2. That the right to the soil is as natural, absolute and equal as the right to the light and air.

3. That political rights are not conventional but natural,-inhering in all persons, the black as well as the white, the female as well as the male.

4. That the doctrine of free trade is the necessary outgrowth of the doctrine of the human brotherhood; and that to impose restrictions on commerce is to build up unnatural and sinful barriers across that brotherhood.

5. That national wars are as brutal, barbarous and unnecessary as are the violence and bloodshed to which misguided and frenzied individuals are prompted; and that our country should, by her own Heaven-trusting and beautiful example, hasten the day when the nations of the earth "shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

6. That the province of government is but to protect-to protect persons and property; and that the building of railroads and canals and the care of schools and churches fall entirely outside of its limits, and exclusively within the range of "the voluntary principle." Narrow, however, as are those limits, every duty within them is to be promptly, faithfully, fully performed:-as well, for instance, the duty on the part of the federal government to put an end to the dram-shop manufacture of paupers and madmen in the city of Washington, as the duty on the part of the State government to put an end to it in the State.

7. That as far as practicable, every officer, from the highest to the lowest, including especially the President and Postmaster, should be elected directly by the people.

I need not extend any further the enumerations of the features of my peculiar political creed; and I need not enlarge upon the reason which I gave why I must not and cannot resign the office which you have conferred upon me. I will only add that I accept it; that my whole heart is moved to gratitude by your bestowment of it, and that, God helping me, I will so discharge its duties as neither to dishonor myself nor you.

John Hughes.

BORN in County Tyrone, Ireland, 1797. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1864.

A PATRIOT-CHURCHMAN.

[Complete Works of the Most Rev. John Hughes, D.D., Archbishop of New York. 1866.]

race.

IT may be that God, for some design of his own, which future generations will appreciate, has permitted this calamity to scourge the country in order to bring from these results benefit to the whole human These are circumstances, the results of which no man can fathom, they depend upon so many conditional circumstances. But there is one question that ought to be clear to every mind, and it is this-that if such a warfare should continue for years, it is recognized as the privilege of other nations, in the name of humanity, to try and put an end to it. The people themselves should put an end to it with as little delay as possible. It is not a scourge that has visited this nation alone. Wars have been from the beginning of the world, nations against nations, and that most terrible of all wars, civil war, in which brother is arrayed against brother.

How long is this to go on? As it goes on, it is affording a pretext for all the nations to combine against us; but even then, I say their interference should not be permitted, except in the way of benevolence; but, if with the sword, we should unite in setting them at defiance. But I would say if they do interfere, and interfere successfully-if the country and the Government are not sustained by every sacrifice that is necessary, then your United States will become a Poland. Then it will become divided into fragments; then the strife will hover on all the borders; every State will claim to be independent, and render itself an easy prey to foreign powers. Oh! let not this be so. I know little of what has occurred since I left. I have had scarcely time to look at a paper since my return; but, by all accounts, much has been attempted, but not much realized, towards terminating this unnatural war. Volunteers have been appealed to, and they have answered the appeal; but for my own part, if I had a voice in the councils of the nation, I would say, let volunteers continue, and the draft be made. If three hundred thousand men be not sufficient, let three hundred thousand more be called upon, so that the army, in its fulness of strength, shall be always on hand for any emergency. This is not cruelty; this is mercy; this is humanity anything that will put an end to this draggling of human blood across the whole surface of the country. Then, every man, rich and poor, will have to take his share; and it ought not to be left to the

Government to plead with the people, to call upon them to come forward, and to ask if they will permit themselves to be drafted. No; but the people themselves should insist upon being drafted, and be allowed to bring this unnatural strife to a close. Other efforts will be made on the other side; and who can blame them, since they have cast their die on the issue? But, any way, this slow, lingering waste of human life should be cut short.

In the mean while, it is enough for us to weep over this calamity; it is enough for us to pray to God that it be brought to an end. It is enough for us to make a sacrifice of everything to sustain the power, and the authority, and the unity of the only Government that we profess to acknowledge. But it is not necessary to hate our opponents, nor to be cruel in the battle; it is necessary to be brave, to be patriotic-to do what the country needs; and for this God will give us His blessing, as a recompense for discharging our duty without violating any just laws, divine or human.

Samuel Gardner Drake.

BORN in Pittsfield, N. H., 1798. DIED in Boston, Mass., 1875.

THE BOSTON LECTURE-ITS ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION.

[The History and Antiquities of Boston. 1856.]

THE HE Thursday Lecture, which had its beginning in Boston, soon after the arrival of Mr. Cotton, has, with some intermissions, been kept up until the present generation. It was an excellent institution, and early exercised a good influence. Many of the discourses at this lecture were printed during the last century, and constitute a valuable portion of its literary history. At these lectures subjects were sometimes discussed which were of too secular a nature, as was then thought, for the pulpit on Sundays. Thus, Mr. Cotton took occasion at one of these early lectures to discuss the propriety of women's wearing veils. Mr. Endicott being present, he spoke in opposition to Mr. Cotton's views; and, "after some debate, the Governor, perceiving it to grow to some earnestness, interposed, and so it brake off." What effect, if any, the lecture had to bring the veil into disuse here at that time, no mention is made. But about this time, whether before or after, is not quite certain, but probably before, Mr. Cotton lectured at Salem on the same grave question, with great effect. His arguments against veils were so conclusive to the females of the congregation, that, though they all wore

them in the forenoon, in the afternoon they all came without them. This may have taken Governor Endicott by surprise, and he may have come up to Boston to counteract this wholesale, and, as he believed, unscript ural denunciation of a necessary appendage to the attire of all modest women, especially, as Mr. Williams and Mr. Skelton had proved conclusively from Scripture, that it ought to be worn in public assemblies. For females to wear veils, they maintained, was no badge of superstition, while the Cross in the King's colors was evidently of that character; or so Mr. Endicott considered it, and he forthwith proceeded to cut it out. Roger Williams is accused of agitating this matter, and therefore accountable for the trouble that it occasioned; and as it was done in accordance with his views, it was of course condemned by all those who had denounced him as promulgating heretical doctrines. Upon this Mr. Hubbard sarcastically adds, "What that good man would have done with the Cross upon his coin, if he had any left that bore that sign of superstition, is uncertain." Mr. Endicott cut out the red Cross from an entire conscientious conviction, that it was idolatrous to let it remain; arguing, and truly, that it had been given to the King of England by the Pope; and that it was a relic of Antichrist. Mr. Richard Browne, Ruling Elder of the church of Watertown, complained of the act to the Court of Assistants, as a high-handed proceeding, which might be construed, in England, into one of rebellion. To conclude the account of this matter by anticipating the order of events, it may be briefly stated, that the Court issued an attachment against Ensign Richard Davenport, then the ensign-bearer of Salem, whose Colors had been mutilated, to appear at the next Court. When that Court came together, which was a year after the Cross was cut out, "Endicott was judged to be guilty of a great offence;" inasmuch as he had, "with rash indiscretion, and by his sole authority," committed an act, "thereby giving occasion to the Court of England to think ill of them;" that, therefore, "he was worthy of admonition, and should be disabled from bearing any public office for one year."

This affair of the Cross would hardly have been noticed, probably, but for the opportunity it afforded the people of Boston to punish those of Salem for their adherence to Roger Williams. And thus early is seen that spirit of dictation, which has ever since been conspicuous in this metropolis; and though it has, in a measure, made it what it is, it also shows that, what Boston undertakes, Boston will do.

John Adams Dir.

BORN in Boscawen, N. H., 1798. DIED in New York, N. Y., 1879.

RECURRENT TENDENCY OF HUMAN LIFE AND THOUGHT.

[Address on the "Social and Political Evils of the Day." New York, 3 January, 1876.Memoirs. 1883.]

WITH all these physical improvements it is doubtful whether our

acquaintance with the agencies which enter into and govern our inner life have made any sensible progress from the period to which our earliest historical records reach. Some conception of the stupendous problem of human life may be gathered from the consideration that, during an existence not more extended than my own, at least two thousand millions of people have come into the world and gone out of it. It may be fairly questioned whether there can be found among the millions who are actors in the great social drama any lives which have not had their counterpart in other times, with little variation in the detail, and whether any sentiment or thought can be expressed now which has not been expressed heretofore. So far as the memorials of the past extend, they show that the outpourings of feeling and passion which were heard ages ago on the shores of the Ganges, the banks of the Nile, the Tiber, the Arno, and the Avon, and by the still waters of Siloam, are the same as those which are heard now, in the varied forms of speech, wherever the human intellect rises above the level of mere animal necessities. It is thus in eras of civilization far distant from each other that mind is linked to mind and heart to heart by those mysterious bonds of sympathy which, in spite of the throes of intervening ages, still stretch unbroken across the chasm where empire after empire has gone down into the abyss beneath.

No one who has traced the current of human thought from the earliest sources revealed to us down to the present time can fail to be struck with its uniformity. Indeed, the writers in succeeding ages seem, at first glance, to be but a succession of plagiarists; and yet they are evidently, on a closer view, unconscious imitators-constrained to be so, because the current of thought in all that relates to the abstract runs forever in the same channels. Thus the utterances of the present are little else than echoes of the voices of the past. There are passages in Cicero almost word for word like others in the Psalms of David, and in St. Paul's epistles word for word like others in the works of Cicero. In the great folio of Erasmus, of two thousand pages, on the adages of all ages and nations, you may trace to the ancient Israelites, and to the Greeks