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rally do, because they must. Many submit to it, as in some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth as an escape from it. This way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system, under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away.

Ashamed to toil! Ashamed of thy dingy workshop and dusty labor-field; of thy hard hand, scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has embroidered mist, sun, and rain, fire and steam-her own heraldic honors! Ashamed of those tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of imbecile idleness and vanity! It is treason to nature; it is impiety to heaven: it is breaking heaven's great ordinance. Toil-toil, either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand—is the only true manhood, the only true nobility!

THANKSGIVING.

OUR hearts are full of memories of the good old Christmas times,
When sleigh-bells on our northern hills rang out their merry chimes.
Let us call to mind the stories to us in childhood told,
And gather up the golden grains of friendship true and old.
Those northern hills-our native hills-are shrouded now in snow,
But round the firesides of that land warm hearts are in a glow.
No biting frosts, no wintry winds, no winter snows can chill
The hearts that loved us long ago, the hearts that love us still!
As the year brings back Thanksgiving and merry Christmas morn,
Our hearts go flocking homeward to the land where we were born.

Ring out the merry Christmas bells, and sing the songs we sung
Round the firesides of New England in the days when we were young,
When we gathered in the kitchen, around the blazing hearth-
Father, mother, sister, brother-our hearts all ONE in mirth;

When our hearts were ALL Thanksgiving, and we worshiped God in

truth,

Contented with the priceless boons of home, and health, and youth.

THE DYING YEAR.

Ring out the joyful Christmas bells!-the same true mother's prayor
Ascends to heaven for us to-day, as when we knelt down there.
Ring out the bells, raise thanks to God, that memories of home
Attend like angels on our steps wherever we may roam.

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God bless the rough old Granite Land, and Plymouth's sea-washed rock;

God bless all wandering children of the hardy Pilgrim stock.

New England's wealth lies treasured, not in golden stream or glen,
But in priceless souls of women, and the iron hearts of men.
Our footsteps wander from her, but our pride is still to know
We keep the free New England hearts she gave us years ago.
Like the needle always turning to the Polar star, at sea,

We are ever drawn, New England, trembling, quivering unto thee!
The ties that bind us unto thee, nor time nor space can sever-
Our homes are on Pacific's strand, our hearts are thine forever!

THE DYING YEAR.-ALFRED TENNYSON.

RING out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly-dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife,
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride, in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold, Ring out the thousand woes of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

STORY OF SCHOOL.

THE red light shone through the open door,
From the round declining sun;
And fantastic shadows, all about,

On the dusty floor were thrown,
As the factory clock told the hour of five,
And the school was almost done.

The mingled hum of the busy town
Rose faint from the lower plain,
And we saw the steeple over the trees,
With its motionless, golden vane,

And heard the cattle's musical low,

And the rustle of standing grain.

STORY OF SCHOOL.

In the open casement a lingering bee
Murmured a drowsy tune,

And, from the upland meadows, a song,
In the lulls of the afternoon,

Had come on the air that wandered by,
Laden with scents of June.

Our tasks were finished and lessons said,
As we sat all hushed and still,
Listening to the purl of the brook,
And the whirr of the distant mill,

And waiting the word of dismissal, that yet
Waited the master's will.

The master was old, and his form was bent,
And scattered and white his hair;

But his heart was young, and there ever dwelt
A calm and kindly air,

Like a halo over a pictured saint,

On his face marked deep with care.

His eyes were closed, and his wrinkled hands
Were folded over his vest,

As wearily back in his old arm-chair

He reclined as if to rest;

And the golden streaming sunlight fell

On his brow, and down his breast.

We waited in reverent silence long,

And silence the master kept,

Though still the accustomed saintly smile

Over his features crept;

And we thought, worn out with the lengthened toil

Of the summer's day, he slept.

So we quietly rose and left our seats,

And outward into the sun,

From the gathering shade of the dusty room,

Stole silently one by one

For we knew, by the distant striking clock,

It was time the school was done,

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And left the master sleeping alone,
Alone in his high-backed chair,

With his eyelids and his withered palms
Folded as if in prayer,

And the mingled light and smile on his face,
And we knew not Death was there.

Nor knew that just as the clock struck five,
His kindly soul away,

A shadowy messenger silently bore

From its trembling house of clay,
To be a child with the Saints of Heaven,
And to dwell with Christ alway!

OUR COMMON SCHOOLS.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

NEW ENGLAND may be allowed to claim for her schools, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. She early adopted and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right and the bounden duty of Government to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property, and we look not to the question whether he himself have or have not children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property and life and the peace of society are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability and a sense of character by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere, to keep good sentiments uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion, against im

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