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SONNETS.

BY THOMAS C. UPHAM.

THE MILLENNIAL DAY.

"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters that cover the sea."-Isa. xi. 9.

UPON God's holy mountain all is peace.

Of clanging arms, and cries, and wail, no sound
Goes up to mingle with the gentle breeze,
That bears its perfumed whispers all around.
Beneath its trees, that spread their blooming light,
The spotted leopard walks; the ox is there;
The yellow lion stands in conscious might,
Breathing the dewy and illumined air.
A little child doth take him by the mane,

And leads him forth, and plays beneath his breast.
Naught breaks the quiet of that blessed domain,
Naught mars its harmony and heavenly rest:
Picture divine, and emblem of that day,

When peace on earth and truth shall hold unbroken sway.

GOD WORSHIPPED IN HIS WORKS.

"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard."- Ps. xix. 1, 2, 3.

MEN use a different speech in different climes,
But Nature hath one voice, and only one;
Her wandering moon, her stars, her golden sun,
Her woods and waters, in all lands and times,
In one deep song proclaim the wondrous story.
They tell it to each other in the sky,
Upon the winds they send it sounding high,
Jehovah's wisdom, goodness, power, and glory;
I hear it come from mountain, cliff, and tree,
Ten thousand voices in one voice united;
On every side the song encircles me,
The whole round world reveres and is delighted.
Ah! why, when heaven and earth lift up their voice,
Ah! why should man alone nor worship nor rejoice!

THE STUDIES OF AN ORATOR.

BY SAMUEL GILMAN BROWN.

HISTORY has been called the “letter of instructions which the old generations write and posthumously transmit to the new; the which all mankind deliver to every man; message the only articulate communication which the past can have with the present." It teaches us the wisdom and folly of our race; of ourselves; for we are only wiser or less foolish than our fathers, because we are their sons and not their progenitors. In all matters of policy, we know the effect of measures only by experiment. It is given to an age, to a nation, to develope fully the operation of certain principles, in order that the next age and other nations may be wiser. It was necessary that our fathers should have been driven from the house of bondage, in order that their sons might rejoice in the inheritance of freedom. It was needful that the privy council of Scotland should have enacted, "that, whereas the boots were the ordinary way to explicate matters relative to the government, and that there is now a new invention and engine, called the thumbikins, which will be very ef fectual for the purpose and intent aforesaid; the lords of his majesty's privy council do therefore ordain, that whenever any person shall be, by their order, put to the torture, the said boots and thumbikins, both shall be applied to them, as it shall be found fitting and convenient." This was needful in the seventeenth century, that the privy council in the nineteenth century should allow examination by the oaths of witnesses alone. It was needful, sad necessity, that a race of doubters should arise, that a whole nation should cut itself loose from religion, in order that men might feel that faith

is better than skepticism, that government cannot safely divorce itself from religion, and, it may be, in order that the same people might some time return to a firmer, wiser belief of the truth.

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History is the chart of the deliberative orator. It reveals to him the quicksands and rocks where the hopes of empires have been wrecked. It reveals the sources of prosperty, the sources of misfortune. To him who can read it, it offers the suggestions of two hundred generations. It bids us beware of the follies of dead nations. To every individual it offers, somewhere among its records, encouragement to great and good deeds. Would the orator rouse the patriotic self-devotion of his countrymen? History tells him, that among the granite mountains of a small European confederacy, a man was found, who, in a perilous contest, dared to make a path for his comrades, by gathering a sheaf of Austrian lances" into his own bosom; that, in virtue of this generous self-sacrifice, the name of Arnold of Winkelried has become famous the world over; and that for this, and other deeds like it, Switzerland is a larger country than Russia. Would he speak of the permanency and life of truth? He reads how the sun went down on Egypt and the East, and men slept, while it arose on awakening nations, in Italy and England; he reads the oft-told story, how the Philosopher recanted with tears, and the world moved still. Would he tell of the direful effects of oppression? He recollects how the pent-up elements lay simmering together for a thousand years, till they burst off the incumbent mass, and overwhelmed nations. Would he show that revolutions are not productive of evil alone? He recollects that sometimes the new order of things has at last proved better than the old; that the volcano is a safeguard against the more destructive earthquake; and that over the lava torrent there spreads out at length a warm and rich soil. Would he tell of liberty unrestrained by moral sentiment, unprotected by law? He reads of a great nation, recoiling from its own

THE STUDIES OF AN ORATOR.

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frightful image, and rushing for protection, as far as possible, to the bosom of the power it had just madly hurled to air.

It is from an ignorance of what has been, that men commit so many mistakes, and that the same error, after a larger or smaller cycle, returns again, like the forgotten fashions of our fathers.

Man acts according to his belief. He believes in alchemy; and with haggard visage and wasted sinews toils in dark caverns, in the vain hope of transmuting the worthless into the precious metals. He believes in a fountain which gives perpetual youth; and straightway-such is the record of history — embarks for unexplored lands, searches with an energy which commands respect in spite of the folly, and pushes on his rugged pilgrimage with an enterprise worthy of the best cause. He believes in the insufficiency of his own judgment in matters of religion, in the divinely appointed supremacy of the priesthood, and for centuries commits his conscience and his faith to his spiritual advisers. He believes that the Bible is the only and sufficient rule of faith and practice, that he may and must examine it, and immediately he produces the Reformation.

Poetry cultivates the imagination. The province of the imagination is not to separate truth from error, but "to render all objects instinct with the inspired breath of human passion." It does not demand if things be true independently, but if they be true in their relation to other things. It does not discover, but enliven. It melts together, into one burning mass, the discordant materials thrown into its crucible. Like the colored light of sunset, it bathes in its own hue whatever it touches. Discarding technical rules, as from its nature averse to them, it adapts means to varying circumstances, and seizing upon the hearts of the audience, in aid of belief or in spite of belief, binds them in willing captivity. It annihilates space and time, brings the distant near, draws together the past and the future into the present. It warms the heart of the orator. He then speaks because he feels, not in order that he may feel. The influence flows

from within, outward, not from without, inward. It tears the orator from considerations of himself, bears him above himself, above rule, criticism, apology, audience, every thing but the subject. The orator stands like an enchanter in the midst of spirits that are too mighty for him. He alone could evoke them from the dark abyss; but even he is but half their master. He alone can demand the secrets of futurity; but then he can speak only the words that they give him. He inspires others only as he is inspired himself.

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Logic is necessary for that severe form of speech which carries power in its front, and, by its very calmness and repression of earth-born passions, seems to belong to a higher sphere. It must form the bone and muscle of an extended discourse. Imagination clothes the skeleton with beauty, breathes health into the rigid muscles, lights up the eye, loosens the tongue, excites that rapid and vehement declamation which makes the speaker to be forgotten, the subject and the subject only to be thought of, betrays no presence of art, because in fact art is swallowed up in the whirlpool of excited feeling. Besides, there are truths with which logic has no concern; truths which wake to perish never; " truths to be directly apprehended, as well as truths to be proved; feelings as well as facts. Love and passion and fear laugh at demonstration. 'Logic," says one, “is good, but not the best. The irrefragable Doctor, with his chains of inductions, his corollaries, dilemmas, and other cunning logical diagrams and apparatus, will cast you a beautiful horoscope, and speak you reasonable things; nevertheless, the stolen jewel which you wanted him to find you, is not forthcoming. Often by some winged word winged as the thunderbolt is—of a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goëthe, shall we see the difficulty split asunder, and its secret laid bare; while the Irrefragable, with all his logical roots, hews at it, and hovers round it, and finds it on all sides too hard for him."

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Poetry not only offers us the language of emotion, but produces emotion, and emotion elicits thought. It has been

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