Part Four - Practise - section(4)

- The Battle Of "Waterloo…Lord Byron
- Ode On Saint Cecilia…John Dryden
- William Tell…Wm. Baine
- The Diver…Schiller
- Scene From "The Rivals"…Sheridan
- On The Expunging Resolutions…Henry Clay
- Spartacus To The Gladiators At Capua…E. Kellogg
- On The Use Of Private Judgment…J. H. Newman
- Part Of Lecture On "Emerson"…Matthew Arnold
- The "Cross Of Gold" Speech…W. J. Bryan
- Owyhee Joe's Story…B. Wildman
- The Yacht Club Speech
- The Two Pictures
- God…G. B. Derzhavin
- The Little Stowaway
- Arnold Winkelreid…James Montgomery
- On The Rappahannock
- Death Of Little Jo…Charles Dickens
- The Discontented Pendulum…Jane Raylor
- The Masquerade…John G. Saxe
- The Star-Spangled Banner…F. S. Key

THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

BY LORD BYEON

There was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell: But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell

Did ye not hear it ? No; 'twas but the wind,

Or a car rattling o 'er the stony street; On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet;

To chase the glowing hours with flying feet But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,

As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before! Arm! arm! it is it is the cannon's opening roar!

"Within a windowed niche of that high hall

Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;

And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well

Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,

And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago

Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs

Which ne 'er might be repeated: who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise?

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips, "The foe! They cornel they come!''

And wild and high the "Camerons' gathering" rose! The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan's, Donald's fame, rings in each clansman's ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valor, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall molder cold and low. Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,

The morn the marshaling in arms, the day, Battle's magnificently stern array! The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse friend, foe in one red burial blent!

ODE ON SAINT CECILIA'S DAY

BY JOHN DRYDEN

From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony,
This universal frame began: When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead!
Then cold and hot and moist and dry

In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
What passion can not Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell His listening brethren stood around, And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound.

Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well. What
passion can not Music raise and quell 1
The trumpet's loud clangor
Excites us to arms, With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms. The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum Cries: "Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat!"
The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers, Whose dirge is
whisper'd by the warbling lute.
Sharp violins proclaim Their jealous pangs and desperation, Fury, frantic indignation, Depth of pains, and height of passion
For the fair disdainful dame.
But oh! what art can teach, What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise? Notes inspiring holy love, Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race, And trees uprooted left their place

Sequacious of the lyre: But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher When to her Organ vocal breath was given An Angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking Earth for Heaven!
Grand Chorus
As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move, And sung the great Creator's praise

To all the blest above; So when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And Music shall untune the sky.

WILLIAM TELL

BY WM. BAINE

"Place there the boy," the tyrant said; "fix me the apple on his head. Ha! rebel, now! there is a fair mark for thy shaft: there try thy boasted archer-craft!'' and hoarsely the dark Austrian laughed. With quivering brow the Switzer gazed; his cheek grew pale; his bold lips throbbed, as if would fail their laboring breath. "Ha! so you blench? fierce Gesler cried; "I've conquered, slave, thy soul of pride!" No word to that stern taunt replied, all still as death. '' And what the meed ?'' at length Tell asked. ' * Bold fool! when slaves like thee are tasked, it is my will! But that thine eye may keener be, and nerved to such nice archery, if thou succeed'st thou goest free. "What! pause ye still ? Give him a bow and arrow there, one shaft, but one." Madness, despair, and tortured love, one moment swept the Switzer's face; then passed away each stormy trace, and high resolve reigned like a grace caught from above. "I take thy terms," he murmured low; grasped eagerly the proffered bow; the quiver searched; chose out an arrow keen and long, fit for a sinewy arm and strong; placed it upon the sounding thong, the tough yew arched. Deep stillness fell on all around; through that dense crowd was heard no sound of step or word. All watched with fixed and shuddering eye, to see that fearful arrow fly. The light wind died into a sigh, and scarcely stirred.

The gallant boy stood firm and mute: he saw the strong bow curved to shoot, yet never moved. He knew that pale fear ne'er unmanned the daring coolness of that hand: he knew it was the father scanned the boy he loved. Slow rose the shaft; it trembled hung. "My only boy!" gasped on his tongue. He could not aim. '' Ha!'' cried the tyrant, '' doth he quail ? He shakes! His haughty brow is pale!'' "Shoot!" cried a low voice, "canst thou fail? Shoot, in Heaven's name!" Again the drooping shaft he took, and cast to heaven one burning look, of all doubts reft. "Be firm, my boy!" was all he said. He drew the bow the arrow fled; the apple left the stripling's head. " 'Tis cleft! 'tis cleft!" And cleft it was, and Tell was free. Quick the brave boy was at his knee, with flushing cheek; but ere his sire his child embraced, the baffled Austrian cried in haste, "An arrow in thy belt is placed what means it? Speak!'' "To smite thee, tyrant, to the heart, had Heaven so willed it that my dart touched this, my boy !" "Treason! Rebellion! Chain the slave!" A hundred swords around him wave; and hate to Gesler's features gave infuriate joy. They chained the Switzer, arm and limb; they racked him till his eyes grew dim, and reeled his brain. Nor groan, nor pain-rung prayer gave he; but smiled, beneath his belt to see that shaft, whose point he swore should be not sped in vain. And that one arrow found its goal, red with revenge, in Gesler's soul, when Lucerne's lake heard him his felon soul out-moan; and Freedom's call abroad was blown, and Switzerland, a giant grown, her fetters brake. From hill to hill the summons flew, from lake to lake that tempest grew with wakening swell; till balked Oppression crouched in shame, and Austrian haughtiness grew tame, and Freedom's watchword was the name of William Tell.

THE DIVER

BY SCHILLER

"Oh, where is the knight or the squire so bold As to dive to the howling charybdis below ? I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold, And o 'er it already the dark waters now; Whoever to me may the goblet bring Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his king.''

And the knights and the squires that gathered around Stood silent, and fixed on the ocean their eyes: They looked on the dismal and savage profound,

And the peril chilled back every thought of the prize. And thrice spoke the monarch, '' The cup to win, Is there never a wight who will venture in ?"

And all, as before, heard in silence the king, Till a youth with an aspect unfearing but gentle, 'Mid the tremulous squires, stepped out from the ring, Unbuckling his girdle, and doffing his mantle; And the murmuring crowd, as they parted asunder, On the stately boy cast their looks of wonder, As he strode to the marge of the summit, and gave One glance on the gulf of that merciless main, And o'er him the breakers mysteriously rolled, And the giant-mouth closed on the swimmer so bold.

And lo! from the heart of that far-floating gloom What gleams on the darkness so swanlike and white 1 Lo! an arm and a neck, glancing up from the tomb! -They battle the Man's with the Element's might. It is he! it is he! in his left hand behold, As a sign, as a joy, shines the goblet of gold!

And he comes with the crowd in their clamor and glee; And the goblet his daring has won from the water He lifts to the king as he sinks on his knee; And the king from her maidens has beckoned his daughter And he bade her the wine to his cup-bearer bring, And thus spake the diver, "Long life to the king!

"Happy they whom the rose-hues of daylight rejoice, The air and the sky that to mortals are given! May the horror below nevermore find a voice,

Nor man stretch too far the wide mercy of Heaven, Nevermore, nevermore, may he lift from the mirror, The veil which is woven with night and with terror!

Quick brightening like lightning, it tore me along, Down, down, till the gush of a torrent at play In the rocks of its wilderness caught me, and strong As the wings of an eagle, it whirled me away. Vain, vain were my struggles, the circle had won me; Bound and round, in its dance, the wild element spun me.

"And I called on my God, and my God heard my prayer, In the strength of my need, in the gasp of my breath, And showed me a crag that rose up from the lair, And I clung to it, trembling, and baffled the death. And, safe in the perils around me, behold, On the spikes of the coral, the goblet of gold!

"Methought, as I gazed through the darkness, that now A hundred-limbed creature caught sight of its prey, And darted O God! from the far flaming bough Of the coral, I swept on the horrible way; And it seized me the wave with its wrath and its roar It seized me to save King, the danger is o'er!"

On the youth gazed the monarch, and marveled; quoth he, “ Bold diver, the goblet I promised is thine; And this ring will I give, a fresh guerdon to thee, Never jewels more precious shone up from the mine, If thou'lt bring me fresh tidings, and venture again To say what lies hid in the innermost main!''

Then out spake the daughter in tender emotion, "Ah! father, my father, what more can there rest? Enough of this sport with the pitiless ocean; He has served thee as none would, thyself hath confest If nothing can slake thy wild thirst of desire, Be your knights not, at least, put to shame by the squire!"

The king seized the goblet: he swung it on high, And, whirling, it fell in the roar of the tide; "But bring back that goblet again to my eye, And 111 hold thee the dearest that rides by my side; And thine arms shall embrace as thy bride, I decree, The maiden whose pity now pleadeth for thee."

In his heart, as he listened* there leapt the wild joy, And the hope and the love through his eyes spoke in fire. On that bloom, on that blush, gazed delighted the boy; The maiden she faints at the feet of her sire. Here the guerdon divine, there the danger beneath; He resolves! To the strife with the life and the death!

They hear the loud surges sweep back in their swell: Their coming the thunder-sound heralds along! Fond eyes yet are tracking the spot where he fell, They come, the wild waters, in tumult and throng, Rearing up to the cliff, roaring back as before; But no wave ever brought the lost youth to the shore.

SCENE FROM "THE RIVALS"

BY SHERIDAN

MRS. MALAPROP and SIR ANTHONY ABSOLUTE.

Mrs. M. There, Sir Anthony, there sits the deliberate simpleton, who wants to disgrace her family, and lavish herself on a fellow not worth a shilling.

Lydia. Madam, I thought you once

Mrs. M. You thought, miss! I don't know any business you have to think at all: thought does not become a young woman. But the point we would request of you is, that you will promise to forget this fellow to illiterate him, I say, from your memory.

Lydia. Ah, madam, our memories are independent of our wills. It is not so easy to forget.

Mrs. M. But I say it is, miss! there is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I 'm sure I've as much forgot your poor dear uncle, as if he had never existed: and I thought it my duty so to do; and let me tell you, Lydia, these violent memories don't become a young woman.

Sir A. Why, sure, she won't pretend to remember what she's ordered not? ay, this comes of her reading.

Lydia. What crime, madam, have I committed, to be treated thus?

Mrs. M. Now don't attempt to extirpate yourself from the matter; you know I have proof controvertible of it. But, tell me, will you promise to do as you're bid? Will you take a husband of your friends' choosing ?

Lydia. Madam, I must tell you plainly that, had I no preference for any one else, the choice you have made would be my aversion.

Mrs. M. What business have you, miss, with preference and aversion? they don't become a young woman; and you ought to know, that as both always wear off, 'tis safest in matrimony to begin with a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor dear uncle before marriage as if he'd been a blackamoor; and yet, miss, you are sensible what a wife I made! and when it pleased heaven to release me from him, 'tis unknown what tears I shed. But suppose we were going to give you another choice, will you promise us to give up this Beverley?

Lydia. Could I belie my thoughts so far as to give that promise, my actions would certainly as far belie my words.

Mrs. M. Take yourself to your room; you are fit company for nothing but your own ill humors.

Lydia. Willingly, ma'am; I can not change for the worse.            [Exit.

Mrs. M. There's a little intricate hussy for you!

Sir A. It is not to be wondered at, ma 'am; all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by heaven! I'd as soon have them taught the black art, as their alphabet!

Mrs. M. Nay, nay, Sir Anthony, you are an absolute misanthropy.

Sir A. In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! she had a book in each hand they were half-bound volumes, with marble covers! From that moment, I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress!

Mrs. M. Those are vile places, indeed!

Sir A. Madam, a circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge! It blossoms through the year! and depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.

Mrs. M. Fie, fie, Sir Anthony, you surely speak laconically.

Sir A. Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation, now, what would you have a woman know 1

Mrs. M. Observe me, Sir Anthony I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman. For instance I would never let her meddle with Greek or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or Fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments; but, Sir Anthony, I would send her, at nine years old, to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts; and as she grew up, I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries; but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it.

Sir A. Well, well, Mrs. Malaprop, I will dispute the point no further with you; tho, I must confess, that you are a truly moderate and polite arguer, for almost every; third word you say is on my side of the question. But,

Mrs. Malaprop, to the more important point in debate you say, you have no objection to my proposal?

Mrs. M. None, I assure you. I am under no positive engagement with Mr. Acres; and as Lydia is so obstinate against him, perhaps your son may have better success.

Sir A. Well, madam, I will write for the boy directly. He knows not a syllable of this yet, tho I have for some time had the proposal in my head. He is at present with his regiment.

Mrs. M. We have never seen your son, Sir Anthony; but I hope no objection on his side.

Sir A. Objection let him object if he dare. No, no, Mrs. Malaprop; Jack knows that the least demur puts me in a frenzy directly. My process was always very simple: in his younger days 'twas "Jack, do this," if he demurred, I knocked him down; and if he grumbled at that, I always sent him out of the room.

Mrs. M. Ay, and the properest way, o' my conscience! nothing is so conciliating to young people as severity. Well, Sir Anthony, I shall give Mr. Acres his discharge, and prepare Lydia to receive your son's invocations; and I hope you will represent her to the Captain as an object not altogether illegible.

Sir A. Madam, I will handle the subject prudently. Well, I must leave you; and let me beg you, Mrs. Malaprop, to enforce this matter roundly to the girl take my advice, keep a tight hand; if she rejects this proposal clap her under lock and key; and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her dinner for three or four days, you can't conceive how she'd come about.

ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTIONS

BY HENRY CLAY

MR. PRESIDENT: What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this Expunging resolution? What new honor or fresh laurels will it win for our common country? Is the power of the Senate so vast that it ought to be circumscribed, and that of the President so restricted that it ought to be extended? What power has the Senate? None, separately. It can only act jointly with the other House, or jointly with the Executive. And altho the theory of the Constitution supposes, when consulted by him, it may freely give an affirmative or negative response; according to the practise as it now exists, it has lost the faculty of pronouncing the negative monosyllable. When the Senate expresses its deliberate judgment, in the form of resolution, that resolution has no compulsory force, but appeals only to the dispassionate intelligence, the calm reason, and the sober judgment, of the community The Senate has no army, no navy, no patronage, no lucrative offices, no glittering honors to bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy expectants, rendering us homage, anticipating our wishes, and ready to execute our commands.

How is it with the President? Is he powerless? He is felt from one extremity to the other of this vast Republic. By means of principles which he has introduced, and innovations which he has made in our institutions, alas! but too much countenanced by Congress and a confiding people, he exercises, uncontrolled, the power of the State. In one hand he holds the purse, and in the other brandishes the sword of the country. Myriads of dependents and partizans, scattered over the land, are ever ready to sing hosan-nas to him, and to laud to the skies whatever he does. He has swept over the government, during the last eight years, like a tropical tornado. Every department exhibits traces of the ravages of the storm. Take as one example the Bank of the United States. No institution could have been more popular with the people, with Congress, and with state legislatures. None ever better fulfilled the great purposes of its establishment. But it unfortunately incurred the displeasure of the President; he spoke, and the bank lies prostrate. And those who were loudest in its praise are now loudest in its condemnation. "What object of his ambition is unsatisfied ? When disabled from age any longer to hold the scepter of power, he designates his successor, and transmits it to his favorite! "What more does he want? Must we blot, deface, and mutilate the records of the country, to punish the presumptuousness of expressing an opinion contrary to his own?

"What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this Expunging resolution i Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you eradicate from memory and from history the fact that in March, 1834, a majority of the Senate of the United States passed the resolution which excites your enmity ? Is it your vain and wicked object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has been denied to Omnipotence itself? Do you intend to thrust your hands into our hearts, and to pluck out the deeply rooted convictions which are there? Or is it your design merely to stigmatize us ? You cannot stigmatize us. "Ne'er yet did base dishonor blur our name."

Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and bearing aloft the shield of the Constitution of our country, your puny efforts are impotent; and we defy all your power. Put the majority of 1834 in one scale, and that by which this Expunging resolution is to be carried in the other, and let truth and justice, in heaven above and on earth below, and liberty and patriotism, decide the preponderance.

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this Expunging resolution? Is it to appease the wrath and to heal the wounded pride of the Chief Magistrate ? If he be really the hero that his friends represent him, he must despise all mean condescension, all groveling sycophancy, all self-degradation and self-abasement. He would reject, with scorn and contempt, as unworthy of his fame, your black scratches and your baby lines in the fair records of his country. Black lines! Black lines! Sir, I hope the Secretary of the Senate will preserve the pen with which he may inscribe them, and present it to that Senator of the majority whom he may select, as a proud trophy, to be transmitted to his descendants. And hereafter, when we shall lose the forms of our free institutions all that now remain to us some future American monarch, in gratitude to those by whose means he has been enabled, upon the ruins of civil liberty, to erect a throne, and to commemorate especially this Expunging resolution, may institute a new order of knighthood, and confer on it the appropriate name of "the Knights of the Black Lines."

But why should I detain the Senate, or needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exertions? The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done that foul deed which, like the blood, staining the hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before you, and, like other skilful executioners, do it quickly. And when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burned at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defense of the Constitution, and bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that, henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any President may perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what powers he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom; but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to raise its opposing voice. Tell them that it must wait until a House of Representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it composed of the partizans of the President, shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance. And, if the people do not pour out their indignation and imprecations, I have yet to learn the character of American freemen.

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA

BY ELIJAH KELLOGG

Te call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sand, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syra-sella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.

One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars.

That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war horse the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend! He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped and died the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph! I told the pretor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the pretor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, "Let the carrion rot! There are no noble men but Romans.''

And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs! O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Ay! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!

Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours • and a dainty meal for him ye will be!

If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me! Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and then do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead ? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! If we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle.

ON THE USE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT,

BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN

By the right of private judgment in matters of religious belief and practise, is ordinarily meant the prerogative considered to belong to each individual Christian, of ascertaining and deciding for himself from Scripture what is gospel truth and what is not. This is the principle maintained in theory, as a sort of sacred possession or palladium, by the Protestantism of this day. Romanism, as is equally clear, takes the opposite extreme, and maintains that nothing is absolutely left to individual judgment; that is, that there is no subject in religious faith and conduct on which the church may not pronounce a decision such as to supersede the private judgment and compel the assent of every one of her members. The English church takes a middle course between these two. It considers that on certain definite subjects private judgment upon the text of Scripture has been superseded, not by the mere authoritative sentence of the church, but by its historical testimony delivered down from the apostles. To these subjects nothing more can be added, unless, indeed, new records of primitive Christianity or new uninterrupted traditions of its teaching were discoverable.

The Catholic doctrines, therefore, of the Trinity, incarnation, and others similar to these, are, as we maintain, the true interpretations of the notices contained in Scripture concerning those doctrines. But the mere Protestant considers that on these as well as on other subjects the sacred text is left to the good pleasure or the diligence of private men; while the Romanist, on the contrary, views it as in no degree subjected to individual judgment, except from the accident of the church having not yet pronounced on this or that point an authoritative and final decision.

Now these extreme theories and their practical results are quite intelligible; whatever be their faults, want of simplicity is not one of them. We see what they mean, how they work, what they result in. But the middle path adopted by the English church can not be so easily mastered by the mind: first, because it is a mean and has in consequence a complex nature, involving a combination of principles and depending on multiplied conditions; next, because it partakes of that indeterminateness which, as has been already observed, is to a certain extent a characteristic of English theology; lastly, because it has never been realized in its fulness in any religious community, and thereby brought home to the mind through the senses. What has never been fairly brought into operation lies open to various objections. It is open to the suspicion of not admitting of being so; that is, of being what is commonly understood by a mere theory of fancy. And besides, a mean system really is often nothing better than an assemblage of words and always looks such, before it is proved to be something more. For instance, if we knew only of the colors white and black, and heard a description of brown or gray, and were told that these were neither white nor black, but something like both, yet between them, we should be tempted to conceive our informant's words either self-contradictory or altogether unmeaning; as if it were plain that what was not white must be black, and what was not black must be white. This is daily instanced in the view taken by society at large of such persons now, alas! a comparatively small remnant who follow the ancient doctrines and customs of our church, who hold to the creeds and sacraments, keep from novelties, are regular in their devotions, and are what is sometimes called, almost in reproach, '' orthodox.'' Worldly men, seeing them only at a distance, will class them with the religionists of the day; the religionists of the day, with a like superficial glance at them, call them worldly and carnal. Why is this ? Because neither party can fancy any medium between itself and its opposite, and each connects them with the other, because they are not its own.

Feeling, then, the disadvantages under which the Anglican doctrine of private judgment lies, and desirous to give it something more of meaning and reality than it popularly possesses, I shall attempt to describe it, first in theory, and then as if reduced to practise.

1. Now, if man is in a state of trial, and his trial lies in the general exercise of the will, and the choice of religion is an exercise of will, and always implies an act of individual judgment, it follows that such acts are in the number of those by which he is tried, and for which he is to give an account hereafter. So far all parties must be agreed, that without private judgment there is no responsibility; and that in matter of fact a man's own mind, and nothing else, is the cause of his believing or not believing, and of his acting or not acting upon his belief. Even tho an infallible guidance be accorded, a man must have a choice of resisting it or not; he may resist it if he pleases, as Judas was traitor to his Master. Romanist, I consider, agrees with Protestant so far; the question in dispute being, what are the means which are to direct our choice, and what is the due manner of using them. This is the point to which I shall direct my attention.

The means which are given us to form our judgment by, exclusively of such as are supernatural, which do not enter into consideration, are various partly internal, partly external. The internal means of judging are common sense, natural perception of right and wrong, the affections, the imagination, reason, and the like. The external are such as Scripture, the existing church, tradition, Catholicity, learning, antiquity, and the national faith. Popular Protestantism would deprive us of all these external means, except the text of holy Scripture; as if, I suppose, upon the antecedent notion that when God speaks by inspiration all other external means are superseded. But this is an arbitrary decision, contrary to facts; for unless inspiration made use of a universal language, learning at least must be necessary to ascertain the meaning of the particular language selected; and if one external aid be adopted, of course all antecedent objection to any other vanishes. This notion, then, tho commonly taken for granted, must be pronounced untenable, nay, inconsistent with itself; yet upon it the prevailing neglect of external assistances and the exaltation of private judgment mainly rest. Discarding this narrow view of the subject, let us rather accept all the means which are put within our reach, as intended to be used, as talents which must not be neglected; and, as so considering them, let us trace the order in which they address themselves to the minds of individuals.

Our parents and teachers are our first informants concerning the next world; and they elicit and cherish the innate sense of right and wrong which acts as a guide co-ordinately with them. By degrees they resign their place to the religious communion, or church, in which we find ourselves, while the inward habits of truth and holiness which the moral sense has begun to form, react upon that inward monitor, enlarge its range, and make its dictates articulate, decisive, and various. Meantime the Scriptures have been added as fresh informants, bearing witness to the church and to the moral sense, and interpreted by them both. Last of all, where there is time and opportunity for research into times past and present, Christian antiquity and Christendom as it at present exists, become additional informants, giving substance and shape to much that before existed in our minds but in outline and shadow.

Such are the means by which God conveys to Christians the knowledge of His will and providence; but not all of them to all men. To some He vouchsafes all, to all some; but, according to the gifts given them, does He make it their duty to use them religiously. He employs these gifts as His instruments in teaching, trying, converting, advancing the mind, as the sacraments are His imperceptible means of changing the soul. To the greater part of the world He has given but three of them conscience, reason, and national religion; to a great part of Christendom He gives no external guidance but through the church; to others only the Scriptures; to others both church and Scriptures. Few are able to add the knowledge of Christian antiquity; the first centuries of Christianity enjoyed the light of Catholicity, an informant which is now partially withdrawn from us. The least portion of these separate means of knowledge is sufficient for a man's living religiously; but the more of them he has, the more of course he has to answer for; nor can he escape his responsibility, as most men attempt in one way or other, by hiding his talent in a napkin.

Most men, I say, try to dispense with one or other of these divine informants and for this reason: because it is difficult to combine them. The lights they furnish, coming from various quarters, cast separate shadows and partially intercept each other; and it is pleasanter to walk without doubt and without shade, than to have to choose what is best and safest. The Romanist would simplify matters by removing reason, Scripture, and antiquity, and depending mainly upon church authority; the Calvinist relies on reason, Scripture, and criticism, to the disparagement of the moral sense, the church, tradition, and antiquity; the Latitudinarian relies on reason, with Scripture in subordination ; the mystic on the feelings and affections, or what is commonly called the heart; the politician takes the national faith as sufficient and cares for little else; the man of the world acts by common sense, which is the oracle of the careless; the popular religionist considers the authorized version of Scripture to be all in all.

But the true Catholic Christian is he who takes what God has given him, be it greater or less, despises not the lesser because he has received the greater, yet puts it not before the greater, but uses all duly and to God's glory.

I just now said that it was difficult to combine these several means of gaining divine truth, and that their respective informations do not altogether agree. I mean that at first sight they do not agree, or in particular cases; for abstractedly, of course, what comes from God must be one and the same in whatever way it comes: if it seems to differ from itself, this arises from our weakness. Even our senses seem at first to contradict each other, and an infant may have difficulty in knowing how to avail himself of them, yet in time he learns to do so, and unconsciously makes allowance for their apparent discordance; and it would be utter folly on account of their differences, whatever they are, to discard the use of them. In like manner, conscience and reason sometimes seem at variance, and then we either call what appears to be reason sophistry, or what appears to be conscience weakness or superstition. Or, the moral sense and Scripture seem to speak a distinct language, as in their respective judgments concerning David; or Scripture and antiquity, as regards Christ's command to us to wash each other's feet; or Scripture and reason, as regards miracles or the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation; or antiquity and the existing church, as regards immersion in baptism; or the national religion and antiquity, as regards the church's power of jurisdiction; or antiquity and the law of nature, as regards the usage of celibacy; or antiquity and scholarship, as at times perhaps in the interpretation of Scripture.

This being the state of the case, I make the following remarks, which, being for the sake of illustration, are to be taken but as general ones, without dwelling on extreme cases or exceptions:

That Scripture, antiquity, and Catholicity can not really contradict one another.

That when the moral sense or reason seems to be on one side, and Scripture on the other, we must follow Scripture, except Scripture anywhere contained contradictions in terms, or prescribed undeniable crimes, which it never does.

That when the sense of Scripture, as interpreted by reason, is contrary to the sense given to it by Catholic antiquity, we ought to side with the latter.

That when antiquity runs counter to the present church in important matters, we must follow antiquity; when in unimportant matters, we must follow the present church.

That when the present church speaks contrary to our private notions, and antiquity is silent, or its decisions unknown to us, it is pious to sacrifice our own opinion to that of the church.

That if, in spite of our efforts to agree with the church, we still differ from it, antiquity being silent, we must avoid causing any disturbance, recollecting that the church, and not individuals, "has authority in controversies of faith."

I am not now concerned to prove all this, but am illustrating the theory of private judgment, as I conceive the English church maintains it. And now let us consider it in practise.

2. It is popularly conceived that to maintain the right of private judgment is to hold that no one has an enlightened faith who has not, as a point of duty, discussed the grounds of it and made up his mind for himself. But to put forward such doctrine as this rightly pertains to infidels and skeptics only; and if great names may be quoted in its favor, and it is often assumed to be the true Protestant doctrine, this is surely because its advocates do not weigh the force of their own words. Every one must begin religion by faith, not by reasoning; he must take for granted what he is taught and what he can not prove; and it is better for himself that he should do so, even if the teaching he receives contains a mixture of error. If he would possess a reverent mind, he must begin by obeying; if he would cherish a generous and devoted spirit, he must begin by venturing something on uncertain information; if he would deserve the praise of modesty and humility, he must repress his busy intellect, and forbear to scrutinize. This is a sufficient explanation, were there no other, for the subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, which is in this place exacted of those who come hither for education. Were there any serious objections lying against those articles, the case would be different; were there immorality or infidelity inculcated in them, or even imputed to them, we should have a warrant for drawing back; but even those who do not agree with them will not say this of them. Putting aside then the consideration that they contain in them chief portions of the ancient creeds, and are the form in which so many pious men in times past have expressed their own faith, even the circumstance of their constituting the religion under which we are born is a reason for our implicitly submitting ourselves to them in the first instance. As the mind expands, whether by education or years, a number of additional informants will meet it, and it will naturally, or rather it ought, according to its opportunities, to exercise itself upon all of these, by way of finding out God's perfect truth. The Christian will study Scripture and antiquity as well as the doctrine of his own church, and may perhaps, in some points of detail, differ from it; but, even if eventually he differs, he will not therefore put himself forward, wrangle, protest, or separate from the church. Further, he may go on to examine the basis of the authority of Scripture or of the church; and if so, he will do it, not, as is sometimes irreverently said, "impartially" and "candidly" which means skeptically and arrogantly, as if he were the center of the universe, and all things might be summoned before him and put to task at his pleasure but with a generous confidence in what he has been taught; nay, not recognizing, as will often happen, the process of inquiry which is going on within him. Many a man supposes that his investigation ought to be attended with a consciousness of his making it; as if it were scarcely pleasing to God unless he all along reflects upon it, tells the world of it, boasts of it as a right, and sanctifies it as a principle. He says to himself and others, "I am examining, I am scrutinizing, I am judging, I am free to choose or reject, I am exercising the right of private judgment.'' What a strange satisfaction! Does it increase the worth of our affections to reflect upon them as we feel them? "Would our mourning for a friend become more valuable by our saying, "I am weeping; I am overcome and agonized for the second or third time; I am resolved to weep?" What a strange infatuation, to boast of our having to make up our minds! What! is it a great thing to be without an opinion? is it a satisfaction to have the truth to find? Who would boast that lie was without worldly means and had to get them as he could? Is heavenly treasure less precious than earthly? Is it anything inspiring or consolatory to consider, as such persons do, that Almighty God has left them entirely to their own efforts, has failed to anticipate their wants, has let them lose in ignorance at least a considerable part of their short life and their tenderest and most malleable years ? Is it a hardship or a yoke, on the contrary, to be told that what is, in the order of Providence, put before them to believe, whether absolutely true or not, is in such sense from Him; that it will improve their hearts to obey it, and convey to them many truths which they otherwise would not know, and prepare them perchance for the communication of higher and clearer views? Yet such is a commonly received doctrine of this day; against which, I would plainly maintain, not the Roman doctrine of infallibility which even if true would be of application only to a portion of mankind, for few comparatively hear of Rome but generally that under whatever system a man finds himself he is bound to accept it as if infallible, and to act upon it in a confiding spirit till he finds a better, or in course of time has cause to suspect it.

To this it may be replied by the Romanist that, granting we succeed in persuading men in the first instance to exercise this unsuspicious faith in what is set before them in the course of Providence, yet if the right of free judgment upon the text of Scripture is allowed at last, it will be sure whenever it is allowed, to carry them off into various discordant opinions; that individuals will fancy they have found out a more Scriptural system even than that of the church Catholic itself, should they happen to have been born and educated in her pale. But I am not willing to grant this of the holy Scriptures, tho Romanists are accustomed to assume it. There have been writers of their communion, indeed, who have used the most disparaging terms of the inspired volume, as if it were so mere a letter that it might be molded into any meaning which the reader chose to put upon it. Some of their expressions and statements have been noticed by our divines; such as, that "the Scriptures are worth no more than Æsop’s fables within the church's authority"; or that "they are like a nose of wax which admits of being pulled and molded one way and another."

In contradiction to these expressions it surely may be maintained, not only that the Scriptures have but one direct and unchangeable sense, but that it is such as in all greater matters to make a forcible appeal to the mind, when fairly put before it, and to impress it with a conviction of its being the true one. Little of systematic knowledge as Scripture may impart to ordinary readers, still what it does convey may surely tend in one direction and not in another. What it imparts may look toward the system of the church and of antiquity, not oppose it. Whether it does so or not, is a question of fact which must be determined as facts are determined; but here let us dwell for a moment on the mere idea which I have suggested. There is no reason why the Romanist should startle at the notion. Why is it more incongruous to suppose that our minds are so constituted as to be sure to a certain point of the true meaning of words than of the correctness of an argument? Yet Roman-ists do argue. If it is possible to be sure of the soundness of an argument, there is perchance no antecedent reason to hinder our being as sure that a text has a certain sense. Men, it is granted, continually misinterpret Scripture; so are they as continually using bad arguments; and, as the latter circumstance does not destroy the mind's innate power of reasoning, so neither does the former show it is destitute of its innate power of interpreting. Nay, the Romanists themselves continually argue with individuals from Scripture, even in proof of this very doctrine of the church's infallibility, which would be out of place unless the passages appealed to bore their own meaning with them. What I would urge is this: The Romanists of course confess that the real sense of Scripture is not adverse to any doctrine taught by the church; all I would maintain in addition is, that it is also the natural sense, as separable from false interpretations by the sound-judging, as a good argument is from a bad one. And as so believing, we think no harm can come from putting the Scripture into the hands of the laity, allowing them, if they will, to verify by it, as far as it extends, the doctrines they have been already taught.

They will answer that all this is negatived by experience, even tho it be abstractedly possible; since, in fact, the general reading of the Bible has brought into our country and church all kinds of heresies and

extravagances. Certainly it has; but it has not been introduced under those limitations and provisions, which I have mentioned as necessary attendants on it, according to the scheme designed by Providence. If Scripture reading has been the cause of schism, this has been because individuals have given themselves to it to the disparagement of God's other gifts; because they have refused to throw themselves into the external system which has been provided for them; because they have attempted to reason before they acted, and to prove before they would be taught. If it has been the cause of schism in our country, it is because the Anglican Church has never had the opportunity of supplying adequately that assistance which is its divinely provided complement; because her voice has been feeble, her motions impeded, and the means withheld from her of impressing upon the population her own doctrine; because the Reformation was set up in disunion, and theories more Protestant than hers have, from the first, spoken with her, and blended with, and sometimes drowned her voice. If Scripture reading has, in England, been the cause of schism, it is because we are deprived of the power of excommunicating, which, in the revealed scheme, is the formal antagonist and curb of private judgment. But take a church, nurtured and trained on this model, claiming the obedience of its members in the first instance, tho laying itself open afterward to their judgment, according to their respective capabilities for judging, claiming that they should make a generous and unsuspicious trial of it before they objected to it, and able to appeal confidently for its doctrines to the writings of antiquity a church which taught the truth boldly and in system, and which separated from itself or silenced those which opposed it, and I believe individual members would be very little perplexed, and if men were still found to resist its doctrine they would not be, as now, misguided persons, with some good feelings and right views, but such as one should be glad to be rid of. One chief cause of sects among us is, that the church's voice is not heard clearly and forcibly; she does not exercise her own right of interpreting Scripture; she does not arbitrate, decide, condemn; she does not answer the call which human nature makes upon her. That all her members would in that case perfectly agree with each other, or with herself, I am far from supposing; but they would differ chiefly in such matters as would not forfeit their membership nor lead them to protest against the received doctrine. If, even as it is, the great body of dissenters from the church during the last centuries remained more or less constant to the creeds, except in the article which was compromised in their dissent, surely much more fully and firmly would her members then abide in the fundamentals of faith, tho Scripture was ever so freely put into their hands. We see it so at this day. For on which side is the most lack at this moment in the laity in believing, or the church in teaching ? Are not the laity everywhere willing to treat their pastors with becoming respect; nay, so follow their guidance as to take up their particular views, according as they may be of a Catholic or private character in this or that place? Is there any doubt at all that the laity would think alike if the clergy did? And is there any doubt that the clergy would think alike, as far as the formal expression of their faith went, if they had their views cleared by a theological education and molded by a knowledge of antiquity? We have no need to grudge our people the religious use of private judgment ; we need not distrust their affection; we have but to blame our own waverings and differences.

The free reading of Scripture, I say, when the other parts of the divine system are duly fulfilled, would lead at most to diversities of opinion only in the adjuncts and details of faith, not in fundamentals. Men differ from each other at present, first, from the influence of the false theories of private judgment which are among us and which mislead them; next, from the want of external guidance. They are enjoined, as a matter of duty, to examine and decide for themselves, and the church but faintly protests against this proceeding or supersedes the need of it. Truth has a force which error cannot counterfeit; and the church, speaking out that truth as committed to her, would cause a corresponding vibration in Holy Scripture such as no other notes, however loudly sounded, can draw from it. If, after all, persons arose, as they would arise, disputing against the fundamentals, or separating on minor points, let them go their way; "they went out from us, because they were not of us." They would commonly be "men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith"; I do not say there never could be any other, but for such extraordinary cases no system can provide. If there were better men who, tho educated in the truth, ultimately opposed it openly, they as well as others would be put out of the church for their error's sake and for their contumacy; and God, who alone sees the hearts of men and how mysteriously good and evil are mingled together in this world, would provide in His own inscrutable way for anomalies which His revealed system did not meet.

I consider, then, on the whole that however difficult it may be in theory to determine when we must go by our own view of Scripture, when by the decision of the church, yet in practise there would be little or no difficulty at all. Without claiming infallibility, the church may claim the confidence and obedience of her members; Scripture may be read without tending to schism; minor differences allowed without disagreement in fundamentals; and the proud and self-willed disputant discarded without the perplexed inquirer suffering. If there is schism among us, it is not that Scripture speaks variously, but that the church of the day speaks not at all; not that private judgment is rebellious, but that the church's judgment is withheld.

I do really believe that, with more of primitive simplicity and of rational freedom, and far more of Gospel truth than in Romanism, there would be found in the rule of private judgment, as I have described it, as much certainty as the doctrine of infallibility can give; for ample provision would be made both for the comfort of the individual and for the peace and unity of the body, which are the two objects for which Romanism professes to consult. The claim of infallibility is but an expedient for impressing strongly upon the mind the necessity of hearing and of obeying the church. When scrutinized carefully it will be found to contribute nothing whatever toward satisfying the reason, as was observed in another connection; since it is as difficult to prove and bring home to the mind that the church is infallible, as that the doctrines it teaches are true. Nothing, then, is gained in the way of conviction, only of impression and, again, of expedition, it being less trouble to accept one doctrine on which all the others are to depend than a number. Now, this impressiveness and practical perspicuity in teaching, as far as these objects are lawful and salutary, may, I say, be gained without this claim; they may be gained in God's way, without unwarranted additions to the means of influence which He has ordained, without a tenet, fictitious in itself and, as falsehood ever will be, deplorable in many ways in its results.

PART OF LECTURE ON "EMERSON”

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

I have given up to envious time as much of Emerson as time can fairly expect ever to obtain. We have not in Emerson a great poet, a great writer, a great philosophy maker. His relation to us is not that of one of those personages; yet it is a relation of, I think, even superior importance. His relation to us is more like that of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius is not a great writer, a great philosophy maker; he is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. Emerson is the same. He is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. All the points in thinking which are necessary for this purpose he takes; but he does not combine them into a system, or present them as a regular philosophy. Combined in a system by a man with the requisite talent for this kind of thing, they would be less useful than as Emerson gives them to us; and the man with the talent so to systematize them would be less impressive than Emerson. They do very well as they now stand like " boulders," as he says in "paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." In such sentences his main points recur again and again, and become fixed in the memory.

We all know them. First and foremost, character. Character is everything. "That which all things tend to educe which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver is character." Character and self-reliance. " Trust thyself! every heart vibrates to that iron string." And yet we have our being in a not ourselves. 1' There is a power above and behind us, and we are the channels of its communications.'7 But our lives must be pitched higher. "Life must be lived on a higher plane; we must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend;

there the whole scene changes." The good we need is forever close to us, tho we attain it not. "On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying." This good is close to us, moreover, in our daily life, and in the familiar, homely places. "The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties that is the maxim for us. Let us be poised and wise, and our own to-day. Let us treat the men and women well treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. I settle myself ever firmer in the creed, that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with; accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and if we will tarry a little we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here." Furthermore, the good is close to us all. "I resist the skepticism of our education and of our educated men. I do not believe that the differences of opinion and character in men are organic. I do not recognize, besides the class of the good and the wise, a permanent class of skeptics, or a class of conservatives, or of malignants, or of materialists. I do not believe in the classes. Every man has a call of the power to do something unique." Exclusiveness is deadly. "The exclusive in social life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself in striving to shut out others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins, and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out their heart you shall lose your own. The selfish man suffers more from his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit." A sound nature will be inclined to refuse ease and self-indulgence. "To live with some rigor of temperance, or some extreme of generosity, seems to be an asceticism which common good nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men." Compensation, finally, is the great law of life; it is everywhere, it is sure, and there is no escape from it. This is that "law alive and beautiful, which works over our heads and under our feet. Pitiless, it avails itself of our success when we obey it, and of our ruin when we contravene it. We are all secret believers in it. It rewards action after their nature. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. The thief steals from himself, the swindler swindles himself. You must pay at last your own debt.'' This is tonic indeed! And let no one object that it is too general; that more practical, positive direction is what we want; that Emerson's optimism, self-reliance, and indifference to favorable conditions for our life and growth have in them something of danger. "Trust thyself"; "What attracts my attention shall have it"; "Tho thou shouldst walk the world over thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble"; "What we call vulgar society is that society whose poetry is not yet written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any." With maxims like these, we surely, it may be said, run some risk of being made too well satisfied with our own actual self and state, however crude and imperfect they may be. “Trust thyself?" It may be said that the common American or Englishman is more than enough disposed already to trust himself. I often reply, when our sectarians are praised for following conscience: Our people are very good in following their conscience; where they are not so good is in ascertaining whether their conscience tells them right. "What attracts my attention shall have it?" Well, that is our people's plea when they run after the Salvation Army, and desire Messrs. Moody and Sankey. "Thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble ?'' But think of the turn of the good people of our race for producing a life of hideousness and immense ennui; think of that specimen of your own New England life which Mr. Howells gives us in one of his charming stories which I was reading lately; think of the life of that rugged New England farm in "The Lady of the Aroostook"; think of Deacon Blood, and Aunt Maria, and the straight-backed chairs with black horsehair seats, and Ezra Perkins with perfect self-reliance depositing his travelers in the snow! I can truly say that in the little which I have seen of the life of New England, I am more struck with what has been achieved than with the crude-ness and failure. But no doubt there is still a great deal of crudeness also. Your own novelists say there is, and I suppose they say true. In the new England, as in the old, our people have to learn, I suppose, not that their modes of life are beautiful and excellent already; they have rather to learn that they must transform them.

To adopt this line of objection to Emerson's deliverances would, however, be unjust. In the first place, Emerson's points are in themselves true, if understood in a certain high sense; they are true and fruitful. And the right work to be done, at the hour when he appeared, was to affirm them generally and absolutely. Only thus could he break through the hard and fast barrier of narrow, fixed ideas, which he found confronting him, and win an entrance for new ideas. Had he attempted developments which may now strike us as expedient, he would have excited fierce antagonism, and probably effected little or nothing. The time might come for doing other work later, but the work which Emerson did was the right work to be done then.

In the second place, strong as was Emerson's optimism, and unconquerable as was his belief in a good result to emerge from all which he saw going on around him, no misanthropical satirist ever saw shortcomings and absurdities more clearly than he did, or exposed them more courageously. When he sees "the meanness," as he calls it, "of American politics," he congratulates Washington on being "long already happily dead"; on being "wrapt in his shroud and forever safe." With how firm a touch he delineates the faults of your two great political parties of forty years ago! The Democrats, he says, "have not at heart the ends which give to the name of democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends, but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy. From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the resources of the nation.'* Then with what subtle tho kindly irony he follows the gradual withdrawal in New England, in the last half century, of tender consciences from the social organizations the bent for experiments such as that of Brook Farm and the like, follows it in all its "dissidence of dissent and Protestantism of the Protestant religion!" He even loves to rally the New Englander on his philanthropical activity, and to find his beneficence and its institutions a bore! "Your miscellaneous popular charities, the education at college of fools, the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many of these now stand, alms to sots, and the thousandfold relief societies tho I confess with shame that I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, yet it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold." "Our Sunday-schools and churches and pauper societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to please nobody. There are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which these aim, but do not arrive." "Nature does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the Abolition convention, or the temperance meeting, or the transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us: 'So hot, my little sir?' "

Yes, truly, his insight is admirable; his truth is precious. Yet the secret of his effect is not even in these; it is in his temper. It is in the hopeful, serene, beautiful temper wherewith these, in Emerson, are indissolubly joined; in which they work, and have their being. He says himself: "We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.'' If this be so, how wise is Emerson! for never had man such a sense of the inexhaustibleness of nature, and such hope. It was the ground of his being; it never failed him. Even when he is sadly avowing the imperfection of his literary power and resources, lamenting his fumbling fingers and stammering tongue, he adds: "Yet, as I tell you, I am very easy in my mind and never dream of suicide. My whole philosophy, which is very real, teaches acquiescence and optimism. Sure I am that the right word will be spoken, tho I cut out my tongue.'' In his old age, with friends dying and life failing, his tone of cheerful, forward-looking hope is still the same. "A multitude of young men are growing up here of high promise, and I compare gladly the social poverty of my youth with the power on which these draw." His abiding word for us, the word by which being dead he yet speaks to us, is this: "That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart, which has received so much, trust the power by which it lives?

One can scarcely overrate the importance of thus holding fast to happiness and hope. It gives to Emerson's work an invaluable virtue. As Wordsworth's poetry is, in my judgment, the most important work done in verse, in our language, during the present century, so Emerson's "Essays" are, I think, the most important work done in prose. His work is more important than Carlyle's. Let us be just to Carlyle, provoking tho he often is. Not only has he that genius of his which makes Emerson say truly of his letters, that "they savor always of eternity." More than this may be said of him. The scope and upshot of his teaching are true; "his guiding genius/' to quote Emerson again, is really "his moral sense, his perception of the sole importance of truth and justice." But consider Carlyle's temper, as we have been considering Emerson's! Take his own account of it! "Perhaps London is the proper place for me after all, seeing all places are improper: who knows? Meanwhile, I lead a most dyspeptic, solitary, self-shrouded life; consuming, if possible in silence, my considerable daily allotment of pain; glad when any strength is left in me for writing, which is the only use I can see in myself too rare a case of late. The ground of my existence is black as death too black, when all void, too; but at times there paint themselves on it pictures of gold, and rainbow, and lightning all the brighter for the black ground, I suppose. Withal, I am very much of a fool." No, not a fool, but turbid and morbid, wilful and perverse. "We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope."

Carlyle's perverse attitude toward happiness cuts him off from hope. He fiercely attacks the desire for happiness; his grand point in "Sartor," his secret in which the soul may find rest, is that one shall cease to desire happiness; that one should learn to say to one's self: "What if thou wert born and predestined not to be happy, but to be unhappy !'' He is wrong; Saint Augustine is the better philosopher, who says: "Act we must in pursuance of what gives us most delight." Epictetus and Augustine can be severe moralists enough; but both of them know and frankly say that the desire for happiness is the root and ground of man's being. Tell him and show him that he places his happiness wrong, that he seeks for delight where delight will never be really found; then you illumine and further him. But you only confuse him by telling him to cease to desire happiness: and you will not tell him this unless you are already confused yourself.

Carlyle preached the dignity of labor, the necessity of righteousness, the love of veracity, the hatred of shams. He is said by many people to be a great teacher, a great helper for us, because he does so. But what is the due and eternal result of labor, righteousness, veracity? Happiness. And how are we drawn to them by one who, instead of making us feel that with them is happiness, tells us that perhaps we were predestined not to be happy but to be unhappy ?

You will find, in especial, many earnest preachers of our popular religion to be fervent in their praise and admiration of Carlyle. His insistence on labor, righteousness, and veracity, pleases them; his contempt for happiness pleases them, too. I read the other day a tract against smoking, altho I do not happen to be a smoker myself. * * Smoking,'' said the tract, "is liked because it gives agreeable sensations. Now it is a positive objection to a thing that it gives agreeable sensations. An earnest man will expressly avoid what gives agreeable sensations." Shortly afterward I was inspecting a school, and I found the children reading a piece of poetry on the common theme that we are here to-day and gone to-morrow. I shall soon be gone, the speaker in this poem was made to say,

"And I shall be glad to go, For the world at best is a dreary place, And my life is getting low."

How usual a language of popular religion that is, on our side of the Atlantic at any rate! But then our popular religion, in disparaging happiness here below, knows very-well what it is after. It has its eye on a happiness in a future life above the clouds, in the New Jerusalem, to be won by disliking and rejecting happiness here on earth. And so long as this ideal stands fast, it is very well. But for very many it now stands fast no longer; for Carlyle, at any rate, it had failed and vanished. Happiness in labor, righteousness, and veracity, in the life of the spirit, here was a gospel still for Carlyle to preach, and to help others by preaching. But he baffled them and himself by preferring the paradox that we are not born for happiness at all.

Happiness in labor, righteousness, and veracity; in all the life of the spirit; happiness and eternal hope that was Emerson's gospel. I hear it said that Emerson was too sanguine; that the actual generation in America is not turning out so well as he expected. Very likely he was too sanguine as to the near future; in this country it is difficult not to be too sanguine. Very possibly the present generation may prove unworthy of his high hopes; even several generations succeeding this may prove unworthy of them. But by his conviction that in the life of the spirit is happiness, and by his hope that this life of the spirit will come more and more to be sanely understood, and to prevail, and to work for happiness, by this conviction and hope Emerson was great, and he will surely prove in the end to have been right in them. In this country it is difficult, as I said, not to be sanguine. Very many of your writers are over-sanguine, and on the wrong grounds. But you have two men who in what they have written show their sanguineness in a line where courage and hope are just; where they are also infinitely important, but where they are not easy. The two men are Franklin and Emerson. These two are, I think, the most distinctively and honorably American of your writers; they are the most original and the most valuable. Wise men everywhere know that we must keep up our courage and hope; they know that hope is, as Wordsworth well says,

"The paramount duty which Heaven lays, For its own honor, on man's suffering heart."

But the very word'' duty'' points to an effort and a struggle to maintain our hope unbroken. Franklin and Emerson maintained theirs with a convincing ease, an inspiring joy. Franklin's confidence in the happiness with which industry, honesty, and economy will crown the life of this work-day world, is such that he runs over with felicity. With a like felicity does Emerson run over, when he contemplates the happiness eternally attached to the true life in the spirit. You can not prize him too much, nor heed him too diligently. He has lessons for both the branches of our race. I figure him to my mind as visible upon earth still; as still standing here by Boston Bay, or at his own Concord, in his habit as he lived, but of heightened stature and shining feature, with one hand stretched out toward the east, to our laden and laboring England; the other toward the ever-growing west, to his own dearly-loved America "great, intelligent, sensual, avaricious America." To us he shows for guidance his lucid freedom, his cheerfulness and hope; to you his dignity, delicacy, serenity, elevation.

THE "CROSS OF GOLD" SPEECH

BY WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty the cause of humanity.

When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the Administration, and also the resolution offered in condemnation of the Administration. We object to bringing this question down to the level of persons. The individual is but an atom he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal, and this has been a contest over a principle.

Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have just passed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been, by the voters of a great party. On the fourth of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation, asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour, declaring that a majority of the Democratic party had the right to control the action of the party on this paramount issue; and concluding with the request that the believers in the free coinage of silver in the Democratic party should organize, take charge of, and control the policy of the Democratic party. Three months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats went forth openly and courageously proclaiming their belief, and declaring that, if successful, they would crystallize into a platform the declaration which they had made. Then began the conflict. With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the Crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit, our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory until they are now assembled, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment already rendered by the plain people of this country. In this contest brother has been arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest ties of love, acquaintance, and association have been disregarded; old leaders have been cast aside when they have refused to give expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of truth. Thus has the contest been waged; and we have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever imposed upon representatives of the people.

We do not come as individuals. As individuals we might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New York [Senator Hill] but we know that the people for whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a position where he could thwart the will of the Democratic party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a question of principle, and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now arrayed on the other side.

The gentleman who preceded me [ex-Governor Russell] spoke of the State of Massachusetts; let me assure him that not one present in all this Convention entertains the least hostility to "the people of the State of Massachusetts, but we stand here representing people who are the equals, before the law, of the greatest citizens in the State of Massachusetts. When you [turning to the gold delegates] come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course.

We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its application. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the crossroads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils all summer, and who by the application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding-places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade, are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak of this broader glass of business men.

Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic Coast; but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose the pioneers away out there [pointing to the West], who rear their children near to Nature's heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said that he fears a Robespierre. My friends, in this land of the free you need not fear that a tyrant will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson, to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which Democracy rests are as everlasting as the hills, but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have arisen, and we are here to meet those conditions. They tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in here; that it is a new idea. They criticize us for our criticism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My friends, we have not criticized; we have simply called attention to what you already know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court. There you will find criticisms. They say that we passed an unconstitutional law; we deny it. The income tax law was not unconstitutional when it was passed; it was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time; it did not become unconstitutional until one of the judges changed his mind, and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind. The income tax is just. It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to bear his share of the burdens of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.

They say that we are opposing national bank currency; it is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said, you will find he said that, in searching history, he could find but one parallel to Andrew Jackson; that was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracy of Catiline and saved Rome. Benton said that Cicero only did for Rome what Jackson did for us when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America. We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes. Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have differed in opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out of the governing business.

They complain about the plank which declares against life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that which it does not mean. What we oppose by that plank is the life tenure which is being built up in Washington, and which excludes from participation in official benefits the humbler members of society.

Let me call your attention to two or three important things. The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment to the platform providing that the proposed change in our monetary system shall not affect contracts already made. Let me remind you that there is no intention of affecting those contracts which, according to present laws, are made payable in gold; but if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I desire to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find justification for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed, if he now insists that we must protect the creditors.

He says he will also propose an amendment which will provide for the suspension of free coinage if we fail to maintain the parity within a year. We reply that when we advocate a policy which we believe will be successful, we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by suggesting what we shall do if we fail. I ask him, if he would apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He says he wants this country to try to secure an international agreement. Why does he not tell us what he is going to do if he fails to secure an international agreement 1 There is more reason for him to do that than there is for us to provide against the failure to maintain the parity. Our opponents have tried for twenty years to secure an international agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who do not want it at all.

And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. If they ask us why it is that we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that, if protection has slain its thousands, the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we reply that when we have restored the money of the Constitution all other necessary reforms will be possible; but that until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the country? Three months ago when it was confidently asserted that those who believe in the gold standard would frame our platform and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a President. And they had good reason for their doubt, because there is scarcely a State here to-day asking for the gold standard which is not in the absolute control of the Republican party. But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform which declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it can be changed into bimetallism by international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans, and three months ago everybody in the Republican party prophesied his election. How is it to-day? Why, the man who was once pleased to think that he looked like Napoleon that man shudders to-day when he remembers that he was nominated on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever-increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena.

Why this change ? Ah, my friends, is not the reason for the change evident to any one who will look at the matter? No private character, however pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people a man who will declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this country, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place the legislative control of our affairs in the hands of foreign potentates and powers.

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount issue of this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. If they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we shall point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges the party to get rid of the gold standard and substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid of it ? I call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who are in this Convention to-day and who tell us that we ought to declare in favor of international bimetallism thereby declaring that the gold standard is wrong and that the principle of bimetallism is better these very people four months, ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard, and were then telling us that we could not legislate two metals together, even with the aid of all the world. If the gold standard is a good thing, we ought to declare in favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing why should we wait until other nations are willing to help us to let go ? Here is the line of battle, and we care not upon which issue they force the fight; we are prepared to meet them on either issue or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of all the nations of the earth, has never declared for a gold standard and that both the great parties this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, why, my friends, should we not have it ? If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the masses have. Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between "the idle holders of idle capital" and "the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country"; and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight; upon the side of "the idle holders of idle capital" or upon the side of "the struggling masses"? That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.
You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

My friends, we declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth; and upon that issue we expect to carry every State in the Union. I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair State of Massachusetts nor the inhabitants of the State of New York by saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition, they will declare that this nation is not able to attend to its own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers ?

No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we can not have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

OWYHEE JOE'S STORY

BY ROUNSEVILLE WILDMAN

It was the beginning of the end. The last tie of the mighty Union Pacific was the first tie in the march of civilization into the great "West."

With the thunder of iron wheels and the reverberant screech of the whistle, the Indian, the buffalo, the desperado fled; the overland coach became a memory, and the cowboy changed his buckskin for New York shoddy. Later, as the gigantic Pacific system stretched out its arms to the north and south and absorbed the alkali bottoms of Wyoming, the sage brush plains of Idaho, the pine forests of Oregon, even the lava beds of northern California, the pioneers of '49 and the miners of '63 became a curiosity; and the men who had subdued the wilderness from the back of an untamed mustang, were styled "mossbacks" by the "tourist coach" emigrants and relegated to the background.

Yet it is only a little more than a decade, since thirty leather-springed, steel-ribbed overland stages were, and had been for years, the one connecting link between the hardy miners and pioneers of southern Idaho and "home." Their very sight recalls Indian fights, highway robberies and daredevil flights. In them lives the essence of the fast dying "Wild West." Their day is past; their past is but a tale; their present is forgotten.

I asked Owyhee Joe about them once. Joe had been a famous driver. "Wild stories are told of his daring trips up from Winnemucca or out from Boise with a coach well loaded with gold-dust, prospectors, and government mail. His achievements live in the memory and on the tongues of the oldest inhabitants, and grow in luster as the years pass.

It was a hot, sultry afternoon; Joe was sitting in my office, and I felt free to lounge back in my chair and listen to his stirring account of an Indian fight he had been in near Kuna, when, unaided, he had driven off ten Bannocks and saved the gold bricks in the boxes of the Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express. I smiled patronizingly when he had concluded. '' And how about the time when you were relieved of your bags without even an 'if you please?' " A shade of annoyance and chagrin passed over his bronzed face, and he shifted uneasily in his chair.

*' It was a hotter day nor this out there on the mesa, when that young chap stepped out from behind a little clump of greasewood, and as'd me perlite ernuff to throw up my hands. No argument in the face of that thar shoo tin' iron, Mr. Editor. He took over four thousand clean dust and made for Salt Lake on the back of my bes' leader. Never hearn tell how we caught him? No? Wall, ye see, I took my wheel hoss and made for Boise. Found Bill McConnell, governor and senator since the same, Colonel Bobbins, Jim

Agnew, an' Hank Fisher. We made a bee-line 'cross country to head him off. Changed hosses three times. We struck his trail, found whar his hoss had broke down an' he'd stolen another. That stolen hoss meant a necktie party. Sabe?

"In twenty-four hours we came in sight of him. Hoss played out. Game up. No thin' but sand and sage brush for miles, except one lone tree. Kinder placed there by Providence, McConnell said. Thar thet young feller set one leg over the horn of his saddle. Fine looker. Stood six in his stockings. I knew him the minute I sot eyes on him. He knew me, but never twigged. Bill McConnell war ahead, and he opened the meetin' without singin'.

" 'Good-morning, stranger.'

" '"Good-morning.'

'Seen anything of a man about your size, straddle of a sorrel mare looking a heap like the one you ride?'

" 'No, I haven't'

'' ' That's a purty good mare o' yourn.'

" 'Yes, she was worth a cool five hundred dollars, but she's a little winded now; say, mister, I'll give you five hundred dollars clear for that one o' yourn and stop the deal.' He was making a good bluff. Hoss stealin' in them days was death on the spot. He knew we war on him. His offer would well pay for the broken-down hoss, and he war a-bankin' that his money would pull him through. But, yer see, he didn 't know McConnell. Mac had been cap 'n of the vigilants back in '63, up in ther Basin, and had a name ter keep white. He just smiled at the man's innocence.

" 'That's a straight blind o' yourn, pard, an' it stands us to come in, but we're thar an' hold you over. You look a leetle mite played out, as well as yer mare. If you'll jest get down an' jine our little party, it'll stretch yer legs, an' mebbe ye need stretchin' all over.'

"He got a little white under the gills, but slid down without a word. We followed suit, and Agnew threw over his head a noose, an' passin' the other end over a limb of that lone old tree, nodded that things war ready.

11 That young fellow was game ter the last. Never moved a muscle. Seemed kinder like a shame. McConnell went up to him and said:

" 'Now, pard, is everything all right? Does it fit your neck accordin' to Hoyle?'

"'All right'

" 'Have you anything to say why this 'ere little picnic shouldn't proceed?'

" 'Nothin'.'

'' ' Have ye got any word ter leave to yer friends ? If ye have, make it short, fur we're goin' to break camp inside er ten minutes.'

"That young feller took his eyes off a bit of sage brush fur the first time and looked us straight in the eyes. His eyes war blue. I took notice of that, an' his face was clean and kind of pure-lookin'. He didn't seem to be takin' much interest in what war goin' on 'round him. Kinder had a far-away, talkin'-ter-the-angels look. Made me feel as tho I didn't count nohow. Kept thinkin' of something I learnt in Sunday-school in Missouri when I warn't bigger nor that basket o' papers. Then he came to, an' drawin' a crumpled letter from his pocket, spoke with a kinder tremble in his voice:

" 'Perhaps you are a better scholar nor I be. If you'll jest read that an' be kind enuf to answer it, I'll tell yer what ter say.'

"McConnell had already passed the coil of rope to Jim Agnew and he had drawn it taut. He took the letter, an', as we hung around kinder curious like, he opened it an* read out loud:

"' ETOWAH, GAV January 18, 1874.

" “ MY DEAR SON JAMES : For long weary months I have waited for news from you, since your last dear letter to your old mother. God bless you, James, and answer my prayers that this letter may reach you, thanking you for your ever-thoughtful care for me in my old age. But once more to look in your dear face and feel that my baby boy was near me, would cheer my old heart more than to possess all the gold in Idaho. When are you coming home ? You promised me that in the spring you would come back to me. May the good God watch over and prosper you, and return my dear boy to my old arms before I die. From your loving MOTHER

"McConnell had had a good eddication back in Michigan, and he commenced in a strong, clear voice, but afore the closing words war out, it war all we could do ter hear his voice. Yes, sir, an' my eyes got weaker nor a sick heifer's. Fact! The rope slackened until it fell from the hands of Jim Agnew, and as the breath of the mornin' came a-rushin’ through the leaves of that old tree, and long shafts o' sunlight kinder prospected down through the opening boughs, someway, my old throat caved in like an' I went ter thinkin' o' long, sunny days on the banks of the Missouri, of my old dorg, an' uv a little sister with eyes jest like this feller's, an' of my old mammy, an' how she taught me to pray. Couldn't help it, but borrowin' a hoss an' robbin' a stage didn't seem a big enough thing to string that boy up fur, an' break his old mother's heart. Guess McConnell war thinkin' o' the same way, fur he kind of reverently like folded up that soiled bit o' paper and handed it to its owner, an' without a word slipped the noose from his neck, an' then in tones as gentle as a mother's asked:

" 'War ye goin' home, stranger?'

"'Yes!'

"'Good-by!'

The boy didn't dare to trust his voice in thanks. I knew how he felt, but he drew from his belt a small bag o' twenties an' offered it to Mac.

"'Hoss!'

" 'No, take her, an' good-by.'

"He mounted the mare, while we sot an* watched him out o' sight, an' then like a pack o' starved coyotes, turned and silently sneaked fur Boise.

"Court war adjourned, verdic' set aside."

THE YACHT CLUB SPEECH

Mr. Chairman a a a Mr. Commodore beg pardon I assure you that until this moment I had not the remotest expectation that I should be called upon to reply to this toast. [Pause, turns round, pulls MS. out of pocket and looks at it.] Therefore I must beg of you, Mr. Captain a a Mr. Commatain a a Mr. Mr. Cappadore that you will pardon the confused nature of these remarks, being as they must necessarily be altogether impromptu and extempore. [Pause, turns round and looks at MS.] But Mr. Bos'an a a Mr. Bosadore I feel I feel even in these few confused expromptu and intempore intomptu and ex-prempore extemptu and imprempore exprompore remarks I feel that I can say in the words of the poet, words of the poet poet I feel that I can say in the words of the poet of the poet poet, and in these few confused remarks in the words of the poet [turns round, looks at MS.] I feel that I can say in the words of the poet that I feel my heart swell within me. Now Mr. Capasun, Mr. Commasun, why does my heart swell within me in the few confused why does my heart swell within me swell within me swell within me what makes my heart swell within me why does it swell swell within me? [Turns round and looks at MS.] Why Mr. Cappadore look at George Washington what did he do? in the few confused [Strikes dra matic attitude with swelled chest and outstretched arm, preparing for burst of eloquence which will not come.] He huh he huh he huh [turns round and looks at MS.] he took his stand upon the ship of state he stood upon the main top gallant jiboomsail and reefed the quivering sail and when the storms were waging rildly round to wreck his fragile bark, through all the howling tempest he guided her in safety into the harbor of perdition a a a into the haven of safety. And what did he do then? What he do then ? What he do then ? He he he [looks at MS.] there he stood. And then his grateful country men gathered round him they gathered round George Washington they placed him on the summit of the cipadel their capadol they held him up before the eyes of the assembled world around his brow they placed a never-dying wreath and then in thunder tones which all the world might hear. [Flourishes MS. before his face, notices it and sits down in great confusion.]

THE TWO PICTURES

It was a bright and lovely summer's morn,
Fair bloomed the flowers, the birds sang softly sweet,
The air was redolent with perfumed balm,
While nature scattered, with unsparing hand,
Her loveliest graces over hill and dale.
An artist, weary of his narrow room
Within the city's pent and heated walls,
Had wandered long amid the ripening fields,
Until, remembering his neglected themes,
He thought to turn his truant steps toward home.
These led him through a rustic, winding lane,
Lined with green hedge-rows, spangled close with flowers,
And overarched by trees of noblest growth.
But when at last he reached the farther end
Of this sweet labyrinth, he there beheld
A vision of such pure, pathetic grace,
That weariness and haste were both obscured.
It was a child a young and lovely child
With eyes of heavenly hue, bright golden hair,
And dimpled hand clasped in a morning prayer,
Kneeling beside its youthful mother's knee.
Upon that baby brow of spotless snow,
No single trace of guilt, or pain, or woe,
No line of bitter grief or dark despair,
Of envy, hatred, malice, worldly care,
Had ever yet been written. With bated breath,
And hand uplifted as in warning, swift,
The artist seized his pencil, and there traced
In soft and tender lines that image fair:

Then, when 'twas finished, wrote beneath one word, A word of holiest import Innocence.
Years fled and brought with them a subtle change,
Scattering Time's snow upon the artist's brow,
But leaving there the laurel wreath of fame,
While all men spake in words of praise his name;
For he had traced full many a noble work
Upon the canvas that had touched men's souls,
And drawn them from the baser things of earth,
Toward the light and purity of heaven.
One day, in tossing o 'er his folio's leaves,

He chanced upon the picture of the child,
Which he had sketched that bright morn long before,
And then forgotten. Now, as he paused to gaze,
A ray of inspiration seemed to dart
Straight from those eyes to his. He took the sketch,
Placed it before his easel, and with care
That seemed but pleasure, painted a fair theme.
Touching and still retouching each bright lineament,
Until all seemed to glow with life divine
'Twas innocence personified. But still
The artist could not pause. He needs must have
A meet companion for his fairest theme;
And so he sought the wretched haunts of sin,
Through miry courts of misery and guilt,
Seeking a face which at the last was found.
Within a prison cell there crouched a man
Nay, rather say a fiend with countenance seamed
And marred by all the horrid lines of sin;
Each mark of degradation might be traced,
And every scene of horror he had known,

And every wicked deed that he had done, Were visibly written on his lineaments; Even the last, worst deed of all, that left him here, A parricide within a murderer 's cell.

Here then the artist found him; and with hand
Made skilful by its oft-repeated toil,
Transferred unto his canvas that vile face,
And also wrote beneath it just one word,
A word of darkest import it was Vice.
Then with some inspiration not his own,
Thinking, perchance, to touch that guilty heart;
And wake it to repentance e'er too late,
The artist told the tale of that bright morn,
Placed the two pictured faces side by side,
And brought the wretch before them. With a shriek
That echoed through those vaulted corridors,
Like to the cries that issue from the lips
Of souls forever doomed to woe,
Prostrate upon the stony floor he fell,
And hid his face and groaned aloud in anguish.
"I was that child once I, yes, even I
In the gracious years forever fled,
That innocent and happy little child!
These very hands were raised to God in prayer,
That now are reddened with a mother's blood.

Great Heaven! can such things be ? Almighty power,
Send forth Thy dart and strike me where I lie!"
He rose, laid hold upon the artist's arm
And grasped it with demoniac power,
The while he cried: "Go forth, I say, go forth
And tell my history to the tempted youth.

I looked upon the wine when it was red, I heeded not my mother's piteous prayers, I heeded not the warnings of my friends, But tasted of the wine when it was red, Until it left a demon in my heart That led me onward, step by step, to this, This horrible place, from which my body goes Unto the gallows, and my soul to hell!'' He ceased at last. The artist turned and fled; But even as he went, unto his ears Were borne the awful echoes of despair, "Which the lost wretch flung on the empty air, Cursing the demon that had brought him there.

GOD

BY G. R. DERZHAVIN

O Thou Eternal One! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide:
Unchanged through time's all devastating flight; Thou only God! There is no God beside!
Being above all beings! Mighty One!
Whom none can comprehend and none explore;
Who fill 'st existence with Thyself alone: Embracing all supporting ruling o'er Being whom we call God and know no more!
In its sublime research, philosophy May measure out the ocean deep may count
The sands or the sun's rays but God! for Thee There is no weight nor measure: none can mount
Up to Thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark,

Tho kindled by Thy light, in vain would try To trace Thy counsels, infinite and dark:
And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high, Even like past moments in eternity.
Thou from primeval nothingness didst call
First chaos, then existence: Lord! on Thee Eternity had its foundation: all
Sprung forth from Thee: of light, joy, harmony, Sole origin: all life, all beauty Thine.
Thy word created all, and doth create; Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine.
Thou art, and wert, and shalt be! Glorious! Great!
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate!

Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround,
Upheld by Thee, by Thee inspired with breath! Thou the beginning with the end hast bound,
And beautifully mingled life and death! As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze,
So suns are born, so worlds sprung forth from Thee: And as the spangles in the sunny rays
Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry Of heaven's bright army glitters in Thy praise.
'A million torches lighted by Thy hand Wander unwearied through the blue abyss:
They own Thy power, accomplish Thy command, All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss.
What shall we call them ? Piles of crystal light A glorious company of golden streams
Lamps of celestial ether, burning bright

Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams? But Thou to these art as the noon to night.

Yes! as a drop of water in the sea, All this magnificence in Thee is lost:

What are ten thousand worlds compared to Thee? And what am /• then? Heaven's unnumbered host,

Tho multiplied by myriads, and arrayed In all the glory of sublimest thought,

Is but an atom in the balance; weighed Against Thy greatness, is a cipher brought Against infinity! Oh, what am I then ? Nought!

Nought! yet the effluence of Thy light divine,

Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom, too; Yes! in my spirit doth Thy spirit shine,

As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew. Nought! yet I live, and on hope's pinions fly

Eager toward Thy presence; for in Thee I live, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring high,

Even to the throne of Thy divinity.
I am, O God! and surely Thou must be!
The chain of being is complete in me;
In me is matter's last gradation lost, And the next step is spirit Deity!

I can command the lightning, and am dust! A monarch, and a slave; a worm, a god!

Whence came I here ? and how so marvelously Constructed and conceived? unknown! this clod

Lives surely through some higher energy;

For from itself alone it could not be!

Creator, yes! Thy wisdom and Thy word Created me! Thou source of life and good!

Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord!
Thy light, Thy love, in their bright plentitude
Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring Over the abyss of death, and bade it wear

The garments of eternal day, and wing Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, Even to its source to Thee its Author there.
O thoughts ineffable! O visions blest!
Tho worthless our conceptions all of Thee, Yet shall Thy shadowed image fill our breast,
And waft its homage to Thy Deity. God! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar;
Thus seek Thy presence, Being wise and good! Midst Thy vast works admire, obey, adore; And when the tongue is eloquent no more,
The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude.

THE LITTLE STOWAWAY

"'Bout three years ago, afore I got this berth as I'm in now, I was second engineer aboard a Liverpool steamer bound for New York. There 'd been a lot of extra cargo sent down just at the last minute, and we'd had no end of a job stowin' it away, and that ran us late o' startin'; so that, altogether, you may think, the cap'n warn't in the sweetest temper in the world, nor the mate neither. On the mornin’ of the third day out from Liverpool, the chief engineer cum down to me in a precious hurry, and says he: 'Tom, what d'ye think? Blest if we ain't found a stowaway!'

"I didn't wait to hear no more, but up on deck like a skyrocket; and there I did see a sight, and no mistake. Every man-Jack o' the crew, and what few passengers we had aboard, was all in a ring on the fo'c'stle, and in the middle was the fust mate, lookin' as black as thunder. Right in front of him, lookin' a reg'lar mite among them big fellers, was a little bit o' a lad not ten year old ragged as a scarecrow, but with bright, curly hair, and a bonnie little face o' his own, if it hadn't been so woful thin and pale. The mate was a great hulkin' black-bearded feller with a look that 'ud ha' frightened a horse, and a voice fit to make one jump through a keyhole; but the young un warn't a bit afeard he stood straight up, and looked him full in the face with them bright, clear eyes o' his'n, for all the world as if he was Prince Halferd himself. You might ha' heerd a pin drop, as the mate spoke.

" 'Well, you young whelp,’ says he, 'what's brought you here?'

" 'It was my stepfather as done it,' says the boy, in a weak little voice, but as steady as could be. ' Father's dead, and mother's married again, and my new father says as how he won't have no brats about eatin' up his wages; and he stowed me away when nobody warn't lookin', and guv me some grub to keep me goin' for a day or two till I got to sea. He says I'm to go to Aunt Jane, at Halifax; and here's her address.'

"We all believed every word on't, even without the paper he held out. But the mate says: 'Look here, my lad; that's all very fine, but it won't do here some o' these men o' mine are in the secret, and I mean to have it out of 'em. Now, you just point out the man as stowed you away and fed you, this very minute; if you don't, it'll be the worse for you!'

"The boy looked up in his bright, fearless way (it did my heart good to look at him, the brave little chap!) and says, quietly, 'I've told you the truth; I ain't got no more to say.'

"The mate says nothin', but looks at him for a minute as if he'd see clean through him; and then he sings out to the crew loud enough to raise the dead: * Reeve a rope to the yard; smart now!'

" 'Now, my lad, you see that 'ere rope? "Well, I'll give you ten minutes to confess; and if you don't tell the truth afore the time's up, I'll hang you like a dog!'

"The crew all stared at one another as if they couldn't believe their ears (I didn't believe mine, I can tell ye), and then a low growl went among 'em, like a wild beast awakin' out of a nap.

" 'Silence there!' shouts the mate, in a voice like the roar of a nor'easter. 'Stan' by to run for'ard!' as he held the noose ready to put it round the boy's neck. The little fellow never flinched a bit; but there was some among the sailors (big strong chaps as could ha' felled an ox) as shook like leaves in the wind. I clutched hold o' a handspike, and held it behind my back, all ready.

'Tom,' whispers the chief engineer to me, 'd'ye think he really means to do it?'

" 'I don't know,' says I, through my teeth; 'but if he does, he shall go first, if I swings for it I7

"I've been in many an ugly scrape in my time, but I never felt 'arf as bad as I did then. Every minute seemed as long as a dozen; and the tick o' the mate's watch, reg'lar, pricked my ears like a pin.

" 'Eight minutes/ says the mate, his great, deep voice breakin' in upon the silence like the toll o' a funeral bell. 'If you've got anything to confess, my lad, you'd best out with it, for ye 're time's nearly up.'

" 'I've told you the truth,' answers the boy, very pale, but as firm as ever. 'May I say my prayers, please?'

"The mate nodded; and down goes the poor little chap on his knees and puts up his poor little hands to pray. I couldn 't make out what he said, but I '11 be bound God heard it every word. Then he ups on his feet again, and puts his hands behind him, and says to the mate quite quietly: 'I'm ready.'

"And then, sir, the mate's hard, grim face broke up all to once, like I've seed the ice in the Baltic. He snatched up the boy in his arms, and kissed him, and burst out a-cryin' like a child; and I think there warn't one of us as didn't do the same. I know I did for one.

" 'God bless you, my boy!' says he, smoothin' the child's hair with his great hard hand. 'You're a true Englishman, every inch of you; you wouldn't tell a lie to save yer life! "Well, if so be as yer father's cast yer off, I'll be yer father from this day forth; and if I ever forget you, then may God forget me!'

"And he kep' his word, too. When we got to Halifax, he found out the little un's aunt, and gev' her a lump o' money to make him comfortable; and now he goes to see the youngster every voyage, as reg'lar as can be; and to see the pair on 'em together the little chap so fond of him, and not bearin' Mm a bit o' grudge it's 'bout as pretty a sight as ever I seed. And now, sir, axin' yer parding, it's time for me to be goin' below; so I'll just wish yer goodnight."

ARNOLD WINKELREID

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY

"Make way for Liberty!" he cried; Made way for liberty, and died!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, A living wall, a human wood! Impregnable their front appears, All horrent with projected spears. Opposed to these, a hovering band Contended for their fatherland; Peasants whose new-found strength had broke From manly necks the ignoble yoke: Marshaled once more at Freedom's call, They came to conquer or to fall.

And now the work of life and death Hung in the passing of a breath; The fire of conflict burned within; The battle trembled to begin; Yet, while the Austrians held their ground, Point for assault was nowhere found; Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed, The unbroken line of lances blazed;

That line 't were suicide to meet
And perish at their tyrants' feet.
And could they rest within their graves,
To leave their homes the haunts of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanking chains, above their head?

It must not be: this day, this hour, Annihilates the invaders' power. All Switzerland is in the field, She will not fly; she cannot yield; She must not fall; her better fate Here gives her an immortal date. Few were the numbers she could boast; But every freeman was a host, And felt as 't were a secret known That one should turn the scale alone: While each unto himself was he On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one, indeed;
Behold him Arnold Winkelreid;
There sounds not to the trump of Fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmarked, he stood among the throng,
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o 'er his face;
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm;
And, by the uplifting of his brow,
Tell where the bolt would strike and how.

But 't was no sooner thought than done-* The field was in a moment won! * 'Make way for liberty!" he cried: Then ran with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp; Ten spears he swept within his grasp. "Make way for Liberty !" he cried; Their keen points met from side to side, He bowed among them like a tree, And thus made way for Liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly
"Make way for Liberty!" they cry;
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold's heart;
"While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic scattered all:
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.
Thus Switzerland again was free; Thus Death made way for Liberty.

ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK

The sun had set, and in the distant West The last red streaks had faded; night and rest Fell on the earth; stilled was the cannon's roar; And many a soldier slept! to wake no more. 'Twas early Spring a calm and lovely night-- The moon had flooded all the earth with light.

On either side the Rappahannoek lay
The armies; resting till the break of day
Should call them to renew the fight. So near
Together were the camps that each could hear
The other's sentry call. And now appear
The blazing bivouac fires on every hill,
And save the tramp of pickets all is still.
Between those silent hills in beauty flows
The Eappahannock. How its bosom glows!
How all its sparkling waves reflect the light
And add new glories to the starlit night.
But hark! From Northern hill there steal along
The strains of martial music mixed with song:
"Star Spangled Banner, may'st thou ever wave,
Over the land we shed our blood to save!''
And still they sing those words: i' Our cause is just.
"We Tl triumph in the end; in God we trust;
Star Spangled Banner, wave, forever wave,
Over a land united, free and brave!''
Scarce had this died away when all along
The river rose another glorious song:
A thousand lusty throats the chorus sing:
With "Rally Round the Flag," the hilltops ring.
And well they sang. Each heart was filled with joy.
From first in rank to little drummer-boy.
Then loud huzzas and wildest cheers were given,
That seemed to cleave the air and reach to heaven.
The Union songs, the loud and heartfelt cheers
Fall in the Southern camp on listening ears.

While talking at their scanty evening meal
They pause and grasp their trusty blades of steel.
Fearless they stand and ready for the fray;

Such sounds can startle them, but not dismay.
Alas! Those strains of music which of yore
Could rouse their hearts, are felt by them no more.
"When the last echo of the song had died
And all was silent on the Northern side,
There came from Southern hill, with gentle swell,
The air of "Dixie" which was loved so well
By every man that wore the coat of gray,
And is revered and cherished to this day.
"In Dixie's Land" they swore to live and die,
That was their watchword, that their battle-cry.
Then rose on high the wild Confederate yell,
Besounding over every hill and dell.
Cheer after cheer went up that starry night
From men as brave as ever saw the light.
Now all is still. Each side has played its part.
How simple songs will fire a soldier's heart.
But hark! O'er Rappahannock's stream there floats
Another tune; but ah! how sweet the notes.
Not such as lash men's passions into foam,
But richest gem of song 'Tis"Home, Sweet Home!"
Played by the band, it reached the very soul,
And down the veteran's cheeks the tear-drop stole.
On either side the stream, from North and South,
Men who would march up to the cannon's mouth,
Wept now like children. Tender hearts and true
Were beating 'neath those coats of gray and blue.
The sentry stopped and rested on his gun,
While back to home his thoughts unhindered run.
He thought of loving wife and children there
Deprived of husband's and of father's care.
And stripling lads, scarce strong enough to bear

The weight of saber or of knapsack, tried To stop their tears with foolish, boyish pride. They might as well have sought to stop the tide! Through both those hostile camps the music stole And stirred each soldier to his inmost soul. From North and South, in sympathy, there rose A shout tremendous; forgetting they were foes, Both armies joined and shouted with one voice That seemed to make the very heavens rejoice.

Sweet music's power. One chord doth make us wild. But change the strain, we weep as little child. Touch yet another, men charge the battery-gun, And by those martial strains a victory's won! But there's one strain that friends and foes will win, One magic touch that makes the whole world kin: No heart so cold, but will, tho far it roam, Respond with tender thrill to "Home, Sweet Home!'

DEATH OF LITTLE JO

BY CHARLES DICKENS

"Well, Jo, what is the matter? Don't be frightened."

"I thought," says Jo, who has started and is looking round, "I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone's agin. Ain't there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot ?''

"Nobody."

"And I ain't took back to Tom-all-Alone's, am I, sir?"

"No."

Jo closes his eyes, muttering, "I am wery thankful."

After watching him closely, a little while, Allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice:

"Jo, did you ever know a prayer?"

'l Never know 'd nothink, sir.''

"Not so much as one short prayer?"

"No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin' wunst at Mr. Sangsby's and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin' to hisself and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn't make out nothink on it. Different times there wos other gen'1'men come down to Tom-all-Alone's a-prayin', but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talkin' to theirselves or a-passin' blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin' to us. We never know'd nothink. I never know'd what it wos all about."

It takes him a long time to say this; and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or hearing, understand him. After a short relapse into sleep or stupor, he makes, of a sudden, a strong effort to get out of bed.

'' Stay, Jo, stay! What now ?''

It's time for me to go to that there buryin'-ground, sir," he returns with a wild look.

"Lie down and tell me. What burying-ground, Jo?"

"Where they laid him as was wery good to me; wery good to me indeed, he wos. It's time for me to go down to that there buryin'-ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be buried. He used fur to say to me, 'I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,' he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him, now, and have come there to be laid along with him,"

"By and by, Jo; by and by."

"Ah! P'r'aps they wouldn't do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?"

"I will, indeed."

"Thankee, sir! thankee, sir! They'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. And there's a step there, as I used fur to clean with my broom. It's turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin'?"

“ It is coming fast, Jo.''

Fast. The cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end.

"Jo, my poor fellow!"

"I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I'm a-gropin' a-gropin' let me catch hold of your hand."

"Jo, can you say what I say?"

"I'll say any think as you say, sir, for I knows it's good."

"Our Father."

"Our Father! Yes, that's wery good, sir."

"Which art in heaven!"

"Art in heaven! Is the light a-comin', sir?"

"It is close at hand. Hallowed be Thy name."

'' Hallowed be Thy name!''

The light is come upon the dark, benighted way dead!

Dead! your majesty dead! my lords and gentlemen dead! right reverends and wrong reverends of every order dead! men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts and dying thus around us every day.

THE DISCONTENTED PENDULUM

BY JANE TAYLOR

An old clock, that had stood for fifty years in a farmer's kitchen, without giving its owner any cause of complaint, early one summer's morning, before the family was stirring, suddenly stopped. Upon this, the dial-plate (if we may credit the fable) changed countenance with alarm; the hands made a vain effort to continue their course; the wheels remained motionless with surprise; the weights hung speechless; each member felt disposed to lay the blame on the others. At length the dial instituted a formal inquiry as to the cause of the stagnation; when hands, wheels, weights, with one voice protested their innocence.

But now a faint tick was heard below from the pendulum, who thus spoke: "I confess myself to be the sole cause of the present stoppage; and I am willing, for the general satisfaction, to assign my reasons. The truth is, that I am tired of ticking/' Upon hearing this, the old clock became so enraged that it was on the very point of striking.

"Lazy wire!" exclaimed the dial-plate, holding up its hands.

"Very good!" replied the pendulum, "it is vastly easy for you, Mistress Dial, who have always, as everybody knows, set yourself up above me it is vastly easy for you, I say, to accuse other people of laziness! you, who have had nothing to do all the days of your life but to stare people in the face, and amuse yourself with watching all that goes on in the kitchen! Think, I beseech you, how you would like to be shut up for life in this dark closet, and to wag backward and forward, year after year, as I do."

"As to that," said the dial, "is there not a window in your house on purpose for you to look through?'' "For all that," resumed the pendulum, "it is very dark here; and, altho there is a window, I dare not stop, even for an instant, to look out at it. Besides, I am really tired of my way of life; and, if you wish, I'll tell you how I took this disgust at my employment. I happened this morning to be calculating how many times I should have to tick in the course of only the next twenty-four hours; perhaps some of you, above there, can give me the exact sum.''

The minute-hand, being quick at figures, presently replied : '' Eighty-six thousand, four hundred times.''

"Exactly so," replied the pendulum; "well, I appeal to you all, if the very thought of this was not enough to fatigue one; and when I began to multiply the strokes of one day by those of months and years, really it is no wonder if I felt discouraged at the prospect; and so, after a great deal of reasoning and hesitation, thinks I to myself, I'll stop."

The dial could scarcely keep its countenance during this harangue; but, resuming its gravity, thus replied: "Dear Mr. Pendulum, I am really astonished that such a useful, industrious person as yourself should have been overcome by this sudden inaction. It is true you have done a great deal of work in your time; so have we all, and are likely to do; which, altho it may fatigue us to think of, the question is, whether it will fatigue us to do. Would you now do me the favor to give about half a dozen strokes, to illustrate my argument?"

The pendulum complied, and ticked six times in its usual pace.

"Now," resumed the dial, "may I be allowed to inquire if that exertion was at all fatiguing or disagreeable to you?" "Not in the least," replied the pendulum; "it is not of six strokes that I complain, nor of sixty, but of millions." "Very good," replied the dial; "but recollect, that tho you may think of a million strokes in an instant, you are required to execute but one; and that, however often you may hereafter have to swing, a moment will always be given you to swing in."

"That consideration staggers me, I confess," said the pendulum.

"Then I hope," resumed the dial-plate, "we shall all immediately return to our duty; for the maids will lie in bed if we stand idling thus."

Upon this, the weights, who had never been accused of light conduct, used all their influence in urging him to proceed; when, as with one consent, the wheels began to turn, the hands began to move, the pendulum began to swing, and, to its credit, ticked as loud as ever; while a red beam of the rising sun, that streamed through a hole in the kitchen, shining full upon the dial-plate, it brightened up, as if nothing had been the matter.

[When the farmer came down to breakfast that morning, upon looking at the clock, he declared that his watch had gained half an hour in the night.

THE MASQUERADE

BY JOHN G. SAXB

Count Felix was a man of worth
By Fashion's strictest definition; For he had money, manners, birth, And that most slippery thing on earth Which social critics call position.
And yet the Count was seldom gay;
The rich and noble have their crosses; And he as he was wont to say Had seen some trouble in his day,
And met with several serious losses.
Among the rest, he lost his wife,
A very model of a woman, With every needed virtue rife To lead a spouse a happy life
Such wives (in France) are not uncommon.
The lady died, and left him sad
And lone, to mourn the best of spouses; She left him also let me add One girl, and all the wealth she had, The rent of half a dozen houses.
I cannot tarry to discuss
The weeping husband's desolation;
Upon her tomb he wrote it thus:
“FELIX infelicissimus!'' In very touching ostentation.

At length when many years had fled, And Father Time, the great physician,
Had healed his sorrow for the dead,
Count Felix took it in his head To change his wearisome condition.
And yet the Count might well despond
Of tying soon the silken tether; "Wise, witty, handsome, faithful, fond, And twenty not a year beyond
Are charming when they come together.
But more than that, the man required
A wife, to share his whims and fancies, Admire alone what he admired, Desire, of course, what he desired, And show it in her very glances.
Long, long, the would-be-wooer tried To find his precious ultimatum All earthly charms in one fair bride. But still in vain he sought and sighed. He couldn't manage to get at 'em.
The Count's high hopes began to fade His plans were not at all advancing;
When lo, one day, his valet made
Some mention of a Masquerade. "I'll go," said he, "and see the dancing.1

Count Felix found the crowd immense,
And had he been a censor morum, He might have said without offense, Got up regardless of expense, And some regardless of decorum.
And one among the motley brood
He saw, who shunned the wanton dances,

A sort of demi-nun, who stood In ringlets flashing from a hood, And seemed to seek our hero's glances.
The Count delighted with her air,
Drew near, the better to behold her; Her form was slight, her skin was fair, [And maidenhood you well might swear, Breathed from the dimples in her shoulder.
He spoke; she answered with a grace That showed the girl no vulgar heiress.
And if the features one may trace
In voices, hers betrayed a face, The finest to be found in Paris.
And then such wit; in repartee
She shone without the least endeavor
A beauty and a belle esprit,
A scholar, too, was plain to see.
Whoever saw a girl so clever?

Her taste he ventured to explore In books, the graver and the lighter,
And mentioned authors by the score.
Mon dieu! In every sort of lore, She always chose his favorite writer.
She loved the poets; but confessed Racine beat all the others hollow;
At least, she thought his style the best
Racine! his literary taste. Racine! his maximus appollo.
Whatever topic he might name,
Their minds were strangely sympathetic. Of courtship, marriage, fortune, fame, Their views and feelings were the same.
Parbleu! he cried. It looks prophetic.
"Come let us seek an ampler space;
This heated room, I can't abide it. That mask I 'm sure is out of place, And hides the fairest sweetest face."
Said she, "I wear the mask to hide it."
The answer was extremely pat, And gave the Count a deal of pleasure.
"C'est vrai. I did not think of that.
Come let us go where we can chat And eat (I'm hungry) at our leisure."

"I'm hungry, too," she said, and went Without the least attempt to cozen; Like ladies who refuse, relent, Debate, oppose, and then consent To eat enough for half a dozen.

And so they sat them down to dine, Solus cum sola, gay and merry.

The Count enquires the kind of wine
To which his charmer may incline.
Ah! Quelle merveille! She answers sherry!

What will she eat ? She takes the carte, And notes the viands that she wishes; "Pardon Monsieur! what makes you start 1 As if she knew his tastes by heart, The lady named his favorite dishes!

Was e'er such sympathy before?

The Count was really half demented; He kissed her hand, and roundly swore He loved her perfectly! nay, more,

He'd wed her if the gods consented!

"Monsieur is very kind," she said, "His love so lavishly bestowing On one who never thought to wed, And least of all," she raised her head " 'Tis late, Sir Knight, I must be going!1

Count Felix sighed, and as he drew
Her shawl about her, at his leisure, "What street?" he asked; "my cab is due." "No! no!" she said, "I go with you! That is if it may be your pleasure.''
Of course, there's little need to say

The Count delighted in her capture; Away he drove, and all the way He murmured, "QUELLE FELICITE!** In very ecstasy of rapture.

Arrived at home just where a fount Shot forth a jet of lucent water

He helped the lady to dismount;

She drops her mask and lo! the Count Sees Dieu de ciel! his only daughter!

"Good night!" she said, "I'm very well,

Altho you thought my health was fading; Be good and I will never tell ('Twas funny tho) of what befell When you and I went masquerading!"

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

BY FRANCIS SCOTT KEY

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming; Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there; Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze o 'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam;
Its full glory, reflected, now shines on the stream;
'Tis the star-spangled banner, oh, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is the band who so vauntingly swore, 'Mid the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country they'd leave us no more?
Their blood hath washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O 'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between our loved home and the war's desolation; Blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued
land Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "IN GOD IS OUR TRUST''; And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.