O, few and weak their numbers were—

A handful of brave men;

But to their God they gave their

And rush'd to battle then.

prayer,

The GOD of battles heard their cry,
And sent to them the victory.

They left the ploughshare in the mould,
Their flocks and herds without a fold,
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn half-garner'd, on the plain,
And muster'd, in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a steri. "edress,

To right those wrongs, come weal, come wo,
To perish, or o'ercome their foe.

That ye have pass'd away;

That on old Bunker's lonely height,

In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground, the grass grows green, the harvest bright Above each soldier's mound.

The bugle's wild and warlike blast

Shall muster them no more;

An army now might thunder past,

And they heed not its roar.

The starry flag, 'neath which they fought,

In many a bloody day,

From their old graves shall rouse them not,
For they have pass'd away

WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE.

WHAT Constitutes a State?

Not high-rais'd battlements or labor'd mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown'd;
Not bays and broad-armed hosts,

Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;

Not starr'd and spangled courts, Where low-bow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride,

No:-men, high-minded men,

With power as far above dull brutes endued,

In forest, wake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and hamlets rude!

Men who their duties know,

But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aim'd blow,

And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain :

These constitute a State.

BLESSING THE Ᏼ Ꭼ Ꭺ Ꮪ Ꭲ Ꮪ .

237

BLESSING THE BEASTS.

BY GRACE GREENWOOD.

We went, last Sunday, to see the blessing of beasts-an annual cere nony, which takes place at the Church of San Antonio. There was an immense crowd of all descriptions and classes of people; among the rest, a vast convocation of beggars, the crippled and maimed in endless varieties, wrecks and remnants, divisions and subdivisions of men.

A priest stood on the steps of the church, with a holy-water sprinkler in his hand, and a little boy at his side, bearing the bénitier. The animals were trotted up before him; he read a form of benediction in Latin, shook the sprinkler at them, and they were good for a twelvemonth. Of course, this is done for a consideration-as what is not, in the way of church parades, privileges, and immunities? The first applicants for a benediction, after our arrival, were two miserable old carthorses, who looked as though the blessings of all the fathers of the church could not keep them on their legs for twentyfour hours. I fear the rite was extreme unction to them; and yet the owner doubtless led them away, rejoicing in the faith that the crows were cheated of the poor skeletons for a year

to come.

Next came a drove of donkeys, with their heads and tails

THE SILENT SCOURGE.

BY THE EDITOR.

NEVER was the near future of political parties in this country so seething with anxious hopes, and doubts, and fears; never so pregnant with inexplicable terrors to time-servers and place-men; never so ominous to demagogues and hucksters in the field of politics as now. From the tap-room to the Senate Chamber, wherever party organization has heretofore stalked, confident and defiant—wherever the edict of the bully-governed caucus has decided nominations and appointments, and ruled with a rude, yet iron hand, the rank and file of the people—led like sheep to the slaughter-at the ballotbox, all is dismay and trembling. The mouthing impudence, so brazen and brow-beating until now, is as suddenly hushed as though the finger of death was on its lips-no grim skeleton ever brought such stilness to an Egyptian feast. All ears are open to hear, all eyes are staring to see, and all tongues are questioning the course of the silent scourge that has risen up in the land, invisible and secret as sleeping lightning, to rebuke and punish the traders and traitors who have so long corrupted the national franchise, and brought the country to shame—and nigh to ruin.

Who is it what is it--and where is it-this scourge, so potent and purifying? Who conceived it--who evoked it

and how and where is it to end, if, indeed, it end at all? Mighty and mysterious scourge! preceded by no rumbling, yet it stirs all the land, bursting like a sudden earthquake wherever its fires are called to purge Freedom's palladium, and make the ballot what the framers of the Republic intended,

"A weapon surer yet,

And mightier than the bayonet;
A weapon, that comes down as still
As snow flakes fall upon the sod,
And executes a freeman's will,

As lightnings do the will of God!"

East and West, and North and South-in the chief marts and capitals of the Union, its stroke has fallen swift and sure, and politicians and parties, stripped of every gauge of accustomed calculation, have only been aware of its presence when they saw their petted candidates and schemes rolling headlong in the ditch of overwhelming defeat. New Orleans, long at the mercy of insolent, foreign-born brawlers, bears witness! So does Washington, as it will, despite the executive guillotine that flashes its knife madly and in vain. So do St. Louis— where the German boasted that the American should be put down and Philadelphia-desecrated too long by foreignborn mobs and Mobile, and Norfolk, and many a lesser place we might name. And so, by-and-by, in our own city and State, this silent scourge will fall, and many a demagogue's back will writhe under the biting blow, and all true men will gladly confess that this is yet an American land, and that Americans can and will rule it, as they ought ever to have done.