24. LAUS DEO. Ir is done! Clang of bell and roar of gun Send the tidings up and down. How the belfreys rock and reel, How the great guns, peal on peal, Fling the joy from town to town! Ring, O bells! Every stroke exulting tells Of the burial hour of crime. Loud and long, that all may hear, Ring for every listening ear Of Eternity and Time! Let us kneel; God's own voice is in that peal, And this spot is holy ground. Lord, forgive us! What are we, That our eyes this glory see, That our ears have heard the sound? For the Lord On the whirlwind is abroad; In the earthquake he hath spoken; He has smitten with his thunder The iron walls asunder, And the gates of brass are broken! Did we dare, In our agony of prayer, Ask for more than He has done? When was ever His right hand, Stretched as now, beneath the sun? It is done! In the circuit of the sun It shall give the dumb a voice, Ring and swing, Bells of joy! On morning's wing Send the song of praise abroad; With a sound of broken chains, Tell the Nations that He reigns, Who alone is Lord and God! JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 25. OUR HERITAGE. WHAT doth the poor man's son inherit? A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? A patience learned of being poor; Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it; A fellow-feeling that is sure To make the outcast bless his door: A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee. O rich man's son! there is a toil But only whitens, soft white hands; A king might wish to hold in fee. O poor man's son! scorn not thy state; In merely being rich and great Toil only gives the soul to shine, A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee. Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, A heritage, it seems to me, JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 26. THE ROMAN SENATE AND THE AMERICAN CONGRESS. From Address of Louis KOSSUTH, Ex-Governor of Hungary, before the Congress of the United States, in 1851. As once Cineas of Epirus stood among the senators of Rome, who, with a word of conscious authority and majesty, arrested kings in their ambitious march, thus full of admiration and of reverence, I stand before you, legislators of the new capitol, that glorious hall of your people's collected majesty. The capitol of old yet stands, but the spirit has departed from it and has come over to yours, purified by the air of liberty. The old stands, a mournful monument of the fragility of human things; yours, as a sanctuary of eternal rights. The old beamed with the red lustre of conquest, darkened by the gloom of oppression; yours is bright with freedom. The old absorbed the world into its own centralized glory; yours protects your own nation from being absorbed even by itself. The old was awful with unrestricted power; yours is glorious by having restricted it. At the view of the old, nations trembled; at the view of yours, humanity hopes. To the old, misfortune was introduced with fettered hands, to kneel at triumphant conquerors' feet; to yours, the triumph of introduction is granted to the unfortunate exiles who are invited to the honor of a seat. And, where kings and Cæsars never will be hailed for their power and wealth, there the persecuted chief of a down-trodden people is welcomed as your great Republic's guest, precisely because he is persecuted, helpless, and poor. In the old, the terrible va victis, "woe to the conquered." 27. THE PATRIOT PRESIDENT. Extract from MARK LEMON's Tribute to Abraham Lincoln, in the London "Punch." How humble, yet how hopeful he could be! Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. So went he forth to battle, on the side That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, As in his peasant boyhood he had plied His warfare with rude Nature's warring mights. The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, The iron bark that turns the lumb'rer's axe, The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil, The prairie hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks, Such were the needs that helped his youthful train : So he grew up, a destined work to do, And took both with the same unwavering mood; And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, |