NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. CHARLES SPRAGUE. Not many generations ago, where you now sit encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same 5 sun that rolls over your head the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council-fire glared on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs in your 10 sedgy lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped; and from many a dark bosom 15 went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld Him in the star that 20 sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from His mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet 25 in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration, in And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former 30 were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its face a whole peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the 35 tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors. The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone, and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to 40 remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck. Their arrows As a race, they have withered from the land. are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, 45 and their war-cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, 50 the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, Let will ponder on the structure of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in the songs and chronicles of their exterminators. these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and 55 to their unhappy fate as a people." pay due tribute HELPS TO STUDY. Biographical and Historical: Charles Sprague, 1791-1875, was born in Boston and spent his entire life there. It is said that he was never more than ten miles from Boston in all his life. His father assisted in throwing the tea overboard in the Boston Harbor. He was a banker, and for forty years was cashier of the Globe Bank. He was also an orator and an author and wrote many short poems, among which "The Winged Worshipers" and "The Family Meeting' are best remembered. His ode written in 1830 for the centennial celebration of the settlement of Boston attracted much favorable comment. They shook the depths of the desert gloom 5 Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free! The ocean eagle soared 6 From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roaredThis was their welcome home! 7 There were men with hoary hair terse Amidst that pilgrim band; Why had they come to wither there, Away from their childhood's land? The soil where first they trod. They have left unstained what there they found Freedom to worship God. HELPS TO STUDY. Biographical: Mrs. Felicia Hemans, 1793-1835, an English poet, was born in Liverpool. She is best known by her short poems, among which this is one of the most popular. She was buried in St. Anne's Church, Dublin. I think I knew General Washington intimately and thoroughly, and were I called on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these: describi 鲁 His mind was great and powerful, without being of the s very first order; his penetration strong, though not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke, and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the ad10 vantage he derived from councils of war, where, hearing all suggestions, he selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden circumstances, he was slow in read |