rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying: the impetuous charge: the steady and successful repulse: the loud call to repeated assault: the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance, a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death;—all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace.

3. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy popu lation come out to welcome and greet you with an universal jubilee. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever.

4. But, alas! you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge!—our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty, you saw arise the light of Peace, like

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. 5. But-ah!-him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our civil counsels, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom: falling, ere he saw the star of his country rise pouring out his generous blood, like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of

bondage!-how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away: the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit!

6. Veterans! you are the remnant of many a wellfought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century! when, in your youthful days, you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this. Look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled: yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind.

1.

2.

CLVIII.-PLEASURES OF HOPE.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Ar summer's eve, when heaven's aërial bow
Spans, with bright arch, the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do these hills of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain with its azure hue.

Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;

3.

4.

And every form that fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.

What potent spirit guides the raptured eye

To pierce the shades of dim futurity?

Can Wisdom lend, with all her boasted power,
The pledge of joys' anticipated hour?

Or, if she holds an image to the view,

'Tis nature pictured too severely true.

With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewildered way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.

Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Thy joyous youth began, -but not to fade.

When all the sister planets have decayed:

When, wrapt in fire, the realms of ether glow,

And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile.

CLIX.-PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S LAST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

1. FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN:-On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it—all sought to avert it. While the Inaugural Address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in this city seeking to destroy it without war-seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war came.

2. One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves-not distributed generally over the Union, but localized over the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen,

perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war: while the Government claimed no right to do more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men could dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered -that of neither has been answered fully.

3. The Almighty has His own purposes.

"Woe unto

the world because of offenses! for it must be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope-fervently do we pray-that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.

4. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds: to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan:

—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

CLX.-ANNIVERSARY OF THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

1. FLING the flags out, grand and glorious,

Red with blood of battles won,

Over rebel bands victorious,

Let them greet the rising sun.
On the land and on the ocean

Let the banners blossom out,
While the guns with grim devotion

Thunder Freedom's anthem-shout.

2. Gone the gloom of wrong and error,
Broken the oppressor's ban :
Gone is Slavery's reign of terror,
Freedom is the right of man.
Labor's mighty diapason

Fills the land from sea to sea:

On our banners we emblazon

Man forever more is free!

3. On the mountain, in the valley,

Raise aloft the stripes and stars:
Let the sons of labor rally.

Mightier in their strength than Mars!
Architect of every nation,

Labor is the only king,

Working out in lowly station
Nobler deeds than poets sing.

CLXI.-THE GRAVE OF LINCOLN.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

1. Now must the storied Potomac
Laurels forever divide :
Now to the Sangamon fameless

Give of its century's pride ;-
Sangamon, stream of the prairies,
Placidly westward that flows,

Far in whose city of silence

Calm he has sought his repose.