History shows us that the association of men in various nations is made subservient to the gradual advance of the whole human race; and that all nations work together towards one grand result. So, to the philosophic eye, the race is but a vast caravan forever moving, but seeming often to encamp for centuries at some green oasis of ease, where luxury lures away heroism, as soft Capua enervated the hosts of Hannibal. But still the march proceeds,-slowly, slowly over mountains, through valleys, along plains, marking its course with monumental splendors, with wars, plagues, crime,—advancing still, decorated with all the pomp of nature, lit by the constellations, cheered by the future, warned by the past. In that vast march, the van forgets the rear; the individual is lost; and yet the multitude is but many individuals. He faints, and falls, and dies; man is forgotten; but still mankind moves on, still worlds revolve, and the will of God is done in earth and heaven. We of America, with our soil sanctified and our symbol glorified by the great ideas of liberty and religion,—love of freedom and love of God,-are in the foremost vanguard of this great caravan of humanity. To us rulers look, and learn justice, while they tremble; to us the nations look, and learn to hope, while they rejoice. Our heritage is all the love and heroism of liberty in the past; and all the great of the "Old World" are our teachers. Our faith is in God and the right; and God himself is, we believe, our Guide and Leader. Though darkness sometimes shadows our national sky, though confusion comes from error, and success breeds corruption, yet will the storm pass in God's good time, and in clearer sky and purer atmosphere our national life grow stronger and nobler, sanctified more and more, consecrated to God and liberty by the martyrs who fall in the strife for the just and true. And so with our individual hearts, strong in love for our principles, strong in faith in our God, shall the nation leave to coming generations a heritage of freedom, and law, and religion, and truth, more glorious than the world has known before; and our American banner be planted first and highest on heights as yet unwon in the great march of humanity. 84* THE MODERN BELLE. The daughter sits in the parlor, It's vastly more than she thinks. Her father goes clad in russet- His coat is out at the elbows, And he wears a shocking bad hat. While she on her whims and fancies She lies in bed of a morning Until the hour of noon, Then comes down, snapping and snarling Because she's called too soon. Her hair is still in papers, Her cheeks still bedaubed with paint Remains of last night's blushes Before she attempted to faint. Her feet are so very little, Her jewels so very heavy, And her head so very light; Her color is made of cosmeticsThough this she'll never own; Her body is mostly cotton, And her heart is whoily stone. She falls in love with a fellow Who swells with a foreign air; He marries her for her money, She marries him for his hairOne of the very best matches; Both are well mated in life; She's got a fool for a husband, And he's got a fool for a wife. CONDUCTOR BRADLEY.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. Conductor Bradley (always may his name Be said with reverence!) as the swift doom came, Sank with the brake he grasped just where he stood And die, if needful, as a true man should. Men stooped above him; women dropped their tears What heard they? Lo! the ghastly lips of pain, No nobler utterance since the world began Ah, me! how poor and noteless seem to this Oh, grand, supreme endeavor! Not in vain Nay, the lost life was saved. He is not dead THE GUARD'S STORY. We were on picket, sir, he and I, In the wilderness, where the night bird's song Where the silver stars as they come and pass He'd a slender form and a girlish face, In a distant village, 'neath the blue; When our army marched, at the meadow bars, She met and kissed me 'neath the stars. Before us the river silent ran, And we'd been placed to guard the ford; Their camp-fires burned into the night, Somehow, whenever I looked that way, I thought aloud, and I called him Bess, When he started quick, and smiling, said, "You dream of some one at home, I guess." 'Twas just in the flush of the morning light, We stopped for a chat at the end of our beat, When a rifle flashed at the river's bank, And bathed in blood he sank at my feet; All of a sudden I knew her then, And kneeling, I kissed the girlish face; When the corporal came to change the guard, GOD'S ANVIL.-JULIUS STURM. Pain's furnace-heat within me quivers, He comes, and lays my heart, all heated, Into His own fair shape to beat it, With his great hammer, blow on blow; He takes my softened heart, and beats it; JERE LLOYD ON "PHRENOLOGY." I remarked, on a former occasion, that I had an abiding faith in phrenology. Well, I'm not so enthusiastic now. I have a kind of vague idea that it doesn't do the right thing by a fellow. I took a little. I had gazed admiringly upon the picture of a subject with his head all laid out in eligible lots, duly numbered and classified, and feeling convinced I had a like number of vacant sites, it occurred to me to have |