secure the trophies and fruits of victory-then the day of final judgment is at hand. These things will cry aloud to the free of all the earth to be up and doing. It will be the voice of God declaring the work his inspiration-and calling on those he has made free to prove themselves worthy of the blessing.

But when shall these things be, and what is the sign of their coming-say they who will fear no storm on the morrow because the sky is bright today.

God vouchsafes no prophecy to man in these days-but the prophecy of history.

Shall the Muse of history ever stand-a prophetic Cassandra, pale with the vigils of the past but glowing with the light of the future and her eye glittering with prescience of that which shall be-in vain warning the nations on their march to ruin, with her finger pointing to the open gulf before and the power pressing them into it from behind? Shall no voice ever attest her truth save the cry of despair or the groan of the lost?

God does not mark the future on the face of the heavens or of the earth. The sun will not be veiled in blackness nor will the moon be turned to blood that we may be warned of the coming desolation. The day of our death is in no wise different from the day of our birth. The heavens do not frown when the earth is stained with crime, nor are they illumined with unusual splendor when liberty and virtue are triumphant. The flood rushed over an astonished world invading the nuptial couch and the festive board. The amphitheatre resounded with the

gladiator's groan and the wild beasts yell while the Lord of Peace lay meekly in the manger. The great convulsion of modern times broke-like the trump of the final day-on the ear of the thoughtless revellers: and the earthquake which lately covered Europe with ruins came unheralded save by the preternatural calm. One moment the waters were as glass-the next all foam and fury, kings' hearts failing them for fear, and the fountains of the great deep broken up to overwhelm them.

No man can say what a day may bring forth. No man is a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Republic who is willing to trust its fate to the treacherous and shifting chances of the morrow. Let us be as they who watch for the morning.

Whenever the trumpet shall sound for that judgment day, I look to see the stars and stripes of the Republic-the tri-color of the west-streaming in matchless splendor over the banners of freedom. Her youthful maturity has waxed strong by the blessings of freedom-till now her power surpasses that of France when she followed Napoleon to Mos

cow.

Her children bless with grateful voices the God of their fathers who gave them liberty to enjoy, to protect, to transmit, and to spread. They hail the day which summons them to the field, and cheerfully recognize the duty they owe to the world they have roused. By their example has Europe been waked out of sleep; at their voice have her sons grasped the sword and died the death of the free; on them has God conferred the precious guardianship of the sacred fire; and on them as on the priests

of a holy religion rests the high duty of its propagation. They have lured mån from the quiet and safe repose in patriarchal despotism to the knowledge of his high destiny, and inspired him with the resolution to enjoy its precious fruits. On them rests the great privilege of succoring their offspring in the day of its need; of adding the power of arms to the resistless power of their example: of proving that the magnanimous spirit of liberty is equal to its pacific blessings; of maintaining in the face of fiercest despots the rights of mankind. Rather let the pillars of the Republic shake to their foundations, and her lofty battlements be overwhelmed bearing with them the last hope of Liberty on earth, than that she should falter in the terrible hour, or swerve from the bloodiest path she may be called to tread. Let her sun set-if it so please God-not the pale shadow of its early splendor, dimly shining through a long and languid twilight, accompanied to its rest by the requiem of the night birds that succeed to its realmnot thus be thy fall, Oh my Country!—but rather let her sun shining in meridian splendor, blazing at the zenith in its high calling, suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye-when the world may no more be freeplunge in midday to endless night.

So shall men remembering thy greatness say that thy fall was worthy of thy glory!

THE END.

READ,

ERRAT A.

Page 305, line 9, defying, for defiant.

Page 432, line 2, coercion; that, for coercion that.

Page 445, line 26, comparison-seem, for comparison. Seem. Page 447, line 10, surpasses, for suppresses.