country has a right to concentrate your affections. — The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits, and political Principles. — You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together. The Independence and Liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes. But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your Interest. — Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the Union of the whole. * ODE TO DUTY. William Wordsworth. STERN Daughter of the Voice of God! To check the erring, and reprove; Thou, who art victory and law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free; There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Where no misgiving is, rely Upon the genial sense of youth: Long may the kindly impulse last! But Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast! Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. Even now, who, not unwisely bold, Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random gust, Too blindly have reposed my trust: The task, in smoother walks to stray; But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may. Through no disturbance of my soul, Or strong compunction in me wrought, But in the quietness of thought: My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same. Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong. To humbler functions, awful Power! I call thee: I myself commend The confidence of reason give; And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live! SAY NOT THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT Arthur Hugh Clough. SAY not, the struggle nought availeth, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright. SELF-DEPENDENCE. Matthew Arnold. WEARY of myself, and sick of asking And a look of passionate desire O'er the sea and to the stars I send: "Ye who from my childhood have calm'd me, up Calm me, ah, compose me to the end! "Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you, Feel my soul becoming vast like you!" From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven, Over the lit sea's unquiet way, In the rustling night-air came the answer: "Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they. "Unaffrighted by the silence round them, These demand not that the things without them "And with joy the stars perform their shining, "Bounded by themselves, and unregardful O air-born voice! long since, severely clear, ABRAHAM LINCOLN. From "THE SPECTATOR," LONDON, APRIL 25, AND MAY 2, 1891. THE English-speaking world will never read the story of the Rebellion without a thrill of pride and exultation. Heroic and inspiring as was the achievement of the Puritans in throwing off the tyranny of the Stuarts, and establishing in its place, not license or anarchy, but a wise and liberal polity, the veiling hand of time diminishes for modern men its distinctness and reality. With the defence of the Union it is |