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is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her deso lation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire. A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Cæsar had crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate chamber. The Goths and Vandals and Huns, the swarms of the North, completed only what was already tegun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold; but the people offered the tribute money.

STORY.

AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF AMERICAN LIBERTY.

I CALL upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are, and all you hope to be; resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman, the love of your offspring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake her.

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in defense of the liberties of your country.

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with the recollection that you have lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation

of slaves.

No-I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs. May be, who at the distance of another century shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous

people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as of poetry, exclaim, that here is still his country.

STORY.

THE TOMAHAWK SUBMISSIVE TO ELOQUENCE.

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TWENTY tomahawks were raised; twenty arrows drawn to their head. Yet stood Harold, stern and collected at bayparleying only with his sword. He waved his arm. Smitten with a sense of their cowardice, perhaps, or by his great dig nity, more awful for his very youth, their weapons dropped, and their countenances were uplifted upon him, less in hatred than

in wonder.

The old men gathered about him— he leaned apon his sabre. Their eyes shone with admiration - such heroic deportment, in one so young a boy! so intrepid! so prompt! so graceful! so eloquent, too!-for, knowing the effect of eloquence, and feeling the loftiness of his own nature, the innocence of his own heart, the character of the Indians for hospitality, and their veneration for his blood, Harold dealt cut the thunder of his strength to these rude barbarians of the wilderness, till they, young and old, gathering nearer and nearer in their devotion, threw down their weapons at his feet, and formed a rampart of locked arms and hearts about him, through which his eloquence thrilled and lightened like electricity. The old greeted him with a lofty step, as the patriarch welcomes his boy from the triumph of far-off battle; and the young clave to him and clung to him, and shouted in their self-abandonment, like brothers round a conquering brother.

"Warriors!" he said, "Brethren !" — (their tomahawks were brandished simultaneously, at the sound of his terrible voice, as if preparing for the onset.) His tones grew deeper, and less threatening. "Brothers! let us talk together of Logan! Ye who have known him, ye aged men! bear ye testimony to the deeds of his strength. Who was like him? Who could resist him? Who may abide the hurricane in its volley? Who may withstand the winds that uproot the great trees of the mountain? Let him be the foe of Logan. Thrice in one day hath he given battle. Thrice in one day hath he come back victorious. Whe may bear up against the strong man? the man of war? Let them that are young, hear me. Let them follow the course of Logan. He goes in clouds and whirlwind in the fire and in

the smoke. Let them follow him. Warriors! Logan was the father of Harold !"

They fell back in astonishment, but they believed him; for Harold's word was unquestioned, undoubted evidence, to them. that knew him.

NEAL

ANCIENT AND MODERN PRODUCTIONS.

THE classics possess a peculiar charm, from the circumstance that they have been the models, I might almost say the masters, of composition and thought in all ages. In the contemplation of these august teachers of mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished still, than all the intermediate words that have been uttered, as the lessons of childhood still haunt us when the impressions of later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy that we are to seek these; not in the marvelous teachings of Socrates, as they come enforced by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding line of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No; these must not be our masters; in none of these are we to seek the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon on the Mount and those two sublime commandments on which hang all the law and the proph

ets.

The strife is still pending. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of such siren forms, is not yet exorcized. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the meditations of age.

Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the ancients in the arrangement of ideas in method, in beauty of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immeasurably superior

in the truth, delicacy, and elevation of their sentiments --- above all, in the benign recognition of that great Christian revelation, the brotherhood of man. How vain are eloquence and poetry, compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the other the lore of antiquity, with its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the last will be jight and trivial in the balance. Greek poetry has been likened to the song of the nightingale as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown of the palm-tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes; but even this is less sweet and tender than the music of the human heart.

SUMNER.

THE MURDERER'S SECRET.

THE deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness, equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A heathful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon ; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder- -no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The ecret is his own, and it is safe!

Such a secret

Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner, where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything, as in the splendor of noon such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by man

WEBSTER

THE SAME, CONTINUED.

TRUE it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of heaven by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery: especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place a thousand ears catch every whisper a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene; shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its

own secret.

It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself: it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant: it finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth. The secret which the murderer possesses, soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears ts workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion: it breaks down his courage it conquers his prudence. When suspicions, from without, begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth It must be confessed: it will be confessed: there is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.

WEBSTER.

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