Has morality grown purer? Has religion gained power ? Has right been done? Has the State been ennobled ? Has even a just stability of government been secured and established? Nay, verily but in all these the reverse. . On the other hand, take any man, take any people, in the development of the system that nurtures and educates conscience, as the guide to man's duty, as the interpreter of God's law to him and for him, as the authority he must bow to, whatever man decrees, and Liberty there advances. The State grows in power as its citizens are enlightened. It becomes settled and established, on the basis of equity. Follow it in its career, and its progress shall be traced in beneficence and peace. From first to last its orbit shall be an orbit that brightens with the glow of knowledge and of heroism; and that closes in the splendor of a still culminating glory. RICHARD SALTER STORRS. 5. THE TRUE ASPIRATION OF YOUTH. HIGHER, higher, will we climb, Up the mount of glory, That our names may live through time In our country's story; Happy, when her welfare calls, Deeper, deeper, let us toil In the mines of knowledge,- Win from school and college; Than the stars of diadems. Onward, onward, will we press Minds are of celestial birth; Closer, closer, let us knit Oh, they wander wide who roam Nearer, dearer, bands of love JAMES MONTGOMERY. 6. TO WHOM HONOR BE DUE. LONG live who knows humanity, Who loves his brother-man as much Long live who ne'er hath bowed the knee Who owns for sordid self no care, Hath ever fawned or lied. But he whom inward voices ne'er To manly deeds did call, Who leisure for dull sloth hath found, Long live who hears the sick man's cry, Long live who waves for Fatherland Who 'll charge for freedom and the laws Long live who 'll wage the sterner war Who, though they "Crucify him!" cry, And long live every honest man, Each man that doeth good! From the German. HASTE NOT, REST NOT. HASTE not! rest not! calmly wait, Do the right, whate'er betide. GOETHE. 7. TRUE LIBERTY. PEOPLE talk of Liberty as if it meant the liberty to do just what a man likes. I call that man free who is able to rule himself. I call him free who fears doing wrong, but fears nothing else. I call that man free who has learned the most blessed of all truths, that liberty consists in obedience to the power, and to the will, and to the law that his higher soul reverences and approves. He is not free because he does what he likes; but he is free because he does what he ought, and there is no protest in his soul against that doing. I Some people think there is no liberty in obedience. tell you that there is no liberty except in loyal obedience, the obedience of the unconstrained affections. Did you ever see a mother kept at home, a kind of prisoner, by her sick child, obeying its every wish and caprice? Will you call that mother a slave ? Or is this the obedience of slavery? I call it the obedience of the highest liberty,that of love. We hear a great deal in these days respecting the right of private judgment, the rights of labor, the rights of property, and the rights of man. Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God's; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas! seems to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I can see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his rights. I cannot see anything manly in the ferocious struggle between rich and poor, the one to take as much, and the other to keep as much, as he can. The cry of " my rights and your duties," we should change to something If we can say, "my duties and your rights," we nobler. FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 8. THE AGE OF WORK. THIS address, delivered in 1851, at the time of the first London Exposition, is especially appropriate since the Columbian Exposition, celebrating the completion of the first four centuries of American civilization. WHAT mechanical inventions already crowd upon us! Look abroad, and contemplate the infinite achievements of steam-power. Reflect on all that has been done by the railroad. Pause to estimate, if you can, with all the help of the imagination, what is to be the result from the agency now manifested in operations of the telegraph. Cast a thought over the whole field of scientific, mechanical improvement and its application to human wants. How many comforts, how many facilities, it has given to man! What has it done for his food and his raiment! What for his communication with his fellow-man in every clime, for his instruction in books, for his amusement, his safety! What new lands has it opened, and what old ones are made accessible ! How has it enlarged his sphere of knowledge and converse with his own species! It is all a great, an astounding marvel, which oppresses the mind to think of. In all the desirable facilities of life, in the comfort that depends upon mechanism, in all that is calculated to delight the sense or instruct the mind, the man of moderate means of this day is placed far in advance of the most wealthy, powerful, and princely of ancient times, yes, of the times less than a century ago. We have only begun! We are but on the threshold of this, the mechanical epoch, the new era. A vast multitude of all peoples, nations, and tongues gathered but yesterday, under a magnificent crystal palace, in the greatest city of the world, to illustrate and distinguish the achieve |