and signally favored, demands of us a proportionate improveWe are in our infancy, it is true, but our existence began in an intellectual maturity.

ment.

6. Our fathers' virtues, were the virtues of the wilderness,yet without its wildness; hardy, and vigorous, and severe, indeed, but not rude, nor mean.

become more prosperous than they, ries and refinements,

Let us beware, lest we

more abundant in luxuonly to be less temperate, upright, and religious. Let us beware, lest the stern and lofty features of primeval rectitude, should be regarded with less respect among us. Let us beware, lest their piety should fall with the oaks of their forests; lest the loosened bow of early habits and opinions, which was once strung in the wilderness, should be too much relaxed.

1. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union, that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit.

2. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proof of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population

spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

3. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of the government, whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union might best be preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.

4. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant, that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant, that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; our land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

5. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full-high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory, as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterward," but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they

float over the sea, and over the land, and on every wind, and under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, - LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE.

LESSON LVI.

PROGRESS OF TIME. - ANON.

Why muse

Upon the past with sorrow? Though the year
Has gone to blend with the mysterious tide
Of old Eternity, and borne along,

Upon its heaving breast, a thousand wrecks
Of glory, and of beauty,

yet why mourn,
That such is destiny? Another year

Succeedeth to the past; in their bright round,
The seasons come, and go; the same blue arch,
That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet;
The same pure stars, that we have loved to watch,
Will blossom still at twilight's gentle hour,

Like lilies on the tomb of Day; and still,

Man will remain to dream, as he hath dreamed,
And mark the earth with passion. Love will spring
From the tomb of old affections; hope,
And joy, and great ambition, will rise up,
As they have risen, and their deeds will be
Brighter than those engraven on the scroll
Of parted centuries. Even now, the sea
Of coming years, beneath whose mighty waves,
Life's great events are heaving into birth,

Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds

Of heaven were prisoned in its soundless depths,
And struggling to be free.

1. To whom, in brief, thus Abdiel stern replied:
Reign thou in hell, thy kingdom; let me serve,
In heaven, God ever blest, and his divine
Behests obey, worthiest to be obeyed;

2.

3.

Yet chains in hell, not realms, expect: meanwhile, From me, (returned, as erst thou saidst, from flight,) This greeting on thy impious crest receive.

So saying, a noble stroke he lifted high,

Which hung not, but so swift with tempest fell
On the proud crest of Satan, that no sight,
Nor motion of swift thought, less could his shield,
Such ruin intercept. Ten paces huge

He back recoiled; the tenth, on bended knee
His massy spear upstayed; as if on earth,
Winds under ground, or waters forcing way,
Sidelong had pushed a mountain from his seat,
Half-sunk with all his pines.

Now storming fury rose,
And clamor such as heard in heaven till now
Was never; arms on armor clashing, brayed
Horrible discord, and the maddening wheels
Of brazen chariots raged; dire was the noise
Of conflict; over head the dismal hiss
Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew,
And flying, vaulted either host with fire.
So, under fiery cope together rushed
Both battles main, with ruinous assault
And inextinguishable rage. All heaven
Resounded; and had earth been then, all earth

4.

Had to her center shook. What wonder? when
Millions of fierce encountering angels fought
On either side, the least of whom could wield
These elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions.

Long time in even scale,

The battle hung; till Satan, who that day
Prodigious power had shown, and met in arms
No equal, ranging through the dire attack
Of fighting seraphim confused, at length,

Saw where the sword of Michael smote, and felled
Squadrons at once; with huge two-handed sway,
Brandished aloft, the horrid edge came down
Wide wasting; such destruction to withstand
He hasted, and opposed the rocky orb
Of tenfold adamant, his ample shield
Of vast circumference. At his approach
The great archangel from his warlike toil
Surceased, and glad, as hoping here to end
Intestine war in heaven, th' arch-foe subdued.

5. Now waved their fiery swords, and in the air
Made horrid circles; two broad suns their shields
Blazed opposite, while Expectation stood
In horror; from each hand with speed retired,
Where erst was thickest fight, the angelic throng,
And left large fields, unsafe within the wind
Of such commotion; such as, to set forth
Great things by small, if, nature's concord broke,
Among the constellations war were sprung,

Two planets rushing from aspect malign
Of fiercest opposition, in mid-sky

Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound.