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He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call

retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment.

seat;

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the

sea,

With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me; As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

ON THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

JOHN BRIGHT.

If we are the friends of freedom, personal and political, and we all profess to be so, and most of us more or less are striving after it more completely for our own country, how can we withhold our sympathy from a government and a people amongst whom white men have always been free, and who are now offering an equal freedom to the black? I advise you not to believe in the destruction of the American nation. If facts should happen by any chance to force you to believe it, do not commit the crime of wishing it! I do not blame men who draw different conclusions from mine from the

facts, and who believe that the restoration of the Union is impossible. As the facts lie before our senses, so must we form a judgment on them.

But I blame those men who wish for such a catastrophe. For myself I have never despaired and I will not despair. In the language of one of our old poets who wrote, I think, more than three hundred years ago, I will not despair

"For I have seen a ship in haven fall,

After the storm had broke both mast and shroud.”

From the very outburst of this great convulsion I have had but one hope and one faith, and it is this, -that the result of this stupendous strife may be to make freedom the heritage forever of a whole continent and that the grandeur and the prosperity of the American Union may never be impaired.

GREATNESS BASED ON MORALITY.

JOHN BRIGHT. EXTRACT.

I BELIEVE there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or military renown. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak irreverently of the crown and monarchy of England than I am, but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge empire are in

my view all trifles, light as air and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cottage, and unless the light of your constitution can shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your statesmanship are impressed there, on the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it, you have yet to learn the duties of government.

I ask you then to believe, as I do most devoutly believe, that the moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens.

If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our life-time; but rely upon it the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says:

"The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite,

Nor yet doth linger."

We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. We know what the past has cost us; we know how much and how far we have wandered, but we are not left without a guide.

It is true we have not, as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim-those oraculous gems on Aaron's

breast- from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law, to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people.

COMMEMORATION ODE.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. EXTRACT.

NoT in anger, not in pride,

Pure from passion's mixture rude,
Ever to base earth allied,

But with far-heard gratitude,

Still with heart and voice renewed,

To heroes living and dear martyrs dead, The strain should close that consecrates our brave

Lift the heart and lift the head!

Lofty be its mood and grave,
Not without a martial ring,
Not without a prouder tread
And a peal of exultation:
Little right has he to sing

Through whose heart in such an hour

Beats no march of conscious power,

Sweeps no tumult of elation !

Tis no man we celebrate,

By his country's victories great,

A hero half, and half the whim of Fate,

But the pith and marrow of a Nation
Drawing force from all her men,

Highest, humblest, weakest, all, For her day of need, and then Pulsing it again through them, Till the basest can no longer cower Feeling his soul spring up divinely tall,

Touched but in passing by her mantle-hem,

Come back, then, noble pride, for 'tis her dower!
How could poet ever tower,

If his passions, hopes, and fears,
If his triumphs and his tears,

Kept not measure with his people?

Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves.
Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple !
Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves!
And from every mountain-peak

Let beacon-fire to answering beacon speak,
Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface he
And so leap on in light from sea to sea,
Till the glad news be sent

Across a kindling continent,

Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver :

"Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to

save her!

She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,

She of the open soul and open door,

With room about her hearth for all mankind!
The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more;
From her bold front the helm she doth unbind,
Send all her handmaid armies back to spin,
And bid her navies that so lately hurled

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