CCXXIV.-OUR DUTY TO OUR COUNTRY.

THERMOPYLE and MARATHON; Grecian battle-grounds.
THE MAN OF MACEDONIA; Alexander.

RUBICON; one of the boundaries of Italy.

GOTHS, VANDALS, HUNS; nations which conquered Rome.

THE Old World has already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the beginning and end of all its own marvelous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece,

"The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,"

where Sister Republics, in fair procession, chanted the praises of liberty and the gods, where and what is she?

For two thousand years the oppressor has ground her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery. The fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruins. She fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopyle and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont. She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own people. The man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions.

Rome, republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun; where and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has but traveled in the paths worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of her empire.

A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Cæsar had crossed the Rubicon. Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the north, completed

only what was already begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold; but the people offered the tribute money.

We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning; simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to selfgovernment and to self-respect.

The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every home. What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What is more necessary than for the people to preserve what they have themselves created?

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north. Moving on to the south, it has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. Can it be that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? Can it be that she is to be added to the catalogue of Republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is: THEY WERE, BUT THEY ARE NOT? Forbid it, my countrymen ! Forbid it, Heaven! FROM STORY.

NEW EC. S.-33

CCXXV. OUR LIBERTY IN OUR OWN KEEPING.

LET no one accuse me of seeing wild visions, and dreaming impossible dreams. I am only stating what may be done, not what will be done. We may most shamefully betray the trust reposed in us; we may most miserably defeat the fond hopes entertained of us. We may become the scorn of tyrants and the jest of slaves. From our fate, oppression may assume a bolder front of insolence, and its victims sink into a darker despair.

In that event, how unspeakable will be our disgrace! With what weight of mountains will the infamy lie upon our souls! The gulf of ruin will be as deep as the elevation we might have attained is high. How wilt thou fall from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Our beloved country with ashes for beauty, the golden cord of our union broken, its scattered fragments presenting every form of misrule, our "soil drenched with fraternal blood," the life of man stripped of its grace and dignity, the prizes of honor gone, and virtue divorced from half its encouragements and supports:-these are gloomy pictures, which I would not invite your imaginations to dwell upon, but only to glance at, for the sake of the warning lessons we may draw from them.

Remember that we can have none of those consolations which sustain the patriot, who mourns over the misfortunes of his country. Our Rome can not fall, and we be innocent. No conqueror will chain us to the car of his triumphs. No countless swarms of Huns and Goths will bury the memorials and trophies of civilized life beneath a living tide of barbarism. Our own selfishness, our own neglect, our own passions, and our own vices, will furnish the elements of our destruction.

With our own hands we shall tear down the stately edifice of our glory. We shall die by self-inflicted wounds. But we will not talk of things like these. We will not think of failure, dishonor, and despair. We will not admit the possibility of being untrue to our fathers and our

selves. We will elevate our minds to the contemplation of our high duties and the great trust committed to us. We will resolve to lay the foundation of our prosperity on that rock of private virtue, which can not be shaken, until the laws of the moral world are reversed.

From our own breasts shall flow the silent springs of national increase. Then our success, our happiness, our glory, will be inevitable. We may calmly smile at all the eroakings of the ravens, whether of native or of foreign breed. The whole will not grow weak by the increase of its parts. Our growth will be like that of the mountain oak; which strikes its roots more deeply into the soil, and clings to it, with a closer grasp, as its lofty head is exalted, and its broad arms stretched out.

The loud burst of joy and gratitude, which is, to this day, breaking from the full hearts of a mighty people, will never cease to be heard. No chasm of sullen silence will interrupt its course. No discordant notes of sectional madness, will mar the general harmony. Year after year will increase it, by tributes from now unpeopled solitudes. The farthest west shall hear it, and rejoice. The Oregon shall swell with the voice of its waters. The Rocky Mountains shall fling back the glad sound from their snowy

crests.

CCXXVI. THE TORCH OF LIBERTY.

BACCHANTE; Bac-chan'-te, one intoxicated: from Bacchus, the God of wine.

I SAW it all in Fancy's glass;

Herself, the fair, the wild magician,
Who bade this splendid day-dream pass,
And named each gliding apparition.
'Twas like a torch-race; such as they

Of Greece, performed, in ages gone,
When the fleet youths in long array,
Passed the bright torch triumphant on.

I saw the expectant nations stand,
To catch the coming flame in turn;
I saw, from ready hand to hand,

The clear, though struggling, glory burn. And, O, their joy, as it came near, 'Twas, in itself, a joy to see; While Fancy whispered in my ear, "That torch they pass is Liberty!"

And each, as she received the flame,
Lighted her altar with its ray;
Then, smiling, to the next who came,
Speeded it on its sparkling way.
From Albion, first, whose ancient shrine
Was furnished with the fire already,
Columbia caught the boon divine,
And lit a flame, like Albion's, steady.

The splendid gift then Gallia took,
And, like a wild Bacchanté, raising
The brand aloft, its sparkles shook,
As she would set the world a-blazing!
Thus, kindling wild, so fierce and high
Her altar blazed into the air,

That Albion, to that fire too nigh,

Shrank back, and shuddered at its glare!

Next, Spain,

so new was light to her, Leaped at the torch; but, ere the spark, That fell upon her shrine could stir,

'Twas quenched, and all again was dark! Yet no-not quenched,—a treasure, worth So much to mortals, rarely dies: Again her living light looked forth, And shone, a beacon in all eyes!

Who next received the flame? Alas!
Unworthy Naples! Shame of shames,
That ever through such hands should pass
That brighest of all earthly flames!
Scarce had her fingers touched the torch,
When, frighted by the sparks it shed,

Nor waiting even to feel the scorch,
She dropped it to the earth--and fled!