will infallibly generate the base vermin of spies and informers, and a still more pestilent race of political tools and retainers of the meanest and most odious description; - while the prodigious patronage which the collecting of this splendid revenue will throw into the hands of Government will invest it with so vast an influence, and hold out such means and temptations to corruption, as all the virtue and public spirit, even of Republicans, will be unable to resist. Every wise Jon athan should remember this! 63. THE PRESS. Adaptation from Ebenezer Elliot. Born, 1781; died, 1840 GOD said- -"Let there be light!" Then startled seas and mountains cold "Hail, holy light!" exclaimed And lo! the rose, in crimson dressed, And, blushing, murmured-"Light Then was the skylark born; Flowed o'er the sunny hills of noon; Lo, Heaven's bright bow is glad' In glory, bloom! 39 Is light, and hope, and life, and power! The night of mind, is gone! "The Press!" all lands shall sing; O, pallid Want! O, Labor stark! The Press, the Press, the Press! - 64. A DEFENCE OF POETRY. - Rev. Charles Wolfe. Born, 1791; died, 1823. BELIEVE not those who tell you that Poetry will seduce the youth. ful mind from severe occupations. Didactic Poetry not only admits, but requires, the coöperation of Philosophy and Science. And true Poetry must be always reverent. Would not an universal cloud settle upon all the beauties of Creation, if it were supposed that they had not emanated from Almighty energy? In works of art, we are not content with the accuracy of feature, and the glow of coloring, until we have traced them to the mind that guided the chisel, and gave the pencil its delicacies and its animation. Nor can we look with delight on the features of Nature, without hailing the celestial Intelligence that gave them birth. The Deity is too sublime for Poetry to doubt His existence. Creation has too much of the Divinity insinuated into her beauties to allow Poetry to hesitate in her creed. She demands no proof. She waits for no demonstration. She looks, and she believes. She admires, and she adores. Nor is it alone with natural religion that she maintains this intimate connection; for what is the Christian's hope, but Poetry in her purest and most ethereal essence? From the beginning she was one of the ministering spirits that stand round the Throne of God, to issue forth at His word, and do His errands upon the earth. Sometimes she has been the herald of an offending nation's downfall. Often has she been sent commissioned to offending man, with prophecy and warning upon her lips. At other times she has been intrusted with "glad tidings of great joy." Poetry was the anticipating Apostle, the prophetic Evangelist, whose feet "were beautiful upon the mountains; " who published salvation who said unto Zion, "Thy God reigneth!" WHAT is needed to elevate the soul is, not that a man should know all that has been thought and written in regard to the spiritual nature, not that a man should become an Encyclopedia, but that the Great Ideas in which all discoveries terminate, which sum up all sciences which the philosopher extracts from infinite details, may be compre hended and felt. It is not the quantity, but the quality of knowl edge, which determines the mind's dignity. A man of immens information may, through the want of large and comprehensive ideas, be far inferior in intellect to a laborer, who, with little knowledge, has yet seized on great truths. For example, I do not expect the laborer to study theology in the ancient languages, in the writings of the Fathers, in the history of sects; nor is this needful. All theology scattered as it is through countless volumes, is summed up in the idea of God; and let this idea shine bright and clear in the laborer's soul and he has the essence of theological libraries, and a far higher light than has visited thousands of renowned divines. A great mind is formed by a few great ideas, not by an infinity of loose details. I have known very learned men who seemed to me very poor in intellect, because they had no grand thoughts. What avails it that a man has studied ever so minutely the histories of Greece and Rome, if the Great Ideas of Freedom, and Beauty, and Valor, and Spiritual Energy, have not been kindled, by those records, into living fires in his soul? The illumination of an age does not consist in the amount of its knowledge, but in the broad and noble principles of which that knowledge is the foundation and inspirer. The truth is, that the most laborious and successful student is confined in his researches to a very few of God's works; but this limited knowledge of things may still suggest universal laws, broad principles, grand ideas; and these elevate the mind. There are certain thoughts, principles, ideas, which by their nature rule over all knowledge, which are intrinsically glorious, quickening, all-comprehending, eternal! 66. ENGLAND.-Ebenezer Elliot. NURSE of the Pilgrim Sires, who sought, beyond the Atlantic foam, Cradle of Shakspeare, Milton, Knox! throne! Home of the Russells, Watts, and Lockes own! King-shaming Cromwell's Earth's greatest are thine And shall thy children forge base chains for men that would be free? While every lie that Fraud hath forged veils wisdom from his eyes. If round the soul the chains are bound that hold the world in thrall, For freedom if thy Hampden fought, for peace if Falkland fell, Let each love all, and all be free, receiving as they give; 67 WHAT'S HALLOWED GROUND?-Thomas Campbell. Born, 1777; died, 1844. WHAT 's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod Its Maker meant not should be trod By man, the image of his God, Unscourged by Superstition's rod To bow the knee? What hallows ground where heroes sleep? Or Genii twine beneath the deep But strew his ashes to the wind, Whose sword or voice has saved mankind, And is he dead, whose glorious mind Lifts thine on high? To live in hearts we leave behind, Is 't death to fall for Freedom's right? What can alone ennoble fight? A noble cause! Give that; and welcome War to brace Her drums! and rend Heaven's welkin The colors planted face to face, The charging cheer, space Though Death's pale horse lead on the chase, And place our trophies where men kneel The cause of truth and human weal,- Peace, love, the cherubim that join The heart alone can make divine What 's hallowed ground? T is what gives birth And your high priesthood shall make earth 68. NATURE PROCLAIMS A DEITY.-Chateaubriand. Born, 1769; died, 1848 THERE is a God! The herbs of the valley, the cedars of the mountain, bless Him; the insect sports in His beam; the bird sings Him in the foliage; the thunder proclaims Him in the Heavens, the ocean declares His immensity; man alone has said, there is no God! Unite in thought at the same instant the most beautiful objects in nature. Suppose that you see, at once, all the hours of the day, and all the seasons of the year: a morning of spring, and a morning of autumn; a night bespangled with stars, and a night darkened by clouds; meadows enamelled with flowers; forests hoary with snow; fields gilded by the tints of autumn, then alone you will have a just conception of the universe! While you are gazing on that sun which is plunging into the vault of the West, another observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates of the East. By what inconceivable power does that aged star, which is sinking fatigued and burning in the shades of the evening, reäppear at the same instant fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning? At every hour of the day, the glorious orb is at once rising, resplendent as noon-day, and setting in the west; or, rather, our senses deceive us, and there is, properly speaking, no East or West, no North or South, in the world. 69. WHAT WE OWE TO THE SWORD.-T. S. Grimké. Born, 1778; died, 1834. To the question, "what have the People ever gained but by Revolution," I answer, boldly, If by Revolution be understood the law of the Sword, Liberty has lost far more than she has ever gained by it. The Sword was the destroyer of the Lycian Confederacy and the Achæan league. The Sword alternately enslaved and disenthralled Thebes and Athens, Sparta, Syracuse and Corinth. The Sword of Rome conquered every other free State, and finished the murder of |