"Once upon a time" there was a jackass who imagined he {143} was preaching the same Gospel that was taught many hundreds of years ago; he stood before a large, fashionable congregation of people and started to bray. He opened his mouth and said: "Oh, money, oh, money, thy praises I'll sing; thou art my Savior, my God and my King; 'tis for thee that I preach, 'tis for thee that I pray, and make a collection twice each Sabbath day. Money's my creed, and I won't pray without it, the heavens are closed against those who doubt it This is the essence of popular religion, come regular to church and be plucked like a pigeon. I'll have carriages, horses, servants and all, I'm not going to foot it like Peter and Paul; neither, like John, feed on locusts and honey, so out with your purse and down with your money. I gather my knowledge from wisdom's great tree, and the whole of my trinity is D. D. and C.; dimes, dollars and cents are all that I crave, from the first step on earth to the brink of the grave. In the cold earth I may soon be laid low, to sleep with the just, that have gone long ago; I shall slumber in peace till the great resurrection, and be first on my legs to make a collection." Then he blessed the contribution boxes and the show closed. Now, dear brother, don't you think that my jackass story equals yours, and contains a better moral? I am sure it is just as funny; so now we are even, on jackass stories, anyhow. We see how careful the nations of the earth are in throwing their protecting arms around the principle of authority; how careful they are that all representatives acknowledged by them are endowed with proper authority from their respective governments. In this nation of ours no man has the right to initiate a foreigner into the government unless he be endowed with authority, beyond the question of a doubt; the government would undoubtedly punish any man who might read of a commission given to others, and then take the authority unto himself to initiate foreigners into the government of the United States.