Do you say her children possess not the courage to strike? Look at their record for the past twelve months; see them, the bravest of the brave, as they have rushed into the very jaws of death; not for honor, for that was denied them; not for country, for they had none. I came uncalled. You summoned me not; but when next you meet it may be far otherwise. Remember, when God is for us, who can be against us? Yes! Glory to God in the highest! Yes! Glory to Him on the throne! There's light and there's freedom both dawning, for the east brings the promise of morn.

་

Russia.-Sisters, I dare not present my country's claim to greatness, for I know that Russia has but just begun to play her noble part in the history of nations. Take the recent emancipation of her serfs as an earnest of what she will do. But yonder comes the veiled Prophetess; let us ask her what nation has done the most for the children of men.

France.- Beautiful Prophetess! we appeal to thee. Draw from the mystic fountain that is veiled from us the knowledge we so much desire. Tell us which nation has most nobly played her part, and which in the future shall prove the greatest blessing to the world.

Prophetess. It needs no vision to reveal the past. History is spread out before you. Tracing its pages you will find that each nation has done much, that all were necessary to bring about the present state of civilization. That Italy and Greece, twin maidens of the sea, have given much, whose morning star arose ere the Dryads had been driven from the cool recesses of the forests, and the sea-nymphs frightened from their grottoes and rocky caves. But the world needed none the less the stern vigor of the Celt and Saxon. They, too, have brought a noble offering; but in the great drama of nations it would seem some have been allotted a more noble lot than others and in the future-Aye! the future. 'T is the land overshadowed with wings, the latest gift of the ocean. Strong, with the dew of her youth still upon her, struggling now with the giant-Oppression-baptized in blood; forth from this trial she shall come victorious, bearing the banner of freedom and truth, come with no smell of fire on her garments, pure as the water

and snows of her mountains. Then shall the North and the South dwell together, strife and contention shall nowhere be heard, traitors and rebels shall call on the mountains, call on the rocks and the forests to hide them from the holy resentment of those they have wronged; and the glad shout of the ransomed ascending shall swell to a chorus full, deep, and long, rolling over hilltops, through lowlands and valley, and shall sweep through the length and breadth of the land. Thus, coming forth from her great tribulation, all nations shall own her the blessed of the Lord.

CI.

THE COURTIN'.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

God makes sech nights, all white an' still, furz you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, all silence an' all glisten.
Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown, an' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy, all alone, with no one nigh to hinder.
A fire-place filled the room's one side with half a cord o' wood in,-
There warn't no stoves till Comfort died, to bake ye to a puddin'.
The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out toward the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle flames danced all about the chiny on the dresser.
Agin the chimbley crooknecks hung, and in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm that gran'ther Young fetched back from Concord
busted.

The very room, coz she was in, seemed warm from floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin ez the apples she was peelin'.

'T was kin' o' kingdom come to look on sech a blessed cretur,
A dogoose blushin' to a brook aint modester nor sweeter.
He was six foot o' man, A 1, clean grit an' human natur,

None couldn't quicker pitch a ton, nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, he'd squired 'em, danced 'em,

druv 'em,

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells,-all is, he couldn't love 'em.
But long o' her, his veins 'ould run all crinkly, like curled maple,
The side she breshed felt full o' sun ez a south slope in Ap'il.
She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing as hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Ole Hundred ring, she knowed the Lord was nigher.
An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, when her new meetin-'bunnet
Felt, somehow, thru its crown, a pair o' blue eyes sot upon it.
Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! she seemed to 've gut a new soul,
For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, down to her very shoe-sole.
She heerd a foot, an' knowed it, tu, a-raspin' on the scraper, -
All ways to once her feelins' flew, like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' loitered on the mat, some doubtfle o' the sekle,

His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, but hern went pity-Zekle.

An' yit, she gin her cheer a jerk, ez though she wished him furder, An' on her apples kep' to work, parin' away like murder. "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" "Wal--no-I come designin' "To see my Ma? She sprinklin' clo'es, agin to-morrer's i'nin." To say why gals acts so or so, or don't, would be presumin'; Mebby to mean yes an' say no comes nateral to women,

He stood a spell on one foot fust, then stood a spell on t' other,
An' on which one he felt the wust, he couldn't ha' told ye, nuther.
Says he, "I'd better call agin. Says she, "Think likely, Mister."
That last word pricked him like a pin, an'-wal, he up an' kissed her.
When Ma, bimeby, upon 'em slips, Huldy sot, pale as ashes,
All kin' o'smily roun' the lips, an' teary roun' the lashes.
For she was jest the quiet kind, whose naturs never vary,
Like streams thet keep a summer mind snow-hid in Jenooary.
The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued too tight for all expressin',
Till Mother see how matters stood, an' gin 'em both her blessin'.
Then her red come back, like the tide down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is, they was cried in meetin' come nex' Sunday.

CII.

THE INTERESTS OF RICH AND POOR DEMAND UUIVERSAL

EDUCATION.

RICHARD EDWARDS.

How stands the account then with the child whom we have allowed to grow up among us in ignorance and vice? On the credit side we have a few dollars-a very few-which we are permitted to hold but a short time, too, and that at a very extravagant interest; on the other, we have the entire loss of all he might and

N

would have done for us, together with an entailment upon us of untold evil, in its worst and most odious forms. How seems it from a business point of view? Does the speculation look inviting? Ye rich men, with no children, do you think it will PAY you to let schools languish and die all about you, because it is nothing to YOU? Is it nothing to you? Which costs the most, a school house or a prison? And be sure that you will have one or the other to pay for.

For the rich, then, there is safety and the highest profit only in universal education. And what shall be said in this respect of the poor? Of the toiling millions who, without figure of speech, earn their bread by the sweat of their brow? How are they affected by the proposition that the property of the State shall educate its children? I tell you that the political and social salvation of these depend upon this principle. We proclaim in our Declaration of Independence that all are born free and equal. We claim to have abolished all artificial and unjust distinctions among men. We point exultingly to our universal suffrage-the right of every man to have a voice in the selection of our rulers- as a proof of sincerity. in these professions. But what sort of equality is that which exists between two classes of men, one of whom enjoys the means of education, and the other does not? One of whom is allowed to reach the maximum, while the other is restricted to the minimum of its capacities? Is knowledge power? How, then, can there be any equality between him whose mind has been illumined by her radiance, and him upon whose darkened soul no ray of hers has fallen ? To bestow the right of suffrage on ignorant men is no blessing, but a curse to them and all concerned, and least of all is it making them equal to men of culture. As well might you put a sextant into the hands of a child of two years, and say that he has an equal chance with the veteran navigator for finding his longitude, as to claim that the mere right to vote makes men equals in power and influence.

The truth is, that universal education is the greatest equalizer among men. Of all institutions, the public school is the poor man's best and truest friend. It is of all things the most democratic. I

has in it more of democracy, ten times over, than free trade, the sub-treasury, the habeas corpus, or the veto of the United States Bank. It is the grand talisman of equality. It puts the child of the poor man on a level, at the threshhold of life, with the heir of thousands, and enables him to maintain the equality, unless nature or his own indolence interfere to prevent. Democracy is impossible without universal intelligence.

CIII.

THE FARMER'S PROFESSION.

ANSON S. MILLER. 1842.

Above all things, farmers, honor your vocation. Arise to the nobility of your employment. Occupy that station in society to which the dignity of your calling and the ownership of the soil entitle you. Give your sons as good a general education for the farm as for the "learned professions." Banish from your households the false and pernicious sentiment that your sons are too talented to become farmers; and that there are pursuits in our country, other than agriculture, that will open to them a surer way to wealth and honor.

From the beginning, the cultivation of the earth has been the delight of the wise. The great ancestor of our race was ordained a husbandman by the Creator, and placed in a garden,

"Chosen by the Sovereign Planter, when he framed
All things to man's delightful use."

Princely patriarchs, prophets, kings, philosophers-the great of all ages-have honored agriculture with their fondest regard. The pursuit is, indeed, laborious. Labor, however, is not an evil except in its excess. Its cheerful performance by man has freed it from the original curse. Work is the gracious ordination of Heaven for human excellence, the parent of value, and the condition of unnumbered blessings.