THE LADIES' REPOSITORY. OCTOBER, 1860. A HON. JAMES HARLAN, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM IOWA. LL the elements of the self-made man are found in the history and character of Senator Harlan, whose portrait is herewith presented to our readers. The elevated place he has been called at a comparatively-early age to occupy, has been fairly and honorably won. He is an illustration of what American youth may achieve by noble purpose, steadiness of aim, and ardor of continued effort, even without the adventitious favors of fortune or patronage. The author of "Self-Help" says of the biographies of great and good men, that they are useful as helps, guides, and incentives to others. Some of the best are almost equivalent to Gospels-teaching high living, high thinking, and energetic action for their own and the world's good. British biography, says he, is studded over as "with patens of bright gold," with illustrious examples of the power of self-help, of patient purpose, resolute working, and steadfast integrity, issuing in the formation of truly-noble and manly character; exhibiting, in language not to be misunderstood, what it is in the power of each to accomplish for himself, and illustrating the efficacy of self-respect and self-reliance in enabling men of even the humblest rank to work out for themselves an honorable competency and a solid reputation. What is here said of British biography is true in even a higher sense of American. Nor are we compelled to seek for them in the dead past alone. They are round about us a living presence, mighty in their influence to do us good. It is for this reason that we have selected a few representative men from the different departments of mercantile and professional life as af fording at once a lesson and an incentive to the young who read our pages. VOL. XX.-37 Senator Harlan is a native of the state of Illinois, where he was born, August 26, 1820. But Indiana has a claim upon him, for his parents early removed to that state, and are still living upon a farm in Park county. His early life was spent in the midst of agricultural pursuits and labors, so invigorating to the physical constitution. The advantages offered by a country common school comprised his early educational resources. But as soon as he had attained his majority he entered the preparatory school of the Indiana Asbury University, then under the Presidency of Rev. M. Simpson. Though repeatedly obliged to suspend his studies and resort to manual labor or school-teaching to replenish his purse, his ardor suffered no abatement, and in 1845 he graduated to the first college degree. His Alma Mater has since conferred upon him the degrees first of A. M., and then of LL. D. The religious element of his character and its connection with his early purposes and aims, as well as its influence upon his whole life, are worthy of notice. In a letter to a friend, and from which we are permitted to copy, he says: Three "In my eighteenth year I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church as a seeker of religion. years afterward, while listening to a sermon delivered by father Havens, in Greencastle, Indiana, on the fullness of the ransom offered for sinners in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, I found the pearl of great price,' not to be compared with earthly jewels; since which I have been striving, from day to day, to be a consistent, though humble follower of the Nazarene." What a lesson is this to the young man just entering upon life! What a citadel of defense; what an incentive to noble enterprise; and what a divine inspiration may he find in the faith of Christ! In the autumn of 1845 Mr. Harlan was elected Professor of Languages in "Iowa City College," and removed to that place. Here he taught about a year, during which time he was licensed as a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In these relations he won for himself so good a reputation for integrity and ability, that in the spring of 1847 he was elected by the people of the new state Superintendent of Public Instruction. In the spring of 1848 he was again a candidate for the same office, but his competitor, Hon. Thomas H. Benton, jr., was elected by a majority of seventeen votes over him. In the mean time, having completed his preparatory studies, he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Iowa City. United States senate has stood firmer, or borne himself more nobly. A little episode occurred in the legislative career of Mr. Harlan on which we will not speak, as the verdict of all right-minded men in the republic has already been made upon it. By a party vote, his election was declared illegal and his seat in the United States senate made vacant. This was on the 12th of January, 1857, after he had been not only regularly admitted to his seat, but had actually occupied it over two years. He had hardly time to reach home when the state Legislature righted the wrong by his rere-election, and on the 29th of the same month he resumed the seat from which party violence had ejected him. During the summer of 1849 Mr. Harlan ceived another gratifying evidence of the esteem and confidence of the public. He was nominated by the Whig State Convention as a candidate for Governor. But as he had not attained the age required by the state Constitution he declined the nomination. As the first common school Superintendent, he had acquired a very general acquaintance in the state, and continued to practice law under very auspicious circumstances till the fall of 1853. At the last session of the Iowa Legislature Mr. Harlan was elected to a second senatorial term, which expires March 4, 1867. So thoroughly were his claims to this honor recognized, that he was elected without opposition from any one of his political friends. Our space will not allow us to extend this article. We think we do not mistake in the judgment that there is a future of honor and useful. ness to the subject of this sketch. We hold him up, with a high degree of confidence, before the young men of the Church and of the republic as a man whose history they may study, and whose character and example they may imitate with profit At this time the Methodist Church in the state, looking for the development and enlargement of her educational plans, fixed her eye upon him as the man, by experience, ability, and reputation, to lead in the enterprise. He was then elected President of the "Mount Pleasant Collegiate Institute," which, during the following winter, was reorganized under an amended charter, We close by saying that we have not essayed granted by the Legislature for that purpose, as to be the eulogist; we have not attempted a penthe "Iowa Wesleyan University." In connection portrait. When living men are the subjects we with other duties he had continued to use his leave such efforts to others. But an unvarnished license as a local preacher, and he was now ad-life-history has in it elements of most instructive mitted into the Iowa annual conference and appointed President of the University. Here a career of wide usefulness was opening before him; and it is but just to say that he entered upon it with an energy and success that fully met the expectations of the public. But his way now opened in another direction. He had become generally known in the state, and the commonwealth demanded his services. In the winter of 1854-5 he was elected, by the Legislature of Iowa, to the office of United States senator for the term of six years, to terminate on the 4th of March, 1861. Upon this election Mr. Harlan resigned the Presidency of the University, and was elected to the Professorship of Political Economy and International Law, which relation he still holds. He also resumed his relation as a local preacher. In the senate of the United States Mr. Harlan is known, not as a mere politician, but as a highminded and honorable statesman. As an unswerving champion for freedom, no man in the and encouraging philosophy. Goethe said of the English, "There is no halfness about them. They are complete men." My young friends, let : there be no halfness about you. Be complete. GOD'S FAVOR. How anxious are we to stand well with our fellow-men, and secure their favor! are we equally so to stand well with God? The favor of man, what is it? A passing breath, which a moment may alienate, a look forfeit, and which, at best, a few brief years will forever terminate. But the favor of God-how ennobling, constant, and enduring! In possession of that favor, we are independent alike of what the world gives and withholds. With it we are rich, whatever else Without it we are poor, though we have the wealth of worlds besides. Bereft of him we can truly say with Jacob, "I am bereaved." Nothing can compensate for his loss, but he can compensate for the loss of every thing! we want. 1 "HE ALL WE'VE GOT. BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND. E 'S all we've got, you know, Jared." "Wall, I can't see as that's any special reason why we should spile him, Hannah," said farmer Peat as he sat down an exhausted glass of "spring beer" and cut out a generous slice of gingerbread from the card his wife had just placed before him. the roof of the one great homestead in the kingdom of heaven! Farmer Peat moved uneasily, for that name touched the few tender fibers that lay deep in his heart, and the vision of his little girl came up before him, with her sweet face and her fluttering hands, and he seemed to hear the small feet pattering along the floor, and the outleap of a laugh that was like the gurgle of a mountain torrent, and the stout will softened under that and yet he was half ashamed of the tenderness that had mastered him, and his compliance was a most ungracious, "Wall, wife, wall!" "No, I did n't mean that," persisted the soft-vision, as no arguments could have softened it; spoken, hard-working little woman; "but as we have n't any others to look out for, and as we're tolerably forehanded in the world, it might seem as though we could do a little better by Harry, and his mind's so bent on study." Farmer Peat sat down by the kitchen table and broke the large, golden slice of cake with a thoughtful expression on his hard, weather-beaten face. "It'll be money thrown away, Hannah, that I've toiled early and late for," he said. "My father thought a district school education was good enough for me, and I've managed to get through the world on 't safe enough so far, and I reckon my son is n't better than his father, and his grandfather before him, that he can't spile his hands with hard work. I'd rather see him a well-to-do, honest farmer, than a lazy, good-fornothin', dressed-up gentleman." "But all gentlemen are not good for nothin'," pleaded the broader-minded, because deeperhearted wife; and she drew a basket of stringbeans toward her and commenced breaking the pods rapidly, more out of a habit of never being idle than from any actual consciousness of what she was doing. "The world needs scholars as well as farmers, and the teacher says Harry's got somethin' in him common boys has n't." There came a quick flash of fatherly pride far away from under the gray, shaggy eyebrows. Mrs. Peat noticed it, and kept on, "I reckon there's a good deal o' truth in it, for you know what a likely, forrard child he allers was, and took to his book as a duck does to swimmin'. And then we sha' n't feel doin' a little extry for him, as little Mary's gone and do n't want it." Poor Mrs. Peat! her voice shook along the name as many a mother's has before her-as many a mother's will again; for O! how many homes there are whose "little Mary" is covered up under the grass; how many mothers say over the sweet name with faltering lips and aching hearts-remembering the golden, glancing head, the bright eyes, the laughing lips-how many "little Marys" under the grass did I say? O, broken-hearted mothers, be comforted! how many "little Marys," blessed be God, gathered under But Mrs. Peat understood her husband and knew that her point would be gained now; so she continued. "The academy opens week after next, and Harry 's set his whole heart on goin'. He's got through with every thing they can teach him at the district school, and if you stopped there I do n't s'pose it'll be any thing perticerler agin us to say our boy knew a little more than his father or grandfather." Farmer Peat hemmed twice. This was an argument of which he could offer no refutation, though he cast about for it in his mind; and at last he rose up, concluding with, "Wall, it won't do for me to be wastin' time here and all that hay to get in afore night. If Harry's sot so on goin' to the academy, I s'pose I'll have to get another hand to help me sow wheat and plant turnips this fall; but it's a great shame to throw away time and money after this fashion." Half an hour later, while Mrs. Peat still sat intent over her beans, her son entered the kitchen. He was a bright, open-faced, sun-browned boy of fourteen, and his deep-blue eyes were full of intelligence and eagerness. He came at once toward the gingerbread, as a healthy, hearty boy of fourteen would be most likely to do. Mrs. Peat watched her boy with the motherlook in her eyes, as he devoured the cake with evident relish, and at last she spoke. "I've got some good news for you, Harry." "O! what is it?" swallowing the last mouthful of gingerbread. "Well, your father 's given his consent that you shall go to the academy." Harry Peat threw up his cap with a shout of delight. "O, mother, how did he come to say that?" "Well, I had a talk with him." The boy came and laid his head in his mother's lap, and there were glad tears in his blue eyes. "I know it was all of your doing, mother," he said, "or father never would have consented |