F. M. Perryman

“ THE Human family owe allegiance to three great powers—their God, their Country, and their Home; and the three are so inseparably connected that a person can hardly be true to one without being true to all; there is a connecting link that binds them together. We owe our allegance to God because He is the author of our existence, and gives us all the untold blessings that we enjoy, and to Him we look for the hope of a blessed immortality beyond this life, and by Him we enjoy the blessings of our Country and our Home. ”

“ ILLINOIS being our native State; the State of our cradle, and is to be of our grave. The State where our pathway has been strewn with beauties; where the God of Nature has been so plainly seen in every swelling bud and in every snowflake; where the very air has been laden with mercies. ”

“ IN traveling over the great fertile prairie State of Illinois, and viewing its many railroads, its many beautiful cities and towns, its school houses, its churches, its broad fields of waving grain, its orchards bending under their load of golden fruit, its vast population of industrious and intelligent citizens, its mills, and its factories, one can hardly realize that nearly all of this great improvement has been made in the last sixty years, but such is the case. ”

“ No one can be surprised if our feelings prompt us to speak pretty highly of our native home, Illinois, the great fertile prairie valley between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, like a choice gem placed between the more hilly states on the East and the West. Illinois, the second and soon to be the first agricultural state in the Union; destined by her Creator to do a worthy share in feeding the world. Her merits and her charms have drawn on the intelligence and industry of every nation upon the globe.
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Pioneer Work. ”

“ Now, gentle reader, isn’t it better to stand for the right, for God and the home, and for the country? even at the risk of being defeated in the election, than to stand for wrong in order to carry the election. Think of gray heads going to their graves in sorrow, because intemperance has ruined their children, and your vote helped to cause that ruin. ”

“ The corruption which existed in the state of Missouri, never could have existed only for the party prejudice. The disregard for law, which has given the President so much trouble, and cost so much money, would have been nipped in the bud, only for the party prejudice. The American voter is intelligent on every other subject, but on the subject of political party, he is deplorably insane. ”

“ IT WAS one of the characteristics of the early settlers to love one another, and we love to think of the many noble men and women who made great sacrifices for, their fellow-man; but none could ever come up with Jasper L. Douthit. Having been brought to Illinois, by his parents, when a very small boy, one of the first things he seemed to learn was self-sacrifice for others. He caught the Spirit of Love to others, and outstripped any man in Illinois. No man in Illinois has made such self-sacrifice for others as Jasper L. Douthit. He has given his whole life for others. ”

“ We have a class of rich, aristocratic anarchists who want to run this Government; then we have a class of low, ignorant and dirty anarchists at the tail end, and the country would be better off without either. The American people are a country loving people, and they want to do right and vote right; but their love of party has such complete control over them that they cannot always do right; but they must say and do what their party leaders say for them to do. The party leaders give us issues to contend over and keep us divided, which we know are not the issues. ”

“ WE BELIEVE there is no wrong in our good country so potent in perpetuating evil, as the party prejudice of the voters. The prejudice for political party is what makes possible every great wrong which exists in our land. The voters would vote together, intelligently, to correct every wrong were it not for their prejudice for their party. When one political party takes a stand for a good thing, the other party makes it their business to oppose them. ”

“ The writer feels proud of the memory of such people, and while the most of them have passed away, we thank God that such men and women have lived in the world to make our pathway brighter, and make the world better. And where you find one of those early settlers you find a man whose love for his friends can hardly be severed; a love so true, so deep, so loyal, so God-like that if they possessed no other good trait that one trait alone makes them noble. ”

“ Illinois is where things grow; the corn, the wheat, the hay, the oats, the fruit, the vegetables, the horses, the cattle, the hogs; the eggs don’t grow on bushes in Illinois, but they come as near to it as they do in any other State. And not only these things, which have been mentioned, grow in Illinois, but brains grow in Illinois too; and if they are about to be bothered to find a man who is smart enough for President, tell them not to be uneasy, that Illinois can furnish five hundred, if that many were needed. Yes, Illinois is where things grow. ”

“ Most everything that comes in our road has a bright side to it, if we are only able to see that bright side. If we are seeking to do right, that fact, of itself, turns the dark side of the picture to the wall, and beautiful fields, singing birds, and blooming flowers are ours. ”

“ Oh! say not the Home is not a power of all earthly powers; the Home is the nucleus, the Alpha and Omega, the biggest, biggest word pertaining to earthly things, spelled with four letters, the hand is too feeble to write, and the tongue is too feeble to tell, and the brain is too feeble to conceive all the meaning there is in that short word—Home. ”

“ The masses of the people aim to do right; they love righteousness, but they often make mistakes, and at an unguarded moment do things which they are sorry for; but they aim to be good. And when we speak of the pioneers being so good we would not dare to say that they were any better than the people are now, but we do not think there was quite so much temptation to do bad then as now. ”

“ We owe allegiance to our Country because by it we enjoy protection in our life and property; it guarantees to us the right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and be protected in our Home. And to the Home. Oh! how shall we begin the Home? ”

“ The strength of the Nation is derived from the homes; and if the homes are good, the Nation is good. If the homes are bad, the Nation is bad. It is hard for the homes to be right good without the family altar. ”

“ Greed for Wealth.
THE Extreme greed for wealth comes nearer threatening the overthrow of this Government than any one thing. The disregard for law is the result of greed. The saloon is the child of greed. ”

“ No murderer is so cold-blooded as is intemperance. It murders one hundred thousand American citizens annually. If an epidemic were to break out, like smallpox, cholera, or yellow fever, which was destroying [99] half as many lives our authorities would quarantine against it very quickly, and would spend millions of dollars, if need be, to stop the devastation, while that which intemperance is making no great notice is taken, for if we do, we will hurt our party, for the whisky element will vote with the other party. ”

“ The man who lives in Illinois and don’t enjoy life is a man who does not know a good thing when he has it. The man who lives in Illinois and does not see beauties on every hand to make him glad, is mentally cross-eyed. ”

“ NOTWITHSTANDING the many disadvantages of the pioneer life, there was a charm in it which none can describe; and an old man who was here in early days almost feels like he wants to go back and live his boyhood days over in the wild new country, where everything was so near like nature formed it; he wants to see the wild animals gallop over the hills; he wants to hear the howl of the wolf; he wants to hear the cry of the hounds when pursuing the deer or the wolf; he wants to hear the gobble of the wild turkey in the spring-time ”

“ IN early days, in Illinois, there was very little distinction made between man’s work and woman’s work; for the men could cook and wash and spin, and could do almost any kind of woman’s work, and the women could do almost any kind of man’s work. The girls could yoke up the cattle and go and cut and haul a load of wood, and sometimes when the girls were not in the field they would go and shoot a mess of squirrels and make a big pot-pie for their brother’s dinner. Where there were large families, the parents did but little, the boys and girls done nearly all ”

“ IN our boyhood, we had little use for meadows, we could go out in the prairie and on the low land we could cut from three to four tons of good hay per acre. A big boy could cut five tons per day, which would now be worth at least fifty dollars. When we was a boy, we went out to mow some hay, and we found our good neighbor John Hall out there mowing, and he showed us where to mow, where the grass was very good, and he said there was all the grass in that place we would both cut. ”

“ If the readers of our little book would only cast off their unnecessary gloom and forebodings, the world would be brighter and happier and the people would be healthier and happier, and they would live a great deal longer. ”

“ Home forever-more.
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The Effect of Influence.
DEEP In the heart of every individual is an inclination to be good and to do good, but sometimes that good desire is so counteracted by some evil influence, that the poor individual unfortunately drifts into ruin. The doctrine of total depravity is all a mistake. The poor criminal often becomes so by the influences which are brought to bear upon his mind; and the good people are often, more or less, responsible for his ruin, for their indifference and lack of diligence in trying to win him back to the path of honesty and justice. ”

“ And when our [87] neighbor goes to the bad, let us, instead of exulting over his fall, rather shed a tear for him, and think, maybe, I have not done my duty to save him. But, fortunately, in our country, the good is so much greater than the bad, and the good influence so prevails over the bad, that God still deals with us in mercy, and sends the seedtime and harvest, and our people are a prosperous and happy people. ”

“ Some have tried great wealth and it has failed; some have tried great learning, and it has failed; some have tried fame, and it has failed; some have resorted to strong drink, and it has failed; also, many other things have been tried to satisfy that void and failed. Man is out of his element, consequently unhappy. Take a fish out of the water and it will perish and die, because it is out of its element. Man was created for peace and harmony with his God. ”

“ THE Human family is restless and discontented; constantly in quest of something, and know not what that something is. There is an aching void in the mind, which men are constantly seeking to satisfy, and very many remedies have been tried and failed. ”

“ The people are learning; they are laying down their party prejudice, and looking at the situation more wisely. We have had an era of extreme corruption, but that has nearly had its day, for the voters see that their prejudice is the only thing which made that corruption possible. We think we can see reasons to believe that the corruption and lawlessness will have to go ”

“ Bell lived at Bell’s Grove, West, and the Abbot’s and a few others lived on the head of Beck’s Creek, East; but the prairie where Pana stands there was nothing to show that man had ever been there, not a tree or shrub was there; but the deer and wolves raised their young there, and the rattlesnake had his own way; only when the prairie burned over in warm weather, then thousands of them burned to death. When the men were first breaking up the prairie sod they would tell of killing twenty to thirty rattlesnakes in one day. ”

“ IN presenting this little book to the public, the author would not dare to claim perfection, for to err is human, but we have sought to give the conditions as they existed in this country in early days, and we have not sought to display style or learning, but we have sought to give the little book the same tone and as near in the same language that we used in early days as prudence will allow, and we will leave the reader to judge of the merits of the little book for himself ”

“ GOOD Men and Women study and counsel, what is best to do for the good of our people. And after a good deal of thinking, the writer concludes that there is nothing more potent for the safety of our Nation, than the family altar. Wise men have written on every other subject, and writers have seemed to overlook the family altar. ”