, when one day a friend took him to task for his seeming indifference on so important a matter. "'Well,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'I feel about that a good deal as a man whom I will call 'Jones,' whom I once knew, did about his wife. He was one of your meek men, and had the reputation of being badly henpecked. At last, one day his wife was seen switching him out of the house. A day or two afterward a friend met him on the street, and said: 'Jones, I have always stood up for you, as you know; but I am not going to do it any longer. Any man who will stand quietly and take a switching from his wife, deserves to be horsewhipped.' Jones looked up with a wink, patting his friend on the back. 'Now don't,' said he: 'why, it didn't hurt me any, and you've no idea what a power of good it did Sarah Ann.'" LINCOLN ON TEMPERANCE. In response to an address from the Sons of Temperance in Washington, on the 29th of September, 1863, Mr. Lincoln made the following remarks: "As a matter of course, it will not be possible for me to make a response co-extensive with the address which you have presented to me. If I were better known than I am, you would not need to be told that, in the advocacy of the cause of temperance, you have a friend and sympathiser in me. When a young man--long ago--before the Sons of Temperance, as an organization had an existence, I, in an humble way, made temperance speeches, and I think I may say that to this day I have never, by my example belied what I then said.