Death of the Sagamore.

FOR an account of William Wilson's Visit to his Death-bed, see "Thatcher's Indian Biography."

THE servant of God is on his way,

From Boston's beautiful shore

His boat skims light o'er the silvery bay,
While the sleeping waters awake and play,
At the touch of the skilful oar.

The purpose that fills his soul is great,

As the soul of man can know :
Vast as eternity-strong as the gate
The spirit must pass, to a changeless state,
And enter to bliss or woe.

The boat is fast-and over the sod,
Of a neighbouring wood he hies:

Through moor and thicket his path is trod,
As he hastens to speak of the living God,
In the ear of a man who dies!

Where Romney's forest is high and dark,

The Eagle lowers her wing,

O'er him who once had made her his mark-
For the Sagamore in his hut of bark,

Is a perishing, powerless king!

At the door of his wigwam hangs the bow,
The antler and beaver skin-

While he who bore them is faint and low,

With his eyeballs dim, and his breathing slow
And the monarch expires within!

328

THE DEATH OF THE SAGAMORE.

The eye that glanced and the Eagle fled,
Away through her fields of air,

The hand that drew and the deer was dead,
The hunter's foot, and the chieftain's head,
And the conquerer's arm are there.

But each his powerful work has done-
Its triumph at length is passed:
The final conflict is now begun-

And weeping, the mother hangs over her son,
While the Sagamore breathes his last!

The "Queen of the Massachusetts" grieves,
That the life of her child must end-
And that is a noble breast that heaves,
With a mortal pang on the bed of leaves,—
Of the White man's Indian Friend.

The stately form which is prostrate there,
On the feet that are cold as snow,
Has often sped in the midnight air,
A word to the Christain's ear to bear,
Of the plot of his heathen foe.

And oft, when roaming the wild alone,
That generous heart would melt,

At the touch of a ray of light that shone

From the white man's God, till before His throne,

Almost has the Indian knelt !

Yet the fatal fear, the fear of man,
That bringeth to man a snare,
Has braced his knee as it just began

To bend and the thought of a heathen clan,

Hath stifled a Christian's prayer.

THE DEATH OF THE SAGAMORE.

But now, like a flood to his trembling heart,
Hath the fear of God rushed in ;

And keener far than the icy dart,

Which rends the flesh and the spirit apart,
Is the thought of the heathen sin.

To the lonely spot where the Chief reclines,
While the herald of love draws nigh,
The Indian shrinks, as he marks the signs
Of a soul at peace, and the light that shines,
Alone from a Christian's eye.

"Alas!" he cried-in the strange deep tone Of one in the grasp of death,

"No God have I-I have lost my own,

"The spirit that makes the skies so bright,
With the print of his shining feet,

Who rolls the waters, and kindles the light,
Imprisons the winds, and gives them their flight,
I tremble His eye to meet.

"When Oh, if I openly had confessed,
And followed and loved Him here,

I now might flee to his arms for rest,
As the weary bird to her downy nest,
When the coming shades draw near.

"But grant me the one great boon I crave,
In this dread and awful hour,

When I shall have sunk in my forest grave,
Oh take my boy to thy home, and save,

That beautiful forest flower.

329

330

FROM T. C. URHAM'S PRIZE ESSAY ON War.

"The God of thy people, the Holy one

And the path that shall reach the skies,
Say-say that to these thou wilt lead my son,
That he may not second the race I have run,
Nor die as his father dies!"

As his father dies!—with the breath that bore,
That sorrowful sound has fled-

The soul of a king-for the strife is o'er,
With the spirit and flesh,-and the Sagamore
Is numbered among the dead!

But has he not, by his high bequest,
Like the penitent on the tree,
The Saviour of dying men confessed,-
And found the promise to him addressed,
"To day thou shalt be with me!"

H. F. GOULD.

War.

THERE is much philosophy in one of Æsop's fables. The sun and the north wind once had a contest which should first disarm a certain traveller of his cloak. The wind blew, but the traveller wrapt his cloak about him: it blew more loudly and angrily, but the traveller, exerting all his strength, held his cloak more closely and firmly than ever. The sun took an opposite course: he gave no indications of violence and wrath he spread over hill and valley the warmth of his purest and gentlest radiance: the traveller smiled, and at once yielded the cloak to kindness, which he had refused to force. This is a picture of human life. It finds its counterpart all the

FROM T. C. UPHAM'S PRIZE ESSAY ON WAR. 331

world over and it would be an endless labour to exhaust the illustrations and proofs which every where present themselves.

It is impossible to repress the desire we feel, that men generally, particularly those who profess to be guided by the principles of the Gospel, should look the great subject of war fearlessly in the face, not only in its outlines but in its details. With but few exceptions, it is certainly not too much to say that they have never done it as yet. What shall we say when we see men created in our own likeness horribly mangled and torn to pieces: the wounded left to perish on bleak snows or burnt to death in their own hospitals: every possible form of agony and despair? Can we be deemed unreasonable in saying, that this is a state of things which must be met, must be looked into? that it is high time for philosophers, for politicians, above all, for professed Christians, to scrutinize it with the deepest solicitude? Shall the attention of the whole scientific and intellectual world be directed to the comparatively trifling circumstance of the discovery of a new planet, to the fall of a meteoric stone, or to some atmospheric phenomenon—and shall war-that great moral phenomenon, so inexplicable as to strike angels with astonishment, and to fill even the spirits of darkness with wonder, be deemed of so little consequence as to arrest no thought, excite no feeling, and secure no spirit of inquiry?

We are, at this very moment, sending missionaries to Syria and Palestine: but upon that very spot, dreadful have been the conflicts of christians if it be not a sort of sacrilege to give them that holy name. Recall the history of those events. "The capture of Jaffa was brilliant. Four thousand of the best troops of Djezzac were put to death," writes Buonaparte to Mormont, and how? writing to Kleber, he says, "At Jaffa, the garrison consisted of four thousand of the best troops. Two thousand were put to the sword, and two thousand I ordered to be shot in twenty-four hours!" After such displays of violence and cruelty by men coming from Christian countries, the missionary makes his appearance, and announces the Gospel