“Then do not detain me, for why should I stay
When cherubs in heaven call me away?
Earth has no pleasure, no joys that compare,
With the joys that await us in heaven so fair.”
As the little darling was only two years and a fraction of age it is
tolerably impossible to divine upon what authority she sought to throw
discredit upon the joys of earth: her observation having been limited
to mother’s milk and treacle toffy. But that’s just the way with
professing Christians; they are always disparaging the delights which
they are unfitted to enjoy.
.... The Rev. Dr. Cunningham instructs his congregation that it is not
enough to give to the Church what they can spare, but to give and keep
giving until they feel it to be a burden and a sacrifice. These,
brethren, are the inspired words of one who has a deep and abiding
pecuniary interest in what he is talking about. Such a man cannot err,
except by asking too little; and empires have risen and perished,
islands have sprung from the sea, mountains have burnt their bowels
out, and rivers have run dry, since a man of God has committed this
error.
OBITUARY NOTICES
CHRISTIANS
.... It is with a feeling of professional regret that we record the
death of Mr. Jacob Pigwidgeon. Deceased was one of our earliest
pioneers, who came to this State long before he was needed. His age is
a matter of mere conjecture; probably he was less advanced in years
than Methuselah would have been had he practised a reasonable
temperance in eating and drinking. Mr. Pigwidgeon was a gentleman of
sincere but modest piety, profoundly respected by all who fancied
themselves like him. Probably no man of his day exercised so peculiar
an influence upon society. Ever, foremost in every good work out of
which there was anything to be made, an unstinted dispenser of every
species of charity that paid a commission to the disburser, Mr.
Pigwidgeon was a model of generosity; but so modestly did he lavish his
favours that his left hand seldom knew what pocket his right hand was
relieving. During the troubles of ’56 he was closely identified with
the Vigilance Committee, being entrusted by that body with the
important mission of going into Nevada and remaining there. In 1863 he
was elected an honorary member of the Society for the Prevention of
Humanity to the Chinese, and there is little doubt but he might have
been anything, so active was the esteem with which he inspired those
for whom it was desired that he should vote.
Originally born in Massachusetts, but for twenty-one years a native of
California and partially bald, possessing a cosmopolitan nature that
loved an English shilling as well, in proportion to its value, as a
Mexican dollar, the subject of our memoir was one whom it was an honour
to know, and whose close friendship was a luxury that only the affluent
could afford. It shall even be the writer’s proudest boast that he
enjoyed it at less than half the usual rates.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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