Editor's Table. NOTICEABLE ITEMS.-The reader will find the sketch of the Art-Discoverer increasing in interest as it progresses to its conclusion. A little of the same intense devotion directed to business would make more successful men; a little of it in religion would make better Christians. Few of our readers, perhaps, are aware that the late Dr. Kitto was deprived of his hearing. The interesting sketch of him is from one whose sympathy is deepened by a similar privation. Our readers will welcome to the pages of the Repository one whose name for long years has been connected with many a jeu d'esprit, which has chased away the "blues" in lonesome hours without number. We shall without doubt hear from her again. THE OHIO RIVER.-One who has formed his notion of rivers from the majestic Hudson, with its great breadth and depth, will be struck with disappointment the first time he catches a glimpse of the Ohio at this distance from its source. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers-one of them three hundred and the other nearly four hundred miles in length-and from that junction to Cincinnati is nearly five hundred miles-through all of which extent, tributaries, some of them large rivers and draining a vast tract of country, are pouring in their waters. Knowing all this, and having formed his notions of what the river ought to be, the novitiate will be surprised to find the Ohio still a narrow and shallow stream. Its waters have been drawn away among the sands or exhaled to descend in showers to fertilize the adjacent country. This is no libel on the la belle riviere of the old French. Only one year since our own eyes saw a sturdy ox fording the shriveled stream in the very face of the great city of Cincinnati. Indeed, had we been a boy as we once were, we verily believe that we could not have resisted the impulse to slip off our shoes and stockings and wade across. But let us not minify the Ohio. Sometimes, like the swellings of Jordan, it rises and expands like a giant in his might. Its average rise from low-water mark, during the rains of the wet season, is about fifty feet; and in great freshets it has risen sixtythree feet. It is, when at its hight, a giant flood. Just below Cincinnati we have some of the finest views on the river. One of them is presented in our engraving. On the left you have the Kentucky shore; on the right the Ohio-on the bank of which, side by side, run along the White Water canal and the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, one of them being an arm by which the agricultural regions of central Indiana are made tributary to the Queen City; the other a more ambitious tributary, forming a direct link of connection with the "Father of Waters," St. Louis, and the "far west." Along the Ohio bank are some beautiful villas, and the hill-sides are, in many places, covered with teeming vineyards. THE FIRST FISH.-We never could make a successful angler, and long since gave up the effort. To sit upon some projecting rock or old log, or to stand with feet under water on some low sand-bar, hour after hour, intently watching for a nibble, is more than our human na ture was ever able to endure. We can not say how much sport we may have lost, or, rather, missed by this infirmity, for we do n't know. But judging of it by the keen zest of your real angler, we conclude it must have been immense. Angling, according to Christopher North, is the first among field sports "in the order of nature." We have before us the "young angler." The young angler commences his illustrious career, perhaps, armed with a thread of no great length from his mother's spool, and a crooked pin firmly secured by the head at the end of it. With these formidable weapons he stands by the wash-tub, containing, to his imagination, an immense depth of water, and desperately and persistently angles for "a bite" where there is neither bait nor fish. Not alone, gentle reader, in this kind of angling is the unsophisticated child. Tens of thousands in active life angle with as little judgment and to as little purpose. But the angler a little more advanced, the veritable "young angler," claims our attention. There he standsnot the angler in our picture-on the low bridge crossing a little brook. This little brook has its "back-water" and "still-water" occasioned by eddies and obstructions. There is "still water" and of quite a depth under the bridge. So our young angler has a chance. His rod, of no great length, has been carefully peeled and smoothed; his line, homespun, twisted and doubled with great effort and after repeated failures; his bait, the impaled worm writhing in its agony. Thus armed the young angler stands and waits for "a bite." What earnest, engrossing hope is painted upon his countenance; time flies uncounted; school, books-all the world is forgottenso intent for a bite. It comes! Quick as lightning the hapless minnow shoots up from its element over the head of the young angler and lands remote from the water among the bushes or in the grass. Caught a real fish! Two inches long it may be made by a liberal measurement; a quarter of an ounce it may weigh! But he has caught a fish! What triumph on his brow! What exultation in his looks! How he eyes the poor victim of his art, the beautiful gloss of its scales, the symmetry of its form, the beautiful taper of its extreme! He clutches it firmly in his hand, lest it should escape. With the speed of the wind he hies himself to his home, bearing aloft the trophy of his skill. All in the housefather, mother, sisters, brothers, and even Bridget-she of plum-cake and apple-pie memory-and "the hired man," must listen to the story of his success and admire the beauty of the captured minnow. Don't smile at the enthusiasm of our young hero; he has caught his first fish. It may be small in your eye, but not so in his. It may seem to you worthless, but not so to him. Nor is it. A new element of enterprise and success is developed in the lad. The spirit is stirred; the consciousness of power to achieve-which is the great element of success-has been begotten. He will yet fish in broader seas, and draw from their stormy depths grander evidences of his power. This little feat, then, possesses a moral significance worthy of our regard. It is a prophecy of noble enterprise and heroic achieve ment. ARTICLES DECLINED.-We uniformly have on hand more than twice as much accepted matter as we can use. It is, therefore, a little relief to find now and then an article which falls a little below the mark. "Abuse of "The Life," "The Phantom," "The Way to be Happy," Mother," "Passing," "The House of God," "Our Departed Infant," ," "The place of the Dead," "Not Dead," "I Miss Thee," etc., "Farewell to Home," "My Life," "The Golden Chain," and "In Memoriam," will hardly do, though some of them possess considerable merit. The author of the "Dying Girl's Farewell" should study and practice the poetic art; she has talents that should be cultivated. So also would we say to the author of "Carry me Home to Die." "To my Angel Father" is not without merit, but its author needs practice. "The Rose of the Glen," "My Childhood's Home," and "Ordination" will not do without revision. We would like another specimen from the author of "Idolatry;" this is rather complicated and involved in its style. TO CORRESPONDENTS.-Our contributors will understand that when an article is "accepted," it is placed on file for publication. But such is the press of matter and the necessity of variety, both in style and subject, that its publication is even then by no means certain, or, at least, it may be long delayed. It may not be amiss to state that we have at this moment over one hundred prose contributions and about the same number of poems on our list of "accepted" articles. They look down upon us imploringly; but what can we do? Our sympathy for the suffering ones cooped up in limbo does not expand the stereotyped dimensions of our magazine a single em. But we are reminded of our "reserved list "-our "suspension bridge," as some of our correspondents facetiously call it-lying still back of the above, and comprising no mean number. Unless our contributors have something very choice in its character, we must say to them as Dr. Phineas Rice is reported to have once said to a questionable character who applied for admission into his Church-"there is no vacancy for you at present, sir." EXCERPTA. We clip a few items from our correspondence, but not half so many as we would like to had we space. Jesus Christ would enter upon this "new life" and this "new era!" The following, from an unknown friend in Brooklyn, New York, contains a flow of genuine sensibility, and will touch the heart: "Dear Repository,-You have come again with 'graceful mien and cheerful smile,' and so you have come 'many a time and oft' to our 'pleasant home.' But now, alas! there is no answering smile to greet your coming, and the hearts once so happy are sad and sorrowful. For since the last visit she, in whose name you still come to us-she, whose it was first to unfold your pages and your treasures to our eager gazeOUR MOTHER-our ever gentle, loving mother, has left us, a lonely little band in our desolate home. You have come again, but she can never. "And O! when they folded the hands, that had so long ministered to us, upon her quiet breast, and laid her away from our sight forever, it did seem that all the light had passed away with the sunshine of her smile. Truly the cloud hangs heavy and dark. But there is a light, even all through to the end of the long, dreary future of this life; it is the assurance that she has gained the abiding home,' and waits to welcome us there. "Pardon me, kind editor of our valued Repository; but when my eye met those pleasant greetings and kind wishes, that all your friends had pleasant homes,' there came into my heart the desire that you might know how they had come to one sorrowful home at least. But we will try to find comfort in the sweet messages and' bright thoughts' of the Repository, now doubly dear to us all because our mother was its friend, and called it hers so long." The following note awoke within us pleasing feelings, and we doubt not it will also in the mind of the reader. Are there not "friends" of the widow every-where? "A friend of mine, knowing my taste for choice and beautiful reading, presented me with a year's subscription of the Ladies' Repository;' and for the past year it has made its monthly visits to our 'ingleside,' and a halfuttered prayer has fallen from my lips for the friend that gave it, and the mind that molded and fashioned it. I am a widow, and through the year I hoarded up the little that I could, that I might have the blessing of another year of its chaste and refined reading, and again it is presented to me. I bless the Lord for raising up friends in the hour of darkness. It has been to me 'a thing of beauty,' and I would like to make it a joy forever,' by having it bound and preserved in a situation where it can be useful and still retain its pristine beauty. "Far away in the bosom of our beautiful peninsula arise to our great 'all-Father' prayers heart-felt and sincere for the success of your undertakings, in all that is good and noble. Though a stranger personally, still by your writings I know you, and by faith I hope to meet you in that haven of rest, the glorious eternity of the future." We thank God for friends that pray Our brother, from whom we excerpt the following, will pardon the liberty taken with a private letter. We are certain his note will do good. He says: "I have lately in the retiracy of my study-experienced a blessing which seems to permeate my whole being. My soul is filled to overflowing with its fullness. For twenty-three years I have known the power of Christ to 'forgive sin;' now I know his power to 'cleanse from all iniquity.' It is like a sun of light in the very center of my soul. It kindles and burns with an ardor of which I had little conception before. I have all along preached that Christians should seek the blessing of entire sanctificationseek it in this life-seek it now. I dared not do otherwise. I should have felt that I was preaching something less than a full and complete Gospel had I done otherwise. But it was all done too theoretically-too mechanically, to have much power or to produce much effect, though some good was done, some souls were blessed. But now how easy it is to preach it; and then the sweetness and divine power! I feel really as though I was not only entering upon a new life, but also upon a new deavored to deserve well of the literary and religious era in my ministry." Would that all the ministers of public. for us. OUR EXCHANGES.-Many of our exchanges send us marked copies of the paper containing their notices. We shall receive it as a favor if the others will do the same. We also take the opportunity to express our heart-felt gratitude to the many of our exchanges that have commended our labors in such appreciative terms. All that we can say for ourself is, that we have en |