In the United States no subject is too sacred to joke about; or, at least, too sacred to be examined in the light of humor. Americans as a class are a reverent people. They would not for the world make fun of the Deity, but many of them talk of the most sacred sentiments and personages with a familiarity and play of humor which terribly shock some of the formalists from the other side of the water. When Mr. Lowell wrote his earlier series of the “Bigelow Papers” his verses were read with much curiosity and some delight in Europe, but suddenly the entire English press was horrified by his lines: “You’ve got to get up airly Ef you want to take in God.” This was pronounced by one high English literary authority the most irreverent and blasphemous expression that ever had appeared in print; but Mr. Lowell replied by saying that familiarity was not irreverence; that the early American was intimately acquainted with his God--he had to be. There was no other friend upon whom he could rely, and conscientiously he talked about Him in a half playful but always affectionate manner, which was the custom regarding the earthly parents of the period. It is impossible to go anywhere in American society, no matter how high nor how serious the subject under consideration may be, without encountering, generally to the hearer’s benefit, the American spirit of humor. Congress may be in session and the country almost convulsed by some grave discussion which is going on, nevertheless on the floor of the House and far more in the committee-rooms and in the lobby one is sure to hear the strongest arguments advanced in humorous form. They are called jokes, but some new word should be coined to give them the dignity which their usefulness has enabled them to attain.